Saturday, December 27, 2008

Angel, Party of 2, Your Table Is Now Available

Hebrews is a curious little book in the Bible. No one knows for sure who wrote it. It obviously was written to those who were raised as Jews, but it does not address one city group like Phillipians or Galatians. Among other things, it focuses on how Jesus of Nazareth, the Messiah, functions in light of the law of Moses. At the end of the book, there's a bunch of random topics all jumbled together. In the NIV, they group it under "Concluding Exhortations." The second one (verse 2, imagine that) says, "Do not forget to entertain strangers, for by so doing some people have entertained angels without knowing it." Whoever the author is, he just blurts it out. He doesn't bother to explain what that means, which leaves the reader to take it at face value or to dust off some commentary, if they have one, to see if this involves kosher food or if a table at Denny's will do.

Entertaining angels without knowing it is a startling thought! How incredible!

Now, I'm not saying we should go out and invite just anyone into our homes or such. I do believe that we should be open to what God can do, including His sending angels to convey special messages or work in special ways toward the good of us and others. It may not always come as we expect. In fact, the verse implies just the opposite; we don't expect angels in our midst. Maybe we should.

Some folks get a little obsessed over angels. They weird me out. They wear angel pins and collect books and videos about angelic appearances. They're into angel-ology, if there is such a term, and go for apochryphal teachings and such. It's almost as if they worship them instead of the One Who made them. Every account of angels in the Bible seems to indicate that angels are extremely careful that all honor and glory is directed at God, not them.

To me, angels are a cool perq that comes with having faith in God. Whenever the situation calls for one, I'm sure God will send one my way. Although, I'm not sure that I want to be in any situation where an angel is the first choice! I would much rather have an angel to dinner than need one to keep my car from rolling off a cliff, like my dad did. Regardless, God's promise to His children is clear:
For he will command his angels concerning you
to guard you in all your ways;
they will lift you up in their hands,
so that you will not strike your foot against a stone
I know that God will protect me--using angels or any other instrument. I know that His perfect hand will cover me in season and out of season. I don't need to worry about my future. I don't need to have a plan B in case this God-thing doesn't work out. My life over the past 5 years has been one amazing rollercoaster ride that has convinced me once and for all that God exists, that He loves me, and that He can be trusted with everything I can or could control, and everything beyond my power to control. He gets all the glory!

Further stuff (& no fluff):

Saturday, December 20, 2008

Giving A Shortcut

We live in an amazing technological age! We sit and relax with ever-smaller digital players that reproduce anything that can be heard. We walk through our daily lives with Star Trek-ian communicators that all but beam us up. We drive with hand-sized computers that tell us where to turn right or left.

One of those direction finders like the "give-a-give-a-give-a-Garmin" was on my list to get for my wife. Yes, it's a wow-eee, whiz-bang kind of techy gift that has me written all over it, but my reasons for giving it were pure. Well, not pure, but right-hearted. See, I don't drive as much as I used to because of the different medications I'm on for my disability and I have trouble not acting as a backseat driver. They only put one steering wheel in a car and for some reason, yielding control of it is not something that comes naturally for me. I tend to tell my wife what to do, what lane to be in, and so on. I'm not always diplomatic about it. I thought that having a Garmin in the car would get me to shut up and keep me from arguing with my wife.

All that fell down today. My wife and I were discussing what presents we had money left for. The voice of previous experience began to speak to me, saying that if I was really going to get a "mid-ticket" item like a Garmin, I would have to determine if that really was what she wanted. The only way to do so was to "unveil" early. To my surprise, my wife declined, even when I gave her my back-seat driver explanation. She told me that the world has all sorts of shortcuts to work around building trust and relationship. She didn't want to go that way.

Proverbs 19:14 says,
Houses and riches are an inheritance from fathers,
But a prudent wife is from the LORD.
Thank you, God, for such a wise mate as Karen! Slippers and fuzzy socks say much more with much less money. Amazing how she knows where she's going.

Wednesday, December 17, 2008

My Favorite Christmas Carol

It's hard to believe that Christmas Eve is only a week away. Yikes! Where did the time go?

Last night, I read Tabitha's Travels aloud to my family. Afterward, my beautiful wife, Karen, asked what everyone's favorite Christmas carol was. The Little Drummer Boy was mentioned, as was Breath of Heaven and Emmanuel. Strangely, The 12 Days of Christmas wasn't even mentioned. I said that while I liked Silent Night as a little kid, O Holy Night had the most meaning for me.

It's origins are from early 19th century France. I really like Nat King Cole's version of it (listen free on last.fm). I appreciate the historical irony that the third verse of the carol is explicitly abolitionist. Had that part of the carol not been fulfilled, it's likely Nat's version would never have been recorded.

The strength of the song to me is that we how we all suffer the weight and needfulness of sin and how the birth of Jesus breaks the effects of sin like the sunrise breaks the darkness of night. The supreme contrast of the King of all kings lying in a lowly animal trough, the praise rightly due Him and the beauty of the Nativity all fit into the song. The music is serene and yet powerful. It can fill the largest church or the smallest spaces.

Like all good songs, I have a specific memory tied to this music. One night, my dad and I were driving through Denver, close to Christmas. As the homes decked with lights rolled past, I asked my dad what his favorite carol was. When he told me, we started singing it. Two deep baritones sang a capella in our family Jeep. Forgive the notion, but it was a very sweet experience.

Here are the full lyrics to O Holy Night:

O holy night! The stars are brightly shining,
It is the night of the dear Saviour's birth.
Long lay the world in sin and error pining.
Till He appeared and the Spirit felt its worth.
A thrill of hope the weary world rejoices,
For yonder breaks a new and glorious morn.
Fall on your knees! Oh, hear the angel voices!
O night divine, the night when Christ was born;
O night, O holy night, O night divine!
O night, O holy night, O night divine!

Led by the light of faith serenely beaming,
With glowing hearts by His cradle we stand.
O'er the world a star is sweetly gleaming,
Now come the wisemen from out of the Orient land.
The King of kings lay thus lowly manger;
In all our trials born to be our friends.
He knows our need, our weakness is no stranger,
Behold your King! Before him lowly bend!
Behold your King! Before him lowly bend!

Truly He taught us to love one another,
His law is love and His gospel is peace.
Chains he shall break, for the slave is our brother.
And in his name all oppression shall cease.
Sweet hymns of joy in grateful chorus raise we,
With all our hearts we praise His holy name.
Christ is the Lord! Then ever, ever praise we,
His power and glory ever more proclaim!
His power and glory ever more proclaim!
Please comment in with your favorite carol, if you'd like.

Tuesday, December 16, 2008

Disablogger Post

I just put a post up on Disablogger titled Dark Humor And Blue Vests. Go check it out.

Dark Humor And Blue Vests

Last weekend, we were at Wal-Mart.

That should say it all. Less than two weeks from Christmas, going to a major retailer in suburbia, especially the blue and white scourge, can be is an exercise in frustration. The handicapped spaces are all occupied. The electric carts are all checked out and when you do happen to find one coming available, the battery is practically dead. So, instead of whistling alongside other shoppers, you're creeping along like the lady on the cell phone in the right lane with her left blinker on. Everybody else wants to pass you but they're afraid to try.

This last weekend, we had no choice. We had to go that day, and we were not alone. At Target, we found a scooter, but it was dead. Not to be deterred, my wife walked behind me and "assisted" the scooter. When we got to Wal-Mart, all the scooters still functioning were out and the blue vests weren't about to let my wife push from behind. They feared liability. I hate that.

They radioed the other entrance and they said they were bringing one from there. Not a problem, except that when it arrived, it was a wheelchair with a tray. I'm 350 lbs. There's no way I'm going to fit inside a standard wheelchair seat. I obliged a try, but I could tell that if I continued to force myself into that chair, I would need a small army to pull me out.

So after waiting for ten minutes or so, a scooter came back in, limping and puttering. I allowed the officious blue vests to--I'm not kidding--turn the scooter around for me so I could drive it back inside the store from the entryway. As we made our way through the store, we bumped into the greeter who had brought the wheelchair.

"I'm so glad you found one!" she said.

"Yeah, so am I!" I told her. Then, with an air of confidentiality, I said, "By the way, you might want to check on an elderly lady on the floor on aisle 5. I think she's okay, but I had to push her out to get the scooter."

Her face registered a look of disbelief then horror. I told her I was joking, of course, and she resumed breathing. We all shared a laugh over my little joke and it made it worth the wait.

Frustration with your situation or your disability can really be a bummer. But if you can loosen things up with a little humor, dark or otherwise, it makes life lighter and maybe a bit easier to handle.

