Lent

For Holy Week, one more Lenten re-post, from March of 2008. . . ------------------------- During Lent, I am struck again and again with the conviction that the Christian life is a lot more serious than I generally treat it as being. It is so easy to play at Christianity – to talk the jargon, do the theology, know the Scriptures, even – to get real good at the outward appearances, but miss the inner transformation, the knowledge of God. ------------------------- “Not everyone who says to me, ‘Lord, Lord’ will enter the kingdom of Heaven, but he who does the will of my Father in Heaven.” (Matthew 7:21) “We are half-hearted creatures, fooling about with drink and sex and ambition when infinite joy is offered us” (from The Weight of Glory, by CS Lewis) Alas; and I am the most half-hearted of all. I cannot escape the conviction that God is in deadly earnest about a way of life that I’m content to dabble in at my leisure. But – “When Christ calls a man, He bids him come and die.” (from The Cost of Discipleship, by Dietrich Bonhoeffer) I just want to drop the pretenses. I know who I am before God; I’m certainly not fooling God. “Before Him no creature is hidden, but all are open and laid bare to the eyes of Him with whom we have to do.” (Hebrews 4:13) ------------------------- O Lord, have mercy. I may fool myself, but I don’t fool you. You “discern the thoughts and intentions of the heart” (Hebrews 4:12); “you know my inmost being” (ref. Psalm 139:13-16). Alas, alas. "Woe is me, for I am undone!" (Isaiah 6:5). Not a pretty picture, is it? And yet you won’t let go of me; you won’t leave me to my own devices, no matter how half-hearted I am. O Lord, I only want to know you. And yet I find that the biggest obstacle to my knowing you is. . . myself. I ought to pray, but I am irresolute. Too often, I go through the motions, “warmed from without, but not aflame within” (Imitation of Christ 3:2). And yet, O Lord, you call me on, for reasons I can’t discern, except that your love and mercy are unfathomable. . . ------------------------- (edit April 1; Holy Thursday) A couple more related passages have come to my mind: "I do not understand my own actions, for I do not do what I want, but I do the very thing I hate. . . For I have the desire to do what is right, but not the ability to carry it out. For I do not do the good I want, but the evil I do not want is the very thing I keep on doing. . . Wretched man that I am! Who will deliver me from this body of death? But thanks be to God through Jesus Christ our Lord!" (St. Paul's Epistle to the Romans, chapter 7) "These two things I know - that I am a great sinner, and that Christ is a great Savior." (John Newton, author of the hymn Amazing Grace) And that about sums it up. . .

Madness. . . Madness. . .

Oh, please excuse me for just a second while I bask in the glow of my Spartans getting another turn in college basketball's Final Four. For the sixth time in twelve years. . . This could get habit-forming, if we're not careful. . . The thing is, this time, I have no idea how it happened. This year, I'd have bet good money that another trip to the Final Four wasn't gonna happen. The team just wasn't coming together the way Tom Izzo's teams usually do when March rolls around - guys getting suspended, and benched, etc. And then in our second-round game, our best player, and floor leader, got hurt and is out until next season. We blew a twelve-point lead with two minutes to go, but somehow managed to win the game. Then while we weren't looking, all the higher-seeded teams in our region got upset, but we still had to play the teams that upset them. We won both games this weekend by the skin of our teeth, and so we get to go back to the Final Four. Unbelievable. . . The thing is, our past Final Four teams, I had some idea that they were pretty doggone good, and stood an honest chance to win. This year's team, as I said, I have no idea how they got there. But I'm sure enjoying the ride. . .

