Metanoia: The Kingdom of Transformation

Osama, True Grit, and Thoughts on Justice

2011-05-03T12:12:00.006-05:00

As the world writes, tweets, posts, and comments on the killing of Osama Bin Laden, I am struck by the disparate responses in America, especially among Christians. To describe it succinctly (and albeit, reductionistically), there are two camps: (1) those who are celebrating the death of OBL proclaiming that justice has now been down, and (2) those who portray the American military operation as an act of imperialism and revenge. Both groups are vitriolic against the other: (1) critiques (2) for lacking compassion toward those who lost loved ones in 9/11. (2) critiques (1) for perpetuating the cycle of death, and thereby becoming implicated in the very things we hate in OBL.

Now, I think both positions have a point and more should be said of both groups. In (1), I am not including the half drunk college students who stormed the streets of D.C. the night of the announcement, as if OBL's death is akin to winning a basketball game (I hear students at WVU went out and burned coaches in the street when they received the news). Such kinds of celebrations are an embarrassment. Rather, (1) represents those who are trying to get closure from the devastating events that transpired nearly 10 years ago, who hope for a better world tomorrow, who firmly believe that good has triumphed over evil. And I think it is unfair to judge these people as celebrating the death of human life, rather, they are celebrating the possibility of peace, the possibility that their loved ones in the armed forces will soon return home, (for Muslim Americans) the possibility that they will no longer be viewed as a secret terrorist, and the possibility that the death of one will prevent the death and suffering of many others. For all of these reasons, celebration would seem appropriate, just as it was when WWII (or any war) was finally ended. There are plenty of prooftexts for this view: "When justice is done, it brings joy to the righteous but terror to evildoers" (Prov 21:15); “I will sing to the LORD, for he is highly exalted. Both horse and driver he has hurled into the sea" (Ex. 15:1); "Deliver me, my God! Strike all my enemies on the jaw; break the teeth of the wicked" (Ps. 3:7).

Group (2) takes the road of pacifism, calling up MLK who reminds us, "Hate cannot drive out hate; only love can do that. Hate multiplies hate, violence multiplies violence..." Thus, as JR Daniel Kirk describes it, by pursuing the death of OBL, we have implicated ourselves in an "economy of death." Thus, we as members of the Kingdom of God should not take part in such an economy. Brian McLaren writes similarly, "Joyfully celebrating the killing of a killer who joyfully celebrated killing carries an irony that I hope will not be lost on us. Are we learning anything, or simply spinning harder in the cycle of violence?" And once again, there are many prooftexts for this view: “Do not rejoice when your enemies fall, and do not let your heart be glad when they stumble” (Prov 24:17); "As I live, says the Lord GOD, I have no pleasure in the death of the wicked, but that the wicked turn from his way and live" (Eze. 33:11); "Do not repay anyone evil for evil....If your enemy is hungry, feed him; if he is thirsty, give him something to drink" (Rom. 12:17, 20).

Now, I'm not going to attempt to navigate between explaining which of these texts we should agree with, or how they should be synthesized, or offer a hermeneutic that allows for violent war on a political level but pacifism on the personal level. Indeed, I'm not even sure we should be trying to apply Bible verses in such a way to the political sphere, as it implies that the war against terrorism is a holy war, a war against good and evil wherein we have proof that God is on our side (And I'm especially skeptical I can say how God feels or thinks--talking about emotions and God is a whole problem in and of itself!). Further, such questions simply don't interest me because I feel that they simply amount to manipulating the verses to conform to whatever political view one already has to begin with. Rather, I'm drawn to the question: what exactly is the difference between justice and revenge? Before offering a too hasty distinction, I want to begin a few months ago where the question was first problematized for me.

Last December, I watched the Coen Brothers' version of True Grit (both versions are equally worth watching). If you haven't seen the movie (or read the book), the story is of a 14 year-old girl who is on a mission to find the man who killed her father out in the wild west. The local governing authorities have to many problems of their own to go after the murderer and takes matters into her own hands. Intent on having the man hanged, she hires a U.S. Marshall and Texas Ranger and goes after the perpetrator herself (and winds up shooting and killing him herself as he was attempting to attack her). Is this justice? Is it revenge? Is violence OK in the name of self-defense? Merriam-Webster specifically describes revenge as "taking matters into one's own hands," so this would seem to fit the bill, and yet if the local authorities were sitting on their hands, what else could be done? Or should the girl just forgiven the man and hoped he came clean?

With this in mind, I asked my question to one of my friends who reflected on Facebook that revenge, not justice, had been served in the case of OBL. He replied, "Honestly, I think our entire justice system is nothing but revenge in situations where victims aren't compensated and community isn't restored. So I don't know. What I do know is that nothing is fundamentally different and so that's not justice." We both agreed that it is hardly the case that had OBL been given a "trial by jury" then the whole event would have been fair. A trial would have been a joke, a circus, and if anything, an opportunity for him to spout more propaganda and truly go down as a martyr for his cause.

Now, I think this two-fold definition of justice is quite good. To add to it, Dictionary.com, uses "righteousness," "conformity to law," and bringing someone to court as useful definitions of justice. But it could also simply be "the administering of deserved punishment or reward." If we stick with just this simple definition, the actions of the U.S. military would seem to fit the bill. As for the two-fold definition, I think that certainly, those who are celebrating do so because they believe restoration is going to happen on some level: particularly US relations with the rest of the world may be strengthened or the neighboring communities in Afghanistan and Pakistan that have been devastated because of Al Qaeda and the war can achieve a newfound peace.

But we are still led to ask whether violence really does ultimately lead to true justice, as in, true peace. Further, the two-fold definition of justice, while good, creates a tremendous difficulty: the fact is that it is impossible for the victims of OBL's terror to be compensated. Indeed, whenever the crime is murder (or rape or torture or psychological damage or...), one could say that it is impossible to truly compensate the victims, and thus, justice is forever deferred.

As much as I am a pacifist and personally believe in the power of love and forgiveness, I find it hypocritical to criticize all acts of war, violence, military operations, etc (some pacifists even condemn the work of police forces), as I am the beneficiary of those who risk their lives, whether that be policemen in my neighborhood or soldiers on the other side of the world. Yes, we can certainly ask whether particular actions are warranted (i.e., Should we have gone into Iraq in the first place?), but to condemn all actions that are violent in nature (technically, acts of non-violence have an aspect of violence to them anyway) would require me to refuse to reap the benefits of a neighborhood, economy, or national heritage that is the result of said violence.

Perhaps it is the case that all violence and all death should be mourned--even the death of the most vile people on earth. But at the same time, we must conclude that there are situations where negotiations, diplomacy, and non-violent actions fail, where war is the only response left (but perhaps doesn't deserve to be called a "solution") in order to curb the deaths and violence that occur in our world. This was the view of those ordinary citizens who took action on Flight 93 nearly ten year ago. It was also the view of German Lutheran pastor, Dietrich Bonhoeffer, who took part in an assassination attempt of Adolf Hitler while simultaneously believing it was a sin to murder, especially one who was in a place of authority (the attempt, obviously, failed, and Bonhoeffer was later put to death by the Nazis). And I want to believe it is the view guiding NATO's current actions in Libya and the death of OBL.

All that said, perhaps the events that have conspired are the closest to justice we'll ever get. There is no pure altruism, no possible way for us to tease out a clear demarcation between an action done in the name of justice and one done in the name of revenge. Thus, in the end, a comment made by someone to Brian McLaren's seems to best summarize my thoughts: "Perhaps everyone is right. Perhaps the death of Osama Bin Laden has made this world more safe. I do not believe, however, that his death has made this world more beautiful."

Happy Birthday, Emerson

2011-03-14T20:58:00.001-05:00

Emerson, today you now longer have to say that you’re only one. You’re finally two. It has flown by so fast for your parents.

Emerson, I love you. You brighten up each day of my life. You are fun, you are cute, you energize me – and take the energy out of me! I love to share my day with you and share what happens in our days together, because they are always a surprise. You shock me. I never know what you’re going to come up with next, how you’ll respond to situation, what kind of face you’ll give from one day to the next. Today, you’ll learn something new, do something new, that you haven’t done before. You show me that this life that we have is a gift, a miracle.

You have two names that we gave you when you were born. You are named after two people, Emerson Jude.

Ralph Waldo Emerson was a poet, a philosopher, and a scholar much like your dad. He thought about the world, about God, about love, and all in all loved to be out in nature—much like yourself. He spent time thinking about how amazing and wonderful the world is.

While you may not yet be a philosopher yourself, you approach the world with a spirit of awe and wonder—and philosophy, as Aristotle says, begins in wonder. You have also reminded this philosopher (your dad) quite a number of philosophical truths. You have taught me about free will – about how I cannot control you, you are not a robot, and you did not come with an instruction manual. Like Kierkegaard’s faith, which is a leap in the dark, so is parenthood. You have taught me, as Chesterton said, that the best things in life should be done, even if badly. Parenting is one of those things. We are all amateurs, blindly learning what it means to be a parent and learning from our mistakes. Thank you for letting me make mistakes.

You have taught me what it means to live in the present (and frankly, I can’t live in the past because I still get enough sleep to remember it). You force me to put down my future, to stop worrying about what I need to get done tomorrow, stop living in the world of anxiety and success and let each day come and accept it as a gift. You enjoy the now, like a lily in the field, trusting God to clothe you – or just, running around naked and not worrying about clothing at all.

You are also named after Saint Jude, the patron saint of lost causes, the saint of the marginalized, the outcast, the forgotten. I want you to remember that we serve a God who loves the nobodies. He does not give up on anyone. May you be a person who loves the unlovable, who cares for those who are forgotten by our society.

Emerson I love you. We, your parents, are thankful for you, and we wish you a happy birthday.

Of Mice and Men and Mothballs

2011-02-24T19:08:00.001-05:00

This week, I may have just made the stupidest decision of my life.

By the end of this story, you might feel sorry for me. You will certainly laugh your ass off.

But the chaos started a couple weeks ago.

I was driving to work, freezing cold outside, defrost roaring inside, when suddenly to my shock, I literally watched a crack grow across my windshield. We actually already had a crack on our windshield, but it wasn’t in the line of sight, so it passed PA inspections (ugh… inspections). Now with two, probably not.

The next week, we called Comcast (twice) because it seemed like our cable was going out. It wasn’t – it was just our third TV to die in about four months. Then Amber scraped a pole in a parking garage with our brand new 2009 Civic (not the one with the cracked windshield). I once read Sheldon Vanauken’s A Severe Mercy, where he wrote that he and his wife always purposefully dented their new cars to quickly remind themselves about not to put their love in temporal items. Needless to say, I didn’t take it as well—but I couldn’t be too harsh given the two parking tickets I got in January…

Sunday night (this week) we were awoken around 2 am to the sound of a rodent (we thought it was a mouse but it could be a squirrel) chewing on something in the wall of our bedroom. I was disturbed for a second, and given that I’m deaf in one ear, was able to put my good ear on the pillow and pretend it wasn’t happening. Amber was not too happy about my apathetic response and promptly nudged me and asked what I was going to do about it. I didn’t do anything, hoping the little critter would just go away.

Monday, we dragged our gigantic tube TV across the floor to make our way down the basement stairs, into the car, and on to the TV recycling center. When we took it into the kitchen, it completely destroyed our already cracked threshold.

Monday night, I was awoken again to the sound of a critter, this time above our ceiling. Clearly, he was not going away and he was finding a way into our attic. Amber woke up, heard the noise, and started looking up what to do to get rid of mice in your attic. She spouted off a list of things I would have to go purchase at Home Depot (once I shoveled the four inches of fresh snow off the driveway) in the morning: De-Con, the plug-ins that supposedly send off a signal mice don’t like, and mothballs. Yes, according to many websites, mothballs will rid you of your pests.

Tuesday night, I went up into the attic and threw mothballs throughout the attic – often purposely throwing at the far reaches of the attic and even down the sides into our walls where the little critter sounds had come from. I had been a successfully good husband.

I should have done more homework first.

No less than thirty minutes later, the entire house smelled of mothballs. So, yes, many people use mothballs as a deterrent for mice because they hate the smell. It is also a deterrent for humans. The smell is only the half of it. Mothballs kill moths and larvae. How? By suffocation. They are gassed to death. According to other websites, mothballs can also kill humans.

At this point, Amber asked me how I placed the mothballs and told me I should go get them out of the attic. I explained to that that was an impossible feat. Mothballs are white and the size of marbles. Insulation is slightly pinkish but basically looks white, especially in poor lighting. This is a needle in a haystack kind of thing.

After refusing to respond to her determined request for two hours, at 11pm, I read up on mothballs on the internet and freaked out. They are very dangerous little things. As this one guy writes, they are evil. In fact, I discovered on the internet that there were other not so informed deter the mice homeowners who had made the same mistake as I. One threw four boxes of mothballs into his attic and finally he and his family moved into his mother’s house for a month. Thankfully, I thought, I had only thrown around ¾ of a box.

So, we set up an air mattress downstairs and over our silently sleeping two year-old—and I rigged our box fan into the vent in the attic to increase circulation. I slept on the couch. I did not sleep for long. At 4:30, I woke up and could not fall back asleep, fearing for our lives and running through the mind the fact that I had dumbly put my family in a gas trap.

At 6AM, I drove to Home Depot and bought a number of items to clear out the attic. Then, I emailed my boss to tell her I wouldn’t be in for work, and rounded it out with a quick email plea for help to some of my friends. Then, up I went into the attic from where I would not return for a long while.

There was no way to remove the mothballs without removing the insulation. This is not rolled insulation. It is blown-in, which means it is chopped up into a trillion pieces and looks like an enormous pillow fight explosion. This was, indeed, insulation I and a friend had installed a few months before (thanks Kylie).

From 7-9, I gathered insulation into trash bags by myself. Then my friend, Ben, came over and helped while Amber watched E and their two year-old (she and E are only four days apart) for an hour and a half until Amber had to leave for work (at which time, Ben would have to stop helping to watch E). I dropped Ben off, I went back to work.

At 11:45 I got a call from my friend Sean, who was free and coming over. Hallelujah. I stopped for a brief lunch. I tried heating up my food in the microwave, and it sparked like mad – as it did last night. Our microwave has also died.

I ate my homemade mac and cheese cold. It was gross. But it was homemade.

We worked, gathering insulation in trash bags and discovering moth balls as if they were buried gold nuggets until 4:30. 75 trash bags later, we had cleared out the attic (now I have a garage fully of trash bags), and we had 30 confirmed mothball sightings. I had been in my attic for nearly 10 hours, all day long thinking, “If this is the dumbest thing I do in my life, I should be proud… No I’ll never live this one down.” My body hurts.

We’ve also gathered up all the odor eliminator products we could find. I have a pile of charcoal and some lava rocks in the attic. Amber placed out some old containers of baking soda and fennel seed. And I must say, after leaving the windows open all day and doing all that we did, we have smelled a remarkable improvement. Now, we have a very smelly garage… But alas, there are still mothballs in our walls that we cannot get out so we’re not quite sure how well we solved the problem.

After all this, I had to go teach a college course from 6-8:30p.m. After cleaning up from the mess, and showering, fifteen minutes later, I met up with a babysitter who would watch E before Amber got home for just a hour. I then drove downtown and hit an onslaught of traffic due to a Pittsburgh Penguins game and had to park a mile away.

We slept again on an air mattress downstairs. I can’t remember the last time my body felt this sore. By Thursday morning, Amber was paranoid that she was getting sick from the smell—even though I taped up the door to the garage, the smell of mothballs knocked me over when I opened the door to the basement. I had planned to wait to move the trash bags of insulation to a friend’s shed—the very friend who helped me blow in the insulation in the first place!—until Saturday, but it couldn’t wait. I moved all the bags outside, and we opened the windows to our house for the rest of the day (it was 40 degrees today). After a few hours, Amber came home and said the house smelled fine, but once she turned on the heater the smell started to come back, albeit faintly.

So, as a precautionary measure, we are sleeping somewhere else tonight and staying away from the house for another day. Hopefully by the weekend this little trip through Purgatory will be over.

Lessons learned:
- The internet tells the truth, just not always the whole truth on the same webpage.
- Moth balls are a strong deterrent for many animals… and for people too.
- Always read the label.
- I have a new appreciation for the term, “fuming.”

P.S. – We still have a critter in our attic.

Emerson's Words

2010-10-31T10:48:00.002-05:00

So, we've been trying to tally up a list of all the words, ASL signs (largely thanks to "Signing Time" videos), and sounds Emerson uses to communicate with us now at 20 months, and here's what we came up with. Not that he's a genius or anything, but you can sure tell where his interests lie (balls, animals, and trucks!):

Spoken words:
Ball
Dog
Cat
Truck
Tow truck (“ta tuck”)
Tractor (“tac ta”)
Car
Yuck
Sock
Shoes (“shoooo”)
Hat
Momma
Dadda
Nite Nite
Baby (“dada,” not to be confused with Daddy…)
Duck
Shark
Cookie
Cheese
Banana (“nana”)
Juice (“joo”)
Hot
“Deck Dopter” (helicopter – we’ve only heard this one once)
“Ana” (his term for virtually everything that flies)
Please
One (“un”)
Two
Boot (“boop”)
Yes (“yah”)
No
Nose
Mouth (“Moum”)
Eye (“aah”)
All done
Bye bye (“nye nye” – he never says this to people… in fact, the only time he really says it is when we’re flushing stink bugs down the toilet!)
More

ASL (sign language):
Hug
Toothbrush
More / Help / Ball (they all look alike these days… depends on the context!)
Cold
Eat / Food
Milk
Drink
Apple
Cookie
Cheese
Cracker
Ice cream
Coat
Hat
Bath
Mom
Dad
Grandma
Book
Fish
Bird
Alligator/Crocodile
Tiger
Elephant
Bear
Spider
Octopus
Hippopotamus
Rhinocerous
Giraffe
Zebra
Lobster/Crab
Camel
Starfish
Grumpy (he learned this from pointing out this dog in a Clifford book that was always angry!)
Please
Hurt
Sorry (we’re starting to use this one quite a bit!)
Sleep
Cell Phone (holds palm up to his ear)
Work
Airplane
Train
All done
Baseball
Basketball

Sounds:
Grr (bear)
Rarr (lion, tiger, and quite a few others)
Wadda Wadda Wadda (penguin)
Eee Eee (monkey)
Arf Arf! (dog)
Hamph (crocodile)
Hop! (frog)
Arr Arr (sea lion)
Twee twee (bird)
Caw Caw (parrot)
Baaa (Sheep/goat)
Haa haa (Horse – he literally fake laughs)
Mmmmm (cow)
Buck buck (chicken)
Doo Doo! (rooster)
Snort (pig – he makes a snorting sound and wrinkles his nose)
Eww (Skunk – he also plugs his nose with his fingers and wrinkles his face, which is the same thing he does if he has a dirty diaper)
Ssss (snake)
Whoo (owl)
Hhhmmmm (elephant)
Pppfff (human fart)
WhoOOO (Fire truck)
Choo Choo (train)

Emerson Ball Skills

2010-10-26T19:03:00.002-05:00

So Emerson has really been showing off his ball throwing skills lately. Check out his great form (and hilarious leg kick) in the following videos:

[If the video doesn't come up, go to this link]

[Again, if the video doesn't come up go to this link]

Pumpkin Patch

2010-10-21T18:18:00.005-05:00

Amber's mom was in town this past week, and we took Emerson to the pumpkin patch. Here's a comparison with last year. I can't believe this is the same kid!

And a comparison of Halloween costumes:

France yada yada

2010-08-07T19:38:00.004-05:00

After a brief interlude from posting about our France trip, I've finally made the time to finish up sharing the highlights of our trip. This and one more post should do it!

Day 7
Today is Sunday, and after the exhausting day we had yesterday, we decide to stay close to the hotel. We start off the day with a trip to Isle Sur La Sorgue’s locally famous market—on Sunday practically the entire town is overrun with street vendors selling everything from spices to fruits to dresses to paintings. Amber bought a summer dress, along with our hummus, some amazing peaches, and a couple cold drinks (a rarity in France, especially if you don’t want to pay double the price).

After our time in the market, we went back to the room and swam in the hotel pool, did some laundry, took a nap, and entertained ourselves by watching Emerson run around the room.

In the evening, its back out on the town to get a good dinner (as long as Emerson can make it through the meal without crashing…). Since most places don’t open until 7:30 (the French eat late!), we went to the park and started dinner off with an ice cream cone :). And once again, Emerson was entertaining the locals, stole an older kids soccer ball, and all and all made us laugh out loud on a regular basis.

For dinner, we had a bottle of rosé wine (which is popular in the Provence region), along with our meals: mine was melon and slices of meat for my entrée and filet mignon and French fries for the plat, while Amber had escargot and salmon. Emerson was so thirsty when we first sat down that he immediately pointed at my glass of wine and was asking for it. Me thinking he wouldn't like it after the initial sip, let him try it only to have him start chugging it down! Sad to say, Emerson just couldn’t sit still and was really tired, so one of us wound up walking around town with him while the other ate dinner.

Day 8
This morning, we checked out of our hotel and are slated to drive a rental car to Les Baux in the evening. Before getting the car (let’s not even talk about how much it cost to have it for just one day!!!), we walked around Avignon to see the famous sites—the Palace of the Popes and St Benezet Bridge most of all. If you look at some of our photos from Avignon, you’ll see tons of posters hung up everywhere. That’s because we were in Avignon during the time of their famous theatre festival they’ve been having for over sixty years that attracts an extra 100,000 people to the city.

In the rental car, after our sleep deprived son had finally fallen asleep and I had figured out how to get out of the city, we were off to the Dentelles de Montmirail mountain region (not without stopping in a little tiny town to ask for directions!) where the air is electricfied with the sound of cicadas (its so loud I thought something was wrong with our rental car) We visited some wineries that were in the middle of nowhere but well worth the trip. The little Chevy Spark (a car so small you won’t find in the States!) we rented had a rough time getting up the mountainside, but it was fun driving the 5-speed manual through the winding roads. The scenery was fantastic and the wine lovely (and cheap!), both of which reminded us of the Tuscany region in Italy.

Now, it was off to find Les Baux (again, I only had to stop and ask for directions once!), a little town on the top of a hill in the Alpilles mountains that was once a powerful defensive location in the middle ages (and long before then actually). There, we stayed in a little B&B and found a nice little (and quiet) restaurant to try out some more French cuisine. Nothing really notable to mention here but it was at this moment that it occurred to us that Emerson had lived off of little more than the inside of French baguettes for a week!

French Diaries pt. Deux

2010-07-17T21:07:00.003-05:00

Day 3
Had a good conversation with two other conference participants on the bus from Ireland and Hong Kong. Actually, today had fewer presentations so a lot of my time was spent chatting and networking(largely on behalf of the Duquesne Press where I work).