Saturday, December 13, 2008

Searching For A Diagnosis, Searching For Hope

If you have chronic pain like I do, you know that doctors look for a physical cause, some test or some sign that gives them the basis for a diagnosis. They refer, they suggest, they offer possibilities, but they don't diagnose without concrete proof. In the meantime, the patient waits for months or more likely years, suffering the symptoms without bonafide relief from the pain.

My own undiagnosed pain went on for years. One doctor would look at the degeneration in my back and say that I really shouldn't be hurting this much. I would ask them then why I was hurting so much. What I felt like saying was, "Look, I'm not crazy. I really am dealing with something here!" Yet without a diagnosis, doctors didn't know how to treat me aside from painkillers and antispasmodics.

After doing a lot of research between my wife and I, we got an appointment with a new specialist. We came to the appointment with an agenda. We wanted to rule out a few different diagnoses of what we thought it could be. Among them was Fibromyalgia Syndrome, and that was what it turned out to be. The day we had our diagnosis was not a horrible day; it was a good day. At last, we knew what we were dealing with and we could treat it with the things known to help with FMS. We could go to doctors and tell them I wasn't crazy, that it was more than just osteoarthritis, it was Fibromyalgia.

There are a lot of myths and notions about Fibromyalgia, even among doctors, and educating people about FMS, what it is and is not, etc., ends up being a lot of what we do. But we have a voice and people are listening, even doctors... the good ones anyway.

I found my story to have striking similarities to Cynthia Toussaint. Her story is encouraging. Please take some time to read it, and if you know a woman who suffers without a diagnosis, she has a friend in forgrace.org.

Tuesday, December 9, 2008

I Need A Recharge

I've been off for a little while lately, looking for God to do something with me, something like what happens to the people in this commercial.



I don't know about you, but I think I might pick up an Interstate battery next time I need one.

Thursday, November 27, 2008

Who I Am Is Not What I Am

Who I am is not what I am.

What I am is disabled. What I am is a writer. What I am is a failure. What I am is a success. A provider, a dependant, the list goes on. What I am comes from what describes me, what I do, and what happens to me. What I am is not who I am.

Who I am is a son. Who I am is a father. Who I am is a brother. Who I am is a husband. Most importantly, I am a child of God who is loved by Him without any regard of what I am or what happened or will happen to me. Who I am is loved.

(Happy Thanksgiving!)

Who I Am Is Not What I Am

Who I am is not what I am.

What I am is disabled. What I am is a writer. What I am is a failure. What I am is a success. A provider, a dependant, the list goes on. What I am comes from what describes me, what I do, and what happens to me. What I am is not who I am.

Who I am is a son. Who I am is a father. Who I am is a brother. Who I am is a husband. Most importantly, I am a child of God who is loved by Him without any regard of what I am or what happened or will happen to me. Who I am is loved.

(Happy Thanksgiving!)

Friday, November 21, 2008

My Daughter Is Mighty In Spirit

My wife and I have recently been struggling to learn how to work with our youngest child, a daughter who is “mighty in spirit. ” What Dobson called the strong-willed child seems to manifest in our daughter’s personality several times a day. She reminds me so much of myself at that age! I had an intensely strong personality with my own preferences and mandates. My reaction to authority was best expressed through the title of a book I ran across a couple of years ago, titled You Can’t Make Me, But I Can Be Persuaded. Things worked best for me when I understood my options and I was allowed to make my choice. That didn’t always happen.

Violations of my independence were met with strong, sometimes violent resistance. As a result, elementary school had to be one of the most frustrating, torturous experiences I’ve ever endured. It made such an impression that it figured into my reasoning behind our decision to homeschool our children. If there is one objective for elementary school besides the obvious education factor, it is to remold young minds to be docile and easily lead. Why else is there pressure to fit in, to follow instruction without question, to do everything the same way as everyone else? Like thousands of other strong-willed children, my struggles with such institutionalized brainwashing nearly destroyed me. My teachers had labeled me unintelligent, frustrating, stubborn, disruptive, irresponsible, and lots of other things. It took me until my mid-20s to begin to figure out why I had struggled so much.

Strong-willed children have such strength for a very good reason. If they survive childhood, and if they are given what they need, they will be very strong, capable leaders. They will know right and wrong, and they will choose wisely. Their road is not an easy one, nor will they always be right. But they can learn, think and respond as well as—if not better than—their peers. I’m so glad my youngest doesn’t have to go through the pain that I went through to find that out. We can work with her and help her learn how to respond to those challenges. She can learn at home where her independence and creativity can be nourished, not stifled. She will make mistakes and she will learn the consequences, but she will not be devalued or rejected. She has a bright future; all we need to do is help her choose it.

Tuesday, November 18, 2008

Spam Changes Shape But Not Substance

I think as long as we have the internet, we will have some form of spam out there that drives us nuts. Have you ever run into blog spam? As the owner of a blog, I’ve run into comment spam, which is where a spammer leaves a comment on your blog that is completely unrelated to your post and advocates some action like clicking a link or visiting a site. Everyone knows about the other kind of spam that gets into your e-mail. I even know some who have tasted the original Spam meat product.

Blog spam is an odd little thing in that it just sits out there on a little-known website address, usually on a free blog site like blogger.com. It contains words and key phrases designed to trick Google and other search engines to direct you to their site. If you use Google Alerts, Google will let you know about this great new web site that just came out with the words you asked it to look for. Only when you get to the site do you realize that you’re a victim of blog spam.

Ironically, these blogs use Ads By Google and other pay-by-impression advertisements to boost their hit counts. That’s how they make their money. Marketing is a game of percentages. They know that if they can get even the slightest percentage of Google searches for a particular phrase, they will make money. It doesn’t matter to them what you’re looking for. If they can get you to their site, that’s all that matters.

The spammers who set this stuff up know that they are violating the terms of service agreement for the free blog. In most cases on Blogger, the spammer has removed the Nav Bar at the top that allows site visitors (also known as spam victims) to flag the blog for review by Blogger. There is a way around that of course, but it takes three or four clicks, some searching, some reading, and some typing to make it happen. Only people like me who have a little time and are committed to fighting spammers would go to the trouble it takes to report the abuse. For that small, hardy band of spam blammers ("blam" as in explosion), the steps to report a Blogger or BlogSpot spammer are at the end of this post.

This is going to become a bigger problem. I hate to sound so “positive,” but I’m pretty sure it’s going to happen. Although this can be stopped on so many levels from the search engine to the hosting site to the unfortunate victims, public outcry and frustration will have to rival the congressional brouhaha over e-mail spam a few years back in order to get the attention it needs. Until then, search engines will continue to get clogged with useless links, and people will get frustrated by irrelevant search results.

To report a Blogger spammer
  1. Find the URL (the http://... in your address bar)
  2. Highlight and copy the URL to the clipboard. It must have from the http to the .com part to give them a good URL
  3. Visit this page to report a Blogger.com terms of service violation. This will only apply to bloggers who are on the blogger.com or blogspot.com domain.
  4. Click the circle next to Spam (click here to learn what Blogger considers a spam blog)
  5. Click Continue
  6. In the form that comes up, paste the URL in the blank.
  7. Click Submit.

Saturday, November 8, 2008

A Battle Of Wills

Sometimes the older I get, the simpler my problems become. I set my eyes on some worthy thing, some tantalizing goal, and all my heart is set upon it. In nearly every case, I have found that it is folly to chase after it. It seems as if God himself is bent against me attaining or obtaining what I desire. The frustrating part, of course, is that I asked God to do it. I asked God to do it when I told him that I wanted his will for my life. Isn’t that insane? But it’s true! I can’t help it. Something inside me desires to see God’s will manifest in my life.

The problem is, I don’t know when I’m placing my own will above God’s. My own will slips into the driver’s seat of my life and suddenly I’m out of control. I’m about to "Kato"* and God is nowhere to be seen. At least, that used to be the case. God seems to have moved me from the freeway to the Disneyland Autopia, where the worst that can happen is a bumper thumper. It seems it’s easier to hear his Holy Spirit as well. And if there’s hope for me…

Tonight, my wife and I were talking about whether I should go to Denver for a hobby show. My disability can sometimes prevent me from driving, especially when the pain is too much of a distraction. The key word is sometimes. Sometimes makes it difficult plan. Sometimes seems to show up at the worst times. If I get to Denver, will I be able to drive back? The only insurance against this is to drive with another driver, in which case I’m redundant anyway. Isn’t this fun? It’s all part of life with a disability.

I decided to pray about it, I didn’t get any clear answer like I usually do. So, I decided to inquire of the Lord to understand the meaning of his abstinence in answering, and I said, "What?!" The question I got in my mind was, "Steve, are you resting in me?" As usual, his answer had two distinct applications. First, unless I am resting in God’s peace, it is very difficult for me to hear him. Second, resting in God is impossible without submitting my will to his.

