Biquette's 2021 Christmas card

[elagache]

Dear mid-60s Buick caregivers,

For some time now, I've been creating photo Christmas cards featuring my trusty wagon.  Circumstances made this year's card into a real struggle, but here is what I ultimately came up with:



The forum software limits the size of images, you might need to click in it to enlarge the writing.

Obviously, some explanation is needed.  Here is what was printed on the back of the card:

It has been a tough year for me and the whole family.  When you are caring for everyone else - your health gets lowest priority.  Eventually, what turned to be skin cancer tumors could no longer be ignored.   Since August, I have had Mohs surgeries to remove 5 tumors - 4 of which were on my face, and the worst surgery is still to come.  For a while, my face was looking a lot like our venerable 1965 Buick Special after she was struck on Thanksgiving Eve 2010.

My journey of healing reminded me of the arduous effort to restore our 56 year old family heirloom wagon.  The parallels inspired this card.

Christmas used to be a solemn matter of faith.  However, science has made us so confident that humanity insisted we could create our own hope in a secure future.  Now that security seems dashed as science and technology has seriously stumbled in a time of great need.  Our future is anything but certain, and those difficult "meaning of life" questions are nagging all of us.  Like self-congratulation, self-made hope seems hollow and in vain - the thirst for meaning and purpose is never quenched.  Now more than ever, Christmas beseeches us to rediscover our hope in an eternal good.  Though these pictures, I have tried to portray my faith journey through a most difficult year.

Unfortunately, the worst tumors are on my nose and one is so large that removing it has been referred to the U.C. San Francisco teaching hospital.  The tumors are scheduled to be removed on January 26th with the reconstructive surgery the following day.  What has been a very tough year will definitely continue into 2022.

Thanks for your support all these years.  Sorry if I end up being scarce around the end of January, but I hope everyone will understand.

Edouard

[cwmcobra]

Edouard,

When I first read your card, I thought it a relevant and accurate take on our season of COVID pandemic.  Then I read your explanation and the personal side of the sentiment was revealed.  I'm saddened to hear of the medical struggles you're going through.  It seems that there are increased examples of serious medical issues all around that people are facing in the midst of this pandemic. 

Finding and being at peace with one's place in creation can be a challenge, but one that we all have to come to grips with sooner or later.  Praying for comfort and healing through this serious medical process and for success in finding and being at peace with that elusive place in creation.  With His help, I'm confident you'll be successful.

Merry Christmas and God's Blessings,

Chuck

[dsags]

Edouard,

Am also praying for your comfort and healing in this medical procedure. All the best,

Dan

[Loren At 65GS]

Edouard,

 I was shocked when I read your card. My prayers are with you, my friend.

 May God bless you as you travel this journey of surgeries and recovery.

  Loren

[schlepcar]

Edouard,
    I have not been on here much lately because of some smaller battles. I saw your card last night and simply glanced at the pics and went to bed. I actually read it today and I have to say you are spot on with the faith,science,and other propaganda that we have not seen in our lifetime. In order to stay correct with the world?all I am going to say is keep the faith,read and study it as you would as a legitimate scientist,and never doubt that all matter has a place in the world. I wish you well in your treatment and hope your family has a Merry Christmas. Dan

[elagache]

Dear Chuck, Dan, Loren, Dan, and mid-60s Buick caregivers,

Thanks so much for your kind thoughts.  Yes it has been an extremely difficult journey medically.  I discovered very much the hard way that our vaunted medical knowledge isn't nearly as complete or comprehensive as we have been lead to believe.  Mistakes were made in my treatment and it has taken months to recover.  Indeed the debacles associated with COVID have been caused by the same overconfidence gone horribly wrong.

My misfortunes have also taunted me in my intellectual life.  I entered the University of California, Berkeley committed to preserving my faith.  I started on a degree in Physics and later made it into a double major of Physics and Philosophy.  Classes in both disciplines were constantly hammering at what I wanted to preserve. 

Still as emotionally difficult such experiences were, it was a profoundly important education for me.  It allowed me to size up the objections raised by the opposition and probe into the foundations of science.  I developed an interest in symbolic logic and learned how fragile the foundations of mathematics turn out to be.  Even then I was confronted with the glaring contradiction of Physics.  Physics isn't one discipline but three: Classical Newtonian mechanics, Relativistic physics, and Quantum mechanics.  None can be derived from the other and they are logically inconsistent with one another.  If Physics has broken foundations what does that say about the cornucopia of the rest of scientific methodology?

At the same time, those jarring experiences did force me to seriously question the theological assumptions of Christianity.  I could not permit myself to keep religion and science separate as many people choose to do.  Nor does the proposal of God as the "cosmic watch maker" satisfy me.  Ultimately the universe is too messy and the human experience too painful for me to accept the idea that what we live in is a "perfect cosmic clock."  The tension that has ultimately unglued my faith in the Trinity is the tension between the God characterized by the Old Testament and Jesus as portrayed in the Gospels.  Tearing at the very heart of my faith is the question: "could Jesus really be asking me to go through the suffering I am experiencing?"

Feeling abandoned by both religious doctrine and scientific dogma, I had little choice but to cobble an alternative account of reality - simply to be able to sleep at night.  I do have a profound hope, but it is one radically different from either the traditional religious view or the naive trust we are supposed to have in science.  It is only because of an unexpected blending of the two that Jesus becomes a savior not simply of the human race but of the whole universe.

