pinakidion.*

When we first met, it seems like you weren’t certain if I could be trusted. You are quite fond of her, and I understand your natural protectiveness. Still, I was glad that we could come to an agreement on that first day. Little did you know that I was going to take you and her a couple states south in a year.

It ’s funny. You complained the entire trip south, yet you let me be your friend. You didn’t get angry at me very much despite feeling sick for most of the trip and despite a lingering sense of mistrust.

We put you in a stranger’s house for a few months after that. You and she were both guests at first, but after a while, it was just you. Just you, a good friend, and that dog you completely despised. I understand, I’m not a small dog kind of person.

After she and I came back from Rome, the three of us lived in a fancy high rise for a short time. It was, in many ways, the place where you always belonged. You could look down at the entire world from the top floor. You basically owned the house all day as we both left to go to work. I’m sure you miss those quiet days now. Don’t worry, someday soon, those quiet days will return.

When we left to move into a house over a century old, you didn’t complain very much. In fact, you enjoyed the fact that she was home quite a bit. In fact, it was then that we started talking to each other more than ever. You would say hello when I came home and then we’d talk about all kinds of things.

She’d roll her eyes at us, but us guys have to stick together, you know.

When we came home that October night, you wouldn’t leave her side. It took awhile for us to explain it, but all you knew was that she had changed and she was very sad. You brought her a lot of comfort although you didn’t see much of us for a couple weeks. When we got home, you would politely say hello to me and then join her in the living room. She still talks about those times.

And one day, we brought him home.

You complained at how noisey he was and how demanding he was and how he took away time that was rightfully yours. Yeah, I can see your point there. Still, when he was asleep in his bassinet, you came back to comfort her through the tears, just like you had always done for the 13 years previous.

You loved the basement in that old house. Unlike me and her, you could ignore the gunfire. You didn’t flinch that night the police came and asked me what I saw and heard. (You did, however, come up to visit me after he left. Thank you for not telling the cop about the Cadillac in the back yard with expired tags.) We stayed over a year at that house and you were mostly happy there.

When we moved again, you were getting used to it, I think. You took to the new house right away. There was real carpet, real heat, no gunfire, closets, and lots of warm sunbeams. He was still your nemesis, but you could easily escape for the first seven months. After that, you decided to sleep downstairs, away from us.

When we brought her home a few months after that, you pretty much decided that we were crazy. Yet, those first few nights when we came home, you knew something was wrong. You were there for her again. I was glad you were, because I couldn’t be there in the daytime. That was a hard one on all of us, but you gave us so much.

Thank you.

But now, dear friend, I see you hurting. You don’t complain, but I know it hurts a lot. I also know that you are embarrassed about this morning, so I don’t mention it to anyone. I wish I could say it happens to all of us, but you and I both know that is not true. I know that you’re much older than me, but it’s no comfort to me. I wish this circumstance was different.

Saturday, I have to transition you again. This time, though, we won’t be joining you. I know you want to do this alone, but I wish you weren’t leaving so soon. I just wish that you knew it was coming. After all you’ve done for her for these 17 years, I just wish it wouldn’t be a big surprise to you. Unfortunately, I cannot change that.

Thank you for noticing that I am feeling sad tonight. I appreciated the quiet time we shared downstairs while the kids and she are asleep. Maybe you know, I dunno. I mean, I saw the xrays. We both know you haven’t been eating. Anyway, you haven’t purred in quite a while, but you purred a good twenty minutes earlier.

For a brief time, I almost forgot.

I don’t know what our time will be like this week. I dread Saturday in some ways. Our children are so fond of you. I am, too.

Let me say this while you are asleep tonight:

Goodbye old friend. May your suffering end. Tell grandma that we miss her, too.

So I am driving to a high school to help a principal locate a missing file. The tech guy at the High school is gone for an entire week. He also did not put the district required software on the principal’s machine to allow me to remotely access her desktop. Thus, I am driving along to meet this principal at her school.

Five minutes into my trip, I realize I went to the wrong school, so I decide to stop and get my bearings and go to the correct school. I pull into a parking lot to hear some nurses remarking about the ugly green color in the sky. They scramble as the head nurse shouts that they are going to evacuate.

It looked like a normal thunderstorm in the distance to me. Then again, I imagine the head nurse lived here for awhile. I wanted to go home, but duty called and I hope to get to the school, .75 miles away, before it rains really hard.

I’m within sight of the school when visibility changes to zero. The car in front of me is no more than 20 yards away from me, but I can only see the brake lights when he/she pushes them. At some point, the rain actually increases in intensity and I hear hail bouncing off the roof of the car. I pull off into a parking lot to wait out the storm. I found an open place sans trees. You may think I’m stupid, but I’ll explain the rationale.

I was in an old section of town. Many of the trees there are huge and 100+ years old. This equates to being a lightning magnet. I’m grounded in the car, but the flaming branch hitting the car is not a pleasant thought.

Anyway, I put the car rear facing the wind and pull the emergency brake. I have one of those cars with a raised back end so that the car slopes downward. This means that unless I face it just right, hail cannot directly strike the back glass.

So you’re saying to yourself, did you actually think through all of this? How long did it take. Yes. Ten seconds. It happens when you live here for awhile. You get 10 minutes warning at best when these storm form and move in. I had two.

So here I am in a parking lot somewhere only vaguely aware of my location. The hail starts coming now in sheets. It is so loud in my car that I am plugging my ears. The radio was up to 9 and I still couldn’t hear it. I don’t really see anything, but I presume that branches are flying around.

At this point, I decide that I should just turn around and go home when I get the chance. Yes, wait for the hail to stop. Wait for the horizontal rain to stop. Wait for the car to stop inching forward - yes the emergency brake is on.

Five minutes later, it all stops. The wind is gone, the hail is gone, the rain is gone. The car is fine and surprisingly undented. I am surrounded by tree limbs and look up to see that I had turned into a parking lot beside an open field. Driving through the branches, I see the other cars creeping along waiting for the sky to open again.

No surprising to folks that know me, I also realized that I am lost. Somewhere in the rain while trying to make my way east, I somehow ended up going in some other compass direction.

Now I realize that my biggest enemy is flash flooding. I try to call home, but the cell tower for my carrier is disabled. (When I later discovered that some places had winds of 115 mph, I understood why.)

Seeing the number of trees and tree branches in the road, all I am trying to do is drive west and north. I just need a numbered street to get my bearings and make my way home. It would take a long time, but eventually it would work. What followed was an odyssey of high tension and failed hopes. As I tried to make my way, the gas light came on. I laugh out loud because it just strikes me as too funny.

The high tension came from confronting impromptu rivers at familiar intersections. Watching a truck plow through one of those intersections, I realize that my car won’t make it through unless I want water to come up to the door handles. North and west, I tell myself. Just drive north and west.

I ended up in a neighborhood north of my home. I knew I was a little over a mile away, I just had to get to a major road. I find the numbered street and make my way west so that the numbers will go up to 90. At 90th street, I’m on a major highway that leads home. I get close only to find perpetual tree blockages. Even heading north, I cannot find a way out, so I head east. I eventually end up at a major road three miles north of home.