I often find myself uncomfortable at these things, as if being on the outside looking in. It's not that people are unfriendly (NALS is far better than SPEP), but more so that the people who have spent a long time and work on Levinas and making him a prominent thinker in continental philosophy in the US have been doing it for quite some time back when it was just a few of them, and therefore, are closely knit.It could of course have to do with the fact that they just don't have the time to give to every single person-especially not when these society meetings are almost like class reunions-not to mention that one does not gain any notoriety in academia until one has published a book.

Nevertheless I'm grateful for those young professors who are willing to associate with us grad students (that NALS doesn't separate the presentations helps lessen the rift but the gulf still persists).

Tonight, I had a wonderful French with nine other participants representing the US, Canada, Bulgaria, Switzerland, and the UK. A number of them knew French so I didn't really have to work to get my order. Regardless, around the table of good food and French wine-and a Spain victory over Germany being monitored inthe background-we conversed and shared our lives with one another. Actually, one of the individuals from Canada had very similar interests as myself, and, it turns out, had published an article that I had found immensely helpful a couple years back.

Day 4
Amber and Emerson get to Toulouse. The buses I plan to take end up taking longer than I planned so I got to the airport late. Amber is on the verge of tears-I'm late, she's spent the whole night on a plane with Emerson on her own, and she can't find her bag (thankfully we found it before we left). Given the fact that I knew how short Amber's layovers were, I'm just glad she made it on all the flights! Emerson actually slept some on the plane, but he's still in a complete daze. I think he's a bit surprised to see Dad in this strange, new place, given that he hasn't seen him in a few days (he cried when I got out of the car at the airport!).

We went straight from the airport to the train station and booked tickets to Carcassone - a well-maintained medieval city with magnificient walls (and was the set for Robin Hood:Prince of Thieves, which makes for two Costner sets I've visited this summer). After settling into our room at the Abbey (which was quite nice), I went on a hunt for diapers.... A rather long hunt. At least it provided Emerson a chance to take a nap. Afterward, it was out to the castle and one a amazing meal - mussels covered with a cream sauce, lamb (Amber got duck), and a half carafe of local red wine for about $50. I could learn to like this life! Emerson woke up in the stroller not long before we arrived at the restaurant, so he was full of energy. We were fortunate that another little boy about his age was also there (and there were very few people there when we first got there, as is often the case as American tourists eat so much earlier than the French!), so they were able to run around the outdoor dining area together.

French Diaries

2010-07-16T20:21:00.003-05:00

The last couple weeks, I was in Southern France, first for a conference presentation, and then for some vacation with the family. The next few posts will chronicle the highlights of our journey. Enjoy!

Day 1

Sunday afternoon (July 4th), I left for France (which quickly became Monday on the flight). I had two layovers at one hour a piece for my three flight to arrive in Toulouse at 10am and then figure out the public transportation in time to arrive at the university by 2:30 to present my paper. Needless to say, I had been nervous for several days about how close I was cutting it. Add to that, I didn't sleep for the entire flight so I was going about 27 hrs w/o sleep. Then, in Frankfurt I was getting panicky. In my short layover (thankfully our flight got in 20 min late) I had a long process before I could board the next plane. Once off the plane, I had to board a bus, wait for everyone else to board it, and then ride it to the terminal. Next was a bit of a line at passport control, which then forces you out of the security area even if you have another flight. Either way, I still had to get my ticket for the next flight since it was with Lufthansa and for some strange reason US airways (which I rode from Pgh to Charlotte) couldn't print out for me before I left home. After scrambling to find their ticket counter (which was completely electronic) I had to get the machine to finally read my passport before I could go back through security and find my gate. Surprisingly through all this I still got to the gate time to spare so I wandered to find an ATM and get some Euros. On this plane, I am surrounded by businessmen finalizing PowerPoint presentations for meetings and it seems like everyone here owns at least some kind of Apple product.

Once in Toulouse, I took a bus and then a subway to get to the Universitie. Once out of the subway and noticeably bewildered as to which way to go next, a nice elderly French woman led me to where I needed to go (actually all the French I have encountered thus far have been very kind which leads me to believe either belligerent French only live in Paris or they only appear when arrogant Americans show themselves). The paper went quite well (despite my lack of sleep!) and since then I've considered myself on vacation.

I finally went to my quarters for some rest - a dorm that oddly enough is quite far from the school - and well ... Let's say for 20 Euros a night I'm still not sure I got what I paid for! But I can manage no a/c, communal bathrooms, and morning construction right outside my window for a couple nights right?

After a shower and a brief respite it was back out for a special invitation for all the conference speakers for some amazing hors-d'oeuvre and (free!!) champagne with the mayor of Toulouse (who was just as young and reportedly just as dreadfully inexperienced as Pgh's Luke Ravenstahl) at the very beautiful town hall.

Finally, off to sleep.

Day 2
Today was not nearly as hectic. I slept off and on until 8:30 (2:30 Pgh time) and then went to the conference. There was not a whole lot I was interested in today and spent a bit of my time under a tree in the cool breeze reading a book.

After more conference proceedings and chats with other participants from numerous other countries, I went out for dinner with a couple professors from the communications dept at Duq (nice to have some friendly faces around) for my first French meal - and first legitimate meal since leaving Pgh. Oh wow. I ordered a vin rouge ordinaire (red house wine) that was quite tasty. The entree was a selection of meat cuts and sliced French bread (delicieux!), the plat a medium rare piece of steak topped with foie gras (and yes I understand there are a lot of ethical concerns surrounding this French delicacy... But it was soo good just to try it once!), and for dessert a nice offering of tiramisu. Magnifique!

After dinner I decided to head back (to type this report of course) to my room. Who knows why but my 10-trip subway ticket kept getting refused. So I was off to go ask a store clerk to break a 20 euro bill into change (the ticket machine doesn't take bills and wouldn't accept my credit card) - another chance to practice my French. With my handy Rick Steves phrase book, I'm off. "Je voudrais des pieces." said very poorly, the guy says, "only if I have enough." He opens his cash drawer and says he cannot help me. Next try: "Parlez-vous anglais?" A classic response: "No I speak no English." Okay new tactic: "Vous pouvez casser ca? Je voudrais dix billet et des pieces." Success and then my old ticket suddenly decides to work again. Well at least it was good practice!

My How Things Change...and Remain the Same

2010-06-03T20:59:00.005-05:00

A lot can happen in a year

But the Cubs still continue to lose...

Well, at least I finally got a haircut.

Field of Dreams

2010-05-31T13:21:00.003-05:00

Yesterday, we went up to Dyersville, IA with Amber's parents to visit the Field of Dreams movie site. I gotta admit, I was happier than a kid in a candy store and even got a little sentimental. Not that I'm a big Kevin Costner fan (who is?), but it's one of my all-time favorite movies of my all-time favorite sport. So, I was ecstatic to get out there and play some ball. On the downside, the corn wasn't very tall at this time of year. Nevertheless, with my Sandberg jersy on, I guess it was appropriate that I played some second base (if the Iowa Cubs had been playing home games this weekend, we would've been in Des Moines instead of Dyersville!), and got a hit as well. Man, I miss baseball...

In Memoriam: Mark Zonneveld

2010-05-26T07:47:00.002-05:00

This past weekend, I had the honor of officiating the funeral of a high school friend of mine. In addition to a couple songs and a few wonderful testimonials regarding Mark's life by family members of friends, I was privileged to speak on behalf of Mark and his family, to share some of my own remembrances of Mark, and invite the packed chapel hall to invite God into their suffering. It would be an understatement to say that it was a memorable event--anytime one is involved in a funeral, it is. The bond created between me and Mark's extended family as a result of sharing this day goes beyond words, and as much as the family was so happy to have me there, I am truly grateful to have been asked to perform the service and be a part of such a special (though bittersweet) day.

I began the service with a reading of Psalm 139:1-3, 13-18 (as requested by one of Mark's uncles) and then prayed:

Father God, we are gathered here today, wishing it were under better circumstances, but here to celebrate the life of Mark Zonneveld nonetheless. We lift our eyes up to you, for our help comes from the Maker of heaven and earth. You who neither slumber nor sleeps, look on us with favor today. Help us feel the string of death and be reminded that there is something terribly wrong with this picture. Assure us that it is OK to mourn for our friend and even that it’s OK to smile, and perhaps even laugh, as we remember him. In your Son’s name, Amen.

After a number of people shared memories about Mark and thoughts regarding his death, I read some testimonials of people who could not be at the funeral. Then I spoke:

I want to being by saying that it's an honor and privilege to stand here today and speak on behalf of the Zonneveld family. Mark and I were friends from high school. And though our contact with each other became periodic over the years as we went off to college, moved, and got jobs, he's one of only a handful of individuals in our graduating class I have kept in touch with.

We met on the first day of our freshman year in German class (and since I know there are a number of people in the audience who are fluent in German, I ask that you please not test my knowledge!). I sat down in the back of the room next to an extremely tall (well, compared to me!) but friendly guy. Mark was, as I quickly found out, extremely smart. I found out too that he could be quite stubborn, and when he was, he knew how to be a really good pain in the ass. But he was also kind, sympathetic, and was particularly sensitive to people who had physical restrictions or who didn't quite fit in as a result of his own struggles with epilepsy.

I’m sure we looked like an odd couple given he was literally twice my size, but we hit it off quite well, and for three years we saw each other every day in German class. I’d say we sat right next to each other all those semesters, but if I remember correctly, we got split up at some point because we talked too much in class.

Mark loved trying new things and having fun, and for him it didn’t require having exceptional skill at something to have fun at it. It was Mark who convinced me we should sing some karaoke while we were at the Noah's Ark water park the summer Mark asked me to go along with his family's annual vacation to the Wisconsin Dells. There were were, two high school kids hanging out with a bunch of people much older than us drinking Budweisers. Mark appropriately sang the Beach Boys song, “Fun, Fun, Fun,” while I, not knowing many songs on their playlist, I must embarrassingly admit, sang Garth Brooks's “The Dance.”

Then, there was the spring break just the two of us took a road trip up to Racine, Wisconsin to meet up with some friends of mine. I drove while Mark gladly counted the changes for the tolls around Chicago, and he always swore he counted corectly when the 50 pennies we threw in one toll never made the light turn green. We drove through anyways, but during the entire trip I wondered if cops would show up behind me.

And there was the day, after a fight with his mom and dad, Mark ran out of the house and took a long road trip of his own—the fight had to do with his driving privileges—all the way to the place he used to live in Illinois. On the way back, Mark pit stopped at my house, knowing it was a safe place to talk out loud and vent his frustrations. Of course, he knew at some pont he’d have to return hom and face the warranted disciplinary measures. But for now, he just need a safe place to talk and he knew I wouldn’t rat him out to his parents. We took our anger out on a bunch of pile of wood that needed to be chopped into firewood.

Perhaps my most embarrassing memory with the Zonnevelds was the morning of December 28th, 2003. Why do I know the exact day? Because that was the morning after my wedding night and we just happened to run into each other at the breakfast bar at the Homewood Suites in Lafayette! I assume the Zonnevelds were in town to see people over the holidays but I was too focused in sheepishly hightailing it to the door to remember our conversation!

Over the years, Mark and I often had conversations about God, about the Bible, life, and death. He was brave enough to go with me to church and a myriad of youth group functions. In fact, one summer he went to church camp with me and other kids from my church. One day that week, he and I and his counselor sat down to chat after a chapel service and Mark decided he wanted to commit his life to be a follower of Jesus. One could say that was a decision made at an emotional moment or amidst the pressure of peers and authority figures, but it was also a decision made after nearly four years of conversations Mark and I on the subject.

Now, I do not want to paint a rose-colored picture of religion, as if praying a prayer makes all of one's cares just pass away. Quite the contrary, Mark’s relationship with God was a very difficult relationship—one of struggle—as it was intricately tied to his own struggles in life. Mark wondered why God made him the way he did, why he had to have embarrassing seizures in front of classmates, why he had been made to feel so childish because he wasn’t allowed to do something as minimal as drive a car.

As a result, over the years, long after that church camp decision, one could say that Mark distanced himself from God, wondered if God was even worth believing. I prefer to say that Mark's faith was honest, open, and raw. Mark was human—which is all God asks of us, to be truly human—and he was courageous enough to ask the difficult questions that many of us are afraid to ask. He struggled physically and emotionally in ways that many of us will never have to struggle. And perhaps as a result, his faith—even when it seemed like there was none at all—was more real than the majority of what we call reality in our everyday lives. As one thinker [Thomas Merton] has said, “God may be most present to us when he is absent than when he is present.”

This story may not resemble the Mark you remember—you may not have had such conversations with him. But I think it is an important part of his story and a part that I want to remember. But it is important for me because I sympathize with Mark’s story because I too have often quiestioned God, have called into question my particular religious upbringing, and remain skeptical about many of the claims people often make in the name of God or in the name of religion. But I also resonate with Marks’ struggle with god because I believe it more accurately portrays what this journey of life is all about. Far from those who reduce religion to a crutch for the weak or those who reduce it to a three-step self-help program to obtain personal happiness, the narratives we find in the Bible depict people engaged in struggle and raw honesty. They asked the tough questions. For instance, King David, who penned the words we read earlier, which beautifully depicts how we are “fearfully and wonderfull made” ends this prayer with an honest desire that his enemies would be destroyed. That’s an honest cry from a human who knows there is something wrong with the world.

But what I want to say to you today is that the God I believe in—the God Mark believed in—suffers with those who suffer and weeps with those who weep. As we mourn today, God mourns. And today as we struggle with the all-too-pugent reality of death, God beckons us to seek him who promises to be close to use, who promises that he rewards those who seek him. He asks us to take from him the grace we need to get through this day, and the next day—which may be even harder than today—and the next. And he invites you to start up a conversation with him, even if that conversation starts with, “God, I’m not even sure I believe in you.” God wants you to invite him into your struggles, into your life, to be willing to ask the difficult questions.

I want to end with a benediction. You may recognize it but it is a combination of a couple passages from Scripture. This is may prayer for all of you, but especially for the Zonneveld family:

May the Lord bless you and keep you;
May the Lord make his face shine upon you and be gracious to you.
May the Lord turn his face toward you and give you peace.
And may those who sow in tears reap songs of joy.

We left the chapel listening to "Learn to Laugh," a song I introduced to Mark and afterward became his favorite. It might not have fit the mood, but it certainly was fitting for Mark. For those who attended the service, packets of Mark's favorite Jelly Belly's were available along with packets of sunflower seeds, which were to be planted and once reaching to their full height, would remind people of Mark. Finally, people were able to write messages to Mark on helium balloons which were then let go outside to make their way up into the heavens. I was struck with the powerful symbolism--not of sending a message to Mark up in heaven, but of the significance of the event for the person letting go of the balloon (funerals are always for the living). At this final moment, we have to let go of the one we love, who has gone on ahead, and move forward with our lives.

Fevers, Flights, and a Funeral

2010-05-24T14:25:00.002-05:00

Simply put, this past week was absolutely insane. Actually, it began late last week when Emerson had a temp of 102.5 on Thursday night. He was obviously not feeling well since he refused to eat anything (nothing for nearly three days!) and did not sleep well. Friday, I stayed home to monitor him and make sure things didn't get any worse, but after two full days of watching a sick kid on my own I was about to jump off our balcony. Thankfully, life was made a bit simpler by ordering pizza for dinner. But of course, fevers of our own kindly followed suit, and I spent the first couple days of the work week having chills, hot flashes, dizzy spells, and the worst sore throat I can remember since high school.

Then on Monday afternoon, I received a phone call that an old high school friend had died over the weekend. Mark struggled with epilepsy throughout his life, and it appears he suffered a massive seizure in his sleep on Sunday night. After the teary phone call, I asked Andrea, his sister, to keep me posted on the details and then made some phone calls of my own to notify some other friends of the news.

Tuesday, I took Emerson to the doctor just to make sure that whatever he had and gave to me wasn't strep (thankfully, we both tested negative). Then that night, Andrea called back to ask if I could officiate the entire funeral ceremony (I've spoken at two funerals before but never organized the entire thing). The Zonnevelds had never been connected with a church and felt really uncomfortable with a complete stranger involved with the service, so they asked me to officiate since I had been such a spiritual influence in Mark's life. I gladly accepted and quickly (a little too quickly it seems) bought tickets for a flight to Atlanta on Saturday morning.

On Wednesday, I was still really sick, but in addition to work, an unusually busy work schedule for Amber (we swapped Emerson in the middle of the day and I took him home on the bus), and a number of other to-do things that had to get done (the grass still needs mowed!), I now had to begin gathering thoughts on a eulogy. Thursday, I watched Emerson, worked on details for our summer vacation, and discussed details for the funeral with Andrea and her Uncle Rob. Things were finally starting to shape up. Then off to the salon to get my first really short haircut in 3 years.

On Friday night, I finished my draft on my actual message and figured I'd have to make time on the flight to give thought to my opening prayer and benediction. After Emerson went to bed, I went to print off my flight ticket to discover that somehow I managed to book a flight not for the weekend but for March 2011 (@*%#!!!!). Seriously, I'm not sure how that happened, but I immediately called Delta to see if I could get my flight switched. The guy told me I should call Expedia first (since I bought my tix through them), and then explained that if I were to switch my flight to the times I wanted it would cost about $400 more than the $300 I had already shelled out, and if I were to take one flight later it would still cost me $300 more. So, I called Expedia and after being on hold for a very long time, they told me I could get a flight for Saturday morning (not the flight I wanted but good enough) for an extra $129. So, I gave them my credit card number, received my new itinerary from Expedia, and went off to bed.

Saturday morning, I got up at 5:30AM, and I knew something was fishy when I couldn't print off my e-ticket (I had not been given a Delta confirmation code...). I went to the airport with my new Expedia itinerary (for a flight supposed to leave at 7:50), and the lady at the Delta desk tells me I'm not in their system and they only have a record that I inquired into the flight with the Delta guy from last night. Baffled as I was, I show the supervisor my receipt from Expedia, and after 10-15 minutes of going around, the supervisor says, "Well the flight has plenty of seats--but its now delayed for 9:15--but you didn't pay for this ticket." I insist that I gave the man from Expedia my credit card and paid extra to get my flights changed. The Supervisor finally prints off a ticket that has bold letters written on it: TICKET COUPON REQUIRED and attaches what obviously is whatever a ticket coupon is (I assume details regarding my switched flights??) and tells me that I did not pay for this ticket.

Upon arriving in Atlanta around 11:15 (at least the delay gave me good time to work on the funeral details!), I'm greeted with an "urgent" cell phone message from a supervisor at Expedia detailing to me that whatever the guy did for me the night before in transferring my tickets was not allowed since I had already been issued a ticket (which doesn't make sense since I didn't get my ticket until I got to the airport) and that I would have to work out my ticket situation with someone at the Delta counter at the airport. In short, I had no idea if I had a ticket to get home. Of course, I was happy enough that I had made it down there on time!

At this point, my first priority is to be there for the family and then to perform a funeral. When I got to Mark's parents' house, they greeted me with great bear hugs and tears. It is a bittersweet moment to mourn the loss of a friend, yet at the same time, feel so honored that people are so appreciative of your mere presence (It also changes the way you hug your own child after you hug the father of the person you're doing a funeral for). There were also relatives who had flown in from Germany, Holland, and China, and old friends from Illinois, all who welcomed me and treated me as part of the family (and while I was there it was not at all uncommon for table conversation to move seamlessly from English to Dutch to German (amazing!)). It was such a rich and profound moment--we were on holy ground--and it had never been more real to me that my calling right now was to be the body of Jesus to these people simply by being there, offering a sympathetic touch, a kind word, and a mournful tear.

The funeral was just wonderful [more on that in another post as this one is already quite long!], and I was in awe of how many people were there. Aside from family and close friends, dozens of coworkers of Mark attended as well as scores of parents and children who had been in one of Carla's (Mark's mom) elementary school classes. It truly was a diverse mix of people, and yet as various members of Mark's family shared memories and I spoke, an amazing sense of camaraderie and unity of spirit could be sensed. These people had gathered to remember a person they loved and to show their love to a hurting family. Everyone afterward was truly appreciative of what I had said, and I was just thankful to be a part of this special moment, despite how unfortunate it was.

I didn't get around to calling Expedia again until around 6PM (and checked one-way flights on someone's IPhone if it came down to just getting an altogether new itinerary to get home). Still at this point, the Expedia website and their phone tree are reading my itinerary as if my flight tomorrow is a "go." Then, the lady from Expedia proceeds to also read through my itinerary but explains that I must work out my ticket with the Delta counter. Since her explanation still did not tell me whether or not I actually still had a ticket for Sunday morning, I finally said, "So are you telling me that I have a confirmed ticket for tomorrow morning or not." After being on hold for a good while (she obviously needed to confer with her supervisor!), I was given a Delta confirmation of my flight itinerary.

So, by this point, I'm happy that at least I'm in Delta's system which is more than I could say the flight before. Then, I get an email from Delta confirming my flight and they have me on a different flight than what Expedia had told me ten minutes before. I went with Delta's information, printed off all the material from their website that showed I had a flight with them, and headed off to the airport Sunday morning. I can tell you I was more nervous going up to the Delta ticket counter than I was preaching at the funeral! Thankfully, I got my ticket, again with big words: TICKET COUPON REQUIRED. But the lady didn't staple anything onto my ticket. Through security and on to the gate, and let's just see what happens. The guy scanning tickets at the gate asked, me if I had a ticket coupon, and I tell him, "This is all the lady gave me." He shakes his head and types on half a dozen different windows on his computer screen and out comes an identical ticket with no big words typed on it. Finally, home free. And despite the fiasco, at least I got a couple extra packages of Delta's tasty gingerbread cookies from the nice flight hostess!

Communicating With a One Year-Old

2010-05-09T19:35:00.007-05:00

We've been absolutely amazed at how much Emerson is really developing an understanding of communication/language over the past couple months. No doubt, for months now he has found ways to tell us what he wants by fussing and staring at an object (when he's hungry or thirsty), reaching out for us (when he wants to be held), squirming (when he wants down), having a trantrum or pushing on us (when he wants our attention or wants to wake us up. If we're at the computer, he'll even turn our swivel chair!), or making one of his many facial expressions (to show he's frustrated, upset, got hurt, etc).

No however, its really clear he understands a lot of the things we are saying and has figured out that the use of words and signs is a real productive way to tell us what he wants too. Over the past few weeks, I can't remember how many times, I've pointed at something and said, "Can you bring ___ to Daddy?" and he does it. One of the blessings of this kind of communication is that he becomes a little helper and (at least a little) less of a deterrent when doing a chore. For instance, he loves it when I sweep the floor, and now he's been assigned to carry the dustpan from room to room and hand it to me when I'm ready. But he still loves to walk right through my pile of dirt too :).

