Another sweet outfit from Grandmommie and Grandmother.  

Our gorgeous little man in an outfit from Grandmommie and Grandmother. What a cutie! 

This picture was taken of Kara a few weeks before Caleb was born. Grandma sent this pretty poka-dot dress and Kara looks adorable in it! 

Here's Caleb sleeping sweetly on Mommy and Daddy's bed while Mommy talked with Grandma on the phone. He's such a good baby! 

This one was from last week, but it's an outfit from Auntie Kara and I wanted her to see him in it! 

He's such a sweetie and so cuddly! 

Honestly, he's really not a redhead 

Aug. 2nd - Here's my little man today! Looking cute in another outfit from Omi and Aunt TT. He enjoyed a lovely walk through Manchester this evening looking adorable in this seaside outfit and seaside town. 

10 Days Old

Thom is back to work this week. Caleb is 10 days old. Kara is clinging to Mama. Mama is surviving the nighttime feedings. Papa is graciously enduring being used by Kara as a jungle-gym. Grandma is returning from Indiana on Friday. Omi is doing well and home from the hospital back in Indiana. Those are the highlights for the week.

In other news... my Pampered Chef team survived the pregnancy with me still serving as a Sales Director. My team had to pull together at the 11th hour over the weekend to make this all come together, but it did and I'm grateful to God to have the opportunity to continue in my business. The next plan is to ramp up my show schedule and start doing my own Sales meetings with my team starting this month. We're pumped up for having held it together until Caleb's birth and I have high hopes that we'll continue to grow stronger in our businesses this Fall.

Well, the day is calling, so I must get to it. Oh, I will be scanning and posted a family picture soon, in response to that request. Someone how that one happened on the film camera rather than the digital, so I had to wait for development. If you want a "recent" picture check out the archive from the Spring I had one posted around Easter time.

Love to all!

Here Caleb was looking at his mobile and really enjoying it. We do have a lovely bumper for his crib, but he had decided to send it to the washing machine if you know what I mean! 

He has lungs! And REALLY long toes! Thought you all would like to see! 

One Week Old Today!

Just a quick blog to catch everyone up on our week. Caleb is one week old today and doing great. He's a VERY good baby. Eats, sleeps, wets, pees for distance, eats, sleeps, wets, asks us politely to change the bedsheets again, eats, sleeps, wets... Occassionally we get to see his eyes for a little while - dark blue, of course, for newborns. He doesn't cry much, mostly to announce that he's soaked again (as are most of his surroundings). We're learning some valuable tips on boys and diapers and what works and what doesn't. Suggestions welcome! We're sleep deprived, but happy otherwise. Kara is LOVING being a big sister and simultaneously testing all of the boundaries to see if the rules are still in place with Mama and Daddy barely awake.

On a more serious note, my grandma in Indiana had a heart attack on Tuesday and my mom had to travel to Indiana to be with her. She is doing well. They put in five stints and she is out of ICU, alert and doing better. I believe she will be going home at the beginning of the week. My mom will be coming back here on Friday and staying for another week. My Dad decided to stay and help us with Kara instead of going with Mom to Indiana. We're all very relieved that Omi is doing so well and that Mom was able to be with her this week.

Keep watching here for daily picture updates particularly through this week as Grandma needs her "Caleb fix" even in Indiana and it cheers Omi up to see new pictures of her new great-grandson!

Here's Caleb this morning - July 30th - one week old. He's our little froggy boy - until he wets through it anyway! 

This picture is for Joanna. Remember finding this orange outfit at Children's Orchard and you actually liked it, despite not liking orange! And for everyone else who's been asking, yes, he has blondish-red highlights, but no it's not really red hair. We'll see how it turns out! 

Grandma snapped this one at just the right second. Have to admit he doesn't really look like this all that much, but it's still pretty funny! 

Sweet sleepy little guy! 

Playing with Caleb first thing in the morning on Mama and Daddy's bed. 

What a good big sister Kara is! She loves Caleb so much and just wants to be near him and sing to him as much as she can! 

Caleb in the outfit he wore to the baby shower yesterday evening - July 27th -  

Lynn-nore and Kara looking him over 

Kara's first look at her baby brother 

A rare peek with both eyes 

Caleb is here!

It is hard to describe the extraordinary and domestic range of the emotions of the last 24 hours. Suffice to say that last night we took the Grandparents out to the beach. The tide was out, and Gramma and Kara couldn't help but find dozens of sand dollars everywhere they looked. On the way back, we made plans to have a game night the following evening -- and then it started. "Um...honey," said Lynn-nore as we pulled away from the beach, "I think we might be going to the hospital tonight." The contractions came very quickly, and by the time we got home, we had already summoned her parents back to the house, had talked to the midwife (Pat was on duty, the same person who delivered Kara) and everyone was clean. I could feel the adrenaline kicking in, my brain fussing to remember benign, domestic details while also grappling with the real impact of the situation. This is it. Wow, is this going to be hard. I hope it isn't too much for Lynn-nore. Are we ready for this? We can't wait to see him. Both of us were scared to death and full of joy against the coming future. I hope I can be of some help to Lynn-nore. I pray, God, don't let labor be too painful for her. Have mercy upon us, O Lord, and upon our son. "..that he gave his one and only son..." Kara was more calm than any of us. When Lynn-nore's Mom and Dad arrived back at the apartment, she was clean and in her jammies, ready with books for Gramma. "Bye honey," said Lynn-nore, bending to kiss her. "Next time you see us, you might be seeing your baby brother!" Kara was more interested in Gramma getting started on Jungle Book.

