There are many misguided teachers

After a library activity learning to draw Pokemon, my quiet little boy came home really hot under the collar. 'A girl asked whether or not some of the Pokemon were boys or girls, and the teacher said they have no gender, but they do! She's a dumb teacher!'

The cartooning instructor was obviously just fielding questions, but I think Blake was indignant because he automatically assumed that those who set themselves up as teachers of any subject should know what they're talking about. I guess we're never too young to find out that's not always the case.

I said, 'You should have enlightened her, then.' The subject is one of his passions.
'But I might've got in trouble. She's the teacher.'
So many times we respond like Blake, doing the polite thing by not correcting those in charge when we are certain of a fact. But now she might go on to conduct other cartooning classes, telling all the girls and boys that Pokemon are genderless, and they'll all believe her, because, 'The lady told us!'

It's sad when somebody whose knowledge is limited takes on the role of 'expert' and gets others sincerely believing wrong things about any subject. I totally understand that when we are in the context of being instructors, an 'I don't know' answer may make us lose credibility. Instead, we choose to field questions, coming up with something that sounds reasonable. Long ago, when I was a student teacher, one of my mentors even told me do this. 'Think on your feet and don't let the little so-and-so's run all over you. They won't know the difference.'

Where might it end, though? Those of us who are Australian will remember the TV ad about the little boy who asks his father why the Great Wall of China was built. The bright dad responds, 'It was to keep the rabbits out.' Later, the little boy stands up in front of his class and teacher to present his report about the Great Wall of China.

I believe this may be what the Bible means when it tells us that teachers have a responsibility which makes them subject to even stricter judgment than others. It's because, left unchecked, leaving others to believe untruths may cause havoc down the track. There's a ripple effect. Wanting to save face on the spur of the moment isn't a good enough reason to be responsible for this.

Not long later, it was Emma, watching a You Tube cooking video and crying out, "These people have no idea how to temper chocolate properly! How can they be left to be up here, leading people astray!' Unfortunately, in these times, anybody can proclaim themselves an expert and post something on You Tube.

My turn came next, and I didn't like it. I was reading one of those 'Law of Attraction' type books which seem to be getting churned out in abundance since 'The Secret' was aired. The author of this one breezily wrote something like, 'Jesus didn't intend for us to worship him any more than Ben Franklin expected us to worship him for harnessing electricity. Never once does the Bible set him up as some type of deity. That's just unenlightened human thinking.'

I wanted to throw the book across the floor, except that it was on kindle. It was a popular selling book and the lady who wrote it may make a large sum of money, but she's spouting stuff that simply suits her train of thought without having done her research. Nobody who has seriously studied the pages of Scripture can possibly claim that the Bible doesn't intend to present Jesus as a deity! Whether or not people believe the Bible's claim is a different matter entirely. She brazenly said that it affirms something it doesn't. Making mistakes is one thing, but presenting something as an established fact without checking, just because it suits you, is a dangerous and misguided thing to do.

No matter what nuggets of truth may have been in the rest of her book, I lost my enthusiasm to go on after that. If she made one bold, but wrong, statement to suit herself, how many others may there be?

I think we must be very careful about what we hear, and also about what we tell the people who will take anything we say on board, just because they think we're probably trustworthy. Some doctor may say, 'There's no way you'll ever recover,' or some beauty pageant judge may declare, 'People with your sort of face or height just haven't got the right look.' Blindly believing them may make their statements true in our lives. The tragic thing is that perhaps they didn't have to be!

I'll finish with the story many of us have probably heard, about the lady who taught her daughter that she must trim the ends of her joint of beef before putting it in the oven to roast. After years of simply nodding, the daughter one day asked why. After a few seconds of thought, the mum said, 'My mother taught me. That's just the way it's done. It won't cook properly if you don't.' The young girl's curiosity was piqued by now, and she decided to ask her grandmother. The elderly lady said, 'Oh, it was just because my oven pan used to be too small to fit the whole thing.'     