There seem to be so many terms he's grasping that there's no way I could list them all. He clearly knows what shoes are and will sometimes even go pick his up and bring them to you when he knows its time to go. He knows what "outside" means, or at least, he knows it means doing one of the things he absolutely loves to do (and these days, we can rarely get him back in without him screaming bloody murder!). On the other hand, "Night-night" is one of the words he dreads (I can hear him yelling upstairs as I type!). And when I'm pretty sure he just did his business in his diaper, I ask, "Emerson did you stinky?"--typically, when the answer's yes, he'll contort his face and wrinkle his nose (although, this morning he had a "guilty as charged" look and just laughed at me).

As for the sign language he's finally managed to incorporate, he now signs "more," "please" (this is one's quite an accomplishment since before when we'd ask him to say please, he would just get even madder, as if to say, "You know what I want, now just give it to me!! Sometimes, its really cute when he says please, and he signs it with both hands, as if to say, "Yes!!! I'll do anything for a saltine cracker!"), "milk," "ball" (which looks a lot like "more"), "hat," "eat," "finish" (all done), and of all things, "toothbrush" (one of our babysitters got him a book with a number of signs, and somehow this one caught on when others didn't!). He signs toothbrush now every morning when we're in the bathroom, so we finally gave him one of his own (without any paste, of course) and he clearly knows how to use it (and it doubles as a teether!).

With regard to words he now uses, or at least is trying to imitate, he often says "up," which can mean that he wants up onto the bed or couch, wants us to wake up and get out of bed to play, wants out of his highchair, wants picked up, or even that he wants to go downstairs. He learned "hop" from a kids video and even bounces up and down, but it often comes out as "bop." "Banana," which is one of his favorite foods is "ana." "Outside" sounds like "ow eye." "Hobbes" (his stuffed lion) is "opf." "Hat" is "at." From time to time, he even says "irt" (dirt), "og" (dog), and "ock" (rock) when we're outside and pointing out different things we see. Additionally, "mmmm" has become a regular when he takes a bite of something (even before he's had a chance to taste it!) , and he says "ahh" after he's had (refreshing) drink of water (and if you haven't seen this video, go to my facebook page or perhaps i'll have to post it here too). Then, of course, there are the many other "words" he uses when he wants us to do something, but we haven't been able to decipher those yet. And then there's the nonverbal communication, like the habit he's now gotten into, when we're taking a shower and we won't let him in, to throw things into the tub (his toys, my clean boxers, etc) out of protest.

Among other things, Emerson's memory is simply out of this world. If he has been someplace, he remembers whatever it was he liked about it. For instance, a few weeks ago, Amber's parents were in town and Beckie (Amber's mom) took E up and down the escalator while we were at Borders one day. This past Tuesday, I stopped by Borders to look for something, and Emerson darted straight for the escalators and that was all he wanted to do. At church, he knows exactly where the steps to the stage are and darts and heads for them every week. At home, all of a sudden, E will go up the stairs and into a particular room to find something as if he was thinking about the entire process from the very beginning. And he's figured out which cabinet door leads to the cereal boxes and has even managed to open them from time to time.

Every day is a new journey with new surprises and new frustrations as our kid is constantly on the move, which makes it exhausting and hard to get anything done (try planting flowers when your kid is either playing in the dirt, pulling off flower petals in an attempt to imitate you pulling weeds, or picking up garden tools that are likely to impale him and running in the opposite direction!). But no matter how badly we'd like to tie his legs up and duct tape his mouth some days, his cute face, smile, expressions, and many antics always make us laugh. Like my mom said, no matter what it is that kid is doing, you can't deny that he sure is cute!

C.S. Lewis Look Alike

2010-05-05T13:35:00.003-05:00

So Amber got this on camera today and I just had to post it and make a comparison. And yes, I know a real update is in order since the school year is now down and I have "so much time" to blog.

Goodbye Eunice

2010-03-25T21:49:00.001-05:00

This past Monday at 5AM, a dear friend of the family passed away. A portion of her obituary in the Journal & Courier newspaper reads:

“Eunice Lucille Klopfenstein, 92, of Lafayette, died Monday morning, March 22, 2010, in Lafayette…

From 1984 to 2006, she worked as a nanny and loved caring for children. She had previously worked for General Foods. During World War II, she worked at Brown Rubber plant, making cluster bombs for the war effort…

A member of Kossuth Street Baptist Church, she was the caretaker of the church nursery for over 43 years.”

She wasn’t just a nanny, she was my nanny. And I was one of several generations of children at KSBC that got hooked on animal crackers because of her. Tomorrow, my family and the members of the church where I was raised will lay her to rest. My brothers will be pallbearers. I, for my part, torn between attending the funeral and overwhelmed with the weight of responsibilities for school, work, church, and taking care of a child who just got over the flu, made the difficult decision to stay in Pittsburgh.

From 1984 to 2006, she spent time in my family’s home. We were, for all intensive purposes, her family. She washed our dishes, our laundry, our kitchen counters. For 16 of those years (until I went off to college), she had an indelible impact on my life, one I must admit, that is hard to trace because it is so buried under the dozens of cynical comments I made of her, bad experiences, and the honor and respect I never gave her. Thus, this blog is as much as a confession as it is a eulogy.

You see, as a teenager, there was a lot to laugh about when it came to Eunice. For one thing, her name was Eunice (or “Unit” to one of my brothers). She always wore the same outfit. I’m not kidding at all really. From the years working at General Foods, she had managed to accrue an entire wardrobe of light blue uniforms that kind of resembled nurse gowns but had huge side pockets (the kind of pockets that always had candy in them).

Oh, and she picked food out of our trash can. When I was younger, I remember her criticizing me for using more than one square of toilet paper at once. Her house was filled with clutter: I think she may have been the biggest packrat I’ve ever met.

She was also a terrible driver (mind you, when I was in high school, and before I got my license and started picking up my brothers at school, she was almost 80 years old) and got in a couple wrecks with us in her car. And since she was so old and slow, all she could do when we were being ornery was yell and make empty threats (I have this vague memory from when I was a wee lad running through the house with her yells fading in the background).

Sometimes, she would fall asleep on the couch while doing laundry. One time, one of my brothers came home to find her that way and was afraid she was dead. And she had that nasty flab sagging from beneath her upper arm (you know, the kind that Mick Jagger was sporting at the 2006 Super Bowl halftime show).

All of these stories and attributes create quite the definition of “uncool” to a teenage boy.

But every story has another side.

She ate food from the trash because she lived through the Great Depression. My Grandma McCool told us stories of her eating lard sandwiches as a child. I don’t know what the Depression was like for Eunice, but it yielded a person who was incredibly frugal and knew how to save. Really, a number of my complaints about Eunice was simply my incredulity that one could conserve so much. And yet, she was no Scrooge either. Despite her low income, I often received gifts from her—for graduation, Christmas, and my wedding (they weren’t always the most extravagant gifts—like the $5 gift card she gave me to Ryan’s Steakhouse for Christmas!). And she was able to save by pinching away little by little, far more money than her mildly mentally-disabled daughter will need for the rest of her life. Perhaps part of my own frugality now is a result of her way of life.

And really, all the other complaints can be chalked up to the sheer fact that she was old. I mean, I’m already a pretty bad driver (as much as I proudly think I’m the best driver on the road), so I can’t imagine still driving at 85. And one day, as much as I don’t want to envision it, will have those nasty flabby arms too. Ugh. The great thing about Eunice is that she just wouldn’t stop living. I can’t imagine how bad it killed her inside to stop driving, to stop being able to come out to our house and feel useful. I remember picking her up at her house for church when I was back in Lafayette not long after that switch and I could see the sadness in her eyes. We all want to be useful, to do something that changes other people’s lives. Eunice did the little things that no one ever bothers to notice. She was faithful day after day after day to change poopy diapers (and I’m already pining for the day Emerson will be out of them!), fold clothes, and make peanut butter and jelly sandwiches for us. And she kept doing it well into the “retirement years,” which most of us think are my years when I get to do what I want to do.

She truly was one of the great ones.

It is hard to say goodbye to Eunice—not because I was so close to her, but because we had already gone our separate ways several years ago. I went off to college, got married, and moved away. She, bless her soul, lost her memory—lost it before I ever got the courage to ask about her, about her life—and was moved into a nursing home. The one time—only ONE time! (or was it two? Regardless)—that I visited her in the home while back over Christmas, she no longer remembered my name. She remembered my parents and called all of us “Brandon” (my older brother, the one she probably had the most memories of…it’s the memories of orneriness that stick with you anyways). I guess that was the day I said goodbye, but I should have been saying hello so much more often.

Perhaps, though, that is the greatest lesson of all that I learned from Eunice: you never care for children because you expect them to give equal, reciprocal repayment of thanks and deeds. You just love them and hope they too will love the least of these when their time comes.

The Birthday Gift No One Wants

2010-03-22T21:09:00.002-05:00

Well, for Emerson’s 1^st birthday, he was wonderfully gifted with a GI virus this week. Indeed, it turned out to be one of those gifts that keeps on giving, and he was benevolent enough to share it with his parents (as well as a babysitter and a friend that came over mid-week, so it seems). Given the evident two-day incubation period of said yuck-ness, it appears that E got the bug from the church potluck last Sunday. But really, considering the kid also manages to lick the bottom of my shoes and suck on the handle of grocery carts, I can never be sure!

Regardless, last Tuesday morning we had the privilege of being awakened to the sound of projectile vomiting (it went three feet!). And given that E was sleeping between us at the time, it was not a pretty sight. Thankfully (so I thought), his one year check-up was that day, so I figured our pediatrician could check him out, find out what was wrong, and that would be the end of that. Well, nothing was discovered, and to be honest I probably made matters worse by opting to go ahead with a new vaccine. Ugh. An hour later, I’m home and Emerson is delivering his first of many diarrhea-filled diapers over the next few days. We quickly decided to switch from cloth to disposable diapers for the week (a very wise choice, indeed).

It is at this point that I’m realizing the manifold convergence of things of which, just one would typically mess up the poor kids’ system: a growth spurt, daylight savings time (whoever came up with that surely did not ask parents how even one hour can completely wreck a child’s sleep schedule), a nasty GI virus, and now a vaccine. Nice. By Wednesday, we’re going through diapers right and left (our poor babysitter!) and Emerson’s completely lost his appetite. We were getting worried that he may be getting dehydrated by the evening and got even more concerned when he would wake up to our multisensory wake-up calls, which we decided to perform once it was determined we should try to force some fluids down his throat (If you wonder why your child refuses to drink Pedialite, try drinking some yourself!). Needless to say, we were surprised by how much hydration the kid had when he proceeded to gag on the fluids we gave him and transformed into a geyser. We now have a very frustrated, tired, crying baby (who is even more dehydrated) on our hands.

Thursday was full of even more fun when Amber and I woke up with the same symptoms as our son. How do you explain to your child that you’re sick too? It’s one thing to care for a sick kid; it’s another to do so when you’re sick yourself! While Amber went off to work (and trying to find subs for the rest of her jobs that day!) with bucket in hand (it reminded us of her first trimester. Hey, she even got to make use of it on the drive home!), I sat Emerson down on my lap and read him a few books. It was all going so well until I felt wetness in my lap and looked down to discover a huge puddle of E’s yuck-ness on my pants and on the floor. Can we say shower number two? And Emerson, you’re getting in with me! The day hit a climax when we went through three diapers in five minutes, and I decided it was time to take him back to the pediatrician and ensure he didn’t need a trip to the ER (thankfully, he didn’t although he did lose a half pound in two days, which keep in mind, is about 5% of his body weight!). I spent the rest of the night (and most of the afternoon actually) fully clothed under winter blankets in bed with chills and shivers plus a migraine.

Friday and Saturday included more of the same, so we made the wise choice of staying away from our friends for the weekend, but thankfully, things were beginning to get better. Although, we were getting pretty sick (no pun intended) of changing diapers. E’s not a fan of changing diapers to begin with, and the difficulty of the situation only compounds when there’s so much crap flying around to try to avoid, wipe up, prevent him from putting his hands into, all while pinning a boy down that would prefer to be naked. Finally on Sunday, Amber and I felt more like our normal selves and E showed signs of regaining his appetite but God only knows when his system will finally get straightened out (maybe we went back to cloth diapers a day too early…).

So, if we offended you by not showing up to your party this weekend, you should be glad, because we would’ve come with a gift you could neither return or place in a white elephant exchange. If we offended you by getting you sick, sorry Jamie and Kylie. And if I offended you by my bizarre and off-color desire to blog about diarrhea, well, stop being so Victorian, because it’s part of being human! I’ve often heard that what differentiates us from angels is that we have free will and have been offered grace for redemption (oh and Rob Bell notes we are sexual beings too). But we are also beings that puke, have bowel movements, and give us some pretty odorous smells from time to time. We are humans, not angels—and our God is OK with that. The Jesus that wept, mixing sweat with tears, tears with dirty hands, dirty hands as part of a body that probably rarely took a bath, most likely had his own share of GI viruses and puked on Mother Mary when she burped him. Indeed, he was probably a strong-will hellion who screamed at bedtime, threw his food on the floor, and cried when a toy was taken from him, because well, that’s just what kids do [there was an hour hiatus before I wrote that last sentence that I spent trying to convince my own screaming child to go to sleep].

Happy Birthday!

2010-03-13T22:03:00.004-05:00

So tomorrow (the 14th) is E's birthday, but we decided to have his party last Sunday since we were so busy this weekend. So happy first birthday, our wonderful, cute, mischievous, fun-loving but also serious Son of a thousand facial expressions!

We love you so much, and you have been such an exhilarating addition to our lives as you embrace each moment and encounter even the inconsequential of things with a sense of wonder. You surprise us, make us laugh, humble us, and help us see how patient, loving, and gracious God is to us.

Ordinary Glory

2010-02-25T22:28:00.002-05:00

Meteoric snowflakes

Become melting planks

in the eye, emitting epiphanies

of life’s deep mysteries,

And finding divine glory

in the so ordinary

Warm mug filled with chosen brew

Steam facial bath leaves its dew

Frosty windows from which we view:

The landscape morphs before the eyes

As night falls with overcast skies

To end the day we heave a sigh

Shoveling with new neighbors

Stuck cars asking for favors

A good laugh breaks the labor.

City canceled by Wonderland

Making space for Life again

For childish revelry and carpe diem.

Houses slouching speak their despair—

Death-cicles falling, Some roofs giving,

Gutters drooping, ceilings dripping,

By weight of snow, bushes caving—

With the forecast still foreboding

Just hoping for spring in the air

All Earth covered by blanket of white

‘Midst Lent, entombed in frozen night

We yearn to feel Sun’s warming light.

We feel a sorrow, feel death’s cost—

Yet Life beckons, though still no thaw

Like child in womb, Love is not lost

Our dreams and hopes haven’t come to naught

There’s joy, there’s grace—despite the frost

Emerson at 11 Months

2010-02-09T10:19:00.004-05:00

So Emerson has come up with this new face that he makes when he gets frustrated that's a combination between wrinkled brow and huffing and puffing. I'm not quite sure where he got it, but it is quite hilarious, and I mangaged to get it on video when he wound up hurting himself the other day.

We've also been trying to come up with creative ways to get E to eat his vegetables and other foods he's not crazy about. He loves bread and cheese, and a number of fruits--even eats whole pieces of bananas and pears on his own. He usually eats whatever we're having too, so he's been willing to try squash, lentil soup, and has discovered he likes meat too. But to get him to eat broccoli, I've reverted to dipping crackers--or even Chex!--into the broccoli, and amazingly enough, he's gone for it!

Let it Snow, Let it Snow,.. Ok That's Enough!!

2010-02-06T11:07:00.002-05:00

21 Guns

2010-02-02T19:02:00.004-05:00

This past Sunday I watched a portion of the Grammys and was taken aback by the powerful lyrics of Green Days's "21 Guns." The song led me to comment on Facebook that Green Day may well be one of our best theologians today. How could that possibly be? The thought will no doubt receive criticism from many, but I am compelled by the thoughtful words of Phyllis Tickle: "More theology is conveyed in, and probably retained from, one hour of popular television than from all of the sermons that are also delivered on any given weekend in America's synagogues, churches, and mosques." There is often more substance, raw honesty, and profundity related to how we percieve God and our world in an episode of "The Simpsons" or "Lost"--or in this case, a punk rock band's song--than in many of the sermons I've heard in my lifetime.

A friend of mine who took my comment seriously considered the lyrics and blogged about it, suggesting that the lyrics are a fine portrayal of the Christian notion of surrender. I think he's right on target, but I want to go a little deeper . [If you are unfamiliar with the song, the lyrics are provided here -- and I encourage you to watch the outstanding music video on youtube!]

"Do you know what's worth fighting for? When its not worth dying for?" Immediately and throughout, the song is a double entendre, calling for a truce, peace, and surrender, both on the personal level and the political. The chorus rings out, "One, 21 guns/lay down your arms, give up the fight/ throw up your arms into the sky, you and I." It is interesting that, in a culture where many people on both sides of the political aisle are tired of the fighting and death in Iraq (except for, perhaps, the "Christian" company that has a $660 million contract with the U.S. military to build gun sights), in a time when when anti-war protesting is higher than it has been since Vietnam, the idea of personal dependency, surrender, and choosing faith and trust over self-will and self-preservation are not given a lot of air time. This notion of giving up control, of a self that recognizes it is passive in the wake of what comes in the future, of the power of powerlessness, is the distinguishing feature of Kierkegaard's notion of human subjectivity. Kierkegaard offers the examples of Abraham in Fear and Trembling and Job in Repetition, both who gave up everything in a moment of madness only to impossibly receive it back again from Whom "all things are possible" and Who reminds us that "Whoever tries to keep his life will lose it, and whoever loses his life will preserve it."

The simple question raised by Green Day, "What worth fighting for?" is an incredibly profound question. I wonder how many people in the Christian culture wars enraged over the issue of homosexuality (whether for or against), for instance, have stopped to ask, "Is this worth fighting for?" Are my views on this issue "worth dying for"? Is it in my top 10 (or even top 100) list of theological nonnegotiables?

Still further, the song continually makes a point about the nature of our lives and the nature of faith. We all have been hurt, been pained, been betrayed. The list could go on and on of the things that have been done to us -- and the things we've done to others. Amidst it all, there could be a silver lining, not a reason for the pain and hurt, but a passion that proceeds from it. Green Day asks, "Does the pain weigh out the pride? . . . You're in ruins." And still later, "When you're at the end of the road / And you lost all sense of control / And your thoughts have taken their toll / When your mind breaks the spirit of your soul." We can try to think and reason about the meaning of what has happened in our lives, we can search for answers to the horrors and evil in the world, but such strivings often leave us wanting, even crushed in spirit, "and a crushed spirit dries up the bones," said a wise sage long ago. All of this leads to the profound statement by Green Day: "Your faith walks on broken glass." -- which Paul tells us, we see through "darkly."

Even more could be said. By the end of the song, Green Day touches on many more themes that could be developed such as longsuffering ("And the hangover doesn't pass"), repentance, forgiveness, and idolatry ("Did you stand too close to the fire / Like a liar looking for forgiveness from a stone"), redemption ("And you can't get another try"), brokenness and disappointment ("Nothing's ever built to last" and "Something inside this heart has died."), and resurrection, or the very Christian notion the life so often arises through death, like a Phoenix rising from the ashes ("When it's time to live and let die." As Jesus reminded us, only when a seed is put in the ground and "dies" that it produces fruit [Jn. 12:24; cf. Gal. 2:19]).

Emerson at 10 Months

2010-01-18T10:49:00.004-05:00

This past week, Emerson turned ten months and had some milestones to show for it. Emerson started the week by moving from his baby bath tub into the big bathtub. And boy was he excited!

Now with his fifth tooth coming in, he's moving on to more and more solid foods and learning to eat on his own. We introduced him to whole wheat saltines, and he loved them. Finally, after a few times of trying to shove the entire thing into his mouth, he realized it may not be wise to try to eat the whole cracker all at once! (word of advice: cracker crumbs and overalls don't mix!)

And to round out the end of the week's highlights, later in the week after Amber gave E a bath and set him on the floor, she went out of the room and came back to a smiling baby. After going out of the room again to find him smiling when she returned, she wondered what was going on while she was out of the room. So, she peeked in while Emerson wasn't looking and found that he had discovered and was delighting in his "malehood"! Yes, you are a boy, son.

Haiti

2010-01-15T11:47:00.003-05:00

As I'm sure it has been the case for you, I can't stop thinking about the situation in Haiti, the wreckage, the deaths, the slow progress in getting aid to mourning and poverty-stricken people. I can't stop thinking about how it takes a terrible tragedy such as this to get Americans to think its time to start sending significant aid to Haiti that will finally enable the country to create an infrastructure, how it takes a terrible tragedy such as this to jolt me out of my narcissistic, soulless slumber.

I am struck by mindless comments made by people like Pat Robertson, who seem to think they have a direct line to God, who think tragedies like earthquakes that kill hundreds of thousands of people, have simplistic reasons for their occurrence. And while there have been many quality responses to the "Christian" spokesperson--I was particularly compelled by Don Miller's as well as the bloggers at Sojourners (here and here -- although the cracks by Keith Olbermann are going a tad too far)--I still can't get around wondering why he still has a job, why people still listen to him (no wonder my parents didn't allow me to watch the 700 Club growing up!), how he could fail to realize that most of the people affected by the quake are (or at least claim to be) Christians--missionaries, relief workers, and followers of Jesus living in the poorest country in the Western hemisphere.

Theodicy (our attempts to give a reasoned response for why God allows evil in the world) simply fail. Auschwitz, the killing fields of Cambodia, Rwanda, Darfur, and even Haiti all point to Emmanuel Levinas's claim that we have reached the "End of Theodicy." There is no adequate answer. To try to give an answer--especially to someone who is hurting so deeply--is not only inadequate, it is grossly violent. Could some of those individuals who have endured the suffering be able to find meaning amidst the pain, terror, suffering, and evil? Yes. But it is not our job to offer it to them. Our only adequate response is an intellectual kenosis (Phil. 2:7), a self-emptying of our position of authority and having-all-the-answers and a bending down to help, serve, give, and sy/empathize.