The raw details of the rest I will leave out. War stories are best left to those who fought the battle. I can say that we arrived at the hospital at 8pm, and that it was over at 12:47am. I can say that Lynn-nore did great and was very brave; that God did have mercy and didn't make her go into the wee hours of the morning; that she was already up and walking around a few hours later. I can also say that I was more helpful overall this time, but that is where it ends. Let me just say, there are moments where - being a guy - you feel like an alien. For example. Lynn-nore and Pat, both hands clasped, staring straight at each other, deeply involved in breathing - Pat walking Lynn-nore through a contraction that curls her toes and makes her knees shiver. They are their own universe, nothing else exists. Behind them, a nurse stands straight and quiet, ready to respond to any request. Three women, and I, the only man in the room, can do nothing and can add nothing. Now this really isn't the point, understand. It is stupid to whine about being useless, so don't hear me that way. I am not whining. I am proud to be useless for an hour or more if I can be useful (onesimus) to my wife for 2 minutes. This is the guy experience, though. We do not intuit the pain or the breathing, the pressure and the release, the drop of a baby nor the courage that goes into labor. We may approach ridiculously enthusiastic fandom, but we are always fans. Men look at women looking at labor the way women look at men looking at the work of their hands with the absolute attention of blood, DNA, soul.

Caleb came very quickly. Lynn-nore was induced at 12:10 or so, and he crowned so fast that he actually bruised his own forehead, nor did his head come out stretched and obling from the experience. Further, unlike his sister, Caleb did not cry or flail around. He coos and smacks, but he seems interested in letting the world talk to him about itself first. He was able to eat, and the relief and elation coming from Lynn-nore's face as she held him was like scales falling from the eyes. The room smelled sour and antiseptic, nurses came and did things, we just put our faces next to his and didn't care. Our breaths all mingled together. God made a knot.

I made it home, Lynn-nore and baby finally being tucked into their places, at 3am. The Grandparents left for their lodgings, and I went upstairs. Same stairs. Everything orangish yellow in the light squinting. Same everything, like a tomb opened up, same clothes and toys and stuff. I went in and kissed Kara, then went to sleep.

She woke up at 7:30am. We made it back to the hospital around noon, and I took 10 minutes of the sweetest video. Kara asked to hold Caleb, and Mommy obliged. She did so well with him. She is so interested in him - even to buzzing around him annoyingly when he cries, or when Lynn-nore is trying to change him. She touches his face, his ears, his fingers. "Hello baby Caleb," she says. "I love you," she says. The rest of today is meaningless, aside from the Tucker family visiting us. So wonderful to see them. All the girls were feeling a little sick, so Mike wound up holding him the whole time. How often does that happen? I'm fading now. Final stats: 7lbs 10oz; 21" long.

Everyone's Here, Except Caleb

Kara's running around in a new Snow White costume from Grandma and Papa. QE and Sir Walter are back from Poland. VBS is almost over for Kara. Still no sign of the little guy's arrival.

My parents arrived safely yesterday after two days on the road and we're all excited to be spending a few weeks with them. Kara keeps hearing about their new pool and is a little bummed that she won't actually get to see it or use it until next Summer. She asked last night "When are we going to Grandma and Papa's new house??" Kara is spending her mornings this week enjoying VBS and asking me regularly "When is Baby Caleb going to be born?"
"On his birthday, honey." is all I can tell her and that only God knows when that will be.

I have an appointment with one of the midwives this afternoon, so we'll see how that goes.

Thom's neck is out of wack badly enough to make him actually consider calling the doctor today, so please be praying for him. Presently his neck is semi-permanently focused downward. He's a poor thing! He's grateful that if I go into labor at least I'm shorter than he is and probably I'll be lying down. You know that great scene from The LionKing with them holding up the new baby lion high up in the air - they'll be none of that for Caleb until Daddy's neck feels better! Even Kara is beginning to wonder why Daddy can't look up quite right. Pray that God heals this quickly!

We'll keep you all posted!

Reporting that there's still nothing to Report

Just a quick note to update the blog. Nothing to report. Kara is spending her mornings at VBS this week. She seems to be enjoying it. Thom is doing drop-off and I'm doing pick-up. I'm enjoying the quiet around the house each morning, wondering every day - will this be the day. Tomorrow my parents will be arriving. They flew from Nashville to Norfolk to pick up one of their vehicles and they're driving up today and tomorrow. Guess Caleb is waiting for Grandma and Papa to be here before he arrives! Today I'm actually wondering if this whole pregnancy hasn't just been a figment of our collective imaginations and really I'm just fat and sometimes my belly moves all on it's own. I can't actually fathom that he's EVER going to be here in our arms!!

Let's see... over the weekend we did get to have some nice time with QE and Sir Walter. They came over Friday and Saturday evening. Kara was so tickled to see them that she crawled up in their laps with the blanket that lives on our couch and just wanted to snuggle up. Living so far away from family it's a blessing to have friends that fill that gap. We all appreciate it, but it's especially sweet to see how it meets that need for Kara and it's also sweet to see her so unabashadly (I think that's a word!) demonstrative about it! Anyway, after Kara went to bed we are able to hear some details of their trip to Poland, though even after many hours of discussion it still seems we only heard the tip of iceberg in terms of what God is doing in their lives and the lives of the people there. Mission trips often take time to process and it's always interesting to see what is fresh in someone's mind a day or two later versus what seems most significant six-months out. Certainly that conversation is not over yet!

Well, today is about getting my hair cut and buying some groceries, hopefully before picking Kara up, though we'll see. With the 90 degree weather, maybe Kara and I hit the grocery store after for the sake of perishables! Some of you have asked and it bears noting, we DO HAVE A/C - one in our bedroom and one in the living room. Thanks for asking - I'm surviving the heat as best as possible.

Keep checking in and we'll let you know if there's anything to report!

That space-time feeling

So I've set a date to take the GRE: October. And in this vein, I was just spreading out the various "study for the GRE 2006" books on the pinewood children's table in front of me at the local Barnes N' Noble, when the cell phone rang. It was Lynn-nore. QE and SWR, turns out, were stranded at the airport, tired and jet-lagged from their flight from Poland. It was my job to go get them. Lucky for me, I had Hendrix with me, and it was a warm night.

You know, I don't often really drive anywhere at night any longer. I forget what a rush it is to be out with the traffic and the neon and everyone moving and braking and shuffling around in position. Jimi was just breaking into the to-die-for opening montage of "Voodoo Child" when I crested the highway and could see Boston. Wow, I love the city. It has been quite awhile since I've seen it at night, and it looked great. Lynn-nore and I rarely actually go in; few people do. Boston is like most other big cities, you enjoy it if you live inside. If you are on the outisde, you like the idea of it. You occasionally remember that it exists. What does happen in there is usually too expensive to attend anyway. But, hey, it does look nice on a Summer evening, like a gaudy Christmas tree ornament dangling from the strong limb of the American Leviathan. The phone rings again just when I'm sliding into the blood stream (Lynn-nore and my term for the frenetic circulatory-system of Logan Airport.) Turns out, their ride was only late and I'm there for nothing.

