Alien Owned

After a summer away from the blog I’ve come to the decision to retire Alien Owned.

Simply, I’ve lost the will to blog. This is not unusual. Over the summer, a blogger that I’ve read and interacted with regarding our shared profession decided to call it quits citing a lack of enthusiasm and an increased desire to do other things. I’d say that’s true for me as well.

Perhaps I’ll blog again in the future. If I do, it will be under a different heading with a clear idea of what I want to write about and who I want to be my audience. I think lacking that kind of clarity and focus has hurt Alien Owned when it comes to attracting a readership…and let’s be honest, I want to be read. As I’ve said before, if bloggers don’t want to be read, then we’d do our writting offline.

(Click! Screen goes blank.)

Just letting the blogosphere know that we are safely in the States enjoying the visit with family.

It was nice to log on here and see two comments from folks. Thanks for thinking of us.

Again, this blog will not be very active during this summer break but please don’t forget about it.

cheers,

Perhaps it’s only my imagination, but it seems that whenever it’s time for me and the family to depart the host country for our annual summer vacation, the moon turns to blood, the stars fall from the heavens and our lives are shaken out like an old garment.

For the past week or more we’ve been struggling with problems in our villa. The most serious one has been the third electrical fire in less than a year. This happened in the maid’s bathroom and burned itself out before any of us knew what had happened. Then there’s been the continuing problem with the AC in the kitchen leaking and failing to cool the place. The repair man who had been working on it was not particularly diligent or apparently honesty as we got the impression from some “follow-up” phone calls that he was attempting to create more work for himself at my company’s expense. Additionally, this man had a very “creepy” vibe that came through when he spoke of my children as his own and asked my wife for her e-mail address.

Yesterday, the minivan that we were planning to buy at the end of the summer was taken “off the market”. It turns out that the seller’s company has decided that they want him to remain for another year. We were warned last week that this may happen but the hammer fell yesterday. As if to underscore our loss, the Dodge started vomiting radiator fluid onto the driveway as I pulled in on the same day. Instantly there’s the added expense of a rental car to get us through to today.

We’re flying out tonight. The broken down Dodge is parked behind our gate awaiting our return in August. The kids are medicated because two of the three are emitting their own greenish fluids from their noses. The wife is stressed out because of the death of our minivan deal, the immobilization of the Dodge and the great likelihood that she is in fact pregnant now (as attested to by a moodiness that has only manifested itself during the early days of her previous three pregnancies).

Yes, it is indeed time to go.
Blogging will be very light for the next 7 weeks. Enjoy the break.

In my house, we have a phenomenon that I have labeled “Kiddy Creep” and we experience it most nights of the week. Kiddy Creep is the process by which each of my three sons starts out the night sleeping in their own beds and by morning each one of them joins me and my wife in ours. The process is incremental in nature and usually requires the entire night to complete.

This morning, after Kiddy Creep had run its course, Micah clambered over my wife and wedged himself between us. In a chirpy little voice he asked “Mama, do you know Jesus-God is?” Caught completely off guard (and mutually impressed) by the depth of this question at such an early hour of the day in our crowded bed, we both burst out laughing. Then my wife attempted to clarify the question. “Do I know who Jesus and God are?” Micah affirmed the question so my wife answered that Jesus is the Son of God.

I was thinking about this exchange as I drove into work this morning. I couldn’t remember if Jennifer had told Micah that Jesus is the Son of God or that Jesus was the Son of God. My thoughts swirled around this question for a bit and I began to wonder what other answers I might give my children. What answer do I want them to carry with them and guide them into their understanding of Jesus and God? Here’s what occurred to me.

I want to talk about who Jesus is, not who he was. It seems more important to me to lead them to conceive of who he is now, what he’s doing now and what he is going to do in the future. Maybe I’m wrong, but I think that this might inoculate them in some way against the belief that Jesus was someone far in the past, distant in space, time and relevance. Perhaps by imparting to them that Jesus is King now and that the King is coming back some day, they will see their lives moving toward him and his reign as opposed to moving away from him and his life in the flesh. Of course they should know the back story of Jesus but I wonder if conceptionalizing him primarily as the King now and in the future, his story will become and remain a stronger influence in their lives.

The essence of the question that was put to me is: How can we know what God wants us to do if we can’t even know what God is?

I contend that we can know both what God is and what he wants us to do. My immediate qualification of that claim is that we can know only because God reveals. What is knowable about God’s nature and will is determined by God and given to His creatures because it pleases Him to do so.

The problem with talking about knowing God is that we often assume that “knowing” implies totality. For whatever reason, people want to suggest that because we can not know God in total, we can not know God at all. Yet we don’t seem to apply this logic to anyone else. We routinely claim to know our family, friends and acquaintances without qualifying our statements. It is only in unusual circumstances when we’re pressed for information that we don’t have that we begin to speak more discreetly about our knowledge of someone. I think that this is an appropriate way of speaking about God. I can tell you that I know God. I can not tell you that I know all that is possible to know. I can tell you that I know what He has revealed, but I can’t say that I know all that He has revealed. My knowledge of God (my wife, my colleagues etc) is partial and I accept that.

God is knowable to the extent that He desires to be known. The same can be said about His will. God reveals as much of His will as He determines is good. Just as I can claim a partial knowledge of God’s person (for He has revealed Himself in personal terms), I can claim a partial knowledge of His will. I don’t know what I know because I’m such a clever person and have wrested this information from God. It’s not like I’m able to hack into God’s database using my own skills. I know what I know because God allows me to know it. When I think that I know something about God’s will, He sometimes reveals that I’m wrong.

Since I believe that God and His will are both knowable, I would reword the question in this way: How can we know who God is and what He wants from us? This is not the question that was given to me so I won’t answer it. However, I hope that it’s clear now why I can’t answer the original question either.

In the early days of my wife’s first pregnancy, I did what lots of father’s do; I read as much as I could about parenting and children in order to not feel so unprepared for parenthood. Three kids later and I’m still reading and I still feel unprepared, but I think I’m a bit more informed than I was in the beginning.

I realized that parenting books (in the Christian community) tend to be governed by two presuppositions. The first is that children are manipulative little sinners from the womb and must be trained in the way of righteousness. Often, it’s an adversarial attitude that comes across. The second is that children are sincere little creatures without craft and must be nurtured and loved extravagantly. Since the first presupposition rubbed me the wrong way for reasons that I’ll not expound upon now, I tended to prefer reading books written based on the second presupposition.

Regardless of the assumptions of the authors, I often found myself asking “How do you know that?” whenever someone would make statements about the affect of the birth experience on the child or the internal emotional state of the newborn. It’s not like anyone has any kind of reliable memory of the birth experience. Certainly no children could be interviewed with questions like, “Well son, you’re just 24 hours out of the womb and into the world, so tell me how are you feeling right now?” Yet, these experts write things like this:

“From the womb, your child is designed to connect. When she leaves the womb, she is in a state of isolation, terror and anger. She is utterly alone in her experience, with no good thing within or without her.” Drs Cloud and Townsend from “Raising Great Kids”

I agree that human beings are made to have relationships. We are communal beings. The rest of this is largely conjecture. Since there is no way to know what the internal state of the baby is, I guess the authors are attempting to empathize and as a result are projecting what they imagine a child feels. This quotation isn’t really where my disagreement with the writers is. I disagree with these statements:

“Relationship brings us out of our natural tendency to be disconnected and self-sufficient. We are by nature isolated, distrustful and afraid to reach out.”

I do not think that they have accurately assessed our nature. Human beings are conceived within the context of relationship (issues of quality not withstanding). Copulation is at its most carnal an act of connection. The human develops because it is connected to the mother. The child is not merely tethered to the mother but encased within the mother. The two are of them are never truly isolated or alone because from the moment of conception until the day of delivery neither is ever without the other.

Our natural tendency is to be connected. We were conceived and nurtured in connection. Birth severs that connection and we’re traumatized. Our natural tendency is to be dependent, not self-sufficient. When our first connection is broken, we enter the world grasping and reaching for someone, anyone to return to keep us alive. We are not distrustful by nature because we don’t have that “luxury”. Whether we live or die depends on whether or not someone comes to our aid. No child ever born has said, “No, please put me down. Your eyes are too shifty and think you may not be trustworthy.” By nature we are beings who are connected, dependent and trusting and it isn’t until all of that is fractured by the birth experience that we begin to learn how to be disconnected, self-sufficient and distrustful. The whole course of our lives becomes governed by the tension between who we were made to be by nature and what we learned to be because of the damage done to our nature.

At least that’s what I believe about children…today.

My 4 year-old uses emotional blackmail against his younger brother.

Of course, Samuel doesn’t have the label “emotional blackmail” in his vocabulary nor would he understand the meaning of the phrase if I were to accuse him of it. But make no mistake, he knows what it is at a visceral level and he knows how to apply it. I’ve seen him do it. I saw him do it just this morning.

There had been an exchange of blows between Samuel (the older) and Micah (the younger). Samuel came tattling to me in the kitchen first. He claimed that Micah had hit him first. When I questioned Micah, he told me through his tears that Samuel had scratched him. As you might have already guessed there was no way that I was going to learn who had struck first, but I had my suspicions. I told them that they both had to sit down for a time out. Sitting down between them, I prepared to talk to them both but they were already exchanging words. Samuel was saying that he was not going to be Micah’s brother any more. This distressed Micah deeply, which is probably why Samuel way saying it. The more these two carried on in this way, I began to see what was likely to have passed between them while I was in the kitchen:

Micah had a toy that Samuel wanted. Samuel tried to take it and Micah resisted. Samuel taunted Micah and told him that (if Micah didn’t give up the toy) he wasn’t going to Micah’s brother any more. Micah, who is not yet three and therefore limited in his ability to express himself precisely, resisted that verbal smack the way he would a physical one. He hit Samuel. Enter the father.

Now, it’s obvious that Samuel’s attempt at emotional blackmail did not yield the results that he desired, but all the same the intent was there. He had in essence said, “If you don’t give me what I want, I will end our relationship. I won’t love you anymore.” Micah didn’t miss this point. They both understand that there is something between them signified by the word “brother” that is very valuable. Micah adores Samuel. When Samuel is gone, Micah needs to know where he is. Where Samuel is, Micah wants to be with him. Micah hugs him at random and even tries to comfort Samuel whenever he’s hurt or scared. Micah definitely understood Samuel’s threat.

It’s nice to think that Samuel learned today that relationships are not to be ransomed and love is not to be bartered for personal gain. Yeah, I know he didn’t, but perhaps this lesson will sink in some day in the future before it becomes his habitual response to people in his life. I pray that it does.

Thanks to Aaron for pointing me to mosaic.org and turning me on to the podcast. He asked me to tell him what I think about the messages there so that’s what this is about.

Erwin McManus is a gifted speaker. God has certainly given the man charisma and the ability to hold people’s attention. After the first podcast I downloaded, I went back for another. If “controversy” and “Jesus” are tags that get your attention, then I think you’ll hear something said in these recent sermons that will speak to you at some level, positively or negatively.

When I first landed on the site, I clicked around and got a feel for the organization. It’s hip. It’s cool. It’s relevant. It hits all of my “happy buttons”, which occasionally triggers my crap detector. Somehow I clicked through and accidentally started the video version of EM’s sermon. As EM came to life on the screen and began his message about the Defiant Jesus, I instantly knew that I had to turn the video off if I was going to hearthis man’s message. (more…)

http://secondlanguagewriting.com/explorations/Archives/2006/June/ExpertsintheLearningProf.html

I haven’t been doing too well keeping up with the Bible reading plan as of late. It’s been real easy to let the immediate pressures of the office fill my attention the moment I walk through the door. For a while there I was spending the first 5 minutes of each day doing the reading and then at some point I’d try to blog something about what I’ve read.

The counter-point to this situation is that I’ve been getting maximum use out of my flashdrive, i-Tunes and an FM transmitter in I keep in my car. I’m subscribed to a podcast which delievers sermons to me regularly. I load them onto my flashdrive and then plug it in to the FM transmitter for easy listening on the way to work. Currently, I’m listening to a sermon series with a corny title but great content. “Lord of the Rings” has been a very good series about the role of God/Christ in Christian marriages. It’s been providing me with some timely reminders…one of which is that I need to go do something nice for my wife right now.

Sounds portentious doesn’t it? It isn’t…which I guess makes the title pretentious…anyway…

Getting very busy around here. Heading into the final days before the long summer vacation. Expect very light blogging for the next several weeks.

Won’t have reliable access to the web while on vacation. I’ll be rethinking Alien Owned. Should I shut it down?
Should I reconsider the content? Will be thinking about the future of this blog and other projects personal and professional. By the end of the summer, I should have some conclusion and be moving in some sort of a direction.

Watch this space…

When I was little, I was jealous of everyone in my family. They had all traveled overseas and lived in a foreign country. While I was born in a foreign country, I have no recollection of it. This always bothered me when my family would talk about life in that place and share their memories. Without a doubt, it was this jealousy that pushed me into the expat lifestyle that I now enjoy. Yes, I do enjoy it but I suspect that I may not enjoy nearly as much in the future.

Thanks to recent changes in the US tax law, I don’t know how much longer I can afford to live abroad. Here’s how it was before: 80k US dollars could be earned without paying any tax. Anything over that was taxed as though that was the total income. For example, an income of 90k was taxed like as an income of 10k. Now, an income of 90k is taxed as an income of 90k. In practical terms this means that I go from being able to save around 20k/year to being able to save only 2k/year. I suspect that I’m not getting too much sympathy, which is fine as I’m not looking for any.

I think it’s noteworthy that the government of the nation which venerates “the American Dream” has dealt a semi-lethal blow to this American’s dream of living abroad and seeing the world. Yet, as bad as it is for us financially, at least my wife has the choice of re-joining the workforce if we stay here. If we were to return to the states, it wouldn’t even be an option and we would find ourselves working twice as much to earn less and ultimately save less. Certainly, the dream is taking a beating but it’s still alive…for the moment.

We all know that one of our jobs as parents is to cultivate good habits in our children. Sometimes these are habits that we already possess. Sometimes they are not. This morning, I witnessed what I thought was the beginnings of a beautiful life-long habit.

Samuel and Micah were on the floor playing with their Lincoln Logs. Unlike Micah who is still at that phase where destruction is the preferred playtime activity, Samuel was constructing a little house. I came over to survey the work, carrying Elijah in my arms. Once I put him down and joined the other two boys on the floor, Elijah did exactly what you’d expect a one-year old to do; he toddled over to Sam’s house and knocked it down.

Understandably, Samuel was upset-even angry. Right or wrong, I quickly sought to intervene and explain yet again why Samuel can’t pound Elijah into the carpet because he’s just a baby and doesn’t understand. He wasn’t really listening. He was too busy trying to contain himself. Getting up and starting to stomp away, Samuel stopped short as I forcefully told him to come to me when I call him. He whirled around to look me in the eye and decisively told me, “I’m going to talk to God about this!”

I immediately backed off and said, “Great! That’s a good idea. You do that.” So, Samuel turned around and went in the opposite direction into the guest bathroom nearby. He shut the door and was gone for a couple of minutes.

When he came out, Samuel returned to the pile of logs with me and began to play again, apparently at peace with Elijah’s demolish of his first project.

“What did you say?” I asked. I was terribly curious.

“‘Dear God, Please kill him!’” Samuel told me unabashedly.

“What!?”

This time, he looked away and lowered his voice saying, “Uh, nevermind, I don’t want to tell you.”

Just when I thought I was witnessing the early stages of a beautiful life-long habit of turning to God for help in dealing with anger, I find that my son was in the bathroom calling down lightning on his baby brother.

I’ll try not to despair just yet. There’s still time to turn the little heathen around. After all, Jesus didn’t get to work on James and John until much later in their lives and they ended up alright in the end.

One of the greatest acts of kindness that God periodically performs for his children is when he disabuses us of some, any, all of our illusions that we have about Him, His nature and/or His will.

It’s not surprising that any Christian ever reaches a point where he thinks that he’s got God figured out. Think about it: you visit someone in his home at least once a week, eat his food, drink his wine, share his politics and even read his book; surely you would begin to assume that you know this person. I think that this is the way it is between many believers and God. We can’t help but think that we know Him. If we are particularly earnest, then we try really hard to know Him, what He likes, what He doesn’t like, what He wants from us and so forth. We pray. We read. We “lay out fleeces“, ask for signs, look for coincidences, anything that will gives us the insight we seek. If we ever become secure in our knowledge of Him/His will, God in His mercy comes along and reminds us that He is the Most High, that His ways are not our ways and that the mystery surrounding Him is not penetrable at this stage of His plan. True, God has shown us Himself in Christ Jesus, but if the apostles and disciples didn’t grasp the revelation when He lived among them, how can we presume to have God and His ways figured out?

No matter how close to God I may feel at any given stage in my spiritual growth, I ought to speak cautiously about God and what I know about Him and His will. It’s important to seek His will and to follow it as best as I can understand it, but I have to leave room for God to be Himself. I have to be ready to act on what I believe to be His will knowing and acknowledging that I might be wrong. This way, I show that I trust God more than I trust myself and what I think I know about Him.

Non-conformist is not a word that I want people to use to describe my sons when they’re older.

That probably sounds strange to you. After all, don’t we want our children to grow up to be free-thinkers? Shouldn’t we encourage them to follow their own path and eschew the crowd mentality? Who among us wants to rear another sheep for the wolves of the world to slaughter? Not me.

The contradiction is merely apparent. Let me explain.

Over the last several years I’ve watched the non-conformists around me and I have come to the realization that none of them were truly principled in their non-conformity. They’ve tended to be merely rebellious. Often, they have simply been refusing to conform because of an unmeritoriously high-view of themselves or an unjustly low-view of those whose authority they despise. Either way, they have tended to be people who were not in touch with a particular aspect of reality; namely that no one is always the boss. Sometimes we lead. Sometimes we follow. It’s called taking turns and in general we say that the ability to take turns is a sign of maturity.

I want them to be thoughtful people who can look at situations and make principled decisions. I want them to be able to wisely discern which ideals are worth conforming to and which are not. I hope they’ll be able to identify trustworthy leaders worthy of following and untrustworthy leaders who are not. In either case, I hope they are capable of dealing respectfully and wisely with both types of leaders.

In short, I want them to be mature adults in touch with reality.

I miss a lot of meaningful moments with my sons by being the one who is away 8 hours a day. J does a good job of filling me in either over the phone or when I get home, but it’s not the same as being there. Recently, she called me with a story that I’ve asked her to write and share because she told it so well over the phone. So, for the first time Alien Owned welcomes its first guest writer, my wife and the mother of my children.

It was a bit quiet in the living room. When you have three boys and the oldest is only 4 you know that usually means trouble. I left the kitchen to see what was going on and as I approached the room I could hear the water in the bathroom off of the living room running full force. As I got closer all I could see was my 4 year old, still clad at 3.15 pm in his Bob the Builder pajamas, standing on his tippy toes, on our 2-year-old’s potty chair, with his head stuck fully in the sink letting the water rush over it. Before actually asking the dreaded question, I just stopped and tried to figure out what, exactly, he thought he was doing. Washing his hair because it was dirty…I assumed…after all he had just eaten a snack.

“Uh, Samuel? What are you doing?”

“I’m baptizing myself cause Jesus will be in my heart and love me every day.”

“What?” I said

“Mom, I’m just baptizing myself like Jesus the son of God and He will be happy. Just a minute I’m almost finished.”

The water is still pouring out of the faucet…his head of course is saturated and he is talking muffled into the sink and I am hearing words like Jesus, John, water, baptizing and God. As I grabbed the towel I asked,

“Samuel, who is Jesus?”

“He’s God.”

“That’s right.” I was about to say something about him dying for us when he said,

“Yep, he’s God and Jesus of the son of God who died on the cross.”

Pretty good for four, I thought.

“Ok. I think you’re finished.”

I dried his head and took him in the other room trying to put it all together. As he began drying off himself I could see the scene from the claymation movie The Miracle Maker that he had watched this morning. I could see John baptizing Jesus and the dove and hear the voice from above. I was amused, touched and happy that he was even thinking this way. As I was lost in thought I realized that I had, in fact lost track of Samuel and the water was running yet again and his head was back in the sink.

“Samuel, now what are you doing?”

“Oh, I’m baptizing myself one more time cause I want God and Jesus in my heart.”

As the water continued to rush over his head it got his sleeve completely wet. Here goes, I thought. Now the shirt will come off (one drop of water usually demands a change of clothes or at least nakedness). He put his head up finally, took the towel back, put it on his saturated hair and said something to the effect of, “See, that was just great!” and he ran off to play with his Duplos and his brothers…shirt on and sleeve drenched.

I’m not sure really, what, if anything to surmise from this. Was it innocent role play? Does he really understand…in so much that a four year old can? D facetiously asked if there had been any change in his behavior after the “baptism”. I did happen to notice that at a crucial point of head-butting with me later I told him to go his room and he was about to loose it. Instead he just went. So going to his room without arguing and playing with a wet shirt….not sure how noteworthy those are.

I guess for me it just really reiterates how important it is to saturate our home with the love of Jesus and things that matter in the kingdom.

I love my family!

A long time ago (or so it seems to me now) my friend Robert and I were at his brother-in-law’s house jamming in his recording studio. I don’t remember exactly why we chose to play there. We weren’t looking to record anything that I can recall. Robert was living in Nash-Vegas at the time. I think I was living with my folks in a town an hour down the highway after having been abroad. I honestly can’t remember, but I remember that we were there in White Bluff to play some music.

Robert plays bass and back then (as now) was way ahead of me in skill. I had my Ibanez electric guitar and his b-i-l, who played several instruments, provided us with a steady beat from his drum machine.

As you can see, much of the detail of that day has been corrupted over time, but one thing that remains intact in my mind is one particular groove that we were in. It was simple three-chord progression that I started. Robert improvised a bass line while his b-i-l kept an unembellished beat. I played my part completely in time (unusual for me even today) without any lead work. We were making it up as we went, yet we were completely together, in synch. Three guys in one groove. We were so completely attuned to each other that we were able to end our jam as precisely as if we’d rehearsed it numerous times.

The feeling that I had during that jam is hard to describe. The joy of the unity that I experienced with Robert and his brother-in-law as we jammed together that day comes back to me from time to time and I can’t help but think that every aspect of our lives should be like…and one day, they will be.

If you haven’t visitied Google’s video database yet, you probably should…but not on company time.

This embeded video is for my friend Robert.

This one is just for…wasting time I guess.

Last weekend, I picked up several new videotapes for the boys at a school-sponsored “yard sale” here in the city. One of them was a Disney film called “Fun and Fancy FreeThis “full-length animated feature” is comprised of two shorter stories. The first one is called “Bongo”, based on a story by Sinclair Lewis. The second one is a re-telling of Jack and the Beanstalk with Mickey, Donald and Goofy all sharing the narrative space of Jack. The device that holds these two pieces together is Jiminy Cricket and a party thrown by Edgar Bergen and attended by Charlie McCarthy, Mortimer Sneed and Luanna Patten.

“Bongo” is the story of a cute little circus bear who escapes to the forest where he struggles to live in the wild. Part of his struggle is falling in love with a cute little she bear and competing for her affection. When Bongo meets Lulu Belle (or whatever her name is) there are hearts and cherubs aplenty which are cruelly dispelled by the arrival of a large, brute named Lumpjaw. Lulu Belle tells Lumpjaw that Bongo is her “man” then turns and slaps solidly across the face. The only person more perplexed than Bongo by this apparent change in Lulu Belle’s feelings toward him is my son Samuel.

“Why did she hit him like that?” he wanted to know.
“I don’t know,” I confessed.
As Samuel, Bongo and myself tried to grasp what was going on, Lulu Belle slaps Bongo again this time sending him for a tumble. Samuel asked again. I was beginning to get the message but unfortunately I was no help to either Samuel or Bongo. One more time Lulu Belle draws close enough for the third slap, only this time she misses her lover and lays one across Lumpjaw’s…uh, well…lumpy jaw. Immediately his eyes fill with hearts and he snatches her up in a…well, a bear hug.