Those who are there are requesting our prayers -- but who wants prayers from a condescending American who pompously "knows" Haiti's condition and what it needs (that is not a critique of Pat Robertson but all of us who think those "poor Haitians" just need America's money, America's democracy, America's hope, and America's direction)? They are requesting essentials like food and water and medical aid -- but even with our ships and helicopters and airplanes we are having trouble getting them there and we cannot successfully do so unless we parakaleo (come along side/help/comfort; John 15:26) them, work with them, and let them lead. They are requesting we help them rebuild their infrastructure, help them build housing for hundreds of thousands of people roaming the streets, and even temporarily set up a martial law to protect from large-scale vandalism and thieving -- but we must not offer these things from the position of the "Great White Hope," of power, of doing it our way, but by offering a humble strength, we can help Haiti become a better place that is still theirs. We can give money, we can act politically and ask the President to grant "Temporary Protective Status" to Haitians (just go to the link-its not that difficult!), and we can pray. We can leave them a "corner" of our possessions as the Israelites were commanded to leave the poor, the orphan, and the immigrant the edge of their field (Lev. 19:9) [You have to see Rob Bell's video on this topic]. But amidst it all, we must do so with a sense of gratitude, humility, and a healthy regard for the Other--knowing they have just as much to grace us with as we do them.

Let us give up our self-guilted sense of being obligated to provide a reasoned answer and act for Haiti--and for so many other widows and orphans and strangers--with a reckless grace: a grace that offers the poor a helping hand without expecting something in return, but a grace that begins with ourselves, that liberates ourselves from measuring up to some unknown requirement of having all the answers, of being right.

2009 Year in Review

2009-12-31T23:16:00.005-05:00

Well, it’s the last day of 2009, which means it is the last day I can conscientiously blog about the six different things I had planned to blog on over Christmas break. But as Christmas breaks always seems to go, I never get as much done as I had planned. Every Christmas break when we go to Indiana, I pack with me far more books and activities than I ever get around to—whether its because I enjoy the time off not feeling like I need to do anything, I am having fun with family and friends, or I get engrossed into my new Christmas presents, all the things I had planned seemed to fall by the wayside. I should feel good that at least this time I actually did read one of the books that I took with me!

Anyways, one of those activities I had planned, as I had already said, was to blog about at least six different things. So, since it’s about 10PM on New Year’s Eve, and I’m going strong on a martini and a half, a quick blurb about all six of them is in order!

EMERSON’S FIRST SNOWFALL

The Saturday before Christmas, Pittsburgh got five inches of glorious snow. It was Emerson’s first real snowfall, so we had to make the most of it. We pulled out Amber’s old sled from her childhood and pulled him around the neighborhood. He couldn’t quite figure out how to hold on yet, so if we started out pulling the sled to hard he just fell backwards and laid still on the ground (he looked a lot like Ralphie’s younger brother in the movie, “The Christmas Story”). But after a while, he was loving it. Later in the day, we took him outside and he watched me throw snowballs at a nearby electricity pole and he would burst out laughing every time I threw one and then turned around to look at him. Here are some pics!

EMERSON’S FIRST CHRISTMAS

Well, it was Emerson’s first Christmas and he pulled in the more gifts than he knows what to do with. Heck, we may even regift some of them and give them to him again at his first birthday! Seriously, he got so many gifts that he had to be put to bed before he even got to open them all. We told our family not to get him any clothes smaller than 18months outfits so he could grow into them and he’s already in 12 month outfits. Well, over the past two days, we’ve put him in some of his new clothes and they fit him like a glove. I never thought I’d have a nine-month old who wore 18-month clothing! Anyways, here are some pics!

SHOP CLASS AS SOULCRAFT

So, my father-in-law gave me perhaps the best (and most meaningful) gift this Christmas. It’s a book entitled Shop Class as Soulcraft written by a former philosophy PhD who is now a motorcycle mechanic (Greg Stoutenburg, this is definitely a book you would love!). One of the primary theses of the book (there are a number of really good points) is that the growth of “knowledge workers” at the expense of “labor workers” in our society has had a negative impact on our society: it has not only let to a shortage of mechanics, electricians, plumbers, etc in our nation, but has further increased our mind-body dualism, caused us to become detached from Nature, and has led us to believe that all physical labor requires little to no mental, ethical, or physical thought. Matthew Crawford not only addresses these issues, but makes many other memorable points. I mention only a couple: (1) Crawford points out that many times in our society we reduce our time to the amount of money we could make during that hour if we were at work. As a result, we reason: Changing my own oil of my car isn’t worth my while because in the amount of time it would take me I could have made $XX.XX. Crawford suggests that such thinking not only dehumanizes us (reducing us to consumers and money makers), but it detaches us from our world and our own things (we have no control over the possessions we own). Furthermore, there is an intrinsic value in learning how to change one’s own oil, learning some electrical, plumbing, or mechanical work that cannot be measured in dollar signs. (2) The caricatures we have made of blue-collar work – as if all such work is as mind-numbing as assembly line work or of the fat plumber with his butt crack hanging out – are poor misrepresentations. In reality, many blue collar workers make more than so-called white collar workers (like the plumber making $60-80/hr), and many white collar or “knowledge” work has now become just as mind-numbing and meaningless as the assembly line work so despised.

AVATAR

For our sixth anniversary (Dec. 27), Amber and I made good use of family members willing to babysit Emerson and went to a movie and dinner (dinner was a bit disappointing. We had planned to do Thai food, but apparently every Thai restaurant in Lafayette was closed for the break, so we had to settle on just going somewhere). So, we went and saw Avatar, which was the first movie we had seen in theaters since last Christmas break (we saw “Slumdog Millionaire” which is amazing) minus the drive in theater movies we’ve gone to this year with Emerson (We saw “UP!,” “Harry Potter and the Half-Blood Prince,” and “Where the Wild Things Are” in the drive-in this year…all of which would have been worthwhile blog posts if I had found the time….).

Hm…So my review of Avatar is somewhat mixed. The special effects and colors are amazing, making one wish there were such a planet known as Pandora (seriously, they are amazing). On the other hand, the plot is entirely predictable, and if you’ve seen the previews you’ve gotten the entire gist of the movie: White man comes to invade the land of the “savages” and kill them (and the forests) in order to get their natural resources; A couple white people defect to the side of the “savages” and help them defeat the White man. In other words, Avatar is basically a sci-fi version of “Dances with Wolves” with a little bit of adult-level “Ferngully” mixed in. That’s the cold hard truth. And yet, amidst this extremely umambiguous plot line (i.e., not realistic), propagation of the “great White hope” viewpoint, and sad historical fact that the “savages” rarely (if ever) are on the winning side, I actually still liked this movie. Perhaps it was because these problematic issues were so glaringly obvious that I liked it, or simply because I empathize with a story that has been played out so many times throughout and continues to be played out and wish that the tide would somehow turn. For instance, the majority of the white people that side with the “savages” are those who have been assigned to appeal to them on a cultural level – learn their language, build them a school, etc – but these individuals’ roles exist solely to force the White man’s will on the minority. After reflecting on this scenario, it dawned on me that much of modern missions has had this kind of role: missionaries come in under the guise of bringing the minority group humanitarian goods but in reality (intentionally or unintentionally) serve to set the stage for the incoming of the Western power and cultural control. The history surrounding the Boxer Rebellion in China is a really good example of this, but many other examples abound (even down to the minute details, such as White missionaries who think Africans need to wear Western clothing before they get “saved.”).

“HOME”

This one will have to just settle as an intriguing thought: At what point, after you have moved away from the city you grew up in do you no longer call it home? In college, I called Lafayette home, which I’m sure is pretty typical. Even when I lived in Indianapolis owned my own home for over three years, I still called Lafayette home. But over the past couple weeks, between driving back and forth between Pittsburgh and Lafayette for Thanksgiving and Christmas, I have noticed myself calling both cities “home.” I think the switch is finally taking place.

BATTLESTAR GALACTICA

Over the course of this semester, Amber and I have been watching through the entire “Battlestar Galactica” TV series on DVD at the behest of a friend, and I have found it quite intriguing (we also watched the short sci-fi TV series “Firefly” which is also quite good). There is much to be said about this series. When they originally aired, they addressed numerous timely (and some, timeless) issues including racism, torture, terrorism, the misuse of technology, ethical issues related to the justice system, and numerous other political issues. What intrigues me most, however, is the explicit discussion of theological topics. Like the Chronicles of Narnia, it seems like when theology is cast in a completely different light—in a fictional setting—people really listen. Battlestar addresses belief in the supernatural, god (and gods), interpretation of scripture, predestination and destiny, and many other theological topics.

YEAR IN REVIEW/MEMORIES OF 2009

So, after counting, I realize this is now my seventh category. … Ah well. I had also hoped to do a “year in review” or at the very least, recount some of the many memories (mostly of Emerson) that occurred over this past year. There are the many other movies I had seen over the year (at home on DVD since I didn’t see them when they came out last year in theaters!) that were profound and worthy of reviews such as “The Curious Case of Benjamin Button,” “Doubt,” “Serenity,” “The Changeling,” and “The Lives of Others” (all of which I highly recommend). And then there were the ones that were not worth my time like the 4^th installment of “Indiana Jones” (ridiculous!) and “Twilight” (ugh).

Then, there are the many memories. Emerson’s birth, the day he fell off the bed, the day he first started crawling, the day he conscientiously said “Da-da,” and on and on. And there are the other events – getting rejected from nine PhD programs, and getting accepted into Duquesne (it only takes one!). Receiving my masters degree. My first official Father’s day. Winning an award at a philosophy conference. So many other things could be mentioned, and there’s not enough time to recount them.

So good-bye 2009. Good-bye the 2000s. Wow. I can’t believe its been a decade since Y2K (where were you? I was in Chicago at Navy Pier with a million others).

Baby Its Cold Outside

2009-12-19T11:40:00.004-05:00

Ah the semester is finally over--I turned in my papers a couple weeks ago but had to grade some final exams this week which weren't turned in until yesterday morning. It feels good to finally have the stress relieved, which means I actually have time to update my blog. And who knows, there may actually be someone out there who still reads it... And since its snowing like crazy this morning, what better way to spend the time to provide a little update.

Over the past couple weeks, we've been relishing in the Christmas festivities and holiday cheer. We've gone to a number of Christmas parties, had one of our own on the 12th, went to Duquesne's Christmas chorale concert on the 6th (it was ok -- too much Latin music for Amber's taste), and went to the Pittsburgh Symphony Christmas show this past thursday night, which was fantastic. Thankfully, Santa's stage time was kept to a minimum at the symphony (which also included the Mendelssohn choir and some special guests). They sang one of my top five choral pieces, "O Magnum Mysterium," and performed a wide variety of traditionals (portions of the Nutcracker), hymns, and contemporary songs.

As for Emerson, he's keeping us busy, getting his hands into everything and crawling all over the place. Earlier this past week he crawled up our entire flight of steps in less than two minutes (he was pretty proud of himself!). He's taken a liking to a number of activities around the house. Just earlier today, we found him rummaging through Amber's purse and had pulled out a number of items and placed them into his own little pile. Here's a few other things he enjoys:

Going through the tupperware drawer... and licking every single one he pulls out. This is one of his new faves.

Reading, or, er, pulling books off the shelf. Actually he loves to read and even flips to the next page on his own (his books are over to the right and often pulls them all out too). And yes, he did rip that piece of the book out, but alas, I'm not planning on reading Shakespeare's "Julius Caesar" anytime soon. "Et tu, Brute?"

Doing the dishes. Ok, so he pulls more dishes out, licks them, and then throws them on the ground more than anything, but he LOVES standing over there so much that we actually wait to do the dishes for when he's really bored and we can't think of anything else to do. He also tries to scamper into the fridge right behind him whenever we open it -- and seriously, that kid can hear the door open from anywhere on the first floor!

And using the restroom. So I wish he was potty trained, but alas, whenever he gets this close to the toilet is usually when one of us is trying to use it (no sense of privacy whatsoever!). It was definitely a shocking moment when I was going the bathroom the other day and suddenly he crawled between my legs and grabbed the toilet seat with both hands!! Actually, I think he likes the bathroom so much because he's come to love bathtime, and he just goes nuts when we turn the water on and take off his clothes. He's also learned that unraveling the toilet paper is quite fun too.

Six Degrees of Separation

2009-11-22T20:41:00.003-05:00

The weekend of the 13th-15th, I was at a graduate philosophy conference in Carbondale, IL (Southern Illinois University) presenting a paper at a conference devoted to "building bridges" between Islam and America. My paper was on Al-Farabi's Religious Pluralism as Prolegomena (isn't that a great word?!) for dialogue between Islam and the West. It wasn't my best paper (actually, it was a paper I wrote for a previous class and just happened to be a great fit for the conference), but every chance to present (and have the promise of the proceedings get published) is good for the resume. The skinny of the paper: Al-Farabi, Medieval Islamic philosopher, had a notion of Religious pluralism/inclusivism that viewed religion as a subcategory of philosophical truth (basically "philosophy for the common people") that viewed any religion as true that could trace its concepts back to the Greek philosophy of Plato and Aristotle. We could debate the problems of such a view (both from a Christian or pluralistic perspective), but my whole point in using his work was to point out the limited number of ways it is relevant to current religio-political discussions between Islam and the West--especially for those Westerners who think Islam is one-dimensional, inherently violent, and exclusionary (ahem, Pat Robertson, among millions of others).

Anyways, like I said, it wasn't my best paper, but the chance to get away and hang out with other graduate students was a blast. Actually, in all honesty, in the past I've felt quite like an outsider at these kinds of things. Perhaps, its because I don't have the cool philosophical look and can't speak all the nice philosophical jargon that everyone else speaks. Who knows, but this one is different. You might toss it up to the fact that SIU is in the middle of nowhere (no exaggeration), but their philosophy department had the best cameraderie of any department I've ever been around. They do everything together, even with some of their professors. On Sundays, for instance, they play flag football together, and two of their 50+ year old professors play with them (and I'm told they hit the hardest!). They even arranged for all the presenters to be picked up at the St. Louis airport (two hours away) and stay with fellow grad students.

What made this trip even more exciting were the people I met that, turns out, I had some commonality with. The second person I met upon arriving on campus, for instance, happened to be a graduate from Cedarville (my undergrad). Now, Cedarville is a small school (3000 students) with tiny philosophy program (there are like 4-5 students a year getting their degree in philosophy). So, for us to meet up well, I guess I'd have to call it providential. We never met at Cedarville (we only overlapped for a semester), but we had so many similar stories and experiences, and a similar theological-philosophical viewpoint to reflect back on them, that we wound up chatting for quite a long time.

Then, as it turned out, one of the other presenters was from Purdue University and knew quite well Justin, an old friend of mine who was in my wedding and now doing philosophy at Loyola-Chicago. He told me some stories about the early years at Purdue and the crazy things he and Justin did, and we got to talking about our faith, the difficulties of being a God-follower while being a philosopher, and various theological topics.

Finally, to top it all off, as I was chatting with my host the last evening I was there, I mentioned a previous paper I had presented at West Chester University. His girlfriend looked at me and said, "Wait, you mean just last January? (yeah) We were there too!" Wow. I live in such a very small world. In my previous life, I lived in a very small conservative baptist world largely in the Midwest. The world I now live in is spread across a much larger part of the country, and there are thousands of people doing philosophy in the U.S., but the contingent of the philosophers I am connected to as a Continental philosopher in the Eastern part of the states may only be slightly larger than the world I've come from. So maybe I'm not a tiny fish in a great big sea. I'm just a tiny fish in a very crowded lake full of much larger fish all vying for the same living space (and jobs!).

Weekends of getting away and having new experiences and meeting new people are so enriching and encouraging. And then I got to come back to see my son so ecstatic to see me after being gone for three days, that he refused to take a nap the rest of the day! There is no hierarchy of "good, better, best" to compare these experiences and opportunities. We cannot place a value on these nuggets of eternity we are given--the laughter of a child, a conversation on faith with a new friend, the experience of camaraderie and hospitality from total strangers. These are the experiences that help mold us and shape us, realize what really matters, and remind us that life is a gift to be taken up and embraced every day. These are the opportunities that show us that each day, each encounter with a new person, can literally change the way we see the world. "This is the day the Lord has made. Let us rejoice and be glad in it." What brings you joy? What fills you with life, hope, and appreciation for what you've been given? What helps you remember to make the most of each day?

Emerson's Health Survey

2009-11-07T16:31:00.008-05:00

[Ok, so it has been way too long since my last post. It is nearing the end of the semester, and its crunch time to write papers--which isn't easy with an infant in the house!]

So earlier this week, we received a package in the mail addressed to Emerson. We're not exactly sure where it came from, but it included a survey that is supposed to be a "Behavior and Symptom Identification Scale." Now, obviously, whoever sent this thing obviously didn't know that Emerson not only is too young to read a survey, he's can't even cognitively contemplate on this level.

Nevertheless, I had a hilarious time giving him the survey and asking him to answer the questions. He couldn't really check the appropriate boxes [each question had five possible answers, essentially using terms like "none/never," "a little/rarely," "moderate/sometimes," "quite a bit/most/often," "all/extreme/always"], so I had to settle for his nonverbal communication. Here are some of the results:

During the past week, how much difficulty did you have...[#2] Coping with problems in your life?

... [#3] Concentrating?

During the past week, how much of the time did you...[#5] Get along with people outside your family?

... [#6] Get along well in social situations?

During the past week, how much of the time did you... [#9] Feel confident in yourself?

... [#10] Feel sad or depressed?

During the past week, how often did you... [#14] Think you had special powers?

... [#16] Think people were watching you?

...[#18] Have mood swings?

... [#19] Feel short tempered?

During the past week how often did you ... [#21] Have an urge to drink alcohol or take street drugs?

... [#23] Try to hid your drinking or drug use?

A Conservative Bible?

2009-10-13T09:48:00.002-05:00

This is just unreal. Perhaps you've already heard about this as its been recently highlighted by Steven Colbert and dozens of other media outlets, but the people of Conservapedia have committed to create a new, conservative translation of the Bible, that eradicates all the so-called liberal "translation bias" that exists in every existing English translation. Talk about "remaking Jesus in their own image." Rob Dreher at beliefnet.com depicts it best: "It's like what you'd get if you crossed the Jesus Seminar with the College Republican chapter at a rural institution of Bible learnin'."

The absurdity of this project is unimaginable, and the flaws in their logic, mindboggling. They seek a new translation that is without bias, as if they have no bias of their own. They seek to create a translation that avoids the "wordiness" and "ambiguities" of liberals (such as those updating the NIV) but is also not written at a dumbed down reading level (such as the NIV. How are they going to do that without using big words?). They seek to obtain an accurate translation of Scripture by resorting back to the KJV rather than original texts (and if you read any of what has already been translated, it basically reads like the NIV which they abhor), making it a translation of a(n) (outdated) translation. They state that one of the benefits of this project is that it will force the liberals who criticize them to read the Bible (but if they're the ones translating the NIV, wouldn't that mean they have not only read it, but quite closely?).

They claim terms such as "laborer" and "comrade" in the Bible are signs of socialism--but this political view didn't exist in the time the KJV was written--and propose substituting contemporary conservative terms instead, as if the authors of the Bible had 21st century America in mind when they were writing. They want to highlight the "numerous economic parables with their full free-market meaning" (as if parables are meant to be literally interpreted...). And worst of all, they suggest excluding certain passages such as John 8:1-11 and Luke 23:34 because they are supposedly "later-inserted liberal passages that are not authentic" (as if those who purportedly inserted these texts in the 2nd and 3rd centuries were left-wing radicals!). How is arbitrarily deleting passages considered conservative?

Really, I'm quite dumbfounded. When one is so right-wing leaning that even the Bible is now deemed "liberal" (whatever that means), something is definitely wrong. But this is a good reminder for all of us, no matter the lens we use to read Scripture (which we can never fully remove), that Ernesto Tinajero from Sojourners points out: "if you read the Bible and it does not challenge you, then you are reading yourself and not the Bible." If the Bible is not provocative, if it does not force us to rethink the way we live our lives and view the world, than we are not really reading it.

The Shack and Universalism (Part 2), [or why Brock could never get a job at a Baptist church]

2009-10-09T14:11:00.003-05:00

In my previous post, I critiqued some of the arguments made to show that The Shack presents universalism. If it is not universalism, what position then, does it offer? [If this explanation is too long, sorry. I had material for more than double what I've placed here!]

Allow me to begin with an excerpt from The Shack:

“Who said anything about being a Christian? I’m not a Christian… Those who love me come from every system that exists. They were Buddhists or Mormons, Baptists or Muslims, Democrats, Republicans and many who don’t vote or are not part of any Sunday morning or religious institutions. I have followers who were murderers and many who were self-righteous. Some are bankers and bookies, Americans and Iraqis, Jews and Palestinians. I have no desire to make them Christian, but I do want to join them in their transformation into sons and daughters of my Papa, into my brothers and sisters, into my Beloved” (182).

There are at least three ways this passage can be read, but for the sake of the attention of my readers, I will focus on one: There are religiously practicing Buddhists, Mormons, Muslims, and even non-religious folk who are just as much followers of Jesus as Christians. Or we might say, some practitioners of other religious groups look a whole lot more like Jesus and live a life of agape love far better than some life-long members of Christianity.

On this reading, let’s pose the question: “Can a Buddhist/Mormon/Muslim go to heaven?” Well, for starters, since Buddhism can be conceived as a way of informing one’s life to connect with ultimate reality, rather than the worship of a particular deity, it’s certainly possible that one could engage in some of the life practices of Buddhism while maintain faith in Jesus Christ. As for Mormonism and Islam, if one views these religions as heresies of Christianity rather than entirely different religions, it’s possible to conceive there are some within these ranks that have managed to connect with the real Jesus. Indeed, there is testimony of Muslims, based solely on reading the excerpts about Jesus in the Koran who have believed in Jesus, and “if anyone acknowledges that Jesus is the Son of God, God lives in him” (1 Jn. 4:15).

But this answer only speaks to the possibility of people with other religious labels to also be connected with the real Jesus through some level of [untraditional] connection to the historical Jesus. But is it possible to be rightly related to God without having knowledge of the historical Jesus? This is the question posed by Christian Inclusivism (CI), a position held in some way or another by Justin Martyr, Origen, Karl Rahner, C.S. Lewis, Brian McLaren, Tony Campolo, Dallas Willard, and even Billy Graham in recent days. CI preaches the orthodox message of the Good News of Jesus, but leaves open God’s grace and mercy to extend beyond the walls of Christianity. To state it otherwise, CI teaches that Christ is “the way” (Jn. 14:6), but he may even be “the way” for people who have never heard of Jesus or been exposed to Christianity.

Let me backtrack to help make this clearer. Some Christians hold that knowledge of the historical person, known as Jesus of Nazareth, who died and rose again as a 1st century Jew is necessary for salvation. This view holds that there is some salvific power in the name spelled “J-E-S-U-S” and knowledge of the historical person who bore that name is necessary. But if knowledge of the historical Jesus is absolutely necessary, then Abraham, Moses, David, Elijah, and every Old Testament saint do not qualify. Sure, the OT figures placed faith by looking forward to a future hope of a promised Messiah (as described in Gen 3:15; 12:3; 2 Sam. 7), but what they envisioned hardly amounts to Paul’s summary of the gospel message (1 Cor 15:3-4).