At this point, I should mention that there are no working stoplights on in the city at this point. I had been in neighborhoods driving through smaller rivers, so I forgot about that. I turned left (at great risk to life and car) thinking that it was west. After more tree, river, and stoplight issues, I ended up a half-mile EAST of my home. I finally made it to a street that was more or less clear and made my way home (Blondo Street).

I turn onto the street leading home and discover a large tree in the road. I try to drive around it only to find all roads in my neighborhood with big trees in the road. So, I make it back out to Blondo so that I can drive around the block on major roads to enter the street leading to my home from another direction.

From Blondo, it is full stop. Creeping forward I remember that, oh yeah, the I’M REALLY OUT OF GAS LIGHT has been on the entire time. Gas?!? Is there a gas station open at this point? I’ve been driving for an hour, do I really want to get home or stop?

Turns out that there’s no working gas stations anyway. They are out of power. Plenty of gas, just no delivery mechanism. In any case, I finally make it around. The other end of the major street leading to my home also has a tree down blocking the road. This one has a power line entangled in it as well.

At this point, I laugh again. I had enough sense to park the car at a small insurance company and turn off the engine. Yes, I’ll walk home, but at least the car isn’t burning more fumes while I’m appreciating the humor of all of this. I notice the half-inch deep hail in the parking lot. I think to myself, I made it through all of this only to get a head injury slipping on ice in June six blocks from home.

Delicately walking through hail, I also delicately make my way around the fallen tree. There was a path around the tree, through lots of soft mud. I actually walked through someone’s backyard to avoid the tree, power line, and mud. Walking down the road, calls are barreling down the road trying to escape. Whereas I couldn’t get in because of the trees at both ends of the road, they cannot get OUT. Yelling on their cellphones, I think that they have no idea.

I finally make it home only to see leaves pasted to the front of the house and a huge lake for a driveway. Fortunately, my neighbor’s driveway is high and dry, so I walk through it and a little water to get to my front door.

No power.

Who cares?!? I finally made it home. The gas grill is okay, so we’re set. Grill everything, relax at home, chill, relax and have a great time.

An hour later, I ask my wife, What do you mean there’s no meat in the refrigerator?

An old post based on a link from Cryptoguy

The original link was from Preach Mike who makes a valid, if somewhat incomplete point. Look at some of the Delphites and it’s easy to spot the teenagers. By this model, I was a teenager for a while. Hello pot, this is the kettle…

Why incomplete? I think it is incomplete because there is a reasonable assumption that a person’s spiritual history has good and bad elements. However reasonable it is, it is not logical - an assumption that all experience falls between two extremes is the Middle Ground Fallacy. Having said that, the message of the post is reasonable and worth investigating a bit.

I often say that 85% of the historical ICoC (1979 - 2002ish) was bad and/or evil. That’s a high percentage by anyone’s standard. Yes the number is arbitrary, I choose it because it quantifies “a lot” a more clearly. In other words, saying that a lot of what we were was bad/or evil doesn’t express as clearly my thoughts as much as providing a number.

In any case, let me talk about the good from my more recent religious heritage:

• They were very good at making a message portable and easily transferable from any member to another member.
• They were, in some ways, egalitarian in regards to the role of women. (Think communion without a man to introduce the sister speaking.)

I am grateful for these things, really. I didn’t realize until I started working with other churches how helpless the average member of those churches felt in sharing with others. If someone wanted to join, the member would have them call the preacher. QED, problem solved. In the ICOC, our message was supplied with a straightforward way of presenting it to others. I never felt much at a loss of what to say. If I didn’t know what to say, I’d rattle off points from the Word study. Though my theology has changed, I still look for ways to transfer the gospel in easily portable ways.

Women, for the most part, were highly regarded in role. Women preached (albeit only to other women), shared at communion, helped their male counterparts shape ministries, and were generally considered a good resource. What do the sisters think was a common question. The input given was actually considered and usually followed. I appreciate that experience from my past.

I almost didn’t list this one because the role of women in some ways was very rigid. My experience was that this role was tolerated by the wives of leaders because the political reality was that they were running the show. Single sisters controlled who would date more than any of the other leaders. I don’t believe that my experience was universal to the denomination as a whole. This experience was also not the same from start to end.

Anywho, that’s my thought for the day. There is most likely some good in your experience if you look for it.

see more crazy cat pics

I have another one regarding the “Who Is My Brother” seminar (read - the UPC RULEZ!), but I’ve been doing other things lately. Enjoyed beautimous weather and Mahoney State Park this weekend. Life is good all around.

The following is most of the text for an email I will send to the minister. Certain details are different but that’s more of privacy than anything. I also didn’t include any local issues other than the ones already discussed with someone on either the Deacon Board or the Financial Board.

Where Ya Been?
I’ve been asking God to actually speak to me this year. I am quite adamant, it has to be Him, not my voice, the voice of a minister, or the voice of a believing friend. It had to be Him and only Him in simple terms that I can understand. That was January of this year, before that the big ongoing prayer was “make me into something different”. I felt like I had a character flaw that needed to be removed from me. I clung to 2 Co 12:9 for dear life, even if it upset me that the answer may actually be ‘no, rely on my grace more’. Mostly, though, I’ve been in the land of Nod, east of Eden.

Nod is a place of hard work, little reward, and great frustration. Frustration is the most accurate way to describe where I’ve been. This wasn’t a localized frustration, this was with most areas of my life. I was frustrated that I am unable to read the Bible and enjoy it. I was frsutrated that my denomination is doing crazy things that hurt others. I was frustrated that my family was not doing very well. Praying only made me angry – the more I prayed, the angrier I got. After a while, my conversations with God were basically angry from start to finish. I fell into fatalism (not a slam on Calvinism) and basically shrugged whenever I addressed the Almighty.

Why pray at all? Habit, I guess. I would start to pray and catch myself. I’d apologize to God for taking his name in vain and mention that I still can’t hear Him. There weren’t many prayers outside of the morning prayer of “Still me. Still can’t hear you. You’re still soveriegn. Whenever your timing allows, it’d be nice to hear from you. Since all things are foreordained, I’ll just say goodbye for now instead of so be it.” (One translation of Amen is ‘so be it’.)

I knew He cared, but since He is soveriegn, I couldn’t rush Him or change His mind or otherwise change the events He set into motion before the creation of the world. There was not any real reason to get all worked up about when He’d answer or what His answer would be. He cares, He’ll do what He does, when he does it, and I just have to wait on His timing. Of course, I ended up getting all worked up about it. When the Bible speaks of a dividing wall of hostility, I know what it means from personal experience.

Backing up a little bit, I had been praying that I could just accept. For example, when someone addresses a church and talks about getting back to discipling, I want to just accept that is good for them, even when they are proclaiming that it is a biblical mandate. I would beg God to prevent me from being triggered by anything. Despite that, I felt like I was triggered every week. The downside of thinking that about 85% of what my denomination (and myself as a former member) did was in error is that there are a lot of triggers.

I was tired of asking ‘why’ and trying to explain that I wasn’t bitter about my past. I was tired of having many queries turned back on me when I sought clarification. I was tired of leaders in other churches contacting me because I had sent an email to a third party. I was really tired that justice felt delayed and that no one was listening. I had reasoned that if I wasn’t triggered in the first place to ask ‘why?’ or ask ‘can this be done biblically?’ or ask ‘where is that in the Bible?’ then I could be more at peace because nothing would really bother me. I’ve been praying for things to stop bothering me now for at least two years, maybe longer.

