Toward Fatherhood

I killed a bird and I liked it...?

Thu, 03 May 2012 10:23:04 -0500

I shot a turkey today, and I’m not sure how I feel about that.

When I was a boy, I was quietly fascinated with fishing, with the idea of catching food and cleaning and frying and eating it. That delicious, store-bought food smell could come from a random, wild fish I captured? Amazing. It was like cheating the system! It was equal parts magic and freedom, like building something really good with your own hands and tools.

Now I’m all grown up, and I am vocally, statedly fascinated with catching and eating wild things. Turkeys. Deer. Fish. Crab apples. “Kill something and eat it” is number three on my living bucket list, just after “build a deck with my own hands” and “ride a dirt bike on a track with jumps.” But nearly every guy I’ve asked has said he cut his teeth hunting with his father or grandfather. Turns out getting into hunting is really difficult if it’s not in your immediate family. And it is not in my immediate family. I taught my father to fish just last year. His father never fished at all. Safe to say we have never hunted together.

Two Christmases ago, my sweet wife bought me a Remington 870 Express 12-gauge for Christmas. I had to go pick it up from Bass Pro myself, actually, because we’d just moved to Kansas, and she didn’t yet have the required Kansas driver’s license. I shot some skeet here and there, but felt a deep, vague longing for something more. A more significant experience. A better story. So I subscribed to Field and Stream.

Thus my adventure began: teaching myself to hunt. I would start with turkeys, the smallest of seasoned game. I would work to ensure that my boys would learn, not from the Googles and YouTubes and outdoor adventure writers, but from their own, true, flesh-and-blood father. Their father, who knew what he was doing. Their father, the Outdoorsman. “Man,” I thought, “I’d better get a move on. It’s gonna take years to get any good at this.”

I did a lot of fishing that first year - fishing for hunting invitations, I mean. I didn’t know where to go or when or how to prepare. I looked for a surrogate father-teacher. That’s a hard thing to find, let me tell you. You hear lots of “Oh yeah, I love to take young people hunting with me! Just let me know when you wanna go…!” but most of them just melt back into the woodwork, feeling nostalgic, I suppose, about that one time when they took a youngster hunting.

So I scoured public hunting grounds in nearby towns, studying Kansas Dept of Wildlife maps and marking them out on my Android GPS. (This was before I upgraded to an iPhone. Now - with my slim, shiny, white phone - I am kind of a big deal.) I read about scouting, about setup, about calling and shooting. I watched videos on the YouTubes. I riddled hunting friends (and a few strangers) with questions about their gear and habits and methods and when they liked to hunt and where. And I bought stuff:

Turkey vest.

Camouflage jeans (yeah, they make those!)

Camo shirts and gloves

Decoys

A box call

A hunting knife

That first season, I got only one shot at a gobbler. Well, I say got a shot; I should say I took a shot. It had rained the night before and the ground was soft and silent as I crept through the windy woods edging a mowed cornfield. I was tracking a good-sized flock of toms. Creep. Creep. Creep. Peer through the shrubbery! Creep some more… They were walking casually across the shorn, fallow field, away from me, but at last I got a clear line of sight. I knelt at the edge of the woods, put my iron sight on the tallest one, and squeezed. BOOM!! The toms, interrupted, stopped and looked around. Confusion filled me. What the -? I took aim and fired again. BOOM!!! My ears rang as the flock lazily turned and mosied into the tall weeds on the far side of the field. I think I heard one laughing.

I was confounded. In hunter safety training, they’d been very clear that you don’t point your gun at anything you don’t intend to kill. Well, I HAD intended to kill that bird, and I HAD pointed my gun at it, because GUNS KILL THINGS! I launched my GPS app and paced the distance to where the birds had stood. 363 feet, it said. Huh. I scratched my head. Was that…far?