Of course, that salvation is still to come.  Until then we must shoulder our burdens as best we can.  Still, I think that is a much healthier attitude toward Christmas than the alternatives.

Edouard

[schlepcar]

    Quite the topic for this time of year. What is funny is that I can relate to what you are saying as far as education, religion, science?..and stay right away from politics. The first year or two of what we call general education requirements in most major universities attempt to use psychology, sociology,and even philosophy in some cases to disprove anything greater than the self. In my particular case, I would often find myself arguing with instructors who obviously had little to no experience in their topic of choice. Prior to college, if you ask certain people, I was brainwashed, coerced, and spoon fed the notion that we should be thankful for the food on our plates and the roof over our heads at a young age. As time progressed I found myself saying stupid things like Thou shall not steal, or No man that puts his hand to the plow and turns back is??and other silly nonsense that held no value in collegiate conversation. As I battled my way through school making minimum wage it was common for fellow classmates to ask for a few dollar loan since I was the only person my age working full time and in their class. It did not take me long to see my labor could be used to feed them vicariously?apparently they were already less dumb than me.
     Many years later I had multiple problems in legalities, marriage, conflicts as to what I was obligated to do vs. what I should do. So today, I look at the attorneys, scientists, teachers, and, yes even auto mechanics and other trades??Do you know what they all have in common?  The good ones can use their knowledge in an attempt to prove or disprove just about anything. In fact, the less knowledge one has about any particular subject, the easier it is to get them convinced that they should only buy what you are selling. Apparently you have been around the block enough times that you are not necessarily in the market for ideas that make absolutely no sense to you. Has this been more of a burden or made you look even more into the possibilities??Imagine how are founders felt after surviving war,dictatorships,famine,etc?..Our republic,and constitution was based on certain principles that collectively glued us together so that United we would stand. As educated as they were, they knew no one self could hold us together?..for that they relied on something bigger and you already know that we never know what we don?t know?.and a little faith goes a long way. Were they trying to sell us something or trying to give us something?



     

[elagache]

Dear Dan and 65GS.com "armchair philosophers,"

    Quite the topic for this time of year. What is funny is that I can relate to what you are saying as far as education, religion, science?..and stay right away from politics.
. . . .   

Thanks for sharing your own experiences.  I agree with you that there is an unsavory attempt to instill a kind of mindset to make people willing to live in our modern world.  I ran into this issue over and over again while getting my PhD in education.  Pierre Bourdieu has a very interesting essay on the question.

However, your experiences reminded me of quote from Blaise Pascal which is very dear to my heart:

The heart has reasons that reason cannot understand

I hope I haven't told this story here before.  My first upper division philosophy class was "Philosophical Methods."  It as taught by a very sweet and gentle man by the name of Hans Sluga.  The first day of class he announced in a very gentle and seemingly reassuring voice: "I intend to show you all that the concept of God is incoherent."  Yup, my feathers were seriously ruffled from day-1.  However, I was obviously new to this game - I didn't know how to defend my point of view.

The key reading for the class was an elegaic piece writing by Sluga himself concerning the loss of a dear friend of his.  Sluga attempted to make a move that was common in the philosophy department then and remains a deep tension today.  He dismissed any reality to spirituality but nonetheless insisted that the passing of someone important to us produces some kind of bond that transcends the loss.  I thought: "this is my chance!'

My final essay for the class was in two parts.  The first part took an extremely harsh and brutal view of what a human being is if science is to be taken as the final assessment of what humans are.  I concluded that humans are nothing more than biological machines and society cannot justify any other objective than the genetic optimization of these machines.  Competition had created humanity according to the theory of evolution.  Only competition (among ourselves) could further this process of improvement - even if this meant racial wars.

Part 2 completely rejected the first part, but with a twist.  If we are something more than biological machines - then that something must be real.  We cannot on the one hand embrace science as the only arbiter of truth, only to make exceptions when we find it emotionally hard to swallow.  If we need spirituality in order to cope with human life we must accept that spirituality is real and science most be wrong somehow.

It was more poetry than philosophical analysis, but I was writing a lot poetry at the time and was new to philosophical methods.  Nonetheless, I got an A in the class!

It was a defining moment in my life.  It was possible to take on this establishment of dubious reasoning and force them to concede from time to time.  With time, my arguments have become much sharper, and with it, my convictions in spiritual nature of the world have been reassured.  Pascal is right: The heart has reasons that reason cannot understand.  Pity those who don't have the heart to understand that.

Edouard

[schlepcar]

excellent references Edouard,
  It sounds like you had a real philosophy instructor who did not just get off the proverbial boat. I think I lucked out with one of those guys also....Everyone in his class got an A, as long as their arguments made logical sense. Ironically, I had a female instructor down the hall teaching logic and that was a unique experience. I have come to the conclusion that ceratain personality types are able to make up their mind with no evidence,research,or conviction to truth. This of course is not based on race,religion,sex,or any singular variable,but just an opinion that is obviously the only opinion in their mind. It did bring back some of your earlier points as to dillemnas that will obviously occur when two worlds collide. I'm actually going to steal your clockmaker reference as it was alluded to in the WATCHMEN movie. Not sure if you seen it but their was a continual good/evil theme in the works....One of the best lines was... The worlds smartest man poses as much of a threat as the worlds smartest termite....when referring to inevitability,causation,etc...When you mentioned the clockmaker idea it just took me that direction.....lol. Have a Happy New Year and I apologize for what appears to be terrible punctuation.....Any non letter/numeral key shows up differently from what I typed. Dan