pinakidion.*

As I mentioned earlier, our son is sick. This time last year, I was learning more about the human ear and baby functions than second-year med students.

This year, I actually get to use some of it.

More correctly, my wife gets to use it while talking to half of the doctors we’ve seen this week. I get to say, “hold on and talk to my wife when she’s done talking to your nurse” to the other half.

It turns out that during the holiday season, it is pretty hard to see all the really good doctors that you take the trouble to line up during the rest of the year. Quite understandably, they have all worked in their respective fields long enough that they spend the holidays with their families. So, our family has been in two offices and Urgent Care thus far. Next week, we’ll be in our real peditrician’s office and seeing the ENT that surgically repaired by son’s Choanal atresia.

Ah yes, it’s a special time of year.

The issue with seeing alternate doctors is not a question of their skill. So far, all of them have been quite good, knowledgeable, and helpful. One of them was even familiar with Goldenhar’s Syndrome. The issue has been trying to explain everything to each doctor. It goes someting like this:

*************************************************************************
We believe he has an ear infection, though it could possibly be a urinary infection as well. No, no one has ever been able to see in his ears, so the ear infection cannot be confirmed by sight. Yes, his symptoms are consistent with an ear infection otherwise, and yes we know that the other symptoms are consistent with a variety of other diseases, including a simple viral infection.

You can try to look in his ears, but he’s going to scream and you’re going to see a lot of nothing.

Yes, they are really narrow, aren’t they? They’re twisty, too. You should see his MRI. Anyway, he’s screaming all night through, can’t you simply give us an antibiotic? No, we don’t believe in solving everything through medication, ask our peditrician about the war over vacinations we had. Yes, he has had all his vacinations, it just took longer than most babies his age because of the MMR.

No, no, that really has nothing to do with why we’re here today. Note the screaming child - this is why we are here today.

Well, he had a catherer put into him Friday to try and determine that, but they didn’t get enough urine to do a strip test at the clinic. No, you may not catherer our son again, call the hospital, they should have the results today or tomorrow.

102 Thursday, 102.3 yesterday, 100.0 this afternoon at 12pm. The one Thursday was an armpit measurement. Yes, we did call Thursday, they said to come to the clinic yesterday. They told us to come here today. No, the one today was rectal. Well, he’s been taking Glycolax for constipation on and off for three weeks. We couldn’t do an effective rectal Thursday. Yes, today he pooped more than a Great Dane after Thanksgiving.

Look, we’re delirious. No sleep in five days. I’m not entirely certain what it means, either.

The rash that covered his face this morning came after one dose of Amoxicillin. Yes, we know that allergies do not normally appear after one dose. His father is severely allergic to penicillin - his respiratory arrest occured after one dose. No, our son did not go into respiratory arrest, his father did when he was a tiny child. Really, though, he’s got a rash that makes him look like Mister Miracle. Can’t we try a different antibiotic? Isn’t there a salve or something we can put on him to alleviate his itching?

The Justice League. Minor character. Escape artist.

Yes, honey, I’ll let you finish telling them what happened.
**************************************************************************

I’m not upset, mind you, even if the one doctor did not even know who the Justice League are. It did get difficult to repeat the same things over and over. Most of them tried to be patient as we(read my wife) explained everything to them. I think two of them stopped taking notes after a while because they couldn’t believe that our son’s medical issues keep preventing a simple diagnosis. Our doctor today was very honest in saying, “no one knows for sure what is wrong, so I’ve learned to trust the mother.”

I got testy with one doctor, I think it was because she reminded me of a Gilmore conversation circa season one. What I mean is that there were rapid-fire three word questions. She also tended to cut us off after we said four or five words. She wasn’t trying to be rude, she was trying to arrive at a simple diagnosis. I truly believe she was doing her best to help us.

The first season was in 2000, before I gave up TV, but I digress.

At the end of it all, what have I learned? I’ve learned that God loves us very much. You see, we didn’t really have the money budgeted to pay for all of this. Too much was spent on Christmas to cover three co-pays and two perscriptions six days before payday. For my wife, a good friend happened to be in the pharmacy when she was picking up the second perscription. She got to share and be heard. It turns out her friend’s middle child had RSV this week, so she could relate.

