Ash Wednesday thoughts

[found on the Notes app on my phone, from February]

It was a good day to die, as Garrison Keillor said of that spring day in Minnesota, with the tomatoes just planted. His aunt was looking over her garden when her heart just decided to stop.

His monologue came to mind today, Ash Wednesday. “Remember that you are dust, and that to dust you shall return,” say the priests. It’s a good thing for me to remember, because like most Americans, I tend to ignore my mortality. But it struck me the other day that I probably have fewer than 10,000 of them left.

Indeed, as I’ve heard a few times recently, “Life is short. We don't have much time to gladden the hearts of those who walk this way with us. So, be swift to love and make haste to be kind.” (attributed to Henri-Frédéric Amiel)

I hope in this Lenten season that I’ll be diligent to do that.

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At the end of his monologue, Keillor remarked that it was indeed a good day to die. And if a good day to die, how much more was it a good day to live?

I’m blind! Well, I was, anyway

In case you missed it, Matthew Dutton-Gillet, formerly rector at Trinity Menlo Park (California) was caught misappropriating church funds for personal use, at least $125,000 taken over the past five years. I was very disappointed to learn of this news, but beyond that, I was surprised to note that the idea of jail time for Matthew had not occurred to me until some weeks afterward.

That was a blind spot for me. Matthew committed a crime, maybe more than one, and he admitted this. How did it escape me that this is a criminal case? I’m far from the only one; there are Trinity members who to this day say that the police should not have been informed. I suppose that because we like and respect Matthew, we don’t want to think he’s also a criminal.

Speaking of “cognitive dissonance”…

Last November, we learned that MPPC’s senior pastor, John Ortberg Jr., was put on personal leave because of an error in judgment regarding a certain volunteer. (In case you missed it, here’s a timeline.) Some things about the whole story were puzzling (why did that volunteer confide in Daniel Lavery, formerly Mallory Ortberg?), but because I like and respect John, I don’t like to think of him as recklessly endangering children. I didn’t want to think about it; I wanted all to be well. MPPC’s communications folks were ready to help me with that.

As you can see, I have blind spots galore. When it was revealed earlier this month that the volunteer was John’s younger son, John III, some scales fell off even my eyes. One puzzling question was shockingly answered, and yes, it now seems to me astoundingly reckless to allow John III to be alone with children to whom he felt sexually attracted.

In the week or so since I started writing this, I have seen a wide variety of responses from people I know personally at MPPC. Apparently I am not alone in my disorientation. As Jeremiah famously wrote, “the heart is deceitful above all things and beyond cure; who can know it?” It is difficult—for me anyway—to discern the severity and gravity of mistakes made by people we respect or admire. I now have a new understanding of how deeply and severely I at least can deceive myself.

Thus I am so very glad that the Lord Jesus Christ promised that the Spirit of Truth would guide us into all truth. How much I need to pay attention to that Spirit in these days!

Debian9 upgrade

I mentioned in an earlier post that upgrading from debian8 (jessie) to 9 (stretch) solved a display mystery. (I wonder if a 3440x1440 monitor will work on this distro.) This post will record mysteries created, rather than solved.

• xsane: no devices found
  So I had to download brscan4, I forget where from... brscan4-0.4.9-1.amd64.deb
  Then I had to use brsaneconfig. Like this:
  

  sudo brsaneconfig4 -a name=mfc9340 model=MFC-9340CDW ip=192.168.1.40

• …that's it for now!

I understand that upgrading to buster (debian10) will remove python2. Since I'm a Python Dinosaur (not really analogous to my granddaughter's "Dragon Pig" concept), python3 is the new-fangled (or -fanged) thing that I don't quite feel comfortable with.

And then there was an broadband internet service change 2020-08-14
"ping" tried to use ipv6 addresses. So I did this:

collin@p64:~$ cat /etc/sysctl.d/local.conf 
net.ipv6.conf.all.disable_ipv6 = 1
collin@p64:~$ 

And after filling in DNS servers in /etc/resolv.conf, I made it not a symlink and told network manager not to update it
BUT! That was a bad idea.

[main]
plugins=ifupdown,keyfile
dns=none                       ←add
...
/etc/NetworkManager/NetworkManager.conf

Why was it a bad idea? Because I thought I could use my ISP's nameservers. But since my IP address was assigned by AT&T, my ISP's nameservers rejected all my queries. I hate rejection. So I'll stop asking.

Solved!! LG 34UM58-P Revisited: a Puzzle

In 2017, I bought an LG 34um58p monitor and, after some xrandr(1) hackery, got the display to work, more or less. But the display was always a little ugly, as described in a 2019 whine.