As Bongo retreats to a lonely and distant vantage point all of the bears come out to congratulate the couple and a dance ensues. As the bears frolic about, Dinah Shore (who narrates our story) supplies for us in song the missing piece of this puzzle: bears show their affection by slapping each other. As the song continues, the bears prance about alternating comically between gentle love taps and ham-fisted jaw-breakers. Males slapping females. Females walloping males and vice-versa.

My wife and I shared a long, wide-eyed look at each other. I could already see Samuel demonstrating his love for me or his mama “bear fashion” and at some inopportune moment. Worse, I could imagine him loving his own little Lulu Belle on his first day of school this coming fall.

This Disney “classic” is probably going to have to return to the vault…at least until our son is not quite so highly impressionable as he is now.
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As my host country marches boldly into the modern age, every now and again we get a reminder like this one that says “We ain’t there yet.” The following is an excerpt from a local paper.

A 20-year-old (local citizen), who was fired on two weeks ago after police caught him kissing his fiancé inside his car, was granted bail on Monday.

Take a minute and read that again in case you missed it. The local was in his car kissing his fiancé (think more along the lines of Medieval “betrothed” and you get a better idea of their relationship) and when he realized that the cops were closing in, he attempted to flee. The cops opened fire upon this young man and his betrothed…with real bullets…because they were kissing in the car…in public. Here’s the newspaper report:

The man reportedly began reversing his car as soon as he spotted the police patrol parking in front of him.

An unidentified number of law enforcement officers reportedly opened fire on the suspect’s car, and the man stopped his vehicle instantly.

Yeah he did!

And in case you’re finding this hard to believe:

The criminal laboratory confirmed that several bullets hit the left rear side and the back tires of the car, which has been impounded by the police.

Here’s a question: the article says that the young man saw the police park in front of him so he started backing up. So how did the bullets strike the rear side back tires? Was he surrounded? Did he reverse and spin the car around? Sounds like a lot of drama and violence for kissing…unless of course it was an open-mouth kiss in which case this entirely appropriate.

As I was saying…we ain’t quite there yet folks.

That’s the title of the following article and to be honest; I couldn’t improve upon it so I just made it the title of my post. Since the article is so short, it’s here in it’s entirety:

Fri May 12, 12:20 PM ET

LONDON (Reuters) - More than 60 percent of Britons use items such as screwdrivers, scissors and earrings to remove food from between their teeth, according to a survey published Friday.

The National Dental Survey found that, when it came to oral hygiene, people used whatever was close to hand to pick their teeth.

More than 60 percent questioned by the British Dental Health Foundation said they used makeshift items, including knives, keys, needles and forks.

The survey also found that 23 percent of people chose to leave food stuck between their teeth, increasing the risk of gum disease and bad breath, according to the foundation which promotes oral health.

You know, it’s not like America’s relationship with the world isn’t already pretty lousy. I’m not sure that “news” such as this about our “ally” is a good idea these days. That being said…it really does explain a lot doesn’t it?

Sacred:The Professing Professor has something I’d like to share.

Profane:The Rainmakers was(is) a band out of Kansas City, Missouri that I fell in love with during my undergrad years in the late 80’s and early 90’s. I recently discovered that live recordings of their shows are legally available at the Internet Archive. The recordings are direct from the board and apparently some are better than others but they’re all good enough to keep. If you like your three-chord rock rough around the edges and rich in content, then go by the archive and give the band a listen…but you’ll need to get WinAmp and a plugin to do it.

Truly, good stuff…

I’m just linking this blogger’s post here for my own personal benefit…feel free not to read about the Church of Christ minister who endured a secular humanist inquisition.

…but I don’t like spam.

I’ve been getting loads of spam lately and it’s been predictably irritating, but I wanted to keep this one.

“Your site is very cognitive. I think you will have good future.:) ” - sent by some spambot that’s pushing phen-phen or some other dubious drug.

I think it kind of reads like a fortune cookie, which is actually kind of fun….if it didn’t come as an attempt to peddle some product that is hazardous to people’s health. If I were a spammer, I might program a spambot to just drop fortune cookie predictions around people’s blog. Innocuous, good-humored fun…but still spam so I guess it would still be irritating.

This morning I read an article about a study done on the economics of prostitution. The article ends in this way:

Bottom Line

Like any statistical model, this one ignores the diversity of real people and the complexities of love and pleasure, changing social mores, et cetera. Still, once all its equations have been solved, a simple fact remains: Most women enter prostitution for the money.

This being so, legalizing it, regulating it (strictly enforcing laws against pimping, child prostitution, public nuisance and so forth) and improving the economic prospects for women seem to me a greatly preferable approach to it than moralistic denunciation.

Prof. Paulos, the author of this article makes a good point: moralistic denunciation is not preferable…and that’s about as far as I can go with him. The idea that legalization and regulation is in any way a good idea is only plausible when one dehumanizes the issue. When the entity in question is a nameless, faceless, economic unit and not the author’s mother, sister, wife or daughter then he can advocate legalization and regulations of OTHERS. Another condition that makes such an absurdity appear like reasonable rhetoric is that these prostitutes which Prof. Paulos believes would be best served through legalizing and regulating their trade are not seen for who they truly are: women made in the image of God. Which sort of brings my point full circle: since these women are not treated, studied, viewed or represented as human (beings created in the image of God), then the ridiculous suggestion of this author comes across as reasonable, especially when presented as an alternative to the other option (often demeaning in a different way) of moralistic denunciation.

I grew up thinking that suits were either for marrying or burying.

Today I’m wearing my marrying suit. If you know me, you know that I’m already married. If you’re not mentally impaired in some way, you’ve surmised that I’m in no condition for burying. So what gives? I’m wearing the suit that I got married in nearly 7 years ago because I can!

Nearly two months ago I set a goal to lose ten pounds in a month. The first month came and went and I didn’t make the target date, but I did shed some pounds. This morning, three days short of the second month, I was surprised to see the magic number flash up at me on the scale. To celebrate, I decided to wear my wedding suit to work today.

It feels good to set a goal and reach it.

I sort of owe Aaron this post. He made a comment on an earlier post and I said that my response would be too long for just a comment so here it is.

Whenever Christians approach the concept of wealth, we need to keep this in mind: Stuff is not evil. Money is not evil. There is nothing in the Bible that teaches that posessions are evil in themselves. However, the Bible does teach (via Paul) that we are to possess our stuff instead of being possessed by it. This is the key.

Wealth will not add to our value before God. It will not provide us with true security. It can not purchase a good reputation or forgiveness for our sins/errors/mistakes. On the other hand, wealth can be an awesome tool for good, for advancing the kingdom of God.

It’s important that our kingdom ethic govern how we use the tool of wealth. It may be that wise use will result in more wealth to manage…but it may not. However, if we make pursuing the wealth for what we think it will provide for us in terms of power, safety and sense of self, then we are not acting out of our kingdom ethic.

Sometimes, this isn’t obvious when listening to Dave, but I have heard him on occasion make similar statements and points (much more aggressively) to those I’ve just made.

Looking forward to hearing that you’re debt-free Aaron.

How does one decide when to pack it in and retire a blog?

Is it time to quit when you don’t see the traffic on your site that you once had? Or is it time to give up when your site fails to attract more than a trickle of traffic? What about if you’re just plain bored; then do you let it go?

This is on my mind as well as my friend’s mind with whom I do a collaborative blog. No answers today. Just questions.

I took a look at two of this guy’s posts. One dealing with gender identity got 32 comments and thisone
got 56!

I don’t think I’ve gotten a total of 56 comments at this point!

Guess I’ll get to work on that Public Enemy pop-up book idea I just had. (”Yo, wutz duh time? It’s time for nap!” Hmmm?)

Dorothy, the beta fish passed away some time in the night. We don’t know the cause of death. Since the passing of her counter-part, also named Dorothy, she seemed to fall into a deep depression. She would float listlessly near the surface of the water as though she were waiting for food, but she rarely ate whenever she was given any. A couple of times we found her floating on her side and thought that the end had come. When we went to retrieve her body, she swam away. But not this morning. This morning we found her lifeless body settled at the bottom of her aquarium.

Micah was the first child to notice. He looked at her and announced, “Dorothy dived!” Samuel came over and confirmed her demise and dispassionately stated that it’s time to flush her.

Later, while I was at work Jennifer and the boys gathered around the guest bathroom toilet to bid farewell to Dorothy II. Jennifer asked Samuel to say a prayer. Here is what he had to say:

Dear God,
Thank you for this day.
Dorothy is dead.
Make her feel better.
Now we’re going to flush her.
In Jesus’ name,
Amen

RIP Dorothy.

…keep the change.

No, I didn’t…but I wanted to.

I’ve read that here in the Mid East, (or was it all of Asia?) that saying “no” or giving any kind of negative response is culturally not acceptable. In other words, if I ask to borrow a pencil and you don’t want to let me, then you have to come up with some other answer besides “No”. In matters of business, it looks like this.

Westerner: “Is my suit ready?”
Asian: “1 hour.”
Westerner: “No problem, I’ll be back for it tomorrow.”
Asian: “okay”
next day…
Westerner: “Is my suit ready?”
Asian: “Tomorrow.”
Westerner: “Yesterday, you said 1 hour.”
Asian:”Tomorrow. 6 o’clock”
Westerner: “But you’re closed tomorrow. It’s Friday.”
Asian:”I’m here. Tomorrow 6 o’clock.”
next day…6:30
Westerner (to a completely different person) “Where’s my suit?”
Asian:”jwheofyusnwoenw”
Westerner: “I don’t speak alksjdfoie. Where’s my suit?”
Asian:”wjoeuwlnmwery”
…and so forth until…
different Asian: “Sorry…tomorrow morning…sorry.”

And there’s so much local color that I’m leaving out of this vignette. To be honest, I don’t think that Jesus would have handled things the way that I did…but I know that he certainly would have had to face the temptation.

Micah opened a round container filled with Trix and announced “I eat these daddy.” No objection. It was morning and it was breakfast food. Why not?

He munched a few and Elijah began to follow him around with his long arms out-stretched obviously wanting Micah to share. I told Micah to give Elijah some which he did gladly. Some made it into Elijah’s hand then eventually into his mouth, but several fell to the floor and remained there.

I learned the rest of this story from my wife. She called me while I was driving to the laundry on my way to work and she asked me to ring her back when I was at the laundry. Here is what she told me on the phone.

She discoverd an bit of Trix lying on the floor covered in 10-15 ants. Thinking that the boys might be amused by the sight of the ants laboring away, she called them over to watch them work on the cereal. Then the phone rang. A friend of ours was close by and in need of a yellow shirt for her son who was presently in tears because he had arrived at school unprepared for “Yellow Shirt Day”. My wife did a quick check and varified that we did not have a yellow shirt we could give them, then returned to check the ants’ progress. She found that Bboth the ants and the lone Trix (or is it Trik?) were gone.

“Where is the cereal?” she asked turning to see our son Micah with something obviously in his mouth. Knowing that the “something” was the cereal, my wife asked the dreaded question, “What happened to the ants?”

Micah’s reply?
“I spit.”

J and I started teaching Samuel the connection between work and money around the age of three. He would (and does) help me unload the dishwasher and I would (and do) pay him while telling him that this (work) is how we get money. I have to say, that I’m pretty sure that he’s got a rudimentary grasp of the concept. Now we need to be working on the next one, Micah.

Thanks to the Carnival of Education, I found Jeffrey Strain’s post about teaching kids about money. He’s got some links there to some games that might be good for Samuel to play once he’s gotten his numbers down.

This chapter opens with what is normally called “The Parable of the Sower“. In it, Jesus is teaching his listeners about the “kingdom of heaven”. Without going too deeply into it, I’ll simply say that I believe that the “KoH” is the rule/reign of God.

Even though I’ve been familiar with this parable most of my life, I didn’t really begin to appreciate it until I was living in Ukraine and using it for some English teaching that I did there. Since that time, it’s been a sort of favorite of mine.

I see myself as represented by the thorny ground. Believe it or not, the host culture that surrounds me is more materialistic than the US and the message that stuff is the answer is perhaps the loudest message around. I often find myself either battling the urge to collect stuff (cool stuff though…not just junk) or starting to believe that my future security (and my family’s) depends on how much money I can make, save and/or invest. With all that nonsense filling my thoughts, it’s hard to pray for the coming of the kingdom or think about ways to enact the kingdom in my life right now.

I need Jesus to show up with a bushhog!

I don’t play the guitar; I play at the guitar. Surely, someone reading this immediately understands the difference. For those who don’t, I’ll explain.

People who play guitar can play at least one song from start to finish. People who play at guitar can play catchy bits of several songs. The particular bits that any would-be guitarist learns to play is largely dictated by generation and/or musical education. Of course, we all learn to play some part of Zepplin’s Stairway to Heaven, but my particular favorite riffs to play were the opening to Zepplin’s Over the Hills and Far Away, Rush’s Limelight and Skynnard’s Sweet Home Alabama.

People who play guitar can join with other musicians and play along. People who play at guitar can sit with other musicians and participate in a conversation about playing. We know enough of the jargon to at least keep up and (if we’re smart enough not to talk to much) can appear like we’re also musicians.

I’ve been playing at the guitar since I was around 14 years old. Once I was old enough to go to concerts (first concert-Rush in 1984!) and then to start going to clubs, I often came home after a show psyched up and reinvigorated to really practice and get good enough to play out with some folks…and I never did. Yesterday, I was working out on the treadmill while watching a concert video of a group called Gov’t Mule and I got that feeling again, like I wanted to really get serious, practice and learn to play guitar.

Once the kids are grown and on their own, I guess I know how I’ll be spending my retirement years. Perhaps there’ll be some other guys in the nursing home and we can start a band!

I haven’t paid income tax in about 5 years and it has felt good. Yes, the government knows about it. Each year I’ve given them the documents that they require appropriately signed and mailed on time…or pretty close to on time.

As I’ve met and spoken with other citizens of Western countries, our conversations have occasionally veered into tax talk. I’ve known that the US has a relatively low tax burden compared to other industrialized nations but I’ve never seen a chart until now.

Usually people point out that even though their taxes are higher, they get more for their money just like the MSN article says. Then there are times when I’ve had people from the UK and Australia say that even though they pay for the government provided healthcare with their tax money, they still shell out money from their own pockets for private health insurance and care because of things like long waiting periods for medical care/attention.

I’m very curious to know if most of the citizens of Western countries with higher taxes than the US feel like they truly get their money’s worth when it comes to government services.

read it here

The section heading reads “Don’t Worry”.

The section is Matthew 6:25-34.

I don’t think of myself as a hand-wringing worrier but more as a forward-thinking strategist. The future is something that, if not planned for, will sneak up on you and catch you unprepared. This is what I tell myself…and to some extent it’s true. The problem comes when I begin to think that I’ve actually got control over that future by virtue of my planning. I’m not talking about having a measure of control. I’m talking about the complete delusion that I’m in control. Ironically, when I begin to believe this lie, I go from being a planner to a worrier. The pressure mounts because if X doesn’t happen, it’s my fault, I failed to control something. I need to stand in that crowd and hear Jesus tell me that I matter more to God than grass and birds, both of which God has time to tend to. I need to be reminded that each day has more than enough to focus on and accomplish without getting myself tied up in knots about what I am NOT doing tomorrow.

No, I can never be reminded too often that God is in control and that I’m not and to stop worrying.

Occasionally I get to talking to folks about why I refuse to take out a loan on a car. They truly don’t seem to understand where I’m coming from. Assuming that part of the problem is that I’m not very good at expressing myself in those situations, I wonder if I pointed them to this if it would help.

NB: That link may go dead soon since it is part of Dave’s subscription service.

Not long ago I was over at Chip’s blog reading his thoughts on the miracles found in the OT. I left a comment along the lines of how strange it is that the people of God could witness those miracles first hand and then turn around and behave as if they’d forgotten them.

Today I was reading in Matthew about the baptism of Jesus. When Jesus comes up out of the water, John sees the Holy Spirit in the form of a dove light upon Jesus and hears the voice of God declare that Jesus is His son. After reading that, it occurred to me that John would later be rotting in prison and send his followers to ask Jesus if He was in fact the Messiah as he had previously thought. How could John ask that question unless he had at some level forgotten what he himself had seen and heard on the day that he baptized cousin Jesus?

In the past, I’ve had disbelievers say things like “Why doesn’t God just show up and declare that he exists? I’d believe that.” Of course, how can I take such a statement seriously when even those who are believers find it hard to hold on to the testimony of the miracles that they have witnessed?

It would be arrogant of me to think that I would behave any differently than the Israelistes or John after witnessing a miracle.

I met “D” when I was in undergrad and she was in grad. We did pretty well keeping up for a while after we’d both graduated and moved on. She became an optometrist and she occassionally e-mailed me some of her craziest stories of dealing with patients. I’ve kept three in a folder in my e-mail account for years and now I’d like to share them with the world. Hope she doesn’t mind.

Ok, you never know exactly what a day is going to entail when you work with the public. some days the moon is full and the people are strange and that’s what happened this past week. i can’t wait for the “blue moon” in a couple of weeks!!!

My day started with the schizoaffective patient (her admission, not my interpretation!) She was back for a contact lens followup: complaint: blur at distance………… she’s a -4.0 and her right lens was not in her eye………. she not only didn’t figure out that it was gone, but these were newvue colors……. one eye blue & one green…….hhhmmmmm………

Next patient runs into the exam room door: her comment from a serious face ” there is a door there, but it took a long time to see it” ok, we’re 2 for 2.

Next up……. 62YOWF i asked when her last seizure was…..she said it was a LONG time ago, when she was just a kid……. later revealed……. last seizure was just ONE year ago!!!

Next patient: we had really poor communication…….. it took 3 minutes to figure out the chief complaint: she kept complaining of an eye that eeee—eeeee—-eeeeches………at least three syllables to explain the eye itched.

Then one of the girls at work that is pregnant got poor test results from the doc…. handicapped……. next patient comes in with severely retarded child……. really weird………..

Next patients smells like grease from mcdonalds (being a former worker of mcd’s, i can recognize this a mile away) sure enough, she just left work……….mcdonalds……… had to fumigate…….

Next patient was a real winner……. diabetic who refused to be dilated…….. he just did not care, did not have time etc…. you know the type….. i finally told him that it was his decision, but that diabetes is a leading cause of blindness and it’s progression can be slowed/stopped by proper medical care. my words fell on deaf ears and future blind eyes. Then he informed me that he refused to wear glasses when driving his 18 wheelin’ rig……….. uncorrected 20/80……… i asked him how he would feel if he killed someone because of poor vision………… his callous response……… hain’t killed no one yet where did this one come from?????????????

Then this same blind trucker informed me that he had killed a couple of people, but they were suicide……….. a man pulled out in front of him causing him to hit him & kill him……… then a woman jumped off a bridge and went through the windshield, landing on his lap…dead. before i could get him out of my room, he proceeded to tell me about the alligator that got caught under his truck. he heard the tail beating on the bottom of his truck and pulled over to see what it was. when he saw the gator he got back in the truck and kept driving to the sound of the beating tail for about another 50 miles…………….

How much information can i take in ONE day?

Next patient brings in 3 year old and tells her to sit quietly. yeah, right…… we know how that one went ! the kid tried to touch everything in my office at least once! mama’s response to child? that’s hot, don’t touch…. hot baby, don’t touch…. of course nothing was hot. finally the kid touched something and said, “mommy this isn’t hot” ………… so much for teaching the kid about honesty…………

My next patient was born deaf…….. it was the best communication of the day.

Next patient was a chronic smoker with emphsema. she nearly turned blue getting to the chair. i didn’t even bother to explain about smoking……….. deaf ears again………..

The last patient requested a head transplant. his theory: my teeth are gone, my vision has faded, & my hair is gone. doc, i just need a head transplant…………….

I kinda felt like a head transplant too……………..just call it a ZOLOFT DAY

The hot topic of conversation around our house these days is whether or not to have a fourth child. My wife really wants a fourth.

This morning she was talking to Samuel, our first and asked if he wanted “another baby”. “No! I want to keep Elijah,” he said thinking that “another” meant “instead of”. My wife explained that she meant an additional baby, not a replacement for our third. Samuel’s tone changed immediately and he enthusiastically responded, “Oh! That’s a good idea!”

Her voting block is growing…

Two out of three boys were down with a fever today.

Elijah’s started in the small hours of the morning. His temperature was around 102 F but his mood was actually good. In fact, all day long despite his fever he has not been lethargic or especially whiny.

Micah’s fever started some time this morning and he has been miserable from the start. With a temperature of about 102 F also, he has cried frequently and wanted to be held constantly. He vomited two or three times and has lain around all day. He has been our Mr. Pitiful.

It’s never good when your children are sick, so maybe I’ll sound like a horrible father when I say that I’ve actually enjoyed Micah today. No, I haven’t relished in his misery but I have truly savored getting to hold him and comfort him. None of our boys are much for cuddling but Micah has been especially disinterested. He’s just got too much energy, too much curiosity, too much spunk to be still long enough for cuddling-except today. Today, he couldn’t be held enough and I was happy to do it; even if he did smell like vomit.

Last night I watched American Idol for the first time in a couple of weeks. When I woke up this morning I couldn’t stop thinking about Mandisa and what she did.

The theme was Songs of the 21st Century which meant that the contestants could choose any song they wanted from the 21st Century. Mandisa choose a song from the Praise and Worship genre by someone called Mary, Mary. It was about God setting us free from sin. It was up-tempo (it rocked!), she showed her range and she performed with joy. No sermonizing. No mention of Jesus. She just made an opening comment about the power of God to overcome anything. The crowd rocked.

Randy, who has dug the gospel groove in the past, was cold. He said he didn’t get it.

Paula, trying as usual to say something positive, spouted some non-sense about a new religion and people worshipping in the “Church of Mandisa”.

Simon, in his callous way, said that her song choice was self-indulgent and that he didn’t get it.

Paris came out and sang a Beyonce song. She strutted. She showed attitude. She flaunted her (burgeoning?) sexuality and sang words about a kind of relationship that you serious doubt she’s experienced to date. She gave the kind of self-absorbed, sex-saturated performance that is the mainstay of MTV, BET and VH-1.

Randy called her “fearless” and declared that they had a “hot one tonight!”

Paula pointed out that her performance was more mature than her 16 years.

Simon panned her…but he didn’t dismiss her as self-indulgent. He got it, even if he didn’t like it.

Think about this: Mandisa goes on stage and delivers a song about God to an audience that is comprised largely of non-believers, unbelievers and disbelievers. She’s risking rejection and being voted off the show.

Paris goes on stage and delivers a song about an adult (sexually charged) relationship with the necessary R&B attitude to an audience that is ready to applaud a 16-year old girl dancing like she were in a cage surrounded by bald, fat middle-aged businessmen with fists full of dollar bills for her. She gives them the standard fare. She took no risks!

Which one of them was truly “fearless”?

No Randy, Paula, and especially you Simon-you really don’t get it.
Sad.

James Fadden has graciously added this blog to his blogroll.

This is the first person NOT writing for DaddySpeak that has done so. While I’m thrilled that someone other than me, my friend and my wife read my blog, now I feel pressure to be …uh, better-more interesting-something.

Thanks James!:)

Haven’t been reflecting much lately…there’s a commentary. How many of us get so distracted by our busy-ness that we seldom stop to reflect upon…well, much of anything. Just doing seems to be all we can manage.

Anyway, I thought it was time to reflect a bit on the readings.
I’ve read Galatians several times but I think that I got the most out of it during the time that I was living in Ukraine. That was a time when so many things in the Bible seemed fresh and new and Galatians was part of that.

Today as I was reading the last chapter I found something that seemed immediately contradictory. Paul tells the church that they should bear one another’s burdens and then he says that each should carry his own load. So which is it? Obviously the answer is both. We ought to help one another with whatever we are struggling with (bearing one another’s burden) but ultimately we are individually responsible (for carrying our own load). I can be responsible for caring for you but I can’t be responsible for you…and caring here is not just sentimentality. It’s work. It’s bearing your burden with you.

Easy to talk about…hard to do.

I’m starting to think about moving from this free blog hosting service to a paid one.