 

Priorities are like water jugs

Not long ago, I was watching a movie which suited my family of keen bird-watchers. It was 'The Big Year' with Owen Wilson, Jack Black and Steve Martin. Each year, bird-watchers (or 'birders', as the serious professionals prefer to be called) have a contest to see who can record sightings and photos of most bird species by the end of the year. They embark on trips to the corners of the earth, madly studying almanacs to find out where and when the most rare species may be spotted. Needless to say, there is lots of animosity between the contenders, who all want to win. When you look at the main cast members, I'm sure you can see the scope for comedy. (See the end of this blog post for a funny story of our own.)

Yet there are some serious underlying messages. Owen Wilson plays Kenny Bostick, current holder of the world title and desperately trying to defend it. His wife pleads with him to stay at home and leave the accolades for somebody else, for a change. They've agreed to start a family and she needs him to attend medical appointments at a fertility clinic with her. Although he fully intends to comply, the lure of potential rare sightings proves too great a temptation time and again, and he lets her down repeatedly.

I was thinking the same as many other women probably were; that he clearly got his priorities wrong. But did he? It really depends on what his priorities were. If they included being a loving and devoted family man, then it would be true, his priorities got totally skewed. But if his main aim was to retain his title of the world's best birder, then he definitely got his priorities right!

When you think about it, priorities are demanding things that can twist and tug a person until they don't know whether they are coming or going. Depending on the size of each, your life may be able to hold only a couple. If it's a big, grand one, there may be room for just one. I'd imagine if you want to be a world-renowned champion of anything, that priority will have to take first place. It's not surprising to hear about so many celebrity marriages crashing and burning. I feel for them, because it's easy to see why the demands of their occupations make it seem necessary to siphon quality time with their spouses away.

I'm thinking of priorities as several glass jugs, or beakers, of water lined up in a row. We have a set amount of time and energy per day, which represents the water. For example, I want to be a good mother, wife, homeschooler, writer, and Sunday School teacher, but realise what a balancing act it is. To devote time to one, you have to draw from the others. Stress happens when you are devoting a lot of time and energy to one jug, filling it to a healthy level, then looking up to see that the others have got so low, some are down to just a few drops.

I get worn out quickly. This picture analogy helps me see that sometimes, it is wise not to add any more jugs to the line, because too many empty ones break my enthusiasm and health. As I said, I'm sure famous people at the top of their fields must choose to focus all of their attention on just a single jug. I know great musicians keep practising, even when we wonder why they feel the need, since they are already brilliant. Renowned athletes do the same. I'm sure we've all heard stories of how people like Lleyton Hewitt and Tiger Woods have had that single-minded focus on tennis and golf respectively, since they were pre-schoolers. When you think about it, they've given their everything, their life's blood, for an inclusions in the history books. It's a high price to pay.

Rather than wanting to be great at something and then guilty for not making it, it is probably helpful to stay aware of how the world is set up. Keep the lines of glass jugs in mind. Teenage girls should know that the super-models they aspire to choose to forego the luxury (or priority) of having impulsive, tasty treats. Those who think it would be great to be on the Olympic Swimming team should consider that sleeping in at dawn is no longer a priority.  This all goes to show that instead of simply admiring heroes for the obvious reasons of their talent, we should spare a thought to acknowledge the sacrifices they've made. They've pared their lines of glass jars down to one. Some of the things they've chosen to give up to get their positions of apparent success are many times far too high a price for the rest of us to consider paying.

How many jugs, beakers and bottles do you have lined up. Are you racing about, madly trying to scoop water from one to another, so they're all pretty well even by the end of the day? Or are you single-mindedly pouring a neat, strong jet into one vessel, kicking the others aside until they smash. At present, I'm trying to focus on no more than about four or five, as it's easier to race between them, topping them up, than it is with 20+.