Swerving into an exit, and putting the city behind me, I couldn't help but think of other times in my life when it has just felt good to drive. Crossing the Mississippi river at 11pm listening to early 70's metal and the Doors; driving through Knoxville at dusk at 85mph on any summer evening; Cruising around Myrtle Beach talking to Wes and listening to U2, INXS, the Church, the Cure, Bon Scott-era AC/DC on my Alpine - really just about anytime Wes and I just took off for nowhere counts as worthwhile and worth doing again. I remember riding around after midnight with Adam the weekend before we both went to college. He was going one way, I was going another, and neither of us had any idea what the heck we were doing or who we were. We drove around just to escape and to talk about the need to escape. That long drive from Texas City, up through Louisiana and the American South in 1988. Driving is synonymous at times with being alive, or with stepping out and looking back at things. Here's how Marshall Berman puts it in All That is Solid Melts Into Air: The Experience of Modernity (Penguine 1982):

"As with many of the creations born out of the spirit of this age [Modernity's] meaning and beauty cannot be grasped from a single point of observation. It can be revealed only by movement, by going along in a steady flow, as the rules of traffic prescribe. The space-time feeling of our period can seldom be felt so keenly as when driving." (p. 302)

Killing Time in Non-Projects Waiting for the Big One

Well, let's see... in my day, I got up today and made a things to do list... or at least a list of some things I can put my hand to while I'm not in the hospital giving birth!

The ordinary - I'll wash some towels and sheets, I'll clean up the kitchen, Kara and I can return some books to the libary, I'll work on a little project for my mom and dad who are coming up next week, I'll dust the bedroom and maybe, just maybe, today will be the day.

I've begun to believe I'm going to be pregnant for the rest of my life! So, in the meantime, may as well accomplish a few things, right? I'm almost totally caught up in my scrapbooking! That has been an ongoing project for a few months to try to catch up in preparation for doing baby pictures and a baby album (as if this will actually be happening soon). I'm presently working on pages from as recently as last month. When Dad and Karen were here I bought some supplies to try my hand at oil painting, but I haven't quite made the time yet for that yet either. Our good friends QE and Sir Walter are returning from a mission trip to Poland today, so we'll be spending some time with them this weekend, which should be nice since we haven't seen them in three weeks and we're looking forward to hearing about their trip. I also have a few catalog shows to keep up with in my Pampered Chef business - if you happen to be one of the people doing one of these catalog shows, know that I haven't forgotten about you!

While all of these things are lovely and nice, none of them seem to be the fulfillment of my days. I am round as a watermelon and big as house with feet each the size of a nice ham and the consistency of those squishy carpel-tunnel-resisting-hand-exercise balls. You can actually poke my feet and leave a dent. Dear Thom was sweet enough to actually make me a foot-soak last night and then put lotion on my feet. Considering I can't really reach them, this was quite a blessing.

I went ahead and made another doctor's appointment for next Thursday, because the way I see it I'm going to be pregnant until the end of time, may as well keep on making those appointments! Hey, and I'm not even past my due date yet!

So, must continue with the mundane. It appears to be the lunch hour and presumably the out-of-the-womb-offspring would actually like lunch!

eskimo

Not much going on - clustered like an anchorite in my cluttered cell with its blue cubicle walls, listening to N.T. Wright and Jimi Hendrix. Air conditioning and flourescent lighting finally sent me searching for the sun during afternoon break. An empty meeting room with a westward window served as a chapel. I dragged up a chair and tried to catch up on a little Moltmann. Highligher and pencil slowly mark one's mental footsteps through a christology as challenging in its boldness as it is racy in its heterodoxy. 5...10...15 minutes. Time wanders aimlessly, slushing through the soupy moments of the workday. How many hours of Wheel of Fortune did Jody's Papaw take into the afterlife? Even for the church, this is ordinary time. There's that boredom that comes with yardwork - you've begun the pattern and now there is just the long, grassy sweat until its ending. Put a bubble around today I'd do two things with it. First, I'd get that bike fixed and ride it for awhile. Second, I'd work out a few songs on the Martin, not as much for the songs as the feel of my fingers working together, doing something in unison, effortlessly effecting that marvelous tone like poured coffee in a cup. I actually had someone ask me the other day what guitarists influenced me. Whoa! it has been many years since I even thought about music like that, or about my own guitar playing like that. I don't as much use the guitar to play music as I do to do music. I am as happy working out new progressions for some on-the-spot melody as I am actually playing anything. It was a strange question: like I had to figure out what the person was asking me. But here's the thing: the implied question has to do with a personal project. Who is informing your project? That's just it - I don't have a project. I have backed myself in a wall here? How much non-project am I taking into the afterlife? How much better is non-project than wheel of fortune, buying letters without actually writing anything.

Naming the spirit: Spiritual Abuse

Spiritual Abuse. I came upon this term just recently and am fast realizing how important it is. See, for one reason or another, my relationship with the church resembles more the response of someone who has been abused, someone now trying to overcome that past and live for present relationships, than anything else. My personal struggles to return to the church, to worship with a church, and to participate in a church are constantly enacted against a hyper-sensitive flight-instinct that can only be the product of abuse.

Now, before the eye rolling begins. Before you expect to see me on Oprah. Let me say that I am not alone. Indeed, I can think of many people I know who are similarly effected. Some of you reading this are exactly whom I mean, and you know it. Or maybe you haven’t quite put your finger on it yet, but there it is: Spiritual Abuse. I am actually writing this in the hope that you will begin learning about this, just as I am starting to learn about it.

So what is spiritual abuse? Spiritual abuse arises from the same place that every other abuse arises: from a defecit of love where love should have been expected. No, worse than this: from a situation in which one’s expectation of love was misused and thus one was manipulated or assaulted instead. But when I talk about spiritual abuse, I am talking about abuse that has preyed on one’s religious hopes and fears. And, really, when you get down to it, I’m talking about pastors. But, what about other voices? Here is at least one.