Mainly, I’m a bit frustrated that my current host hasn’t upgraded to the latest version of Word Press. I’ve really enjoyed using the newer version over at DS and would like to have it. I’ve also begun to get worried about losing everything that I’ve written. Granted, I can make my own backups but it would be nice to know that I’ve got a paid, knowledgeable person out there to give me a hand. As it is now, this free service doesn’t really do that. (I don’t say that critically. It’s a free service so it would be unreasonable to expect more than what they provide-a place to blog with no promises for the future.)

If I do move, I’ll probably move to the same folks that provide the hosting for DS. We’ll have to see. Now that I’m debt free, 50 bucks a year for hosting is nothing to worry about.

Last night my wife and I stayed up past our bedtime so we could call Dave Ramsey and do the “Debt Free!” scream that he feautures on his Friday shows. If you’re not familiar with this, people are encouraged to call in to tell their story of how they became debt free and to shout it for the whole world to hear. We’d been waiting for a long time to finally get to do this.

We called the show’s producer in advance to see if there was some way that we could gaurantee that our call would be taken and she was very pleased to help. (Thanks Laura!) I set up the video camera to record the conversation on our end. (My wife’s mom was recording the show from local cable access so we got the conversation from his side as well.) Samuel couldn’t sleep so we enlisted him to yell with us. (Wonder if this will be something he remembers when he’s older.)

It was a great feeling to finally get to do this. After we finished our call, Jennifer said that the reality of being debt free had finally sunken in.

Once upon a time, in a decade far away, I liked my rock and roll loud, pretentious and melodramatic.
These days, I still like my rock and roll loud, but I think it’s more out of necessity than it is aesthetics. (If it’s too loud…you’re still young enough to have your hearing mostly intact!)

Lately I’ve been doing my time on the treadmill while watching various old concert videos that I bought as a teenager. Last night I watched Styx: Caught in the Act which is the concert video/album of their Kilroy was Here tour. As I watched the atrocious acting of this rock opera and listened to some of the lyrics I couldn’t help asking myself, “Why was it that you liked this so much as a kid?” Someone once told me that my tastes would change as I got older, that the music that was so cool and touched me so deeply would lose its magic. I didn’t believe them then, but now I see that (at least in some cases) this is true.

I posted it over at DS here.

Pooping in a plastic bag.

Now, you might not think this is so grand, but my son Samuel would strongly disagree. As he stood on the front passenger seat of our car in the lowest level of the mall’s parking garage with his (newly sainted) mother holding the bag, he was heard to enthusiastically say with a beaming smile, “This is great!”

I know what you’re thinking…but this really is a trick that you should try at home.

I was listening to Dave Ramsey a day or two ago. He was giving some advice to a caller about how to deal with those harassing calls that come from credit card companies after a certain period of failing to pay the bill. He suggested things like blowing a coaches whistle into the phone (albeit with a warning), using a caller ID to get the representative’s number in order to pester him in return (aka “tit for tat”) and threatening to take legal action. He also said that on occasion they’ve given the phone to their kids and let them act silly in order to waste the caller’s time. These suggestions were also recommended for telemarketers.

Dave is an intense person. It’s one of the reasons that his radio program makes good listening. However, sometimes I think he gets a bit carried away. It’s hard for me to imagine that Jesus would recommend some of these methods of dealing with collection agents and telemarketers. (Legal action not included since those folks actually are breaking a law.) So, I’d like to suggest some alternatives that I feel a more merciful and less vindictative.

First, you could use your caller ID in conjunction with your answering machine. If you don’t know the number, don’t pick up. If it’s important, the caller will leave a message…or you can always pick up as they’re speaking to the machine.

Second, you can simply place the recieve somewhere and walk away. Let the person “do their job”. Eventually the line will disconnect. When you hear that signal, hang up your phone. Whether or not you warn the person that you are putting the phone down and walking away is up to you.

Third, you can attempt to engage them (telemarketers, not credit card folks) in intelligent conversation. Try to get them to stop reading the script on the computer screen in front of them and interact in a genuine manner. This is probably a good idea if you’re not busy. Otherwise politely say “No thank you” and hang up.

Of course, if you really want the majority of folks to hang up on you, try talking to them about Jesus.

If you’ve seen this over at DS, then don’t bother to read any further. I’m just reposting it here so I have a copy on my personal blog.

Here’s a metaphor for the human condition:

Humans are like clay jars. When the jar was first made, it was sound, whole, without any defects. It served the purpose for which it was created. Then the jar became cracked. The degree of the fracture is debatable but the base understanding is that it no longer functioned the way it was made to. All subsequent jars are modeled on the first and so all subsequent jars are also cracked. Perhaps not in the same place or to the same degree, but cracked and defective all the same.

Here’s the thing about a cracked clay jar; it can still hold water. The problem is that the jar leaks. No one who wants to save water wants or buys a jar that leaks. Over time, the leak doesn’t get better, it gets worse. The jar becomes less and less useful for its designated purpose. Given enough time, the jar becomes useless and even ceases to be a jar in any meaningful sense. One solution seems to be to fix the crack, but this never really works. The reason that the fix never lasts is because of the quality/properties of clay. Any fix can only be temporary at best because just using it results in chips, cracks and decreased functionality.

The only viable solution is a new kind of jar; one that isn’t vulnerable to decay and degradation.

Now the application:

Humans were made good. Part of that good creation was the ability to choose to obey or disobey God. When Adam and Eve chose to disobey, they (and all creation with them) cracked and became defective. They were made in God’s image and designed to reflect the goodness of God but now they were defective and not able to completely fulfill their purpose. The image of God in them had become marred, but not indiscernible. Here’s where things become more complex. This is the state of Adam and Eve’s descendants today: defective, dysfunctional, irreparably damaged and yet still discernable images of God. (It’s this image of God that makes humans of any value whatsoever.) Humans left to their own devices continue to degenerate. They look less and less like their Creator and become less and less functional along the lines of His purpose. In fact, they become less human. Humans can not repair themselves and be fit for their intended purpose. Since the standard of goodness and the appropriate judge of human functionality is God (and not other cracked jars aka humans), it is accurate to say that humans are not good. The goodness that we see in them is evidence of God’s image upon them, but it is always marred. For example: a bit of research into the cheating habits of teenagers on various school assignments showed that some teens would never cheat on their assignments at school, but would cheat at home. Not cheating at school is good, but cheating at home is bad. If the standard is “not cheating” (or more pointedly “having integrity”) what else can we say but that the kids in question are cheaters and do not reach the standard. The image of God is marred.

Since God is not going to allow his purpose to be thwarted or frustrated, He purposes to make a new creation. He doesn’t intend to fix humans, to patch them up. His will is to make them anew.

Christians are being created anew.They are creatures in process. By God’s will they progress ever more into His likeness. Sometimes the progress is discernable and sometimes it isn’t from a human perspective, but God promises that the process continues just the same. This is why the Christian says, “Whatever good you see in me and my actions is simply a reflection of God and not some quality inherent in my humanity.” One day, when the new creation is complete then goodness will be an inherent quality in humans, but only in those humans who have surrendered their brokenness to God.

Conversely, those who have not surrendered their brokenness to God will, like the clay jar, ultimately degenerate into something less than human. That degeneration is sometimes discernable and sometimes not from our human perspective, but God the Creator knows and is fit to judge. Ultimately those humans will reach a subhuman condition and be destroyed.

God offers this new creation to all humans. The offer is not extended to those who are good enough because no one is. The offer is not extended to only those who follow specific rules, regulations and traditions. God’s new life can not be bought by such actions. It is a gift that He gives to those who are humble enough to receive it on His terms. This is why some people get it and others don’t: not everyone will acknowledge their brokenness, humble themselves and take the gift. A gift that is forced upon someone who does not want it is no gift at all. A gift that is purchased by certain behavior is no gift at all. A gift is only a gift when it is freely given and freely received.

Disclaimer: This is my understanding to date. My knowledge is incomplete. While accepting responsibility for what I’ve written, I also acknowledge that my understanding is dynamic-it may change.

This is a screenshot of from the federal government’s student loan service page. As of today, we are “paid in full”.

We’re debt free!
Completely!
Totally!
100%
No debt!
At all!
None!
Zilch!

God is so good.
Whew!
I’m sure I’ll write more reflectively about it later…but for now, this is just a celebratory announcement.
Thank you and have a nice day.

Over at DaddySpeak, Robert has written a post called “What is Christian Service?“. A reader responded and posed two questions. The first was “Why choose only one (religion)?” and the other was “Why not call it Human (as opposed to Christian) Service?” Both of these questions stem from a perspective that can not see any meaningful differences in the moral teachings of the various religions in the world and therefore can not see why alliegance to any one of them is necessary or desireable.

This is all very heady stuff and there’s lot to be said, but since I’m not particularly good at bringing all of the pertinent threads together in a meaningful way, I’ll be brief and offer this:

Christian service is performed by the children of God (Christians) for the good of humans so that humans may give God the praise and in order to be obedient to the will of God which is this: that His children should be like him.

Human service is performed by humans for the good of humans so that humans can praise humans who live according to a religion or philosophy that originates with humans.

In short, Christian service benefits all people so that those people may see the goodness of God as opposed to seeing the goodness of people.

Samuel got to watch American Idol for the first time today.

Normally, we don’t let him watch anything on regular network TV because …well, we don’t tend to watch it much. Plus, it’s hard to distract him from commercials that are not at all appropriate for him to see, but this wasn’t a problem today because Jennifer and the boys were watching it on tape.

Jennifer and I really like Mandisa and we hope that she goes all the way. (We’ve always liked her voice, but we became huge fans of her as a person on the day they showed her confront Simon about his mean-spirited joke about her weight) Since this was the first time Samuel had ever seen the show, this was also his first time to hear Jennifer say anything whatsoever about Mandisa.

After her performance Jennifer commented upon how beautiful Mandisa is (and the woman really is). Samuel enthusiastically agreed saying, “Oh, she’s so beautiful…but she’s a little big.”

It’s tempting to think that Samuel learned to make such a comment because his parents are given to making them, but I don’t think he’s ever heard us speak like that about anyone, especially Mandisa.

Instead of seizing the opportunity to (re) educate him into a greater understanding of what makes someone beautiful, Jennifer simply replied, “Yeah, but she really is beautiful.” and left it at that. She let Samuel have his own opinion.

I think she did the right thing.

…The Furry Lobsters!!

Now that’s a good band name.

Feeling a bit frustrated these days.

We’re on the cusp of paying off the final school loan and becoming debt-free. (The transfer is in the states. We’re waiting for my brother to write the check and to receive confirmation that it’s been received.) Once that’s done, my wife and I will have reached the end of a long road in our relationship and I’m kind of casting about for a new goal. I say kind of because we have some financial targets to shoot at, but I don’t see them in the same way that I’ve seen the goal of paying off the debt.

You see, once we’re debt free, what’s to keep us here? To be sure the financial benefits are still compelling but I don’t know if that should be enough. There was once this idea that when the burden of the debt was jettisoned we’d be freer in our ability to go where God leads us. I guess I worry that the comfort of my circumstances and the desire for financial stability may obscure my ability to hear God’s call. Then again, I’m not entirely convinced that God calls me in specifics. Sometimes I think there’s the blanket will of God for me to do the good that I know I should do in the place where I am, wherever that may be…but I digress.

I’ve also got some parenting goals that I’m failing to keep in focus. My wife and I began teaching our first son about money when he was three. He was given a little task to do with me (1% him, 99% me) and then he’d be paid. Having learned that work equals money he’s also in the process of learning how to save to pay cash for what he wants. In fact we’re awaiting the first thing that he explicitly saved for- a Rescue Heroes play set. Now we’re at the point where Samuel needs to learn that some things we do without pay because we are a family and we help each other, while other things we do and make money for. I’ve tried making a list of these two types of jobs but I haven’t gotten around to putting them on the fridge and working through them with him, even though it was my goal to do so by the beginning of March. Additionally, Micah is getting to the point where he could used some guidance in this area. And of course there’s the on-going frustration of being impatient with both boys when they’re so rambunctious.

As for some other, more personal goals, I want to start exercising and lose 10lbs. Scheduling this with my wife, my work and my sons is tricky but it’s got to get done. Also, I want to write an article for a new parenting magazine in the city and see if they’ll accept it. Actually, the mag targets mothers but I’m hoping that I can convince them to let me provide a father’s perspective on a regular basis. If they agree, then I’ll be inching a little close to my goal of becoming a professional writer of some kind. I’ve just got to get it in gear and write the article as well as make contact with the editor.

Can you see where the frustration is coming from?

Read it here.

Eventually postmodernism will run its course and there will come a time when people will again ask for valid reasons for believing certain things and behaving in certain ways. When this happens, the apostle Paul will be standing there in the book of Acts, in chains, affirming that the resurrection, the return and the sovereignty of God’s annointed Jesus of Nazareth is “true and reasonable“. Furthermore, Jesus will vindicate Paul’s testimony, and ours, when he returns.

If you’ve been with me for a little while on this blog, then you’ve picked up on the fact that I live in an Islamic country that shall remain nameless. I don’t know if it’s come through in anything that I’ve written, but the host country occupies a sort of cultural limbo between the secular West and the religious East. Here’s what I mean.

A concert is going to be given in the country featuring some of the icons of 80’s speed-metal who are not exactly known for their respect for religions in general, muchless Islam. Sound tolerant?

In a local English newspaper I read that the Min. of Ed has required the removal of a particular book from “all private foreign schools” because it contained references that “defamed Arabs and Muslims”. Sound like censorship?

There are multitudes of inconsistencies and contradictions here. Is it any wonder that occasionally a Westerner will forget himself, break a law/taboo and end up on the next plane out of here?

Please read this and comment.

I was blogging over at DaddySpeak about my great weekend with my sons and went looking for a link for the word “cheesebread”. Technically, the correct term is “manaeesh” but when I did my Yahoo search for it, I spelled it “manish” and got a link to this Indian expat blog called Sepia Mutiny.

Personally, I think it’s a good place to visit if you’re curious about other cultures, particularly those who will be playing every greater roles in the US foreign policy in the years ahead.

Here’s something I included in a comment I made on someone’s blog:

Passion needs a plan and planning requires reason. When passion and reason meet, then personal growth will thrive.

Does that ring true to anyone or is it just nonsense?

Looking back over what I’ve read in Acts so far, I’ve noticed that the reactions of people against the gospel seem rather extreme to me from my 21st century Western cultural perspective.

When imprisoned, the apostles are put under heavy guard and in the most secure portions of the prisons. Why? Apart from what might be perceived as seditious language, what makes them worthy of such attention from the authorities? After all, there’s not indication that their message, political though it was, advocated any kind of armed rebellion. Yet, whenever they were arrested, the apostles were often placed in maximum security conditions.

Then there was the continuous threat to their lives. This is particularly true of Paul. How many times have I read that Paul had to sneak out of town or take a different route on his way somewhere because somebody (usually his fellow Jews) wanted to kill him? Again, what threat did this man pose? Granted, he could be accused of blasphemy by saying that Jesus was God. It’s understandable why some Jews would consider him an infidel and an apostate, but secretly conspiring to kill him seems to go way overboard to my modern sensibilities.

Apparently the gospel was threatening to some. So much so that killing the messenger seemed to some like an appropriate response.

Whenever unbelievers attempt to discredit the faith by accusing Paul of a self-aggrandizing sophistry, it’s apparent that they really don’t know much about Paul and what he endured. He enjoyed no real stature during his lifetime. (In fact, he had to defend his apostolic authority to one group of believers because some people in the church were discrediting him.) He did not increase in wealth or political power. The man was executed in Rome while under house arrest. A brief critical reflection on this man’s history and the idea that he manufactured a religion to achieve something for himself just doesn’t make any sense.

Read this article that talks about how American’s are some heavily indebted people.

How long until this comes back to bite the US in its collective butt?

It was a light bulb moment for my wife both metaphorically and qualitatively when 240 volts of electricity passed through her body this morning.

I was in the office when she phoned me to tell me that she’d been electrocuted. The story goes like this: she was slicing some bread on the kitchen counter and unknowingly cut into the cord of the of the operating rice cooker. Since the knife handle in her right hand is plastic, the current had to pass through the bread into her left arm to bite her.

Now imgaine the trouble a student in 8th grade physics would get into if he tried to tell his teacher that a loaf of whole wheat country bread is a conductor rather than an insulator.

When I was a freshman in college, I had an English prof who would read to us. We would listen to him read a story, usually a fable or some other story that I was familiar with, and then we would have to rewrite it in our own words. I thought that this was a pretty good exercise so I’ve been using it with some of my English language students. Today I read them a story and had them rewrite it for me. Additionally, I asked them to give me one sentence at the end of their story that explains the lesson that the story was trying to teach them. Before you can appreciate the morals that they came up with, you’ll need to be familiar with the story.

Sinbad and the Genie

Sinbad the sailor was sitting by the sea when he heard a small voice calling for help. Looking around, he found an old bottle nearby in the sand. Once he realized that the tiny voice was coming from the bottle, he picked it up and opened it. A grey cloud came out of the bottle and a giant genie appeared. The genie snatched Sinbad up into his hand and announced that since he had not eaten in 5000 years, Sinbad was to be his first meal in a long time. In obvious disbelief Sinbad told the genie that it was impossible to eat him. When the genie asked why, he told the creature that it was too small to eat him. Incredulously the genie replied that it was in fact very large. Sinbad’s counter argument was that he had just seen the genie in the bottle which meant that it was too small to eat him. Asserting that it had the ability to change size at will, the genie demonstrated its power by shrinking itself and returning to the bottle. Quickly, Sinbad closed the bottle, pitched it into the sea and continued his siesta.

What were the lessons that my students took away from this tale?

The most common lesson learned from Sinbad and the genie had something to do with either being clever or how much greater wisdom is than power. One student said, ” You should think clearly when you have a problem.” Another one said “Strong without clever can not help you.” Another student put a more cynical spin on the lesson when he said, “This story tells us there are a lot of people who don’t think.” It’s easy to see how the unthinking character in this story is the genie, but don’t be so sure that this is the student’s intention. Two students took the lesson to be that one should not be curious. As one of them eloquently put it, “You must never be curious sometimes.” Finally, two of my students went beyond simply suggesting restraining one’s curiosity. They took the lesson to be that people should mind their own business. To be fair, one student appeared to be somewhat conflicted when he wrote, “I think helping anybody is good habit, but it’s not always to everyone.” The last student appeared to feel no internal conflict at all when he wrote, “I think we mustn’t help anyone we don’t know because sometimes he will make a problems to me.”

I’ll let you make your own cross-cultural comparisons and draw your own conclusions.

Since hitting my mid-thirties, I’ve finally learned how important goal-setting is. As a result, I’ve been more productive and successful in the last year or two than I have been previously in my life. Of course, I’ve tried to share this new-found understanding of the power of goal-setting with students and as you might expect, some students get it and others don’t.

One conversation I had last semester with a couple of students was about how they should respond when they don’t achieve their goal in the time allotted. Basically I advised each of them to accept that it may take them longer than their peers to reach the same goal and not to feel bad about it. I encouraged them to a) decide if they truly wanted to be an engineer and b) if so, then to keep that goal before them and do what it takes no matter how long it takes. Essentially, I was telling them to redefine failure.

Recently, I told my wife this same thing in those words: redefine what failure means. Some students (my wife included) can set a goal and a target date for accomplishing it. When they don’t hit their target by the date specified, they feel like they’ve failed. What they forget is that not all goals are time sensitive and that the target date is there to provide motivation. If there’s no end point, then there’s no reason to apply effort: the task will get done when it gets done, which is often never for most people. If the goal is not time sensitive, then not hitting the target date is missing your mark, but not failure. Failure is conceding defeat and giving up on the goal entirely. Failure is never attaining the goal. For my students, failure is saying “Even though I want to be an engineer more than anything, I quit.”

Having written that, I realize something. Sometimes, people fail. Sometimes we set goals that are not realistic. There are some goals that are beyond our abilities. To our consternation, we don’t always know or rightly assess our own abilities. Consequently, we can’t always know from the beginning which goals we’ll reach and which ones we will fail to reach. Consequently, there are times when we have to try in order to discover our limits. But we can’t try half-heartedly and haphazardly. We have to have a goal, a plan and a timeframe to keep us on task. With this in mind, perhaps the truest form of failure is the refusal to explore our abilities and discover our boundaries.

Out of these 4 chapters, here are two things that I’ve taken note of:

1) When the Holy Spirit comes upon Cornelius and everyone that had gathered in his house to hear what Peter had to tell them about Jesus, the text and Peter refer to the event as the giving of “the gift of the Holy Spirit”. Not knowing what the Greek word for “gift” is or what it means in Greek, I still think that the word in English is important. Gifts are given for a variety of reasons on a wide range of occasions. Without expounding too much on that, I’ll get directly to my point which is this: gifts are often given as expressions of love. I think this is the case here as well. When God gives the gift that is His Spirit, He is demonstrating His love to the recipient. In the case of Cornelius, this act of love needed to be witnessed by Peter- a Jew- so that other Jews could get the message that God’s love is not exclusively for them. We the churched have to remember this as well: God’s love is not exclusively for the pew-warmers. He’s ready to give his gifts to anyone and everyone who is willing to receive it.

2) Twice in these four chapters, the apostles testify that forgiveness of sins comes through Jesus. Forgiveness of sins comes through Jesus. Sins are forgiven through Jesus. Jesus has made a way for sins to be forgiven. My sins are forgiven because of what Jesus has done. As you can see, turning this around and saying it in different ways helps to get the message through. Forgiveness of sins is a big deal and as an “insider” to the kingdom, I forget what a big deal it is. Often I fail to realize that I even need forgiveness. Yet, reading this verse and this verse and saying it over and over to myself helps to remind me that I need it and through the obedient work of Jesus, I have it…forgiveness of my sins.

Tonight, as is our custom, we read the boys a bedtime story before turning out the lights. Since we recently got a new kid’s book of Bible stories, we’ve been reading randomly from it. While flipping through the book, Micah found a picture of a large fish about to swallow a man with an orange beard that looked more like dread locks than whiskers. For obvious reasons, this was the story that he wanted to hear.

As I read the story of Jonah and came again to the big fish and the “Rastafarian-esque” prophet, Micah pointed to the page and said to his brother Samuel, “Look! God bit him!”

Chapter 8 opens with the beginning of the persecution of the church in Jerusalem. As a result, everyone except the apostles fled Jerusalem and went into the surrounding areas, particularly Samaria and Judea. Philip’s ministry in Samaria went well, then he was called away to explain the teachings of Isaiah to the Ethiopian.

Chapter 9 recounts the conversion of Saul and his comission to carry the gospel to both Jews and Gentiles.

Chapter 10 tells about the conversion of the Roman soldier named Cornelius.

My reflection: the gospel spread in the following order- Jews (Jersusalem), half-Jews (Samaritans), renegade Jews (Judea), proselyte Jews (Ethiopian) and then God-fearing Gentiles. From here it will spread to the pagans and the rest of the world.

All of this is exactly what Jesus told the disciples would happen in Acts 1:8.

It’s been a while since I had a gross kid story to tell. Looking back and wondering why that is, I cannot say that it’s because my kids have suddenly become wiser regarding what things should and should not enter their mouths…or other orifices.

No, I think the reason that I’ve seemingly run out of gross kid stories is because it takes a lot more to gross me out than it used to.

For example, our nine-month old son, Elijah, was scooting around the kitchen floor. Negligently, I’d left a pile of food and dirt on the floor that I’d swept together but hadn’t bothered to sweep into the dustpan and get discard. (I’m sure I was distracted by the antics of the other two boys. At least that’s the story I’m going with.) Elijah of course was drawn to that little pile but he never made it. Instead he was distracted by what was up to that point a rather gleeful little ant amazed by his great fortune and the mountain of food waiting to be hauled back home. Unfortunately for him, this ant went from admiring food to becoming food for my third son. I know this because I heard my wife saying “Get that out of your mouth!”, a phrase that no longer sends a jolt of panic through me as it did in the days of having only one child. More out of obligation than actual concern I asked what Elijah was gnawing on. Digging around his mouth with her index finger, my wife said “It’s an ant.” Unimpressed I replied that I’d rather he eats a fresh and (presumably) healthy live ant than any of the contents of the sweepings that I’d left on the floor.