At Bass Pro later that morning, I asked the old guy at the gun counter about “the effective range of an 870 Express.” I did not tell him about the football-field shot I’d just attempted. “Well,” said the man, with pride evident, “I once took down a big tom at 42 yards!” “Ah! So…I take it that’s pretty far?” was what I thought. What I said was, “Ohh yeah. Nice!” He generously helped me find a more suitable shot than the simple 5 shells I was carrying. And I bought more stuff:

Better shells

A tighter choke

A folding tripod stool

A couple of mouth calls

A really expensive gobbler call

A camo mask

A shotgun scope

And I learned stuff. The best time to arrive (EARLY). How to stalk. What it really means to sit still. How turkeys move. How they sound. How to recognize their poo, as opposed to heron poo and starling poo and the myriad other poos one finds in the woods and hills. I learned that the pressure on public lands sometimes forces behavioral changes in turkeys; they don’t always roost at the edges of fields or in oak trees. (They evidently do not read Field and Stream.)

I’m not embarrassed to call myself the hardest-working hunter on that land. I consistently arrive an hour or two before other hunters even get out of bed. I’ve hiked miles and miles (often through pitch-darkness), getting to know the land. My trail camera was up four weeks before opening day. I’ve been out there so often, the 30-minute drive now seems brief; I just zone out and mentally prepare for the hunt. And last Saturday I finally tracked a vanished flock of birds back to their hideout - a roost nestled deep in a wooded glade. After seeing hunters and farmers in the fields day after day for weeks, these turkeys had retreated to this quiet, shady camp at the edge of a lake inlet, just above a small beaver dam. And only I knew where they were.

This morning, as on any hunting day, I was up at 3 am. Hot breakfast at 3:30. Departure at a quarter to 4. The weather was perfect again - three days of rain had softened the soil and underbrush, and the light wind would help disguise my movements. It was just like the day I’d first shot at…well, shot toward a turkey. Through the night I slow-mo ninja-walked into the glade, feeling my way through a darkness so thick I could taste it. I couldn’t see my own hands, but I could hear everything. Thank God I don’t watch horror movies; reality can be creepy enough for a lone man in the dark wilderness. By 5 am I was settled into my preselected spot at the base of a stickery honey locust trio. And I waited.

It must have been around 6 am (I forgot my watch again) when a tom sounded the wake-up call from his roost, just 10 yards in front and above me:

GOBBAGOBBAGOBBA!!

He about scared the poop outta me. My blood started pumping overtime. “This is what I do,” I reminded myself, reigning in my autonomic systems, “This is what I am doing now.” Anticipation shoots adrenaline into my muscles, and this mantra helps me calm those shot-ruining, breath-shortening tremors. Again and again the boss bird gobbled, his sharp cry piercing the woods and echoing out across the water. I resisted the persistent urge to peek around my tree to see the bird. Should I try to call him down? No, flydown is part of his routine. He’ll do that anyway. I gave a few quiet chirps on the box call to pique his interest, but I knew my shooting lane would cover his daily path to the water’s edge.

When he finally flew down, his landing could not have been more perfect. Perfect for me, I mean. Twenty yards out, not a stick or a shrub impeding my shot. I squinted as he stared at me, trying to reduce the white space on my face. Soon enough the hens began noisily flapping downward to join the morning water party, and you know how girls are - the distracted the big tom right away. He fluffed his feathers at them and strutted a bit. I inched my gun barrel up, up from its resting place on the forest floor. Slow is smooth. Slow is smooth.

Once the red dot in my glass steadied on the bird’s head, I knew I had him. This would be the day I made my first kill. I had earned it. I lowered the sight slightly to cover more vital area, and breathlessly squeezed the trigger.

Kink!

I flinched. What? Blast! Safety’s still on! I eased the safety off with my thumb, lined it up again and squeezed. I heard no sound, felt no kick - I just watched that big bird hit the deck like a sack and lay still, as the hens squawked and scattered. I rose to my feet, gaping in disbelief at the distant lump of feathers. “Whoo!” I hooted, trotting over to my prize.

Now, when you read about turkeys, you read about their cunning, their wary nature, their habits and habitats and harems. You read about what soothes and what scatters them. Most of all, you read about how to fool them, and how to kill them. But you don’t read a lot about how beautiful they are. Their somber, nearly featherless heads are a wild, primitive mix of reds and whites and iridescent blues, with the texture and pattern variations of a Spielberg Jurassic creation. The feathers are both armor and art, like that of the ancient Samurai. Soft down feathers shine below hard and immovable, banded and crosshatched flight feathers. And this all without mentioning the famous fantail and beard. These animals are a wonder to behold.