* OK, here's our funny true story about bird watching. My nephew and son were walking together through our adjacent wetlands on their way back from the bus stop. They saw a young, well-dressed bird-watcher, squatting in the long grass with a really beautiful, flash looking camera. Jarrad, who is the keen bird-watcher, commented to Logan, "I wish I had a camera like that." Suddenly, the young bird-watcher looked behind his shoulder, saw nobody but the two of them, then got really edgy. He packed his gear up quick smart and hurried away. It took the boys a moment to realise that the poor fellow might have thought the casual comment was meant in a threatening manner, as if they intended to mug him and steal it. And Logan said to Jarrad, "Maybe he thought we were doing the Big Year." I suppose you can't be too careful in a lonely spot. Our Laratinga wetlands at Mount Barker are the perfect place to do a bit of bird watching.

True mentors are often hidden

I've come across this scenario time and again in well-known books which focus on reflection and philosophy. The earnestly seeking author, with a thirst for knowledge, is willing to travel far to seek the meaning of life. He (or she) eventually stumbles across a wise old guru in some secluded, non-western country, who genuinely doesn't want to be drawn to the world's attention. So the author promises to keep their identity secret if the guru will spout off his immense spiritual insight (which the guru seems quite willing to do). Then the author goes home (usually to America) and writes a book which goes on to hit the big time and earn millions.

In 'The Monk who Sold his Ferrari' the main character, Julian Mantle, stays with a hidden Indian tribe who enable him to turn his life around so that by the time he gets home, he is unrecognisable. In 'Eat, Pray, Love', Elizabeth Gilbert inserts a note in the preface telling readers that her personal guru and Ashram director would prefer not to be named, and asks readers to please respect that person's privacy by not attempting to dig around and find out. There is also her medicine man friend, Ketut, who presumably still lives his simple tribal lifestyle, unchanged by the success of the book in which he features. Just recently, I came across a similar theme in a book by a young woman who was supposedly told the secret of vibrant, glowing health beyond the age of 100 by an old tribeswoman who simply wanted to be known as 'Teresa.'

When I started planning this blog post, I wondered why I felt a bit indignant and annoyed. I think the whole subject seemed to reek of exploitation. The poor mentors, whose wisdom is drawn from, get nothing, while the opportunistic authors make a fortune, enabling them to have book tours around the world and mansions in several different countries. That doesn't seem fair at all. Then, with further reflection, I realise that I'm thinking about it from a limited, western materialist perspective myself.

The mentors themselves probably think they've got off lightly, and wouldn't exchange their modest, hidden lifestyles for those of the authors for all the world. It would be far too high a price to pay. At present, they have the freedom to go where they choose when they choose, have hours at their disposal for reflection and prayer, are free to observe the pattern of the days and have no demands on them to change or adapt their treasured personal rhythms for anybody. Exchanging this for a celebrity's lifestyle, in which every journalist or media mogul wants a piece out of them, their words and photos are splashed over the pages of magazines to be criticised and pulled apart, and every minute of their time is quickly accounted for with no space for personal care would be a nightmare for them. Having to live this way for the mere praise of men would mean nothing to many of them, who would be quick to declare that they prefer to live for 'an audience of One'. They possibly even pity their famous author friends, for being willing to settle for all this.

Are these anonymous gurus onto something, in their choice to pull back and enjoy obscurity? I really think they are. The way God seems to have designed the world bears this out. Where do miners usually find the most precious gold? It is buried deep under the earth, and not generally lying around on the surface for any old casual hiker to trip over. God seems to want to provide us with the need to search for our treasure, so that we value it all the more.

It's the same with literature. Sometimes, the little old, plain-covered book by some unknown author you find crammed back on the dusty shelf of a second hand shop has more value than the most famous best-seller on the New York Times list. And sometimes, even though you've been studying your Bible, or other sacred historical text, for years and years, a very subtle insight may suddenly hit you in the face, making you exclaim, 'How could I have missed this, all these years?' God could have had one of his prophets spell it out so it would be impossible to miss, but then it wouldn't be so precious. The very hidden quality gives it much of its value.