Elijah eats an ant. Micah still drinks the bath water. Samuel hasn’t done anything gross lately, at least not that I’m aware of. (Who knows what he does when no one is around.) I suspect that the next time one of them finally does something that manages to wrench my gut, it’ll be so bad that I’ll be too busy with a hospital visit to bother writing about it.

…originally posted here.

…you decide.

There are only 8,000 more dollars separating me and my family from a debt-free life. It feels like those last 8 pounds that you’ve got to release before you can get into those parachute pants that you used to wear in high school; they’re tenacious and unwilling to let go and it seems like no amount of dieting and exercise is going to speed up their departure.

Had everything gone the way we’d planned it, we would be debt-free by now. Foolishly, we failed to consult and coordinate with the Taliban, Al-Qaeda, the President of the United States, Mother Nature and the uninsured motorist who wiped out our Volkswagen, and a host of other individuals and institutions who had their own plans which in some way or other ended up diverting our extra money from paying off our school loans and retiring our debt. Lest it sound all gloom and doom, two additional children were born, family members were helped with personal problems and the fallout of a natural disaster and I took on a new job which resulted in us moving into a villa large enough for three small boys to grow into comfortably. In summary, life happened.

But we had a plan and that has made all of the difference. As a result of the plan, aka “the budget”, we knew how much money we needed to live and how much we had to spare. While sitting on our cash waiting to see if the war in Afghanistan was going to require us to suddenly leave the region, we lost our car in an accident. Thanks to the plan, we had enough cash to replace it. When my wife’s cousin lost every thing he owned in a hurricane, we had cash to send him. After a couple of years of waiting for the right moment, I finally got the job that I’d been after with an engineering school in our host country. Consequently, we had to move into a new place and we paid for the entire move in cash! Sure all of these things and more dipped into our Debt-Retirement Fund, but had there been no planned fund in the first place, our situation (and others’) would have been a lot worse.

We’re just now recovering from the setback of moving house and we’re looking to shed that final 8,000 USD of financial flab. Once that’s done, it will be time to put on some parachute pants and bust a move…or celebrate in some other, more age-appropriate fashion.

With a moniker like “The World Wide Web”, you can’t help but get the impression that the Internet is huge. And, it is. So large in fact that like the World, you could never see it all. Yet for all its enormity, there is a chance that in an instant, it will contract for a moment and you’ll come across someone, something or some idea which is as familiar to you as your next-door neighbor. Here’s what I mean:

I’m the editor of a blog carnival for English Language Teaching. While cruising the web looking for ESL/EFL blog posts for my carnival, I came across a list of blogs over at About.com. One of the blogs on the list is written by a Teacher in Development.I read his post about keeping an online teaching portfolio in the blog format (a practice of mine) which had a link to a blog by James Matthew. Since I found the referred post so interesting and relevant to what I’m doing at work, I took a look at his About page. On this page, James has written that he was recently given a book called, Everyday Apocalypse by David Dark. I went to college with David Dark and considered him more than just an acquaintance. Oddly enough, when we “met” in college, we realized that we had in fact met several years earlier when we were both in high school working a telethon at the local public broadcasting station trying to keep Dr. Who on the air.

How many degrees is that?

PS-While looking up the link for D’s book, I came to find out that he’s got another one published. So now I know someone who has had two books published.

Curiouser and curiouser.

It’s been an enlightening evening theological speaking.

This afternoon Samuel was crowding his mom and stepping on his littlest brother to get to her. She told him to stop; that he was going to “crush the baby”. Demonstrating his solid grasp of the Christian doctrine of resurrection Samuel told her, “That’s okay. Jesus will make him again.”

Then there was his prayer at the dinner table.

Tonight, my wife, our third child and I went to an Ethiopian wedding party. Even though it didn’t cost much more than the price of the babysitter for Samuel and Micah, it still wasn’t a cheap date. All the same, I’m glad that we went.

When I first started to write about this event, I thought that my narrative was too long, so I’ll just cover the points that really stood out in my mind.

The first thing that stands out to me is that the party was held in the city’s central bus station. There is a room on the mezzanine floor that looked like it was originally some kind of cafeteria during the 1960’s when the building from probably first built. We had plenty of time to look at the decorations and absorb the ambience of the banquet hall because even though the invitation said the party started at six; it didn’t really get jumping until about 7 or 7:30. We arrived between 6:15 and 6:30.

The second thing that stood out immediately was my wife, my son and myself. At first, we were the only white people in the place. By the end of the evening, there were only about 5 more. I expected as much and there’s wasn’t anything terribly uncomfortable about it. I mention it only because we were so conspicuous.

Thirdly, the majority of the guests were women. Not only were they women, but the majority of them were simply lovely. Both my wife and I were struck by just how pretty so many of the young women were, and they were young. My guess is that most of them were under the age of thirty. It was explained to us by our helper’s cousin that most Ethiopian men can make just as much money in their home country so it’s only the young women who come here to work predominately as housekeepers.

The few men who were in attendance seemed to be associated in some fashion with the church. It was an Ethiopian Orthodox wedding so there was at least one priest present. The groom is a deacon of the church so I suspect that there were other deacons present as well.

Another element that stands out is the singing group that was supplied by the church. Long before the bride and groom showed up, there was singing going on, whether it was pre-recorder, the group or the guests. Noticeably absent were any instruments in the pre-recorded music. The only instruments used in the hall were two large drums played by two small young women in the singing group. The singing group was particularly eye-catching because they were dressed in a white gauze like material that was wrapped around them in such a way that reminded me of ancient burial clothes. I know that’s a creepy image, but whenever I looked at them, I kept flashing back to the flannel boards of my childhood in Sunday school and seeing Lazarus “come forth”. However, the similarity to corpses ended with the clothing because their smiling faces, vibrant singing, clapping and drumming all testified to their liveliness.

The bride also caught our eyes. As she and Solomon came up the stairs into the banquet hall and moved in a slow procession to the platform where they were seated on two ornate thrones, I noticed that her large eyes, petite nose, tiny lips and pointed chin gave her the appearance of an Orthodox icon of Mary. How appropriate, I thought. She was lovely.

The final element that stood out was the Ethiopian food. It was delicious even though we were told that they had intentionally held back on the chili and other spices. Utensils were available, but eating with the right hand seemed to be perfectly acceptable, which is what I did. Solomon and his bride were served first and fed each other by hand. Additionally, the male and female attendants fed each other by hand as well as the bride and groom. I didn’t see anyone else doing it but then again, I was a bit distracted by my small son and my own plate.

Unfortunately, we had to leave early so I don’t know what other traditions we didn’t get to see or take part in. I’m just glad we thought to get the sitter so Jennifer and I could experience this unusual event together.

Whenever we leave the states and head back to the host country we say that it’s time to get back to “surreality”. This is because there’s a veneer of modernity and familiarity about this place that tricks us into operating as though we understand our surroundings but then something happens that reminds us just how different the dominant culture here is. Here’s one example.

My financial guru, Dave Ramsey does a great job of explaining why leasing a car is a raw deal. This evening I was parroting Dave to my Lebanese neighbor who works for a major company/family here, explaining to him why I don’t lease cars. My neighbor told me that one of the businesses that his company has is auto leasing and that in this country, auto-leasing is not profitable. In fact, he said that the leasing agencies here actually loose money. I told him that I simply could not believe that. Why else would they be in the business if it wasn’t profitable. Here’s how he explained it:

Auto leasing agencies in my host country make their profit by selling the carsfrom their fleet after 36 months in other markets-mainly Asia and the former Soviet Union. Since the profit is made by selling these leased vehicles, the paradigm that they work from is not that of a Western auto-leasing business but from a used car trading business.

So, if you followed the link to Dave’s explanation of why one shouldn’t lease (in America), you find that he’s still right even in this context: some one has to take the hit and apparently in my host country, the leasing agent is willing to take the hit for 36 months because they stand to make it all back and then some when they unload these used cars in foreign markets.

Of course, it’s still a bad deal for the consumer. Afterall, even if the agent is losing money on the lease agreement, it’s not like the consumer is keeping it. No, it’s still better to own your own car out right, save an average car payment a month until you can afford a newer car and let the interest for that money accrue in your account and not the bank’s. Even my neighbor had to eventually agree with that.

It was Friday morning and as usual we went to church today. (For those of you who don’t know, we do church on Friday in the host culture because Sunday is a work day.) What was not usual was the exorcism that was going on in a classroom upstairs across from where my oldest son joins the other children for some singing before his Bible class.

I guess it was an exorcism. The four praying Ethiopian women piled on top of a twitching and moaning fifth one certainly believed it was an exorcism. The Scotsman who went into the classroom to check on things came out and said that apparently the young woman on the floor was under a “demonic oppression” but that her praying friends were having “some success”. Having not seen her condition prior to my arrival, I don’t guess that I’m qualified to either prove or disprove his assessment, but from my vantage point the poor girl didn’t seem to be getting much relief.

As I stood outside the classroom door looking in through and long, narrow pane of glass, I prayed for the girl and for those trying to help her, but I was not convinced that what I was wittnessing was in fact demonic in origin. I couldn’t help but think, “Okay, if these women are praying in the name of Jesus why is it taking so long?” Reflecting back on the confrontations of Jesus and his disciples with evil/unclean/ spirits/demons, my impression was that these encounters didn’t involve long battles. Granted, there was an occasional dialogue but ultimately the authority of Jesus (and the imputed authority given to his disciples) made short work of these spirits. Perhaps the gospels and Acts cut out some of the sequence but I honestly don’t think so. So why was it taking so long for these four young women (and their small congregation of praying sisters in a nearby room) to see the deliverance of their friend?

While we’re asking questions: why didn’t they get help? Why wasn’t the entire congregation in the auditorium below told what was going on and asked to pray for this poor girl? What good did my own prayers do for this girl? What was really going on?

Is she okay now?

The “final blow” to the Church is going to be dealt by a 72 year-old, small-town, Italian athiest in a court of human law?

All I can say is, if this truly is the knock out blow, then the Church ought to disappear and we disciples of Jesus ought to find a new reason to live.

My money is on the Messiah.

Here’s the question:

When John B’s audience heard him say that the one who was coming after him (i.e. Jesus) would baptize them with the Holy Spirit, what did they think he meant by that? Was that a comprehensible statement to them?

Here are my current thoughts:

Since the Jews did not have a modern Trinitarian understanding of God, it’s safe to say that they did not understand John to be saying that the third person of the Godhead would come to dwell in their bodies. That’s the easy part-saying what they did not think. Now the hard part, which is purely conjecture at this point.

Perhaps the Jews drew no distinction between YHWH (aka God) and his Spirit. Maybe to them, saying God and saying the Holy Spirit was the same thing; sort of like saying that Daniel and Dan refer to the same person-me. Since they were expecting the Messiah and since there was an understanding that at the time of his coming God would personally avenge his chosen people upon their pagan enemies and restore the Earth to it’s proper state, the audience simply understood John to be saying something like, “I baptize you with water (like the other ritual baths of purification with which you are familiar) in order to prepare you for the anticipated coming of God, who will immerse you into his presence.” This way, John is preparing the way for the Messiah without claiming to be the Messiah himself, which we know was a question that the people had about him.

Got this Bible reading plan from Robert over at Daddy Speak. It certainly is manageable.

The plan for now is to follow this plan and also to blog some of the reflections that we have while doing it in the comming year. DS has a category for these specific posts. I’m not sure if I’ll repost them here or link them or what. We’ll have to wait and see.

Earlier this week, one of the first cell phones that we bought in this country finally crossed over from the “repair” category to the “replace” category, so yesterday I (along with the family) went to one of the malls to get a new one. Since it’s going to be used by Dehab, our domestic assistant, all we need is basic communication.

As I approached the counter a short, rotund, middle-aged Indian man was there looking at a phone and being helped by a tall, lanky, young Indian man. I patiently waited my turn and when the salesman turned his attention to me, I asked to see “Model X for cheap”. He reached down, took it out of the case and handed it to me. As I was looking it over, the young man said something.

“Smohdltreblonzero.”

I didn’t catch it so I asked him to repeat what he said.

“Smohdltreblonzero.”

Again, I had no idea what the smiling face was trying to say to me, and I frankly told him so. The clerk looked around sheepishly with an expression that seemed to say, “I don’t know any other way to communicate this to you,” and then he repeated the nonsensical word to me again adding something about the phone. I’m not sure but I think the older man said something which penetrated the fog between us and made me realize that the clerk was trying to tell me the model number. We were off to a good start.

Having essentially joined our conversation, the older man took an interest in the phone now known as “model triple one zero” and asked, “Is it color?” in reference to the screen. The young man said that it was. I was fiddling with the buttons and not fully tuned in, so I repeated the question for verification. “It is color?” “Yes sir!” he replied then proceeded to put in the demo sim card and a battery for me to check it out. When the screen came to life and it was apparent from the logo that the display was in fact not color, the clever salesman pointed out that the display was “yellow”.

Yellow. Remember the old “green screen” of yesteryear? Same concept, only yellow.

I looked at him over the top of my glasses. “You said it was color…” and before he could say anything else I interjected, “…I guess you’re going to tell me that yellow is a color.” He smiled through his embarrassment.

I asked to take a look at a different model which was slightly more expensive. Again, I asked if the screen was color. Again, the young man responded enthusiastically in the affirmative. Not wanting to be disappointed again, I asked if the color in question was yellow or orange or some other hue. “Oh, no sir. This one is color.” His emphasis was not comforting.

I realize now that the old Cheese Shoppe skit of Monty Python was not just a bit of English nonsense, but rather an homage to the kind of interaction which doubtlessly plagued took place on a daily basis between the colonial powers and their subjects when India was a jewel in the British Crown.

You’ll find this post over at DS.

Here’s the latest of the Festival of Frugality. I think the name pretty much tells you what it’s about. People who are in the process of getting out of debt and taking control of their finances would probably like to check it out.

Local media has a wealth of Indian programming and occasionally, I like to tune in. I don’t understand a single word of any of the various Indian languages that are spoken but fortunately it’s common for there to be copious amounts of English injected into the speech.

This morning, after finishing my Dave Ramsey podcast, I tuned into one of the Indian stations and came across a pop song that amused me. This song, like so very many others, was a duet. The verses were in one of the Indian languages and the chorus was in English. Interspersed were some other bits of spoken English and this is what I could gather. The boy (singing) tells the girl how he fell in love with this style of music, who inspired him and how he became a “rock star”, then he asks her (speaking in English) “What about you? Come on girl!” The girl replies with the same information (singing in Indian) and among those artist who inspired her she lists George Michael. The verse ends and the boy says in English (with my best Apu voice) “George Michael? He’s gay. You know, he’s the other way.” No malice. No hostility. Just the tone of voice that one adopts when filling the gaps in another’s information.

Can’t imagine hearing that kind of thing on US radio can you?

…you get into the car, turn on the cassette player only to find that it’s one of your kids’ tapes inside, don’t bother to change it out and continue on your merry way grooving to the tunes and singing right along.

When I go back to the states each summer for a visit, my brother and I invariably discuss the topic of democratization of the Middle East. He’s optimistic and believes that it’s the best thing for the region. He also believes that the people of the region want democracy. On the other hand, I’m much more guarded and uncertain. You might even say cynical. I’ve been known to be cynical from time to time.

In a classroom activity that I did today, I asked students to take a look at several sentences that expressed an opinion about the Middle East and to tell me which ones they agreed with. Predictably, their answers focused on the positive opinions with one unnotable exception. One opinion on the list which was not mentioned in the class discussion at all was, “Democracy will one day spread throughout the Middle East.” Between classes, one of my sharper and more religious students came up to me and asked me if I agreed with this opinion. I told him that I really don’t know if I agree or not. Despite the need for circumspection that is called for when such topics come up between a local and an expat, my answer was honest. I’m just not sure if democracy will (or even can) take root and flourish here. (I’m not entirely sure that it must. Another post for another time.) Then it occurred to me that we may not be talking about the same thing, so I asked my student to tell me what he thought “democracy” means.

The young, devout, Arab man told me that democracy means that men and women are equal, that a good man and a bad man are equal and that the voice of the minority is “ignored” by the majority. He told me that democracy will not spread in the Middle East because “the religion won’t allow it”. Perhaps the most revealing comment he made was; it is unfair to “ignore” the minority and let the majority have its way.

I can’t say that this student is representative of the Arab view, but imagine if he is. Can you imagine democracy (as he understands it) ever being embraced in this part of the world? It runs completely counter to their worldview, in much the same way that Imperialism runs completely counter to the worldview of the majority of Americans. Imagine Kim Jung Il of North Korea with a similar role on the world stage as George Bush going around and telling the US and the rest of Western Civilization that it should embrace Communism and dictatorships. It is impossible for you to imagine that you could ever be given enough good reasons or logical arguments to persuade you to give up your individual rights and freedoms, right? This is the level of absurdity and offensiveness that some Arabs must see in the invitation (or is it admonition?) to become democratic nations/societies.

I was spanked as a child. Not excessively. Not abusively. Not unjustly…as far as I can recall. As a result, I’ve always believed that spanking is a legitimate form of discipline. When Jennifer and I started talking about having kids and how to raise them, we agreed that spanking has its place in the parent’s disciplinary repertoire. We set up some rules, some parameters for when to spank and when not to spank. Nothing original: spank for “biggies” like hurting others, don’t spank when angry, one swat to the bare bottom with the hand is sufficient, no belts or paddles. That kind of thing. We agreed that we wouldn’t start spanking until around the age of 3, not before. I suppose I saw this as some kind of enlightened conservatism; an alternative to the often anemic, occasionally outright permissive approach I associate with liberal thought.

With the birth of each child and the each additional hour of sleep lost, the ability to spank within the boundaries that we had laid down deteriorated. We also found that Samuel seemed to be getting a disproportional amount of corporal punishment, and equally importantly, we weren’t seeing a change in his behavior. Hence the “cease-fire”.

My wife has been so thoroughly convicted that she’s told Samuel that she will not spank him any more. I have not made that promise. Why? I’m simply not ready to say it to him. I’m afraid that if I say it, then screw up and don’t follow through, it’ll come back to bite me at some later date. For me, the removal of the spanking option is classified information shared between me, my wife and anyone else NOT Samuel…or Micah for that matter.

Now, we’re in the process of retraining ourselves. We’re reading a book and trying to incorporate some suggestions that we’ve found in it. Personally, I’m trying to control those things that I can such as the amount of shouting I do and the amount of positive interaction (i.e. play time) that I have with them. I can’t control how much sleep any of us are getting, but I can’t allow that to shorten my fuse and impair my judgment to the point that my little “sinners” see themselves as being in the hands of an “angry” father.

Got a call from my wife about 15 minutes ago; Elijah (aka Mangrum 3.0) crawled for the first time this morning!

The chase begins!

It was a cold December day. We gathered together our closest family and our dearest friends from near and far…very far. After many long hours of conversation, comparing our notes on what it means to share a life, build a family and live under the direction of God, we decided that we would leave our separate paths to take a new road together. It’s now six years later and we are still working on the mystery of making our two selves into one flesh animated by the One Spirit.

A friend of mine had told me that he was getting married and I asked him why this particular girl. I was stunned by his complete inability to answer the question. He appeared to have no idea. When I decided that I wanted to marry Jennifer, I knew why.

I started praying for my future wife at around age 15 after hearing some youth rally (anyone remember those?) speaker tell his audience that it was a good idea. He encouraged us not to be afraid to get specific. No detail was too small for God. I can’t say that I kept it up for the next 14 years, but many features on that list stayed in the back of my mind. I wanted someone who was two to three years on either side of me, older or younger. At the time, she had to be shorter than me. I liked girls with black/dark hair more than blondes or redheads. She had to be able to sing well. (I didn’t want to spend the rest of my life sitting next to someone in church who couldn’t carry a tune.) She had to make good brownies.

As I got older, I realized the truth that you don’t get just the girl; you get her whole family. That’s when it became important to me to find someone whose parents were still married. On the other side of the equation, I had matured enough to admit that it was important to me that my parents like the woman I marry.

As I traveled, I decided that communicating across gender boundaries was difficult enough without complicating the issue with things like culture and language. I came to the realization that I preferred to marry someone from the US…and not just the US, but the South. One day, I absent-mindedly commented to myself that I’d like to marry a girl from Texas…I don’t know why. About the same time that I came to this conclusion, I also acknowledged that I really preferred to marry someone who shared my religious heritage even though I didn’t have high hopes for that to happen. Simplifying such a complex decision like marriage seemed like a good idea and having these things in place would certainly simplify the relationship.

It took me fourteen years to refine my criteria by adding and subtracting various elements but by the time I was 29, I had about as clear an image of the kind of person I wanted to spend my life with as I was probably ever going to have. So, when Jennifer and I met it was a matter of finding out enough about her to see where the gaps were.

Jennifer didn’t leave many gaps. I was stunned. From such a little thing as being able to make brownies to such big things as sharing a cultural and religious heritage, Jennifer had it all…or rather almost all. The more time I spent with her, the clearer it became to me that she was someone that I could spend my life with. The question that I had to answer was “Would she be the one?” Prayer and time did their work and we agreed to get married.

I love her because she understands me, forgives me and does her best to love me the way that I need to be loved. Knowing that love is the product of shared experience over time, I know that I did not love her at the beginning as much as I do now. I also know that I will grow to love her more as time passes and we share more of our life together. I’m still learning how to love her and I’m planning on getting better at it.

My friend, Tim Johnson, performed the ceremony for our wedding six years ago today and he told me, “Remember, you don’t deserve her.” He was right.

Posted this over at DS. Got a long comment from my friend Jill that should be interesting to read. Wonder if there’ll be any more bites?

I got this from a daily John Stott commentary that I get via e-mail. At the moment, the book is Romans and the topic is God’s righteousness as it’s revealed in the propitiation made by Christ.

Ingest it.

Charles Cranfield has expressed it with care and eloquence:
‘God, because in his mercy he willed to forgive sinful men,
and being truly merciful, willed to forgive them righteously, that
is, without in any way condoning their sin, purposed to direct
against his own very Self in the person of his Son the full weight
of that righteous wrath which they deserved.’

It was 4:30 in the morning. Samuel was up early. He’d had accident and was waiting for his mother to find him fresh underwear. Standing there naked, my four-year old said with innocent surprise, “Hey, I touched something in my ear!”

Taking his finger from his ear and examing what he found, Samuel announced with a smile, “It’s butter!”

I hope that when he discovers what’s between his toes, it will be a much more reasonable hour of the day.

Found this link at DS and thought that I’d try my hand at writing a poem. Here are two that I’ve come up with so far:

Mom Sample
Why must she say this?
“Don’t hit brother with the fish!”
Yes, she spoke those words.

Doggy Doo
Closer and closer.
Hal and I had a wager.
My son touched poop first!

and I have one more over at DS that’s a bit heavier.

Special thanks to my wife who pointed out that the original version of Doggy Doo had one too many syllables in the last line. Good thing I changed it before anyone else saw it.

According to my son Samuel, these are the things that elves make.

Yesterday I was putting together a car play set for Samuel that he’d gotten a week or so earlier for his birthday. In the glow of the Christmas tree with the streaming holiday music coming from the computer, it felt much more like a Christmas moment than a birthday event.

As I was trying to snap together the cheap plastic ramps and support beams for this three-story parking garage, Samuel and his brother Micah were doing their best to drive their little cars on it. Since I was obviously in the way (never mind that I was the loving father putting the thing together) Micah stood on my crossed legs in order to have a better position from which to maneuver his ride. Being in such close proximity to my little boy’s “trunk”, I caught the familiar aroma of the contraband that he was hauling in there.

“Micah,” I said, “Are you poopy?”
“No. I not poopy!” he said and kept on driving.
I had him stand still while I took a look. Of course he was, so I facetiously said, “If you’re not poopy, how’d that get in there?”

At this point Samuel cheerfully chirped up saying, “Elves put it in there!”

Whatever happened to coal in the stocking?

I just posted my self-introduction over at DaddySpeak if you want to take a look.

I’m still trying to decide which content I’ll post where. I’ll work it out.

I got the word from Robert that DaddySpeak is ready to roll!