In other words, even the most fundamentalist, exclusivist Christians hold to some level of inclusivism. They must hold to some view of God’s mercy that extends beyond knowledge of the death and resurrection of Christ if OT figures are to be saved—as well as infants who die or the mentally incapable, a position held by many Christians.

In his latest book, Knowing Christ Today, Dallas Willard points out that belief in the “historical” Jesus was not even what his closest disciples needed to believe in. In John 14, “his closest disciples still did not know him (14:7-9), though they knew Jesus of Nazareth. It was not the historical Jesus that Philip did not know (v. 9). Who he was clearly amounted to much more than a carpenter of Nazareth… He was and is the eternal Word” (185). Thus, Willard distinguishes between the historical Christ and the “Cosmic Christ,” the eternal God and Savior.

Let’s put this conclusion into a question: Is it possible to be connected to Jesus, the Logos who was at the beginning with God (Jn. 1:1) without having knowledge of the historical Jesus? To this question, scholars throughout church history have answered, “Yes.” Justin Martyr, one of the first Christian theologians, suggested Plato, Socrates, and the Greek philosophers were Christians without realizing it by their commitment to the Logos (Reason) and their love for Wisdom/Truth.

Romans 2:14-16 suggests there will be Gentiles who stand before God on the day of judgment whose consciences will defend them even though they “do not have the law.” These individuals will be saved on account of God’s promise that “To those who by persistence in doing good seek glory, honor and immortality, he will give eternal life” (2:7). Those who seek the Good (God) through faith will find him (cf. Heb. 11:6), even if this search amounts to an extremely limited blind groping for an “unknown God” (Acts 17: 27, cf. v. 23). God has “overlooked” ignorant and imperfect worship of him in times past (Acts 17:30) and pursues and finds even those who were not looking for him (Rom. 10:20; Isa. 65:1)! Indeed, he accepts imperfect worship from all of us!

What would be the content of such a person’s faith if they had never heard of the man known as Jesus of Nazareth? Paul’s message in Acts 17 provides clues where he neither mentions Jesus’ name nor even alludes to any atonement theory (instead, he quotes from two sources of pagan literature!). We get the most cryptic allusion to Jesus, namely that God is going to judge the world via a “man” he has raised from the dead. This was the content of those who believed Paul’s message. Sure, Paul would have encouraged the believers to increase their level of knowledge about God; but if such scant information is all that is necessary to “reach out for [God] and find him” (v. 27), clearly we can posit the possibility of people who have never heard of Jesus, contemplating a belief in a Supreme Judge, being convicted of a need to be put in right relationship with him, and concluding that God somehow has taken care of it.

Keeping the Acts 17 account in our minds, we might look at this issue from a literary perspective. Jesus, as a redemptive image, is an archetype and parallels of his story and message can be seen both in the Old Testament and in the surrounding religious and mythical stories of his time. In the Old Testament, the redemptive acts in the stories of Joseph, Moses, Joshua (which is the Hebrew name for the Greek, Iesou, or Jesus), and David all foreshadow Jesus as Messianic figures). And Rob Bell notes, (in his Nooma video entitled “You”) that at the time of the 1st century, one of the most popular gods of the Roman Empire was Mithra, a god believed to be born of a virgin, was a mediator between God and man, and had ascended to heaven. And Caesar Augustus believed himself to be the son of God, sent down from heaven to inaugurate an unprecedented reign of peace (in fact the disciples, in Acts 4:12, borrow from Augustus’ most famous catch phrase, “there is no other name under heaven by which men are saved but Caesar”). Many similar parallels have been made between Jesus and gods from other religious traditions, such as the ancient Egyptian sun-god, Horus.

So if Jesus is the ultimate redemptive archetype that all of these messianic stories point to, if all of these other redemptive stories ultimately culminate and are fulfilled in Jesus, what is to prevent one from becoming rightly related to God through other “redemptive analogies” (to quote Don Richardson from the “Peace Child”)? Consider this: what if there exists a person who has read The Chronicles of Narnia but has never read the Bible (which is quite possible), who believes in Aslan, hoping his message is true, and whose life is changed by the truths of Narnia? Are they in right relation to God? Lewis himself suggests something similar at the end of The Last Battle when Emeth, a Calormene and follower of Tash winds up in “heaven” standing before Aslan, the real God he took for a myth. When Emeth sees Aslan, he recognizes him as the “Glorious One” and despairs that he had worshiped in ignorance all of his life. But Aslan explains to Emeth, who was a sincere seeker of the truth, that all the good deeds he did in the name of Tash (who does not really exist) must have been for Aslan, the author of all things good.

This scene raises the question, going back to Romans 2:7, what would it look like for someone without knowledge of Christ to persist in doing good and seek glory, etc? Certainly it would involve more than what it means to “be a good person” in our common understanding today, and it would have to involve faith over some belief that I can attain God’s pleasure through my own deeds alone. In this vein, Dallas Willard (180) recalls 1 John 4:7 - “Everyone who loves is born of God and knows God.” In other words, it is impossible to practice agape love without real connection with God. James reminds us, “Every good and perfect good is from above, coming down from the Father” (James 1:17). We might translate, all the goodness we see in the world, even the good actions of people, is evidence of God’s goodness in the world.

Who then determines if one passes such a test? I’m not running for that position and choose to leave it up to God. But CI leaves the door open for God’s mercy to extend as far as possible while providing an adequate interpretation of New Testament faith.

The Shack and Universalism (Part 1)

2009-10-06T16:35:00.002-05:00

So it has been a while since my previous post, and I was right in the throes of discussion issues related to the book, The Shack by William P. Young when the full force of this semester's obligations took over! So this post will involve another afterwards, but hopefully less time will commence between the two.

In my previous post, I highlighted a number of criticisms that have been leveled against William P. Young’s book, The Shack. In this post, I hope to address one of them, namely the issue of universal salvation that some say the book teaches.

Now, among the criticisms leveled against The Shack on this front, there are really two questions going on here: (1) Is William Young a universalist? And, (2) Does The Shack teach universalism? The answer to (1), according to theologian James B. DeYoung, who is also a friend of William Young, the answer is yes, citing Young “has affirmed his hope that all will be reconciled to God.” Young’s position is that God's primary characteristic of love will ultimately win out in bringing all people to salvation (a similar view can be seen in Philip Gulley’s If Grace is True). DeYoung then suggests that Young’s views are also the position of the Unitarian-Universalist Church (UUC). [you can find a link to DeYoung's pdf article under “Journal Review” here.]

Personally, I don’t know William Young, so I cannot answer (1), but I am interested in (2). While others who point out Young’s so-called universalism merely criticize him for saying that Jesus is merely the “best” way to relate to God rather than the “only” way (109), DeYoung highlights ten ways The Shack endorses universalist views, even though the editors of the book worked hard to erase such claims. I summarize them here:

1) God is primarily a God of love (The universalist creed of 1899 states, “there is one God whose nature is love”).
2) There is no eternal punishment for sin (The 1899 creed states God “will finally restore the whole family of mankind”).
3) Young does not mention Satan, nor the “enormity of sin.”
4) God’s justice is subjugated to his love.
5) Young’s wrong view of the Trinity, that the Father also suffered, which leads to modalism; and making God into a goddess.
6) Reconciliation is effective for all without needing faith as Papa has reconciled himself to the whole world (p. 192), not just those who believe.
7) No future judgment.
8) All are equally children of God and loved by him (155-156).
9) The institutional church is rejected.
10) The Bible is minimized.

In response, I would contest that none of these things implicate The Shack as a book on universalism or necessarily represent the position of the UUC. First, Young cannot be a Unitarian-Universalist, as the UUC ascribes to no creed and represents an incredibly diverse number of congregations. UUC’s commitment to Christian teachings is basically limited to the Bible’s command to love our neighbor as ourselves. In other words, for the UUC, Jesus is simply a good example to follow to bring about social justice in the world. But in stark contrast, Jesus plays an incredibly central role throughout The Shack. Papa says, “Mackenzie, the Truth shall set you free and the Truth has a name; he’s over in the woodshop right now covered in sawdust” (95). And then later on, “Like I said, everything is about him. Creation and history are all about Jesus. He is the very center of our purpose and in him we are now fully human, so our purpose and your destiny are forever linked… There is no plan B” (192). Indeed, this point rebuts the critique that Young falls short by calling Jesus merely the “best” way to relate to God as well. In fact, at one point, Mack calls Jesus “the way in” (177).

Second, to say that Young affirms a “hope that all will be reconciled” seems to be no different than saying God is patient, “not wanting anyone to perish, but everyone to come to repentance” (2 Pet 3:9). If God hopes for reconciliation is he a universalist too?

As for #1-10, I’m not sure what 5, 9, and 10 have to do with universalism, and I already addressed them in my previous post. #1 and 4 would implicate the Apostle John who wrote repeatedly that “God is love” (aren’t you glad God showed mercy and love to you instead of justice?). #8 would implicate the Apostle Paul who proclaimed to the pagans in Athens, “We are God’s offspring” (Acts 17:29). #6 takes Papa’s statement out of context, as the passage clearly states that “reconciliation is a two way street” (192). #3 can be attributed to The Shack’s neoplatonic view of evil, namely that evil is a privation (e.g., dark is the absence of light) and not really a thing/being (136). This may not bode well with current views of Evangelical thought, but it was widely held by Christians thinkers for a thousand years. This leaves us with #s 2 & 7, which address punishment/judgment. I stated in my previous post that Young has a minimalist position on God’s punishment; however, and yet the absence of explicit affirmative statements about punishment does not mean Young denies it (i.e., arguments from silence are not that powerful). Indeed, at least implicitly, two comments by God in The Shack suggest the possibility of eternal separation. To Mack’s question, “Will all roads lead to you?” Jesus replies, “Not at all. Most roads don’t lead anywhere.” And Papa says later, “It is not the nature of love to force a relationship but it is the nature of love to open the way” (192). In other words, God does not force a relationship where one does not desire it. To those who desire independence from God, life in heaven would be a greater torment than hell--those who are in hell desire to be there (a position C.S. Lewis posits in The Great Divorce and elsewhere).

Well then, if The Shack does not prevent universalism, what is it that it teaches? I will address this in my next post!

The Shack and Its Critics: A Review

2009-09-18T13:16:00.002-05:00

I finally got around to reading The Shack. OK, I actually listened to this book on MP3, and then got the book afterward to look more closely at the ideas that most struck me. There's a lot I could say about this book and the many reviews it for quite a long time. So, let me get to the point.

First Impressions: The book is quite slow at the beginning with an added dose of cheesiness. In the first couple chapters, the writing is awkward, and sometimes so detailed the reader feels like he is reading a to-do list. To add to that, the book runs back and forth between theology and fiction, which not only makes it hard to pin down what the author wants you to believe theologically, but makes for too much dialogue and not enough story. In other words, if one wants to hear a provocative sermon, read this book; if one wants a really good novel, look elsewhere.

The Shack is littered with theological topics, far more than I can cover here. Young covers a lot of ground in these few pages. One could probably do hours of reflection on some of the chapters in this book.

Of course, it is regarding many of these topics Young has received extensive criticism. To a degree, I think Young can write some of his critics off simply because it is, indeed, a work of fiction (would these same critics read a book, like, C.S. Lewis's The Great Divorce and believe every statement in that work represents Lewis's own views?); on the other hand, the majority of the theological statements made in the book come out of God's anthropomorphic mouth, an inherent “Thus saith the Lord” if there ever was one.

Some of the criticisms are just way over the top. Critics say Young rejects sola scriptura, because Mack (the main character) gets his theology from extrabiblical sources. But this is like saying the 12 disciples rejected sola scriptura because they spent time with Jesus in the upper room instead of reading their Hebrew scrolls (calling God an “extrabiblical source is a little wrongheaded). The word (logos)--the Bible--is intended to point one's attention to the Word, Jesus (called Logos in John 1:1ff).

Others say he has broken the first commandment by making a graven image out of God and that the three members of the Trinity have never appeared in the flesh, that only Jesus comes in the flesh. But to say that The Shack creates a graven image is to miss the entire point Young is making, that God is not who we think he is, that he does not fit into the stereotypes and graven images we have made of him in our minds (doesn’t the Passion of the Christ or any Easter Passion play create a graven image too?). And thinkers as far back as first century Jewish philosopher, Philo, believed the appearance of Abraham's three visitors was a tri-fold appearance of God (cf. Gen 18). And there are a number of other Divine appearances in the Old Testament (e.g., the Angel of the Lord) that are difficult to explain on this point. Others say that the appearance of God in three physical figures promotes modalism, the view that God is revealed through different modes throughout time. Uh, hello? It can't be modalism if the three persons of the Godhead are all revealed differently at the SAME time.

Closely related, critics say the book promotes goddess worship because the Father is portrayed as a black woman named, Papa (God appears as a man later on), citing that the Bible does not speak of the God in feminine terms. But this again, is simply inaccurate. First of all, Papa states emphatically that God is "neither male nor female" (if God were predominately male, how could God have created both male and female in his image!?). Besides, God doesn’t have body parts (and personally, an omnipresent penis weirds me out), so any physical appearance of God in the flesh should not be taken as corroborative of God's essence. And second, the Bible uses feminine terminology to describe God and his characteristics on a number of occasions (Prv. 1:20; 3:13ff; Matt. 23:37; Luke 15:8-10). That the Spirit is called a "comforter" connotes, generally understood, a feminine characteristic. In fact, one of the most used names for God in the Old Testament, El Shaddai, is a female name. "Shad" comes from the Hebrew word for "breast," and sometimes "womb," and thus symbolizes God's characteristics of fertility/blessing (cf. Gen. 17:2, 28:3; 35:11, 49:25), comfort, nurture, satisfaction, care, etc. Unfortunately the term is mistranslated as "Almighty" (El means "might" and the translators of the Septuagint thought Shaddai came from a different root which meant "to overpower"). So, for those committed to a literal, word-for-word translation of Scripture, more accurately, Psalm 91:1 should say, "He who dwells in the shelter of the Most High will rest in the shadow of the Mighty Boobs."

Critics also say Young denies the authorial hierarchy laden within the Godhead, citing that his “egalitarian view of God” does not accord with the Scriptural commands of submission and obedience. This criticism cites a statement coming from Jesus in the book: “Mackenzie, we have no concept of final authority among us, only unity. We are in a circle of relationship, not a chain of command… We don’t need power over the other because we are always looking out for the best. Hierarchy would make no sense among us” (122). First, this criticism involves a false assumption that hierarchy is necessary for submission and obedience. But it isn’t. Young even alludes to Jesus’ submission to the Father when he speaks of his dependence on God while on earth, citing that Jesus’ miracles were performed “as a dependent, limited human being trusting in my life and power” (100). Second, the criticism ignores the fact that Scripture calls for mutual submission between one another (Eph 6:21). Indeed, this mutual submission is exactly what Young is depicting in the Godhead, who are always in humble service to one another, giving themselves over to each other. This picture highlights a powerful theological concept about God, known as perichoresis, which was held by many early Church Fathers (John of Damascus and Gregory of Nazianzus) and has been highlighted in contemporary theology by Jurgen Moltmann and Miroslav Volf. Third, this criticism misses out on the value of what Young has to say about hierarchy and power. One need only study church history to see how damaging the emphasis on hierarchy has been. God establishes hierarchies, and they necessarily exist to instill order and accountability where chaos has been made through sin—and checks and balances have been established to keep those in authority accountable too. But the Scriptural commands of hierarchy/submission have a hint of cultural context that need to be called into question (e.g., Master-Slave). And in a relationship of perfect love, it hardly makes sense that order and accountability needs restoration.

Now, I do find some of his views suspect. That God the Father bears the nail holes from the cross in his hands seems odd if they truly are distinct persons (it was also a view rejected by the early church). But this idea can easily be discarded without distracting us from the wholly provocative notion Young posits that when Jesus cried "My God, why have you forsaken me," he was only speaking from his human, emotional reality and not ontologically. Just as God never left or forsook David (when he cried the same words), and promises to never leave or forsake us, so too did he not turn his back on his only begotten Son in his darkest hour.

And his notion that God does not judge because "sin is its own punishment" also falls short. That sin is its own punishment, I totally agree with—sin automatically separates us from God, which is the worst punishment of all. But Mack need only look at his own life as a Father to recognize that part of the role of a parent is to use correction and punishment as a form of guidance. As a parent, to not judge at all would be an even worse punishment (have you ever seen unruly kids in the grocery store who are the result of totally lax parents?)! But again, think about the context. Mack's ultimate problem, as for many people today, is that he thinks that God is evil, that he is the ultimate perpetrator of all the bad things that have happened in his life. Young opts for a view that God limits himself (cf. Phil. 2 - "he emptied himself”), to make space for human freedom. Some make the charge that this is Open Theism (as if Open Theism were a heresy too...). But this need not mean that God lacks knowledge or is not sovereign (actually, I felt like the book emphasized God's expansive knowledge). It simply stands as an alternative (one can find throughout church history) to the determinism that exists in some forms of Calvinism, particularly those who follow Jonathan Edwards, whose view of God's sovereignty cannot deny God as the author of evil (at the very least, as a secondary cause). Frankly, I'd take Young's theodicy over John Piper's, who feels he has the capacity to determine how God orchestrates tornadoes and bridge collapses to divinely punish people, any day.

Proverbs says that friends sharpen one another as "iron sharpens iron." We only grow, we only decide more concretely what we ourselves believe, when we encounter opposing views. That is the beauty of this book—even if you disagree with it—as it puts a new light on topics that we have glossed over so many times that they have lost their meaning. Furthermore, some of the critics seem to think that any theological position different from theirs is worthy of the title, "heresy" when in fact, the majority of Young’s positions are simply historically Christian positions not held by the person criticizing the book! These critics seem to think that all those who have read The Shack and have said it has changed their lives have been deluded and duped into believing every word Young has said and criticize such readers for not being more careful in their reading. But this assumes that one must agree with every jot and tittle of a book to be provoked and encouraged by it. I have been compelled by many books from authors who hold very different theological viewpoints than myself—Jews, atheists, Catholics, Muslims, humanists, Arminians, Calvinists, Open Theists, charismatics, cessationists, the list could go on and on. One can disagree with a host of details in the book and still walk away challenged in their walk with God.

Now I have refrained from commenting on a whole host of issues. There is so much more that could be said but this post is already way too long for most people to read it. But there is one topic that has probably been at the top of the criticisms that I will address in an entirely separate post, namely Young’s position on salvation and whether The Shack promotes universalism.

The Un-Pacifier

2009-09-16T20:02:00.008-05:00

So Amber is working tonight, which means I have to figure out how to get Emerson to bed. Since, I don't have the almighty ta-tas, typically when I'm home with him during the day, I feed him and then take him out on a walk and he falls asleep for his mid-day nap. But I'd rather him sleep in his bed rather than his stroller at night...

At 7pm, he started fussing, which I wondered if it were a sign of being hungry more than tired since he usually goes to bed at 8. So I putg him in his highchair (which he really fought) to feed him some yams/carrots homemade baby food. Either he wasn't interested or was just way too tired, because instead of eating the food, as he normally does, he starting "talking" (quite loudly too) and made these weazing noises that he has recently started doing. There's Emerson talking with food in his mouth, yams dribbling out of the corner. I think he thought this was funny.

Since that didn't work, I gave him a bottle with a of milk and took him upstairs. I walked him around as he ate, and he seemed to be settling in. And then I ran out of milk and he wasn't very happy. I didn't want to give him more milk, for fear that I'd give him a bellyache, and gave him a "Nuk" pacifier to see if he would take that and go to bed. And to my surprise, he actually did take it and start settling down. So I laid down next to him in our guest bed, hoping for the best. He then started playing with the pacifier, which he often does, as he sometimes puts the hard side part in his mouth instead, apparently because its more soothing on his teething gums. So, I started singing to him to get him from "playing with the pacifier" mode to sleep mode. He, indeed, was calming down again, and then suddenly he began screaming. I reached my hand over to the front of his face (it was dark and he was facing away from me) to discover that somehow he had managed to turn the pacifier around, put the handle in his mouth, and get it stuck sideways between his tongue and the roof of his mouth (ouch!). A teething child hurts his mouth. Now that's a double wammy.

So I immediately tried to come up with ways to calm him. I gave him some teething tablets and a touch of baby tylenol and that didn't really help. So I gave him a different kind of pacifier that we got from the hospital when he was born. Emerson has traditionally favored the "soothie" over the other pacifiers (when he takes them, which is rare these days anyway), so I thought it would calm him down. To add to the pacifier, I took him out on the front porch, which usually distracts him from whatever he's upset about. Apparently, the soothie wasn't soothing enough, as he kept pushing on it with his hand and moving it around. Again, he's often chewed on the side of this pacifer too and played with it (I sometimes wonder if he thinks its just like any other toy). But this time, he managed to get the entire thing into his mouth! Honestly, I still can't believe he did that because it makes me gag just to put the whole thing in my mouth (yes, I actually tried). I pulled it out immediately, and alas, had to opt for a different soothing technique.

I took him on a walk. Didn't work. He was just past the point of needing to go to bed that he started crying and trying to turn circles in his stroller. Finally, I gave him a bottle, and he calmed down, almost went to sleep instantly. When the bottle ran out, and he still wasn't asleep, I put him on my shoulder and he fell asleep (which doesn't happen very often). But then when I tried to lay him down in his crip a few minutes later he woke up and started crying again (ugh). I picked him up, and he burped really loud (nice). Back to the bottle again. Finally, after six ounces of milk (he usually only drinks 4 at a time) and nearly two hours later, he was asleep. Maybe I can start on some of my homework now...

Today I Believe

2009-09-15T12:11:00.002-05:00

This past Sunday at church, we sang this Celtic prayer from the Northumbria Monastic Community. It's been a while since I was moved by a worship tune, so I thought I'd share these lyrics

Lord, You have always given
bread for the coming day;
and though I am poor,
today I believe.

Lord, You have always given
strength for the coming day;
and though I am weak,
today I believe.

Lord, You have always given
peace for the coming day;
and though of anxious heart,
today I believe.

Lord, You have always kept
me safe in trials;
and now, tried as I am,
today I believe.

Lord, You have always marked
the road for the coming day;
and though it may be hidden,
today I believe.

Lord, You have always lightened
this darkness of mine;
and though the night is here,
today I believe.

Lord, You have always spoken
when time was ripe;
and though you be silent now,
today I believe.