I'm not saying not to listen to the words of our celebrities and admired thinkers, whose faces smile at us when we turn on our TVs. The world is full of quotable wisdom from famous figures such as Winston Churchill, Abraham Lincoln, Helen Keller and Martin Luther King, who got their positions deservedly. It's just handy to sometimes give a thought to old monastery care-takers, devout peasants in Italian coastal villagers, and even the people we rub shoulders with on our own streets and meeting halls. Any one of them could be potential gurus. If we simply brush past, assuming that they are nothing more than plain John or Jane Does like the rest of us, we never know what we may miss.

For that matter, let's not be quick to shrug off those sudden thoughts that seem to well up from deep in our own minds and hearts, and resonate with something inside us. Don't forget, we're told that we ourselves are temples of the Holy Spirit, and St. Paul tells us in the book of Colossians that the biggest mystery in God in us. Let's not get so caught up looking for someone big, important and famous enough to tell us what we ought to think and do, that we forget about the mentor who is as close as our next breath.

Not to focus on the soap suds

For the month of April, I've been working hard on something I've never done before, a blog tour for one of my novels. It's not even over yet. There will still be a few posts running into May, but I'm relieved that I can see the end of the tunnel. It's been a terrific experience and I've even made some new friends, but I've been thinking about the gauges we find ourselves using to determine whether or not something like a blog tour has been successful. These are things like number of comments left on each of the blog posts, amount of sales, quantities of reviews and other feedback resulting from the attention the book has received. I'm determined not to fall into the trap of believing that if these are not forthcoming every time, the tour has been a flop. These gauges all depend on the whims of other people, and when we find ourselves focusing on them as a measure of success, I've learned that our alarm bells should be ringing.

Recently, I came across an anonymous quotation which said, "Impressing people should a side-effect of the way you live, not the main goal." Yes, that sums it up. Being seduced into focusing on side-effects is a certain mood plunger. We work hard and may up on any given morning to find no mail in our in-boxes and no comments on our blogs. Then we get sad, but we shouldn't, because when we really think about it, that's not really the point of the writing we've done.

I thought of the way I set my washing machine. Sometimes I'm a bit heavy-handed with the detergent, and as each load drains, all this pretty, glistening, sausage-shaped froth soars up from the drain hole in the floor. When my three kids were little, they used to love seeing this. When they heard the water beginning to drain in the laundry, they would come running to watch the froth-show. But as often as not, I would have been more economical with the balance of detergent. Then, the kids would wait with anticipation, and get disappointed to see no froth appear.

I'd try to cheer them up, saying, "Don't worry, maybe there'll be more suds next time." Although they were sad, I'd go out to hang up the washing quite happy, because I knew that the clothes were clean and ready to flap in the wind. That, after all, is the main purpose of a wash, not the suds spectacle.

I think a very similar principle takes place whenever we're working on writing or anything else. Working on the story or the blog reflection is, after all, the main thing, that which brings us most joy and sense of accomplishment. The praise or feedback we get is like the soap suds; pretty to look at but not the main point of the exercise.

Let's be careful to keep our focus on what is the main thing and just get on with what needs to be done.

We might have the waving cat syndrome

Have you seen those colourful ceramic cats which sit at the door or near the entrance of some Asian food outlets? I guess they're pretty hard to miss. Sometimes they sit on the counter, just where you order or pay, and they seem to wave their paws back and forth at you. The first time I saw one, I thought it was a quirky little statue for that particular restaurant. Then they started popping up more often.

Not long ago, I was sitting at a food court down in the city with my husband, and saw one at a noodle bar. 'Hey, let's look up those waving cats. They are so common these days, there must be some significance to them.' So Andrew found a long article about them. They are known as 'lucky cats' and one thing I remember learning is that they are actually meant to be beckoning. The movement of the paw is supposed to be tempting us to come inside and taste their cuisine. The article said something like, "Although this is immediately evident to people of Asian descent, westerners often get the picture entirely wrong and think they are waving." Well, needless to say, I was one of those clueless westerners.