I trudged the mile back to my car with my 20-lb foe slung over my back. (I will find a better way to do this in the future, by the way; their legs are too smooth to grip well, and those spurs can be vicious!) Back home in my garage, I followed YouTube video guides on removing the fan, spurs, beard and breast meat. I’ve cleaned a couple of fish in the past, but dissecting a warm-blooded creature is a completely different experience. It feels far more somber. Visceral. Sacred, somehow. This creature had given up his life to increase mine. The impact of this knowledge went deeper than I’d expected.

I’ve spent the rest of the day oscillating between pride and sadness. Not grief, not guilt, just a realization of what it means to be an omnivore, a front line hunter-gatherer, that because there is a set amount of matter in the universe, something always has to die that I might go on living. I think back to that early scene in The Last of the Mohicans, where Hawkeye and Uncas take down a deer with their massive boomstick. They approach the downed buck respectfully, crouch with a prayer-like attitude and thank the animal for his sacrifice. It seemed mysterious and mystical when I first watched it almost a decade ago.

But next time I take a game animal, you might find me doing the same.

I posted mustaches on the bathroom mirrors. More fun than a guy...

Tue, 24 Apr 2012 18:02:45 -0500

I posted mustaches on the bathroom mirrors. More fun than a guy should have in a public restroom.

Closer to Hope

Fri, 13 Apr 2012 20:00:58 -0500

Years ago, my boys P.O.D. put out a song called Anything Right, on their album Satellite. Unlike most of their music, this song bothered me.

“I can’t do anything right
You don’t know me, stay out of my life
Kick me while I’m down, I want you to
I can’t be like you
Don’t want to be like you…”

David’s Psalms sometimes brimmed and simmered with similar doubts and deep pain, but they always ended in peace, or at least spoke a hope of peace. His words were not mere, momentary descriptions; they were processes. They were paths. And they always led closer to Jesus.

When we Jesus-followers make incendiary, sensational statements, use strong language, or question God and the meaning of his creation, there must, must, must be hope spelled out within our story.

We seek, we ask, we hope, we find, and in the end, we invite others to come closer to Jesus.

Closer to hope.

Boxed

Fri, 13 Apr 2012 06:35:19 -0500

These things I remember

as I pour out my soul:

how I used to go to the house of God

under the protection of the Mighty One

with shouts of joy and praise

among the festive throng.

Psalm 42:4

A half dozen years ago, I emailed the worship leader at the church I attended. I longed to dance in worship. It was in my blood and my identity. My email address was DancingSon, because that’s who I was to my Father - I was his son who danced, and danced in worship. But no one danced at my church; the contemplative, contemporary worship style hardly allowed for it.

May I, I asked electronically, bring a hand drum to play during worship? I’ll play in the back, not loudly or so as to distract others. But I long to express my worship with movement…

“Jovan, he replied, “I’m pretty sure somebody playing a djembe in the back of the room during worship would be distracting. What if you came to a worship rehearsal with your djembe and we can see if it would be a good fit to have you play with the team?”

It was heartbreaking. I knew I couldn’t play in a band; I’d only just started on that drum. I didn’t want to me a leader, anyway. I just wanted to practice the words we sang - If they knew what I know, they would dance with joy, like I am now…

Part of me has died since; I am too old (or not yet old enough) to join the children who bounce and twirl during worship. I can neither drum nor strum. I can hardly sing. How can I celebrate my amazing, restored life inside, from inside this box??

Somehow we’ve gone from making a wild and joyful noise, to making an orderly and radio-like sound. From Jewish wedding, to hipster concert. Talented people up here; the rest of you down there. And this is how we do church now, all over the civilized world, right?

But is it right?