Summer's Last Hurrah

2009-09-06T08:57:00.006-05:00

So school is back in full swing and we're in the crazy mix of coordinating schedules, trying to find baby-sitters, dealing with a teething child, fixing up the house, staying on top of bills, and doing course work. But before the first day of class, we managed to take a short swing back home to Lafayette and Indianapolis. Now it was totally impossible for us to get in touch with everyone we know and introduce Emerson to them, but even the amount of running around we did totally ran Emerson ragged. Indeed, he was a complete mess on the drive home (and far less excited about being in the car than when we started!)! So we did manage to go home and see some family and friends.

On Thursday morning, we drove home, with our first stop being a Mexican restaurant we have frequented that is at the Cedarville University exit in Ohio (we always get the nachos supremos). Then, we stopped at College Park in Indy on the way to surprise all my former coworkers (actually, the morning started out with me getting up really early to change the oil in Amber's car which hadn't been done in a long while and fill the car up with gas). We were a bit disappointed that some of them were not around when we stopped by, but it was certainly a big surprise for everyone we did see. We actually got there as some of the guys were getting ready to go out and play soccer after work, the regular Thursday afternoon ritual that I used to be a part of, which brought back a lot of memories. Then, we went to my parent's place, where Emerson got a taste of some of the future antics he'll experience from grandpa :).

On Friday, Amber took Emerson over to her friend Sarah's house to introduce him to her two little girls and the now infamous "jumperoo" toy that he loves so well (He's played in it so much that the batteries that play the music in it are already dying out). That night, Everette Mills came over to hang out with us, and stayed for dinner. Sorry you couldn't meet Emerson too, Megan!!

On Saturday, we went down to Indy and unwisely went to the State Fair in the heat of the afternoon on an August day. But we had to keep up with our yearly ritual of going to the fair with our friends, Dennis and Heidi and their addition, Edmund. Edmund is three months older than Emerson (but the same weight!!!), and it was amazing to see the clear developmental differences between the two as Edmund crawled circles around Emerson who just watched.

Saturday night, we and our family stayed at a hotel in Indy as my two youngest brothers were running in the Tri-Indy triathlon on Sunday morning. Exhausted from the heat of the fair (Emerson actually got a pretty nasty heat rash too), we took a nap and then our friend Beth came by to meet Emerson and catch up on each other's lives. My older brother, Brandon, also drove down from Fort Wayne for the evening so he could meet his new nephew. Then, we went to dinner at the Old Spaghetti Factory in downtown where Emerson proceeded to completely destroy the paper place mat that was at my spot at the table (apparently, he has this thing for paper [maybe its the crinkly sound?] and he even cries when we take it away from him!). Then, he suddenly had a meltdown and I had to take him on a stroll through downtown for him to fall asleep.

Finally, on Sunday, the family cheered Brant and Brogan on as they swam, biked, and ran for two hours. Afterward, we were off back to Pittsburgh. We took a slight detour near Dayton, OH to see our friends Matt and Nancy who had just moved from Lafayette to the Dayton-Fairborn-Springfield area. A couple hours later, we were back on the road for an exhausting five more hours (which should have taken three and a half but Emerson was sick of being in the car). By the time we got home we needed a vacaction from our vacation!!

Every Move You Make... I'll Be Watching You

2009-08-24T20:58:00.003-05:00

So, Dr. Sears must have a video camera on us these days. In his "top nine" causes of inconsolable crying with babies, the number one is teething. Here's his synopsis:

Your beautiful five-month-old baby boy, who has been the most perfect little angel since birth, has suddenly turned into a cranky, fussy, drooling, chews-on- everything-in-site little monster! He is now keeping you up half the night, and needs to be held, bounced, and nursed all day long. Welcome to the wonderful world of TEETHING!"

Thankfully, Emerson's personally taken care of his need "to be bounced," as he's fallen in love with his new toy, the "jumperoo" which was loaned to us by our friend Sarah when we were back in Indiana last weekend (she also recommended Hyland's Teething Tablets which has been a huge help!). Seriously, this kid LOVES to bounce in this thing. Yesterday, he probably spent two hours in it. He jumped so much that he got a blister on his big toe! But don't think we're being neglectful parents - what he loves more than bouncing is knowing someone is watching him bounce! In fact, yesterday when he was bouncing, I would look over at him every few seconds and he would just burst out laughing (he'd even throw his head back and cackle. It was hilarious!). He thinks its really funny too when I jump with him.

So yeah, our lives have been a bit chaotic these days (without a teething child!). This weekend, we spent a lot of time trying to get our house/lives organized as my first day back to class was today. Saturday, we cleaned up Emerson's room, reorganized the basement, and finally got a light bulb for the garage. Then, our washing machine broke. We buy a new house, and three weeks later--three weeks after we sold our previous washing machine because we didn't think we'd need it!!--our washer breaks. Ugh. So, we get on Craig's List, checked out the local Sear's Scratch and Dent store, and sent out a bunch of emails to possible sellers.

Then, on Sunday, after refreshing the Craig's List page about every half hour, I located a steal of a washing machine -- a DIGITAL washer for only $50! And, I was the first to respond! Woohoo! Now, I only had to pick it up...and find a truck to do so. I asked around at church and started making some phone calls but had little leads. On top of that, on Sunday afternoon, our friend Sean helped me saw our box springs in half (it was the only way to get them upstairs - we've been sleeping on our mattress on the floor for three weeks!) and put them back together, fought an enormous swarm of yellow jackets (I used an entire can of Raid, and there are still TONS of them around), and even watched the Cubs win a game for once...So much for Sabbath.

I scheduled to get the washer Monday night (tonight) and then this morning, suddenly realized that Amber was scheduled to work. Not only did I need to find a truck, I needed to find a babysitter, and a helping hand to get the washer home! So I did what any good social networker would do : I sent out the need via Facebook status! And I emailed nearly everyone in my philosophy department. Even then, I didn't get much response (which is simply evidence that none of our friends own trucks!), but I got what I needed. Even better, I got a "one stop shopping" -- all three of my needs were fulfilled by one family (thanks Kevin and Steph!). So, we got the washer and got back in less than an hour. And there, when we got back to my friend's house, was my screaming, teething, and extremely tired little (cute?) Monster. Poor kid. Really, all he needed was a good, long nap (sounds familiar, eh?). In fact, he fell asleep in the car within seconds. Oh, and we've discovered that when he's really upset, he makes a verbal utterance that sounds exactly like "mama." Don't think he quite knows what it means yet, but I don't think its a coincidence either.

So that's been our crazy last few days. Oh, and somehow amidst all of this, I also went to my first class of the semester today. It was actually quite good, considering so much of today was a big blur. Anyways, gotta go get the cloth diapers out of our new washer and into the dryer - and go to bed!

Feeding Frenzy

2009-08-18T10:10:00.004-05:00

So, this past week, we started Emerson on solids for the first time. It was quite a trip. Actually, I started him on Tuesday because Amber was gone and I was out of breastmilk. So, I gave him some homemade baby food (pureed pears), and alas, I think we created a monster. Seriously, he is totally an addict (perhaps it was because the pears were so sweet!).

At first, he couldn't quite figure out the spoon, so I fed him using my finger, but it didn't take long for him to think he could do it on his own. It wasn't long before I had a hard time feeding him, because he kept trying to take the spoon and even the bowl so he could get some! Needless to say, he was pretty upset when my ice cube size amount of pear was all gone.

Then, this weekend we took a quick trip home to Indiana to see some family and friends, many of whom had yet to see Emerson. We had dinner at my parents house on Thursday, and my dad put Emerson on his lap and went right to feeding him smashed up bananas and carrots. He looked like a pro (my dad and Emerson!). It was quite humorous, as the only bib my mom had clearly did not fit over Emerson's head, but somehow she managed to get it on him.

What Kind of God Are You?

2009-08-11T20:12:00.000-05:00

In my last post, I mentioned my dreadful situation of watching my son choke and my response to the situation. That experience also got me thinking about the nature of God. Depending on your theological persuasion, there are a number of emotions that God does or does not experience. Or if you’re an Aristotelian, you’re inclined to say that God is pure thought, so to speak of God and emotion at all is to venture into the realm of metaphor. Generally speaking, there are two schools of thought on this issue (that’s being reductionistic, of course, but the other views seem to be varying degrees of the following two):

The God of Neoplatonic thought, and Calvinism in many respects,(and what is often viewed as orthodox) has a limited scope of feelings. This God may (metaphorically) experience love, joy, peace, anger, righteous indignation, and desire justice. That may even be going too far; perhaps God IS these things (e.g., “God is Love”), but to say he experiences these things would be to place him in the realm of time. But this God certainly does not experience fear, panic, the pressure of taking risks, courage, doubt, the feeling of second-guessing himself, or the sheer delight of surprise. On the other hand, the God of Open Theism and other related views says that God experiences all of these feelings.

There are people—smart and contemplative people, I might add—on both sides. And they don’t take a side due to some shallow shot at proof-texting. Each position can present reasonable and convincing arguments for their case. And each position caters to a certain list of Scripture passages for support (or a certain method of interpretation of Scripture).

The Calvinist resorts to verses that support God’s omniscience, omnipotence, omnipresence, immutability, impassibility (does not feel emotion), foreknowledge, and timelessness (terms which have come from Greek philosophy, I might point out). They cite, “For I am the Lord, I change not” (Mal. 3:6), “All the days ordained for me were written in your book before one of them came to me” (Ps. 139:16), “For those God foreknew he also predestined to be conformed to the likeness of his Son…And those he predestined, he also called; those he called, he also justified; those he justified, he also glorified” (Rom. 8:29-30), “For he chose us in him before the creation of the world” (Eph. 1:4), or “From one man he made every nation of men…and he determined the times set for them and the exact places where they should live” (Acts 17:26).

The Open Theist resorts to verses that support God experiencing emotion (and Christ’s humanity), not knowing what will happen due to human freedom, and working in tandem with man to bring about his goals for the world (e.g., such as prayer changing God’s mind). They cite, “But Moses sought the favor of the Lord his God. ‘O Lord,’ he said, ‘why should your anger burn against your people…’ Then the Lord relented and did not bring on his people the disaster he had threatened” (Ex. 32:11-14), “The prophet Isaiah son of Amoz went to him and said, ‘This is what the LORD says: … you are going to die; you will not recover.’ Hezekiah turned his face to the wall and prayed to the LORD…Then the word of the LORD came to Isaiah: … ‘This is what the LORD, the God of your father David, says: I have heard your prayer and seen your tears; I will add fifteen years to your life” (Isa. 38:1-5), “I thought that after she [Israel] had done all this she would return to me but she did not” (Jer. 3:7), “The Lord was grieved that he had made man on the earth” (Gen 6:6), and “When God saw what they did and how they turned from their evil ways, he had compassion and did not bring upon them the destruction he had threatened” (Jonah 3:10).

My concern is not which position is “right.” If there was a definitive conclusion, one would think that the Holy Spirit would have told us by now or that God would have been a bit clearer in his directions.

I am more interested in the psychology between why someone chooses one over the other. Both positions are concerned with preserving something they consider central to God’s character. The Calvinist wants to preserve God’s sovereignty; the Open Theist wants to prevent God from being the cause of evil. The Calvinist wants to preserve God’s transcendence and sing, “How unsearchable his judgments, and his paths beyond tracing out” (Rom. 11:33); the Open Theist wants to preserve God’s immanence, to have a “high priest” who is able to “sympathize with our weaknesses” (Heb. 4:15). We could say, both positions are often argued for out of the best of intentions.

Since Scriptural support can be found for both (and both sides could easily appeal to the Holy Spirit to claim they’ve got it right!), I’m convinced that the majority of people fall down on one side of the spectrum or the other, in the end, because it is the position that provides them the greatest sense of security, hope, or sense of justice (that is, unless they just blindly accept one since its been taught them…). Actually, most people probably hold to the synthesis of the two positions (e.g., I know many professing Calvinists who sincerely believe in the power of prayer), not realizing that, to many philosophers and theologians, they are mutually exclusive. Ironically then, the nature of God’s emotions (or lack thereof) is decided on by emotion! One person finds security in a God who is cool in the face of evil and suffering and death because he is orchestrating it all and knows how it will pan out. Another finds security in a God who creates space for true human freedom. One finds refuge in God’s constancy; the other finds peace in a God who understands the roller coaster that constitutes human existence.

So I ask myself, thinking about the feeling of panic—an urgency that motivated me to action and was fueled with love and deep concern—I experienced when my child was choking, do I want a God who is sovereign but impassible in my time of need or a God who “panics” for the sake of his people? If God is Father, if I’m to learn how to be a good father by looking to the Father (there's another metaphor), what kind of God is helpful for me in this situation? How do I pray to a God who doesn’t understand the feeling of panic when his child is in danger—or can’t share with me in the delight of surprise, for that matter (just think about it, isn't the delight of surprise one of the greatest things about life?)?

On the other hand, the God I am now describing is starting to sound a little like Santa Claus, there at my beck and call, or at the very least, a tamed God who I can comprehend and fits within certain parameters and expectations (which is bordering on idolatry). Then again, the God of metaphysics is pretty tame (i.e., predictable).

With all these meandering ramblings, I end this post and return to my fussing child. I wonder how God feels about fussy children (he has lots of them!).

Learning about the Fragility of Life

2009-08-08T15:55:00.002-05:00

Lately, I’ve been vividly reminded of the fragility of life—it’s one of those things that come with the territory of raising an infant, no doubt. Every little thing has the potential to be a near-death experience: we forget to strap him in properly in his car seat before taking a trip (“I thought you strapped him in!”); he starts choking on his own spit; he grabs something that he shouldn’t have and tries to put it in his mouth; he falls asleep in his car seat and drops his head toward his neck, making it difficult to breath.

More particularly, he has now become a “rolly polly,” taking every opportunity to roll and move, which means we have to be very mindful where we set him down so he doesn’t fall off couch or whack his head on something. He’s even figured out how to roll and wiggle out of his car seat, which makes us fear he’s going to flip it over sometime. In fact, he’s so in to rolling over, that now frequently rolls from his back to his stomach in his sleep (he obviously prefers to sleep on his side or stomach!). It seems that most people say one need not worry about an infant suffocating when he gets to this stage, since if he’s able to roll over in his sleep he is cognizant enough to do something if he gets in danger. But frankly, it still freaks me out.

Then there was this morning. Amber and I have gotten in the habit of giving a piece of melon rind after we cut up a melon or cantaloupe, so he can simultaneously use it kind of like a teething ring and get a taste of something new, of course being careful to keep an eye on him in case he happens to completely gnaw a piece off. So, I was out to breakfast with some friends and handed him a leftover piece of watermelon rind. Obviously, there was too much watermelon still left on the rind, as he managed to bite off a number of pieces and couldn’t handle it. I turned to see my son with his head cocked back, eyes red and watering, trying to squeal, but with his mouth wide open and throat clogged with watermelon and slobber.

Dad goes into hyper drive. I jumped up, stuck my finger down his throat and pulled out three little chunks of watermelon, wrangled him out of his car seat and turned him upside down. Five seconds later everything was back to normal and he was acting like nothing happened. But in those few moments of panic, a number of thoughts raced through my mind: He’s choking! Why is it taking so long to get him out of his carseat? Why haven’t I learned the baby Heimlich? Did I get all the watermelon out? How will I know when he’s breathing regularly? How many of these people in the café staring at me now think I’m a bad parent?

After getting over the emotional roller coaster, the events of the morning got me thinking about motivation (sorry, nearly everything turns into a philosophical conversation for me). First, what was my motivation for my quick action?

Was it out of deep love for my child? I certainly deeply love my child, but I’m inclined to believe I would have responded to any choking child (although, due to the intimate bond between father and child, my response time may have been slower in a different situation).

Was it out of a deep sense of my primordial, infinite responsibility to relieve the suffering of the other (that’s Levinas talking)? Perhaps, but that wasn’t my immediate perception.

Was it out of shame for what people would think of my parenting capabilities? That did come to mind, but it wasn’t part of my first inclination.

Was it out of fear—fear of the consequences of my previous action, fear of Emerson choking? For sure—I was struck with sheer panic, to be exact, but the kind of panic that moves one to action rather than cause him to freeze right in his tracks.

Or was it a combination of a number of motivators (probably)? Motivation is a deceptive and enigmatic thing.

But this brings me to a second question: is fear a good and valid motivator? I have heard numerous sermons on this topic taking one side or the other. Take for instance, Kierkegaard’s take which I happened to read earlier this week: “Fear [particularly, fear of punishment] is a deceitful aid. It can embitter one’s pleasure, make life laborious and miserable, make one old and decrepit; but it cannot help one to the Good since fear itself has a false conception of the Good” (Purity of Heart is to Will One Thing).

As I’ve pondered fear as a motivator, I’ve concluded that it simply depends on the situation, on what it is one fears. In this case, my panic was a very good thing, because as a father I ought to have a healthy awareness (which could be understood as a cousin of fear) of what can hurt my child, of when my child is hurting. But then, if I am constantly afraid of my child’s well-being, it could be detrimental to his growth. So there are healthy fears, healthy fears taken to an extreme, unhealthy fears, and even absurd fears. Perhaps, only the first category is a good motivator. But to create categories is one thing; to arrange all the various fears one has into them is another! How does one not constantly be afraid of a child's safety?

There are further thoughts…but they will have to wait for another post.

Emerson Slap Happy

2009-08-02T09:36:00.000-05:00

So Emerson gets slap happy when he's really tired. This is the first time we've actually been able to get it on video since he's still in this phase in which he stops whatever he's doing as soon as he sees the camera come out. The first time he did this, we were in the Gap Kids and he was squealing every time I looked at him. Hilarious.

My Six Seconds of Fame

2009-07-18T16:25:00.001-05:00

So, Amber and I just happened to be buying our house on the same day that the local news station was doing a special on the decreasing price of houses in Pittsburgh (apparently it didn't hit our neighborhood, as we paid a pretty penny for ours!). Anyways, we got a nice six seconds of fame (ha!).

http://kdka.com/video/?id=60252@kdka.dayport.com

Give me a break!

2009-07-10T20:19:00.002-05:00

According to most doctor recommendations, a four-month old is supposed to take 2-3 naps a day for a total of 4-5 hours or so in addition to an evening of 10 hours of sleep. Conversely, the infant is supposed to be awake for about nine hours of the day.

Emerson decided he would only take one nap today for a total of one hour. He has decided he doesn't like to go to sleep; more specifically, he won't go to sleep for me. Apparently, Amber has something I don't. It's not just that when he's with me he thinks its time to play either. All the methods I used to have up my sleeve to get him to take a nap simply don't work anymore. I've tried walking him around the neighborhood in an Infantino or in a stroller to lull him to sleep. I tried driving him around town. Doesn't work. He just looks around these days. I'll rock him, sing to him, put him in a dark room, lay down with him... all to no avail. For a while, we thought maybe he just wasn't getting enough to eat—which is also problematic, as it means he thinks he can only fall asleep if he's eating. So today, I stuffed him full. It worked the first time. And when he woke up twenty minutes into his nap I was able to rock him and use a bottle to get him to fall back asleep. Forty minutes later? Not a chance. A little while later, when the bags under his eyes made it obvious he was tired, I tried feeding him more. He got to the point that he was pushing the bottle away. He just keeps wanting to stay awake, keeps getting his “second wind” (and third, and fourth...).

Two days ago, I had similar issues but it wasn't as bad. He slept for a total of two hours that afternoon. At one point, after wrestling with him to go to sleep, I finally set him down on his belly so he could look around, and he looked straight at me with a big grin, as if to say, “Ha! I win!” Later, I laid down with him in bed and sang to him to see if that would work. Then, I stopped singing and closed my eyes to feign sleep (which, amazingly enough does work sometimes in the early morning when he wakes up at 5AM and we want him to go back to bed. Apparently, if there's no one to give him attention, he figures he might as well sleep). Instead, he started smacking me in the face and stuck his finger up my nose. He's four months old and he already knows. I can't trick this kid. Like this morning when I was playing with him and his toy lion and trying to get him to think that the lion was talking to him: Every time I would say something in the “lion voice” he would turn his head away from the lion and look straight at me as if to say, “Are you kidding me?”

So tonight, Amber gets home, feeds him, and he falls right to sleep. We're going out to dinner. I pick him up five minutes later and put him in the car seat. He fidgets a bit more than normal but he stays asleep. Good deal. Before we get out the door, he's awake again. By the time we get to the restaurant, he's hit his wall and starts complaining that he's tired and finally finds solace in sucking the life out of his fingers and blanket.

Child-rearing is easy(ier) until they start becoming sentient creatures. Yeah, its only going to get more difficult.

For the first time in my life, I wish I could grow a boob. It would have to be retractable. “Go go gadget boob!” Bam! And after I settled Emerson down from my retractable boob poking him in the eye, maybe he would finally take a nap.

Growing Up So Fast

2009-07-02T20:27:00.007-05:00

Life has been a blur the past couple weeks as we get set to move and buy a house. But Emerson isn't waiting for us so he can grow up. This past Sunday, Amber and I were looking across the church sanctuary at a recently born little guy in our midst and I commented about how I wish Emerson was still that tiny. Quite the contrary, he's anything but tiny for his age. At nearing the 4 month mark, he's over 17 lbs and closing in on growing out of his baby carrier!! He's been in six months clothing for about a month now...

As far as milestones, he's rolled over a few times both directions, but I think he's growing so fast its like he has to relearn how to do it everyday. He really wants to crawl and has tried various styles of scooting, but so far, to little avail although one time he made headway by getting enough blanket behind his toes so he could push off. He almost has a tooth (and drools ALL the time). He's been able to hold (practically) his entire body weight on his legs for months (just hasn't gotten that balance thing figured out). He giggles all the time and now has started talking, trying out the various vowel-consonant combinations he knows. And today, he finally discovered he can pull on the little monkey toy attached to his car seat and watch it wiggle back up (I think he enjoyed putting the paws in his mouth more than anything else). Oh and best of all, he had a royal blowout in his carrier so much so that we had to clean the entire thing.

So, here's a little time lapse of the kiddo who has already been on multiple trips on Pittsburgh's public transit, his first road trip (to D.C.), first airplane flight (to Salt Lake City) and first Cubs baseball game (two days ago) -- all of which he was a real trooper and did great (which just shows how much I need to blog about!).

Day 1: in the hospital.

Day 5: finally home after our escapade at Children's Hospital

2 Weeks: he already looks so much bigger!

1 Month: snuggled up in his own chair.

Six weeks: he's pretty much grown out of this papasan now...

2 Months: hamming it up.

3 Months: hanging with Uncle Bryce in Utah.

Today, closing in on 4 months: I think he's going to need a bigger bumbo seat.

