---
blogpost: true
date: August 16, 2021
location: Milwaukee
category: Personal Pieces
---

# Entry Points #

I remember when people used paper road maps. Most gas stations stocked
them. They were free for the asking. After all, gas stations were the
places you most frequently asked for directions. No GPS was available.
Satellites orbiting Earth were just starting to be a thing.

Paper maps were typically kept in*map* pockets built into cars--one
for the driver and one for the front seat passenger. They
were most often kept on the passenger side. After all, you couldn't
read the map and drive at the same time though I remember someone
driving with the map spread across the steering wheel.

The passenger reached down, grabbed a map, hoping they got the right
one the first time. The next thing to do was open it. They were large
so there was always much unfolding with crackling sounds. Then the map had to be turned
right side up.

This is important for my story here. Some people could look at a map
from any perspective and get their bearings, but most people needed to
have the map with *north* at the top (up north) and *south* at the
bottom (down south). Then they had to use the key printed on the side
to locate a town. This town might be where you were going or it might
be the town where you were. Colored lines showed the roads. There were
different colors for the different kinds of roads. 

One day my grandmother was reading the map for my mother. I remember
her saying something like, "Well, I really can't tell you which road
to take because there are a bunch of them coming together in one place
and I can't figure it out." My mother responded, "That's what I need
you to do. The road signs come up too quickly for me to read them and
make the right decision where to turn."

An amusing memory. One way or another, they figured it out. Then
Gram had to figure out how to refold the map and fit it back into the
map pocket.

The colorful maps of my childhood pointed the way into the twists and
turns of the eastern highway system. For each new system I have
encountered since, I have wished for such a map with a helpful key on
the side to locate myself. They can be hard to
find. The *for dummies* series or the *idiots guide to ...* are
attempts at creating these maps.

I remember sitting on the steps of a side door to my dorm one warm
spring Saturday with a Braille volume of the Revised Standard Version
of the Bible. The particular volume was Luke-John. I was reading Luke
7, the story about the Roman centurion and Jesus.

So here I was, trying to understand this story, and I couldn't. "What
is wrong?" I said to myself. "I'm about to graduate from college and I
can't understand what is happening here in these few sentences."


My solution was to get a copy of *Today's English Version" which, I
was promised, would be easier to understand. It was.

Christian conversation uses a lot of hard-to-understand words:

  * grace
  * salvation
  * repentance


Even forgiveness can be confusing. No standard dictionary can help.


Over the past year, I have started to pay more attention
             to Zen Budhism. It has the same set of difficulties for
             me. The stories are strange. The language is eitherin  a
             foreign language I do not understand or they make no
             sense to me:

  * emptiness
  * no self

are two that spring immediately to mind.

More recently I have returned to the `Linux`
             command line and `python` packages, especially `Sphinx`
             and to a lesser extent `restructured text`. Where is the
             entry point for the documentation? How do I learn what
             all these terms mean and how to use them to do what I
             want?

Navigation, religionand programming: they all need entry
             points to bringclarity and understanding..