Ron Henzel is the founder of a ministry to victims of spiritual abuse called Rest Ministries. Henzel defines spiritual abuse as follows. He says, "Spiritual Abuse" occurs when those practices and behaviors that are normally associated with cults and their leaders manifest themselves within groups that profess to adhere to evangelical Christianity.” Indeed, he makes no difference when it comes to manipulative practices between cults and churches, saying, it is not necessary to shy away from referring to some groups as "cults" simply because they affirm traditional Christian doctrine… no specific theological point-of-view is attached to the word "cult" in the English language.” The central issue is the nature of leadership. “All that is needed for abuse is a pastor accountable to no one and therefore beyond confrontation.” (Churches That Abuse, 189)

Henzel goes on to list the specific problem areas that identify a church or group that is abusive. These are: Manipulation; authoritarianism; elitism; denunciation of outsiders; spiritual intimidation; legalism; false unity; excessive discipline; coercive confession and a painful exit process. His website is definitely worth a look, as well as the fantastic blog-report at Wittenberg Gate. Let me close this post with a bullet list from another website I came across as it lists eleven marks of perverted authority. They are:

1. The claim of direct authority from God, rather than testing things by the Word. Many today have set "personal" revelation and experience above the final authority of God's Word. When this occurs there is no longer any basis for ascertaining the will of God, as one would not be able to discern truth from error because the standard is "personal" rather than the Word of God.
   
2. The command is to "submit to me," rather than "I will serve you."
   
3. The method of leadership is to "order" people around, rather than to appeal for them to do the right things.
   
4. There is a dominating, "pushy" drive instead of a dependence on God to direct.
   
5. There is a sense of control, rather than a sense of support.
   
6. A gift is exploited so that others are made to feel dependent on it.
   
7. There is inflexibility - "don't question me" - "don't touch the Lord's anointed."
   
8. There is unapproachability and intimidation - the "aura" around the leader keeps the followers in "awe."
   
9. There emerges an organization built around a man and his peculiar emphases instead of around Christ and His Word.
   
10. There will be cyclical challenges to the authority figure (which are immediately and forcefully purged).
    
11. There is more concern for maintaining the authoritarian structure than there is for caring about the people in it.
    

From Kara to Byzantine Theology in 200 words

Monday and hot in Massachusetts. This morning, Kara joined a ragamuffin assemblage of kids from church making pilgrimage to the beach. Lynn-nore slathered her with UV30 sunscreen, put a water bottle in her hand and off she went happy as a clam. The news later in the day was that Kara and peers played in water up to her chest and that all observed three different kinds of jellyfish and another, interesting looking spiny fish. (Lynn-nore and I appreciate the latter part, but are driven to knots of parental anxiousness at the former.) No action on the Caleb front. Electricity has started going off for lengthy periods of time during the day. Oh yes, yesterday we came home from church to find the power off. First thing we did after assessing the situation was send me to the local food mart. When I arrived, people were streaming through the permanently-open electric doors like so many ants. Sans electricity, everything is so quiet. The staff were hollering back and forth trying to cover the frozen section in some kind of tarp, and brown-skinned men and women waited in infinitely long lines to buy candy, magazines and soda. That was the strange part. Outside of a 40ish man who came in behind me, I was the only one piling on the ice. 10 bags went tightly pressed together into the freezer, and a few minutes later, the power came back on. I’ve finally begun reading a book assigned for review: Adam Cooper. The Body in St. Maximus the Confessor (Oxford 2005). Maximus is amazingly contemporary once you get past that Byzantine Greek and his dependence upon Gregory of Nazianzus and Pseudo-Dionysius. Here’s a good quote:

In apprehending the Word, a person receives, or better, is received by the complete holy Trinity. It is not finally the vision of the glory of the Son to which the worthy attain, but the vision of the glory of the Father – in the Son – through the Spirit….Scripture’s true purpose is to lead us in the Spirit from the multiple ‘words’ to the singular ‘Word’ in whom we come finally to the Father.

Work but no Labor

Everyone has been through it in the last 36 hours. Lynn-nore had a Dr's appointment on Thursday, which led to increasingly painful contractions which led to us dropping Kara off at Lydia's and heading to the hospital. All seemed well until about 10:50pm, at which point her body seemed to be saying "I'm tired" and labor ceased altogether. They gave Lynn-nore a sleeping pill and sent us home. This morning, it was 1pm by the time we had picked Kara up and made further arrangements. The signs suggested that labor was starting up again, and so Lynn-nore and I headed to the hospital. The result, however, was anything but labor. We were bored. We walked the hallways and endured telling our story to 3 different nurses and watching daytime TV and waiting. We made it home again at 6pm, but everyone was tired. Lynn-nore was tired from the on-again-off-again; and Kara from not sleeping a wink at Lydia's house. All in all, lots of work but no labor. The wait resumes....

Being held tight under the Iron Boot

Waiting and religious suffering are not that far apart. The book of Revelation is steeped in and originates within this attitude - How long, O Lord? Waiting is the present martyrdom of the past. Waiting is like a military invasion or the arrival of a police state, the buildings and familiar landmarks of daily life are changed but unchanged. In your mind they buck and roll with the shock of some new situation; but in reality they are the same. And that is just it: the same coming up in contact with the radically new, this is absolutely unpleasant and this is what waiting is all about. Waiting comes in uninvited and eats all the sweets! Waiting is the fever lingering on the third day of your illness. Waiting is uncomfortable shoes at the beginning of the workday. Waiting is a devil's holiday; angels not invited. Waiting is for lesser people. Waiting is das Nicht from which modernity runs. Waiting is a mosquito loose in your bedroom at night. Waiting is a toll bridge; airplane air at 20,000 feet; humidity; chafing during a walking tour of Paris; the spider you can't find; and everything to do with medicine. Waiting is a buildup to hospice; getting your breath knocked out too early in a fight; chewing your nails too close and the fear of motion sickness on public transportation. Waiting is the highlight to every form of suffering and expiration, and no one likes to do it. Yet, this is the way it is around the house waiting until Caleb is born. Poor Lynn-nore is worried every minute to death with waiting's incessant harassments. And I suppose I don't have to mention my own experience with waiting.