Then he told me, "Where you go will not make you happy." How many personal fortunes have been both amassed and wrecked, how many empires have both risen and fallen because of the belief that going someplace or possessing something will bring happiness? Lucky for me, it didn't cost me the gas money this time.

Then he gave me the kicker: "I will not give you what you want until you decide you do not want it."

For a lot of people, that may just seem like double talk. But in this case, he was using it to illustrate a point with me. He will not give me what my will wants until I decide first to place my will under his will, until I choose that I first want what he wants for me. Until I am choosing his will first, I am going to meet with frustration. If I'm going to be his child, if I'm going to bear the name of Christ, I'd better be submitted to the One Whose name I bear.

Unless God tells me to go, I am not going to Denver. Heaven and earth don't hang in the balance, just my money for gas, the rent of a wheelchair, and some food on the way. This time, it could've been a bumper thumper. Next time, it might be a Kato. I'm strapping my will into the passenger seat with duct tape this time.

*Kato is a rocketry term for "Catastrophic wreck"

Monday, November 3, 2008

Exceeding Abundantly

Did you ever have an experience where you were just available. and God used you for something that you never expected but always had hoped?

In the days of high school, I was assigned to write a short story. I went with what I knew. The plot was transparent, and the pacing was slow. In the end, the peer-review of my story confirmed my fear: I would never be a writer, and I certainly could never be taken seriously in a fiction endeavor.

Then one morning, I woke up early and wrote Escaping the Homeschooling Matrix. My heart had been burdened for my wife and so many others who were facing the awesome and fear-laden burden of homeschooling their children. I saw them trapped, pinned inside of an artificial box. I knew they could escape, but I didn't know that I held one of the answers until I was actually done with the story.

Then later that morning, someone read my post and sent it to a friend who liked it so much, they wanted to publish it in their magazine, The Old Schoolhouse. Fast forward to today, where the story appears here. Wow! I am really amazed at the incredible graphics! I'm grateful they've invested so much into the story!

From this, I've learned that God will use you if you make yourself available and willing to be used in the way He wants to use you. Sometimes you have to wait a few years, but don't quit asking!

And to all those moms (and dads) out there that have read my story, thanks! I pray God uses it to make your homeschooling experience what He wants it to be. Matthew 11:28-30 "My yoke is easy, and my burden is light."

Putting the Class in "Class of 2009"

Check out this story from Denver's 9News.com. A teacher who is paralyzed from the waist down desperately needs a van to avoid shoulder surgery. What does the senior class at Fossil Ridge High School do? I mean, they're just a bunch of kids.



Never let who you are keep you from doing all that you can.

Random Thoughts About "Falling Back"

I never "fall back," but I do "spring forward." I've saved so much time, I might never die.

I asked the bank what I should do with extra daylight savings and they told me to put it where the sun doesn't shine. I thought it sounded like a good idea too.

Arizona is saving year 'round now. I guess they don't trust their daylight banks like we do here.

I made a withdrawal once from my DS Bank, but I tripped out in the parking lot. Let's just say a few people got to work on their tans due to my generosity. I betcha that dermatologist across the way gets a lot of local business.

Of course, all this saving doesn't help my financial situation, but it does help me tip folks. I tell them, here's a little sunshine for you, and then I let them have it. People are usually happier for it. Except that albino. He wasn't impressed, or happy.

They Need To Know What Happened To Prof. Dalsted

I don't think it's coincidence that Veterans' Day comes roughly a week after Election Day each year. Norm Dalsted, professor at Colorado State University, tells a story each semester to his economics class students. It's something they need to hear. "I think they need to know what happened," he says in an interview with Denver's 9News. What happened is he served in 1968 in Vietnam. He served his country, and he fought alongside friends who died for this country.



And dare I add, the right for people to vote. Exporting democracy means nothing if we don't exercise it ourselves.

I'm thanking a vet in person before next Tuesday the 11th.

Friday, October 31, 2008

Why I Don't Celebrate Halloween

Today is Halloween. All Hallows Eve. The day before All Saints’ Day. A lot of Christians get uptight this time of year. For them, the holiday has come to symbolize everything that is wrong with the culture they are in. It’s a day of a pagan ritual called Trick or Treat, where people pretend to be something they’re not and, knowingly or not, pretend to be druids collecting their seasonal sacrifice with the promise of a hex (the trick) if they’re not satisfied. It’s a day when fear and death are celebrated. Macabre and morbid are actively encouraged. If Jesus came for us to have life, and have it to the fullest, isn’t Halloween an anti-holy day?

I used to cringe as I passed stacked displays of trick-or-treat pumpkins with their fluorescent orange gap-toothed grins in the stores. I sidestepped the bats near the bananas and the spiders on the spaghetti aisle. I got irritated at orange lights strung up like Christmas displays. At times, I felt like belting out, "What’s wrong with you people?! Don’t you know you’re celebrating fear and death?"

I still feel irked sometimes, but I don’t get all stirred up about it anymore. I guess it’s because I feel like I understand why people celebrate it. Historically, people fear death. Death has always been something pagans fear and fail to understand. Culturally, Halloween provides a safe way of exploring those fears. Because I no longer fear death, I have no need for this holiday. I don’t feel like I’m superior to others who celebrate it. I just don’t need it, just like I don’t need yesterday’s garbage. People can celebrate whatever they want to, but I don’t feel the need to participate or to protest the holiday. It’s a big waste of time and money for me.

I still dislike goblins, vampires and witches, but only because they depict power without godly authority. They bring the same revulsion that a photograph of Stalin or Hitler would. I despise all power that isn’t under a godly authority. It is symbolic of the destruction that Satan desires for the whole human race. Why does he want it so badly? Because God loves us and lavishes us with it. He is consumed with destroying the object of God’s affection. The human being is made in God’s image, and Satan has six billion copies of his enemy walking around, so it’s no wonder he uses his ungodly power to destroy them all if he could. Short of killing them, twisting them morally, spiritually and physically seems just as well in his eyes. Getting them to believe in and use his power is just one way of doing that.

But just like the masks used on Halloween, Satan, the leader of the fallen angels, is a pretender. He does have power, but that power is temporary. On the real All Saints’ Day, he will be unmasked, stripped of his power and discarded into a lake of fire that burns him and his followers forever. He’s a fake, so why follow him? I follow the One Whose power infinitely exceeds this imposter. I know the Way, the Truth and the Life. His name is Jesus. By His power, I can face death without fear. My life is bought with Jesus’ blood. He died the most painful death a person could face. Three days later, He proved that His power could not be stopped even by death. If He raised Lazarus from the dead after 4 days, there’s nothing to keep us from believing He raised Himself after 3 days, or that he can resurrect us as well. When that resurrection day comes, it won’t be night of the living dead, it will be judgment day, a day when things are finally set right. I know I am truly at peace with my Creator. I have nothing to fear in death or the grave. The question is, do you?

By the way, I've written about Halloween before.

Monday, October 27, 2008

Second Chances

Like most everyone, I have only a few early childhood memories before age 5. One of these was a dream, actually a nightmare. I dreamed I was on a game show. I tried but never remembered what the show was called. Today, I remembered the dream and did a little research. I found it was called Second Chance. It ran for only one 19 week season in 1976, which was a good reason why I couldn't recall it. Here's a three minute clip from YouTube.



Isn't that weird? It was later revamped and retried as Press Your Luck with the Devil being replaced by a Whammy. Anyway, I was three years old at the time and in my dream, I was playing the game--oddly the set was blue/black, not yellow/ugly--and if I landed on the Devil, my parents would go to hell. That scared me good enough to sear it into my mind for 30+ years! And people wonder why kids wake up crying in the middle of the night.

I despaired, if that's possible for a 3 year-old, for weeks because I thought it was real and that one day I would be on that game show and have to play it for my own fate or my parents. You can imagine the stress it created.

The good news is that the next year I went to a Sunday School where a missionary named Pat explained that Jesus died to save us from hell and that if I wanted to go to heaven, I could ask Jesus into my heart. It wasn't a matter of luck or chance! I took her at her word and when I found my parent in the hallway that Sunday, I ran and told my dad what I had done. I think it's because I wanted to make sure he knew too so he could go to heaven. Anyway, my dad was thrilled and picked me up in his arms. That's all I remember.

When I had grown up, I later found out that God had been pressing my dad through the Holy Spirit to share the Gospel with me and the impression was that if he (my dad) wouldn't do it soon, that God would do it another way. I got my second chance, so to speak. But I also realized that God takes the early reservations for heaven just as seriously as he takes the last-minute bookings.

