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Two blogs for the price of one. Lucky you.
Evil Bastards:
We received a political mailing the other day that invited us to “look into the mind of so and so.” I didn’t read it, the cover was enough for me. Under the guises of this somewhat benign title was a picture of the candidate whose mind I was supposed to look into, except that half of his picture was gone, replaced with a skeleton. Clever. Look into his mind, ha. I get it. CLEARLY the image was NOT meant to invoke the idea of peering into this candidates thought process but was, rather, intended to portray him in an ugly, scary, evil way and hopefully plant that image in my head when I think of him. This candidate was of course not the only victim of such caricature nor was the political party behind the ad the sole perpetrator of such things. Watch the political commercials with a discerning eye (it doesn’t actually have to be THAT discerning) and you will see that the images of the opponent are always the worst ones possible and the sound bytes are always taken out of context. Even the music used is chosen for the purposes of creating either a feeling of dread or joviality. Can you imagine if the politicians we send to Washington (or Salem) really were the evil bastards like their opponents tout? (Yeah, some are). If we really were to believe everything they say, and everything we act like we believe when talking about the “other side” then we really have to admire the separatists in hills of Idaho and Utah.
Pagans:
Pagans aren’t evil bastards, they’re just pagans. But that’s not the point.
Once upon a time, a long time ago, for an extremely brief moment, I debated internally whether or not I would one day allow my child to participate in the festivities of Halloween via trick or treating and jack o’ lanterns and so on. I debated it, because at the time I was part of a very conservative, and frankly rather legalistic church where that’s ort of thing simply wasn’t done. The rationale behind this is that Halloween is or at the very least is based on a pagan holiday where demons or dead people (or sometimes both) are invoked and worshipped and Satanists really like that day. Well, there is a bit of truth to it. There are some pagan belief practices that honor October 31st as a holiday, as do bona fide Satanists. However, they do not celebrate Halloween (unless they do it with their kids after worship). Halloween, as we know it today, is entirely a kid’s holiday. I will grant that October 31st is a pagan holiday, with some similarities, but what is practiced as worship is not nor has it ever been Halloween; that some people have some peculiar beliefs about pumpkins should not stop the rest of us from carving funny faces into them.
Another problem I have with the “Halloween is pagan” argument is that most of those who make that argument celebrate other pagan holidays too, either out of ignorance or because over the years we have cleaned it up enough for it to be palatable to them. The prime example of this is Christmas. Now hear this: Jesus was absolutely NOT born on December 25th, or any time close to that. Jesus, in other words, is not the reason for the season, Mithras is. The followers of Mithras celebrated his birthday on December 25th (they even called it Mithmas—seriously) and when the Roman empire became Christian the church had to decide what to do with all these feisty former pagans who wanted to party so they declared that everyone would celebrate the birth of Jesus instead of Mithras. We even celebrate with fertility (phallic?) symbols in our living rooms every year! Is this not pagan?! Now there are those who don’t celebrate either Halloween or Christmas, and are not Jehovah Witness’s, and I respect that (though you need to party sometime, right?). But seriously, if we are going to sit around our phallic symbols every winter and open our celebrations of greed, can we not take our little ones out for a bit of candy?
India dressed as a little kitty, by the way. SO CUTE.