"Hello, yes, is this the mothership? Oh good. I was wondering if you could send someone down to collect my daughter. She's interested in going to the moon for the afternoon if that's okay. Dancing? Sure she likes to dance, and she would also like to explore some caverns and ride on a few of the moonacoasters. You'll be here in 45 minutes? Great!"

That is the way the conversation went this morning - this morning when I had to give Kara something to do today while I am at work and Mommy is exhausted! The one needs about six hours of peace alone to catch up on sleep, and the other needs a rowdy day of play - and I'm no help because work is "that toad that squats on your life" (e.e.cummings) As it was, perhaps Kara would catch hold of this idea of going to the moon for the day and that would stimulate some playtime, some drawing and other creative expression. She asked this morning if she could email me at work, and emailed to say she would miss me "while [she is] on the moon."

Safe & Sound

A quick note to report that as far as we know everyone who was up in the air yesterday is now safe and sound back on the ground. Thom arrived home last night at about 11pm. My parents arrived safely at my grandmother's house in Hendersonville, TN yesterday around 8pm. And, given that we haven't heard anything on the news, I'm trusting that Sir Walter Raleigh and Queen Elizabeth arrived safely to their destination in Poland. Ahh, I just like it better when friends and family aren't flying.

Nothing really new to report beyond that. Caleb is still hinding himself, though we are all eager to see him. Kara attempted this morning to "listen" to him through the baby monitor that we have set up! I told her that the monitor is for after we can see baby Caleb and she said she wanted to try anyway! She keeps me laughing.

My best friend from high school, who lives in New Hampshire came down to visit Sunday and "babysit me" for the night while Thom was gone. Kara had a hard time remembering her name all day and so began calling her "Purple Princess" - for the purple shirt she was wearing. The two of them had a glorious time imagining together. So much so that last night included me tucking in Kara and her new imaginary monster friend named Siegfried. I tried to convince Kara that Siegfried was going to go home with the Purple Princess, but the Purple Princess decided that Siegfried could visit for a few weeks. So far I've sat on him twice and you wouldn't believe how much trouble he kept getting in for kicking me in the back of the seat in the car. This should be fun!

Any good imaginary friend stories out there? Please share!

Taxi to the Runway

A few odds and ends of note...

I'm 35 1/2 weeks along and everything is going well. Good appointment on Friday confirmed that the latest week of contractions are beginning to move things along a little. Don't worry we will be bringing the cell phone and the digital camera to the hospital with us, so as soon as the little guy arrives you all will know!

In the mean time, here's hoping it's not in the next 36 hours or so. Kara and I are about to drive Thom to the airport where he is flying to Baltimore for a one-day business trip to Washington D.C. Lovely. While we are both actually very excited for him to be going on a business trip, the timing is sort of, well, awful! So, pray that everything here stays the same until at least 10pm Monday night! My friend Lynda is coming down to visit tonight and spending the night with us as part of the emergency plan :-) We also have a childcare plan and an alternate birthing coach plan. Hopefully, like any good fire escape route, none of these plans will be needed!

Meanwhile, also in the air ... My parents are flying home from Germany tomorrow to move back to the States. They packed up all their worldly goods last week and are headed to Tennessee to find a house and settle down in the States for a while. The latest plan is that they'd like to offer an online service building tours for travel agencies.

And, also in the air -- our good friends Queen Elizabeth and Sir Walter Raleigh are flying to Poland tomorrow for a three-week mission trip teaching English at an English language camp near the Russian border. This is their second mission trip to Poland and they are very excited about the opportunities it will bring.

So, we're off to make the connection at Logan and pray that the day will go quickly!

The Truck and the Guitar: A Ballad

Its face was all of cedar-brown
Expensive, tuned and bright
Rosewood black its fretted-neck
Unfortunate its plight.

Branded "Fender" on it stock
Brilliant was its tone
It went to worship often
But then its days were done

Now what is that we're dragging?
What has raised us up?
What's that shredded, twisted thing
That's stuck beneath the truck?

One afternoon I set it by
My Toyota, bold and red
And when I shoved it in reverse
The mighty truck obeyed

Now what is that we're dragging?
What has raised us up?
What's that shredded, twisted thing
That's stuck beneath the truck?

Forgotten was that Fender
I'm glad it cannot feel
Its body crushed to splinters
Under the driver's wheel

Now what is that we're dragging?
What has raised us up?
What's that shredded, twisted thing
That's stuck beneath the truck?

But there's no need for sadness
My church's charity
Over the weeks collected
Money for the need

My wife was sharp, my daughter loud
She pointed to a lute
Martin guitars were on sale
She's pregnant and she's cute!

Now that thing I was dragging
Raised up a better brand
The dead was called a Fender
Now Martin's in my hand

And so this tale's redemptive
Permit me to admit
What died under a knobby wheel
Came back the better fit

Now what is that we're dragging?
What has raised us up?
What's that shredded, twisted thing
That's stuck beneath the truck?

(alternate secular ending)

So if you have a guitar
That always sounds accursed
Casually leave it by your truck
And put it in reverse!

A Bad Run

It started when Kara didn't actually want to ride her bike.

This afternoon, Lynn-nore was feeling tired and Kara and I decided to go out. She was going to ride her bicycle to the park, and I was going to follow along. The sun was just coming out from behind the clouds, and it was a cool, though muggy day. As I said before, it started when Kara didn't actually want to ride her bike. She quite properly walked it across the street, hands appropriately placed on seat and handle, but afterward she never really got on. There were a short stretches where she more sat than walked, limply pedalling like an invalid. Overall, I'd say she was on her bike a collective 10 minutes of the two hours we were out.

I saw no harm in her pushing her bike. No one wants to do that for long, not when you can ride. "She will eventually learn that it's better to ride than walk." Nevertheless, going as slowly as we did, and with the sky clouding over, we were passed on the sidewalk by old ladies and wood ants. I kept switching internally between the settings Sit, Walk, Stand so that it is a miracle my motor skills didn't softboot my nervous system as if it were a Microsoft product, me wetting my pants and suffering a stroke in the process.