He Said It Better

2009-07-01T19:50:00.004-05:00

Yup, I was there for this:

http://angryscottishman.blogspot.com/2009/06/strange-dude-invades.html

Live. Love. Laugh.

2009-06-19T13:13:00.003-05:00

“Life is what happens to you when you’re busy making other plans.” – John Lennon, “Beautiful Boy”

We often live our lives waiting for the future. We make big dreams. We have desires, the plans for our lives, or at least, the way we want our lives to pan out. “Shoot for the moon,” every high school valedictorian honestly (but unfortunately, so tritely) proses, “for even if you miss, you’ll be among the stars.”

We want to be extraordinary (who wants to be ordinary?). We want to reach our fullest potential, to do things with excellence (which, in Christian circles is usually guilt-tripped into you by some goofy proof-texting like “let all things be done decently and in order” [1 Cor. 14:40] or “make the most of every opportunity because the days are evil” [Eph. 5:16]). We are convinced, like everyone else, God wants to use us for something great; or if this is unachieveable, as one cliché proposes, “If you can’t do great things, do small things in a great way.”

Philosopher Martin Heidegger, was well aware of this phenomenon—not of bad commencement speeches, but of the way the future shapes our lives. To him, the authentic self does not live in the present but in the future. He looks straight into the eyes of death and takes life by the horns and makes something out of it. Each one of us is thrown into a set of possibilities beyond our personal choice or abilities—the “(un)natural lottery” as some thinkers prefer to call it—and it is from this array of future possibilities that we take ownership of who we are.

But human freedom, nonetheless, and as evident as it is, life often tends to take us by the horns. Our dreams are fettered by impossible obstacles—we do not live in an “equal opportunity” world. Our plans are redirected upon some new, unknown trajectory by a decision here, indecision there, indifference in this aspect of our lives, time that passes by too quickly. Singleness. Divorce. A life-changing accident. Cancer. An unplanned pregnancy. “Life comes at you fast,” one commercial reminds us, but no insurance policy can help us regain an understanding of our own (mis)identity amidst the flurry of activity, events, and even mundane routines that make up our fleeting existence.

A different hand is dealt us than we expected. At first, we become disoriented or angry; we blame God and others for this life that becomes our real life. We get frustrated that our short lives are largely composed of the same boring activities: sleeping, eating, practicing personal hygiene, clothing ourselves, sitting in traffic, buying groceries, doing laundry. And when we realize “each man’s life is but a breath. Man is a mere phantom…” (Ps. 39:5-6), we wish to be a cat with nine lives, or we secretly hope reincarnation is actually true so we can come back and do all the things we missed out on in the next time around.

Then, after this bitter pill goes down, we realize a sweetness in its aftertaste. No matter how lame or boring our lifestyle sounds when we tell it to someone else, we find that it is far better than we had ever anticipated.

We find meaning in the squeal of an infant who is squirming while we change his diaper. The local (and by many comparisons, pretty pathetic) restaurant becomes a storehouse of cherished memories. We feel the beauty in the simplicity of our lives, in a brief lunch break with a friend or a drive through the country at dusk on a cool summer day. We enjoy waking up to a kiss even if it includes bad breath.

We relish in the distinct smell of tomato plant on our hands after working in the garden, or a new book freshly unwrapped, or the genuine leather of a baseball glove, or “the smell of a newborn baby’s head” (thanks U2). We enliven our soul with the taste of watermelon on the 4th of July, a cold beer after a hot summer’s day of work, wassail or hot chocolate when frost outlines our windows, and fresh chocolate chip cookies right out of the oven (good anytime).

We find our history by participating in that same cycle of life—birth, school, puberty, more school, marriage, child-rearing, death, and estate taxes—that has been experienced for thousands of generations. Our routine becomes a rhythm, the heartbeat for our life; the hum of the refridgerator, the buzz of the computer with its dying out fan, the ear-piercing alarm clock, the laughter of summer, the fury in insects’ wings who have made their way into the house, the creek of the long-since oiled screen door, and the bodily noises of an infant become the orchestra for the soundtrack of our lives.

We look at all of this and see that it is incredibly more than we could ever ask for or imagine. We taste and see life and declare it is good, no, very good. Life is Beautiful.

“But everything I had to lose
Came back a thousand times in you
And you fill me up with love
Fill me up with love
And you help me stand
'cause I am a family man…
This is not what I was headed for when I began
This was not my plan
It's so much better than” – Andrew Peterson, “Family Man”

Becoming an Emotionally Mature Adult, Part 2

2009-06-07T10:06:00.002-05:00

Part 2 of the Sermon...

Practice the Presence of People
Why is all of this important? Because its absolutely central to framing our relationship with God. Allow me to explain. In the account of the story of Moses who asked to see God's glory, God promises to “cause all my goodness to pass by” (Ex 33:19). But what is God's goodness? Well, in the same verse, God tells us: “I will have mercy on whom I will have mercy, and I will have compassion on whom I have compassion.” Moses is engrossed in the goodness of God and it turns out to be mercy and compassion. God's goodness is not an abstract ideal. It is not a feeling that warms us up inside. And it is certainly not something we can control or possess absolutely. God's goodness is active compassion and mercy, a certain kind of disposition towards the Other. While in our desire for the Infinitely Desireable, we are apt to conceive of it as something to be enraptured by, something that causes us to forget everything else in the world. But the humble God of Philippians 2 who “empties himself,” deflects our desire to simply gaze upon the face of God, because what is really near to God's heart is showing compassion and mercy. In our desire for God, God turns our gaze to our neighbor, to consider how we might show compassion and mercy. Indeed, God could not be called good unless he diverted our desire for him into attention to the needs of the Other. True Religion, is to tend to the needs of the fatherless and the widow. Like the God who empties himself, my being/existence is grounded in my dis-interestedness in my own existence, in my “non-being,” in the emptying of myself for the needs and interests of others.

In this chapter, Pete Scazzero suggests that we not only practice the presence of God, as Brother Lawrence long ago coined; rather, we must “practice the presence of people.” He writes:

Loving well is the essence of true spirituality... God invites us to practice his presence in our daily lives. At the same time, he invites us 'to practice the presence of people,' within an awareness of his presence, in our daily relationships. The two are rarely brought together. [179]

Here, Scazzero makes use of the thought of Jewish philosopher, Martin Buber. In his book, I and Thou, Buber points out that most of our lives are spent treating people like objects, like an it. Like freshmen biology students dissecting frogs, we objectify and dehumanize people, we reduce them to what they can do for us. My neighbors exist to mow their yards to increase my house's property value. The cashier exists to hand me my purchase and run my credit card. My professor exists only to give me the information I need to get the grade I want. But in fleeting moments, we encounter a person not as an It but as a Thou. We relate to them, acknowledge them rather than treat them as an object of knowledge. And in that moment, a sacred space is created between us. In that relation, while allowing the Other to be themselves – to be beyond our comprehension – we encounter the Eternal Thou. Buber writes,

“I know nothing of a ‘world’ and a ‘life in the world’ that might separate a man from God. What is thus described is actually life with an alienated world of It, which experiences and uses. He who truly goes out to meet the world goes out also to God.” (95)

The primary way we interact with God is through other people. We might put it thusly: To love your neighbor as yourself is how to love the Lord your God with all your heart. We don't practice God's presence and practice the presence of others as if they are two different disciplines. They are irrevocably connected. To practice the presence of people is to practice the presence of God. If you really believed this fact, how would it revolutionize the way you view the world, view people?

Scripture points us to this reality, but it seems that our sermons have missed it. Jacob, after stealing his older brother's birthright, flees for his life. Only many years later does he come into contact with his brother, Esau. Jacob, feared the worst – that perhaps, Esau would kill him or his family. But when it became evident that Esau was not going to repay evil for evil, that they could live in harmony with one another, Jacob exclaimed: “To see your face is like seeing the face of God” (Gen 33:10).

By our ethical actions toward the Other, we enact God's presence. When we bless those who persecute us, we incarnate the God who has mercy on whom he will have mercy. When we love others and practice hospitality we realize the God who has compassion on whom he will have compassion. When we do everything we can to live at peace with one another, we exhibit the God who is slow to anger and abounding in love. And when we feed the hungry, clothe the poor, and care for the stranger, we care for Christ, who told us that “as much as you've done for the least of these, you've done it for me.”

Respect for Self, Respect for Others
Now, there may not be orphans and widows at your every turn. Too often, when we speak of love, we only think of the Mother Theresas of the world, as if the kind of love God wants us to practice is so grandiose that only a small few can achieve that state. But all of us are called to be an emotionally mature adult, for in each day of our lives there are people we are called to love, to treat as a Thou. For we enact our infinite responsibility even by the most mundane of acts, like holding the door open for someone else. As Victor Hugo said in Les Miserables, “There are many great deeds done in the small struggles of life.”

Throughout the chapter, Scazzero paints a helpful picture of what it looks like to be an emotional infant, child, adolescent, and adult. These characteristics can essentially be divided into two groups: how we view ourselves and how we view others.

Being an emotionally mature adult involves a healthy respect for yourself, appreciating the gifts and abilities God gave you. The one who is emotionally immature is not comfortable in his own skin. As a result, he looks for others to care for things he ought to be able to handle himself—he often lacks the confidence to do so. He has an addictive personality—he's looking for something else to make him complete. He unravels quickly from stress and disappointments. He has difficulty communicating his needs and wants because he doesn't know what they are. He is threatened and alarmed by criticism.

The emotionally mature adult, however, recognizes the significance of being a part of the Body of Christ. This is not just a metaphor. This is reality. Metaphors don't have skin and flesh, but we incarnate God's love to the world by our blood, sweat, and tears. I am my own body. Your body is an extension of who you are. Your body shapes your personhood. This is your body and no one else's. These are your hands and feet for serving others, your gifts for contributing to the church. The body is not an inhibitor but is our vehicle for interacting with God's world. We have to learn to be comfortable in our own skin, comfortable with the shape and size of our body, comfortable with the gifts God has given us if we are to adequately serve others. And together, our bodies make up the body of Christ.

If you want to have a practical list for the emotionally mature adult, just look at the list of behaviors in Romans 12. Loving well is not simply an intellectual pursuit we perform with our minds. Romans 12:1-2 is so often preached upon all by itself as if the “renewing of our minds” is completely detached from the rest of this passage. But Paul tells us that the renewal of our minds is really the renewal of our entire way of being in the world. It has a physical component, an active component. Our flesh and blood are a part of who we are and are a part of our emotionally healthy spirituality.

As a result, the self comfortable in her own skin is in tune with her emotions and can clearly communicate her thoughts and feelings without becoming adversarial. She takes responsibility for her attitudes and actions. She is capable of accurately assessing her strengths and weaknesses – she knows her limits, her personality traits, her emotional makeup.

When we are comfortable in our own skin, we can rightly relate to others. Why is this the case? Because only then are we comfortable enough to disagree with others and to be ourselves. When we are comfortable with our own opinions and views, and with our own spiritual journey, we can be relaxed around those who think differently from us, who are critical of us, whose spiritual journey does not look like our own.

In his encountering with others, the emotionally immature adult uses others as a means to an end and can hardly see the world from the perspective of others. Because he is not confident about his own beliefs and opinions, he is easily hurt, often interprets disagreements as personal offenses, and is apt to go on the defensive. He keeps an account of the things he does for others and expects them to pay him back. He is critical and judgmental of the spiritual journey of others, comparing his journey theirs.

The emotionally mature adult not only healthily disagrees and communicates well with others, she respects others without feeling the need to change them. She appreciates others for who they are, accepting the good and the bad about them. She can resolve conflict maturely and gives people the space to make mistakes. Rather than ignoring conflict, she pursues true peace as much as is possible and sees the potential good in conflict. She is a good listener. She gives people the benefit of the doubt and is careful not to hold tightly onto assumptions about others. She clearly communicates the expectations she has for others.

There is a lot to think about here. What would it look like to be a church full of emotionally mature adults? Each of us probably need to reflect specifically on some of these characteristics and ask ourselves how we are still emotionally immature.

Allow me to end with this: In 1914, the newly appointed Pope Benedict XV called Catholics “to appease dissension and strive” in order that “no one should consider himself entitled to affix on those who merely do not agree with his ideas the stigma of disloyalty to faith.” Do we treat others with honor and respect, giving them the benefit of the doubt, or do we use our faith journeys as the litmus tests for everyone else?

Becoming an Emotionally Mature Adult, Part 1

2009-06-04T19:59:00.002-05:00

This past week, I preached at our church, which is nearing the end of a series on a book entitled, Emotionally Healthy Spirituality by Peter Scazzero who is a pastor in Queens. I highly recommend the book which is not only a very simple introduction to the spiritual disciplines/practices but shows how emotional and spiritual health are irrevocably tied. I was asked to speak on chapter 9, where Scazzero points out that the outflow of the spiritual disciplines, the intended result of the spiritual practices, is to love others well. Rather than preaching through the contents of the chapter, I took this idea and virtually ran with it, largely depending on the thought of one of my favorite philosophers, Emmanuel Levinas. After the congregational reading of Romans 12, this is what I had to say:

Intro
Loving well, Pete Scazzero tells us, is the goal of emotionally healthy spirituality. The outflow of learning to have emotional boundaries and engaging in spiritual practices is to interact with one another with love, respect, and dignity. Silence, solitude, meditation, the Ignatian examen, all of the personal disciplines are good things, but unless they help you love others better, they are completely worthless.

This is the chapter most forgotten in books on the spiritual disciplines. So often, the Christian life is focused only on contemplation, on our vertical, individual relationship with God, while our horizontal relationships are all but forgotten. This is the devastating heritage of much of Christian spirituality throughout church history. Christianity appropriated the Greek philosophy which diminished the physical world, virtually viewing the body as evil, and placed a high value on unity with the One, or God. Augustine, Aquinas, the ascetics, monks, and mystics like Theresa of Avila, by accepting this set of values came to view the goal of life as to continually disassociate with the things and people and relationships of this world in exchange for a detached, intimate, personal encounter with God.

This way of thinking still bears its mark on the way we think about relating to God. While we do talk about the Christian life as being part of a Body, as we just read in Romans 12, and occasionally we speak of God's covenant people when we speak of the Old Testament, by and large, ingrained into our mind is the necessity of a “personal relationship with God.” Perhaps its the result of our hyper-individualistic culture, or the remaining effects of modern conceptions of God that make us so confident we can neatly mark the parameters of God's character and actions by our own ingenuity. On the contrary, as Peter Scazzero continually notes, God is incomprehensible. He is the Incomprehensible. Even Moses, who it is said God spoke to “face to face, as a man speaks to his friend” (Ex 33:11) – whose interaction with God it should be noted, was the exception and not the rule among the Israelites – was not able to see God face to face, could not bear to encapsulate the divine in one image, in one moment in time.

We are Inherently Ethical
I want to suggest that, loving well is not just the goal of emotionally healthy spirituality; it is actually the beginning. Let me repeat that: our relationship to the Other is not just the goal of emotionally healthy spirituality but it is actually the beginning.

What do I mean by that? I mean that our existence is defined by Others. Think about it for a moment. What makes us humans unique? What about us is essentially human? We might ask, what does it mean to be made in the Image of God? Aristotle defined man as a “rational animal.” Descartes called man a “thinking thing.” By these definitions, our mind is what distinguishes us from everything else in the world. Monkeys, for instance, cannot perform calculus. Well, most of us cannot perform calculus.

But to reduce man to a “thinking thing” is problematic as well. For one thing, it continues the dualism that I mentioned before, the idea that what is really real, what is most important about us humans is what cannot be seen, that our bodies are relatively unimportant and not integral to who we are. To be a thinking thing reduces the Christian life to a mental activity, to aligning our mind with the mind of God. For another, we could point out that if the progress of technology continues as it is, there will be robots in the world plenty capable of thinking better than we can, capable of logic, capable of placing every action into a certain equation.

So is humanhood reducible to the fact that God breathed his breath or spirit of life into us that we may be a living being? No, because Gen 1:30, 6:17, and 7:15 tell us that the animals also have this breath of life. Are we essentially human because we have language? Ants and dolphins and parrots communicate by means of signs. Is it that we are social beings, that we crave and depend on interaction for our sanity? Wolves hunt in packs, geese fly in flocks, and elephants gather together to mourn their dead.

Instead, what makes us essentially human is that we are a particular kind of social being, and that our minds are put to a particular use: We are inherently ethical beings. I am responsible for the Other before any agreement or contract. Before I even know the Other's name, her face commands me: “Thou shalt not kill.” We are moral beings. The existence of Others and responsibility they inherently establish upon us is what ultimately makes us human. Like the Trinitarian God, the Father, Son, and Spirit, who in their humility—which is a moral quality—are endlessly looking out for the interests of each other, we are not to think of ourselves more highly than we ought to think but rather honor one another above ourselves. Like the Father, Son, and Spirit, we are to live in harmony with one another.

Ethics is not an afterthought. It is not the byproduct of right thinking. Ethics is who we are, what defines us. It precedes right thinking. That ethics even precedes thought can be seen by those moments when split second actions are necessary. A child runs into the road in front of my car and I slam on the brakes or swerve around him. I do not know this child but I have an ethical responsibility for him.

But in in the real world, there is more than just me in my car and this singular child in front of me. In our lives, we must adjudicate between a variety of decisions, multiple layers of ethical responsibilities that barrage us from a million faces. We have an infinite number of responsibilities that we can never fulfill; we must choose. But in this situation, choosing is what makes us human. How can one choose between two immeasurable responsibilities? How can one choose between two priceless lives? This impossible choice, the ability to make decisions beyond the outline of a textbook, mathematical theorem, or logical equation is what makes us human, is what makes us more than a machine.

Robots think in the black and white. They cannot practice grace, justice, mercy, compassion, and love. Robots can figure out logical sequences, make decisions based on probability and statistical analysis. But there is not a list of equations that we simply learn and then we know how to solve all the problems in the world. Equations are for machines. Ethical humans make decisions that break out of the system of logic. There is no logic to love.

D.C. Trip Day 2

2009-05-27T12:25:00.003-05:00

On Day 2, we traveled to see the three buildings that represent the three branches of our U.S. government. But first, a really cool looking corridor. The side of the building said it was the "Post Office Building," as opposed to the "Old Post Office" across the street. However, the glass door entering into the actual office space said it was the office for the EPA. Go figure. We knew best as the place we changed Emerson's diaper.

As we walked NW on Pennsylvania Ave in the muggy heat, the revving of thousands of engines could be heard. Beginning on Constitution Ave near the Washington Mall the "Rolling Thunder" parade of 60,000 motorcycles began. Viewing all the motorcycles over the weekend certainly was a sight to see, but quickly turned into a nuisance when we were trying to get Emerson to take a nap!

We finally made it to the White House in the late morning and Emerson had already about had it. He was sick of being in his stroller so I was carrying him around while trying to keep his burp cloth on his head to prevent any sunburn. Ah, the joys of parenting. After two months of parenting, you think you've got it all figured out. Everything seems so straight forward. He has a cry for a dirty diaper, a whimper for when he is tired, a scream of terror when he thinks he's going to starve to death, and a pain cry when he needs to burp or pass gas. So, you change him, feed him, burp him, and put him to sleep. Then, he discovers how to fight sleep to the point of temporary insanity. Then, the first vaccine which screws him up for a week (at least!). Then, you go on a trip and mess up his routine and schedule. Then, he starts teething. It's all a nice reminder that you don't know what the hell you're doing and its only by the grace of God that any child survives infancy (or that any parent survives parenting). The Bible tells us that children are a gift from the Lord. I'm guessing that if the authors of the Bible had elaborated on children any further nobody would have decided to become a parent.

And so, since I'm currently dealing with a fussy baby as I type this, I'll stop there and leave you with the following photos.

D.C. Trip Day 1

2009-05-26T08:17:00.004-05:00

This past weekend, we spent some time in D.C. for a brief trip. The experience had a couple goals: to see how well Emerson travels in preparation for flying out to Utah in June (and the hills on the turnpike made Emerson's ears pop [as well as mine] and boy did he not like it!), to get out of Pittsburgh for a change, go some place inexpensive (virtually everything to see in DC is free), and so Amber could experience the capital for the first time. We didn't see as much as I had hoped to see (you never do, right?), but Amber will tell you I'm a bit too aggressive in my trip plans. Plus traveling with an infant just wears you out and slows you down. However, I'm totally digging pushing a stroller around - you can put all of your things in it rather than carry them!

So, here's a brief pictorial of Day 1 in pictures, starting with Emerson digging the Homewood Suites furniture and AC -- he was real sluggish in the heat and just woke right up when we got into the hotel. He did great the first day then had a train wreck on day two. Between the heat, change in routine, and possibly teething (we think) it was just too much.
Next, the Lincoln Memorial, which was probably the most moving site we visited. I'll have to write an entire blog later about that. An interesting aside - Reagan Int'l Airport is not far from downtown D.C. and planes fly directly over the Lincoln Memorial just a few hundred feet in the air, which was really spooky to me since I'm not used to that as it reminded me of Sept. 11. Then, there was the Vietnam Memorial which was packed with Vets and Bikers who were there for the "Rolling Thunder" Memorial Day parade (more on that on Day 2), so we just looked at it from a distance.

From there, we walked down the Mall toward the Washington Monument (America's biggest phallic symbol - I mean seriously, what's the point?) and the recently built WWII memorial. The WWII memorial was significant to me since my grandfather fought at the Battle of the Bulge and was wounded while serving for the 101st Airborne. It also was not in existence when I went to DC as a child. To be honest, its not really a spectacular sight to see, but its admirable to honor those who fought in the war... although my feelings are mixed. On one wall at the WWII memorial, there was a quote by General George C. Marshall which said: "We are determined that before the sun sets on this terrible struggle our flag will be recognized throughout the world as a symbol of freedom on the one hand and of overwhelming force on the other." It is too bad these qualities are believed to be inherently connected. I wonder, when freedom and "overwhelming force" are combined together, which one wins out? Which quality is America most known for today?

Next, we walked by the Smithsonian Castle - a very beautiful building, but there's not much inside (its basically a visitor's center). We actually did not get to spend any time in the Smithsonian museums. That was on the docket for day two, but alas, we were too tired and Emerson too fussy to go through any of the myriad of museums that make up the Smithsonian (which is also free). I remember as a child, my older brother Brandon and I, while going through the Air and Space museum, made sure to touch the wing of every fighter plane we could get near.

Then, there was the National Holocaust Museum. We actually did not get to see much of it, because they sold out of tickets for the main exhibits literally just before we were going to get ours. So we walked around in there for a while, enjoyed the cool air, and rested our feet for awhile. Then, we made our way to leave when a security personnel shouted at us, "You're going to have to move aside, as we have a VIP coming through. Please step aside." I was expecting them to come in through the Exit doors to avoid the lines, but then an entourage of cops and guards and VIPs came through behind me. Amber was "so smitten" (as she said later) that she failed to tell me who was coming. But we were in the perfect place at just the right time for me to get off a couple (albeit lousy) shots of the VIP...