It’s not a great epiphany that straightened this all out. I finally heard Him, which is what I wanted all along. No, I didn’t hear the James Earl Jones voiceover or see a beam of light. After the 80millionth “just help me”, the answer came through a discussion with my wife and more came later after some time to retreat.

God made me to ask ‘why’. I’m always going to want to know ‘why’. It is a good thing to ask ‘why’. The idea He gave me was, “Be who I created you to be.”

It is human nature to complicate a simple idea with explanations and caveats of possible implications. Sometimes, this can ruin a mountaintop experience. Fortunately, this is much less an emotional experience than a spiritual experience. It is the feeling that the tumblers of the combination lock have just set in the right place in order to open the door. It is something that resonantes in mind and spirit, not just the heart. Still, it is fair to provide a little bit more of what that really means in a practical sense.

Sin is a part of my life, but I was not created to sin. (Romans 6:1-2)
No one was created to be sinful. As a result of the fall, sin is a part of our lives and even a part of our nature. Still, God did create sin into us. It is not our purpose to sin. Through Jesus we are forgiven of our sin and live under grace. That grace is not a license to sin.

Practically what this means is that I am not created to sin against others. Sure, we may get into conflict (not a sin), but it can be worked out. Despite my best intentions, I am going to say things that will hurt another person’s feelings or offend them in some way. When that happens, I should deal with it the best way available. Knowing that some offense is inevitable, however, does not provide license to wantonly abuse others only to claim that they misunderstood my intentions. Injury (real or perceived) has occurred and that injury must be addressed. Aruging about intention rarely resolves anything. Put another way; if I rear-end someone’s car, should I apologize or suggest that they not put on brakes?

Asking ‘why’ also creates discomfort. It is the same kind of discomfort that I had in discussing my vasectomy with anyone. I don’t mean the procedure itself, but my need to have it in the first place. The why questions are:

• Why do I have some 1 in 6.4 million genetic rarity that no one can readily explain?
• Why will my children have to be concerned that their children may have more severe issues than they had?
• Why was I created to pass this anomaly on?

In talking to others about it, many would say things to me like ‘two is a good number’ and ‘you got one of each’. I would mention that part of dealing with this is that my wife and I always wanted three children. In my own mind, I asked the question, “Why would you risk having a third child with potentially severe medical issues?” Thankfully, none of my friends and family spoke this question aloud to me. They would ask other why questions focused on “why are you so certain that the genetic issue is you?”. I bring all this up to say that asking the former question (why a third child with issues) is the type of question I want to avoid. The latter question (why do you think it is you) is uncomfortable to discuss, but was ultimately helpful in dealing with the situation. This is the type of why question I want to ask.

Some things are not my fight (Proverbs 26:17-21)
Dr. King once said that the absence of tension is negative peace, while positive peace is the presence of justice. Put another way, negative peace is only the absence of direct violence while a positive peace is also the absence of structural and cultural violence. In terms of the ICoC, I believe that most, if not all of the direct abuse and problems have been addressed while some of the structual and cultural issues have not. As someone that is a part of this community, it is fair to discuss structural and cultural issues. However, personal issues are not mine to deal with. If someone invites me, I’ll still tend to avoid it unless both parties are comfortable with my presence. I cannot make every situation resolve well and it is unwise to invite myself to be party to a conflict I’m not a part of. So if you want me to talk to your minister, I’ll poltiely decline.

Epilogue
All of this is well and good, you may say, but what about the angry praying and Bible reading and all of that? Good question. As far as praying goes, I follow the advice of John Piper and work through prayer in eight steps:

1. Incline my heart to god (Psalm 119:36 RSV)
2. Open the eyes of my heart (Psalm 119:18)
3. Enlighten my heart (Ephesian 1:18)
4. Be united in heart (Psalm 86:11)
5. Be satisfied with God (Psalm 90:14 RSV)
6. Strengthen my joy (Ephesians 3:16)
7. Pray to produce acts of love and service (Colossians 1:10)
8. Hallowed be your name (Matthew 6:9)

This works pretty well on days where I am disciplined enough to do it correctly. Sometimes I get stuck at step 1, sometimes step 4, other times step 5. Sometimes I do step 6 in unhealthy ways, but I’ll get better over time. I want the final step to be more than an afterthought. I want to end prayers differently that “your will be done in Jesus name, Amen.”

As far as the reading goes, it is still difficult to hear God’s voice, even after I pray. I still hear so many commentaries and speakers that I wish I could unlearn. Being able to be at peace with God frees me up to deal with this. I still feel like it’s not as ‘deep’ as I want it, but at least it doesn’t frustrate me so much anymore.

Thank you for being my friends and reading. You are a blessing to me and I hope to be a blessing to others.

You’re The Mists of Avalon!
by Marion Zimmer Bradley
You’re obsessed with Camelot in all its forms, from Arthurian legend
to the Kennedy administration. Your favorite movie from childhood was "The Sword in
the Stone". But more than tales of wizardry and Cuban missiles, you’ve focused on
women. You know that they truly hold all the power. You always wished you could meet
Jackie Kennedy.

Take the Book Quiz
at the Blue Pyramid.

I strike an odd figure in many places. Sometimes it is my size, other times it is an unintentional act of completely disregarding my surroundings. Earlier today, for example, I’m sitting in the parking lot of a discount grocery store with the window down in our car. Not that strange, I know. It’s not like I can shop at Nieman-Marcus. The notable thing is that two cars somewhere on the lot are pumping out 50 cent (I recognized the tune) and Shawty Lo, respectively. Me? I’m pumping out opera while munching on a couple of cheap deli burritos. I’m sure that my two-day old beard adds to an air of urban sophistication amongst so many of my NPR listening brethren.

I’m an old school kind of guy, I still have NWA on my portable hard drive. The opera is real old school, of course, but not everyone kicks to DJ Vivaldi.

On to the next episode

While I was home on vacation, I came upon the other black sheep in my family. Those that know my family may marvel that there are only two black sheep in the family. I would consider the entire clan to be on the fringe of genteel society as it is. One uncle is the man’s man with two Harleys, two prison-style tattooed sleeves, a room with the fur of more dead animals than Hemingway, etc. You know what I mean.

His idea of gun control is using a 22 caliber pistol.

Anyway, he sees my daughter and just melts. He makes faces, sings songs, and in general acts like the jolly ol’ Saint Nick of yore. She reaches out to him and they have a grand time as he dances with her in my mother’s front yard. You see, he’s always loved kids. His license plate on the HUM-V (not a Hummer, a HUM-V) he drives is a tribute to his daughters.

My other uncle has raised his nine children in what I choose to call an “aggressive” manner. All his sons are aggressive and play physical jokes on each other. If you’ve ever seen Bam Margera and all the things he does to his step-father, imagine five Bams and a father that fights back. The standing rule is that if you break, you pay to fix it.

Having said that, I enjoy being with them because there is zero pretension. Everyone is who they say they are. No fronts, no lies, no dishonesty. We sat down to dinner and everyone just started talking about which teacher is afraid of which child, how many kids they are have, why did I move to Nebraska, etc. Spiral Ham, box Mac-n-Cheese, and collard greens. It was a great time.