It's a pretty crucial mistake, when you think about it. Those cats are inviting me to come in and enjoy some hospitality, yet I breeze past, thinking they are giving me a friendly wave goodbye. What if the food vendors are crestfallen, wondering why so many of us heartlessly walk past, unaware that we simply haven't twigged what the cats are all about. I'm sure we've all heard stories of somebody from one culture bitterly offending somebody from another, with no idea they've done so. It probably happens more often than we think. I'm sure this must stem from what I now think of as the waving cat syndrome. We don't set out to deliberately upset anybody or miss the point, yet we can't help it that we are totally oblivious.

When I read reviews of my novels written by people from America or other international countries, I often come across something like, "It was great fun trying to figure out Australian slang terms which went way over my head." I get amazed because I have no idea that I've included anything like that. Occasionally, I'm told by an editor that words which seem innocent to me may horrify some international readers, because they mean something completely different over there.

The more I think about it, I'm sure this waving cat syndrome spreads even further than cultural differences. It applies to brain or gender differences too. My husband sometimes says things or behaves a  certain way which is not intended to be belligerent, yet I've assumed that he's having a go at me, or vice versa.

But the waving cat syndrome could really become a stumbling block when it comes to our personal study of great texts such as the Bible. My son, Blake, and I have been learning about the Reformation period, when the world was virtually turned upside down. Because of the invention of printing presses, and the evolution of new ideas such as those put forward by Martin Luther, people were given Bibles of their own and permitted to study them instead of turning to their priests. This was absolutely unprecedented. I found a quote by William Tyndale in another book. Getting excited about his vision of producing Bibles, he said, "Soon, the ordinary ploughboy will be able to read the scriptures for himself." It sounds awesome on the surface, but sometimes, having access to the great texts (which I've tried to fathom since I was really small) has frustrated me because there are parts I just don't get. Being able to read the Bible for ourselves instead of relying on others to interpret it for us is fantastic, but we shouldn't forget we can fall prone to waving cat syndrome.

For example, there's that anecdote in Genesis about what happened when Noah got drunk. This is how it appears when we read it. He was lying there stark naked, and instead of covering him up, his son, Ham, went and told his brothers. Shem and Japheth did the decent thing and put a blanket over their father. When Noah woke up, he went berserk and cursed Ham's family line, through Ham's son, Canaan. That always seemed mental and mean to me. What a massive over-reaction to a little lapse of judgment. Why would Noah want to curse an entire line of his family tree just because his son saw him naked?  Yet recently, I read a theologian's theory that the term 'saw his father naked' was, in fact, an ancient Hebrew euphemism for incest between a son and his mother. Well, if that's true, it would make more sense of the story for sure. If the interpretation is accurate, I assume ancient folk at the time of writing would have instantly twigged, while we clueless modern people with waving cat syndrome, may scratch our heads, saying, "What a fuss about nothing? What a nasty old coot."

 I can think of many other examples of waving cat syndrome when it comes to interpreting the Bible. When I was a kid, I never knew why Abraham had his servant place his hand under his thigh, before he sent him off to find a wife for his son. Nor did I understand why God made Abraham tear a couple of animals and birds in half and make some sort of weird symmetrical pattern on the ground. It all seemed random, and often tasteless, to me, before I learned about covenants. And now, I wonder about the rich symbolism which probably still goes over my head, and those of many others too. I won't even begin to get into such books as Ezekiel, Daniel and Revelation.

So what can we do about waving cat syndrome? Well, probably not a lot about individual cases, since we don't realise when we're ignorant. Maybe if we soften our general attitudes toward others, we can help to absorb the impact when it has the potential to get nasty. Instead of getting hurt feelings or indignant, we could cut others some slack. We could choose not to assume that apparent slights are intended to be personal. When it comes to personal study, we could refuse to call things stupid and slam the books shut. We could make enquiries, look for other books which may make it clearer, and search the web instead, trying to look for answers.