For me, I got to spend some time alone so that I could get perspective. After a few minutes, I just had to laugh at myself. Last week I was stressed about work and about a feeling of futility in my walk with God. This week, I get to see him work in a lot of different ways. You see, if this had happened in November, we would have no money for a couple of bills and food would have been reminiscent of college. We paid off his actual birth in November, so this month, we had a sizeable chunk of money available. Had it happened in October, we would have little money for bills or any kind of food, we had just paid off my CPAP machine and my wife’s uninsured prenatal visit. In addition, it was his birthday and our anniversary.

More than that, God allowed me to see the humor in it all. I never thought I could find humor in our son’s health. Call me weird, but once I got over my fear that he was dying, I could appreciate the circumstances and my rather unique approach to parent-doctor dialogue.

God promises to tend to our needs. I needed to know that our son would be fine and I really needed to laugh. I’m saving this story to oppress friends at parties with. It tickles me when I think about it.

Happy New Year everyone! I hope your year is filled to light, laughter, love, and joyfulness.

In college, I had a very brief acquaintance that worked as a photographer for the school newspaper. Chris, whose last name escapes me, was a talented photographer and sketch artist. He and I usually spent time together at the newspaper trying to make deadlines. Mike, with whom I co-authored several articles, would toss around ideas and I would get worked up about them and furiously pour our thoughts into XYWrite. Chris would usually be in the back putting together print ads or doing some touches to layout before it was sent to print. We’d bounce things off him in the rare moments we could get him away from doing layout.

The thing I remember about Chris most, was his Happy Atheist Club. To understand the forces involved in forming this fully-funded student organization, you have to understand some of the atmosphere on campus at that time. We had two preachers that would come and inform the student body at large that they were, in fact, condemned to Hell. (They did not specify Tartarus or Gehenna, but it was usually pronounced like hail, only with two syllables. Hae-yel.)

One of them, a man known only as Rev. Birdsong, would begin by talking about sin and then pointing it out to students as they walked by him. Large crowds would gather to jeer at him. Smaller crowds of Campus Crusade and other group would gather and try to reassure the crowd that *they* were not like Rev. Birdsong and that although a brother in Christ, he was a nut. This usually brought jeers on the Crusaders who were pressured to simply disown him entirely. No matter how nasty the crowd became, they would always say that he was a brother in Christ, just not a good example at the moment.

The other man came with his family and a 9 ft cross he carried around. His wife was completely clothed from head to foot. It wasn’t a burqa, they are designed to be functional. This was something that appeared to be bedsheets with eye holes. She carried a sign that read, “I love my husband.” The kids wore t-shirts that read, “You are going to hail.” (I was hoping for Jesus rains.) Whereas Birdsong would warm up the crowd with fire and brimstone, this guy would go straight at pointing out people’s sin and informing all within earshot of their eternal destination. No one gathered around him, though at a distance, the same Crusaders and Navigators were assuring people that this guy, although a brother in Christ, was a nut.

Chris did not grow up religious, so he believed the entire scene was laughable. However, he was moved by the loyalty of these Crusaders and Navigators. They did not know Bridsong or the other guy. They didn’t appear to go to the same church or have any kind of relationship. Despite this, they stuck by these men. Sure they did not condone their message or delivery vehicle, but they were always there.

He had shared with me that some of his atheist friends seemed to have a cosmic grudge against God. It wasn’t so much that they didn’t believe that a god existed, it was that they believed that the only God in existence was a terrible villain. As a man that enjoyed discussion philosophy, he was generally discouraged by some of these friends because the discussion would get steered into a God-bashing contest. It would have been different if they were bashing a different God each time, you know, Vishnu on the first week, the Christian God the next, etc. However, it was always the Christian God that received their ire.