I really went to see my grandfather who is 91. My grandmother passed away two years ago - she had a few medical problems, but basically died after years of just giving up. I think it was about 15 years ago, she decided that she could not walk and did not from that day forward. My grandfather did all he could to take care of her.

After she passed, he wasn’t able to live alone in the house he shared with her for what must have been 50 years. He sold it the day before I saw him. It’s a house I lived in for a time while I went to Kindegarden and a couple summers. I wished I could have seen it one last time.

My grandfather now lives with my uncle, his middle son. All my relatives told me that he wasn’t long for this world. I was eager to see him. I couldn’t come back for my grandmother’s funeral, though I was supposed to be a pall bearer. Of all the children and grandchildren, Pop always said he favored me the most and that means a lot to me.

He told me that he couldn’t hear anything because the batteries in his hearing aids all died. Truth is, he just doesn’t want to wear them. I told him he could wear my son’s if that helped. I couldn’t take Brother Bear with me that night as he was already asleep, but something about a two year old wearing a hearing aid sparked something within him, I guess.

I showed him some pictures of the kids. He didn’t say anything. Every once in a while, he would glance up at the big screen tv blaring behind us. Most of the family wrestled in and out of the room while we were talking, so it wasn’t that much of a distraction. Pop worked in the Naval Shipyards for decades out of Norfolk, VA. He worked on a lot of navy boats still in service today. He could say a lot about so much history.

But he chose to say little except that he was glad to see me.

Everyone was home for Easter dinner, and Pop would be the head of the table as always. The Easter tradition is that those sitting closest to the foot of the table had the luckier seat. I was in the luckiest seat, something everyone reminded me of twice. As we ate, Pop watched silently as everyone ate. Once in a while, one of my cousins would lean over and tell him a joke and he’d draw his face into the world’s largest smile and open his mouth to laugh. Yet, he was silent. Still, he had a face that invited laughter and we’d all join in. During those times, his Lasik-corrected eyes would twinkle just a little. It was like the grandfather of my childhood was back. I felt lucky to see him laugh, he had laughed so little the past five years as my grandmother deteriorated and eventually passed away.

After dinner, I had to leave in order to pack for home tomorrow morning. I tarried a bit longer to tell him that I had to leave.

His face grew long and his eyes welled up with tears. He looked me straight in the eyes and said, “Goodbye”. We both knew what he meant. I hugged him once more and left.

With all the oddballs in my family, and I am certainly the oddest, my Pop is unique amongst them all. He loves to laugh, he loves to share what he has, he loves children, grandchildren, great-grandchildren, and great-great grandchildren. His words have always been few and carefully chosen. That has given him a certain presence that all the rest of us lack. He was always the stable, dependable one in a chaotic sea of family that splashed and sloshed across the US.

I miss him already.

Some other things of note. Again, this is so I can understand my own notes later.

• Mt. Vernon, Indiana, one of three Mt. Vernon’s I passed at high speed (Virginia, Iowa)
• Rebel Yell in Paducah, Ky.
• Why my son loves country music
• Can’t make it to Knoxville. We made it to Knoxville.
• Blue Ridge Parkway.
• How to tell a good story over time
• Receptacle of Memories discussion
• Brother Bear meets a real chicken and egg situation
• Black Market Dairy and the cravings of the modern toddler
• Having Dirt does not equal sharing Dirt with a spouse
• Chick-Fil-A at last (and for the only time) in Burlington
• Raleigh is not how I remember
• This is home.
• The ocean is overrated, how about less sand and wind?
• Where is my family?
• Eeek a mouse.
• One Black Sheep meets the Other Black Sheep in the family.
• What do you mean we have to go back a different way?
• Easter at Sunrise, Easter with Dad.
• Brother Bear steals the hearts of many, including another set of parents of a deaf child.
• Too much food.
• There are good thing in Washington DC, really. No, really.
• Gallaudet University trip.
• Welcome to W. Va, Pennsylvania, W. Va, Ohio. What?
• Finally, the family has come back to arrived in Columbus.
• Snow? Iowa?
• Will it play in Peoria? Yes.
• Old Republican Women and why they like Obama.
• Nut in Frostburg, Md that thinks the British are coming.
• Why I really hate fast food (with two exceptions)
• Is this really home?
• Honey, we forget something on the counter…

There’s more, but that’s enough for now. Gotta run, my Saturday writing time is up.

That would be:

Iowa, Kansas, Missouri, Illinois, Indiana, Kentucky, Tennessee, North Carolina, Virginia, Maryland, West Virginia, Pennsylvania, Ohio. We also visited Washington, DC. To be fair, the time in Kansas was all at 70 mph for 20 minutes. We stopped in all the other states, either to sleep, eat, or stretch.

What prompted this modern odyssey across the Eastern half of the country? I wanted to see home for the first time in about two years. If you remember, it was about a little over two years ago that the great Chick-Fil-A run began. At that time, we were getting rid of the Cadillac Catera that no one wants. Just to let you know, my father sold it in February of this year.

My wife was very supportive, especially as I wanted to spend time teaching our children about my side of their heritage. So, after two days of furious activity, we washed everything we own and threw it into suitcases the day we left. Mrtool housesat for us, he saw the interrupted state we left the house in.

Prior to this, some meticulous planning had been done to research every rest area between here and NC. I knew where we could stop at any given time. I also knew where all the Chick-Fil-A’s were. A man has to have priorities in order before such a massive undertaking. My wife did her usual spatial geometry trick to get everything to fit into the car. We packed a cooler with whole milk, two quiches, luncheon meat and ice. Two Whole Foods bags had all the dry food (two boxes of cheerios, raisins, and who knows what else.) We were ready.

The caveat in all this was that we had to use the back seat for some of our stuff. This meant that if she wanted to sit in the back with the children, we would have to unpack the backseat into the passenger side front seat, not a trivial matter. Still, we felt that this was the best that could be done. I mean, we have a double stroller, six bags/suitcases of clothes, food, games, and books. For those that may not know, we own a Ford Taurus. It’s not a Cooper, but it’s not a Town and Country, either.

We planned to leave that morning, but my tax refund arrived that morning in my bank account. This meant we could pay off everyone before the trip instead of after. I then spent the next two hours paying off everyone you can think of. All the medical bills are done, finished, paid in full, never to see the light of day again. We also have met our deductible for the year, to boot. We paid off our one little credit card completely and we caught up on a couple other bills as well.

Now leaving at 2pm, I said that we had to make it to St. Louis at all costs. You’d think I’d know better than to make such statements having been a part of a church that said this since its inception. Still, I guess the training is very hard to undo. My wife had a better idea, but I didn’t listen until the next day. Lesson learned: listen to your wife. Anyway, we were off to the great frontier at 2pm, ready to meet what faced us.

It was about 3pm that Dancing Bear, our daughter, decided that the car seat was not her friend. She voiced this complaint pretty much until we made it to Bobber’s house in St. Louis at 12am. Brother Bear, our son, decided that sleeping was better than listening to his sister complain. This, of course, meant that he was wide awake in St. Louis. We made a complete tour of all the rest areas in Missouri on our route in vain attempts to appease Dancing Bear. She was happy at every stop until we put her back into the seat. As a result of day one of our trip, I have decided that I will never ever complain again if there is a crying baby in a restaurant or plane.