9:30pm: In bed early, oh happy day. Total bed occupancy (TBA): 2
10:00pm: Cats finish eating, cat #1 comes upstairs to sleep on my head. TBA: 3
10:30pm: Cat #2 joins cat #1, TBA: 4
10:31pm: Cat #1 upset at cat #2’s presence, fight ensues on top of my chest, TBA: 3
11:30pm: Cat #1 apparently sound asleep or just over herself, allows cat #2 to sleep at the foot fo the bed. TBA: 4
12:30am: Cat #1 and cat #2 are done napping and now grooming…loudly.I remove both from the bedroom. TBA: 2
3:00am: The baby is crying. I give her a few minutes to calm herself and go back to sleep but it doesn’t work. I go into her room, sing sweet songs and rub her back. TBA: 1
3:15am: Baby is sleeping again. I return to bed and realize the cats have returned, and this time cat #3 has joined them. My pillow is a complete loss, the blanket has been commandeered. I grab a separate blanket and lay at an odd angle and go back to sleep. TBA: 5
3:50am: Baby is awake again. Cat #3, realizing that she is too fat to safely remain as high as the bed gets down. I go back into the baby’s room. Cat #2 follows me. TBA: 2
4:00am: Too tired to worry about her staying in her own bed any longer I take the baby back to bed with me. Cat #2 continues to follow. Cat #3 has decided comfort is more important than safety and returns to the bed. Cat #1 has reclaimed the pillow. Baby sleeps in the middle. I take up a fetal position, which is the only way I fit onto the bed. I feel like I’m in a John Denver song. TBA: 6
5:00am: Not sleeping anyway I get up. Cats #1, 2, and 3 all follow. Baby and wife stay in bed. John Denver symbolism continues. TBA: unknown at this time.
Early yesterday evening, as I had the house all to myself and was preparing for some mindless exploration on my ultra-slow internet, my phone began to ring. Rudely breaking my connection to aforementioned internet. As my introvert self tends to do I ignored the call. My annoyance with the called changed to excitement when I heard the voice of my friend Kathryn on the other end. I hardly ever get to see her, and true to form she gave us a call letting us know she was in town for one night and one night only. We met when we both lived in Boise; she now lives in San Diego and we of course live in Portland. Prior to San Diego Katy spent a year in China, and after San Diego, well, who knows where she’ll go next. She is working on her second bachelor’s degree, dates weird pagans and thinks she might want to be a nutritionist (a vegan nutritionist-that’s hardcore). She goes backpacking with people from Belgium and surfs almost every day. Such is the life of those who refuse to grow up (I saw that with envy and admiration-not insult).
My life is a bit different these days. I worry about the mortgage every day. I rearrange my schedule for childcare purposes, and a good day is one that ends by 9:30. I spend the vast majority of my day sitting in front of a computer and I’m getting fat. To top it off I am undergoing a pre-midlife crisis. Still….
Yesterday my daughter, complete with Pippy Longstocking pigtails, Marion berry smears on her cheeks and a big grin, said “Hi Daddy” and ran up to me and hugged my legs. It’s worth it.
The other day I went to see my niece perform a role in “High School Musical” for the local children’s theatre. Children are terrible actors-we applaud anyway.
The show took place at my old high school in the auditorium that was built in the 1930’s. There is a new high school building now, with a new auditorium that is in every way nicer and more pleasant to sit in than the one we were in. Never-the-less, I found myself reminiscing and generating warm fuzzies for my old school (goes to show you how good the brain is at blocking out trauma). I remember watching many a school play in that large, amazingly hot room. I remember goofing around in there and hiding in there and debating many existential, political, theological, and personal ideas and issues, not to mention the day-to-day drama that was high school. My junior year I was friends with this really gorgeous girl. We had no romantic interest in each other whatsoever, but we did like to hang out from time to time. One night, neither of us having anything better to do, we went to a school production of something or other. She made a point of walking arm in arm with me, thus raising my social status dramatically and causing rumors that we both enjoyed. I went on my first official date with my wife there. We sat in the back and watched “Little Women.” It took my almost the entire play to get the courage to hold her hand. Sometime in my junior or senior year I was anxious to leave a crowded show; all the old people were taking their time. Rather than wait I decided to hop over the isles of wooden chairs. One of the chairs folded in on me and I managed to make a fool of myself, made all that much worse as a self-conscience high schooler. You would think I would have learned my lesson, but I went home from my niece’s performance with a scrape on my left ankle and a nasty bruise and scrape on my right shin.
There’s really nothing all that special about that auditorium. In fact, it’s really a nasty place. But the memories, the shared experiences, the emotions, insights, and revelations that happened there, these make it a special, almost sacred place to me. I can only imagine what it must be like for those that went to school there when the place was new (or newer). Places, things, these are nothing and they will cease to exist one day. But people, our connections to one another, these are lasting and transformational.