Thursday, October 23, 2008

Loose Teeth and Parental Dentistry

My daughter lost her first tooth a few weeks ago. She lost her second tooth this week. She's only five and I'm wondering if this is too early, because I didn't start losing teeth until age 6 and change.

The second tooth had an air of deja vu, too. Like I did with my first lost tooth, my daughter came down to our living room after bedtime, worried that it would fall out. Just like my dad did nearly 30 years ago, I reached in and flipped the little tooth out with the same flick of the finger. It was almost an identical replay of what losing teeth was for me back then.

I guess we all become our parents to some extent, but to follow the footsteps so easily was uncanny!

I Cannot, Not Vote For McCain

All the way back in February, I pledged that I would not vote for McCain. I said this because I was angry my own candidate had fallen off in the nomination process. Words spoken in anger are seldom just or right. I learned long ago that the anger of man will not accomplish God's will. Yet I spoke those words and today I publicly retract them. [insert sheepish look here]

I cannot, not vote for McCain. Yes, that's a double-negative, but it's how I've come to my decision. I'm in a "battleground" state. I believe in a lot of what McCain believes. I certainly cannot support Obama. His statements about abortion, education, government, and the military lead me to believe he will weaken our nation and deepen the financial crisis, which seems to come every 20 years, regardless of which party is in office. Like Joe Biden, Obama's running mate, I believe that Obama and his inexperience and naivete will prompt America's enemies to generate a new crisis to test Obama.

I don't want to belabor this and I'm not a huge fan of partisan politics anyway. I will vote for McCain this election. He's a better choice, and that's really what it comes down to for me. Folks, please pray about this election!

Wednesday, October 22, 2008

Probable Cause

Yahoo's "Most Popular" headlines frequently show up in my G-mail account. This is one I couldn't ignore: Atheists plan ad campaign on side of London buses. One of the ads, according to the article, states, "There's probably no God. Now stop worrying and enjoy your life."

Uh, "probably"? That sounds more like an agnostic and it hasn't made celebrity atheist Richard Dawkins too happy, apparently. The best part of the article was the end.
The religious think tank Theos said it had donated $82 to the campaign, on the grounds that the ads were so bad they would probably attract people to religion.

"It tells people to 'stop worrying,' which is hardly going to be a great comfort for those who are concerned about losing jobs or homes in the recession," said Theos director Paul Woolley.

"Stunts like this demonstrate how militant atheists are often great adverts for Christianity."

Isn't that a classic? It reminds me of the comedy routine by Darren Streblow that I saw on Bananas a while back. He got on the topic of atheists getting together to encourage each other, maybe sing a song like, "Who gives us reason to live? No one, no one." Folks need hope like they need air.

Whenever you draw your meaning and purpose from the negative, in this case being atheist and saying there's no God, you depend on the positive to be set so you can deny it. It's like someone cooks a dinner and you define yourself by fasting. They refuse to believe that the food is real or that it's for them. But they don't get any meaning out of fasting other than they're not like the ones eating. Like Streblow says, imitating an atheist preacher, "We believe ...that you can't believe. Here's what we know ...we don't know."

Like a reflection of sound or light, atheism can only react to what's positively articulated by the source, namely theism. But rather than exist in a duality, I believe atheists are just another variety of not-God worshippers. There's only one source of truth and life in this universe, and it's God. Everything else is not-God, just like there's light and "not-light" (darkness). Darkness doesn't really exist; it's just what we use to describe not-light. Atheists don't really have cause to celebrate anything, especially if it's all a meaningless, purposeless existence. What a non-meaning, non-substantial non-faith!

I know there are folks out there that might say that I'm over-simplifying it. I probably am. My point is that there is order, structure and substance to this existence. A candle burns in a predictable chemical reaction everytime. That's structure and order, a law that exists. It says, combine oxygen and carbon at a specific temperature and you get light in a sustainable chain reaction. To have any law without the originator of that law in this existence is logically impossible.

To the First Cause, thank you for all of this. It wouldn't be the same without You.

Lord Of the Seasons

You gotta love a God who puts on a yearly color display just for our enjoyment. I don't know if the fox or the squirrel or the bluejay really appreciates it quite like we do. I see the royal reds, yellows mixing with greens, Rocky Mountain gold clinging to the aspens for a few last days, and I wonder, "And this is just what we can see!" I imagine it gets even better when we see with not just our eyes but our new glorified bodies.
As long as the earth endures,
seedtime and harvest,
cold and heat,
summer and winter,
day and night
will never cease. Genesis 8

The cold and the heat both come in their times. Summer and winter come and make us forget the other's warmth and chill. We sit in the summer and can't imagine shutting the windows to hold in the heat. Neither can we consider opening the windows to let in the winter's chill. We live between the extremes,

The Lord is the one who designed the seasons. He knows each leaf, each tree. He knows what color they will be tomorrow and when the tree will die. He is a master at His artwork, and His artwork happens to be everything, including you and me. He knows our seasons too, when we will grow in the warmth of our summers and when we will slow in a winter sleep. He knows what color our actions will be tomorrow and when we will die. He can't be disappointed in what we become because he knows what we will be one day. He called Daniel, Moses, Paul and Timothy. He called Deborah, Rahab, Mary and Martha. He knew their first stirrings as a seed inside their mothers and their dying breath and every day in between. He knows the seasons. He called them, and they answered. Their seasons are His. He is the Lord of the seasons.

Our first snowfall came yesterday. The kids held us to the promise that we would have a snow day on the first day it snowed. They've really enjoyed themselves today. Me, I'm having a cut apple and peanut butter, enjoying the season I'm in.

Wednesday, October 15, 2008

Oh, the Humanity

Here are some things about me you may not know, but might actually be interested to find out. There is a small explanation behind this post below the list. If personal details thrill you, this list is for you. If not, hang in there, a better post is coming. I hope it is, anyway.

  • My favorite season - the first half of each. I really do love all four, but I get tired of them after six weeks or so
  • My dream vacation - a couple of weeks in Disneyworld with my kids, my wife. An accessible suite that sleeps all five of us, a powerchair and access to an ice machine would be really nice too, because of my disabilities
  • My most fervent prayer - that God would use me where I am with what He gives me
  • My 2nd most fervent prayer - that God would heal me and let me move forward
  • My least favorite aspect of my disability - the unpredictability of my Fibromyalgia. Being unable to plan anything with certainty takes me out of the driver's seat for my life, for good or ill.
  • My Brother's favorite NFL team - The Denver Broncos
  • My Father's favorite NFL team - The Denver Broncos
  • My Son's favorite NFL team - The Denver Broncos
  • My own favorite NFL team - uh, do we have to guess?
  • Cats or dogs - Cats, because nothing can replace my boyhood dog. Weird, huh?
  • Allergies - Yes, cats, dogs, and pollen (even in raw honey, which I love but can't have)
  • Speaking of sweet stuff, I have a sweet tooth that loves strawberry Twizzlers, Haribo gummy candy, and Coca-Cola in the glass bottles. Yes, I can't have any of those without a risk of setting back weight loss. Still, when I'm in a lot of pain, I crave these "comfort foods."
  • Favorite Fiction Series - Clancy's Jack Ryan series, Tolkien's Hobbit and The Lord of the Rings, C. S. Lewis's Chronicles of Narnia
  • Currently Reading - The Cardinal of the Kremlin by Tom Clancy -- the only classic Clancy that I haven't read yet, The Shack by Wm P. Young (with my daughter)
  • Early on in life, I had a couple of disabilities, ADHD and a visual disorder, that had once convinced me I would never love to read
  • Things I miss most from my "able-bodied" days
    • Camping, snow or car camping included but primative was the most fun...and a lot of work!
    • Hiking - I used to climb 14ers and I miss rising to the challenge of making it to the top, the wildflowers, the pristine alpine and tundra slopes and the peace of continually moving. I don't miss sunburn, dehydration headaches, nausea, encountering all four seasons in an hour, and the lightning storms
    • Walking anywhere for 20 minutes without pain
    • Hoisting my child up in the air and getting a big squeal of joy for my trouble
    • Fixing things without having to rely on anyone else to do my work
    • Playing sports badly, like soccer, football, and raquetball (they all involve violent collisions)
    • Fishing brooks and streams for trout and being able to move from hole to hole
    • Biking anywhere
    • Flying down a mountain on skis or an alpine slide
  • Favorite places to eat - Outback Steakhouse, Chili's, Panda Express
  • Favorite date - Dinner with my wife at the above followed by a quiet, secluded walk under the stars--if I can find a powerchair...sigh--and then a shared dessert
  • Favorite weekend trip - Soaking in Glenwood Springs
  • Favorite home cooked meal - Roast beef or roast leg of lamb, and mashed potatos, spinach salad and cheesecake for dessert
  • Best meal I ever had: a tie between a breakfast of smoked trout off the bone overlooking a mountain meadow and a dinner by the campfire of baked trout (freshly caught hours before) followed by a large steak cooked over a pine wood fire. Gotta love campfire cooking!
  • PC or Mac - PC, home-assembled with help from a good tech (I'm brave, but not foolish)
  • Favorite movies (the short list) - Braveheart, The Princess Bride, Remember the Titans, Facing the Giants, Indiana Jones and the Last Crusade, National Treasure, good ones I can see with my kids like The Sound of Music, The Wizard of Oz, etc.
  • Favorite Musicians - Very eclectic... U2, Rich Mullins, David (you know, the Psalms?), Mozart, Strauss, Margaret Becker, Keith Thomas (Thank you, D!), Charlie Peacock, Celtic Praise, 80s anything, really anything but screaming in a mic. If you have that much anger, you don't need my money unless you're willing to get counseling
  • I collect train DVDs, specifically DVDs about Colorado Railroads, past and present. I enjoy them enough to sometimes write about them and review them here.
  • Due to my weather sensitivity, I watch the weather closely and know all about dewpoints, millibars and meteorology
  • These days, I drive less than I did when I was 15 years old because a lot of my medications say "Use care when operating heavy machinery..."
  • As a teen, I knew every line to Top Gun, but didn't own the movie until a few years ago. I was a huge fan of trains, then planes, and now trains again. I guess I like big noisy things that go fast