When we arrived at the park, there were a lot of people there. One family in particular was much animated. Three girls and a boy, all roughly Kara's age, with their Mother and Father. The latter, in a baseball cap and a red swet shirt, was roaring and chasing them about. The former, a 40ish woman with black hair and a green pullover, alternated between being a witch and being afraid of the alligator. At any rate - "Don't eat us Mr. Alligator!" they all squealed, skipping away in every direction. Kara had to be a part of it.

Unfortunately, when one of the girls asked if she would like to play, Kara quite rudely punted a "No." Then she sulked under a tree. I put her back in the game. Another of the girls had mercy on her and let Kara join in. That's when Kara decided she should roar like a lion and began trying to make the Alligator-Daddy go away and leave everyone alone. It didn't take a full minute for her to be off sulking again. I put her back in. More roaring. Ostracization. Sulking. Finally one of the girls comes up to me and says, "We don't mind if she plays but when she roars it ruins everything." (Kara had neglected to note that the girls didn't want their Daddy to go away, They wanted to be chased.) What do stand up's call a situation like this? Oh yes, "Sudden death".

I, too, was having rabid introverted social issues. What is a man of 35 supposed to do when his daughter wants to play in what is most-obviously a family-centric game? I can't exactly pretend I know them, take on some playground persona and leap about like a lunatic (pretty much what they were already doing.) Then there was the obvious class problem. By not rejecting Kara, they were acting well-bred and upper class. Kara's inability to keep her own ideas to herself, thus befuddling the works, did not reflect good-breeding and was most certainly lower-class. And, the worst bit, aside from the girls, not one member of the family spoke to either Kara or me - not a word. Even when the Daddy-Alligator was jumping away from Kara while holding a kid in his arms, he didn't say a word to her. Intentional or not, I couldn't help but feel Kara and I both were being tolerated as barbarian outsiders.

Of course, it seemed like I should know what to do. I should be able to reach into the "good parenting" bag of tricks and pull out some wisdom. Instead, frustrated, embarrased, freezing (God had turned on the AC with a good, salty sea breeze) and altogether put-out Kara and I walked home. She pushed that bike - while wearing her helmet - all the way back. It was a bad run, all the way round.

au revoir Beguine

Beguines /beh-GEENS/ were religiously dedicated laywomen, who did not follow a rule or take monastic vows. Instead, they lived in the world and worked to support themselves. Theirs was a life of prayer and devotion, coupled with down-to-earth ethical good sense, financial moderation and a desire to serve the needy. Though celibate, they could marry if they chose, and though free, they often bound themselves together in community with other women of like mind to follow the via apostolica of St. Francis of Assisi. Love was central to their religious faith. They understood the goal of the Christian to be found in God, loving one’s neighbor with God's own love and thus expressing in action the inexhaustible love of the immanent Trinity. The greatest exponents of Beguine spirituality in its mystical form are Mechthild of Magdeburg (1212?-1282?), Beatrice of Nazareth (1200?-1268), Hadewijch of Brabant, (1221?-1240?) and Marguerite Porete (d. 1310). The emphases of being daily led by love, of being led to also go wholly beyond the present and incessant demands of life and self into the ever-going-before depths of God’s own love, and of living out and being formed in one’s faith through liturgical worship and community participation and service, are found in the writings of all these women. Beatrice and Hadewijch's visions, for example, always occur in a liturgical setting.

The movement that takes the name of these women, the Beguine movement, spreading outward from the town of Leigè in Belgium, proved immensely popular throughout the twelth and thirteenth centuries. It formed part of what is called the “Medieval Reformation,” a religious awakening characterized by medieval mysticism and the popularity of mendicant orders like the Cistertians and the Fransicans. They did not look to the organized church to ordain and legitimize their ministry, but holding onto the gospel-promise of direct access to God through the gender-neutral and generous distribution of the Holy Spirit, they went about the business of ministry: preaching, prophesying, counseling, advising, offering social criticism, serving and teaching within the space opened up by the election of the Holy Spirit. Ultimately, their autonomy was their downfall. Their position as “sisters between” who lived in the space between home and convent, proved too unsettling for established, male-institutions to tolerate. The autonomy enjoyed by Beguines was their downfall. Their lack of inclusion in any social or religious organized structure brought on persectution by the same. Their houses, for by the thirteenth century it was not uncommon for them to live in walled communities, were legally restricted and, ultimately, groundlessly persecuted as havens for herecy.

In our own day, there are a few Beguine communities scattered over Europe in the United States. But is it really any secret that we have had one with us for awhile? Now I have long been a Dominican myself, having converted from the Franciscans in my early 20’s when devotion alone was not enough. (Perhaps I’ll trade back again at some future time.) It was obvious enough to me who this was who was among us from the very beginning. I knew her when first I saw her. (We monastics are easy to spot.) Time has since proven my initial suspicions, as her own story has been fitted into that of the sisters who have gone before her, which I described above. Time will also trace how much further she may go with them. Presence or absence is a little thing, we are always under orders (even if we are free). For myself, I can only wish her further invitation into the depths of Jesus Christ.

Rootedness

Kara graduated from pre-school this morning. Lynn-nore and I filed in to join other parents, eventually being ushered into tiny, plastic, blue-and-red seats. (A Mr. P. sat in front of me, getting out his videocamera. His limbs irritatingly lept in the way of every photo-op!) Ogasa /OH-ga-sa/, a boy from Nigeria who joined the class late in the semester, remembered me and enthusiastically struck up a conversation. He had been at Kara's birthday party, and made the observation that "both our churches are brown." I liked him immediately, despite (or maybe because of) his maverick reputation. I told him he had a good memory. Then, standing in front of us, Mrs. Kemmer introduced the simple ceremony. Upon calling their name, each child would come up and stand beside her. Something nice would be said about each one, followed by the distribution of a little diploma and a prize. Kara's name was called first.