When I went to the middle east I went into a cave. It was dark and dingy and a little bit smelly. It was nothing, nothing but a cave that once house animals who pooped in it. And yet all I could do was stand there, trying to grasp where I was and what it was I was doing. The cave was nothing, but the man born in it some 2000 years ago, he is everything. At that moment I joined the millions (I’m guessing) who have walked through it, both emperors and peasants, believers and mere tourists, a community of pilgrims. The place was nothing, the people were everything.
So too with the church. I flinch every time I see someone place irrational value on some object in a church, whether a bible or a pulpit or a pew or whatever. So often part of this irrational elevation of objects includes keeping people away from it or keeping people quiet in it. Every time this happens any sacredness that was there is diminished because it is not the place, it is not the thing, it is the people. God did not make a cave or a book or a building in his own image, he reserved that sacred honor for us.
I’m starting to narrow down the tattoo I want on my right arm (not that this is particularly relevant since the big money for case management won’t start rolling in for a while). At the top of my short list is a three headed snake. I think it will complement the dragon nicely. The three heads are of course symbolic, in this case they are symbolic of my three main goals in life; these are very broad goals, many things could fit under each category.
My first goal is to love. I want to love God with all my heart, mind, and soul. I find this daunting, and I challenge anyone who doesn’t. “Heart, mind, and soul” is basically symbolic, representing the whole of one’s being. No compartmentalizing, only holistic, unhindered love. I don’t do it, but this is my goal.
I want to love my family. Despite my many foibles and failings, I really, truly, really want to be a better father and a better husband every day. I want to love them more deeply every day. I want to submit and support, lead and guide, follow and encourage.
I want to love my friends. I want to be a support, I want to build up, I want to cheer on. I want to know and be known in a personal, transparent way that opens me up and opens them up to compliments and critique, accolades and accountability.
I want to love others. I want to show compassion, empathy, and aid to those who need it. I want to be a safe place for people in a dangerous world. I want to figure out what it means to be incarnational.
I want to love my enemies. I want to not be overcome by evil, but overcome evil with good (this is a hard one for me, I’m pretty vengeful). I want them to be so surprised, so taken aback, so shocked by my love in the face of their, well, enemyness, that the seeds of revolution will be planted in their heart.
My first goal is love. My second goal is life. There is so much to see, so much to do, so much to experience. There are so many blessings to give and receive and I don’t want to miss it. I don’t want to look back on anything with regret, I don’t want to wish I had been brave or bold. This is difficult for me as I am pretty much always shy and sometimes cowardly. I am frustrated by the human tendency to get stuck doing things a certain way because they have always been done that way or to think that something can’t be done simply because it has never been done before. When St. Peter meets me at the pearly gates and introduces me to my first angel, and that angel asks me, “So, what is life like?” I want to have a good answer.
My first goal is love, my second is life. My third goal is to leave a legacy. Our lives are but mist, or the equivalent of the blink of an eye in all of time. We will not be around very long and we will not be remembered. Almost everything we do, even the most powerful and influential of us, fades away into meaninglessness and is without consequence. Almost. Some people live their whole lives like this and simply don’t care and it drives me insane. I want to leave a legacy; I want the time allotted to me to result in more than consumed resources and over-populating offspring. I want said offspring to know me, to now their history through me. I want lives and subsequent generations to be different because I was involved. I want to help people heal and be transformed now and after I meet that angel. Lofty and perhaps a little arrogant? Yeah, probably, but also doable.
So that is what the three heads on my three-headed snake are going to mean, and hopefully that is what my life will mean. I’m not sure where the tattoo itself fits into the grand scheme of these goals, but it fits somewhere.
HEALTHY DAY
I suck at eating healthy. I love chocolate too much. I really think there is something to the whole food addiction thing too. Yesterday was not a good day for Dan’s insides, but today is better. Today is salad and Sobe Lean. I’m still planning n that whole bowel cleansing thing too-I look forward to describing it to you.