I wrote this post to give you a sense of who writes "Waldens Wits," and that this is only one side of my life. I love writing and it is something God put in me as a "gotta do this or I'll explode" kind of thing. I don't like writing self-centered posts like this too often. On the other hand, this is a small part of me "knowing myself" and understanding what I enjoy. If we don't find healthy expressions of our need to love and enjoy things, they may surface in other, less-healthy ways. Most importantly, I deeply appreciate my wife who has walked beside me, knowing all this stuff and loving me regardless.

Friday, October 10, 2008

Facing the Truth Of A Disability

One of the first times I might have realized that I was less than able-bodied was when I was washing my car. Long ago, I ditched the mop bucket and suds as just too darned inefficient and not having a driveway tended to limit my do-it-yourself tendencies. In fact, I was in an on-again, off-again relationship with the $7, automatic car washes. That particular day, it was off again. Instead, I was at the we-say-its-50-cents-but-really-its-5-dollars places where, joy of joys, you do it yourself. Did I mention you pay them for you to wash your own car?

Anyway, this sort of place appealed to me. It was spartan, straight forward and if you did it right, you could save money. That really appealed to me. It was "Beat the Clock," but you're playing for your own money. So, I was on the third trip with the foaming wand--what?--and I was huffing and limping. I was on the power rinse, and I was puffing and gimping. By the second coat of wax--enough already!—I was beet red, my heart was in my ears, and I couldn't stand up because my back was not just on fire with pain, it wouldn't respond to my commands to straighten. My wife had this look on her face that said "Do I call 911 or just scream for help?" I almost told her that screaming for help is cheaper.

I was just on the edge of consciousness when I saw the light. No, not that light. I understood the painful truth that it was, in fact, cheaper to go to those $7 car washes when you figured in the hospital co-pays.

Sometimes the last one to admit a person has a disability isn’t a doctor. It isn’t the judge. Sometimes, it’s the person with the disability who refuses to acknowledge it. That day, I wasn’t ready to admit I had a disability. I was just ready to shift my car washing habits. Quite honestly, the notion of admitting I was less than able-bodied or disabled was terrifying to me. There was a long, dark corridor down that line of thought that I didn’t want to consider.

Eventually, however, the facts catch up with you as they did with me. I couldn’t deny that the accommodations I was making in my lifestyle were to compensate for my inability to do anything else. My changing of careers was as much to stop traveling as it was to earn more, even though I loved traveling on business. My sedentary job itself was because I couldn’t handle more physical ones. Was I proud of it? Nuh-uh, but you couldn’t get me to confess that I couldn’t. I wanted to work indoors. Really I did.

Owning up and facing the bitter truth that you have lost an ability, perhaps for the rest of your life, is something that takes time. We're not meant to lose these abilities, and accepting that we have is a bruise on our egos. Once we do, we can pick up and go forward with life. How soon we move on is just as individual as the person and the disability they suffer, but the point is to move on, to not get stuck on the loss. The pain is real, the loss is real, but letting it become what you orbit, what your life centers on, breaks your momentum and you head in a different direction than where you wanted to go. It takes effort to get back on track, but unless you want to be a passenger and not a driver of your life, that's the effort everyone facing a disability must make.

Sunday, October 5, 2008

CBS and Fox Ruining My NFL Sundays

My son is football these days. He eats and sleeps and breathes football. He loves Sunday. The only problem he has with watching football remains what I have always hated about watching football: the junk the networks decide to advertise during the breaks.

Do I really want to see a man lying in a pool of his own blood, CBS? Hey Fox, is Stewie's obsession with Bryan's saliva really worth showing to millions of young football fans? It's disgusting, you network half-wits! The NFL has Play 60 ads airing right next to this stuff because they know the kids are watching. I have a hard time believing that the networks don't know their own demographics.

I've harped on this issue before--and I don't want to turn this into a gripe blog, but these ads are killing my love for the NFL. Taste and restraint in selecting the ads needs to return not soon, but now.

Tuesday, September 23, 2008

Googley-Eyed

My favorite tool to teach geography, besides actual maps and globes is the amazing freeware of Google Earth. In the history of the world, no tool has been made that comes close to this fantastic software for teaching kids the majesty, the marvel and the mystery that is our earth.

My son's math book used a table of the world's more prominent mountains. Everest, Fuji, the Matterhorn and Colorado's own Pikes Peak were in that table. To spice up the day, we just switched to geography and used Google Earth to view satellite imagery of all these mountains and more. For example, with Mt. Everest, we saw how it was merely the tallest of many peaks clustered around it, while at Mt. McKinley, we viewed its solitary wonder. Looking closer at Denali, we saw the glaciers.


"What is that? A highway?" my son asked. He couldn't believe that what he saw were rivers of ice from year after year of snowfall actually running down a mountain valley, carving its sides like a sanding belt and carrying a pile of sludge to a--I'm getting excited too...Can you tell?--moraine and usually creating a tarn (lake). His eyes nearly popped out of his head when I told him that he had swam (swum?) in a glacial tarn only a year or two ago. I took him to Grand Lake. I popped inside the photo bubble to show him the small beach we stayed at and the small harbor he and I had braved. He still remembered how cold it was, and was it ever!

Today, my son learned about glaciers because we had the flexibility that he never, never would have had in a class-based school. Oh, he would have learned about glaciers, tarns and moraines eventually, but once the test was done, he'd have forgotten them. My son and daughters are too bright and too unique to shovel into those schools. You know what? Your kids are too.

Today was a good day homeschooling. I love these days.

I Think I Have A Sore Thinker

I've been having a lot of theological discussions with my eldest daughter, a lot of it revolving around knowing God's will and whether this event or that event was God's will. Is a baby born to a single parent God's will? Is the death of an innocent child? She was trying to reconcile God's role in these sorts of situations. Did He cause them? Did He allow them? Why does good come from a "bad" or immoral situation and why does evil come from a positive and moral situation?

Just a little, light-hearted discussion about fate, God, good and evil. If anyone thinks parenting is a breeze, try weaving a free-will defense into a conversation with a 12 year-old. I think that despite my help, she actually understands a good deal.

Helping her process through stuff helps me process too. It's so easy to get all twisted up inside over friends who lose their young child for seemingly no reason. Showing my daughter how God chooses to limit Himself actually lets me re-explore the abstract concepts and reconnect it to the concrete examples. It doesn't answer every question, but it gives me the basis for asking the right questions in a meaningful way.

The more I look at parenting, especially after trying to explain such things, the more I realize that God designed it for us to identify--even if it's just a little bit--with Him.