Autistic Grizzlyman

Thu, 12 Apr 2012 06:38:00 -0500

I wrote this maybe a year ago, during one of those stony, post-squabble, marital silences. I thought some other husbands out there might relate to my dilemma…

I stare at my imaginary therapist for a moment, terrified. Her lipstick is too red, her brunette bun pulled tight. She is frowning at me through her heavy-rimmed glasses because I am still not getting it, even after all this time. But she is setting me up for failure, I can tell.

“Tell your wife you love her,” she hisses, “and that you couldn’t go on living without her. GO ON.”

“I love you,” I say truthfully, turning to face my wife “and…”

I cringe, knowing whatever comes out next is going to be both technically correct and relationally awful, “…if-you-were-gone-a-critical-component-of-our-family-structure-would-be-absent-and-I’d-be-undone-D’OHHHHH!”

My invisible counselor drops her imaginary face into her unreal palms. I know I’ve just flunked Supportive Husbands 101. I sincerely want to go on playing the new boyfriend - “oh babe, you’re so perfect! I hope you never change.” I want to be the strong, silent man who grudgingly wilts and caves whenever his woman sheds a single, pitiful tear. But I’m not that man. I’m frustrated by my dammed emotions. Stymied by pathos. I’m just too darn…analytical.

I read once that a high-functioning autistic man might go through his entire life without ever recognizing his disorder. People might call him insensitive or obtuse, and his frustrated wife would say he “just doesn’t get it.” But they would think that it was because he was left-brained and an engineer, and that’s just how left-brained engineers are.

Sometimes I feel like that guy, like Secret HighFunctioningAutisticMan, when my wife is turned away and crying after a heated disagreement, and I sit there silently, ostensibly unmoved, only trying to puzzle out why she is so upset. Should I really be required to say ‘I love you’ every time she does? At some point it becomes just a catch phrase on my to-do list, right? Or a game of gotcha!

“I love you…”

“ILOVEYOUTOO.”

(Whew.)

Now, I’m no dummy - I am aware that my wife and inner counselor are ~~probably~~ right. I should say whatever needs to be said to ensure that my amazing and capable and stunningly good-looking wife feels loved and lovely and supported. That is my role as a Good Husband. But…try as I might, I just keep going around in mental circles, puzzling out words that will communicate the very truthiest truth, which…is…the same as heartfelt love…?

Yeah, right.

I’ll get it together one day. I want to know the way, and I’m honestly searching. This is what life requires. Right now I am just a socially obtuse engineering nerd who doesn’t get it. I am brute and dumb, relationally thumbless. I am a grumbling grizzly bear trying to eat flapping, flopping salmon with delicate chopsticks gripped in my great, hairy, ridiculously oversized paws.

I’ll be better someday.

Be Honest

Wed, 11 Apr 2012 20:44:00 -0500

If intellect becomes a cover for indecision, or an excuse for license,

and not a means to deeper honesty and accountability,

then it is farce, and a sham.

Be honest.

My pastor and I had a long talk the other morning, one of those...

Wed, 11 Apr 2012 07:00:40 -0500

My pastor and I had a long talk the other morning, one of those wonderful, first-thing-in-the-morning, coffee-shop-patio, men-of-God-who-think-about-important-stuff talks. With steaming paper cups in hand, we hashed out just one topic: SWEARING.

My wife and I joined our 100-member megachurch a few months ago, and we’ve there encountered more sincere friendship, relatable worship, useful teaching and open community than at any place we’ve been.

And, surprisingly, we’ve run into way more conversation about profanity. Chuckling confessions, really, of people’s personal pottymouth-itude. Which got me thinking,

“Uhhh…what??”

This family obviously knows and loves Jesus. Who decided that profanity is ok for us? It was on this question that my pastor and I began to chew that morning. We went all over the map, from philosophy and virtue, to phonetics and semantics, to child-rearing and social responsibility. At the end of it all, we came to this:

Swearing is like shouting, and swearing in casual conversation IS LIKE SHOUTING ALL THE TIME. It’s generally rude and coarse, which is why we reflexively apologize when we cross that line. There are times when shouting is appropriate, of course - to express intense emotion, for example, when common words fail us - but we do wrong when we direct our shouting at another person in anger or derision, or use such heavy words lightly.