He decided that he wanted to form a club with happy atheists. He described a happy atheist as a person that was relatively well-adjusted, did not believe in God, and did not have an ax to grind against a deity. They met Sunday mornings at 10am for coffee and talked for about 2 hours. Oftentimes, as he would say, they would defend their bitter brethren, but reassure each other that they, the Happy Atheists, were more rational and even-keeled than them.

To be fair, he also formed the club to get money from the Student Senate. At the time, any official student organization could get money from the Student Senate to fund projects. Every year, Campus Crusade, the Navigators, Campus Advance, and others would get monies to fund retreats, campus events, even missions work. Chris figured that too much money was going to these religious groups, so he would get a piece of their action by forming a group that was similar to a Christian group. The logo was a smiley face and the coffee mugs were a collectors item on campus for a short while. After the first year, Chris’ group was funded. They used these funds to sponsor a panel discussion on the nature of existence, if I remember correctly.

Chris and I would talk from time to time. I shared that I had a couple problems with God and that I knew very few people that didn’t. It surprised him to hear that. He asked, “why do you follow Him, then, if you don’t see eye-to-eye on everything?” I asked him if he thought his parents didn’t exist because he couldn’t understand them. I was certainly glad that my parents continued to persist in believing in my existence despite not understanding me much at all. He accused me of trying to be cute and changing the subject. (I was.) The point, I shared with him, is that we meet God on His terms, not ours. I may not agree with Him at times, but it is He that sets the terms and the laws of the universe, not me. He set the terms of our relationship, but not in some authoritarian way. Instead, he chose to offer his son. We may not agree, but He is willing to be my friend in the meantime and allow me time and space to work out our differences.

I don’t know whatever became of Chris. He graduated a year later and the club folded without his leadership. In my brief acquaintance with him, I remember that he prized loyalty, which is probably why I like him so much. More than anything, he was just fun to be around.

I remembered him today because of something I saw on TV this morning. Our son has an ear infection (and possibly more). Nothing puts me to sleep like 4am TV, so I figured I’d give it a shot. So at 4AM, I saw a program paid for my the Philadelphia Church of God. For those that may not know, they are the breakaway group from the Worldwide Church of God, founded by Herbert Armstrong. The WCG renounced many of the teachings of Armstrong after his death. The PCG honors almost all of Armstrong’s teachings, including Sabbath keeping. THE PCG talked about the legacy of Armstrong and their ‘David and Goliath’ struggle to publish Armstrong’s works. Apparently the WCG took the PCG to court over copyright and lost. In addition to all of Armstrong’s works, they were also hawking the book that ‘exposes’ the error of the WCG and why the current leadership is dismantling Armstrong’s legacy.

What reminded me of Chris was their loyalty to a man, now dead. They have overcome in court and endured a church fracturing. Now, it appears that they are buying air time. All of this is done to proclaim their loyalty to their former leader. It’s true that the majority of the program was WCG-bashing, but that’s the topic of a different post.

Blogged with Flock

It was a great Christmas for the pin’k’ household. I spent more time with our son than when he was in the NICU. He got one of the much-sought-after T.M.X. dolls, known to the rest of the world as the 10th anniversary edition Tickle Me Elmo. It’s creepy that he laughs at you as you open the package.

Honestly, though, he enjoys the wooden blocks (my idea) and musical instruments (wife’s idea) more than anything. My mother got me magnetic sculpture toys — tool, it’s the same one as your son has, only I also got the 60 piece kit, too. I’ll write more about Christmas tomorrow. Suffice it to say that it was a truly wonderful Christmas.

Wickersham Brothers
I watched Horton Hears a Hoo and I couldn’t shake the image of the Wickersham Brothers from my mind. For those that haven’t seen it (or read this one of Dr. Seuss’s work) the Wickersham Brothers decide that because Horton hears something that they neither understand or believe, that Horton must be ‘taught a lesson’.

No need to say more, really.

Personal Health

My family has come to visit on successive weekends. I’ve enjoyed seeing my father, brother, and mother. Last weekend was Dad and my brother. I was especially happy that my brother was here, he had never seen my son in person. Go figure, my son absolutely loves my brother.