And maybe when I see those cats in the future, I may well take up their invitation and pop in for something to eat.

To make the most of our mobile windows

In the Message version of Matthew 6: 22-23, Jesus says, "Your eyes are windows into your body. If you open your eyes wide in wonder and belief, your body fills up with light. If you live squinty-eyed in greed and distrust, your body is a dank cellar. If you pull the blinds on your windows, what a dark life you will have."

I used to think this referred to people being able to stare into our souls through our eyes, as if they were windows, but I considered myself good at concealing my thoughts and feelings from others. Nobody uses my eyes as windows, thanks very much. The line which says, "Your eyes are windows into your body" might have been what confused me and got me thinking about Peeping Tom sort of behaviour from other people.

Perhaps if it read, "Your eyes are windows looking out on the world" I would have got the point quicker. It's all about us looking through those windows at what is outside, rather than other people peering in at us. Our eyes are the windows we're standing behind. We get to choose the things outside of those windows that we focus on. There's plenty of both good and bad to be seen, and the theme and flavour of our life will depend on what we choose to look at.

Recently I learned a bit more about the ancient eastern contrast between healthy eyes and unhealthy eyes. Apparently generous people who looked on others kindly, were said to have a 'good eye'. Those who were greedy, envious and covetous had an 'evil eye'. In this way, our eyes and our hearts are connected. When the eye focuses on something, it becomes the conduit which fills the heart with what it has focused on. So perhaps that is what Jesus meant, when he said that our eyes are windows into our body. We can take our choice and focus on either joy filled things which God values, self-pityingly on all the good things that belong to others and not us, or fearfully, on all the potential worst case scenarios which could knock us down.

Modern scientists have been saying the very same thing without even knowing there is a scriptural link. In 'The Mind that Changes Everything' Dr Ian Gawler explains that what we focus on significantly affects our outcome. If our focus is on something we fear or want to suppress, we give power to that very thing. (When we try hard not to think about a white horse, what immediately pops into our head?) What we turn our focus toward has far more importance than what we're attempting to turn away from, so he exhorts us to always focus on the positive, creative side of life, and when we realise we've deviated, to draw our attention back to where we want to be looking.

Today, I was mopping, sweeping and cleaning, annoyed at the kids for dumping towels and clothes on their floors instead of moving two steps to put them in the hamper. My mind was full of words like lazy bones, skunks and free-loaders. That got me thinking how I see red whenever they have the nerve to tell me I'm not doing the washing quick enough. And then, I thought how aggrieved they act when I express all this to them. It feels as if I can trace a thought from one brain synapse to another, and they grow into something steadily bigger as they move to the next one. It's enough to set up a bad mood for the rest of the day. Then I remembered what I was planning to blog about today. What's the point of focusing on all this, however true, when it makes me depressed and angry? Those are the moments to switch immediately, and choose to change my focus.

So often, I've seen different advice on what to do when we feel blue. I'm not talking about full-blown, clinical depression, but just the type of low moods we're all susceptible to at times. We could eat food that's said to contain happy-making properties, such as dark chocolate or bananas (or bananas dipped in dark chocolate). We could do some rigorous exercise or run to the shops to buy something brand new. Sometimes these physical changes don't even work very well. I often forget that the most simple thing, which happens inside my head and takes a fraction of a second, is simply to change my focus. When I do remember, I find it does work.

At least, if our eyes are windows, they are mobile ones. We're mistaken, if we think we're stuck looking at the same view all the time.

That narrow-minded attitudes are insidious

My son, Logan, is getting great at his favourite computer game, League of Legends. He sits up late to play and recently got himself high into the ranks of Platinum 1. They tell me that is nudging very close to a Diamond ranking, where many players actually have the potential to earn, or are already earning money.