The cooler was in the trunk, but thankfully we had to stop every thirty-forty minutes anyway. Most of the good stuff was eaten by the time we arrived at Bobber’s. One of the games I brought cannot be played in the car and my wife and I traded complaints of tiredness.

This was the worst day of the entire trip.

Arriving at Bobber’s, he met me in the driveway and helped me unload the car. We were given the basement. My wife needed to pump immediately, so Bobber and I got everything in while she setup. Both the children decided that the basement was the most fun place in history. My son was bouncing off the walls.

Bobber and I talked for two hours about all kinds of things. ICoC a little, politics, the trip, the kids, etc. We had so much fun, but finally the family constitutions gave out - we had to sleep. Early next morning, I got up. Bobber’s wife talked to me about breakfast only to segue into more discussions with Bobber all through the rest of the morning. I enjoyed hearing ideas about religion and politics as well as the paleolithic diet. That particular morning, we were not following the plan as waffles were made, much to the delight of Brother Bear.

We ended up talking about Ron Paul, the role of government, equality vs equity, the Constitution, food, where are they now(ICoC edition), liturgy, Democrats, slot car race tracks, Debian, Slackware, and other things. I saw the HQ of http://kc0dxf.net and the garage sized slot car track. I had a lot of fun, but I began to say good-bye at 9:15am in order to get on the road.

My wife and his wife joked with each other as 11am approached that this good-bye could take another hour. We left at 11:20am.

I made it home okay.

More to say, but it’s late.

And the house smells funny.

If you can believe it, I managed to stay off line for 6 days. This has been good and bad for me. Good in that I have a break in my internet routine. Bad in that folks that depend on me for website stuff found out that I was not easily reached. Still, it has been a good few days.

I enjoyed my stay with Bobber. We talked about everything from Ron Paul to religion to Debian. I saw the home for his website. I saw the groove racing track. It was a great time. We started saying goodbye at 9:15am, my family left at 11:30.

I also enjoyed our stay with Scott. More on that later.

More importantly, it looks like we may need to return home another way. First stop is Raleigh to see Kurt, but then the trip is a northern odyssey. If we go too far north, we hit major snow in Chicago. If we go back the way we came, we face flooding in Kentucky. At this point, it looks like we will be traveling Raleigh to DC to Columbus, Ohio to Indianapolis to Davenport, IA to home. I want to see Scott and Bobber again, but the weather may not cooperate.

More on that later, but I’ll take a really big internet risk here. (Phone number removed despite it being a permanent fixture of the internet now.)

BALEETED!

That’s me. I need folks to reach me, so there it is. I’m ready for the prank calls. If you’re my friend and pretend to be a prank call, I will hang up on you. You’ve been warned.

Anyway, I’ll let you know as Tuesday approaches. We are leaving here that morning and making our way West (and North, then West, then kinda Southwest.)

It has been a much needed break away from the regular things in life we’ve had the past three years. No church stuff, no appointments, no surgeries, no nothing. Just the ocean, a lot of wind, much family, and good seafood.

I had hoped that being here would also spark a spiritual renewal, but outside of the release of tension, that hasn’t happened yet. I feel strange addressing a church on Easter Sunday, but I remember that Jesus came to call the sinners, not the saints. I’m only there to introduce my children for whom this little church has prayed continuously for over two years. Whereas before they saw only pictures, Sunday, they see them face to face. Heaven is like that, too, but that’s a different topic altogether.

I do hope to see Doug and Ryan on the trip back. All I ask is to show me where a Chick-Fil-A is located.

I plan on writing much more in two weeks.

I’ll probably write from home, but we’ll be leaving in a couple hours. Thanks to everyone for the help and hospitality.

• Bobber, I’ll call you later today. Haven’t talked to my wife about it yet.
• RH, thanks for the help, I have contact with Knoxville.
• Scott, I’ll call you tomorrow from the road.
• Kurt, I’ll call you, too, but I need you to call me because I’ve lost your number. Everyone I just mentioned has my cell.

Next stop, Iowa for a brief trip down I-29.

Not that I don’t like emailing my friends, but I cannot send private email from work. I cannot use my work email because it is all stored and sifted for legal reasons. Thus, here is my projected itinerary for the trip East:

March 14th: Leave Omaha and arrive in St. Louis
March 15th: Leave St. Louis and arrive in Knoxville
March 16th: Leave Knoxville and arrive in Winston-Salem
March 17th: Leave WS and arrive home.

Part of the trip on the 15th will be a picture of the arch. Part of the 16th trip will be a visit to the Whitnet Holocaust Memorial (maybe). Part of the 17th trip will be to find Cherry-Lemon Sundrop (available only in four counties in NC and one in TN).

On the way back, we will reverse the course starting on March 25th.

To anyone helping us out with places to stay, my wife doesn’t eat seafood or pork. I will eat anything but anchovies.

I am very grateful to those that have offered to help, it is a great help to us trying to visit friends and family. Much love from the wife and me.

Yes, it’s almost time. The Pink clan is driving east to my ancestral homeland. I’ll post the route later, because it is different from the route of the famous Chick-Fil-A run. I’m going through Tennessee. It adds all of 20 miles and I avoid the wasteland known as southern Indiana and Southern Illinois. Plus, I’ll take another detour to see the Holocaust Memorial featured in the movie, Paperclips.

Yes, I am driving thought St. Louis and down I-40. We leave here on March 14 and will be traveling for a little over 3 days. Night one should put us in St. Louis, Night two in Knoxville. Night three Winston-salem or Raleigh or home. Depends.

I have mapped out all the Chick-Fil-A’s again. I will not be revisiting the Charleston, WV location with me and mrtool’s picture. however, thanks to wireless, I will be ordering from the car en route for a pick up. Bwa ha ha ha. Technology is great.

For the record, I am basically better. I got my yearly physical yesterday and everything seems normal (except being overweight). blood pressure is actually the low end of normal. Maybe I’m more mellow than I think. I’m down 14 pounds from Jan 1, so I am feeling a bit better.

Anywho, I’ll write from home, but won’t be around here until next week. My Statis-Pro football league has its draft this Saturday.

Me am sick. I did all the vitamin stuff I could leading up to it. I tried everything I could think of. In the end, though, I ended up doing too much. Part of it was the failed video for Black History Sunday at church and refurbing a laptop for my wife. Part of it was not sleeping for awhile. If you heard my communion from Sunday, I sounded worse the next day.

The result, I am home sick for two days. So now, I am taking zinc and B vitamins and all the other assorted things that are supposed to help recovery. I’m also during various assorted herbal teas with chamomile my favorite. I am sorely tempted to use my grandparents remedy for these things:

4 parts Southern Comfort (required) to 1 part honey (almost optional) to 1/2 part lemon juice (entirely optional).

Fortunately for me, the tax refund hasn’t arrived yet, so that solution is too expensive. Thank goodness vitamins at the No Name Nutrition store in town is cheaper than whiskey. Still, I’m out for awhile.

moar humorous pics

It’s Valentine’s Day. You miss me? Yeah, I miss you, too. The picture above is more for my wife and I, but if you need a hug, take one. I gotz a jar full.