Sunday, September 21, 2008

Weird Things About Me

Weird things about me, and trust me, this is just the surface:
  • I grew up in the "gifted and talented" programs, so I have a lot of cultural and creative stuff in my head that frequently boggles my wife.
  • Related, I once took a "sample" Mensa test and they said I should test because I could very possibly make the cut. I figure Mensa is just a label and testing to get into a club won't change who I am, and, from the dues, I don't see that there's much of a benefit.
  • I rode the last trip of the last privately owned long-haul passenger train, the Rio Grande Zephyr, over 25 years ago when I was 10 (yes, I'm 35 now).
  • I love the Colorado high country and I wish I was an expert on alpine wildflowers so I could actually name the beauty I'm looking at.
  • Related again, nothing tastes better to me than Rocky Mountain glacier water at the source after a few hours of jeeping.
  • I think my minivan is cool, but I desperately want to tint the windows darker.
  • I think I do accents reasonably well and deep down I wonder if I should have kept after an acting career.
  • I love flannel shirts, sweats and being comfortable, no matter the occasion.
  • I grew up in the 80s and I think today's fashions are the ugliest I have seen in my existence. On a side note, ladies, pink and brown do not go together! I'm a guy and even I know that doesn't work. I think we will wise up eventually and leave the hip huggers, flat hair and ugly sunglasses behind and someday wonder how we ever got along without hairspray, mousse, and pants that actually have a seat and a waistband.
  • I miss being able to camp without having to worry about bear protocols and about whether we were allowed to camp in that specific area of the forest.
  • I love rollercoasters and miss riding them because of my disability. Now I have to settle for Roller Coaster Tycoon 3. It's not the same.
  • I have seasonal allergies. I ignore them, if I can, but I usually can't.
  • We always seem to have two cats in my family. I'm also allergic to cat dander, so we have manx cats now.
  • I have another friend with a spine injury and we're pretty close.
I'd keep going, but I'm going to rest now. Thanks for popping by.

Thursday, September 11, 2008

Ugh! New Symptoms

What I have been trying to ignore for the last 6 months reared its ugly head yesterday. I have a new "tender point" and it's set up shop in my right jaw, of all the places it could pick.

For those not familiar with Fibromyalgia Syndrome (FMS), people with FMS suffer from tender points (among other things) that basically is a muscle or a section of muscle that is hard to the touch, tender like you wouldn't believe and usually inflamed. There are a lot of theories behind tender points. Some believe it's neurological, with synapses and nerves causing the muscle to seize. Others believe it is chemical within the muscle cells itself, where phosphate, which is used to key the cell to contract, never returns to it's holding tank and remains active in the cell, causing the involuntary muscle contraction.

The key words there are seize, contraction, and nerves, which are all elements of pain. I don't know what labor feels like, but I believe these pains could be relative to them. Regardless, they are not pleasant.

The other side of tender points is the exhaustion they produce. Your muscles expend energy when they are used, whether you voluntarily use them in running a marathon or you involuntarily use them in biological processes like digestion. This is why you're sleepy after lunch. Digestion is mild, however. If someone has FMS, they usually feel like they've climbed a mountain or run two dozen miles because their muscles have been contracting for that period of time, even if they've just been sitting at a desk or more likely just lying down.

Tender points show up wherever you have muscles and usually stay there. This is why I'm concerned about my jaw. Last night, my face was swollen and my whole right side of my head felt like it had a migrane. Finally, I was able to get my wife to use trigger points and pressure to cause these muscles to physically relax enough. Suddenly, I felt a rush of drainage and the migrane-like pain began to subside. I don't know what it was, but my suspicion is that I now know what TMJ feels like. I'll let my doctor decide if that's what it was.

This is not fun and I don't like playing "Guess the Syndrome." I'm very frustrated that this has shown up. I'm fighting it through prayer and faith that God can keep this from happening again. You have to fight. You don't have a choice. It's either fight stuff like this or lie down, make out your last will and testament and then simply languish. I choose life, and I'll fight.

Tuesday, September 9, 2008

Wanted: One Very Rare CD By Keith Thomas

For the past 15 years, I have been trying to get hold of a CD of an album that I purchased on cassette when it was brand new. It was called Kaleidoscope by Keith Thomas published on the Dayspring label. Here's the track listing:

  1. Te Deum
  2. It's Only Natural
  3. Pinwheel
  4. Imagine
  5. Home Away From Home
  6. Arms Of Love
  7. Suspicious Heart
  8. Kaleidoscope
The reason I'm looking for it is that one track was used in our wedding and it was a beautiful song. This year marks our 15th year together and it makes it a sentimental treasure. The rest of the album has some great instrumentals and a few vocals that are beautiful messages that years after hearing it, still impact me.

Because my life here has been good to me/As I pass through, You supply me with all I need/Life here has been good to me, in this home away from home...

and another,

Maybe I'll fly/Maybe I'll fall/You'll be my friend/Right through it all/I've got Your arms of love around me...

Simple messages, those, but they are so very profound as I age and bear witness to these simple verses. At the age of 17, I needed the messages they gave me. At 35, they are reminders and promises.

Now ask me if I can find it. Yahoo! doesn't have it. Someone is selling it used over at Amazon, but at a high price that if you know us, you know I couldn't afford this even saving for a year. Does anyone reading this blog have this or know where I can find this for a more reasonable price?

Wednesday, September 3, 2008

Homeschool Kids Trump Public School Teachers On Test

I find this interesting in that the homeschool students passed, but the public school teachers admitted that they could not. The bias against homeschoolers is truly scary sometimes. Intellectual abandonment? I guess the kids showed them.

Government Help - n. An oxymoron

Ronald Reagan was right. No more dangerous words in the English language have been spoken than, "I'm from the government, and I'm here to help you." The danger comes when fallible humans think that they can make it their business to help other fallible humans. They may be able to, but because they're fallible, their help is not perfect for the situation and often it fails to solve the majority of the problem.

Take for example, our government-regulated, low-flow toilets. Unless you have a "pressurized" system, these toilets frequently require extra help disposing of solid waste. They were legislated because people thought we were flushing away perfectly good tap water that could be conserved. While the road to hell is paved with good intentions, I'm convinced these toilets are at the rest stops along the way.

Another example is our Social Security Disabilty Determination system, a well-intentioned debacle that is all but killing those it was intended to help. In summer 2006, I filed my paperwork with the SSD system. Every doctor I've been to in the last two years has agreed that I am disabled. Yet, here we are, leaving the summer of 2008 and I still don't have a favorable decision. Mired in red tape and bureaucrats, this government system tries to help those people who need it, those who have worked until an injury or illness made it impossible, but in the end, SSD drives those same people into bad credit, bankruptcy and yes, even suicide because of their ineptitude.

It is a difficult thing to admit, especially for left-leaning Americans and outright socialists, but the government is very poor at improving peoples lives. It's the reason so many talk about faith-based initiatives. Those organizations that realize the nature of man and work with it instead of against it will find greater success. They are morally driven to help people and are less vulnerable to corruption (key on less vulnerable, not invulnerable).

If you are looking to the government, you are already desperate. If you are hoping for real help and maybe some validation for your suffering, the government will likely be unable to provide it. Instead, try doing what the faith-based people do. They look to God as their Provider and their Source. They take God as their ultimate supplier, not the government because they know that the government is made up of broken people whose desire to help is choked in a monolithic culture of bureaucracy. They know that God will work through them and take care of those who wrong them. In short, they work for the Big Guy and He takes their work seriously.

Links

Thursday, August 28, 2008

Death Stinks, But Hope Will Someday Return

It's encouraging to look at all the comments posted at Marsha's blog. It's even better being able to see what HSB is doing to reach out to one of their own. There isn't much you can do to make life easier for a bereaved family, but they're doing all they can.

Death stinks. There are other ways to say it, but I consider this a family blog. Death really is the worst. It means a separation, a heart-rending loss of staggering proportions. It's a leaving, a departure and a goodbye that makes the breath catch in our throats. How can human hearts survive it?

But somehow, the sun manages to come up the next morning. It's Death + Day 1, and if we sleep at all, it's in spite of a heart that rages against the loss. Hope for anything is beyond the horizon and it's a cold grayness that descends over everything. How long this lasts is anyone's guess, but it seems forever until the music returns to the notes, the flavor returns to the food and laughter returns to the heart.

Somehow, the joy of life will return. Things will be different, but it will return.

Chrisitians have a hope that this world doesn't truly grasp. In a way, most of us don't grasp it either. When Jesus referred to his own death, He said,
You will grieve, but your grief will turn to joy. A woman giving birth to a child has pain because her time has come; but when her baby is born she forgets the anguish because of her joy that a child is born into the world. (John 16)

Right now, we feel the pain. We know nothing but the pain of the process. The hope of Christians is that this pain will eventually be forgotten in the joy of our homecoming. This hope is very distant while enduring the pain of death, but nevertheless, it exists. Someday, it will be fulfilled.

What do we say to those profoundly affected by loss? We mourn with those who mourn. We stand by them, shed tears, and live beside them for as long as they need us. I've written more about this before as recently as May. I don't want to turn WW into a grief blog, but this just seems like where we're at lately.

Marsha, we are with you in this storm.

Tuesday, August 26, 2008

Why, God?

How do I write this?

Another one of my friends--Marsha Drews--has lost her child in a completely unexpected and traumatic way.

Right now the questions are one word. How? Another? God?