Yet rarely does he get congratulated by extended family or friends, and I include myself too. We praise his sister, Emma, more for her various pursuits. Emma's ambition is to be a dessert chef, and she makes some luscious treats in the kitchen to take to events. She also loves her nature photography, and her art lessons. She puts a lot of heart and soul into all of this, and it's right that she should receive positive feedback. It's very easy to give, when her chosen hobbies are so easy to admire.

Yet a lot of work and passion goes into Logan's hobby too. To be as good at League of Legends as he is takes skill, coordination, reaction time, finely honed prediction skills and being able to liaise well with team members. It's taken a lot of work to rise in the ranks of the game as he has done, and very few have made it that far. His dad, Andrew, likes the game too, but has got no higher than the Bronze level, which is much lower. There are thousands of players across the world. It's equivalent, in its way, to people attempting to be masters of Chess.

So why aren't extended family and friends as impressed with his conquest as we are with what Emma does? It surely comes down to two things which are closely connected; cultural bias and stigma. Those of us who live in English speaking countries are often surprised to learn what huge followings these computer games have in countries such as South Korea. Over there, they actually televise matches of Starcraft and League of Legends on prime time TV, as if they are celebrated sports (which indeed, they are for them).

The experts of these games are household names. They earn huge pay packets and sometimes retire with physical injuries because of the repetitive strain of being so keyed-up on their game. And the boys tell me that family expectations are way different over there. An Aussie or American parent may say, 'It's very important that you raise your maths and science grades. We want you to be a doctor.' In South Korea, a bossy mother may be more likely to say, 'I want you glued to that computer chair practising your game. We want you to be a League of Legends star! Don't get up until you've reached Gold.'

This cake was made by Emma and Jarrad for Logan's 18th birthday last year. It's a map of the League of Legends terrain.
 
There is a natural respect for games such as LOL in that part of the world which we just don't have in Australia. Logan has been known not to even mention his achievements at family or church gatherings, because people give off vibes of disapproval. They may say, 'That's all very well, but what proper hobbies and work are you doing?' Members of the older generations often don't try to hide their distaste at all. 'All those computer games are making our young people go to the dogs! It breaks my heart to see it. Your sensibilities are being worn down with all that pointless killing stuff. It's turning our young people into savages. What's the world coming to?' It never seems to occur to them that they are actually being rude to rubbish a young man's hobby in front of him. He doesn't stand there, criticising their stamp collections, lawn bowls or whatever else.

I definitely agree that there is a problem if playing the computer games is all these young people do with their time. But the same goes for reading novels, which is my own chosen leisure time filler. Anything done excessively until it becomes an addiction is too much, but that doesn't make the hobby itself intrinsically bad. And many of these young gamers are students with other outlets. Also, I believe studies have shown that people who play computer games in their spare time have not had empathy erosion any more than anybody else.

My way of thinking has been challenged. I've been on the receiving end of narrow-minded judgments myself, by some Christians who have dismissed my fiction writing as pointless and frivolous. Remembering how it felt, it surprised me one day, to hear myself echo that very same attitude with regard to computer games, when I said something like, 'If only you'd devote that much time to your school studies, instead of this stuff.'

People who buy into the stigma are short-sighted and don't realise that their hearts don't need to be broken by changing times. I've visited the Christian Gamers Guild website, which contains many interesting essays designed to give concerned parents a broader outlook about the subject of computer games. And I'm glad to see novels such as "Motive Games" by L.D. Taylor being published. This is a Young Adult novel set in the up-and-coming world of the computer game design and manufacture industry. It's a clever murder mystery showing that intelligence and honour are tied up with the industry, instead of the opposite, as many people seem to automatically assume.

Basically, I've come around to see that refusal to change with the times is not gracious, and is also a bit silly. I don't want to be counted among those who are old-fashioned, blinkered in their outlook and behind the times. I don't want to spout my mouth off negatively about something of which I know very
little. I want to be open-hearted enough to congratulate my son for a well-earned achievement instead of rolling my eyes. We're hoping he'll get up into Diamond soon.