Today, for unrelated reasons, I upgraded my Linux distro from Debian GNU/Linux 8 (jessie) to Debian GNU/Linux 9 (stretch). I rebooted and Surprise! First, I didn't need to run my xrandr script. Second, the pixels actually look good; no smearing/dithering as shown in the aforementioned whine from 2019.

I was so excited to see the new sharper image (no ™) that I whipped out my iPhone™ camera and snapped the pic at right. Although I didn't set up the camera as carefully as I did for last year's shot, I hope you can see how much nicer it looks now.

I miss Matthew, too

Today was the first Sunday at Trinity with neither Aaron Klinefelter nor Matthew Dutton-Gillet on staff. In case you missed it, Matthew is on administrative leave for misappropriating church funds for personal use. Aaron, his assistant, had been officiating since then, but he left us to become rector (not assistant) at St. Jude's Episcopal in Cupertino.

It has been some weeks (I guess it's been two months at this point) since we've seen or heard from Matthew. That wasn't his choice; contact with the congregation is forbidden by the diocese during the "Title IV process." This morning's service was officiated by Tom Traylor. We respect, like, and appreciate Tom, but he's not Aaron, and he's not Matthew.

I've been missing Matthew for some time now. Part of it of course is that I'm also missing the whole experience of meeting together in person on campus. But I miss Matthew's smile, his wise, compassionate words, his warm greeting and pastoral care.

Why did he have to siphon off $2000 a month of church funds for the past five years? Why did he have to go and disqualify himself for the ministry he obviously felt called to and took such joy in? I wish he hadn't done that to us, to himself and his family, to Aaron and his family... There's a temptation to think, "What kind of hypocrite could preach those sermons while taking $500/week from the church treasury for the past five years?" or "We thought he was this wise and compassionate and godly man, but it turns out he's a criminal."

But of course that's an overly simplistic view of humanity. David, the "man after God's own heart," committed adultery and murder. How many of the rest of us, given access to a vast supply of funds and a lack of financial controls, might have taken similar actions? We humans are so complicated. And we'll probably never know what really happened.

I believe Matthew is a wise, compassionate man, but he's also a criminal. How different am I? I'm probably not as wise or compassionate, and I'm no less a sinner; my faults are no less than his, as far as I know. Do I have envy, anger, selfishness, self-pity, pride, impatience? (Does a bear shit in the woods? I guess you can add crudity to the list.) So far my flaws have not gotten me in legal trouble.

So yeah, I'm grieving. I'm glad that the Bible is full of flawed-but-still-inspiring people, saints who weren't perfect but sought to follow God—so that when we see each other's faults, we might grieve with understanding and compassion, rather than condemning with outrage.

Why am I impatient?

So this guy at work faced a software problem: the code was hanging at a certain place, he said. I won't say that he's hard to work with, but I wanted him to provide me with all the data so I could look at it "offline"; that is, I wanted to examine the evidence after the fact, rather than doing everything interactively.

So I gave him some instructions. Type script, then at the next prompt, type /usr/software/gdb/bin/gdb.sksim xxx. Then when it gets to the hang you mentioned, generate a coredump by typing generate-core-file. Then type exit until you see /this message/. Give me the path to that file.

For reasons known only to him, he kept not doing it. He typed script (good), but then he didn't type the exact thing I told him to type. I even told him the reason to type /usr/software/gdb/bin/gdb.sksim, not simply gdb, but still he typed gdb. He said "I don't know why the coredump keeps getting corrupted." This was after I told him that the stock debugger produces unreadable coredumps.

I did tell him at one point, "After I see that you have executed the correct steps, then I will look at your problem." I'm happy that I didn't go all, Look, you want help with this problem? Why do you keep doing what I told you not to??

But why was I so miffed? Why was I screaming inside? Why couldn't I just think, "He's not doing what he needs to do to be effective; when he starts acting reasonably, I hope I can help him"? and just go on and do other work (of which there is no lack)?

I think I know the answer, but I don't much like it. It has to do with what some people call the "false self." Well, "false" may be a bit of an exaggeration—or maybe not! Wendy Wright explains it well in this snippet from Exploring Spiritual Guidance (Upper Room Books, 2006; ISBN 0-8358-9834-2), about a woman who volunteered for a month in a rural setting:

This woman went with the idea of helping others, fulfilling her Christian duty by using her gifts on behalf of less fortunate persons. Her experience was exactly the reverse. A city girl, she found herself quite helpless on a farm. She had to be constantly tutored in the most gentle and compassionate way by those she had imagined she would serve. As this woman gradually came to accept her dependence on others, she became aware of all the subtle ways she had learned over the years to mask her neediness. Always having to look good was one way. Always having the right answer was another. always being competent was a third. (56)

I like being competent and having the right answer. I like being that guy who can help people solve their technical problems. But is that really who I am?

