THE GOODs LIFE

In the "old days" (and I mean since Aristotle and his Ethics) kids grew up thinking and wondering about how to live a "good life".  Apparently, everyone only gets one life and since it seems rather a waste to lay down in the end and say, "Well, that was a really rotten life!" and so we might ask: what can be done to have a good one?  That was the kind of question people used to talk about.

Lately (and I mean in the last 70 years or so) it seems everyone has finally agreed on the answer.  The consensus is so complete that almost everyone has entirely stopped asking the question, "How do you live a good life?" because there is no reason to talk about a question that everyone already knows the answer to.  It just isn't all that interesting anymore since everyone agrees on what the "good life" is and how to attain it.

Just ask yourself, "What is the one thing I need to have an awesome life?"

Your answer is probably something like, "Win the lottery!"  Of course, it isn't so much the money you'd be excited about, though for some people, the image of laying on piles of $100 bills as big as a mattress would be downright thrilling.  What you want to win the lottery for is the "stuff" you could get.  It would change your life for the better, wouldn't it?  There's no question!  Of course it would!

If we all know money can buy you the good life, then there's really nothing more to discuss about what the good life actually is or how one can go about living it.  The more important thing is to get busy making some money.

If the question of "How do I live a good life?" has the answer: "Buy it!" then we would talk about things like:

• Do you have a good job?
• What kind of phone do you have?
• How big is your house?
• What kind of car do you drive?
• What clothes do you wear?
• What school did you go to?

"How to help your child be successful" would be all about "How to help your kid get a good job" because, naturally, a better job is more money is more of the good life.

Now, we all would say we know that "money can't buy happiness" (or love for that matter) but when we think about what we actually spend ourselves on and how we measure each other, our actions tell a different story.  Our actions always betray our true beliefs.

The reason we don't talk about the good life is because we can no longer define "good" as a culture.  The word "good" is dangerous ground.  If there is "good" then there must be "bad" and now you're making some kind of moral statement and "Who are you to say your moral system is superior to mine?" becomes the immediate postmodern reaction.  

But that that leaves us with the best we can have is a "pleasureable life" and we're sold the marketing storyboard as the means to attain it.  We just need to put a few more dollars on our credit card and we can get that priceless moment that will truly make us happy and give us the good life, in the non-moral, un-philosophical, and rather un-satisfying sense.

We've given up pursuit of the "good life" for the "goods life".  But I don't think we got a very good deal.

The Alternative Kingdom

"I resolved to regard nothing in your midst except Jesus Christ and him crucified." 1 Cor 2:2

"From now on we disregard all common human distinctions between people, and even though we have known Christ in human terms, we no longer do so.  So if anyone is 'in Christ' they are a new type of creation, where the old categories drop away and the individual emerges in a new order." 2 Cor 5:16-17

The Kingdom of God is a new order where a person surrenders to God's economy, his "measuring system".  The scorecard is different.

All members of the Kingdom are rescuees, smoking equally of the fires of hell.  Once condemned by our mutinous actions against the True King, now all surrenderees are beloved and blessed and related as one family.  Once serving only themselves, now Kingdom citizens are united together for service to bring the King God glory by rescuing still more lowly, condemned trespassers.

The rich and powerful, religious and smart -- all are welcome but few come.  Their labels and advantages prove too much to overcome -- their place in the fortresses of the shadowlands is too secure.  We look past the pecking order and are not impressed by the attainments of the glittering images they raise up -- no power or glory do they wield in our New Country.  In the Kingdom of God, a homeless man is the saviour of the world!  Those considered as nothing -- "white trash", and everything else -- these find "eternity present" standing open before them.  "The meek inherit the earth" -- because it is they who would find it gain to abandon all to enter the Kingdom.

The religious types often stand in their way, dividing doctrine and law.  Or worse these days: offering a toxic cocktail called "Consumer-God". "'Consumer-God' will bless you with prosperity and give you more of "The Good Life" for the low price of only 10%!" No wonder "The Kingdom of God has suffered violence and the violent take it by force": it is from the likes of these it must be wrested!