I guess Colonel Claus von Stauffenberg (Valkyrie) decided to visit the Holocaust Museum himself (you would have thought he had done it before the movie came out, right?). Hello, Tom Cruise. Dude, the guy is short.

"The War Prayer"

2009-05-19T17:44:00.002-05:00

Caution: This post will make you extremely uncomfortable and will probably make you dislike me.

Amidst the Philippine-American War, Mark Twain wrote a short story entitled, The War Prayer. This brief work details the account of a patriotic church service focused on praying for the enlisted men headed off to war. During the service, the pastor of the church leads the congregation in a long prayer, asking for God’s presence with the American soldiers as they head into battle, to “aid, comfort, and encourage them in their patriotic work…shield them in the day of battle…make them strong and confident, invincible in the bloody onset; help them to crush the foe, grant to them and to their flag and country imperishable honor and glory.”

As the pastor prays, a frail, old man appears on the stage near the pulpit. As the pastor finishes his prayer, the old man touches him on the shoulder and speaks: “I come…bearing a message from Almighty God!” This messenger tells the congregation that this prayer has been heard, so long as they understood the “full import” it carries. It turns out, the prayer is not one but two, “one uttered, the other not.” But God has heard both. For, “When you have prayed for victory you have prayed for the many unmentioned results which follow victory—must follow it.” The messenger proceeds to tell them the unuttered part of the prayer:

“O Lord our God…Help us to cover their smiling fields with the pale forms of their patriot dead…
Help us to lay waste their humble homes with a hurricane of fire;
Help us to wring the hearts of their unoffending widows with unavailing grief;
Help us to turn them out roofless with their little children to wander unfriended…
For our sakes, who adore Thee, Lord,
Blast their hopes, blight their lives, protract their bitter pilgrimage…water their way with tears…
We ask it, in the spirit of love, of Him Who is the Source of Love
And who is the ever-faithful refuge and friend of all that are sore beset…”

The congregation’s response to the real truth of the prayer they had offered to heaven? “ It was believed afterward that the man was a lunatic, because there was no sense in what he said.” The End.

As I think of the $670 billion spent in Iraq for our military endeavor, the 4 million Iraqis displaced from their homes, the 1.3+ million Iraqis who have died since our invasion of their country, the pictures I have seen of orphaned and wounded Iraqi children, the ravaged Iraqi countryside, and the many years it will take for that country to be stabilized, I must ask, what kind of prayer did we pray? What are the implicit prayers we have prayed as a nation as we send our sons (and daughters) to Iraq? While the “unuttered” prayer in the story speaks only to the ravaging effects war has on the country being attacked, we need only think of the news headlines from this week alone to think of another implicit prayer at work as we pray for “victory”:

O God, may we damn our country before the eyes of the world.
May we shame ourselves by horrendous acts of torture upon the “enemy.”
May our leaders debate in anguish over the value of photographs depicting our soldiers’ actions.
May our men open fire upon their own platoon and send their fellow soldiers home in a coffin.
May Iraqi women be gang-raped and their families murdered.
May we hide from the truth, refusing to believe what “America” has become.

On a completely different (though not wholly dissimilar note), the idea that our prayers often have an unuttered aspect to them makes me wonder about the underside of all our prayers, wonder how often all kinds of prayers of blessing for ourselves turn out to be a curse upon someone else. One man thanks God for a sunny day at the beach; a farmer down the road curses God for allowing his crops to die. One man prays their team will win; another prays in support of the opponent [does God care?]. One man thanks God for the 4-course meal before him; a child in Haiti wonders if God is going to do anything about the world food crisis. One man thanks God he has a new job because the new factory did indeed open; another man curses God for being laid off as the company relocates. How do we reconcile this fact? How does God deal with all of this (Which reminds me of the move Bruce Almighty when Bruce makes a computer program to keep track of everyone’s prayers and simply replies “Yes” to all of them.)? Your thoughts?

"Fireproof" : A Review

2009-05-13T19:27:00.002-05:00

If you haven't heard of Fireproof, it's the latest made-for-Christian-audience movie that amazed critics by turning a stellar profit – beginning with a $500,000 budget and grossing over $33 million in theatres (but let's not get too excited quite yet). Indeed, the movie has taken on a life of its own, spawning the publishing of two books which have made the New York Times Bestseller list and have generated “Fireproof your marriage” conferences in church all throughout the country.

Fireproof, made by a church ministry that also filmed Facing the Giants, is the story of Caleb Holt (aka Kirk Cameron), a firefighter who's marriage is on the rocks as he struggles with internet porn, has an incontrollable temper, and saves his earnings for a boat while his wife's mother struggles to recover from a stroke. [spoiler alert] The basic plot of the story can be summarized quite simply: Caleb and his wife, Catherine, decide to get a divorce; Caleb's dad gives him a journal of things to do for his wife over the course of 40 days (like buy her flowers, clean the house, don't respond to her with sarcastic remarks, etc) as an attempt to save the marriage; Caleb's Christian co-worker, Michael, continues to challenge him to keep at the activities in the journal even when they go awry; Catherine is pursued by Dr. Keller at her job at the hospital; Caleb performs a number of heroics as a firefighter; Caleb receives divorce papers from his wife; Caleb finds Jesus; Caleb wins Catherine back when she finds out he donated the $24,000 he had saved for his boat to medical supplies for her mom. And they live happily ever after.

I wanted to like this movie. In fact, there were even three scenes when I got choked up a bit – which happened to be the same three scenes Kirk Cameron was capable of convincing me with his acting abilities. It wasn't the poor acting that bothered me so much (I was expecting that), nor the poor script with zero artistic presentation. What bothered me was the kind of Christianity portrayed in the movie and the myriad of stereotypes and caricatures that were utilized throughout it. The basic message of the movie is: its impossible to love your spouse unless you're a Christian – a message that is both untrue and offensive. Every single character in the movie who has a positive relationship is a Christian, and their marriages only got solid when they gave their lives to Jesus. Caleb's simplistic conversion experience in the movie adds to this naïve picture, as everything in his life comes together with relative ease after Jesus takes control.

Furthermore, the roles of each character play to general stereotypes that make the movie all the more distasteful: The steady portrayal of women in the movie is that they are weak-willed and over-emotional and not as responsible for the solidity of a marriage as the husband (although there is one highlight at the very end that is noteworthy). The gossips in the hospital where Catherine works are led by a heavy-set black woman. All of Catherine's “unchristian” friends continually tell her to ditch her husband. All of Caleb's co-workers (with the exception of Michael the Christian, of course) are egotistical and immature men. All the Christians are pure saints and the unChristians are either villains or only their for a dose of humor in the movie. And Caleb solves his addiction to porn by smashing his computer with a baseball bat (as if that really got to his heart).

Now don't get me wrong, I'm sure this movie and the subsequent books and conferences that have come from it have helped people (although my guess is, for the most part, it has only been seen by conservative Christians who watched it because it was what they wanted to hear). They may have even saved some marriages. The advice given to Caleb in the journal and some of the truths talked about in the movie regarding the difficulties of love and marriage are indeed helpful. And I wholeheartedly believe Christianity has something to say about marriage. But rather than creating another Christian entertainment fad that we sell to death so conservative Christians have something to spend their money on without feeling guilty (e.g., Prayer of Jabez, Passion of the Christ, Left Behind, etc), why can't we just make quality art, honest art, and tell stories about the mystery and messyness of life and stop acting like life and faith are so simple, as if we unquestioningly have all the answers (how many of these Christian marriages will need re-saving just in time for the next fad to come around?)? If we are going to communicate a message of hope to our world it can't be so compartmentalized, simplistic, naïve, and lack reflection about the not-so-black-and-white world we live in.

The Many Surprises of Child-Rearing

2009-04-18T10:20:00.005-05:00

There are many things we’ve had to quickly learn in the fire of parenting over the past five weeks (five weeks! It’s gone by so fast!). Of course, there are the usual aspects of parenting a newborn that everyone tells you are going to happen: you will get very little sleep and find out that it’s possible to function on 3-4hrs of sleep, your baby will be fussy any number of reasons and it will take some time to figure out how to soothe him, your bills will go up, your trash volume will go up, your laundry volume will go up, you’ll be amazed at how little you get done each day, and having a baby is very hard work while simultaneously very rewarding and chock-full of joyous moments. In other words, having a kid will simply turn your world upside down.

We have learned by first-hand experience all of these realities, and in that sense, being a parent really is like what everyone describes it. However, there are other things about being a parent that have taken us totally by surprised, aspects of having a child that everyone failed to mention until we joined the parenting club:

1. Those recommendations by the American Academy of Pediatrics about the manner your baby should sleep—i.e., on his back on a hard surface with nothing soft in his surroundings—is completely thrown out the window as soon as you actually have a child. In fact, we’ve discovered that pragmatism is the rule of the day for virtually every new parent we’ve talked to. You do whatever you can to get your kid to sleep. In fact, Emerson hates sleeping on his back. But, we have yet to revert to dipping his pacifier in whiskey.

2. Virtually overnight, I went from calling my wife, “Amber,” to “mom.” Craziness.

3. Anyone who tells you that a breastfed baby’s poop doesn’t smell is lying. It is still poop. Period.

4. You now have someone else to blame for burps and farts. Seriously, I think Emerson has us beat on these.

5. Whenever you’re at home, the baby is fussy and always wants to be held. Whenever you go out with friends, he’s a sweet little angel so no one believes you that he’s a diabolical maniac.

6. Whenever you want your spouse to do something, you now talk as if you are the baby. I.e., “Mom, will get dad a beer and make him a sandwich?”

7. Your laundry volume will go up: but it’s not because of your child’s clothes. It’s because he pees and pukes on all of your stuff! Indeed, your baby gets mad at you when he manages to pee in his own eye. More than once.

8. When he's ravenously hungry, he starts shaking his head vigorously back and forth like a dog with a chew toy so that it's nearly impossible to get the bottle/breast in his mouth. Not that I'm trying to get my breast in his mouth...but even on me he'll start rooting like a chicken frantically looking for a piece of corn.

9. Not every baby likes to be swaddled tightly with their arms down to their sides. In fact, Emerson will scream and fuss until he manages to wiggle his arms back out of the blanket.

10. When your baby makes the most hilarious faces (although, sometimes he just looks possessed) and performs the funniest antics, you will find yourself mesmerized by this great gift of cheap entertainment (which must be how you forget that you used to have a life).

We're Moving... to Pittsburgh!!

2009-04-04T15:54:00.003-05:00

So the waiting is over. And this pretty well sums up how I feel.

After two months of waiting to receive letters from the Phd Programs I applied to, and over $500 spent in application fees and so forth, the results are finally in. And well, God nullified all possibilities for anxiety over making a decision of one school over another as I only got accepted into Duquesne. So, over the course of this summer, we will probably look for a house to purchase that's closer to our church or Duquesne.

I must say that my emotional response has been a bit conflicted over the past week. On the one hand, because of all the intangibles that we have here in Pittsburgh - supportive friends, a great church, Amber's employment contacts, a great assistantship/job that I love, a new addition to the family, and professors that I have gotten to know - which would have been lost had we moved elsewhere, it would have taken a lot for us to move. Thus, Amber and I had already concluded that we would probably wind up staying in Pittsburgh over a number of the other schools to which I had applied. But on the other hand, its just the principle of thing. In other words, to not get accepted anywhere else is a big blow to my ego. I would like to believe that I'm good enough to study at a highly reputable school (not that Duquesne is terrible, it's just not the best). I would like to get some affirmation for all the academic work that I've achieved over the less than two years.

But alas, things never turn out the same way as my visions of grandeur (which is most likely a good thing). What made it even more disappointing, I think, is that all my friends said that they didn't start getting acceptances until the beginning of March. Well, the first week of March came and went and I had only heard from a handful of schools. In fact, I didn't hear back from most of the schools until near the end of the month, which means that I must have been in the final pile of those applications under consideration.

Story of my life. I've always been in that strange, paradoxical place of not bad but not great. When I was a kid, I never made the "A" team in baseball, but then at the end of the year I always made the "B" level all-star team.

But, I guess there's no point in moping around about it either. This is where we've been placed for the next few years, and its not a bad place to be. And again, not having to deal with the anxiety of choosing a school and moving across country, particularly with a newborn in the house, is something I'm definitely thankful for. Now we can look forward to continuing our involvement with the church that we've grown to love, further building relationships, swerving around Pittsburgh potholes, and internalizing the beloved Pittsburgh accent...ok, maybe not the latter. To me, it's forever "Steelers" not "Stillers" and "downtown" not "duntun."

Home and Beginning to Settle In

2009-03-22T11:54:00.002-05:00

Finally, we are all home and beginning to get settled in to this new life of ours - although I'm sure it will take a long while before it begins to feel normal. Emerson has had one night in which he slept pretty soundly. Otherwise, he tends to wake up for some reason or another about ever 30-60 minutes. Last night, he had violent, total-body moving hiccups for over two hours. That seriously wiped him out for a few hours but it wasn't very fun trying to deal with him for that stretch of time. We need to do a better job of "sleeping when he sleeps" - which would probably help to rid me of the perpetual headache I have!

Thankfully, though, all the expected changes are occurring and he's gaining weight. We even gave him his first sponge bath a couple of nights ago. He's becoming incredibly alert, looking around and lifting his head up. Occasionally even, we can get a smile out of him.

But now the other side of life sets in. After skipping work and classes for a week, I have to manage to get up tomorrow morning and go to school while Amber has to manage to hold down the fort on her own while I'm gone. We've been spoiled having my mom here the last few days doing all the household chores and making meals! Again, we have to be thankful that meals have been lined up for us by other church members for the next couple weeks and Amber's parents are probably going to come out next weekend as well.

So here we go. A new chapter of our lives. Its exciting and terrifying at the same time. Emerson is a huge joy and wonderful addition to our family and we so look forward to all the memories we get to make with him. But it's also exhausting and frustrating at the same time, as I'm sure many other first time parents could share. So, while I'm 0 for 6 in PhD applications at the moment, I have been accepted into "Fatherhood University". The language requirements are pretty easy, but the comprehensive knowledge required is endless!!

On the Yellow Vomit Comet

2009-03-18T11:40:00.003-05:00

So, we got officially admitted into Children's Hospital at 2AM after spending 11 hours in an ER room, which was a real rough way to go. The room they placed us in wasn't the Marriott, but it was a whole lot better. There was at least one pull out chair that Amber got some much needed sleep on while I attempted some shut eye by curling onto two chairs (didn't work so hot).

Emerson still isn't feeding too well, but he was able to hold down two oz at 6AM. At 9AM, he guzzled breastmilk, but threw it all back up immediately - which, I guess is better than later and if it were green :). So, apparently he is either drinking too fast or not getting burped enough or some other wacky reason that changes based on which lactation consultant you talk to. Needless to say, we think things are getting better. He was just so lethargic over the past couple days, but after they put some saline into him throughout the morning, he has really perked back up. In fact, Amber just called me (I'm at home briefly to pick up some things - like Amber's pain meds! - that we obviously hadn't planned on taking with us yesterday) and said that the noon feeding went really well and he was really awake and alert. True to one of our nurses's words yesterday, now that he is more hydrated he's a whole different baby.

They also put him under blue tanning lights throughout the late night/morning to reduce his jaundice and bilirubin count, which also causes lethargy (a vicious cycle). We're waiting on the blood tests from that to see if it has gone down enough that they are comfortable to send us home. So, we may very likely come home tonight. Thankfully, my mom left Lafayette this morning and will get here late afternoon to help out. Not only is she a nurse who can help out with the childcare stuff (and like ensuring that our car seat is properly installed which I also didn't have time to do before he was born!!), but I know she'll be willing to help clean up the house and do the things we simply don't currently have the time or energy to do.

Thanks again for all of you who have posted on here or Facebook with words of encouragement, prayer, and simply asking for updates. It really means a TON to us, and we look forward to introducing you to our neat, little guy, Emerson. You'll really like him, I promise!

Another Hospital Visit

2009-03-17T22:00:00.003-05:00

Well, Emerson hasn't been eating enough and had some other issues including some jaundice, which apparently I and all my brothers had as well. So, we made an appointment with our pediatrician first thing this morning and have been around doctors since 11AM this morning.

After meeting with our pediatrician, he sent us over to their other office to meet with the lactation consultant. She and the other staff members were extremely helpful, and told us we're doing everything right, but he's just not eating vigorously enough. So, combined with their other concerns, they thought it best to direct us to the ER at Children's Hospital where we've been now for 7 hours sitting in this little room.

We've tried to feed him on a few occasions but he keeps spitting it back up more and more each time and has a really upset look on his face about halfway through eating. So they're doing some blood work and in the meantime have him up to an IV...a four-day old up to an IV...some pretty hard veins to find!

As you can imagine, we're exhausted and haven't had any sleep all day. We're just hoping and praying they can figure out what's going on, and that he can eat and have bowel movements (Have you ever prayed to pee? It's a bit bizarre, but also a sobering reminder of how powerless you can be!).

Thankfully, we've had a few visitors. We've had some really hospitable nurses who have been very reassuring. Our friend Renee stopped by with dinner from Panera Bread. And there are two people who go to our church that work here at the Children's Hospital that have come in and spent some time with us. Others have called and offered to help but its difficult to think as to what they would do for us at the moment. We could, however, use some house elves from Hogwarts to take over all the chores but that's a bit difficult since we're jailed in at the ER....

So that's that. Hopefully we'll go home soon....

He's Here!

2009-03-15T09:50:00.006-05:00

"Freedom has a scent like the top of a new born baby's head" - U2, "Miracle Drug"

Well, finally, after a very long pushing stage, we had the chance to see the new addition to our family. Amber's temperature started to rise near the end (as did her temper!). Even though she got an epidural, the pain of delivering was excruciating. By the end, Amber was just saying, "Can't you just pull him out or do something!?"

Because of Amber's temperature, they were a bit concerned about the baby's health, so the intensive care staff were asked to be present at the birth. Everything went extremely well on baby's end, and Emerson Bahler was born at 7:17PM, weighed 8lb 7oz, and was 22inches (we're still not sure where Amber was able to store that big of a kid in her belly!).

Amber, however, needed a lot of repair work, and, needless to say, it was a very long process. It took them 2.5 hours to stitch (and re-stitch) her. The pain medicine wasn't working, so they gave Amber more through the epidural and wound up giving her too much. So, she hit a point where she was losing feeling in her hands and even had trouble breathing. Her heart rate dropped, so they had to give her some other medicine to counteract that, which made her blood pressure shoot way up. By this time, Amber was looking pale white and shaking uncontrollably. Thankfully, our friend Kristin showed up around this time to just provide some TLC while I held baby. Nice.

After a couple hours of trying to stabilize her just right, the nurses and doctors were comfortable with where she was to get some rest from all the activity. The doctors hooked her up to some antibiotics and continued checking on her until 4AM when we were finally moved from the labor and delivery room.

This morning, we managed a few hours of sleep, but it has been hectic and frustrating trying to get acclimated to Emerson with doctors coming in every few minutes, machines beeping, and numerous pamphlets of information being shoved in our faces. We'll be happy when we can get home and don't feel so rushed.

But, now we have a little baby. And as the saying goes, that makes all the pain worth it, right?

I have been absolutely overwhelmed by the whole event. Not only is it an emotional roller coaster, combining lack of sleep, watching my wife go through so much pain (I now have a newfound respect for her!), and being introduced to a new child, but I have just been overwhelmed by all the love and support we have received so far (and thankful at the same time that we haven't been bombarded with a ton of visitors!). We had one nurse who was with us through the entire labor and as Emerson was crowning, her shift was up. She stayed overtime to be there until he was birthed and even came up to see us today. And dozens have already congratulated us over email/web/facebook (I also have a new and profound admiration for the benefits of facebook! How else can you tell everyone you know and love and appreciate the events of your life all at the same time!?

Almost There!!

2009-03-14T13:09:00.003-05:00

Amber has been amazing. We worked through contractions at home until 3:45AM when I felt she had hit the 5-1-1 rule (contractions are five minutes apart, last for one minute each, and go for one hour). So, we've been at the hospital ever since. At about 9AM, she was exhausted since we hadn't slept all night. Plus, she was extremely nauseated and vomited twie. So Amber took a narcotic to sleep. So, I called our doula, and she was able to cover for me so I could sleep as Amber slept. Up to that point, I had slept for about 2 minutes between some of Amber's contractions (every other time, she would call me over just as I was ready to doze off). So, at this point, I'm up to an hour of sleep. Woohoo!

After a couple hours, the narcotic wore off and Amber was at about 6 cm dilated. She worked through a ton of really tough contractions that lasted a couple minutes long. fter that, she was really really exhausted by then, so, she asked for an epidural. After another trip on the vomit comet, the anesthesiologist arrived. Oddly enough, as soon as they laid her down with the epidural in place, she felt pressure on her rear. Good news!

So, here we are at 10cm. Amber has opted to just let the uterus contract on its own and rest before she starts pushing. By all estimations, everyone is healthy at this point, but there's more work to do!! Thanks for all your prayers and love and encouragement!

Here We Go!

2009-03-14T00:26:00.002-05:00

After a nice dinner at the Cheesecake Factory, we spent our Friday night just chilling watching an old movie we picked up at the library - Searching for Bobby Fischer.

Then, near the end of the movie, while I was searching Wikipedia to see the real story of Bobby Fischer (who died last year, if you were wondering...a very odd man), Amber's water broke.

That was around 10:30PM. Contractions started around 11:15 after a tenuous 30 minutes of checking for fetal movements. Now we're just chillin'... and need some sleep.

All My Bags Are Packed, I'm Ready to Go

2009-03-09T17:13:00.005-05:00

So, at our house these days, we're getting ready for the advent of baby Bahler. Last week was my spring break, so I had the opportunity to get a number of things finalized before the day. We packed our bag (well, more or less) in preparation for the time we'll be spending at the hospital, equipped with a digital camera with a 4GB memory card, clothes, a CD of tunes, the cord blood donation kit, baby's new clothes, and food for when the hospital cafeteria appears less than appetizing... which probably won't take much. There are still a number of things we have to do, but alas, there's just only so many things you can do in preparation for one of the most transforming events in one's life.

But, one thing we have done in preparation to welcoming him into our world is set up a nursery. It's not all that glamorous, but considering we're renting, we were pretty glad that our landlord let us paint and make the additions that we did. I guess we wound up with a sort of zoo theme. So, here are a few pics of the new items we've amassed to our ever-growing collection of stuff (aka, our contribution to the fledgling economy):