Every Breath He Takes

I have some fairly mild allergies, to a few things like dogs, cats, pollen, mold and such. My eyes will itch when the trees are budding in the spring, or if I spend more than a couple hours in a house with a shedding pet, but really, they don't keep me from doing much. I never experienced any kind of allergies until I was in my mid-20s or so, right after I got married (hmmmmm. . .), but since then, they've just been sort of a low-grade, background annoyance in my life. In a related vein, I get excercise-induced asthma. So, when I go on a particularly grueling bike ride, it's not uncommon for me to cough a lot for an hour or two afterwards, although again, it never keeps me from doing anything. Sorta like, my lungs say, "OK, he's done now; time for paybacks, for making us work so hard. . ." ------------------------- Gratifyingly, that small frailty has mostly not passed through to my kids (at least so far; only two of them have even reached the age at which I started to experience them). And Jen's side of the gene pool is quite allergy-free, so they've got that going for 'em, which is nice. 1F has some very mild allergies which occasionally redden her eyes, but for the most part, my kids have been happily allergy-free. Except 5M, who seems to have gotten all the allergies for the whole family, in concentrated form. Poor kid. It can seem like his nose is constantly running, and until we got him on cetirizine, he'd spend the first two conscious hours of every day blowing his nose. And he is not a dainty nose-blower, either. At its worst, it could get like living near an airport, where you'd momentarily suspend conversations until the sound passed. He has a couple friends who have very 'sheddy' pets, and we finally just had to say that he could never sleep over at their houses. He handles it with great equanimity, and doesn't really complain too much. Not nearly as much as I would, in the same circumstances, at any rate. But, being 17, he doesn't always account for his physical limitations as much as, say, common sense might dictate. ------------------------- A couple weeks ago, on a Friday night, 3M had a big party in honor of his 22nd birthday. Our sons, and several of their friends, have, in recent years, been bitten by the Poker Bug. They will, at the drop of a hat, have a Texas Hold-'Em tournament, with anywhere from 5 to 40 people playing. And, since it was 3M's birthday, Texas Hold-'Em was a definite part of the agenda. At midnight or so, Jen and I headed to bed, encouraging the boys not to be stupid about how late they stayed up. Which, in the grand scheme of things, probably meant that they got to bed at 5AM instead of 6. But 5M had a commitment for Saturday, so he dragged himself out of bed on two or three hours of sleep. And that night, he was invited over to a friend's house for a late-night movie-fest. Then Sunday morning, we got him up for church. Sunday night, he was eager to go with his brothers (who had been much freer than he had, to sleep in on the weekend), for another poker game, promising to be home by midnight. At which point, I finally made the call that enough was enough. Which was decidedly unpopular with him, but I stuck to my guns, and a slammed door or two later, he finally went to bed. ------------------------- The next morning, 5M awoke with the worst, nastiest barking-like-a-dog cough I've ever heard, besides generally feeling like crap. He stayed home from school and slept all day. Tuesday through Thursday, he had some standardized testing, so he dragged himself in to school (if I were better at the 'foresight thing' myself, I might've mentioned that it was a really stupid time to go all Sleepless in Seattle, but I refrained). And then on Friday, he stayed home again. All through the weekend, he mostly stayed in bed, with the barking-dog cough. So last Monday, since he'd been barking like a dog for over a week, Jen took him to see the doctor after school. They took a few measurements of his breathing, and sent him directly to the Emergency Room - Do Not Pass Go, Do Not Collect $200. The diagnosis - asthma. Our son had basically been having a week-long asthma episode. And we had no inkling that anything like that could be going on. (They took chest X-rays, which came back negative, so at least that was good.) At that point, the Family Emergency Room Protocol kicked in. Jen called me at work, and told me to work out an alternate plan for dinner for myself and the other kids, while she stayed with 5M at the ER. I put the younger boys to bed, then grabbed something for Jen to eat, and joined her at the hospital, figuring that, since it was 10:30, and they'd already been there for six hours, that they'd be ready to leave soon. ("Ha-ha-ha," I hear you say, "how precious; so touchingly naive." Yeah, I know.) When I arrived, 5M was hooked up to a machine that monitored the oxygen content of his blood. 99% or higher is 'normal'. He was at 91%. And that was after receiving a couple 'treatments'; he'd been at 87% when they sent him over. They were wavering on whether or not to admit him to the hospital, since his numbers were so bad, but he was responding to the treatments. Besides which, it was One of Those Nights at the ER - I think there were two infants with the same barking-dog cough who, unlike 5M might have died without some fairly direct attention. Then, about midnight, a couple ambulances rolled in. Etc, etc. So, instead of receiving three or four treatments in fairly short succession, he was getting one every couple hours, and the nurses kept coming in, apologizing for losing track of us, and thanking us for our patience. There was a TV in his ER 'booth'. We watched taped re-broadcasts of the entire Tigers spring training game, and the entire Pistons basketball game. Then we settled on a History Channel show about a pawn shop in Las Vegas. When we started seeing pawn shop episodes for the second time, we knew we'd been there for a loooooonnnggg time. About 2:30AM, the attending doc came in to tell us that they'd finally made a firm decision to admit him, and as soon as there was a bed available, they'd take him upstairs. When it got to 4:30 and he still hadn't moved upstairs, Jen and I went to the nurses' station, and, being told that we didn't have to sign anything at that point, we went home. Last Tuesday, we both went to work on about four hours of sleep, and Tuesday night, after stopping in at the hospital, we slept the Sleep of the Dead. 5M was finally released, and came home, on Wednesday. ------------------------- Aside from the ridiculous amount of time we spent in the hospital (from the time Jen and 5M first walked into the doctor's office, until she and I finally went home, with 5M still not in a 'regular hospital bed', was 13 hours), it was a pretty sobering experience. We were a little appalled at ourselves, for letting our son have a week-long asthma attack before we finally got him some medical attention. It's a different dynamic now, with both of us working - the 'hurdle' to clear before we'll take a kid to the doc has gotten higher, as the costs (in time & hassle) have increased. And I don't think it served 5M very well. Lessons to be learned from this, for sure. Not least of which is the degree to which we have to protect our kids from their own stupidity. Which cuts strongly against my parental grain, but I can't let something like this happen again. . . He's doing much better now - the barking-dog cough is gone, and he doesn't sound like a tea-kettle with every breath; but he's still tired all the time, which indicates that he's still not getting all the oxygen that he needs. So maybe he'll be a bit longer getting over it all the way. (*sigh*)