I’ve been pretty sick since the Supe… uh Big Game uh football game played on Feb 2. (Do you know what to call it without NFL lawyers suing you for trademark infringement?). I almost went to a doctor. Seriously.

Good news is that I do not have pneumonia and that one day, I really will feel better. Brother Bear is pulling out of his version of this virus as well as Dancing Bear. Besides being 1 below zero tonight things are looking pretty good. (We celebrated reaching 30 degrees this morning!)

Here’s what else has been going on.

Some folks from Springfield, Mo wrote the church administrator and asked about the look and feel of our website. They asked for help in finding the same template we were using at the time. Of course, since I maintain the website, I was put in touch with them and the rest is history. They are now sporting a WordPress site.

I noticed that their web guy found a beautiful theme from LivingOS.com that provided a slideshow. Believe it or not, the slideshow is NOT powered by Flash(R). Like their web guy, the only issue was the green and yellow color scheme. Not ugly, just not the color palette we were looking for. They are still working on theirs, but I had a chance to tweak it a little bit. Now the church I attend is sporting a new website, too. I’m going to tweak the red and yellow buttons a bit, but I’m happy with it.

Along those lines, I’m working on committees for three upcoming events. First is Black History Service on Feb 24. I hope to have a video up on the site that we will be using for service. Second is the Men’s Retreat. That’s in early March. No cool link to it, yet, but we’ll see. Since I’m on the committee, it’s probably not going to be one of those Wild-at-Heart-Let’s-Act-Like-We’re-Five events. At this point, we’re thinking of having a loud track and a silent track. The silent track is for those that want to unplug and be with God. They will have outdoors and more meditative group things. The loud side will be for those that need a passionate setting to inspire them. Not really rah rah, but real. Everyone, of course, will be together Sunday morning and Saturday morning for football/Capture the Flag. After that, is Easter Service, complete with special songs and dramatic presentations. I’m doing the programs because I will be in NC on Easter Sunday.

Speaking of Easter, I’ve been invited to give the closing Benediction at the Sunrise Service at home. I really hope to get there in time to do that.

Also speaking of Easter, we celebrated Ash Wednesday last Wednesday for Men’s Midweek. This was the liturgical service complete with the ash mark on the forehead tradition. It was quite beautiful and inspiring to many there. A few seemed offended, but most of us, especially me, really enjoyed it. It was the first church service in a long time where I felt something instead of learned/blocked-out-wrong-information something.

Other than that, I am involved in a Statis-Pro Football by internet group based out of Virginia. My team, the Nebraska State Armadillos, are looking to draft a star quarterback to lead the team to victory.

I know, it’s sick what you can do with public domain images these days. (Thanks WPClipart!)

I’m also working on more stuff for my Sycarion site. Things there are moving along well. I discovered a tool called yould that has sped along the creation of the Lenga language. Lenga is a relex of Latin. Basically, it follows all the grammatical rules of Latin, but the words are different. I’m at the stage where I’m going through the vocabulary list (17,000+plus words!) and checking for internal consistency. It’s enough at this point to use for adding flavor to descriptions of the Bedrian Empire, Dira (the world), and names of common objects.

The Football project is on hold while I play football as I mentioned earlier. Since my game is based on Statis-Pro and I haven’t played against a human being in years, I figure this is a good time for a refresher. One of the coaches lives in my area, so I will play a few games “in person” instead of through IM chat.

Lastly, I did cave once a couple weeks ago. I went to the Civil Discussion Forum at Delphi. It took five minutes for me to realize that I didn’t miss it. I also asked someone for a copy of an article that Gordon wrote about Christianity and Psychology. I knew what it would say. It would say that Psychology is incompatible with Christianity. Get a lot of advice for mature disciples before visiting a therapist (in practice, this means “get others to talk you out of it”).

You have to understand that the ICoC comes from a strong tradition of nouethic counseling. The Scriptures are sufficient for any problem in a believer’s life and each Christian is competent to counsel another Christian because of the completeness of God’s word (and not the abilities of the individual believer). It sounds very good, and I believe that it is possible to some degree in everyday problems and facing common challenges. I think we can help each other raise our children. However, combine this with the Shepherding ideas from the Ft Lauderdale Five, and this man and you get something entirely different.

From Nouethic Counseling, you got the mistrust of Psychology (See PschyoBabble and Competent to Counsel and this article). From Mumford and company, you get that obedience is the highest form of worship. From Kip, you get the boundless energy of someone that knows he is the star of the show. Almost thirty years later, the fallout from the ICoC and others groups is still happening. We weren’t the only group to take the worst aspects of both of these good-intentioned ideas.

Now take the architect of the ICoC’s discipling system (Gordon). He wrote the book on discipling (now discontinued from DPI). He was a Kingdom Elder. Considering his experiences, training, and methods over five or more decades, it’s no surprise that Pyschology is not to be trusted.

I understand wanting to guard the heart from worldly ideas. I quit listening to talk radio. I will not watch Oprah. I generally avoid the incendiary aspects of the blogosphere (although I have been one of those incendiary folks). However, any system that has a built-in fear of outside ideas is ultimately going to collapse on itself. Mumford’s group did it. We did it. UBF did it (and still is doing it). When I consider that the perfect love of God drives out fear, I hope to allow God to be the filter of new ideas. I hope that I do not give into fear so much, that I set up an artificial rule saying that any new idea is probably ungodly. (I also do not want to embrace every new idea at the cost of ignoring God’s loving guidance.)

My experience with a secular counselor has shown that a “take every thought captive” approach works very well for day to day problems. I’m going through a workbook with practical exercises that demonstrate some of the thoughts I entertain that separate me from those I love. For the bigger issues, like abuse, there is a way to determine what is magnified by my perceptions and what was genuinely wrong. More importantly, there are ways to find closure or acceptance.

In any case, I hope to avoid articles like this in the future.

True my life is busy, but I feel that it is starting to have meaning again. I didn’t say purpose, it’s not the same thing. Meaning, however, is just as important. I find meaning in my game stuff and website stuff. I find meaning in raising the children (even if I am the only one not doing the Raising Kids God’s Way stuff). I find meaning in making my wife happy. (found two dozens roses that I could afford and took out the trash) I find meaning in my search for God. I find meaning in sharing God with others. I even find meaning in researching Molinism, though I wouldn’t wish that on anyone.

I hope your life has meaning. I promise that it won’t be two weeks until the next meaningful post and it will be much shorter.

28 and 20 can be fun. There is no fun for -6 with 20 mph winds.

It is snowing now and no one seems to feel comfortable forecasting the amount we’ll get. Since this time yesterday, the estimate went from 1 inch to 1 - 2 inches to 4 - 6 inches to 12 inches to 6 - 8 inches and back to 2 - 4 inches. It was also supposed to start at 3pm local time. It began a full four hours early. I’ve heard about the European model, the American model, the UNL model and a few others. Oh well.

No wonder people like to watch weather news so much - it’s pretty unpredictable for everyone including the experts.

Despite implications to the contrary, I haven’t stopped writing for good. I haven’t stopped writing about religion or Christianity. I’ve even had a couple of ICoC(all branches) discussions with folks.