LAST BIT ABOUT BOISE
My bad bathroom karma culminated in multiple attempts to use the facilities only to be thwarted by the toilet paper, or more specifically the lack thereof. I was finally rid of the bad karma when we went out to lunch with the Jillemiah Project and my lovely friend had to borrow the car to find a bathroom. It appears that I passed my bad karma off to her. Sorry about that.
I went arrowhead hunting with Jeremiah and found some nice treasure for my collection, which is nice because I would have been thoroughly disappointed had I spent an entire day in the sun taking baby steps while I stared at the ground and getting eaten by bugs only to come home empty handed. But my hands were not empty-they had a nice specimen of an arrowhead and another piece f obsidian that I really think showed some initial work as well as a piece of pottery that I have determined to be officially old (though not Native American). I also got some really cool rocks. We stopped in a small town with a population of about 2 and visited the store, which was in every way an old fashioned country store; it even sold the majority of its products from behind the counter. They happened to be filming a movie while we were there for an upcoming film festival. I think the most interesting bit of the trip was when we arrived in the town of Ola, which unlike the other town has a population of about 6. We went into the restaurant and found most of the residents there waiting for us. Well, maybe they weren’t actually waiting for us, but since everyone in the building stopped what they were doing to look at us it sure felt like it. We weren’t there for food (they only serve food on Thursdays anyway), we were there searching for a man named Bear. We were told that Bear was out chopping wood and given some very round-about directions on how to find him. But find him we did.
Bear is an interesting fella. We found him in the middle of nowhere camped out with three trucks, four dogs, a trailer, and a campfire that never went out. He was out there “choppin’ wood and trainin’ dogs” and had been there for some time. He wasn’t sure when he would be back, probably eight days or so. He thought the wife (who ran the restaurant) could use a break from him anyway. He invited us to sit down and we chatted for quite a while about the neat things he’d found and what he planned to do for the summer and so on. I called him ‘sir’ once, which offended him quite a bit. What really impressed me about Bear was that he was so hospitable and kind, even when he didn’t have to be. The man lives in a tiny town most of the year and in the wilderness for the rest of it. He seemed to have no real connection with the outside world and no desire for one. There was nothing to gain from befriending us or helping us find our treasure that day; if anything we were just getting in the way. It was refreshing to meet someone who was kind just because that’s the way he is.
Anyway, that’s the last bit about Boise I plan on writing on. I’ve forgotten everything else that happened anyhow.
It’s 5:00 in the morning and I am at work. I remembered that I was scheduled to come in at 5:00 at some point in the coming days, but I couldn’t remember hen, so I called and they said this was the day. They were wrong. I’m not supposed to be in until 8:30 or 9:00, and even then I have official errands to run which would have kept me away until almost lunch time. Oh well. I can use the extra money.
But I’m one of the richest guys in the world! Seriously, that’s not delusional or metaphorical. If you take into account the population of the whole world and how most everyone else on the planet lives I’m pretty stinkin’ wealthy. But it sure doesn’t feel like it right now. I commented the other day on the irony (tragedy) that Americans are dieing from eating too much while much of the world dies from eating too little. This same dichotomy is present in our consumption of stuff too. The irony of course is that the more stuff we get to make our lives more convenient and comfortable the more we become a slave to material things. I get a new lap top, that way I can write a school paper no matter where I am at. I get a nifty cell phone, that way I’m never out of touch with work. I get a new remote control so I can sit on my butt all that much more and get fatter while I watch my giant screen t.v. that is all that much more damaging to my eyes. When I do have to force myself off the couch I get in my fancy new car; funny how much more effort and stress is required to worry about a fancy new car than a crappy old one. Whoa, diatribe.
My niece is one of the more popular girls in her school. She’s pretty, and works for hours everyday to stay that way (slave). She wears only specific brands of clothes, because to do anything else would cause her social status to plummet (slave). And of course she has her cell phone with her all the time because to lose contact with a supposed friend and miss any gossip will rob her of the chance be the one with the knowledge (slave). Insert lengthy quote here:
“Before the Lord God made man upon the earth He first prepared for him by creating a world of useful and pleasant things for his sustenance and delight. In the Genesis account of the creation these are called simply `things.' They were made for man's uses, but they were meant always to be external to the man and subservient to him. In the deep heart of the man was a shrine where none but God was worthy to come. Within him was God; without, a thousand gifts which God had showered upon him.