Oh, the Irony. . .

Does anyone besides me just want to say, "Ha-ha, good one, God; you are quite the Divine Comedian, you are," when (a) on the quote-unquote Last Day of Winter it was 70 degrees and sunny, and I even took a half-day of vacation so I could get out on my bike, because (b) on the quote-unquote First Day of Spring it is 35 degrees and snowing? I tell ya, He's got a million of 'em. . . ------------------------- (edit March 22) After the manic mood swings of the previous couple days, yesterday - the quote-unquote Second Day of Spring - was actually a very nice, 'seasonal' type of day - about 45 and sunny. . . And my Spartans are through to the Sweet Sixteen once again! I tell ya, I do love me some March Madness!

Swaying In the Breeze. . .

A while back (quite a while by now), Suldog posted some photos, including one of his teenaged self indulging in a bit of public drunkenness, under the watchful eyes of his parents. Which reminded me all too well of my own experience of First Drunkenness (this post originated as a comment I left on that post of Suldog’s; but it’s a good story, so you’d be very kind to indulge my telling it again here). . .

And I suppose I'll find out which of my kids, or VMJ's (AKA GF2, altho at the time of this story, she was still VMS), ever come around here, looking for stories from my dissolute youth. . .

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I was 18, and a newly-legal consumer of alcoholic beverages, when VMS's parents took us out to dinner in Greektown (Chicago) - the waiters in skirts, the flaming cheese, "OPAA!", the whole bit. (Does it fill you with a sense of foreboding that setting the scene for my First Drunkenness involves my girlfriend's parents? Read on. . .)

They ordered a bottle of a Greek 'blush' wine called Roditys. And me being newly-legal at the time, I had a glass. And hey, it was pretty good! (Nothing at all like the Boone’s Farm that I’d snitched from my dad once upon a time.) So I had another. They ordered a second bottle, and so I had yet another glass. 'Cuz hey, it was pretty good!