The psychologically correct answer, the mentally and spiritually healthy answer is (you guessed it), "No." The true self, as I profess to believe (and as the Church has taught for millennia), is that I am a beloved child of God, beloved not because of my accomplishments or virtue, but for no good reason whatsoever. And because God loves me, I want to be loving and kind to others; part of how I do that is by helping people learn how to approach their technical problems.

When I can keep this principle front and center in my consciousness, I experience joy and peace, and I can share that with those around me. But when I lose track of it, I become agitated, and what I share instead is my agitation and impatience.

Therefore, as the Apostle Paul said, "Brothers and sisters, pray for us." Especially if you have to work with me.

Misappropriation

These are unauthorized and unofficial ramblings. I didn't take notes when I heard this, so you’re getting my recollections at a later date; all errors are mine.

About misappropriation of funds in general

… not necessarily this case in particular:

We often won’t know how long misappropriation went on.

Sometimes an initial report will mention “at least five years,” because it's fairly easy to get bank records going back five years. Farther back, they’re harder to get.

We often won’t know how much money was taken without an arduous investigation.

Perpetrators do not usually keep separate ledger columns, so they don’t know. They don’t want to know, really. It takes time to analyze financial records, and if the misappropriation went on for over five years, records may also be incomplete.

Whether stolen assets can be returned depends on how much the perpetrator has in the way of recoverable assets.

Many organizations have insurance policies to protect them from losses of this kind. Insurers often require a police report to be filed in order to process a claim.

Police report? Aren’t these civil matters?

IANAL but I understand that there can be both criminal and civil actions. Any criminal charge would be filed by the District Attorney. It is the DA’s decision whether to file charges and prosecute. When guilt is admitted, I understand that the DA would usually proceed to file charges. This decision is influenced by many factors, including political factors.

What about a civil case?

Any civil case would typically be initiated by the insurer. This decision may be based on a judgment of whether recoverable assets would likely exceed the costs of litigation. If a defendant owns a house in the San Francisco Bay Area, then equity in the house would typically be the largest single asset and might be recoverable in a civil action.

If recoverable assets do not exceed the estimated litigation expense, a civil action would likely not be initiated.

Why the perpetrator did it is something that is usually not knowable.

Perpetrators, like all of us, tell themselves stories to justify themselves. These stories evolve over time. They tell the stories to themselves for so long that they actually believe them, even though their version of events may contain elements that simply did not happen that way. So after some time, even they don’t know why they started; consequently, they cannot tell us.

In the Trinity case, whose funds were taken?

Some denominations have legal ownership of all a church’s assets; this is true at Trinity. All assets “owned” by Trinity Menlo Park are, as a legal matter, held in trust for the Diocese of California. The Diocese is the legal owner of bank accounts, real estate, and everything else that Trinity “owns.”

When funds were taken from Trinity, then, they were as a legal matter actually taken from the Diocese. The injured party in this case is thus the Diocese; it is not “us.” That is why the Diocese must be involved.

What has Matthew said?

The Diocese’s “Title IV” process prohibits Matthew from communicating to us; we are requested not to reach out to him by any means (including social media). I recently thought to consult local news media. An April 19th article in the Mercury News includes these excerpts:

“This is a very painful time for me, and particularly for my family,” Dutton-Gillett said in a statement to this news organization. “I have a deep love for the Trinity community, and they for me, and I know that this is painful for them, as well. I regret that deeply.”

“The essence of the Christian faith is repentance and reconciliation with reparation,” Dutton-Gillett said in the statement. “It is my profound hope that we will find a way to continue our journey together in a way that embodies Christ’s forgiveness and healing, finding our way back to a place of mutual trust.”

Jail Ministry

I’ll confess here to one of my many blind spots. Until a recent meeting of Trinity’s jail ministry team, the question of jail time had not occurred to me. Or if it did, I guess I suppressed the thought because I like Matthew and worry about his future and his family.

In that jail team meeting, a team member commented that as we try to serve jail inmates, some of whom may be there unjustly, it made no sense that a white male with connections is still at large even though he has admitted guilt; there is no doubt that he stole some $125,000. This was of course a criminal act (or a sequence of criminal acts).

This team member is withdrawing from the jail team for a time, and possibly also from Trinity.

The above comments shocked me, not because I disagreed, but because, as I mentioned above, the question of criminal prosecution had somehow not occurred to me at all. It put me in mind of the Roman Catholic Church’s scandal exposed by the Boston Globe’s Spotlight team—at least as depicted in the eponymous film. What stood out for me from it was the comment from so many parishioners that they didn’t want to get the Father in trouble.

I remember feeling shocked to hear parents say that, and this instance is hardly as egregious, but I can now completely sympathize with the feelings of fondness and respect for a teacher/counselor figure.