I don't get it. I just don't get it. How can the death of a child do anything but carve a gaping wound in the heart of a family? This is not ...it just ...I don't know.

When I can coherently type, I'll let you know. Please pray for Marsha and her family.

Is Preschool No Longer Optional?

Dave Long, a county commisioner in northern Colorado, opines that Preschool Is No Longer An Option. Mr. Long states that in order to be ready for kindergarten, children must already qualify under a long litany of criteria. According to his article, every child entering kindergarten must already:
  • Be able to get along in a large group of children.
  • Be able to sit still and pay attention.
  • Be interested in learning.
  • Be potty trained.
  • Know numbers one through 15 and the letters of the alphabet.
  • Recognize and be able to identify the letters in their first name.
  • Recognize shapes including circles, squares, rectangles, triangles, ovals, hearts, cones and stars.
  • Be able to identify body parts, including eyes, nose, mouth, ears, ankles, etc.
  • Recognize the eight basic colors.
  • Be able to hold a pencil and scissors the correct way for hand preference.
  • Know basic manners and social skills.
  • Be able to tie their own shoes.
  • Be able to follow two- or three-step directions, showing the ability to remember and follow though.
Entrance exams for Kindergarten? When I was a child, this was what kindergarten was for. It was for getting ready for school by learning how to hold a pair of scissors, how to read my own name, and how to tie my own shoes. I should mention that I failed that last part of shoe tying until the middle or end of first grade. Thank God for velcro!

So today's students are going to preschool to learn what I used to learn in Kindergarten. This leads me to a very important question How is it that today's students spend more years in school and yet graduate from it knowing less than the children of my generation? More importantly, how are students who are homeschooled until they are 18 know so much more and test so much higher than their public school peers*, despite the extra year advantage given the school students?

The question now is obvious: Is preschool really no longer optional? Or is it just an attempt by a broken system to try to fix itself without adding more grades, like 13, 14, and 15? Should we really be pushing children out of their homes at the ripe old age of 4? Are they ready for such stress, or is this just the system's Rumplestiltskin solution, saying "you didn't teach the child anything! Now, give me your baby!"

Parents in Colorado need to know that they have a better choice. They have a low-cost alternative and one not nearly so heart rending as giving your child to a preschool. Keep them home and let them learn the entrance exam for Kindergarten in their own way and on their own schedule. Homeschoolers retain the home field advantage and produce top students in record time.

* - according to studies done by NHERI.org

Wednesday, August 20, 2008

Buying Milk At 12:30 AM

I was at the store last night buying milk with my son. He's 9, by the way, and it was way past his bedtime. We ran out of milk last night and I needed his help to lift four gallons from the rack to the cart to the car to the fridge. So he was up late.


From the way I was raised, that's not normal, or at least it shouldn't be. But unfortunately, it's happened before, and it may happen again if we don't get better at it. This is living with a disability, and a disabled person needs to operate under grace rather than the standard set of expectations for "normal."

What Homeschool Looks Like When You're 5 Years Old

This morning was one of those golden moments in homeschooling that we've missed quite a bit over the summer. Yesterday, my wife was teaching our 9 year-old (Quarterback) and 12 year-old (Narniagirl) how to diagram sentences. Today, my 5 year-old daughter (Katiebelle) comes in, waaay before her brother and sister are up, and she has--on notebook paper in purple marker--diagrammed the title of her "school" book, Come On, Snoopy. She even had her rocket ship for compound subjects and verbs, but she called it her jet. I guess that's what Snoopy used to catch up.

This is the same daughter that watches Prince of Egypt and later starts singing snippets of "Let My People Go," but instead of the repeated line "Thus says the Lord," she sings, "Upset the law, Upset the law..." It worked for her.

Tuesday, August 19, 2008

Becoming a Wheeled One

You never know what will happen until you try it. For instance, Arava, a paralyzed turtle shows up at an Israel zoo. They strap a modified skateboard to her body and she's getting around in more ways than one. An amorous 10 year old turtle decides he likes her as a moving target and now the poor Arava's pregnant.

I have been contemplating getting a powered wheelchair to help me get around and be able to explore things more with my family. I had always been the adventurous one until my condition prevented it. Now, if I get my wheels under me, I'm wondering what's going to happen to me and my family, especially in light of the turtle story!

I know I need one. I can't go on walks with my kids and I can't go to the mall without ending up in long-term recuperation and taking heavy painkillers to keep things under control. I need the ability to walk with my kids, to explore new things, to go to museums and plays and anything else I can think of. I feel like too much of my life is just passing me by and I need to get out and thrive!

For the longest time, I've felt like getting a power chair is admitting defeat and giving up on ever walking unassisted. I still haven't given up on the dream, but doggedly holding on to one dream is causing the rest of my life to die in the waiting. I can't let that happen anymore! I'm going to fight it folks! I'm going to get some wheels and, hopefully have better luck than the turtle.

Monday, August 18, 2008

Why Men Don't Talk About Their Emotions

It was while we were watching our umpteenth hour of Olympics coverage on NBC that I came up with an explanation on why guys generally have a hard time articulating their feelings about matters of the heart. I tried explaining this to my wife in the middle of her work and didn't quite make it through, so I'm going to try it here and see if I get better in explaining it.

Guys don't like to show their emotions or reveal their feelings about something dear to them because it leaves them vulnerable. This is not just "Me Tarzan not like feeling vulnerable. Rather hunt bear with pointy stick!" It's something I think we've forgotten in our relative prosperity and "lack of vital needs," like when there was only so much medicine available or there was only so much food to go around. In competition, weaknesses are exploited and it's imbued on men that weaknesses can cause you to fail and lose. To allow others to know what is in his heart is to invite disaster. So men have instinctively clammed up and only allowed their feelings out when they knew it was safe, confidential and controlled. To protect himself and the ones he loves, a man will not betray the contents of his heart for the instinctual fear that the sentiments of his heart could be used to hamstring him and expose his beloved to possible harm.

It's not an apologetic that I'm making for men, saying this is the way we are and so don't go asking us how we feel. Instead, understand that men need to know that when the environment and time is right, it is okay to actually open up a little. They won't do it if they feel threatened. Using his feelings in a later argument to hurt or hamper him is an immediate and profound reinforcement of the instinct to clam up and protect his heart. Good luck getting him to open up after that.

On that note, I'm glad that we are homeschooling my son. Keeping him out of the dog-eat-dog competition and ruthlessness of the schools, public and private, is probably going to spare his heart and protect him from the pathological side of this instinct.

No, my wife and I aren't fighting. It's just that seeing the competitive nature of the events and it's impact on so many of the olympians and their families. It really has helped me understand the human heart to watch the games. I just better come up with some more observations that are a little more profound in order to keep this from being a total loss.

Oh, and NBC, ease up on the ads for sex-and-violence shows. My kids are watching, and it's only reinforcing our desire to turn off the TV after the closing ceremonies. Maybe that wouldn't be a such a bad thing for us.

Wednesday, August 6, 2008

Who Remembers June 4, 1989?

Yao Ming, professional basketball player for this country's NBA, was honored today as the first to carry the olympic torch in Beijing. He entered Tianimen Square to cheers of fans.

This is not the Tianimen Square that I remember, is it?

The one that once hosted a Statue of Liberty?

The one that still bears the blood of students asking for democratic reforms?

Fair useIs this the one that shuddered under the rumble of a PLA tank's treads and was stilled by a single student standing in the way of the tank?

I remember Tianimen Square far differently than the present festive mood. I remember watching from half a world away the brutal devastation as 500 or more protestors were killed by the People's Liberation Army and dissenters were rounded up and imprisoned or purged in a bloodbath of thousands. Living, breathing human beings were crushed under the treads of these tanks. Such a festive China not 20 years away from this unresolved massacre should not be celebrated, but reviled.

I say unresolved because the government has not changed. No one has been imprisoned or even censured for the death and destruction. Blame for the massacre is lost in the bureaucracy of the Chinese government.

When protestors for human rights appear in China during these Olympic games, as they inevitably will, what kind of China will we see? Will it be the same dishonorable China that lost face in 1989, or will it be a China capable of largess and magnanimity toward dissenters? I think we will see the same old backwater thinking that censors political ideas and ideals. How many must stare down a tank before China truly changes itself from a regime ruling by brutal suppresstion to a democratic government, no longer claiming the People's will, but actually ruling by the consent of its people?

Yao Ming should wipe his size 18 shoes off before he comes back to Houston. The blood of June 4th, 1989, still cries from the dust of Tianimen Square.

Sunday, August 3, 2008

Choosing Hope In A Hard Season

A homeschooling family we've never met lost their daughter when a car hit her and her bike. I have been watching their CaringBridge blog and praying however I can. Since their entries disappear when they update it, I am re-printing today's entry so that I can comment about what Rachael Kligmann's mother, Corrine, wrote today.