We cannot admire their degrees and fine sounding arguments.  We cannot seek their approval or measure anything by their standards.  The Kingdom measures according to Christ: What have you done with the carpenter from Nazareth?  Look to the ones who are hungry and needy--trying to keep their dignity in a world where they score poorly by the measures we once used.

Instead, now, we know the Kingdom of God is open to them -- they can live as princes and princesses, adopted by the King!  He fills us with joy, peace, patience, kindness, goodness, faithfulness, self-control.  New Life! A set-free life.  But only available by crucifixion -- our lives -- the old ones -- die alongside Christ.  Our old letters of recommendation are gone.  The old amassments of wealth -- gone.  We abandon them all for a new currency.  Now we traffic in Joy.

When our shiny eyes open on the world blazing with new life, we see things clear.  The pushing and jostling is no longer for us.  The pleasures and sensualities are empty.  The goals and attainments we once gave ourselves to, that looked so worthy, have become unrecognizable -- their delight drained dry.

A new lamp is lit in our heart, burning from the inside.  The Spirit of the Living God, having given us new eyes to see.  Now we can love our neighbor and be perfect as the energy He imparts to live His Kingdom Dream flows into our lives.  We look on those poor and broken no longer with pity and angst but with compassion, knowing they are closer to the kingdom for it belongs to them and all who will reach out their hands for the true freedom offered by the Messiah.  We go forth now into the world but living in the Kingdom of God.  Now we are on mission, looking for the lowliest that we might lift their eyes to the heavens.  We: beggars who know where the bread is.  And so we share.

Statistics functions in Access 2010

I don't know why, but there are quite a number of statistics functions that are in Microsoft Excel that are not included in Microsoft Access. Some of these are CONFIDENCE.T, SKEW, KURT, MEDIAN, MODE, etc. I found two options to get use these functions in Access 2010.

Option 1: Add a module and create some domain functions

This is the most attractive to me because it is fast and doesn't require using the external Excel worksheet object. Patrick G. Matthews posted excellent instructions and code here: http://www.experts-exchange.com/Microsoft/Development/MS_Access/A_2529-Median-Mode-Skewness-and-Kurtosis-in-MS-Access.html.

After creating my module and pasting in his source code, I created a query:

SELECT DMode("length","Numbers") as Mode;

This gives me the MODE of the column "length" in the table "Numbers". You can pass along a where clause as necessary.

Option 2: Call out to the Excel worksheet object.

Unfortunately, I couldn't find any snazzy VBA code from Patrick to give me the CONFIDENCE.T function for the excel worksheet I was translating for an Access report. I did, however, find that I could write a function like this:

Function fConfidence(a_alpha As Double, a_count As Long, a_stdev As Double)

    Dim objExcel As Object
    
    Set objExcel = CreateObject("Excel.Application")
    objExcel.Visible = False

    fConfidence = objExcel.WorksheetFunction.CONFIDENCE_T(a_alpha, a_stdev, a_count)
    
    Set objExcel = Nothing
    

End Function

This worked fine once I realized that I needed to call "CONFIDENCE_T" and not "CONFIDENCE.T" (the error I was getting said that the function didn't have the right number of parameters. Not very helpful). Thanks to http://msdn.microsoft.com/en-us/library/office/ff838173.aspx I found the name difference.

Now I can call a query to get the various statistics information I need for the report:

SELECT DMedian("length","Numbers") AS Median, DAvg("length","Numbers") AS Average,
 DKurtosis("length","Numbers") AS Kurtosis, DSkewness("length","Numbers") AS Skewness,
 DMode("length","Numbers") AS Mode, DMax("length","Numbers") AS [Max], DMin("length","Numbers") AS [Min],
 DStDev("length","Numbers") AS StdDev, DCount("length","Numbers") AS [Count], StdDev/Sqr(Count) AS StdError,
 DSum("length","Numbers") AS [Sum], Max-Min AS Range, DVar("length","Numbers") AS SampleVariance,
 fConfidence(0.05, Count, StdDev) As ConfidenceLevel

Handy!