The question for me is how much to cross-post. You see, there’s a lot of overlap between what I write here at AO and what ‘bert wants to appear on DS. For him, it’s a cleaner cut. He’s retired brightmystery and created his math/geek blog and DS. (BTW: what does CO9 mean ‘bert?)

I think that I’ll try to generate some original material for each blog. I’ll keep the gross kid stories primarily to AO…unless ‘bert asks for them.

And then there is my teaching blog and my blog carnival to tend to. I wonder if I’m over doing it just a bit?

My post “An Offer I can’t Refuse” has been linked at the Carnival of Debt Reduction.

I’m so pumped!

But don’t read this. Read the actual post!

We’ve all been sick. Each of the boys from the oldest to the youngest has had a steady ooze of mucus in varying shades of green and yellow from their pert little noses for the last several days…or has it been weeks?

Recently, my wife told me that Samuel was enjoying a bowl of popcorn by burying his face into it when she got onto him. She said not to do that because he was sick and that his nose was runny-implying that it would contaminate the popcorn. The point was totally lost on Samuel. He raised his head to look at her and there fastened just under his nose was a single fluffy white kernal of popcorn pasted by a trickle of snot. When my wife pointed it out to him, Samuel removed it and without a flinch popped it in his mouth and polished it off.

Today, Samuel’s younger brother Micah came into the livingroom drinking from a tall plastic cup annoucing “I got water from Dehab!”(our helper). I don’t know how the water migrated into the kitchen where I found it and decided to take a sip. The moment that the water touch my tongue I knew that my middle son had misspoken. What he had meant to tell us was, “I got a glass of dirty water from Dehab’s mop bucket and it tastes like a pine tree!”

No, that’s not a hospital you smell. It’s my new mouth wash!

I’ve changed the template…in case you didn’t notice.

The whole space theme was starting to wear a bit thin and I was getting frustrated that the blog’s tagline wasn’t showing. I thought if I changed the template it would. I was wrong. Anyway, I’m going to go with this one for a while.

For the curious: the tagline should read
“Welcome to the blogosphere. Remember, all blogs are basically pretentious and narcissistic at their core, so don’t worry about it and just write what you want.” R.Talbert

This was my friend Robert wrote to me when I told him that I was thinking about blogging. I’ve cherished that quote ever since. BTW, ‘bert is the guy that I’ll be group blogging with over at DaddySpeak.com BUT don’t visit just yet. It’s not quite ready. I’ll let you know.

Also, for those who have not heard, the name of this blog is an anagram of my first and middle name. Nothing spiritual or mysterious about it. I could have just as easily used the names Maudlin German or Languid Merman both of which were produced by an anagram generator for my first and last name.

I grew up being taught that it was acceptable to sing “Amazing Grace” with musical instruments on Saturday night at midnight in a concert venue, however it was a damnable sin to do the same things roughly eight hours later under the roof of the church building. Is it any wonder then that it took me a while to get to a point to where I could listen to any “Christian” music beyond the confines of Sunday morning that involved something other than 4 part harmony?

Once I finally did tune into CCM, I have to say that I was sorely disappointed. It seemed that it didn’t matter how unimaginative or boring the songs were, they were good because they were about God and not the staple subjects of “the Devil’s music”.

Over time, I either found the good stuff that was always out there or the general quality of artists improved. (I think it’s a bit of both.) It wasn’t until I grew up and started having kids that I was introduced to Contemporary Christian music for kids. While I’m sure that there’s a lot of it out there that I’ll be avoiding, there’s a guy from Australia that I think ROCKS! And so do my kids.

To be sure, there are a few clinkers in the catalogue to my mind but they are few. I think that my favorite songs of his are the ones that take Bible verses and put them to music to help kids memorized them. This is a tricky thing to do in my opinion and to do it well is probably a Spiritual gift.

Check Colin’s site. Unfortunately he doesn’t have any samples. I reccommend this one.

Some times we Christians can get bogged down in some rather pointless discussions. Usually, those tedious conversations revolve around doctrine. Don’t misunderstand me; I love doctrine. In fact, I tend to love it more than the Author of the faith from whom doctrine comes and I find myself erroneously behaving as though my right doctrine puts me in right standing with Him-but that’s another post for a different day.

Today I found myself once again sitting in on the tired discussion of salvation by faith versus salvation by works. Eventually, I couldn’t keep silent any longer and had to say my piece. My piece was partially borrowed from (I think) NT Wright who may have said that no verse of Scripture “trumps” another one. I said that we’re all capable of playing the game where we chant “What about the verse that says…” to one another then proceed to pile up Biblical references which we believe prove our side of the arguement. I also commented that the Bible says that we’re saved by grace, faith and works and that this is in some way a mystery on par with the Biblical doctrine of the Trinity. Mysterious but still true.

As I thought about it later, I might have overstated my point a bit. While I can easily find those Scriptures which say (in English) that we are saved by grace and faith, I don’t think I can find anything that says verbatim that we are saved by works…but I certainly can point to passages that say other things which would are hard for some believers reconcile with a “grace only” approach to soteriology. Here are a few of my favorites:

We are saved by
standing firm
calling on the name of the Lord
confessing with the mouth
by the gospel
God
child bearing
baptism
My point?
It’s all revealed Truth so it’s all true! The Bible says that these things save us, so they must in some way which (despite apparent contridictions) is not at all contrdictory. Conversations that shed some light on the coherence of these veres would be more beneficial than a game of “Gotcha!” with God’s word.

Imagine that you finally landed that plum job with the prestigious company that you’ve been pursuing for four years. Further imagine that in addition to the increased salary and improved health insurance this company offers you an interest free car loan. No hidden fees. No gimmicks. The loan is truly interest free and payable in 48 monthly installments directly deducted from your salary. Further imagine that your current car is increasingly unreliable, expensive to repair and barely able to carry you, your spouse and your three small children ages 4, 2 and 8 months. Would you take the loan?

I suspect that the majority of people who read this can’t imagine an interest free car loan, however it not as fanciful as it appears. I work for an oil company outside of the United States and this is one of the benefits offered to me. Most people I know here in my host country would read this and respond with an almost unequivocal “Yes!”, unless they had been taught the financial folly of purchasing a car on credit.

My wife and I vowed to live debt-free nearly six years ago shortly after we got married. Since then we have been devoted to our written budget and we have lived on less than we earn. We paid cash for our 1997 Dodge Intrepid and once we pay off the last 8000 USD of an outstanding school loan, we will owe nothing to anyone. Even though we are committed to this alternative lifestyle, there have been times when we wanted to give up. For me, nearly every one of those times has come on the heels of the most recent mechanical malfunction of our car.

We bought this car following the loss of our VW Jetta in an accident and a long, disappointing search for a minivan that we could afford. Every minivan we found in our price range had been either neglected or mistreated to such a degree as to be unfit for the road. There was one exception, but the dealer waited too long to accept our offer thereby inadvertantly giving me time to research myself out of the deal. Our van quest was taking too long so we set a deadline for buying a vehicle that would contain all of us plus an extra child who would come along eventually. The Dodge was an answer to prayer. It was the right price and would comfortably accommodate three car seats across the back. We bought it from the original owner, a member of the church board who was relocating and wanted to sell it, so we felt about as good as we could about the purchase even though it was certainly not a family car in the fullest sense of the term.

During this calendar year, we have spent more to repair the car than we paid for it when we bought it about two years ago. Each time I go to the mechanic, I remind myself of this. Every time I have to strain across one of the older children to put our infant in his seat in the middle of the car, I curse my car’s sporty design. Whenever Son #1 and Son #2 get into a fight because they are too close to each other during a journey, I covet the third row of seating in the minivans peacefully passing by me. Every accidental bump of a child’s head on the roof while putting him into his car seat takes a chunk out of my fortress of resolve to only pay cash for cars. When I am at my lowest the only thing standing between me and the rapturous joy of owning a minivan is a principle. Thank God.

Principles make life much easier to live. You see, I have adopted a principle: I will not use credit any more. That’s it. If I can’t pay for it in cash, then I don’t get it. As uncomfortable and unpleasant as I (and my children) find my circumstances, I like them better than the alternatives. Imagine if I took the loan, then before the minivan could be paid off I lose it in an accident. Not only do I not have the use of the vehicle, I’m still having the monthly payment deducted from my check. Sure, there’s a chance that insurance would cover my loss, but in this country the chances are much greater that it won’t. (Expats are generally at fault regardless if an accident involves a local. No, not fair, but that’s how it is.) Even if I don’t have an accident and lose the vehicle, I’ve got 48 months of receiving a lighter check. Some months I might not notice it but during those months when the van has to be repaired (and it will need repair because it’s a machine) I would really hate those reduced salary pay slips. Furthermore, as the minivan decreased in value over those 48 months and wear and tear increased, my payments wouldn’t decrease. I would continue to pay the same for something that was increasingly worth less. Finally, I couldn’t bear to look at myself in the mirror or be seen by anyone who knows how intense I am about refusing to buy a car with a loan. I would be mortified by my inability to hold on to my convictions in the face of temptation. You see, I know deep down that the rapturous joy of owing on a minivan is not preferable to the quiet contentment of owning one…after I’ve saved the money and paid cash for it.

I’ve been toying with the idea of starting a carnival like this one in order to centralize some inspiring stories and experiences about getting out of debt and living debt free. I think instead I’ll prepare a post for the next carnival which will be over here.

I think I’ll write about struggling with the tempation to take out a car loan. More on that later.

The youth pastor spoke this Friday at church and he told a story about himself that went something like this.

Neil’s nine-year old son was climbing the wall around the church compound one day when he got stuck. He said to the boy, “What are you doing? Get down from there!” His son said, “Will you help me?” Thinking that his son wanted his help to finish his climb, Neil told the child “No!” and walked away. Later when the boy came inside, Neil saw that the child’s arms were scraped up pretty badly. Neil said to his son, “What have you done?” and before the boy could respond Neil sent him to see his mother. Shortly afterwards, Neil’s wife comes up to him and with a tone she reserves for her mate when he’s in for it, she asked “What really happened?” Neil explained to her how he had caught their dear boy half-way up the wall, how he had told the darling lad to get down and how the cheeky monkey had asked for his help to finish the climb. Neil’s wife responded, “No. He was stuck and was asking for your help to get him down from there. You walked away and left him to do it himself.”

The connection between this story and the point of his sermon has faded away from my memory, but the strong pang of embarrassment that I felt when he finished the story hasn’t. I was embarrassed because his interchange with his son could have easily been between my oldest son and myself. Realizing that hurt.
Why is it that when the moment of testing comes, I probably won’t remember this story and choose another course of action?

Not long ago I read an article from a pysch-ologist, -oanalyst, - ology major (I’m not exactly sure which) whose theme was maintaining one’s humor while parenting. She was commenting on the difference between discipline and punishment. Her opinion is that discipline protects the dignity of the child while punishment damages the child’s dignity, consequently destroying humor. It sounded good to me at the time.

A couple of days later I found myself questioning the idea that small children posses a sense of dignity when I saw my four year old’s naked bottom pointed skyward as he lay, flung over the edge of the bathtub with his giggling, two year old brother trying to “tickle” him. Upon further reexamination of the premise, I recalled the time that number one son, completely unconcerned for his dignity, pulled down his pants and urinated on the sidewalk of the institute where I currently work. Then there is the way that my sons revel in public nudity. So much so in fact that they have a song to celebrate it. My wife and I call it the “Nakis Song” because our sons will dance around singing, “Nakis! Nakis! I am Nakis!” It’s not important who sees or what those people think. They’re “nakis” and its fun!

I have more evidence that children at this age are not concerned with dignity. Consider the tantrums they throw. My sons have screamed, cried and defied us in such public places as airports, malls and supermarkets (fully clothed no less) without a care for how they might be judged by others. One has eaten dried bird droppings at the park. Neither one of them is hindered by their dignity when it comes to retrieving a booger whenever and whereever the need arises.

No, I’d have to say that children, at least my children, do not have a strong sense of dignity in the early years. It must be something that they acquire later on…I hope so any way.

Naming the new “daddy blog” is difficult. I’ve thought of several names but none of them have truly captured my imagination…nor the imagination of my friend Robert whose idea it was to do the joint blog. I don’t know what it’ll be called in the end…or when we’ll actually get it started for that matter. There are just so many other more pressing issues in both of our lives.

Which makes me think:

Isn’t it a conflict of interests for the period of “career building” and the period of “family building” to coincide they way they tend to in Western culture? I seem to recall something being said about the 30’s and 40’s being the time in a man’s life that he’s building his career, achieving his goals to position himself for a fun-filled and secure retirement. Yet, this is also the time that we’re getting married and having children. Long hours of work toward professional advancement/ achievement tend to subplant time with children. What about other activities besides work? When is a father supposed to pursue other interests besides work? I think about how much I’d like to learn a new skill that I could use to increase my financial independence. I think about how I’d really like to spend more time with my wife without being so tired that I can’t keep my eyes open during a conversation. I’d love to read more. What about working on spiritual disciplines such as prayer? I’m amazed at anyone who can be a good father while still settting and attaining other goals.

Suppose I should have saved that one for the other blog, whatever it’s called, once it’s up and running?

According to this article , the French are coming to terms with the fact that ethnicity, culture and race are factors which can not be ignored by the leadership. As I understood the piece, the French government has made policy decisions for many years without taking into account these factors in the belief that by ignoring them, they will lose their influence in society and everyone regardless of ethnicity, culture and race will become simply and equally French. Now it seems that they are waking up to the reality that society takes note of these aspects of its member whether the government does or not.

I hope that as the French start to grapple with this issue that they learn to relate more graciously and humbly with the US and the rest of the world. Now that violence has come about as a result of their failure to enact “liberty, fraternity and equality” for the minorities of their society, I hope that the French will see that they do not have a moral high ground from which to look down upon America’s failure to actualize “liberty and justice for all”.

Of course, I don’t expect the French to become more gracious and humble in their relationship to the US and the world but maybe that’s because I believe that unregenerate humans and their institutions can’t be expected to exhibt such virtures.

Driving home from work yesterday, I heard this interview with the mayor of Bethlehem.

I was particularly intrigued by his statement that all Christians are citizens of Bethlehem since it is “the cradle of Christianity”. He carries this metaphor to the next level by offering legal citizenship along with a passport to any/all Christians.

For a while now, as I’ve lived outside of the US, I’ve been in the process of coming to see myself as a citizen of the Kingdom of God with my worldview, ethics and loyalities being defined by that citizenship. The idea that I should have some patriotic sentiment towards Bethlehem as an outgrowth of my religion doesn’t exactly offend me, but it does not compel me to claim my passport either.

While not a big fan of the Harry Potter books, I have enjoyed the ones I’ve read. So for fun I visited a fan site and got myself “sorted”.


I’m
a Gryffindor!

…will anyone notice?

That’s pretty much how I’m feeling about the CELT, my attempt at hosting an EFL related blog carnival. I’ve posted a bit about this over at the blogfolio but I thought that I would write about it more personally over here.

Basically, I’ve recieved only one post from a contributor. There has be no other response whatsoever. I don’t even think that my colleagues at my school have shared the invitation with others they think would be interested. (This is especially discouraging since one of them is a relatively big player in the area of CALL.) Consequently I’m bummed out.

It might not be so bad if I were getting more readers on the other two blogs, however I have to admit I shouldn’t expect many readers. I just haven’t been out there commenting like I ought to in order to attract people.

I hope that Robert will get back to me and we can blog together like he suggested. I’d hate to call it quits entirely but I’m just not sure how much longer I want to write into the ether.

Here’s the result of a Rate My Life Quiz.
If you know me, you know that this thing should be graded on a curve which would add another 2 to 3 points.

This Is My Life, Rated
Life:	6.6
Mind:	6.3
Body:	6.7
Spirit:	7.2
Friends/Family:	6.5
Love:	7.3
Finance:	6.4
Take the Rate My Life Quiz

Maybe it’s just my kids who are gross. Maybe it’s just my son Micah.

This morning, he and I had breakfast together. In good Southern fashion, I fried up a skillet of potatoes for the family. Sam sat welded to the TV while Jennifer and Elijah were sleeping upstairs. So it was just me and Micah at the breakfast table in the kitchen.

Micah likes ketchup with potatoes. Micah also likes milk. I’d finished my breakfast and gone to check on Sam. I was away too long. I walked back into the kitchen as the last drop of milk fell from his plastic cup into his Monsters Inc. bowl making an unappetizing soup of his fried potatoes and ketchup. Defeated, I shuffled over to the table and wordlessly took his bowl away. Micah said, “No trash! Want it!” I paused and thought that maybe he should have a bit as a sort of deterrent to future experiments. I spooned up a bite and he took it. In fact, I fed most of it to him.

Apparently, the ketchup stayed in the bottom of the soup for the majority of the meal. By the time a pink tinge had permeated the milk, Micah was pretty much full. Yet, I poured it all back into his cup and offered it to him. He called it chocolate and took a drag on his straw. Hearing that it was chocolate, Samuel who’d recently joined us said that he wanted some. I warned him that it was not chocolate but milk and ketchup. My four-year had to give it a go anyway. He was terribly disappointed. Micah took his last hit of the mixture which I suppose had reached the wrong ratio of milk to ketchup because his last slurp was followed by “Yucky!” and an attempt to wipe the taste off his tongue.

And yet as gross as this was, it doesn’t even come close to the time that Samuel ate the dried bird poop at the park.

You would think that someone who has been as unsucessfull (read: unread) as I’ve been with the whole blogging experience would refrain from starting another venue for blogging to one’s self, but not me! Nope, I’m going to participate in the launch of one more blog because I love the sound of my own blog.

Actually, I’m going to participate in a “group blog of two” with my friend Robert because he was so kind as to invite me. To be honest, I’m not sure why he’s interested in blogging with me on a dedicated site since he’s much more successful (read: read) with brightmystery.net than all of my blogs put together. I’m going to ask him and see what he says.

I’m looking forward to doing it all the same. It’s supposed to be a blog about family, faith and fatherhood from a Christian perspective that doesn’t “parrot Dobson”. I suppose I shouldn’t tell Robert that I actually read “Bringing Up Boys” and thought that it had some useful bits albeit most of them were buried toward the end of the book after Dobson’s expose on the agenda of the militant feminist and homosexual sub-cultures aimed at the emasculation and effeminization of American men in order to overthrow the patriarchal system that oppresses them.

We haven’t got a name yet. daddyblog.net and daddyblog.com have been taken so we’re going to have to be more creative. I would ask for suggestions but since Robert and I are pretty much the only people reading this blog it would be an unwarranted act of optimism and if you know anything about me, you know that I avoid any sort of optimism unless it’s warranted.

Our DA (domestic assistant) has been with us for one week now. It’s been very very good. Several times, J and I have enjoyed sitting in our living room after the boys had gone to sleep and talking without feeling guilty for leaving the kitchen a wreck. As we looked around and saw most everything in its place and clean, it was so…relaxing.

Sure, there are some challenges. Our DA doesn’t have very good English at this point but that will change over time. I suspect that in a year, she’ll be just fine. I’ve seen people adapt fairly quickly when living with a family. I also think that since it’s normal for Ethiopians to speak at least the two main languages of the country (Amharric and Tigrinia-sp?), she’s already receptive to adding another language.

Another challenge is knowing what she can eat and when. She’s from an Ethiopian Orthodox background. Apparently, they fast from meat and dairy on Wednesday and Sunday of every week. This means that on those days she probably won’t eat what we do. That’s not really such a challenge except that 1) I still get my days confused in this country (our workweek is Saturday to Wednesday) and 2) I feel a little guilty if she’s offered something she can’t have on her fasting days. Just now she asked me if this bread in our kitchen has milk in it. It’s Friday so she’s not fasting…or is she because this is the day that she went to worship? Anyway, it’s nothing we can’t work around.

As far as we can tell, she’s fairly happy with us. She tends to sing quietly to herself while she’s working which I take to be a good sign. Granted, she might be singing some Ethiopian blues song or Communist hymn but I doubt it.

I think we’ll be able to get used to this just fine.

Take a look at this story from the Guardian (a left-leaning UK publication) and try to determine if it’s for real or not. You’ll either be amused or disturbed…or something in between.

Well, that’s not exactly what I meant. I meant, let’s spot the author’s bias. Take a look at this article from the Chicago Tribune online and see if you can find where the unbiased journalist slips up.

Maybe I’m seeing bias because I expect to see it, but here’s where I think the author reveals her true opinion of ID:

It posits that some aspects of the natural world that are not yet explained by Darwin suggest design by an unnamed intelligent agent.

Sounds to me that she assumes that evolutionary theory can and (given enough time) will come up with an explanation. Ok, that’s her opinion.

Of course, there are arguments which can be made for Darwinian evolution against ID and there should be. The whole concept of a theory is that it’s unproven and still up for debate. Ultimately, there’s no empirical research that will either prove or disprove either theory. However, the inability to prove or disprove has no impact on whether or not a either theory is correct. Certainly, there are rational reasons for favoring one over the other but individual affinity is no standard for measuring truth…and yes, there is truth here to be known.

After I get off from work today, I’m going to stop off on my way home to pick up our domestic assistant. When I called J and told her, she actually started to hyperventilate just a bit. And I thought that I was nervous.

What is it going to be like having someone live with us who works for us? What is the proper attitude to have? What’s the proper tone to set and how do we set it? This kind of arrangement is completely out of our frame of understanding.

Legally, I am her sponsor. I have contracted to bring her into this country; provide her with a work visa, a place to live, food to eat, healthcare (gov’t funded), a ticket back to Ethiopia for a holiday each year and a salary. Any legal problems she has here become my problem. If she’s caught working for anyone else (as is the common practice around here) then we can pay a big, big fine and loose the privilege of sponsoring someone. (Which could then cause us to resort to hiring a housekeeper who is also breaking the law by working for someone other than her sponsor…not an effective law really.) If she gets ill, we’ll be here primary caregivers…although, she does have family here so she might actually go stay with them. According to the document that I signed at the Ethiopian embassy, I will take responsibility for repatriating her remains should she die while on our sponsorship. (That’s certainly better left uncontemplated!) It’s a big responsibility!

How will Jennifer and I have to change our life? Will we argue in front of her? Will we shout at the kids in front of her? We certainly won’t be walking around in our underwear on a weekend morning, will we?

It’s hard to imagine what this is all going to actually look like for us. Having a domestic is normal for most people here. Our next door neighbor (also expats) has two people working for them. My impression of the Europeans that I’ve met here is that they are used to having a live-in domestic. On the other hand, I’ve never been impressed with the way they’ve tended to treat their helpers. The locals are definitely used to this arrangement and I’ve been utterly appalled at the inhumane abuse that they’re reported to perpetrate.

How will she take to us? How will the boys take to her?
The questions seem endless don’t they?
Ultimately, I’m sure all will be well but for now I’m just going to have to be a bit nervous and creeped out…as I’m sure she is too.

Four year olds are precious but they’re also extremely trying. Particularly when you’re sleep deprived, stressed and spiritually emaciated. Yes, this is my experience with my first son, Samuel.

Recently after several difficult days with Samuel, my wife said that we should take some time to think about all the things we like about him in order to help us remember why we love him. So here I go:

1. Superficial though it is, Sam is a pretty cute kid, especially when he’s dressed up in one of several superhero costumes and Underoos sets that he owns.

2. Sam has recently begun to require that we call him “Samuel”. Maybe I’m projecting a bit, but I like him choosing his identity in this way.

3. He’s great with babies! Samuel is loving toward his baby brother Elijah and any other little one that he encounters. Any jealousy he experienced when we brought his two brothers home was never expressed aggressively against them as babies. (Now that Micah is a toddler, Samuel apparently feels anything goes!)

4. He’ll pray at the drop of a hat for just about any reason.

5. He’s very personable. I’ve called him “the Governor” off and on since he started to walk because he’d toddle right up to people (mostly males) to shake hands and talk. He’s been known to hug the pizza man and other absolute strangers. (The pizza man brings food so I understand that one, but other folks???)

6. He is eager to help…sometimes…at least if involves working in the kitchen.

7. He sings and likes to rock out. I love watching him play air-guitar and dance around the house.

8. He forgives me and his mom easily when we apologize for making mistakes.

9. He’s physically much tougher than I was at that age.

10. He’s got good taste in children’s TV. I rarely dislike watching his shows….but then again that may so more about me than him.