After a while, I noticed that the room wasn't quite sitting still the way it was supposed to, anymore, and when one of the waiters lit the flaming cheese for another customer across the room, my "OPAA!" was louder than anyone else's at our table. So I foggily deduced that I was a sheet or two further to the wind than was best for me to be, being out to dinner with my girlfriend and her parents, and all.

So, figuring that the next thing that came out of my mouth would probably be stupid (which, looking back on it, is pretty darned self-aware for a first-time-drunk 18-year-old), I just shut up (sorta like the guy who leaves the bar at 3AM and figures he’ll escape the attention of the police by driving 12 mph all the way home) (not that I've ever done that, or anything). So I sat there, looking shitfaced, swaying gently in the breeze, saying nothing. I vaguely recall her mother leaning over to her father, saying (in her more-than-slight New Jersey accent), "I tell ya, Manny, he's drunk; we gotta get him outta here."

(*sigh*)

Maybe that has something to do with why they never became my in-laws. . .

Holy Shit

Perhaps I'm just being lazy, in a bloggity sense, or maybe my bloggity muse is taking a nap just lately. But this scripture passage was read in church yesterday, so I'm giving you another re-post today. This bit originally posted in March of 2007, but its roots in my brain go back decades before that, probably to my college days. At any rate, it is Lent. . .

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And [Jesus] told this parable: “A man had a fig tree planted in his vineyard; and he came seeking fruit on it and found none. And he said to the vinedresser, ‘Lo, these three years I have come seeking fruit on this fig tree, and I find none. Cut it down; why should it use up the ground?’ And he answered him, ‘Let it alone for one more year, sir, while I hoe it and manure it. And if it bears fruit next year, well and good; but if not, cut it down.” (Luke 13:6-9)

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It being Lent, I am in a ‘penitential’ frame of mind – taking a ‘spiritual inventory’ of my life, and trying, with God’s help, to address areas of weakness and sin. This Parable of the Fig Tree has always had a certain poignancy to me. There are many ways in which this parable has been interpreted over the centuries, but I’ve always tended to read it metaphorically, as though the fig tree is me, and my life. And I ask myself, have I borne fruit? When my Master comes to me, does He find the fruit that He’s looking for? And I get a certain chuckle from the last couple verses. Loosely re-translated (OK, very loosely), the vinedresser (the Holy Spirit?) says, “Let me whack on it and throw some shit on it, and see if it bears fruit.” And I get a wry smile at the metaphorical notion that our lives become more fruitful when we get some shit thrown on us. Maybe we get humbler, as the ‘shit’ that comes our way breaks down our pride. Maybe we finally begin to address some weakness or character flaw when the ‘shit’ that gets thrown at us makes it apparent. Mother Theresa said that ‘there is no spiritual growth without suffering’, and whether she had this parable in mind or not, this is essentially how I tend to understand her. Throwing some shit on my garden makes it more fruitful; is it possible that the ‘shit’ that gets thrown at me in my everyday life has an analogous effect on my spiritual life? But that bit about, "If it doesn't bear any fruit by next year, then go ahead and cut it down," causes me the tiniest bit of concern. . . ------------------------- (And hey: it got to nearly 50F on Saturday, so Jen and I got our bikes out and rode 19 miles - the earliest start to our riding season in many a year. . .)

Methinks Some Folks Doth Protest Too Much. . .

A while ago, I was in the checkout line at the supermarket, when a headline from the cover of one of the tabloid magazines on display there caught my eye. (I hasten to interject here that I am absolutely a commited member of the 'Who-gives-a-rat's-ass?' school of attending to tabloid headlines, but you know, sometimes you just notice stuff, in spite of yourself.)