Kara, in khaki shorts, blue shoes and a red-polo, her hair done up behind her head in snaps of navy and white, made her way to the front. At first, she was playful - these were her friends - but the sight of the adults in the audience made her shy, and I think, too, she caught a bit of the melancholy that slips into every ceremony of life. Mrs. Kemmer put her hand on Kara's shoulder and took out a laminated piece of paper. (I was handed the camera and began a dogfight with Mr. P's instigatory elbow.) She read:

Knowledge. Kara is thirsty for knowledge. She is always interested in learning new things and is always asking good questions.
Actress. Kara is our class actress. She loves to play dress up and gives everyone names aside from their real ones.
Rootedness. Kara has a firm foundation in her faith. She has a real understanding of our Lord Jesus and certainly knows what he did for her on the cross. (Reader. I nearly lost it right there, and Lynn-nore with me.)
Achiever. (I don't remember what Mrs. Kemmer said here. I was still trying to put it together after "R".)

Afterward, we braved the rain and took Kara to Chucky Cheese. The staff - always horribly negligent - managed to lower my expectations even further by being completely invisible! Thankfully, there were some boys there near Kara's age. The three of them fell in together and disappeared howling and jostling up into the ceiling tubes. Lynn-nore wasn't feeling well. We ate lunch at home and then I went on to work. Tonight is a study night for me, maybe I'll finally get around to responding to the thread Jason and I have going on the illumination of the Holy Spirit.

Nostalgia 1530

I am in a very Reformation-al mood today. The passing reign of King George, coupled with a teaching curricula which demands great attention to the details of that umbrella term "salvation", has made me hungry for the pure milk of the 1500's. (To add one more: the discussion with John G. concerning John Calvin's teaching on the fourth commandment.) To be honest, I was brought up in churches that always looked suspiciously at the Reformation in general, and John Calvin (e.g. He-who-should-not-be-Named) in particular. Oh yes, John Calvin and Beelzebub are synonyms to the ears of most low-churchmen!

There are some good reasons for this. Anabaptism, the basis for English and German Pietism and (closer to us) Revivalism, was not treated well by the Reformers and their heirs. John Calvin taught that heretics could lawfully be persecuted in civil courts and pursued by the military powers of the state. He was killed fighting in such a battle!

Nevertheless, the men and women who made up the Protestant Reformation, both the Reformers themselves, the Princes that supported them and the faithful which learned, listened and worshipped in their churches and schools, were people consumed by zeal for the preservation and transmission of the Gospel as it is taught in Scripture alone. Their tracts, sermons, books, pamphlets and lives are saturated with the same, and the soul is greatly fed by reading them.

To that end, I have been listening to several broadcasts of The White Horse Inn, a Reformation-friendly radio-talk program hosted by friend and theologian Michael Horton. (A scroll-down on their website gives access to a few interviews on the phenomenon of the Emergent Church.) Also, I recommend a look at the Augsburg Confession, available on the web with other documents in The Book of Concord.

Lynn-nore and I have actually been to Augsburg, to the site where the Emporer of the Holy Roman Empire Charles V, in the hopes of quickly settling this "religious" problem so that he could have more soldiers to wield against the Turks, summoned the Lutheran nobility to give a confession of their faith. Martin Luther's good friend Philip Melanchthon drafted a copy (with oversight from Luther himself, who corresponded with him from his hiding place at the Wartburg.) It was presented June 25, 1530 and is the first systematic presentation of the doctrines of the Reformation. I wish every Protestant would read it. Tellingly, the portion of the building which still stands serves as office space.

justification and a wing

"...as the Apostle teaches, Christ and the soul are made one flesh....[thus] it follows that all they have becomes theirs in common, as well good things as evil things; so that whatsoever Christ possesses, that the believing soul may take to itself and boast of as its own, and whatever belongs to the soul, that Christ claims as His.

If we compare these possessions, we shall see how inestimable is the gain. Christ is full of grace, life, and salvation; the soul is full of sin, death, and condemnation. Let faith step in, and then sin, death, and hell will belong to Christ, and grace, life, and salvation to the soul. For, if He is a Husband, He must needs take to Himself that which is His wife’s and at the same time, impart to His wife that which is His. For, in giving her His own body and Himself, how can He but give her all that is His? And, in taking to Himself the body of His wife, how can He but take to Himself all that is hers?"

That is Martin Luther, from his tract On the Freedom of a Christian Man (also called On Christian Liberty) . Here he lays out, in as clear an example as I've ever heard, the Reformation teaching on justification: Christ takes on our sin and its subsequent penalty; we take on his righteous law-keeping and its subsequent reward. That is the "what " of it. When it comes to the "how", theologians have since neutered the loving nature of this bone-of-my-bone exchange by assigning it the terminus technicus: "imputation." And, who knew, but this is the centre of a contemporary academic maelstrom! Apparently some, either taking their cue from Käsemann's new perspective on Paul or from exacting exegetical practice, don't agree with Luther's two-way exchange, but want to limit the whole to Christ's assumption of our sin. Instead of, then, being justified by Christ's lawfulness, believers are justified on the basis of their faith! Yipe!

In other news, Lynn-nore's new desk should have been delivered some time this morning. King George keeps up his incessant rattling. Dr. L. and I had a very pleasant lunch yesterday, at which point he got me started talking about the death of theological pedagogy. I remembered to be sad about Susan Ashton's fallen star, paralleling the loss of her delightfully crisp pronunciation into the currents of "the Nashville sound." And, finally, the DVD of Kenneth Branaugh's Much Ado About Nothing came in the mail - a birthday present. I popped it in and thought of who else but that hairy- and chicken-legged fellow Auntie Kara went out with in the early 90's. Still, what a movie! All the flesh, fruit, heat, innuendo, wit, melodrama and unfettered leisure that should go into a Shakespeare comedy and then some! (Oops - have I gotten too long winded for you, now? Sigh no more.)

Notes from a stiff-necked person

It started day-before-yesterday. I reached up to adjust the showerhead and next thing you know my neck seized up and has stayed stubbornly stiff ever since. We have tried cold, heat and over-the-counter medication but nothing seems to work. Time will eventually loosen it up. In the meantime, it is a good thing my chair at work reclines or I'd be staring at my desktop instead.