11. He doesn’t mind how badly I sing and wants me to sing him to sleep most nights.

There are other reasons but I’ll let this suffice. To be sure, it’s a good exercise. He’s a great boy but sometimes it’s hard to see that because he’s breaking something or fighting with Micah or having a melt down over some perceived injustice. I just hope that I’ll remember to take time to do this enough so that Samuel will always remember me as someone who liked him and wasn’t always angry with him.

Please read.

Ten minutes before time for me to the leave the office.
Why?
Because I promised my wife and kids that I’d leave today around 4 o’clock.
Why?
She’s been with three little boys under the age of 4 years old all day. The fact of the matter is that she needs more than just for her husband to come home for the final three hours of the boys’ day. That’s why we’re getting help.

In about a week’s time we’ll have a full time domestic assistant. (The word maid gets stuck in my throat and I can’t even bring myself to say it.) We’re sponsoring a young woman from Ethiopia to basically take on the burden of the house so that my wife can concentrate on being a mother and getting some rest.

We tried not to go this route but J’s mental health was truly suffering. Without grandparents around to help out, she was simply not getting fully rested and recharged for the next day. When a counselor/friend at church told us that she needed some outside help, it became a matter of mental health and marital health as well. So, we took the plunge and we’ve sponsored someone.

There’s going to be lots to adjust to but I’m hoping that she’ll be able to get the kind of rest she needs to be able to cope with all that three little boys can dish out.

Got to go do what little I can before it’s time for the kiddies to go night, night.

The answer is here.

Too bad that they don’t outsource the job of coming up with such words.

I can’t believe that I’m actually saying this, but…Madonna has finally done something that deserves some respect.

Is it possible that “conservative” values are the fortunate by-product of maturity? I sure would like to think so.

In the ongoing story of my friend’s divorce I’ve recently heard that he doesn’t want more visiting hours with his daughters during the week because “it’s too much of a hassle”.

What do you say to this? How far gone am I when I feel like visiting my children is too much of a bother and yet have the ability to unabashedly state that I have always been the best father that I could be? How sick in the soul am I when I can say such a thing and then turn around and say that I want to claim my children for tax purposes?

God forbid that I should ever fall this far and that my sons should ever be afflicted with such a father. It’s sickening.

…it’s big news in my host country when a citizen takes a blue collar job. Seriously. I’d give you a link to the newspaper that carried the story but as I’ve mentioned previously, one never knows what the authorities here might take offense to. If you’re new to the blog, here’s the short explanation of my “paranoia”: There’s only one IP and it’s a function of the government which is NOT democratic and does not have a problem with monitoring the internet to protect the country’s Islamic virtues and the government’s interests. Consequently I try not to post anything that’s going to draw unwanted attention…but I couldn’t resist commenting on the local situation with employment.

I saw the story in a local paper. It is such a news worthy topic that it appeared on the front page, albeit in a tiny box in a corner, but still it’s front page news when 20 citizens are willing to take a job pouring cement.

That’s the kind of place I live in.

I’ve been over at the “blogfolio” (my online professional protfolio and journal) working through some ideas for a proposal at a professional conference coming up in the spring, so I haven’t been thinking too much about the personal blog. I’ve gotten some good advice from Robert about how to get traffic over here that I need to follow up on, but again it’s all about finding/making the time.

Speaking of traffic, I got a random surfer who apparently got steered to this blog because of a search engine brought up my reference to the class on Third Culture Kids that I’m facilitating at church. This person left no comment except that (s)he has started an online store for selling merchandise aimed at TCKs and of course a link to the site. I went to check it out and I don’t really know what to say. Apart from the fact that I don’t have a a readership of more than 2 and that my impact as an advertising venue would be nil, I’m not sure how I feel about being associated with selling mugs, buttons and t-shirts to TCK community. Not that it’s immoral, but…I don’t know. Maybe I’m just jealous that I didn’t think of it first.

Maybe part of my ambivalence comes from my opinion of the book about TCKs that I’m using in the class. It’s okay but I feel like it could have been organized better. The authors have two sections; The TCK Profile and Characteristics of TCKs which I think should have been one section. They also tend to use terminology that doesn’t describe the groupings of data as well as it should which is a bit annoying. After all, if I’m going to teach/lecture about this material it’s important that the connection between content and the description of the content is clear. So maybe my mixed feelings toward the book have tainted my feelings about promoting a website that sells bric- a-brac to the TCK community.

Perhaps I should see if I can work out a commission system with this person.

My wife and I were watching one of the “western” channels on cable last night when their Ramadan bumper hailed its (Muslim) viewers with the season’s appropriate greeting, “Ramadan Kareem!”. Instantly the image shifted from the serene and somber graphic to a rapid-fire series of jump-cuts depicting three (or was it four?) seperate pairs of bikini-clad breasts which started off a promotional for a TV serial which apparently revolves around the exploit(ation)s of the owners of those breasts.

I guess you have to understand the mood of Ramadan to appreciate it.

Since my friend who is divorcing his wife does not wish to communicate with anyone who is going to counsel against his bad choices, I might as well post my frustrated and hostile comments here where (almost) no one will read them.

I got an e-mail from his soon to be ex-wife and she let me know that the Idiot is engaged to his mistress. On the off chance that you might actually be reading this: here’s something you should chew on.

If this young woman is willing to cheat on your wife WITH you, she’s probably going to be willing to cheat ON you with someone else at some point when your relationship isn’t giving her want she wants/needs.

Do you really think that marrying her and living in Hickman County is a step in the creative direction? For someone who wants to pursue creativity and art, your choices and actions have been practically textbook for midlife crisis. How long do you think this is going to last?

Why was it foolish for your mother to run off and marry Charles and yet your divorce and remarriage is a good idea? (That’s a rhetorical question intended to provoke thought so that you might realize that it isn’t a good idea.)

When are you going to be honest with yourself and ask the hard questions?

I hate to see this guy make these rotten, reactionary choices!!! The good side of all of this is that his “ex” has been truly cared for by God through friends and my parents.

I’ve been enjoying this station very much lately so I thought I’d post it here…for the audience of 1 that my blog seems to have. Hope you enjoy it ‘bert.

As a refrain for a Tom Petty song, I like that phrase but as a verbal smoke screen to deflect genuine conversation about what’s wrong with your life and why it is that you’re leaving your wife of 17 years, I think it’s lame.

…did I try to hard to make a meaningful pop-cultural reference with that one? Sorry.

As previously mentioned, a friend of mine is leaving his wife of 17 years and his 5 and 1 year old daughters in order to pursue his artistic impulses. (Why is it that the pursuit of artistic impulse often involves self-destruction and the wounding of those closest to the artist?) When I pelted him with a semi-sardonic e-mail about his intention to audition for Sesame Street he responded with “You don’t understand my life.” Also in previous posts I wrote that I had some commentary on his repsonse. Here goes:

Nonesense.

Really. Think about it. If understanding someone’s life were truly necessary in order to have meaningful dialogue regarding important issues of life, then we’d all be relegated to babbling about the weather and other matters of little or no consequence. We’d never be able to seek out advice of any kind from anyone, regardless of how wise or informed we might think they may be. In fact, the wise person would have to say something like, “I’m sorry but since I’m not you, I can’t possibly understand your life adequately enough to help you.” Sounds like nonesense doesn’t it? My friend would have had to tell every car owner who ever asked for his expert mechanical advice something ridiculous like, “I’m sorry but I’m not you and have never owned your car as you so I can’t advise you about what you should do.” Utter nonsense!

Nothing to say, I just wanted to say that I’ve blogged so that I can keep moving (however miniscule the increments may be) toward my goal of developing a writing habit.

You know, if I didn’t have to rush home to load up the family and get to church for the TCK class tonight, I might write a bit about the challenge of establishing new habits, especially as it pertains to reaching my personal goals. Have I posted those here? I should find the time to look them up and if not, post them. Nothing like going public to keep you on track. For example: I’ve ranted so frequently and maniacally about the evils of debt and the stupidity of taking a loan for a car that it is now impossible for me to take advantage of the interest-free car loan offered by my company without seriously compromising my credibility and perhaps testimony/wittness. Again, going public can really help one stay accountable.

Gotta get.

Don’t spend too much time trying to understand the title. It’s just how I feel.

I’ve been mulling over some of the things that my soon-to-be-divorced friend wrote me in an e-mail and there are somethings that I would like to comment upon. I’m particularly keen to explore his declaration “You don’t understand my life,” and how it ultimately murders meaningful communication.

I’d also like to try my hand at some pithy commentary on this story from Yahoo news. Instead, I’ll write one answer to one question and leave it.

The article ends with this:

But, Washington Post columnist George Will asked, “If an Intelligent Designer designed nature, why did it decide to make breeding so tedious for those penguins?”

My answer: The Intelligent Designer does not share our human value on ease and convenience, but rather sees value in perseverance in the face of adversity.

You see, I’m not doing much thinking these days, at least not in any profound way. I’m trying to stay on top of work, provide some relief for my exhausted wife and restrain myself from creating bad memories of their childhood for my children. Insightful, well-reasoned, and humorous writing is just too far out of my reach at this time. In fact, I can’t even see this post through to a tidy conclusion…

A friend of mine that I’ve known since middle school is divorcing his wife after 17 years of marriage and 2 children and I’m at a loss for words…at least good words.

We haven’t really communicated about it since the I found out earlier this year. In fact, the word was out while I was home over the summer and we didn’t even see each other. He knew where to find me and didn’t. I got the feeling that he didn’t want to be found by me or anyone else who wouldn’t be 100% sympathetic to his decision.
Recently, I heard that he was planning on going to New York to audition for Sesame Street and I just couldn’t keep my commentary to myself…but I probably should have. I wrote him an e-mail and for whatever reason it provoked a response from him.

He said that I don’t understand his life, that his wife was sucking the life out of him and that “it’s better this way”. He said that it was time to do something for himself as opposed to all that he’d done for others up until this point. Phrases such as “sucking the life out” and “rotting inside” were used in his brief e-mail. It was so sad that I’ve had a bit of tightness in my chest for most of the day.

I wrote back and tried to be genuinely more sympathetic to his feelings without affirming his selfishness or poor decisions. I’m afraid that I probably didn’t phrase things well enough to keep him willing to correspond. Even he is willing to keep in touch, I don’t believe that there’s anything that I can possibly say that’s going to get through to him. After all, if the tears of one’s daughter rolling down her face as she tries to understand why daddy is going to live with her anymore doesn’t cause a man to pause to reconsider, then what could a friend e-mailing from a foreign country have to offer? Not much.

Tonight will be the first night of a class that my wife and I are teaching about third culture kids. Personally, I think that teaching is a bit too strong. We’ll be facilitating the discussion of issues related to raising third culture kids. Our job will be to read the book and essentially do a series of mini-reports to the group as well as operate the VCR when viewing a lecture on videotape.

If you’re still with me, a Third Culture Kid is a child/adult whose formative years were spent in a culture other than their parents home culture. For example, my children were born to Americans however they live and are being raised in the Middle East. They are neither Americans (except on paper) or Arabs. They are members of a third culture; an expatriate culture. This third culture is less about geography and more about a set of experiences and worldview. Third Culture Kids tend to feel like they belong everywhere and nowhere. They tend to bond more easily with other Third Culture Kids than they do with members of their parents’ culture or members of their host culture.

An interesting note is that Third Culture Kids don’t necessarily have to live abroad. One can be a TCK in one’s own birth country. Again, it’s more about experience and worldview. Constant moving and a worldview which radically differs from the community in which a kid finds himself can also yields a third culture experience.

Of course, there are advantages and disadvantages being a TCK. I think the aim of the book/class is to educate people in such a way as to capitalize on the advantages and minimize the disadvantages for the sake of a richly rewarding life.

In some ways, I think that the TCK experience is analogous to the Christian experience. Once we move from The World into The Kingdom of God, we find that we are living our lives in a sort of third culture; a culture of heavenly expatriates. This world is in fact our home for the moment, but we are not at home in the world. The world’s view is comprehensible to us, but we do not share it. Our affections are for others subjects of The Kingdom, even though we strive to relate to the citizenry of the world. Of course, all analogies have their limits.

Should be an interesting class…at least I hope so.

No, this is not a follow up to the previous post. I still feel like I’m failing in many areas of my life, especially after the way I yelled at Sam yesterday afternoon…sigh. No, this is about getting over something else.

I was listening to Dave Ramsey giving a caller some advice when he imparted this quotable quote: “Everybody has to get over their parents.” I don’t know if this a profound statement in spite of or because of its obvious quality. Certainly it’s true. Our parents (we trust) did the best they could and they still screwed up in some way or other. When we grow up, it becomes our responsibility to identify their errors, forgive them and then get on with dealing with the fall out of their errors. When we fail to do this, we fail to grow up.

Of course, one day my sons will have to get over my shortcomings as a parent. This being the case, perhaps the second best thing I can do is be absolutely certain that I’m modeling forgiveness to them and for them because one day I’ll looking for forgiveness from them. The best thing I can do is obviously to minimize the errors for which I’ll need their forgiveness.

I was wrong…this post is a follow up to the previous one.

Do you ever feel like you’re failing in just about every area of your life?

No, it’s not a particularly cheery way to open a blog but this thought breaks the surface of my consciousness from time to time. Lately I’ve pummeled it back down with all of the things that I’ve got going with the new job and the move. Trying to stay on top of the teaching schedule and then chasing down various furnishings and utilities for the new villa has managed to keep me from dwelling too much on this recurring sense of failure.

When the din of the day dies away a bit, I hear myself reminding me of how I don’t appreciate my wife, how I’m not patient with my kids and how I’m not making any advances toward any of the goals that I set for myself over the summer. I still haven’t established my exercise routine and I have actually regressed in changing some of my eating habits. No steps have been taken toward starting my online business in a long time. Professional goals are on hold. I haven’t even been able to unearth any notes I made about all of these goals.

Spiritually things are rather bleak. I’m angrier and more selfish. I curse more and bless less. God and I “chat” as oppose to converse. The Bible continues to float between the office and the villa unopened and unattended.

It’s the end of my work week and I’m about to go home for the weekend. My wife will need me to be helpful and understanding. My children will need me to patient, available and fun. I’ll need to feel like I’m accomplishing something…anything on any of the fronts I’ve mention. Is it possible to be hopeful without being optimistic?

As blog leads unto blog, I came across this and wish that I had written it.

It’s great to read something like this and know that this person is a Christian.

I got a call from my father in law last night: the word is that my sister and her family are okay. They were far enough in land that they didn’t suffer from the flooding that wiped out Gulfport and Biloxi which are nearby. In fact, they’re probably doing better than most folks in that they’ve got some Mennonite neighbors who are well-acquainted with living without the modern amenities who are willing to help them out. They have a gas powered pump (I’m not sure how they justify it, but I don’t really think it’s worth asking about at this point) that they can use to get well water…I just hope that it’s not been contaminated.

There isn’t much time for commentary, and I’m not terribly informed: however, the impression that I’ve gotten is that President Bush is being given hell for a list of supposed failures to take appropriate steps to offer aid and assistance to the victims of Katrina. The need to lay blame is strong I suppose.

I was visiting some neighbors recently and they had on the news. The wife is from Ohio and the husband is from Lebanon. She asked me a question that I would have expected from him: “Are there any white people in Louisiana?” It struck me as an odd question but then I looked at the TV and understood why she would have to ask-there were only black people being shown. My explanation is that in order to show the worst of the tragedy, you would choose to show the stories of poor people and yes, the majority of poor people in that part of the country are black. These two facts being in place, it’s to be expected that someone would want to portray the various disappointments and failures of the various levels of government in assisting those victims to originate with the apathy of the white man towards the black man. Which is exactly what I heard listening to the BBC on the way home.

An interview with a “bishop” of a black full gospel church was aired and he made it clear that it was his strong belief that people were dying from starvation brought on by the flood because white President George Bush doesn’t care about black people. It was almost as if the BBC had gone out in search of the stereotypical black southern preacher to espouse some scripted rhetoric. The counter point was provided by a former Louisiana congressman who laid the blame for the different failures at the feet of the local, state and federal leadership. Being so far away from it all, I don’t feel like I can know the whole truth (if any of it) but I think that I can say that the race argument is weak and unproductive at best.

It’s ironic that my family should worry so much about me being here in the Middle East during the war in Iraq and the steady increase of anti-American sentiment among the Arab/Muslim world. Hurricane Katrina landed near my sister and her family who live in Saucier Mississippi. There’s no word of what has happened to them. They can’t be reached, yet I am and have been only a phone call away.

No place is “safe” in this contigent universe.

Recently, a local English language newspaper ran a story about Muslims in Australia. John Howard, leader of the land of “Oz” (a term of endearments used by the Aussies themselves) has made comments to the effect that any of the 28,000 Muslims currently living in Australia who wish to set up Shari a Law as the government in their own communities should seriously consider “clearing out”. Another member of the government elaborated indicating that Muslims who immigrate to Australia need to come to terms with the fact that Australia has a secular government and they need to learn to live with it or move along. Reading this, I couldn’t help but think of the old slogan, “America, Love it or Leave it!!”
It may sound “un” multicultural and even intolerant of the government of Oz, but I think it’s a perfectly rational sentiment.

Currently, I live in a country where Shari a Law is in effect. According to this law, I can be thrown in jail for 30 days if I publicly eat or drink between sunrise and sunset during Ramadan, the month of fasting for Muslims. This religious law is not binding on me as I’m not a Muslim, but it is binding on me as a resident of this country. If this law is too burdensome, then I’m perfectly free to leave. No government entity will detain me or my family if I make this choice. No government entity will protect me if I flout the law regardless of the fact that I’m not a Muslim. I would not be acquitted in court if I pleaded “not Muslim your honor”.

All immigrants, wherever they may be, would do well to think about why they left their homelands for their new homes. What drew them there? What drove them there? Are they really sure that recreating their homelands in their host lands is a good idea? If so, then maybe things weren’t so bad and going back is a valid option. As the Canadian poet said, “Why move around the world, if Eden was so near?”

After much waiting, prayer and preparation I finally landed my current job-a coveted position among my peers with a well-known institution in the country. Essentially, I’ve reached the ceiling of the English language teaching profession in this part of the world.

My first day of class is looming 3 days in the distance and I’m feeling the pressure. Perhaps the other new teachers are feeling it as well, but I don’t get that sense from them. Then again, I only spend time with one of them, a guy who worked with me at my previous job. He’s a confident person…sometimes veering into straight forward arrogance. He seems to be unperturbed by the first day jitters.

I want my new colleagues to see me as competent. I want the director of the program to feel vindicated in his support of me as a candidate for this position. I want my students to do at least as well as those of the other teachers, preferably better. I want to feel like I’m succeeding at what I’m doing. To do that I need to feel like I’m prepared and at the moment, I don’t. Yet, I also feel like I’ve done all I know to do at this point, which is why I’m allowing myself to blog…and even read a friend’s blog.

Earlier today, my wife called to coordinate the hectic schedule and I snapped at her. I hurt her feelings by making her feel like she was a disruption, which sadly is how I felt. I was focused on my preparations and wasn’t giving her proper attention. I hope this isn’t indicative of the days to come. That’s probably up to me though, isn’t it?

It’s time to do what I tell my son to do when he’s having a screaming fit: take a deep breath.

About a year or so ago, I was teaching a night class of ladies who had jobs in the military of my host country. The majority of these young women did not wear the veil that is associated with Islam as portrayed on the evening news in the US. However, there was one who did.

Of course I never saw her face the entire time she was in class. For X number of weeks, all I saw were her painted eyes and hands. It was a bit uncomfortable for me in the beginning but I got over it then I got used to it. Apparently I got more used to it than I thought possible.

A couple of days ago I was in a McDonald’s with the family. I was sitting facing the door when a short woman in the robe and veil of local custom came in. We made eye contact briefly. I thought I saw something there that was akin to surprise, maybe even shock but I dwell on it. My wife went to the bathroom to wash her hands. As I sat there looking around, I made eye contact with this local woman again and she was obviously smiling. She spoke, but I couldn’t really hear her. I was already suspicious, so I leaned forward and called her by name and it was in fact my former student! I was so shocked that after such a long time and with little more than her eyes to go by I actually recognized her.

When my wife came out I introduced her to my former student and that was about all the contact we had. This young woman seemed much more traditional than any of her classmates so I don’t suppose I was all that surprised by her reticence to be sociable. However, I was very surprised that I was adapted enough to this culture that I could actually distinguish a veiled student from a stranger.

Warning: The following post contains several uses of the word “penis” and a euphemism for the word “penis”. If reading the word “penis” is offensive to you, then you have doubtlessly been offended and have quit reading this post and surfed on to other less offensive blogs. If you are not offended by reading the word “penis” then you have perhaps grown bored with this warning and moved on either to the post or to another blog entirely. If you are amused by reading the word “penis”, not only are you are severely immature and need to grow up but you will most likely be disappointed by this post. Please move along.

My wife and I decided when we began to have children that we would refrain from using silly euphemisms for genitalia when teaching our children about their bodies. Our first child (as well as our second and third) is a boy and was taught that he has a “penis”. Sam, like most children in the early stages of mastering speech, had his unique mispronunciation of various words and he referred to his tiny member as his “pini”- pronounced “pee - nee”. This struck us as cute and not particularly silly (parental bias I’m sure) and has been our family’s euphemism to this day.

Sam has recently moved on from discovering himself to investigating his brother Micah and even his brother (inexplicably referred to as) “the baby Elijah”. The time for teaching about the privacy of our private parts has arrived, which is what I was trying to do the other night while Sam and Micah were having their bath. Sam was taking a tactile interest in Micah so I began to explain that Sam should only touch his own “pini”. I further explained that Micah can touch his own, Elijah can also touch his own and that Sam can only touch his own. Grinning maniacally and looking me in the eyes, Sam said “They’re ALL mine!”

Earlier Sam and I were taking turns looking into each other’s mouths with a flashlight that he’d gotten as a gift to entertain him on the plane. We gave each other eye, ear, nose and throat examinations until I grew tired of the game and refused to open my mouth for him. He got rather excited and said, “Daddy! I want to see the pini in your mouth!”

Like you are perhaps, my wife was shocked when she heard this. She sat nearby on the couch agog and wondering what could Sam possibly have meant. For some reason I understood immediately but said nothing. Then he ran over to Jennifer and told her that she should open her mouth so he could see the pini in her mouth too. Cautiously she opened her mouth and then realized what Sam meant. “Oh! You mean my uvula! It’s a uvula honey!” Sam tried to wrap his tongue around that word but apparently the effort caused him to lose interest in exploring any further and he moved on.

I don’t know about you, but I love funny kid stories, particularly when they’re about my kids.

I haven’t really kept up with the Israeli-Palestinian conflict in any scholarly manner and I have to say that my information on the matter comes primarily from CNN so form your opinions on its validity accordingly.

That disclaimer aside, here’s what I want to say:

While watching a special on the aforementioned news channel about the withdrawal from Gaza, the interviewer posed a question to an Israeli government official, the gist of which was this: once the settlers are out of Gaza, will the Israeli government feel it can act with a “free hand” against Palestinian fighters in the region? The official responded predictably with a statement that Israel would do whatever it deemed necessary to protect Israelis and to fight terrorism, particularly if the Palestinian authority couldn’t do something about the terrorism. A clip that lead into this question from the commercial break showed Sharon stating emphatically that Israel would never negotiate on the status of Jerusalem or maintaining of the integrity of the territory of Israel.

Maybe CNN purposefully linked that statement with the interview question in order to lead viewers to these questions which leapt to my mind: Is Israel withdrawing from Gaza in order to remove “innocent” Israelis from a zone in which some very aggressive and fearsome fighting is about to take place? Is the government of Israel planning some massive offensives in order to crush the Palestinians and gain an ultimately more secure grip on Gaza than it has now?

Again, perhaps CNN was purposefully planting that suggestion and maybe it wasn’t. It’ll be interesting to see how that works out.

Maybe later I’ll blog about how I do NOT think that armed conflict in Israel is a harbinger of the Rapture and that evangelical Christians in America are woefully misguided in their allegiance to the present day state of Israel.