But sin has introduced complications and has made those very gifts of God a potential source of ruin to the soul.
Our woes began when God was forced out of His central shrine and `things' were allowed to enter. Within the human heart `things' have taken over. Men have now by nature no peace within their hearts, for God is crowned there no longer, but there in the moral dusk stubborn and aggressive usurpers fight among themselves for first place on the throne.
This is not a mere metaphor, but an accurate analysis of our real spiritual trouble. There is within the human heart a tough fibrous root of fallen life whose nature is to possess, always to possess. It covets `things' with a deep and fierce passion. The pronouns `my' and `mine' look innocent enough in print, but their constant and universal use is significant. They express the real nature of the old Adamic man better than a thousand volumes of theology could do. They are verbal symptoms of our deep disease. The roots of our hearts have grown down into things, and we dare not pull up one rootlet lest we die. Things have become necessary to us, a development never originally intended. God's gifts now take the place of God, and the whole course of nature is upset by the monstrous substitution.
Our Lord referred to this tyranny of things when He said to His disciples, `If any man will come after me, let him deny himself, and take up his cross, and follow me. For whosoever will save his life shall lose it: and whosoever shall lose his life for my sake shall find it.' (Matt. 16:24-25).”
That was from The Pursuit of God by A.W. Tozer, from the chapter titled “The Blessedness of Possessing Nothing.” I wish I could live a life free of possessions. Understand what I’m saying and not saying: I’m not saying I want to give up all my stuff, I am saying I wish I were strong enough that I could want to give up all my stuff. But I like my stuff, so rather than remove the “stuff” I will try to remove the “my.” I will try to remember that I am a steward, a care taker, not an owner; this is a freeing thought-if I can do it.
He who collects the most toys—dies anyway.
HEALTHY DAY PART 2
Last night I continued to eat healthy with heaping amounts of garlic (clears the bowels and other good things) on my sea food pasta (omega-3, the good fat). I added lots of spinach too, which is good for, well, everything. And of course this morning more lemon water and this afternoon many vegetables. Now after two grueling days all I can say is I WANT ICE CREAM REALLY BAD. It’s like a fetish. Ok, so it isn’t really like a fetish. But it’s still pretty sick the way I like ice cream so much.
BOISE TRIP PART 2
The trouble with writing about something that happened this far removed from the actual events is that I can’t remember the chronological order of things. I do remember my bad bathroom karma continuing as I was searching for a place to utilize (this was still when we were on our way there, just shy of the Idaho border) and every toilet there was had been previously used and abused and left in a state of utter grossness. I ended up using a women’s restroom that didn’t have a lock (the scenarios for what could have happened are just scary). I was hoping that would be the end of my bad bathroom karma, but sadly it was not. After we had finally made it to Boise I once again had to, well, you know, and the facilities were adequate but alas there wasn’t a roll in sight. Thank goodness I looked before I did anything everyone would regret! More on the bad karma later….
We spend a lot of time visiting with our friends the Wiesel’s who live in a cool old house with four rowdy but wonderful children and two massive dogs. They work with refugees from Bosnia, Afghanistan, Iraq, and so on, mostly Muslims. They do their work out of their home, which makes for much random fun when the ethnics come over. I have begun speaking to the about the Emergent church movement and now they want us to start a church up there. That would be fun….
TODAY
You’d think I could manage to get to work on time (8:30) when I woke up at 3:30, but no. No worries though, today was a day of meetings, also known as a throw-away day because nothing useful happens. Dinner with the parents tonight, some healthy salmon.