I stopped publicly dealing with the ICoC(all branches) and I stopped reading the websites. I would prefer to not discuss them privately, either, but a note now and then is okay. It’s a far cry from the network of contacts that I had all over the US, Canada, and the world.

Instead, I’ve been writing a lot over at Sycarion. (It has a new look, too.) I’m playing Minimus with a friend online sometime next month. I’ve been helping an online acquaintance document his linguistic generator, yould.

It’s been a busy time.

I also am pursuing my largest goal for 2008 with great effort. I want to hear the voice of God. As it is, I hear the voice of Kingdom Teachers, Kip, dozens of evangelists, BT leaders, and others, Matthew Henry, Luther, Lucado, Bounds, Nee, Stott, C.S. Lewis, Tozer, Cecil Hook, Osteen, Robertson, Swaggart, Iacocca, Maxwell, Oral Roberts, and more often than not, my own voice.

All of these are not the voice of God.

However, I also hear silence. Nothing at all. I have no memory of reading the Bible and hearing nothing at all, even as a child. It is spooky, to say the least.

In one sense, I hear the voice of friends, Foster and Wesley speak of Spiritual Disciplines. As Wesley basically said, prayer, Bible Study and Communion are the ordinary channels God uses to bestow his grace on men. I also hear Foster talking about the need to be deep, not intelligent. I feel like I spend a lot of time being intelligent without being deep. Still, with all the noise in my thoughts, I know that it is good to keep at it as far as the basics go.

As Albert Camus would say

Ah, mon cher, for anyone who is alone, without God and without a master, the weight of days is dreadful.

What I would like is the read and pray and be unable to quote anyone at all. (Remember, I’m at work - I’m confirming the quotes, not finding them.) It doesn’t have to be permanent, just enough time to feel like I’m alone with God, not a room full of people.

Paul was accused of his great learning causing him dementia. I’ve wondered the same thing sometimes. The thing is, though, I don’t really have great learning, I’m just a product of the information age with almost unlimited access. That kind of goes back to Foster talking about depth vs. intelligence. We all know what God can do with man’s intelligence. (he frustrates it)

Faith is not a matter of intelligence or learning. I believe that Jesus would say to us (and me) that we search catalogs of Christian Literature because we believe it can keep us saved, on track, useful, or otherwise moving forward in our walk with God. I think I’ll read fewer Christian books this year and spend more time looking around me.

In any case, that’s all the news fit to print with me. I guess I’m just letting everyone that I haven’t quit. God Bless.

January 2007 began with a focus on RM unity and the hopes of an August 2007 unity conference. However, it was not meant to be. August was a bad time for many. ICoC support was minimal. RM support was strong only if it could be located in Dallas or Nashville. The ICoC(Community) church in Nashville agreed to host the event. Organizers hope that it can happen in 2008.

However, efforts began to meet with a CoC in town. Ultimately, efforts with the North Omaha Church of Christ and the Southwest Church of Christ panned out.

In my life, I discovered that out of 100 common allergens, I react to almost 50 of them. It was cold here, so I froze a gallon of Ice tea. At that time, I was posting game stuff here, but it’s been copied over to the other site.

The most powerful thing about January, though, was living a parable and being tempted to be the bad guy in the story. I’ve never seen anyone else involved since that day.

February was slow. We had a snow day at work which means my usual rant about designated personnel. I linked to an interesting article about not doing megachurch anymore. I also mentioned James Cameroon finding the Tomb of Jesus’ family.

The church I attend did meet with the North Omaha Church of Christ and we were received warmly. More on that soon.

March saw the post from my experiences with the NOCoC. I still laugh when I think about hearing the Kingdom study preached at us in such a way as to say that we were Almost Christians. We had a good time, but nothing much came of the meeting. I promised to follow up, but was unable to do so.

Per usual, I groused about the UP. I won’t link to those because it’s pretty obvious by now. However, I also began talking about a computer project at work as well as other projects. The computer project stalled on Internet connections. Lenga is all but finished. The Hebrews classes went very well and I enjoyed teaching them. As an aside, this is also the first post when I mention Dancing Bear as the online code phrase for our second child.

We had two major events occur on the same day. My wife had a unique baby shower and her grandmother transitioned to the grave. My wife still misses her grandmother. I still hug my kids every night.

In a sign of things to come, I ask for prayers. This will lead to deepening issues in my life and ultimately to seeking treatment for depression and post-traumatic stress disorder.

April started off with the tail end of Teach Week. More than anything, though, my wife and I were excited about our second child due about the middle of April. This lead to the infamous Baby Pool. Dee, a co-worker, won with her prediction of 4/19 at 5:26 am. Dancing Bear was, in fact, born April 18 at 11:00pm. Her subsequent surgery was a success and I expressed much thanks to you, my online friends.

Looking back, this was the beginning of my declining mental health and faith. I do not believe that I have gotten over spending more time in the NICU or the eight surgeries that followed on Dancing Bear. Her last one was in October and we found out just before Christmas that it was probably the last one for her. Anyway, I have not really been the same since and it shows in what I chose to write about and the increasingly angry tone that came across.

My wife began to dream of building community and I joined in with my own thoughts. Little did we know that the sense of community would come to fruition with the beginning of the Nebraska chapter of Hands and Voices. We are still working to get things going. Next month will be the big kick-off.

In May, I talked about professional help in a private post that I accidentally published. Thanks to everyone that sent me encouragement after that post and to TTK that sent a great book to us. In general, I tried to use Mathematics to occupy my time, as well as the ICoC(SODM) and ICoC(CoOperating Churches). I decided to stick with math.

In the end, though, I enjoyed (and still enjoy) better living through oat rings. Brother Bear has expanded to concept to include grapes, crackers, and milk, but its still a lot of fun.

In June there were only three things of note. One was the series of articles by Roger Lamb comparing the ICoC history with the great Chicago Fire. I was mentioned indirectly in once of the articles, so I responded with the same non sequitur he asked me. The second event was a long post on Intelligent Design.

However, the one with the most far ranging effect was the first lolcat style post. Now, lolcats and similar pictures adorn almost every post. It is a disease, I know.

July saw the beginnings of work with the Southwest Church of Christ. We had a VBS with them. Later, we’d have service and a teen event together.

I spent a lot of time thinking about the Next Big Thing in religion. Despite this post and this post, I don’t think I ever got a clear idea in my mind until I saw the Unconference a few months later. I also defended my wife’s honor at a breastfeeding conference in Lincoln. Other than that, I enjoyed vacation and yet more math.

August was the bridge collapse in Minneapolis. We had a few tense days not hearing from some of my wife’s family and friends. Everyone that she knew was okay.

Lolcats posts started appearing, much to the dismay of my brother from another mother. I think my addiction at this point was beyond hope.

I delivered communion at church about Grace. Thanks to mrtool for recording it for me.

The end of the month saw the comprehensive history of the UPC, tracing its origins from 2003. One day, I hope someone more official can fill in the missing gaps.

September came with more difficult news about Dancing Bear. However, it turned out to be better than the doctor originally thought. She would not need a stent. We also discovered that Brother Bear does not have Charge Syndrome. We celebrated that news by dining out that night.