We went out to dinner and celebrated my birthday. We went and got a Christmas tree. We had a large time. I feel badly that my father rented a big SUV to help carry the tree only to carry a four foot tree. That’s okay, though, it was large enough for all of us to take one vehicle instead of two. We were all together and that was good.

My mother was here this weekend. She had more packages for my son than the law allows, but she also had presents for me. I got a gas grill, a serious gas grill, for my birthday/Christmas. It has a side burner (ooh, aah). I even got a messenger bag that says, “Danger, Men Cooking”. I’ve decided that I’m going to open the garage door and grill in my driveway when the snow comes in a couple days. More than that, I want to repay my neighbors for their hospitality and grill when we were eating rice and beans for a month.

I was really happy that my mother could hold my son. My son loves social gatherings and people - as long as they are five feet away. Thanks to prayers and some hard work, he warmed up to her quickly and enjoyed her. He even played with my step-father. We didn’t get to see my son open his special present, but I will videotape it and send it home.

I asked for sand from home as a present and she brought me six gallons of it. Maybe it sounds strange, but I felt like I needed a physical piece of home for me and my son. As a part of teaching him about his heritage, I don’t think I could explain home as well without some of its soil.

I haven’t written much this month, it’s the slowest one since I started. However, this month has been full of good memories and holiday events. I almost look forward to January to get a vacation from December! (I say that, but I really have enjoyed this month and seeing my family.) Maybe things will get back to normal, however that is defined by the world at large.

See you around.

As the old saw states, there is nothing civil about a war, especially this one.

According to his sermon delivered yesterday, Kip is moving to LA in March 2007. I really do not believe that there will be a clear winner in this contest. However, I do think it is going to be ugly. What will happen at the big brouhaha meetings, now?

The ICC is coming to Manhattan as well in summer 2008.

His highness has also wept the loss of the Chile churches, but has gained a congregation in Estonia and another in Congo. Now he has one on every continent.

Matthew 12:43-45 seems to ring true - the LA ICC being emptied, swept clean and put in order is about to have something worse happen. So it was with Jesus’ generation, so it appears to be with ours.

Granted, generation meaning ICoC and ICC people. The whole of Christendom has little time or notice of Kip, Bruce, Al, or any of the other castaways.

I feel badly for the folks in Russia and Eastern Europe. Next to Chicago, the North and East regions of the LA church provide the most financial support to the ICoC churches in the former Soviet empire. $300K is hard to replace by a group of US churches that are very small. Then again, if the money from LA dries up, maybe the Eurasian Missions folks will not give a 25K kickback to the Chicago church while remaining underfunded. That, however, is another story entirely. (Believe it or not, I’d still send money to this organization, but only as restricted funds. Except for this one and hopefully solitary lapse of ethics by the board, the finances have been handled well. Couple this with an unheard level of openness…)

I’ve heard about ministers visiting the small churches out there and it was encouraging news. Maybe I am sentimental again, but having grown up at the very end of the Cold War, there is something about working with Christians in Siberia that is appealing to me. More importantly, when people go to actually help others it means something.

Back to the matter at hand, calling it a Civil War may be overstated. Maybe sectarian violence is a more appropriate term. However, this conflict doesn’t involve violence against blood and bone - it is the violence against mind and soul.

I am feeling better. Between the vitamin D (thanks Bobber) and actually getting sleep, life is good.

I’ve had no real time to write, lately. I have the usual times throughout the week, but I haven’t had the Saturday 3-hour block in three weeks now. It wears on me a bit as ideas ‘back up’ in the ol’ noggin’ and give me a headache. Fortunately, most of the ideas are on scraps of text documents on a few different computers.

One of the characters in Winesburg, Ohio wrote his ideas on scraps of paper that became hard balls in his coat pocket. He would throw these hardened ideas at his only friend and laugh saying “That is to confound you, you blathering old sentimentalist”. I believe that I have a few of these ‘paper pills’ of my own. However, I am not Doctor Reefy. It seems that I am the blathering old sentimentalist, instead.