I add this thought as well: we writers, like teachers, carry a greater responsibility. The written word is all but permanent, and it strives to live, to echo in the minds of the young and old for generations to come. We must answer for the seeds we sow, and for the quality of those seeds.

So in our postmodern unorthodoxy, in our throwing out of traditional, useless bathwaters, let’s hold on to the baby. We are a free people, but not free to offend; fearless, but not careless. We do not focus on the motes in our eyes, but neither do we tolerate them. We pursue justice, mercy, and faithfulness, but do not neglect to tithe.

The Dreams I Don't Tell My Shrink

Tue, 10 Apr 2012 19:38:03 -0500

Last night I dreamed that I’d killed a man, and somehow my mother had made me do it.

She’d robbed my spirit of some vital, moral element, or poisoned it with an ancient evil.

The root of the crime was hers, but the fruit of it was mine.

Oh the deep despair of bad dreams…

My boys would grow up with a father in prison,

My wife would have to support herself,

My mom would remain unaccountable and unnoticed,

And the US Marshalls were on their way.

Which is kind of what she expected from me in real life, I think…

#howdidwesurvive

This picture perfectly captures my boys’ personalities....

Mon, 02 Apr 2012 11:36:00 -0500

This picture perfectly captures my boys’ personalities.
One experiments with pebble casting. One just takes it easy.
And Che’s ghost approves.

Great. Now I'M Awake...

Tue, 06 Mar 2012 22:12:00 -0600

The other night, I tried to watch NBC’s new suspense drama, “Awake.” Oh, man was it beautiful. It looked like the whole thing was filmed in Instagram. The director used these different, gritty light filters to separate the protagonist’s conflicting, impossible lives. The light was part of the story! Brilliant. What fun!

And then the lead couple started having sex. Right in front of me.

Yes, it was a “married” couple, which is rare enough on tv and awesome in principle, and the lighting was still amazing. But I’m old enough to know they aren’t married in real life, and in any case it’s inappropriate for me to watch them get their thunder on, regardless of cinematic value. Turnabout being fair play, I turned off the show.

Later in the week, we had dinner with a few other couples, all of whom follow Jesus. The conversation at some point had to turn to tv, so it did. Modern Family and The New Girl came up as our favorites, for their endearing wit and hapless players and warm, fuzzy endings. Then I thought, but failed to say, “So…what about the flip side of all that (admittedly excellent) frivolity? What about all the bits that…we can’t let our children see?”

And guess what. Now that I’ve thought of it, the question won’t let me go: where DO we draw the line in our TV viewing? Should I close my eyes at graphic sex on Awake, but laugh at the homosexual parenting misadventures on Modern Family? Should my enjoyment of the hilarious and quirky characters on The New Girl override my concern over the constant presence of casual sex and innuendo?

Please note that I’m not asking as some smart, smug, spiritual guy who already knows the answer. I’m honestly wrestling with this.

Is the question so small and personal that each of Jesus’ followers can sort of make up their own code of acceptable behaviour? Does it matter that we support these candy-for-compromise shows by watching ‘em week after week, adding hits to their online clips and recommending them unreservedly to our friends and family (all of which I’ve done a bunch of times)?

More importantly, perhaps, can we Jesus-people let indecency or profanity or promiscuity pour into our living rooms each week…and then honestly expect our spirits and our families to be unaffected by the stream?

I don’t know.

Do you?

The Art of War

Mon, 20 Feb 2012 19:31:00 -0600

The Art of War:

The wrestling over Oklahoma Senate bill 1433 is so beautiful because it’s forcing both sides to focus on a hard reality - that this is a battle about personhood, not women’s rights. Hopefully they’ll abandon the “buzzwords and rhetoric” slapfighting we’ve endured for decades.

Read: OK Senate Bill 1433

Eloquent compassion. ‘How can you oppose racism, but also...

Fri, 10 Feb 2012 23:17:20 -0600

Eloquent compassion.

‘How can you oppose racism, but also oppose homosexuality?’ it was asked.

‘Because race is sacred, and cannot be violated,’ came his clear reply,

‘And because sexuality is sacred, and cannot be violated.’