However, the same meeting made it obvious that one or both of us have a genetic issue that would lead to choanal atresia in any child we would create. The most likely culprit was me and I have a choanal stenosis (blockage) and similar genetic issues as Brother Bear. (Lack of sinus cavities on one side of my skull and other things.) I decided to have a vasectomy as soon as I could. No sense in spending yet more time in a NICU. No sense taking chances on what could be worse issues with a third child. The uncertainties were too great. The next day, my wife and I spent some time mourning that we would have no more children. We always wanted three.

This was greeted by my family as an attempt by my wife to control me. All they could ask is why she wasn’t getting fixed and why do the doctors think its my fault. They have since stopped saying these things, and I am grateful. They did, however, agree that two was plenty enough. All of us are grateful that we have one girl and one boy. They are wonderful children.

I also managed to scattershot some ideas, including hands and Voices. This lead to Mark putting me in touch with the New Mexico President of Hands and Voices. We have since met with the Minnesota President, the Colorado President, and plan on meeting with the Iowa President.

Of course, I have to mention this: KHAAAAAAAANNNNNNN!!!!!!!!!!.

October had a few interesting items of note. Alan wrote about the UPC and submitted it to DisciplesToday for consideration. Instead of being considered, it generated hard feelings and libel from the editor of DToday. In the end, Alan was a class act the entire time. His apology was published. Roger’s was not. Alan’s original article was never published either.

Adventures in Unity part Two happened this month. Southwest and Omaha Churches of Christ had service together. We were welcomed as family and fellow believers. It was a fantastic time had by all. Later we went to their teen event.

Lots of other ICoC stuff happened. Not much new except the ICOC Hot News appeared. They made a big stink about an article in the Daily Trojan and won. No word on any ruckus raised about an article at Rutgers. I was wrong about this one. I thought the attention would backfire. It would take an article criticizing Raul Moreno to generate backfire, though it came from Kip.

It was also my wife and I’s third anniversary. We had a quiet dinner and great conversation. The best two gifts anyone could have. My wife is truly wondering and continues to tell me every morning “I believe in you.” I am blessed beyond measure.

November’s big event was the Naming Ceremony for our children. The church I attend allowed us to basically take over the entire service. Brother Bear didn’t have a good time, but everyone else did. The day before was a great time of family, food, and fun. It was the first time everyone had been together since the wedding. I was surprised to see my niece there. We had everyone there except my brother-in-law’s new son.

The other big event was a trip to Minnesota. All the children and grandchildren on my wife’s side of the family were in one place at one time. There is photographic evidence of five children (all under 3) sitting together nicely.

Where It Is

Eventful, no? This doesn’t even include turning 36 or Christmas, both fun events.

Months of therapy later, I am functional and somewhat able to handle things as they come. The main thrust of my counseling is akin to “taking every thought captive” through a cognitive approach. It means a few overall changes that have helped some thus far.

The number one change is having more fun. I am having more fun. I got an Omega Chess set for Christmas that I love. I play Statis-Pro Football online occasionally. I design a few games now and then. Brother Bear and I spend about two hours a day together alone. (Dancing Bear and I get about 1.5 hours).

Number two change is being more active. I have been irregular with workouts. They are generally an hour long with most of the time on a bike. I always feel good the day after a workout. In January, I should be able to go everyday again from 5:30 - 6:30 am.

Number three change is removing certain things from my life. The financial strain of our first two years of marriage has eased considerably. We are able to do some special things and my wife can actually shop for a few articles of clothing for herself. Thanks to my wife’s hard work, we are down to one bill for Dancing Bear. This was after a 5% decrease in pay because of an increased pension contribution. (I had no choice.)

I’m also removing the ICoC from my life. I went to Delphi one last time last night. Then I removed all bookmarks and links to anything remotely ICoC. I haven’t read DToday in a few days. I try not to read HotNews or even MissionMemo. Over the next few days, I hope to eliminate all of them from my routine. I know, pass the popcorn. Like Arnold, I’ll be back. Maybe I will. I hope not.

I really hope not.

Even with these changes, though, the one big issue still remains: the succession of NICU visits. None of these changes address the fact that I am still upset that both children have genetic issues. None of them address the anger that I am somehow genetically defective and can only have children with worse issues than what I have. This is the biggest battle and it won’t go away with changes to lifestyle. Like Jesus said himself, some demons only come out through prayer and fasting.

The Future

The future is the quest for an authentic faith. I want to read the Bible and not see the ICoC/RM theology in every verse. I don’t want to see an theology in those verses. I want to hear the voice of God. I don’t hear Him anymore, though I know He hears me.

The future is having fun with a people over seemingly trivial things like chess, board games, and sports.

The future is seeing my children grow up. Dancing Bear will take her first steps in 2008. Brother Bear will start his first spoken sentences and first signing sentences. When the cold is over, we can all run and jump in the park. They will visit my homeland in March. I cannot wait for Brother Bear to see the ocean.

The future is community. I don’t mean just Hands and Voices, but building various interconnected communities. One is Hands and Voices, another is the family of faith. Yet another is the community of Benson, the area where we currently live.

Happy New Year!

I wish you a very Happy New Year. May God bless you and stand with you in all the empty places where you must walk.

Going to post the year in review at some point. It was an eventful year, no doubt. A birth, a death, hospitals, counseling, highs, lows, children dedicated, etc. Been an eventful year, no? It was a wonderful Christmas. I guess that will be a separate post, though.

One thing to let you know up front: I’m done with ICoC stuff. I know, I said it before. Maybe it’ll return in six months. I dunno. For now, though. I am done. We didn’t really change. Individual locations changed some, but in the end, we really didn’t repent. We apologized and we promised, but didn’t really repent. Shame on us.

The ICoC(CoOperating Churches) are doing their thing. The ICoC(Community Churches) are doing theirs. ICoC(CoOperating) leaders are pretty much back to doing what they were doing before 2003. Kip is back to being the Pope of the ICoC(Sold-Out Discipling Movement). The more things don’t change, the more they stay the same.

Someone more respectable to me should write their history of the ICoC. You know, folks that arrived after everything codified. Folks that started in Gainesville were really shielded from common events because they escalated in leadership before they were subject to them. I’m talking about things the changing best friends every six months phenomenon. (For those that weren’t ICoC, it went like this. Every few months, the Bible Talks were changed. If your BT changed, your discipler changed. No one said that you couldn’t still be friends with your previous discipler, but the schedule really prevented it. After all, you discipler had to be your best friend. Anyway, by the time a person had drawn close to the new discipler, BTs changed again and the process repeated. The only way out of this cycle was to lead a Bible Talk, be a Region Leader’s friend, or become a part of the ministry.) At this point, I no longer want to write it. I’ve written my own history for three years now. That’s enough.

Any history really should include the research that members of the Boston Church became more and more ENFJ as time progressed. That should tell you the level of discipling occurring in the mid eighties. This was near the beginning, not near the end. It should also try to link all the other discipling movements to come out of Gainesville at the same time. This would be Bob Mumford (Shepherding), Bob Weiner (Maranatha), and others. Stories from these groups echo very similar experiences. Here’s one for reference:

http://everynationexposed.blogspot.com

More on that later.

But the year end will have no church drama, I promise. the Christmas one will be fun, if I can finish the poem.

So, I’ll be back before 2008.