Check this piece from Yahoo!
I think what this really says is that the affluent have much more time to devote to amusing themselves on the internet which apparently entails reading what other affluent people write in order to amuse themselves and others…but mostly themselves.
Reminds me of what a friend of mine told me about the narcissism inherent in the blogosphere…hmm.

President Bush introduced his faith-based initiative in order to give religious organizations involved in community service access to federal funds. I’ve never been comfortable with this. It doesn’t take much imagination to see where this could lead. If the government gives financial support to a religious organization, how long will it be before the organization becomes dependent on those funds and susceptible to the demands of the government? After all, it’s not unreasonable for the one providing the money to any organization to expect to have a say in how it’s run. No one would hire a contractor to build a house and not expect to have his blueprints followed.

Another unnerving example of what might be an increasingly blurred border between government and institutional religion (notice, I didn’t say religion or even faith…I’m talking about something else here) is this paragraph I read in a newsletter that I get.

The AFL-CIO has hired more than three dozen aspiring ministers, imams, priests, and rabbis to assist in union organizing across the nation this summer, according to the Los Angeles Times. With fewer than 8 percent of workers now union members, leaders are now trying to restore organized labor’s image as a force for social justice. These new recruits are being taught to use Scripture to incite workers to demand more rights and better pay. (hr.blr.com)

Granted, the AFL-CIO is not a government institution but it is undeniably political and intended to influence government. And here they are essentially mustering religious leaders to manipulate their various scriptures and doctrines to support the AFL-CIO’s view of “social justice”.

Of course, there’ll be those religious leaders who’ll leap at this opportunity to increase their institution’s worth in the eyes of the World. It reminds me of the situation in Rome before Constantine “converted” to Christianity. Christians were reviled by the public and persecuted by the government. They were outsiders. Then Constantine decided that since Rome couldn’t get rid of them, he’d “join ‘em”. Obviously there were leaders within the Christian community who rushed headlong into this new embrace by the empire. Thus began the institutionalization of the church and its ultimate corruption which triggered the Reformation.

Yes, I think that government cooperation with institutional religion is to be avoided at all costs. I believe that the original intent of the founding fathers in separating church and state was not to protect the state, but rather to protect the church and its members. Bush’s faith-based initiatives and the AFL-CIO’s recruitment of religious leaders to their cause are two examples of the increasing vulnerability of the church in America…which is probably why it’s time to consider a different paradigm for being the people of God in the USA.

I was driving into work after running around this morning and I heard a story on the BBC World Service. (That’s the UK’s international radio broadcast.) The program is called Everywoman and it’s essentially a magazine show about issues of interest to women. The program had a couple of different stories in it, but the one that has stayed with me is the one about virginity. The blurb on their website reads

In many societies, a woman who is not a virgin when she gets married brings shame on her family and may be subjected to humiliation, physical abuse or even murder. Virginity testing is common practice within these societies where an intact hymen is regarded as evidence that the woman is a virgin. According to reports by American gynaecologists there has been an increase in the number of women asking for operations to restore their hymen. This week Everywoman asks whether virginity is a purely physical attribute and why in many cultures it is more important for a woman to be a virgin than a man?

The two guests who spoke with the interviewer about this subject were almost as far away from each other in world view as possible. On the one end, I suppose representing (enlightened?) post-Christian, Western culture was a femal journalist from the UK. On the other end representing (in my opinion) a moderated Islamic/Eastern culture was a male doctor from Jordan. The tone was civil. The two guests never referred to or addressed each other (which makes me wonder if their comments were previously recorded and creatively edited to give the impression of a simultaneous interview).

In defining the term “virginity” the journalist opted for the view of pure physiology. The doctor chose to define the word in physiological, legal and religious terms. This moved the conversation toward the idea that virginity in a woman is linked to her moral purity within the societies/communities where proof of virginity is required in the morning after the wedding night. Predictably, the UK journalist disparaged the idea that a woman’s morality/moral purity could be implied by whether or not she is a virgin. The doctor refrained from supporting the belief unequivocally, but I got the impression that he was not so moderate in his religious views as to dismiss the idea totally.

What I found worthy of noting in this phase of the discussion was the journalist’s sentiments about the truly pressing moral issues of our time. Her point was that virginity (in women) is trivial and that the more urgent moral issues in need of attention are “poverty”, wages for workers and “arms dealing”.

I don’t care to try to prioritize moral issues according to the urgency of the need to attend to them, as if such a list could be made. Instead, I want to highlight that purity was something that the woman didn’t want to discuss in any way. Coming from a culture which has managed to divorce peoples’s actions from their character, the journalist could unflinchingly state that a woman who has sex before marriage with a multitude of partners is in no way morally deficient.

I disagree. Of course, I don’t want to support the opposing world view which erroneously elevates the moral purity of a woman to a higher priority to that of a man in matters of sexuality. I can in no way support the “honor crimes” of societies which condone the killing of women who are found not to be virgins on their wedding days. I choose the third way which is to affirm the importance of sexual purity, moral purity and then to offer grace to those who have not remained chaste.

Sometimes it appears that the only answer the secular world can offer to moral problems is to abandon the belief that the issue at hand is in fact a problem. In this case, it’s like saying: Since humans are incapable of abstaining from sexual relations with multiple partners outside of marriage, let’s declare such behavior to be a good thing, healthy, natural…insert your own positive adjective. Conversely, sexual purity is bad, irrelevant, oppressive…insert you own negative adjective, and worthy of our denigration. I suppose we can eliminate vices if we embrace them and declare them virtues.

????

While on vacation in the states my wife had a conversation with her mother which resulted later in her putting this question to me: Do you believe that God has a plan for everyone’s life? What she was really asking was: do I believe that God has a specific plan for each and every individual?

This question came back to me as I was reading today’s John Stott Bible study message that I’m subscribed to via e-mail. The study is currently looking at the book of Acts and Stott is specifically writing about the break up of the Paul and Barnabus evangelistic partnership at the end of chapter 15 and beginning of chapter 16. Stott writes

God certainly overruled ‘this
melancholy disagreement’, since as a result of it ‘out of one pair
two were made’, as Bengel commented. But this example of God’s
providence may not be used as an excuse for Christian quarrelling.

I appreciate Stott’s use of the word “overruled” here. I believe that by doing so, he is tacitly acknowledging that God has allowed humans the freedom to make behavioral choices and yet maintain the integrity of his will.

Hard determinism would have the “sharp disagreement” be God’s will in order to bring about the two separate evanglistic teams which resulted. This bothers me because I don’t think a Christian with a hard determinism point of view would say that Christians quarreling is a good thing. The word “sharp” suggests that perhaps things became a bit uncharitable and again, no mature believer would say that this is good. How can God teach us to seek unity and promote peace among the brothers then turn around and will a “sharp disagreement” in order to create another team of preachers? It doesn’t make sense.

Instead, we see that God takes the “sow’s ear” of this dispute and turns it into a “silk purse” for ministering to the believer’s in Cyprus. This brings me to my answer to my wife’s question.

I believe that God graciously offers people the opportunity to participate in his divine plan while leaving us free to decline. When we accept, we might have a specific task to fulfill (i.e.- Paul’s mission to the Gentiles) and we might not (i.e.-the vast number of quietly faithful people living the kingdom of God on earth). When we decline, then God takes our bad choices and even our attempts at obfuscation of his plan and “overrules” them in order to achieve his ultimate goal (which I believe is the rule of God on earth as it is in heaven.)

While I was stateside, I think I wrote a brief post about going through boxes of stuff to ship to our host country and I said that I didn’t care to wax sentimental about what I found…

…and I still don’t, but since I just got a message from my friend Robert about a particular artifact of our youth I can’t help but reflect on it a bit here.

It was 15 years ago. The band was formed in the homornally-addled minds of a group of adolescent boys who’d recently discovered that the local music store rented out 4-track recorders. Some would have called them geeks or nerds, but they preferred the moniker “Big Oatis”. I’m not sure whose idea it was to use the name of an icream cookie treat for the band and its auspicious leader but I’ve always wished it were mine. Most of the guys played in the highschool marching band and could credibly lay some claim to musicality. Not me. But I played along anyway.

Big Oatis was conceptualized as the Uber Barry White whose main interests in life were “mo wimmen” and singing about them in every musical idiom known to man. Affected vocals and some creative use of the pitch control achieved the desired depth of bass needed to imply Oatis’ mass. Lyrics and themes were supplied by all members of the band. There was “Leroy on guitar, Lester (keyboards) and Larnell (bass)” and yours truly, “Yo’ Dawg”. We all did backing vocals as well.

From 1987 in highschool and into college during the early 1990’s, “Big Oatis” recoreded several songs such as “I got Wimmin”, “Lurking God”, “Choco Taco” and “The Oatis Rap” and “Oppress all the People”. I made a point of keeping the orignals. During this last trip home, I found those master tapes waiting to be digitally remastered and burned for posterity. Recently, Robert aka “Larnell” let me know that he’d also found his copy of the Big Oatis collection which inspired this post. Good times.

…I almost gave it away. I have to remember that it’s important to be discreet about where I live and work since there’s only one IP for the whole country. Never know who may be watching…or why for that matter.

Anyway, my family and I arrived from the states last night. The whole journey began with a bit of a stall and lurch. There was a problem with the airline and we missed all of our connecting flights so we decided to linger another day at the airlines expense in Nashville. As a result, that’s thrown off our schedule by one day. It’s not a big problem now that we’re here but it did add to the difficulty of traveling with three small boys.

Speaking of the boys, they travelled much better on the return to the host country than they did on the way to the states. I attribute this to a) a more ammenable flight time which allowed them to sleep “normally” and b) Dramamine.

I’ve been amazed at how smoothly things have gone since our arrival. My new employer is a much classier act than my previous one. If you’re interested in reading about my first day, the keep reading. If not, then now is the time to surf over to another favorite site.

I was told that a shuttle from our guest house would be by to pick me up and take me to work around 7 am. Considering it was 1 am when we got to the guest house, I wasn’t exactly excited about getting such an early start on the day but I expected it. After much anxiety and some truburlent time with the boys, we all managed to get into bed and asleep by 3:30 am. Apparently, I was still anxious because I woke up around 4:30 mildly panicked by the thought that my alarm was not set and that I would miss the shuttle. It was and I didn’t.

Actually got out of bed at 6:15 and was downstairs in plenty of time…and yet there was no shuttle to catch. A polite SMS and a total of 1 hour later than the appointed time, someone arrived to take me to the new school.

Despite that minor mishap of the morning, it’s been a day of pleasant surprises. Since I interviewed, there have been a revision of benefits to the better and I found out that the cafeteria will deliver to my office!!! How cool is that.

Anyway, that’s my abbreviated version since I just got a call from my wife and she’s reminded me of all of the things yet to be done in order to get back into the swing of our life here. If I can, I’m going to try to head back to the guest house a bit early today to work on those things.

We’re entering the final phase of this year’s trip back to the states. Today we left my parent’s house and moved 45 minutes up the interstate to my inlaws house. We’ll be staying here until it’s time to leave which is only about 10 days away.

I’m starting to feel nervous about the new job. I’ll be teaching English language for a school that trains petroleum engineers. Before they can enter into the mainstream program, the student have to get their academic English up to speed. That’s where I come in. I’ll be teaching students in order to get them ready to do their regular coursework in English. It’s going to be a big adjustment for me I’m sure. There’ll be more expected of me and I’ll have even more responsibility for the the students than I’ve had in the last 5 years. Since this is pretty much the best job in the region, I can’t help but be a bit worried about blowing it.

The last day at my parents’ house was spent going through several boxes of our posessions in order to determine what to keep in storage, what to get rid of and what to ship back to the host country. I suppose this would be where I begin to get all nostalgic and share important memories brought to the surface by handling various relics of the past, but I’ll not be doing that. Oddly enough, nothing that I found affected me that way. It was nice to see some old photos and gifts from former students from all over the world, but I never truly felt transported to any “good ol’ days” that I just had to re-live. Maybe enough time hasn’t passed by yet.

Here are some things that I’ve wanted to post but just simply haven’t had the time to do until now. They range from a cute kid story, a bit of family history and the sad beginning of our long journey to the states for this year’s summer vacation.

Grandaddy gave Sam, my three year old son, a flashlight to play with. Of course, this was about as good a toy as Sam could want. One morning he woke up and was going around the house looking for it. He asked his mother, “Mama, where’s my flashlight? I want my flashlight.” My wife said, “Well, where did you have it last?” Without the least bit of sarcasm or reproach Sam sincerely replied, “In the dark.”

…

Our sons are named after a pattern: the first name is a prophet’s name from the Bible and the second name is a male family member. My first son is Samuel Monroe. My father’s middle name is Monroe. Daddy’s middle name and his nickname, “Muggins” both come from a man that lived near his family when he was growing up. The other day Daddy told me a story about old Muggins that I’d never heard before.

Daddy said that Muggins was the best neighbor his daddy ever had. Not far from the old house is Turnbull creek, a place where his father and Muggins did a great deal of fishing. At the time, somebody was dynamiting fish in that creek and people were saying that the fish were poisoned because of it. (To “dynamite fish” simply means to toss a stick of lit dynamite into a body of water and collect the fish that float to the top of the water following the explosion.) Daddy said that his father and Muggins had caught several fish alive one day and had them on a stringer and were heading home to clean and cook them. Somebody said something to them about the fish being poison so Muggins, the good neighbor, told my grandfather, “Tell you what; I’ll take mine home an’ eat ‘em fer dinner an’ if I ain’t dead by supper, you kin cook and eat yurs.”

…

We were finally headed for the states. After nearly 2 weeks of bureaucratic ineptititude and indifference, which lead to another week of waiting for flights to open up, we were finally checked in and going through passport control. As my family and I joined the line, we saw in the next line over to the left a man lying on the floor. I recognized him immediately as the unfortunate person I saw earlier while I was waiting at the Lufthansa counter in order to check in. His heavily bandaged lower jaw and the telltale cotten swab taped to the back of one hand that is typical of an IV puncture had made him a memorable sight. The moment I saw him shuffling ahead of his family I couldn’t help but wonder who thought letting this man out of the hospital, muchless fly, was a good idea. Obviously, it wasn’t a good idea because there he was flat on his back with his head propped up by a young English man and his wife(?) standing over him repeating his name with increasing anxiety. Dominic seemed to me like a strange name for this man who was obviously of subcontinental Indian origin. (-an embarassing thought to have go through one’s mind when someone is dying in front of you.) At least, I thought he was dying. There was no movement, no response to the water being put on his face by his distraught wife. My wife noticed that he had voided his bladder at some point but I didn’t know what kind of sign that was. My first child was in my arms and he was softly saying, “He’s diving. The man is diving like Jesus.” My son’s only concept of death and “dying” comes from his Bible school class at church and the story of Jesus dying on the cross. Apparently Sam thought the man was dying as well…

Yet, no one to my mind moved with any urgency. Many people craned their necks and spoke quietly in their various languages about the situation, but only the young Englishman had bothered to get involved. Even the local security officers hovered at a distance that suggested that they had nothing to offer and were present only as a matter of duty.They spoke to the Englishman, the frightened wife and each other but I could not understand what they said. I doubt that it was supportive or helpful. In time, someone whom I would not describe as a recognizable medic came and began to perform CPR on Dominic. I heard the Englishman say, “I don’t know why you’re doing that. He’s breathing. You don’t need to do that.” Dominic was alive, but I had to question for how long in view of the kind of assistance he was getting. Then a short round woman in a white shirt and black pants came with the defibrilator.

I don’t know what happened to this man. My sponsor who was waiting for me to hand him a document once it was stamped at passport control told me that he saw the man taken out in a wheelchair. He couldn’t say what kind of condition he was in. Whenever the stress of the long international journey with my three small children started to get the better of me, I tried to remember that no matter how bad the situation became, our travel experience was still better than Dominic’s.

We’re here and I’ll be posting a bit of writing I did about the trip. The problem now is that I don’t have a great connection and there isn’t much free time to write. (Writing takes me a long time for some reason.) I guess I could sacrifice some sleep in the coming days.

Anyway, I’ll be back shortly.

We’re finally cleared to leave for the summer…but there are no flights available.

I’ll be away from the computer for a while so there’ll be no blogs for a bit…not that there’s more than three people reading in…but it’s still early.

Anyway, this is just a post to keep the “habit” going.

The metaphor of this verse never really touched me at a visceral level untill I found myself living in a country where this situation is so common that it nearly ceases to be appalling.

Many, many expat laborers find themselves victimized in this manner. Wages are not paid with astonishing frequency. I have to say that I appreciate the current leadership that has allowed the stories of these people to be told in the English newspapers even though such stories will reflect badly upon the citizenry.

Fortunately, this has not happened to me. Sadly, the reason may have more to do with my nationality than with anything else. But that’s another post for another time.

This morning, still in our hollowed-out apartment and waiting for my employer to relase the paperwork which will provide me and my family with our tickets out of here, my wife asked me “Do you really believe that ‘all things work together for good for those who love the LORD’ ?” It was not so much a challenge of our shared faith but rather a request for assurance that God was paying attention to our lousy situation and taking an interest in it.

My answer was “yes” and I told her that I could already some “good” that has come from the “evil” that was afflicting us. Had we flown when we were scheduled to, we would have been on a long flight with two out of our three children being sick. Not only that, Jennifer’s mother (who was visiting with us and was sent out on that flight) reported back to us that the airline had overbooked the flight which means we were spared not only a long journey with sick children, but also a long journey with sick children on a very crowded flight. Yes, I think that there are some good things that have been worked to our advantage in this decidedly bad situation.

While I believe that God does work all things for good, I don’t think that we will always have the widest possible vision and will know in every circumstance what good thing God has done in an evil situation. In fact, I belive that there are good things which God produces out of adversity which may not be made known to his children until the end of all things. It’s in those times when no good is apparent that we are tested in our faith in the goodness and sovereignty of our great God.

Another truth that I’ve been dwelling on during this unpleasant time is God’s promise and perrogative to exact revenge. The evil that men do to one another is not against men alone. It’s also against their Creator. The “criminal indifference” that has been shown to me and my family by the system and its minions has caused much distress and some hardship will one day come under God’s judgement. I don’t have to worry about getting even with these people or finding some way to embarass the authorities in public view because God has assured me that their sins are against Him and He will not let those sins unpunished. To be sure, all governments and their institutions are meant to serve the governed and those which do not serve and even abuse the governed are worthy of God’s judgement…and will eventually receive it. It’s comforting to know that God cares and plans to take action when it’s apparent that those charged with caring and taking action on our behalf do not.

It’s Saturday morning and I shouldn’t be here. I should be back in the US with the family tending to my jet lagged condition with copious amounts of barbeque and iced tea. Instead, I’m back in the office drinking Dennis’ bad coffee and checking e-mail. I’d write at length about the insanity that has kept me here but that would be time away from my poor wife who is home alone with three little ones, few toys, no cable TV and no toilet paper.

Not a good way to start the week.

This morning, Bob at work told me that he was planning to watch all 11 hours of The Lord of the Rings on DVD once his wife and kids went out of town next month. He also told me that when he shared his plans with Dave, a doctor from our church, Dave responded with, “Great! I’ll bring the I.V.s and the catheters!”

I don’t normally get to sleep in most mornings, but yesterday was Father’s Day. The night before had been a little rough. Sam coughed so harshly throughout the night that he woke up several times crying. There was even some vomiting. Micah shares the room with Sam, so he was up a couple of times as well. As usual, I went in to see about one or both of them and ended up sleeping the rest of the night in their room. At some point in the early morning, they got up and left me snoring in Micah’s bed.

My wife came in saucer-eyed saying something about being sorry for waking me, breakfast in bed and a mouse in the kitchen. After nearly five years of living in this desert country in an apartment alternately plagued by roaches and ants, we’ve never had a mouse until the morning of the Father’s Day that I was supposed to sleep in. Go figure.

Staggering my way through the haze of half-sleep, down the hall to the kitchen I met our little intruder. He was a white mouse with pink eyes and he didn’t seem terribly afraid of us. Of course Sam and Micah wanted to be where the action was and perhaps any other day, I would’ve let them stick around, but since we were getting ready to travel back to the states I didn’t want to risk a feral mouse bite and a trip to the emergency room. Still, they wouldn’t be deterred. Sam has a book called Mouse Paint about three white mice and here he had one of those characters peeking out from under the stove in his kitchen.

Jennifer, having been awake longer and perhaps adrenaline-charged was thinking more clearly than I was. She took the plastic lid of our laundry basket and dropped it over the mouse when he ventured too far out into the open. Immediately, Sam was on the floor peering at our prisoner through the plastic mesh chattering to it and Micah was standing nearby pointing at the mouse and saying “Cat!” Apparently, I wasn’t the only one confused that morning.

Eventually the boys were ushered out, the kitchen door was shut and I was left sitting on the floor punching air holes into the lid of a coffee can that was supposed to be come the mouse’s next cell. I sat there for a while because I knew that there was no way that I could get the mouse into the coffee can. He was faster and certainly more alert than I. Once the lid got up high enough, he would be out and under the closest large appliance. All the same, I took my chances and tried to scoop him up. I got close. Twice. Then he made a run at me and in my mind I saw the albino rodent scurry up my shorts and into places no animal should ever go. Despite my caffeine deficiency at such an early hour, I summoned up the energy to fling myself over backwards in a sort of reverse tuck and roll. When I came out of it, the mouse had taken cover under the refrigerator.

The mouse and I spent the next several minutes alternating between him hiding beneath the refrigerator and the stove and me trying to coax him out with either some cheese or the broom handle. I’m not exactly sure that he wasn’t toying with me but he finally slipped up and strayed into the open for too long and taking a cue from my wife, I managed to slammed the laundry basket lid down on him again. This time though, he got a bit squished between the lid and a counter. It was the first time I’d actually heard a mouse squeak.

So, there we were, back where we’d started. I called Jennifer in and told her that I was going to need her help. She suggested sliding some paper under the basket lid in order to trap him which I tried, but it wasn’t going to work. I couldn’t hold the paper, turn the basket over and catch the mouse all in one smooth motion so I still needed her help. She got the box that Elijah’s baby blanket came in, broke it down so that I could insert it between the lid and the floor. This worked much better than the paper since it was more rigid and large enough to seal off the lid completely. Still, we had to transfer the mouse to another container. I abandoned the coffee can in favor of our toaster oven’s old box. We quickly deposited our detainee into the box and closed the lid.

I had never seen a white mouse that wasn’t someone’s pet, so I suspected that he had come over from the apartment next door where our neighbors kept a miniature zoo. It was too early to go knocking on their door in order to ask if they’d lost a white mouse which would probably just escape and end up back at our place, so I took it downstairs in order to release it. (Yeah, I know: throwing out a suspected pet is not terribly neighborly of me, but at that point I was prepared to offer restitution just so I could get the rodent out of my place.) On my way out, I showed it to the young Indian man who cleans our building. His response was to let out a bit of a bark and step gingerly away from the box. Obviously, he didn’t belong to any rodent-revering Hindu cult like the one I saw on TV a couple of months back on the Discovery Channel.

The garbage dumpsters outside the back of our building seemed like a good place to let him go, until I got there and found a scraggly cat eyeing the box in my hands. Did it know there was a mouse in the box? I tried to walk away from the cat, but he followed me a bit. It was bad enough that I was potentially about to dispose of my neighbor’s pet, but to couldn’t feed him to this cat was too much guilt to bear. There would be no way whatsoever to put a positive spin on that, so I went around the corner and dumped the little white mouse into a patch of grass that had broken through the sidewalk and beside a wall hoping that he would have a bit of cover while he collected his wits and got out of there.

Once the excitement died down, I didn’t give the morning’s adventure much more thought, until Sam told a colleague the story later that day at the mall. Brett listened to my three year old animatedly tell about the little white mouse in his apartment, then commented to me, “Yeah, (our building’s name) is full of those white mice.” When I asked him why he said that, he told me and Sam his own story of capturing three white mice in his place. The first one he released in the stairwell. (What made him think this was good idea?) The other two he kept in a cage for a while until he decided that he just wasn’t the kind of person who needed pets. One evening he had a colleague and his wife over for dinner. Being animal lovers, they volunteered to take the pair off his hands, not realizing that they had a male and female in that cage. (Can you see where this is headed yet?) With their newly adopted pets in tow, they returned to their apartment which shares a common wall with mine. Shortly after the caged lovers settled into their new home, my neighbors became the owners of a litter of about 15 mouse babies. According to Brett, some managed to escape once they were large enough to crawl around.