We may deal with proclivities toward infidelity, homosexuality, or polygamy„

but to act them out only kills us slowly, and burns our healthy relationships.

Acclimated to Hardship

Sun, 29 Jan 2012 23:15:48 -0600

When I was eighteen, I lived with my family of eight in a three-bedroom, second-floor, Chicago apartment above a hair salon. I didn’t even own a bed back then; I was just thrilled to have my own room.

I got it in my head to build myself a loft bed, seven feet high with a computer desk suspended from heavy cables underneath. And I got after that project like someone was paying me. Late nights after work, all hours of the night, you could find me at the 24-hour Home Depot on Elston - ten, eleven, one in the morning - buying bolts and boards, tape measures and levels. I got it done, too, except for the ladder, and it took quite a feat of upper body strength to ascend that hulking structure each evening - a fact of which I was proud. I had my own space, inaccessible to the public, fashioned with my own hands.

Now, there were some flaws, as with any homebuilt project. There was no chair for the desk. Oh, and no mattress up top, just plywood. Remember, I didn’t own a mattress. I didn’t even know where to buy one. We’d grown up with couch-cushion mattresses salvaged from my stepdad’s upholstery job. The only inner spring mattress I can remember had creaky, metal coils you could actually see though the threadbare, cowboy-themed mattress casing. New, store-bought mattresses were just not part of our reality. So as a teenager I spent long nights in my thin sleeping bag on a plywood platform high above the sighing, swishing, black, city streets.

It sucks that I didn’t know any better. I didn’t know life could improve. Childhood had been so raw, so frightening. Hardship was a reality you adjusted to, but never escaped. When I was a kid my mother deferred to my stepdad, and my stepdad never liked me much, except as a whipping post. I’d mostly tried to be quiet and stay out of his way, except for occasional, obsequious shows of servitude - bringing him his Kool-Aid stein before he even asked for it, or instantly jumping up to clean my room when The Cosby Show ended. Childhood for me was like free climbing up a canyon wall. If I slipped - when I slipped - I knew for sure no one was going to catch me, and it was going to hurt.

Why I'm (Still) Afraid to Write

Sun, 29 Jan 2012 13:56:58 -0600

A long time ago, i heard pastor David Jeremiah (one of my old favorites) say lightheartedly, “If you’re a Christian, let your face know it! Some of you I pass on the street and I’d swear you were heading to a funeral!”

I agreed with the good pastor. People should smile, or at least look generally positive, while going about their day.

But then I had a kid.

And then I had two.

And then I started to understand the immense stresses and intense pressures that quickly become part of a life as a real grownup. Runners rarely smile during marathons, such is their focus and drive, and some days that’s just what parenthood feel like - twenty-six miles of the hardest work you’ve ever done. Sometimes I just walk around frowning. I lose all patience for gregarious acquaintances. When you’re caring for a gassy newborn, an rocket-fueled 18-month-old, and a wife still recovering from passing the 8-pound kidney stone you both now love so much, you have little to contribute to conversations about sports or the weather, let alone what the good word is or how everything’s going today. Sometimes a grunt is all the response you’re gonna get from me.

So now I understand why grownups are often so serious, and mostly lacking the energy to break into the spontaneous dancing of which I was fond as a teenager.

And I’m sorry I judged so many for looking angry while piloting those voluminous minivans brimming with the neediest and most entitled bits of humanity.

“My son will only eat chicken nuggets,” has said more than one friend to me on more than one occasion.

Outwardly polite, but inwardly appalled, I must have paled in shock. “My kids will eat whatever I darn well give them!” I hypothesized sternly and silently, “Or they’ll go to bed hungry!”

But then I had a kid.

And then I had two.

And then I understood that trying to force a child to ingest food he doesn’t want is like trying to shove a rope into a light socket; it’s nearly impossible, and unwise besides. Even if you succeed, you’re not gonna like what you get in return.

So now I understand why some kids eat nothing but chicken nuggets and macaroni every day of their lives.