I received my wake up scream at 3:30 this morning. For whatever reason India was having trouble sleeping last night. I went into her room several times to sing to her and rub her back, which helped each time, just not for long. By 4:30 or so it seemed apparent that my technique wasn’t going to work so I got her out of the crib and took her into the big people’s bed. That didn’t work well either, so Jenny got up with her and took her downstairs for a while. Frustrating. She has been sleeping through the night for so long now and then…..then she shows me once again that she is the greatest theology teacher I have ever had. It is, as one might imagine, not the most pleasant experience to be woken up half-way through your sleep by a screaming baby. It takes a certain amount willpower to stand at a crib and sing and soothe when really all you want to do is sleep. It takes a whole other type of willpower to not give in to the urge to pick her up and hold her and rock her until she falls back asleep. As a dad I really can’t do anything else but respond to her crying, but sometimes I don’t respond in a way that she wants me to. Of course that makes her mad and frustrated, and I SO want to make it better, but it would not be good for her in the long run. She needs to be able to put herself to sleep. She needs to learn, by experience, that she doesn’t need to be rescued every time she has some distress, that she can handle it herself. I think God must have a similar struggle with us, his children. I know that as a Father he responds to our cries and feels our pain with us and I bet he just wants to fix it and make it better for us as well-but that is not what we really need. He is more than our Father, he is our teacher. Even if it feels like God is ignoring me I am convinced that because he is totally good, because he is the author of love, even in the midst of any of my turmoil he wants nothing but the best for me. We he needs to he swoops me up in his embrace, but when that doesn’t happen then I know that it is time for me to learn something and he must believe that I can do it. Who am I to argue?
HEALTHY DAY
The obesity epidemic. Is there anyone who is untouched by this savage disease? Ok, I don’t want to make fun of it too much, because it can be a horrible thing for some people, but seriously, we (the collective, American ‘we’) are killing ourselves of our own free will! And sadly, I am not immune. Like any lazy American I have declared that I will change my poor eating ways many times, only to fail miserably each time, after a day or a week. But today, today I try again! I have two more things going for me this time. First, I drank a glass of water and lemon juice this morning on an empty stomach to begin this bowel cleansing thing, and if I’m going to do something like that I dang well better be committed. Plus I drank tea with almost no sweetener. The second thing I have going for me is that I’m going to write about my progress here, and I know at least one person reads this so maybe I can be held accountable. Our country is dying from over-eating while other countries die for lack of food; somebody is going to have to pay for that someday and I don’t want it to be me.
SMOKING GUY
There’s this guy who lives across the alley from us who is a regular smoker. I know this because not only do I see him outside smoking on a regular basis but I also hear him. From any place in the house I can hear him coughing and hacking and coughing some more. And this happens at all hours of the day. ALL hours. Seriously, I think he must not have a job and I think that he must regulate his sleep patterns around his smoking habit; now that’s dedication. He has really annoyed me for a long time, and I really wanted to make some sort of snide comment about him the other day as I was putting my kid to bed when I had a reality check (my kid often provides me with a reality check). I wouldn’t want her to say what I was about to say (no, I don’t remember what it was I was about to say, only that I was embarrassed for having almost said it). Smoking man must have a pretty horrible life, out there smoking all the time. I wonder what it was that got him started doing this, and what it is that prevents him from stopping. I know some of the reasons, I’ve read the literature, but there is always more to it. Maybe some day I’ll be brave enough to talk to him.
BOISE TRIP
A few weeks back the fam and I took a trip to Boise. It was good fun and I promised everyone I would write about it, so here is an installment. We left at 3:30 in the freaking morning, or maybe 4:00, but at any rate we made it to Pendleton by 7:30 and had breakfast there (India slept until Pendleton-it was great). There was an old man sitting across from us whom India called “grandpa”, I think she probably made the guy’s day. The rest of the trip took quite a it longer, what with an awake toddler. At one rest stop I used the bathroom and refused to flush the toilet because I couldn’t stand the thought of touching it. This would be insignificant except that that was the start of bad bathroom karma (the only type of karma I believe in). But more on that later.
TODAY
I have no meetings today, I am excited. My hope is to organize the conference room for a MASSIVE meeting tomorrow. Plus I’m all excited about having this new blog. God just kicked me in the head again (seriously, just now). “What is it that I want you to learn from your coworkers? What am I trying to build in you? What part of me can you show them? And stop ignoring me when you’re at work!” I think that’s about what the kick was about.