"HOW MANY IS TOO MANY?" blared the headline. "The Duggars Under Fire" was the sub-heading. Now, Jen and I have had occasion to make a degree of common cause with the Duggars from time to time, so, in spite of my better judgement, I read on. It seems that our good friends Jim Bob and Michelle Duggar have recently welcomed their 19th child into this world, four months prematurely, and the health 'issues' of little Josie were the occasion for such soul-searching on the part of the tabloid writers. (Have you noticed how much easier it is to search other people's souls than your own?) (Also, Michelle was 43 years old at the time of Josie's birth; which, just for the sake of saying so, is two-and-a-half years younger than Jen was when 8M was born).

Now, my first reaction whenever I see something in the media pertaining to the Duggars is always, "Well, God Bless 'Em!" It takes an admirable measure of courage and self-sacrifice to raise such a large family in today's world. And my second reaction is usually, especially when the commentator in question adopts a tone of "Those people have got to be stopped!" (which is a distressingly large proportion of them), "What do YOU care how many kids some couple in Arkansas has?" I mean, here we have people, in print, in a nationally-distributed journal, sanctimoniously debating the Morality of Family Size, and at least theoretically prepared to consider invoking some manner of coercive authority, because a couple in Arkansas has Too Many Kids.

And I am thoroughly at a loss to account for the visceral vehemence of that reaction. I mean, really - why do the Duggars seem to bother so many people so much? By all accounts, their kids are well provided for, properly educated, well-behaved, and no burden to the society-at-large, so why all the angst? 'Better Them Than Me', I could understand, and even, to a degree, sympathize with. I mean, if someone feels like nineteen kids is more than they could handle, I can definitely understand that (heck, depending on the day, two kids can be more than I think I can handle); and nobody is forcing anyone, or even proposing to them, to have one child more than what they want to have (and just as an aside, many of the same folks who are so eager to tell the Duggars that they've got 'Too Many Kids' would pitch a monumental bitch if anyone so much as arched an eyebrow at someone else's choice to remain childless; "It's Nobody's Business But Mine!" Unless you're the Duggars, and choose to have 19). It's just out-of-proportion. Exactly what skin is it, off the nose of anyone not named Duggar, if they have as many kids as they want - or, more to the point, as many kids as they believe God is inviting them to have?

Is it because of the southern-accented evangelical Christianity espoused by the Duggars? I know that, in the part of the country where I live, southern accents can evoke a stereotype of 'ignorant and uneducated' with some folks (even so admirable a young man as Tim Tebow, the Heisman-Trophy-winning quarterback from the University of Florida, can evoke a similar visceral reaction, so maybe that does account for some of it). But Jim Bob Duggar (and yeah, that name 'Jim Bob' also evokes stereotypical images of 'hayseed' among many northerners) is hardly uneducated; heck, he's served in the same state legislature over which Bill Clinton, much beloved of the northern elites, once presided as governor. . .

We have eight children, so we've gotten a few comments on the order of 'How could you?', in the course of our parental lives, but nothing like what the Duggars seem to inspire. We are good friends of two families who each have eleven children, and one with thirteen (I will admit that Jen and I do appreciate any opportunities we have, rare as they are, to use the words, 'Only Eight'). Heck, Jen is one of ten kids herself, and I'm one of seven; which has mostly served to greatly increase the esteem in which we hold our parents. Another couple we know has seven children; the mother is one of 14 children, and the father is one of 16 (so maybe they've practiced an admirable restraint, eh?); their kids have 50-some aunts and uncles, including spouses. One can only imagine what their family reunions must be like. . .

But really - why do the Duggars, by their very existence, seem to provoke such extreme agitation in so many people? I understand that they have, to at least some degree, embraced the public spotlight, and a measure of 'celebrity', by agreeing to appear in various TLC and Discovery Health shows (which, I admit, I've never seen; like the Duggars, we don't have cable). And maybe they do mean to promote a certain vision of family life - the Quiverfull Movement, and all that. But again - who is being harmed by their message? A simple 'No Thanks; I'll Pass' ought to suffice (it did for us, when some of our friends embraced Mary Pride's message many years ago), but it seems not to. And why is that?

Just wondering. . .

(Sorry if this is more of a rant than it needs to be. I guess it just struck a nerve. . .)