My wife and I have agreed not to volunteer the fate of our neighbors’ little white mouse but to give them the full story should the subject come up. Fortunately, we’ve moving in two days.

I’m off work for the next 2 days yet I’ve got to come in to do some of that complicated outprocessing that I may have mentioned previously. This means that I’ll have to go lightly on the blogging for the next several days until I can get stateside and settled in for the “vacation”.

The typical expat with kids experience is that summer trips back to the US are not vacations. They’re somewhat obligatory in order to provide the extended members of the family with opportunities for bonding. It’s also a time for running around and trying to play catch up with any friends one may still have after being abroad for so long. Then there are the various citizenship chores like updated driving liscenses (got to have one to drive in the states you know) and other documentation that might be required back in the host country. Yep, don’t get much vacationing done. Certainly not this year. But that’s ok. Winter break should be nice in January.

This is a book review that I did a while back published in an online magazine called New Wineskins. They hold the copyright.

The church is full of nice guys. Nice, boring guys who, according to John Eldredge, need “permission to live from the heart and not from the list of ’should’ and ‘ought to’.? In his book Wild at Heart: Discovering the Secret of a Man’s Soul, Eldredge comes to offer that permission to his primarily male audience. (A similar offer is extended to women who read this book, but only secondarily.) He comes also with the message that “you can get your heart back?” For Eldredge, this book is “about the recovery and release of man’s heart, his passions, his true nature which he has been given by God.”

Formerly an actor and a director for the stage in Los Angeles, Eldredge received his MA in Counseling from Colorado Christian University. He has worked for Focus on the Family and is currently the director of Ransomed Heart Ministries which is “part monastery, part military outpost, part Red Cross unit for the soul”. Drawing upon his experience as a counselor, lecturer and outdoorsman, Eldredge attempts to lead his readers on a “safari of the heart to recover a life of freedom, passion and adventure”. This safari ranges across a wide and variable terrain in only 223 pages, touching upon so many ideas and issues that readers will be hard-pressed to examine them all.

Eldredge apparently believes our churches, our women and our world are in desperate need of “men who have come alive”. However, before a man can come alive, he must deal with his wound. Eldredge claims that a blow is dealt to every man (usually by his father) “in the center of his heart, in the place of his strength”. This wound is what hinders a man from knowing and living according with his true heart. Eldredge identifies three needs of a man’s heart; a battle to fight, a beauty to rescue and an adventure to live. (These needs have their counterparts within the hearts of women which he also touches upon briefly.) His book explores the origins of the three needs, how they reflect the image of God and what keeps men from either acknowledging them or pursuing them. By sharing with his audience his own story, the stories of his clients and even borrowing stories from Hollywood, Eldredge aspires to assist with the initiation of men into an “authentic masculinity”. He opens each chapter with two or three quotations from a variety of sources including popular songwriters, authors, poets and playwrights, both secular and religious, which he believes to be relevant to the topic at hand. There are many voices represented in this book yet the voice of Robert Bly, American poet and father of the “expressive men’s movement”, seems to rise above them all.

Eldredge says that “there are no formulas with God” and that the way in which God leads individual men to deal with their wound is quite personal. Since I happen to agree with him, I hesitate to say how God may use this book in your life. Will you get your heart back, if it has in fact gone into hiding? You might. Will you become a freer, more passionate and adventurous man of God as result of joining Eldredge’s quest? Possibly. Did I experience these things? No, not really.

I think the reason that I did not come away from Eldredge’s safari with the big game he is after is because I rarely made meaningful connections with the author’s ideas. The first time I read the book, it left me a bit flat. It appeared to me that by making the disclaimer that his book is not “some sort of macho-man pep rally”, Eldredge feels free to employ as many Marlboro Man stereotypes as he can muster. His stories of rock-climbing, horse-roping, bear-hunting and fly-fishing failed to awaken in me that “something wild in the heart of every man”. While those rough and tumble narratives tend to get his point across, they never resonated with my experience and interests. Anticipating this effect on his readers, Eldredge attempts to distance himself from the stereotypes he invokes by saying that he?s not a ?great white hunter? or a great athlete or devotee of the monster truck. The tension between how he comes across through his examples and how he wants to be perceived by his readers as seen in his disclaimers makes it hard to know just what Eldredge is truly saying. However, I did find myself agreeing with him that there is something in the hearts of men that craves danger, risk and excitement. Then I read the book a second time.

My wife and I were part of a discussion group with about six other couples from our church. Not everyone in the group came from the US or even a Western culture. Two of the men in this group had lived in Lebanon during its civil war. One had been a soldier. The other had been a teenaged target for a sniper. They did not enthusiastically subscribe to Eldredge’s ideas regarding the need for danger and excitement in men’s lives. They also had trouble sharing Eldredge’s initial assessment of men (in the church). Listening to their perspectives lead me to question what he claims to be the feelings, experiences, fears and desires of “every man”.

Not only were Eldredge’s examples and illustrations ineffective in rousing ?something fierce in the heart of? this Every Man, I was indifferent to his passionate language. Like many men, I tend to do more thinking and less feeling. As a result, I found his rhetorical style to be melodramatic. One exception came during our group meetings when the wives took issue with Eldredge’s advice to his son on how to deal with a bully. He told Blaine to “hit him as hard as you can”. They were appalled, but I understood him. “You cannot turn a cheek you do not have.” I explained to the group that, unlike Jesus who was well aware of his strength, many men are unaware of theirs. Sadly, in our fallen world men only learn about their strength when it is challenged or called into question. Until a man has been tested and he learns that he is strong, he can’t be asked or expected to restrain his strength. Nor can he be trained to use his strength for good instead of evil. As a kid who often had his strength questioned, it’s understandable that this would reach me at a visceral level. This was about the only connection that Eldredge and I made.

Another thing that restrained me from whole-heartedly enlisting with Eldredge’s campaign was my understanding of what the Bible teaches about “spiritual warfare”, a term that is difficult for me to use. In Eldredge’s view, there are three enemies in man’s spiritual struggle. They are the flesh, the world and the devil. The flesh and the world are explained and dealt with rather briefly in comparison to the time spent discussing Satan. After identifying the devil as the cause of a wide variety of afflictions ranging from dizzy spells to the wound, Eldredge offers this apology; “Please don’t misunderstand me. I’m not blaming everything on the devil.” And yet, there is more elaboration upon the Great Serpent’s strategies and “how to slay him” than there is upon how to discipline the flesh or remain uncorrupted by the world. Eldredge’s concept of spiritual warfare is decidedly more aggressive than mine. When I think about spiritual warfare, I think about a defensive battle instead of an offensive battle. I remember Paul encouraging the Ephesians to “stand your ground” and to “stand firm” (Eph.6:13-14 NIV) against the “spiritual forces of evil in the heavenly realms” (Eph.6:12 NIV). The reason that the Christian’s war is defensive is because Jesus “disarmed the powers and authorities,” and “made a public spectacle of them, triumphing over them by the cross.” (Col. 2:15 NIV) It is not our commission to take the battle to the enemy. Instead, we’re told to “resist the devil”. Until Jesus returns to rescue us, we’re to stand our ground receiving any whom the Spirit rallies to the cause of Christ. Eldredge has a much more assertive role for the Christian soldier in mind.

Certainly our churches would be better “Red Cross units” for wounded souls if men were more closely conformed to the image of God. Our families would definitely better serve as “monasteries” and safe havens if men would relinquish their anger toward their wives and release them from the burden of validating their masculinity. As for the world; if men would simply follow their marching orders to be salt and light, to preach the gospel, and to live good lives among the pagans, then God would continue to go before us, fighting our battles and winning glory unto Himself. I’m not sure that Eldredge’s “invitation to rush the fields at Banockburn, to go West, to leap from the falls and save the beauty” is the same invitation that God issues to men. Nevertheless, I am certain that God can use anything He chooses to save men from lives of bondage, depression and banality, including this book.

This is something that I wrote that I never got around to trying to publish. It’s about 2 years old now.

Off the Cuff

Yesterday as I was riding home from work, one of my new colleagues asked me about the bracelet I was wearing on my right wrist. It was an unpretentious collection of five, different colored threads and a plastic “pearl”. In a cautious, almost dismissive manner I explained it as something “the kids at church wear…a sort of witness bracelet” and wondered if he’d press his inquiry further. He did.

I waited a long time before finally deciding to tie that collection of modest thread to my wrist. After a presentation about evangelizing the children of our congregation, a bundle of these wristlets were passed around the table to all of the teachers in our church’s education program. The intention was that we’d give them to the kids as they came to “accept Jesus”. Unconvinced of children’s ability or need to “make a decision for Christ”, I placed my lot inside my class folder deciding to hold onto them for a while. As the following week progressed and I looked over my materials for the first class meeting, I examined the simple adornments and rehearsed what I might say to someone about the symbolism of the colors. The thought of wearing one was seeping into my mind as I pulled a sample from the bundle to look at it more closely. What was the best knot to fasten it? I put away my class materials, leaving the lone bracelet out. It migrated around the apartment for unnumbered days before I made a different sort of decision for Christ. As I double-knotted the ends of the bracelet, I remember thinking “You know, you’re just asking for questions, so be sure you’re willing to answer them when they come.”

In the US, telling people the story of the gospel can be awkward. In the Middle East, where I live, it can be illegal. Here in my Islamic host country, there is no religious freedom. Instead, there is strict religious regulation. The ruler has graciously permitted Christians to have their own places of worship in approved areas. Evangelism is limited only to non-Muslim expatriates. Organized efforts to share the gospel with Muslims are illegal. Even personal evangelism of an individual Muslim by a single Christian is against the law. The kindest and most frequent punishment for proselytizing Muslims is immediate deportation.

For many of the Muslims around me, the religion is a garment that they put on for public appearances. Despite the apparently superficial piety of many people, zeal for Islam can be stoked easily and unexpectedly by saying the “wrong thing” to the wrong person. When I fastened those five threads around my wrist, I began to, in effect wear my beliefs on my sleeve. I was opening myself to the possibility of speaking about Jesus to a Muslim. By answering a question about the nature of my bracelet, I could expose myself and my family to significant legal and financial consequences.

My colleague asked me what the colors of my “witness bracelet” meant. He is an American. I was in no legal danger, yet I felt hesitant when he opened the door for me to tell him the story that I claim to be the foundation of my life. The Spirit within me was glad that he’d asked. However, my flesh was timid. I heard myself say, “Be careful, you can turn him off if you sound too radical.” I began my explanation:

The gold thread is God in his holiness.
The black one is the sin that separates us from Him.
The red one is the blood of Jesus that makes us right with God.
White is the …uh…
“Purity?” he offered.
Yeah, the purity we have before God.
The “pearl” (threaded onto the white strand) reminds me of a “pearl of great price”. It comes from a parable that Jesus told about a man, he was a pearl dealer, and he found an exquisite pearl so he went and sold all of his things so he could buy this pearl. He was talking about the kingdom of God and how it’s worth more than anything.

Pathetic. Not only was I timid, I was faltering…and inaccurate. There were five strands! I only told him about four! Green represents life! Eternal life…the free gift of God that we receive when we accept Jesus’ sacrifice on our behalf! Oh, and the white thread is the purity that we have before God, BECAUSE Jesus paid the penalty for our sin! Pathetic!

Recently, the black strand of my bracelet broke in half and I decided to just take the whole thing off. Even before I began to wear the bracelet, my faith was pretty much common knowledge around the school. The difference is that my conversation with the new guy was the first time that I had actually had the opportunity to share the foundation of my faith with a coworker. Now I find myself wondering: What does he think of me? More precisely, what does he think of Christians? What biases, what stereotypes does he have about people who bear that name? I wonder if I will confirm or contradict those preconceptions as we work together in the months ahead. I wonder if I should get a new bracelet.

A couple of years ago I wrote a feature article that I wanted to try to have published in a local magazine but I never did.

I’ve edited here so as to be more discreet about where I live and work.

Paid to Shop
By: Daniel Mangrum

Length: approx. 800

I get paid to shop.

It’s true.

I know, originally this was not the idea. Since the dawn of commerce, when cave-clerks stocked prehistoric shelves with goods for cavemen and cavewomen to buy, the initial concept was that consumers would pay retailers to go shopping. Today, we’ve pushed our shopping carts into a new age when shoppers may potentially leave the store with more money than when they entered…but only slightly more…and provided that they don’t buy anything. This is my story.

My wife and I were recruited by a friend to take part in a program we’ll call “Secret Shopper”. A “Big City”-based company that specializes in “human performance solutions” sponsors the program here in “Capital City”. When my wife suggested that we could get paid to go shopping, I was like you-fascinated. Intrigued, I thought; How is this possible? Who would be so irrational as to fly in the face of countless centuries of shopping ritual? How much money were we talking about?

Some people have had the primitive shopping urge bred out of them. The thought of spending even the tiniest fraction of their lives amidst a jostling crowd for the most basic grocery item causes some people to turn rigid in an attempt to quell the urge to flee.

You might say that I’m some sort of transitional species of shopper. Depending upon the object of my expedition and the fiscal health of my budget, my feelings about shopping can range across a spectrum punctuated by excitement, indifference and even resentment. I can also be somewhat pragmatic in my attitude toward shopping. Since it’s one of a multitude of life’s unpleasant necessities, I figure why not at least get paid to do it! Besides, how bad is it really to meander languidly from shop to shop in a well-appointed, climate-controlled mall on an oppressive summer day?

As if the promise of “easy money” wasn’t alluring enough, I get the pleasure of being paid to exercise my two under-appreciated talents-criticizing others and giving my opinion. There’s also an appealing romance to the secrecy of the program. For my wife, being a “secret shopper” is a way to indulge in dreamy fantasies of Cold War era espionage; shopping for the sake of democracy and the preservation of the free market! As my wife gets to envision herself as capitalism’s Jane Bond, I tag along as the retail world’s version of Austin Powers. Yeah, baby!

Like all spies everywhere, we had to be oriented to the details of our mission before setting off. In keeping with the modus operandi of all good spy networks, the location of our special training was transmitted to us by high-tech gadgetry. We got an e-mail telling us to meet at the mall.

Surreptitiously we entered the mall at the lowest level of the underground parking lot. No one suspected that we had come to take part in a top-secret, surveillance operation-except the mall employee who had to tell us how to get to the conference room. Perhaps it was against our better judgment, but we let him live.

We took the elevator down into the depths of the mall complex and followed a narrow corridor to a small desk where a secretary welcomed us. Ms Moneypenny then directed me and my wife to a small, windowless room dominated by a large table. Seated around the table were our fellow secret shoppers, each one deceptively average in appearance. Most of them were women. Many of them were not of a Western background. Some of them had already been in the field a while. They knew what to expect. They had shopped “Mega Mall” in “Big City”. They were pros.

The rest of us listened to the project managers explain how the shopping program works. Retailers hire the company to provide customer service training to the sales staff. As part of the training, each store is shopped by the secret shoppers. Our task is to visit our assigned stores, interact with the staff and then complete an evaluation form describing our experience. After the first visit, the strengths and weakness of customer service in a given store are assessed and then training is provided accordingly. A second visit is made to evaluate the store’s progress and then other visits are made sporadically as a means of quality control.

We’re paid 30 “units” for each store my wife and I visit. We’re given about 10 stores to visit and two weeks time to complete our assignment. By the end, we will have filled out about 20 evaluation forms and made about 600 “units” combined. Yet, the reward isn’t primarily monetary. The real reward is sharing a leisurely weekend shopping with the spy who loves me. And if we can dodge the sales pitches and suppress the urge to splurge, we can get away with a few extra “units”. Yeah baby!

There’s an envelope in your mailbox. You recognize immediately that it’s from the local government and begin to run through the list of things they might be contacting you about: taxes, inheritance, taxes, traffic fines, taxes, sex offender in the neighborhood…

A friend of mine recently got such a notice. (I’d really like to see how they worded it. Affecting Ed McMahon’s voice: “You may have already met John Doe, convicted child molester!”) He blogged a bit about it and raised the obvious questions.

Doubtlessly, the same abomination takes place here but it’s taboo to speak about it. I have no idea how the local community would react to such an event but I expect that it would be most severe. You see, children are adored here. Perhaps I should say “adored differently” here. The patience (indulgence?) that the majority of people have for children is much greater than in the US. My children are constantly being given candy by locals, pinched by Phillipinos and teased by Indians. Multiple times, people have asked us to be photographed with one of our boys. They have almost no (cause for) fear of strangers. As I write this and access that American world view still inside me, I’m a little creeped out by what I’m saying. Yet, we never leave the boys unattended in public. They don’t play outside without one us nearby (unlike the majority of kids in our building). We’re always there so maybe that helps them to feel confident.

What’s sad is that my oldest son Sam is at an age where we have to start teaching him to be wary of strangers. We can’t let him visit the states each summer making the same assumptions about the goodwill of strangers there that he can here.

Is this a little less sparse?

My family and I are moving soon. Same city, different house.

There’s a lot that we’ve got to do to get ready, much of it involves driving around to different places and collecting little pieces of paper. These pieces of paper , attest, affirm, permit, guarantee and generally appease various individuals and ministries regarding particular issues of their concern. It’s a bit of a headache.

Then there is all of the things that have to be done with our possessions. It’s daunting to look at so much stuff, especially the mountains of plastic toys that have been lovingly showered upon my sons, and think about collecting it up in order to transport it to another home. Not only do I find the task daunting, I’m a little embarrassed by how many things I own. Perhaps listening to the BBC and other media go on about relief for the catastrophically impoverished continent of Africa has made me slightly sensitive. Maybe not.

After undergraduate school, I paid off my credit cards, store my things and went to live in Ukraine for a while. During that time, I weaned myself off of much of my prized possessions. When I got back, I tried to continue to live simply. I got married and joined my worldly goods with my wife’s. It was an adjustment. Now that I’ve got three children, I’m still adjusting somewhat.

I guess I worry because I know how much I like STUFF. I’m especially fond of gadgets and gizmos. Flashing lights, hi-fidelity sounds and clicky buttons are very appealing to me. New technology entices me, while simultaneously repulsing me with its price tag.

Fortunately, my sense of responsibility is rather developed and the likelihood of me squandering the family’s money on the expensive niceties of life is small.

1. I believe in God, the Father Almighty, Creator of heaven and earth,

This is the God of Abraham, Isaac, and Jacob. The one who met Moses in the wilderness and declared his name to be “I am.” This God has revealed himself to his creation, for there is no other way humans could possibly have come to know him. His existence is logical, but not a truth that can be attained through logic or empirical research. I only know him because he chooses to reveal himself to me, and to the whole of his creation, through a wide variety of consistent wittneses.

2. And in Jesus Christ, his only begotten Son, our Lord,

I believe that Jesus of Nazareth is the Annointed King of creation. There is no other King for no other has recieved the annointing which God poured out upon this man. I believe that he is the one who will speak for me at the time of judgement before God.

3. Who was conceived by the Holy Spirit, born of the Virgin Mary,

I believe that the Holy Spirit is God and that as the Almighty, creator, causing a virgin to give birth is not beyond his ability. In fact, it was his plan in to have Mary bear a son in this way.

4. Suffered under Pontius Pilate, was crucified, dead and buried; He descended into hell.

This work of God is a matter of history, of public record. The facts are there to be varified…with the possible exception of Jesus’ decent into hell. However, the credibilty of the wittnesses is great.

5. The third day he rose again from the dead;

As foretold by the prophets. This is God’s vindication of his only begotten son.

6. He ascended into heaven, and sits at the right hand of God the Father Almighty.

More vindication.

7. From there he shall come to judge the quick and the dead.

Also, according to the prophets.

8. I believe in the Holy Spirit,

…although, I don’t fully understand him. He is God.

9. I believe in the holy catholic church, the communion of saints,

…even though it’s often hard to live within this communion. But the saints are the citizens of his kingdom and we’re going to be living together forever after so we might as well start getting along here and now.

10. The forgiveness of sins,

I believe in this. I need this.

11. The resurrection of the body,

Yes, one day I shall be given a new, material body which in nature will resemble the resurrected body of my King who was touched by Thomas and ate breakfast with his disciples by the sea. I don’t understand it, but it’s consistent with the testimony of the Bible.

12. And the life everlasting. Amen.

…life unending…in His kingdom…safe at last…yes, I believe in this.

Ok, this means that I can give passwords to others who can log in to my blog and post to it.

How do I feel about that?
I’m not sure.

…I thought that I might post one that reflects the majority of my personal beliefs.

The Apostle’s Creed

1. I believe in God, the Father Almighty, Creator of heaven and earth,
2. And in Jesus Christ, his only begotten Son, our Lord,
3. Who was conceived by the Holy Spirit, born of the Virgin Mary,
4. Suffered under Pontius Pilate, was crucified, dead and buried; He descended into hell.
5. The third day he rose again from the dead;
6. He ascended into heaven, and sits at the right hand of God the Father Almighty.
7. From there he shall come to judge the quick and the dead.
8. I believe in the Holy Spirit,
9. I believe in the holy catholic church, the communion of saints,
10. The forgiveness of sins,
11. The resurrection of the body,
12. And the life everlasting. Amen.

At a later date, I’ll comment.

Here’s one of the disadvantages of this site:

The Google Ads which appear at the bottom of the page may occasionally contain advertisements regarding sites, blogs, products, etc which I do not endorse.

I realized this when I saw an ad for a gay blog. (Do blogs even have gender, much less a sexual preference?) I hold the unpopular belief that homosexuality is contrary to God’s intention for human relationships and therefor harmful to individual humans and the larger human community. Ads for blogs that advocate homosexuality aren’t welcomed here, yet because I do not pay for this site, I can’t expect to have any control over this.

What’s disturbing to me now is this: my post contains words which may now increase the likelihood of such ads finding their way to my blog.

I suppose I could start every post with a disclaimer, but wouldn’t that become tedious and unreadable? Looks like I may have to move along.

I thought that I would re-post something from the blogger site here just to have something to work with. Here it is.

…er, well it would be here if I could get the blogger site to load faster. I’m waiting…this is one of the reasons that I’m planning on moving my blog. Will it be to this host? Possibly. Just depends. Ok, it’s ready now.

Where am I?

I’m currently living in a small, affluent nation situated on the Arabian/Persian Gulf in what the Western world calls the Middle East. There is one, state religion. Transitions of power are family affairs. We have one telecommunications company. It is the sole ISP. Why is this important?

Freedom of speech does not hold a revered place in the value system of my host country…certainly not the nearly deified place that it holds back in the states. Here’s an example:

Back during the early days of the most recent Palestinian uprising (that should put me on the radar) the government here sanctioned the occasional “Day of Rage”-a set Friday when the supporters were allowed to march and shout their slogans and display their non-violent hatred for Israel and the United States. On one occasion, there was supposed to be a demonstration however it did not have government support and it was not permitted. Agitators were dealt with I’m sure, but I can say with certainty exactly how.

However, here’s a bit of expat lore that might give us a clue. The story goes that in a different part of the country from where I live, a group of expat workers demonstrated against a particular bit of injustice. The government rolled in, collected the demonstrators and immediately deported them back to their impoverished, third world countries of origin.

My posts will not be unfettered commentary. I’ll always need to maintain a bit of circumspection. No one may be watching. Someone may be watching. The system is designed that way.

Maybe someone will read this and think nothing of it. Perhaps others, like friends and family back home, will read it and wonder why I would choose to live in a place like this…or for that matter, why would people from impoverished third world countries come to live here. There’s an answer. I’ll post it another time.

…resize the photos. Probably should make thumbnails. Also, can find a way to delete the pics without deleting the whole post. I’m sure there’s a reason.

I started my firs blog with Blogger and I’m a little unhappy with it. Sure, it looks good. I like the templates, but it just doesn’t load very quickly…and somehow, I’ve managed to wipe out my template several times. It’s terribly irritating to have to remodify a new template once all of your customized links are in place. So, I’ve been shopping around.

We’ll try posting here for a while and see what comes of it. I’m hopeful.