Life just seems to get more complicated the more I live it. It gets broader. What was once a Google street map of my neighborhood is now a topographical map of an entire geographic region. It’s useful information and true, but difficult to comprehend and different than you’d pictured it, once you actually get there.

So now I’m afraid to write anything of substance. I shy away from definitive statements and broad imperatives. I’ve seen so much, but still know so little. The things I think I know might be the same tomorrow, or opposite…or utterly unimportant. Even the things I think I know about my Papa God, how he feels and what he thinks…who can know it well enough to speak for him? Not me. All I can do is sit here, learn from older, wiser men, and try like Job to keep my mouth shut.

Even as I say this, I think of men who have not yet discovered basic truths I now take for granted - the importance of engaged fathers and thoughful fatherhood and strong marriages and knowing Jesus as a person, not just a religious icon or a literary subject. Why am I entangled in the lives ofthose men, except to share what I myself am learning?

So I fear to write, but moreso to stay silent, to hide it under a bushel, as it were.

I guess I’ll keep on writing out the thoughts that seem important. If you happen to read any of them, just remember that I’m a traveler on the same path as you, learning, I hope, just as you are.

Things they didn't tell me...#8

Sun, 29 Jan 2012 12:51:55 -0600

Two kids are more than twice as many as one.

The joys of parenting a boy!! I truly love it. I took the new...

Tue, 17 Jan 2012 11:01:22 -0600

The joys of parenting a boy!! I truly love it. I took the new baby upstairs to ready Legend’s room for a nap. When I returned after three minutes, this is what I found.

#Identity

Sat, 14 Jan 2012 11:04:05 -0600

#Identity

"Love Me or Leave Me" ~ Jesus

Sun, 08 Jan 2012 21:39:21 -0600

Why do you go to church? Why listen to the songs or the pastor or take your kids to sunday school - why even look anyone in the eye - unless you truly and fully believe that Jesus is exactly who he said he is?

The Will of a Father

Sun, 08 Jan 2012 01:40:33 -0600

A friend mused via Facebook: Why isn’t God more impatient with us? Aren’t we failing him constantly??

I’m sure it was 15 years ago now that I first investigated ‘God’s will for my life.’ Was there such a thing? Could I indeed miss it, and my life be a failure?? But all I could find in the Bible was general stuff like, “this is God’s will for you: your sanctification,” and, “give thanks in every situation - this is God’s will for you.”

Tonight I watched my 18-month-old son toddle around a friend’s living room. He flitted from one toy to another, exploring this one, trying that one out. I love how he loves to explore and learn. Lots of times he’ll trip and sprawl out on the floor, or bump his head, or get frustrated to tears when the wheels on his ride-on firetruck get hung up on the rug. It’s all part of his adventure, though. “So much of life,” I thought, “is not right or wrong; it’s just… living.”

I thought again about that question of Christians failing God. How does a son fail his father? My will for my son is far more about who he will become, than what he accomplishes today (except, of course, where the fomer depends on the latter). My general will for him is simple: learn, grow, and mature. My specific will is more tailored to his life stage: learn to mimic words, to obey, to swallow his food rather than leaving little globs of minced apples everywhere he goes.

But here’s the thing: when my son disobeys me (which is quite regularly), I call it “disobedience.” When he misbehaves, it’s “misbehaviour.” See how simple that is? The word “failure” never enters my mind. Can you even imagine any good father who might say, “Ah yeah, my kid is a failure. Fails me all the time. But he’s all I’ve got to work with.”

Childhood is not a pass/fail endeavor. It’s all stages of growth. We may reach certain goals ahead of schedule; others may take a while. We may disappoint, hurt, even anger our Father, but the “F” word will never enter his mind.

Sex is a conundrum, a living thing, intricate and complex. It’s difficult to fully grasp, even...

Thu, 05 Jan 2012 06:58:58 -0600

Sex is a conundrum, a living thing, intricate and complex. It’s difficult to fully grasp, even for those who know it well. For those who’ve met it in passing, or not at all, sex is gravely misunderstood, idolized and maligned and desperately sought, like Tolkien’s Ring.

But if we fail to understand sex, who will teach our children?

Worse, who is teaching them?