Today is Kara's last day of Pre-School. She went off this morning in kakhi shorts, a navy top and pigtails, sweet as could be. Lynn-nore has recently begun instituting a "yipee clipee" reward system at home. It must be working because I came in yesterday to find Kara cleaning her room in the hopes of a blue clipee. Also, Kara has recently learned a song listing the fruit of the Spirit, so she entertained me the other evening by hi-stepping atop her bed and singing it. Wonderful!

Lynn-nore herself is feeling huge. She's going on 34 weeks now, and, though I think she looks pregnant-cute, she describes herself as "a watemelon" or "an egg." Using some birthday money, it looks as if we will be able to purchase a new computer desk by the weekend. That will make her very happy, I'm sure, and get our computer up off the floor again.

As for me, I was happy to get an evening for research last night. Despite looking nearly straight-down, I brushed aside such annoyance and headed out the Sem. There was no one in the library, anyway. I needed to locate some detailed historical material on the practice and method of crucifixion in order to begin building the foundation for an article on certain aspects of Christ's death. You would be amazed both at the variety of cruelties that went by the description crucifixion, as well as the lack of materials that really address it from a completely historical angle. Apparently, too, they discovered a partial skeleton in Israel a few decades ago which still had nails through the bones of its ankles. The feet of the young man must have been nailed to either side of the pole, and a case could be made that he was upside down.

11:50 A.M. June 7, 2005

Here our temporary scene:
One curled leaf keeps watchful guard
above its guest - a chrysalis.
That one who worked to measure all surfaces
Has careful changed within her shell.
'Til brittle edges can caress the open breeze.

From such example let us speak;
And let mortality's iron-hearted magnet so repel
Until a race runs holy backward,
Tumbling on toward happy youth
And newborn for each passing moment.

So be not weighed by brittle past
But be borne up by the turning leaves;
The wind receives you -
Leap out! Leap out to happy time!

Summer Comes Rollin' In

It was becoming obvious by Saturday morning that Spring's incessant rain (reign) was over and Summer had arrived. The entire weekend was one magnificently hot, blue-skied hour after another. Kara and I spent a lot of time together, too. Saturday morning we got very wet washing cars. The afternoon was spent watching Peter Pan performed on an open, outdoor stage in the heart of a state park. (Lynn-nore was a trooper, walking the quarter-mile path through field and trees to the performance. On the way back, a toad hopped across her feet, and she stopped and showed it to a passing little boy.) I dropped Lynn-nore off at youth group and put Kara to bed. Going out later to split an appetizer with Sir Walter Raleigh & Queen Elizabeth. They were both in fine spirits! Unfortunately, the former developed a migrane halfway through the meal. One could actually see the headache-cloud descend upon his head! Ouch!

Wrapping up, due largely to the need to medicate the aformentioned, the girls went off to do their thing, and Sir Walter and I got onto the topic of "transparency." Transparency in the lingo of religious leadership is meant to convey humility: I am not a golden one, perfect and sound in all ways, but a flawed human being. One has nothing to hide. What is on the inside is reflected absolutely on the outside. Everything about the self is spread abroad indiscriminately, the good with the bad. The question was, is this an appropriate goal for church leadership? I strongly believe that it is not. There is an antiseptic, thereapeutic odor to it, betraying a psychological rather than Biblical origin. Truth is always mediated (fides quaerens intellectum), there is no such thing as transparency. It is an illusion, a utopia of the psyche. To deny this, and pursue the black-and-white of transparency raises many questions of motive, none of them healthy, most of them associated with either fear or naïveté, control or servitude.

Sunday church was warm, the pews packed. Afterward, we ate under the shade trees. Lynn-nore propped herself comfortably in a beach chair beside Joanna and Queen Elizabeth. Sir Walter Raleigh, David Brainerd, myself and others threw frisbee or played whiffleball. Kara and the other, smaller children dehydrated themselves picking flowers and chasing inchworms. All in all, a fine day. I look forward to an eternity of others just like it (but cooler, if it please You).

Feelin' Hot Hot Hot

To put it bluntly: my new cubicle space is swelteringly HOT! We are right over a boiler pipe, and far from any sort of air conditioning vent. The air simply does not move! The company would make a fortune storing the Dead Sea Scrolls or other ephemera in a side-office or abandoned meeting room.

Prayer meeting last night was a welcome reprieve from the recent unpleasantness. I took five or six prayer request cards from the chapel at the Sem and passed them out beforehand. Sometimes, stressed and anxious about my own troubles, I would go up to the chapel and devote 20 minutes or so to prayer for hand-written requests like these. Doing so would always get the focus off myself and stir up compassion and a desire to see God bless others - a healthy change! My hope was that the same dynamic would operate last night. At first I wasn't so sure. This person was struggling in their marriage, that person for continence, another for a lonely and depressed son. Slowly, though, these needs lifted us out of our solipstic condition and reminded us of our duty ... "and the second is like unto it, that you should love your neighbor as yourself."

Lord have mercy.
Christ have mercy.
Lord have mercy.

Thom took this one to show "Pregnant Mama" working on the crib!

After the desk fell apart and the crib was built this was the new configuration of the computer desk and a recliner! 

The new Nissan Pathfinder - aka - The Mom-Mobile! 

To get over a crying fit related to not being tall enough to hang the mobile, I suggested that Kara try out Caleb's crib to see if he would like it. The trick worked and she got over being sad and enjoyed the fun of seeing things from this different perspective!

The Pathfinder

My Dad and Karen were up this weekend visiting. We put them on a plane this afternoon. Behind them they leave a score of photos, some good food, good conversation and a Nissan Pathfinder, which will replace the Honda. Lynn-nore and I are still stunned by their generosity, which is an extension of God's own goodness. But, aside from that, I miss them. It is difficult living this far from family. I am always in a funk for a day or so after family leaves.

Nevertheless, a late-Happy Birthday to Auntie Kara. We love you! Miscellaneous: Caleb's cribset came in the mail today. Lynn-nore set it up so that Dad & Karen could see it this morning. We really love it, and will post a photo here soon. I really like the new look, Cuz. Your idea? Pre-ordered the new Harry Potter last week & am counting the minutes to July. Could this Felt-guy be any more boring? (Yawn) Thanks for the mail, Michael.