She starts:

I keep thinking that maybe it is time to let this journal go. But then so many people are telling us that it helps them to know how we are doing and honestly, that does help us. It helps to not have to say it all the time.

I cried through much of church today. People keep asking me how I am doing and I know it is because they care. But I don't know what to say.

I talked to a friend who noticed I was teary,and told her I need a 'stock' answer for that question. She said I should tell people I am 'up and down.' That is the truth. One hour I am okay and the next it washes over me.

There are two questions I don't know how to answer actually. The other one is: Is there anything I can do to help? Yes, I am sure there is; there must be. But I don't know what it is. If you think of something let me know and I will gratefully accept I am sure.

It has been a month since Rachael died already. Pete and I talked about it and it seems like maybe we should at least have some idea of how to proceed. I think that we are just now barely beginning to get our feet under us. Just barely. I have heard that the first year is the hardest, but wouldn't that mean that after a month it would begin to feel better? I cry 10 times a day at least. It is like a constant leak. I don't feel any better today than I did the day after she died. I know Pete is about the same too.

Actually I described it the other day like waves in the ocean. They are constant and if you stand hip-deep and let them move around you it is hard to stand up but most of the time you do. Sometimes though there is a wave that you don't know is going to wash right over your head. Most of the time I can stand and the grief washes around me and tries to knock me down, Sometimes I see a big one coming and I can brace for it, but sometimes, unexpectedly one will wash over my head and knock me down and I grieve much harder.

I know that other people have survived this. I know that other people have come through deep grief and been happy again. I feel right now like we are just waiting and slogging through. There is no joy. There is no color. There is no flavor. I do what I think I should do, not anything that I *want* to do.

We are going to a James Taylor concert tomorrow, thanks to Eric and Denise. I really want to enjoy it. I have always wanted to see him. It is nice to be with them because if I cry off and on they are not scared by it. And I do cry off and on.

I am certain that we are not a lot of fun to be around. We are depressing to other people. Some are avoiding us I think. I don't blame them. I wouldn't know what to say either. There really aren't any words.

We do talk about Rachael. We need to. We cry. We need to do that too. Pete holds it in all day at work. I think he is actually mostly able to compartmentalize this huge monster and do his job. But then on the weekends he sleeps and cries and rests.
I know some people have been concerned about us as a couple. The divorce rate for couples who have had a child die is something like 80%. We are doing well. We are close and holding on to each other tightly.

I am holding on with both hands to the fact that God knew this was going to happen and that Rachael lived *her* whole life. Her whole life. Not 100 years or nearly as long as I had planned or as long as she had planned. But every single day that God planned for her.

God gave us a gift. It is a long story but it is a special gift and I will try to shorten it a bit.

Last fall-ish I had purchased an Aflac accident policy. With 9 kids still at home I figured it would be a good deal, right? Wrong. In February I canceled it because we hadn't even used it once and it was $45 a month. We didn't pay it for three months. No payment. On June 17th Aflac took out an automatic draft just like nothing had changed. I was furious when I found out on the 18th.

Rachael was hit by a car while riding her bike on June 18th. I forgot all about the policy until after she died and I got home and checked our bank accounts.

I couldn't believe that the policy could be active based on that one payment. It was. There is a small (for life insurance) life insurance policy for Rachael included. We will be receiving a check from them soon.

The really miraculous thing for me is not that there is some money coming. What is miraculous and the real gift to me, is that God Himself had to have arranged it. AND even more importantly is using that to tell us that HE planned this. He knew before it happened and He had it all under control. He wanted to send us a message that all of this was His plan for Rachael and for us. It was simply her time to go.

I don't pretend that it is okay with me and I can't pretend that I understand why He wanted it this way. But it does make it easier to trust Him.

God has asked us to trust Him many times before now. We chose to obey God when He asked us to allow Him to plan our family and it was all about whether we trust Him.

Do we? We did and it was very hard.

Do we trust Him even now? In some ways I am wondering if this is all part of trusting Him with our family. Is He the author of Life and Death and do we trust Him with that or not?

I wish I could say that I do without qualification. But He didn't give this time. He took away.

Blessed be the name of the Lord.

Anyway.

- by Corrine Kligmann

Wow. How does anyone put one foot in front of the other after such a loss? I'm so glad she sees what her heavenly Father intended for her to see in providing the insurance.

Corrine wonders that if the first year is the hardest, then shouldn't they be doing better a month afterward. From my own experiences with grief, I can say probably not. Everyone's grief is as unique as the person, but deep grief really does ebb and flow. Being up and down is the only thing you can count on with your emotions. Tears, laughter, anger, regret, despair, and even envy all run amok in what has to be one of the most bewildering experiences a person can face. It's not rational, logical or progressive, and it lasts for months and years. It sits like a stock pot on the stove with all sorts of things coming up and disturbing the flotsam on the surface. Grief is an unbelievably messy and chaotic experience for parents to face.

I'm glad Corrine is being honest in how she feels about God allowing Rachael to die. We aren't supposed to be okay with God taking a loved one. We have every reason to throw a fit in the face of what looks to us to be a colossal injustice. My own children get frustrated and angry when they lose what they wanted and I expect that from them. I imagine it's the same with our heavenly Father as well. But at the end of the tears and frustration, I still want my children to trust me and know that I have their best interests at heart.

That's the tricky part. There are things that God sees from His eternal perspective that we don't see from our point here on earth, stuck in linear time. One second procedes to the next and we have no way of saying with absolute certainty that we know what's next for us, let alone what's next for anyone else. Could we even begin to pretend to know what's good for us? We only know where we are at and what we love (and despise). We know most of the things we want and some of the things we need. We hope, but we don't know. We take action, but we can't fully predict the results. It's times like these, situations like this, where any illusion of control is fully wrenched away from our grip and terrible reality rears its ugly head. Then we are forced to either turn to our faith in God, or abandon our faith, mistrusting God.

Yet if we turn our backs on the God Who wounds us, we also reject the God Who heals us in turn. Everything has its season and eventually autumn and winter are replaced by spring and summer. Would the God Who gave us these seasons not use it to show us that He will make all things new again? If there is death among the flowers and trees, new life waits only a winter away. While we might not find pleasure in the frosty chill, we can at least hold out hope for God's eternal spring.

Please keep the Kligmann's in your prayers and if you have the time, drop them a note to let them know you'll be praying.

Drastic Measures

Since getting a used N64 over a year ago, our family has been dragged forward into the modern console-game era. Starting with Pong in the 70s, the consoles have evolved into a three-dimensional world where you can bag a deer, haul in a trophy bass, and save the known universe from near-certain annihilation ...all before noon.

Our latest addition has been the Playstation 2. This is a current console in that game titles for the PS2 are still being released for it and you can find games in chain stores like Target and Wal-Mart. It is also a very nice step down from the $30+ game prices of the PS3, Xbox 360, and the Wii. Any PS2 titles we get will still be playable on a PS3 when we upgrade years from now.

If we upgrade at all, that is.

Since our son took his birthday money and bought a used PS2 for his birthday a few months back, we have enjoyed ...okay, I have enjoyed the games a little too much. You'd be amazed how much of my chronic pain fades to the background when I'm trying to fight my way through to the next goal of a game. This has had a carry-over affect on our 9 year-old son that has kept me worried quite a bit.

Last night, God worked it out for us to visit a family we hadn't caught up with in a long time. One of the things that came through our conversation last evening was that they have seen such a change over the last few months by limiting PC and console games to an hour a day with their children. I seem to remember that limit existing for our N64 console so very long ago.

Fast-forward to this morning. Attitudes were somewhere south of awful and my bride of 15 years was pulling her hair out trying to work with our surly brood. The idea of an hour limit, fresh from our talk last night, burst forth on the scene like a level 99 Sora with his Ultima Weapon blazing! We seized the opportunity to pray about it and we both felt like an hour on weekdays and an hour and a half on weekends would be more than enough for our kids to have, after they've completed their chores and with no "guarantee" that they will always have that time (i.e., we have something come up and they don't get their time, then it's too bad).

It is now 30 minutes after we have instituted the hour rule and already attitudes are north of decent. Young and old are plotting how to get to play board games with each other and, if they don't know how, by golly they'll teach them how to play! It's amazing! What we couldn't beg them to do before the limit is now somehow what they really want to do. The hour limit was drastic, but already I feel my family coming back out from under the control of pixels and programs. We don't like making hard and fast rules like this, but this is one rule I think my family can't do without.

While I don't have an hour limit (yet), I also plan to limit my time on the PS2. My fictional fishing buddies may miss me, but I'd rather have a real family anyway.

Anyone up for Dominoes?