December, 2008:

This I Believe: Honor

Last week I recorded my essay for our local WPSU “This I Believe” program. It can be heard on Thursday 18 December 2008 at 5:45 pm OR right now online!

WPSU’s This I Believe

I Believe in Honor

Contributor: Christian Brady
Town: State College, PA
County: Centre County
Heard on NPR’s Weekend Edition on December 18, 2008

Listen to This I Believe

I can remember quite vividly a moment in the 5th grade when a classmate hit me, trying to start a fight. David P. was a good foot shorter than I was. He had to reach up to land a decent blow on my chin. My instinct was to hit back, but I remembered my father saying, “It takes a stronger man to take a punch than to give one.” I looked at David and said, “I’m not going to fight you,” and I walked away. The other boys standing around booed and hooted, but David didn’t follow me. In fact, from that day on, none of the boys ever bothered me again.

I was hardly Rosa Parks refusing to move to the back of the bus or Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr. sitting at the lunch counter. Yet with this simple act, I learned a tremendous amount about myself and the true notion of honor: Know what is right and do it. Of course, I would not realize that lesson until much later in life. And many such moments go into building and developing our core convictions. It wasn’t until I became an academic and the dean of the Schreyer Honors College that I really thought about what “honor” means.

We hear the word honor so often and in so many contexts that it is easy to forget its meaning. “Honor” may mean acting in way our society considers noble by our society. It may mean, to be held in high esteem by others. In academia we speak of “honors” almost entirely in terms of the awards that a scholar acquires. Every year students graduate “with honors” in their chosen field. At Penn State Schreyer Honors College Scholars receive a medal that symbolizes their academic achievements. These honors are accolades, praise for exceptional work and prestigious awards.

I would be hypocritical if I said that I think this practice of recognition is wrong. I DO think that we in the academy are in danger of fostering the “win at all costs” environment we so often criticize. I remember, when I was a senior working on my undergraduate thesis, going to section of the library stacks. Two entire shelves of books–the very books I needed–were gone. It turns out a graduate student in our program had removed them, to make sure other students would not have access to them.

Honor can something a community considers worthy of esteem, or it may be awards for outstanding work. Honor is not success at any cost. In its simplest sense honor is knowing what is right and doing it. The challenge, of course, is knowing what is right. The very act of seeking out that knowledge is itself honorable. As I tell prospective honors students, we are not just looking for the “smartest guys in the room.” Instead, we are looking for the smartest people who want to use their intelligence to help other people in the room and especially those outside. This I believe.

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A modern Ruth?

Dec 16th, 2008

by Christian Brady.

No comments yet

NPR ran a piece this morning about an Iraqi woman, a single mother, who came to the US last year and is making a new life for herself. In listening to the piece I was struck by the similarities in the story as told by NPR and the biblical story of Ruth. The story was introduced as follows.

Last year, we introduced NPR audiences to a single mother of three who heads one of the first refugee families to arrive in Atlanta. Bothinaa Mohammed had worked for the U.S. Army in Iraq and was targeted as a traitor. She brought her family to the United States in late August 2007, after three years in Jordan. In Atlanta, she got a job as a hotel maid.

Bothinaa Mohammed has had some tough hurdles to overcome, her apartment burned last Christmas for example, but she is working and apparently very glad to be in the US. The story did not say whether or not she was a Christian but she seems to embrace Christmas, whether as a symbol of the West or Christ is not clear. The comparison with Ruth becomes clear at the end of the story.

About a week ago, she put up her Christmas tree. This year, it’s heavy with glittery bells and sparkling balls of every color.

“She feels when she look to this tree, it gives her some happiness or faithful or something like that,” the translator says.

Mohammed recently applied for a green card and hopes to get it soon. Some new Iraqi immigrants tried to persuade her to move to Maine, where they said she would get more financial help from the state. But she’s not going. Even though her life isn’t easy, it’s better this year, she says. Like many Americans, what she really wants is to be able to save enough money for a down payment on a home.

“America beautiful, good. America country, my country. I need buy house, buy everything,” Mohammed says, in halting English. She laughs. “I am here; I am die here.”

These final words echoed in my mind the words of Ruth.

Ruth 1:16 But Ruth said,
“Do not press me to leave you
or to turn back from following you!
Where you go, I will go;
Where you lodge, I will lodge;
your people shall be my people,
and your God my God.
17 Where you die, I will die—
there will I be buried.
May the LORD do thus and so to me,
and more as well,
if even death parts me from you!”

I could offer various thoughts and tropes on these parallels but I will leave some of that for your comments. I am not sure if Ms. Mohammed’s comment “I need buy house, buy everything” is an example of an embracing of our consumerism or if it is simply a mother wanting to provide for her family and the home is the symbol of stability and security. In any event, there is no doubt that Ms. Mohammed has embraced America as her own country and hopes to live and die here. I pray she has a Naomi and that her death may be a far off event.

Favorite iPhone/iPod Touch apps

Dec 15th, 2008

by Christian Brady.

10 comments

iPhone and iPod Touch So I already know what my major Christmas present will be this year (although I do not yet have it, but thanks to all the fam who are giving me Apple Store gift cards!). I am getting an iPod Touch! So, my immediate question is, which apps to put on it? I know a few of those who regularly read this blog are iPhone/Touch users so I thought I would ask you all, which apps do you absolutely must have? I just talked with my brother, an iPhone user, and he says that in the end, he uses almost exclusively the built-in apps.

To guide your responses, a few categories that I am interested in:

eBook reader, preferably that works well with feedbooks.com.
Newsreader to keep up with all these blogs!
Bible software (I have seen Olive Trees, is there another worthwhile? there appear to be dozens on the app store)
Games
VOIP?
Whatever you think is indispensable.

Speedtest – How fast are you?

Dec 14th, 2008

by Christian Brady.

2 comments

We have Comcast highspeed cable with a decent sized network in the house, both wired and wireless. I was testing its speed tonight with Speedtest.net.

Wireless: Via an 802.11g AirportExtreme base station to a MacBook Pro:

Wired: through the base station and a router to a MacPro G5 (quad):

Not bad, imho, but I am going to guess that others of you will have faster speeds, some much faster. (And Jim West will be below 56k on his dial up modem. )