It’s the time of year for being sentimental, so what can I say? I think it’s the Christmas lights on the old houses I pass on the way home. One of them, my wife’s favorite, has nothing but the old style blue lights weaved into the bushes and tiny front porch at the front of the house. At night, these lights shine out like tiny pieces of the brightest summer sky poking out from a black cloth. There is not a good word for the sense of sophistication shown by these simple decorations. It’s the kind of sophistication that was once considered quite smart, but is now seen as quaint. It’s as if stringing up hundreds of feet of these bulky lights is not as grueling as setting up some modern showcase of inflatable snow globes.

The friendly lines and smiling windows of old houses make me fond of them. Older houses say that a family moved here to stay and grow old with the house together as if the house itself is a member of the family. Newer homes usually sigh that they are a step for someone to rest awhile before moving to a bigger, better, newer place - they are not allowed to age gracefully and strive for a sense of eternal youth.

But I digress. Family is the thought for this time of year. I have managed to visit with mine this year and it makes me happy that we have yet one more year to celebrate Christmas together. Some things have changed, I married into a family that observes Passover and occasionally Chanukah. There are dreidels on our holiday cards and we think about the miracle of light. Yet, the important things have not changed. We are a family and we stay together. For this, I am eternally grateful.

Next year’s holiday card will have four smiling faces instead of three. By then, I’m sure that I’ll have a menorah to teach our oldest about a part of his heritage. (I should also have about ten feet of gill net strung up for similar reasons, but that’s not a holiday thing. Then again, maybe I should hang a gill net behind us for the card next year. Hmmm.) By the time next Christmas rolls around, I’ll once again be ready for the respite that comes for a brief time at the end of the calendar year. It reminds me of home and family, respites from the world and it’s ceaseless striving.

I’ll be sentimental for as long as I can.

Technically, I’m a few hours older, but what’s a couple hours between friends?

I found that a lot of things happened on December 11. A good list is here.

What do I want for my birthday? Sleep. My CPAP machine is not working well and that has been the primary cause of my recent health decline. Granted, Vitamin D intake was also an issue as well of other dietary concerns. However, the bulk of the issues stemmed from not sleeping at night. I have an appointment to adjust my machine, so I should be okay, soon.

In any case, thanks to everyone for the well-wishes on my birthday. Dad, my brother, and I had a good time this weekend. I got steak last night and a great view of the city and the company of family and friends. That’s all I really want.

But I also got a 1GB USB Stick and a 1 or 2 GB SDflash card for use in a video camera. My geekiness is about to increase five fold. Mwa-ha-ha-ha. I also got a ton of batteries for all of our son’s toys. Talk about a practical gift!

Hence the saying:  If you know the enemy and know
yourself, you need not fear the result of a hundred battles.  If
you know yourself but not the enemy, for every victory gained you
will also suffer a defeat. If you know neither the enemy nor yourself, you will succumb in every battle.

Sun-Tzu, Art of War, Chapter 3 verse 18

Blogged with Flock

James M Stevens has a great Christmas story to tell that reminds us that heart trumps talent.

Merry Christmas.

Not much going on around here these days. I’m not feeling well. Besides that, any time I have to spare is spent on the computer project. I need to post some things on the Computer Biz site to mention some changes and progress thus far.

I did communion last Sunday, but it was not recorded as we were in a different-than-usual location. In a way, I’m glad it wasn’t. What I had in mind and what I said were two very different things. The point was that little things mean a lot: it is the nature of both sin and hope. Hope starts with a little thing, in this case, the birth of a child. No small thing, except in comparison with the salvation of the world. I shared about my life in college and how my descent began with a small lie and turned into a nervous breakdown.

I told the three day story and I didn’t want to. The three day story is being so angry and unable to cope that I sat in a bean bag chair in my dorm for three days without moving. I didn’t move for any reason at all. I didn’t eat or drink or anything. I stared at a spot on the wall as my sole occupation.

I didn’t want to go into some sensationalist thing, but I did anyway. Oh well.

I do look forward to my father and brother visiting this weekend. My brother has never seen our son in person. It is 8 now, but it will be in the 50s for their visit. How cool (or warm) is that?

I’ve made an appointment with the doctor, so I might be feeling better soon. Otherwise, that’s about it. I feel a lot of ennui lately and I shrug a lot. Maybe the family coming to town will brighten my spirits to some extent.

See you around…

It will be released on the free side of DToday at some point, but the editors have released a statement about Kip and the formation of the International Christian Churches.

If you have a membership, you should go read it. This is the most explicit statement to date. In it, the conclusion is very clear, the new ICC is a about following a man named Kip McKean. I appreciate this very detailed and thought-out response. It took a lot to write it as many of the authors were close, personal friends with Kip.

However, to claim that this present situation is not like the split with the CoC’s in the 1980s is pathological denial. The explanation given is that the split in the 80s came about because of

significant differences of conviction between the typical traditional Churches of Christ and the Boston Movement including the biblical expectation that every disciple be committed to God, the church, discipleship and evangelism. While the separation process was not always a godly one on either side, the need for a new movement was well established by the differences of convictions.

It can be argued that there are significant differences of conviction between the typical ICoC and the Portland Movement including the biblical expectation that every disciple be ’sold-out’ for God, committed to God’s Kingdom on earth, discipling one another and evangelizing the world in one generation. If the Boston Movement can be allowed to separate because of two different levels of conviction, so can the Portland Movement. Boston was about following Kip, too, otherwise so many people would not have moved to Boston to be trained by Kip in the 80s. Now, they are all moving to Portland to be trained or even retrained.

Let’s back up here. Kip is saying the same things as he did in the 80s. He is doing the same things as he did in the 80s.

What changed that made forming this new church divisive and egotistical as opposed to forming a new church in the 80s?

Dira
Not worth mentioning, but a couple of small edits took place on the Dira site. Dira covers the events of the Hesberian Empire and the dawn of magic. Lenga occurs 500 years after the birth of magic.

Lenga
New link. Basically, it is a Lenga-English dictionary. I’ve put in five terms, I have about 400 defined.

Sycarion
I made quite a few posts on Gold Rush Games forums. I copied them over to Sycarion. This was done mainly for copyright reasons - items on Sycarion are Creative Commons. Stuff on the forums is not really anything.

Lenga, the game, has come along. As mentioned in the posts, I have one example of a spell, the game mechanics of magic have been roughly worked out and more.

My Family
My wife has posted a poem and we have included small ‘mini-galleries’ of our son. Pretty cool for me as it took a long time to get the gallery to work.

Computer Biz
More technical stuff for the computer project mentioned here. Absolute Linux has its fourth release and I am still working on spit-and-polish for the powers that are. The big post for me was getting a graphical log in that was smaller than KDM or GDM. Entrance is smaller and it has the eye candy that you’d expect from Enlightenment.

Things are bogged down at the moment because there are things that don’t “just work”. One is burning CDs. On the other hand, Absolute is the only Linux that has correctly configured by flat-panel monitor at home higher than 800×600.

Study Hall
I began uploading an exposition of Galatians, but they do not appear on the site at the moment. I hope to have this fixed this weekend.

pinakidion.*
This month started with a look at a future challenge of the church, helping registered sex offenders find housing. Most of the month, I was not feeling well, so many of the posts were General goofy things.

Coming for a Visit was a look at Bruce Williams pitching the UP at a non-signing church. I also talked a bit about the local Senate election.

Of course, I took great delight in counting my blessings in the Thanksgiving post. Thanks to everyone for the warm thoughts, especially when it is 8 outside right now.

Last and not least, the month ended with The Baptism Post. Get your comments in now, they automatically shut off in ten days. If you want to continue the discussion after that, you can post on the forums (discuss.pinakidion.org) or become an author and post here. I’m fine either way.

Wrap-Up

That’s all the news that is fit to print. Busy in some ways, not busy in others. My family is coming to visit this month, so I expect more photos. I also have no goals for December because of the visits.

See you around and Merry Christmas.