Random Stuff on God, Faith, and My Kids

• If you were to start a file titled 'God,' what would you put in it?
• I should write a sermon on that one. Would you guys read my sermons?
• Have you ever had a week that seems to have a theme, like God is shouting something at you? For about a week now, my theme, the word that keeps being repeated over and over again in differing forms is: ritual.
• I'm reading more than one book right now. One is about the ways that we should approach Bible study. The other is about finding faith. They're actually, on the surface at least, oceans away from one another. One is more instructional. The other is more of a memior. They're both bringing me back to this idea of ritual, or habit.
• My own local pastor mentioned something very similar in his sermon last Sunday. He was talking more about habits that keep you growing spiritually, but to me, that's the same thing. Here's a link to that sermon - click here.
• Ritual. Ritual. Ritual.
• In the more memoir oriented book, the author asks a great question: If you wanted to connect yourself to anyone in the past through ritual, who would it be? Would it be a group? The idea being, you would mimic their behavior or rituals in hopes of seeing some truth that they obviously knew. In a way, ritual can be like time travel, you can connect with people that are no longer among the living.
• Ponder that for a month.
• In the same book, the author stopped running from God around the year 2000, the basic same timeline that I stopped running from God.
• Thinking this over, it's staggering to think about where I was then, at the beginning of faith, and where I am now. How many books have I read on the subject since then? How many articles? Not to mention all the things that have come and gone in my life: A house, two kids, a dream job gained and lost, a community of people I'm now connected with, friends come and gone.
• Staggering.
• The other book, the one that's just trying to lead to a more open minded reading of Scripture, it's a dense book. Full of tons of ideas and tangents, but they're all great fun and somewhat revelatory. It's hard to put down, but full of things that I could ponder for hours and hours on their own.
• One of the big ideas I think the author is trying to get at is the idea that we should take care not to make more of the Bible than we do God. Don't let the Bible itself become an idol to the point that we ignore what we know about God.
• If we know and experience God in a positive, loving way, why are we so easily convinced that God isn't loving when we encounter Scripture that appears to portray him as less so?
• He highly recommends further study, especially in regards to context, history, culture, and even possible problems with translation errors when we're talking about the English language.
• None of this is exactly new to me, but he does have some amazing illustrations that he uses to make his points.
• If curiosity has gotten the better of you, the authors I'm currently reading are Peter Gomes and Mitch Albom - again, in many ways, oceans apart. The books, The Good Book, Reading with Mind and Heart and Have a Little Fatih, A True Story. The latter is available right now at a local, going out of business, Borders store near you at a very reasonable price.
• I've gotten back in to some of my rituals this week.
• I may do another random post soon based on the Albom book. I'm only about a quarter of the way through the Gomes tomes, they're going to be a while.
• I like to face my fears. I don't want my life to be ruled by fear. Here's the thing though… I'm terrified of whales. I don't think I can face that fear. They're down there in the deep, big enough to swallow a person whole.
• My kids ask for broccoli when we're grocery shopping. I'm proud, but it's also weird. I'm sure it's our fault too.
• Has anyone else experienced this? We've bought about a hundred ink pens in the past two years. Do you think I can ever find one? My kids love to draw, so they're always snatching the pens, but what are they doing with them? Are they somehow falling into the foundation of my house? Is the upholstery of our couch packed with pens?

Giant, Over Complicated Looking, Explody Robot Destructo Machines

• Dear Summer, I'm sorry. You and I are just not going to make it. I'll still bring the kids around once in a while. They deserve their time with you. I just can't stand the constant sweating, the way the sun effects my skin. We need some time apart. Let's just try to get through the next few months existing together as best as possible.
• I'm reading a book right now that acknowledges the hardships of parenting, and gives the advice of just being consistent and staying the course even if things appear to be in vain.
• It also acknowledges a lot of the specific hardships I've encountered: wife and husband disagreeing on things, kids appearing to ignore certain lessons… I could keep going.
• Gage is a never ending stream of words lately. His grammatical skills are surely lacking, but he gets the points across most of the time.
• When he can't see, he makes it painfully obvious. One night we were at our local school playground. The sun was setting and had blinded him a bit. He shouted, "I can't see my eyes! I can't see my eyes!" Likely there should have been a comma or pause in there, but…
• He has eagle eyes for fast food restaurants. Which might make you think we eat out a lot, but that's really not the case. He just has a great memory. As we pass just about any restaurant, he identifies what type of food they sell and adds, "I gotta get some."
• Bob Evans is known as "Pancakes." If you try to explain that it's called Bob Evans, he gets a bit angry.
• Owen is obsessed with the clock, telling time. A good thing to be constantly concerned about in some ways. A bit annoying in other ways.
• The main reason for his obsession is a show called Wild Kratts on PBS. The show starts at 5:00 p.m. Monday through Thursday. It is educational. He does absorb every second of it. His life seems to revolve around it lately.
• He's doing that fact finding thing kids his age do. "What would happen if you took a bath in fire? What if you tried to eat 100 cheese tacos? How come you only kiss me on the top of my head instead of on the mouth?"
• What I'm about to say will shock you: I liked the Land of the Lost movie. I had avoided it like the plague because so many people hated it, but I borrowed it from the library last week. I liked it. It was funny and fantastical. I was never a huge fan of the TV show. I caught it in syndication, but the TV show never endeared itself to me.
• I'm sure I just lost a bunch of credibility in the movie review department.
• The new Transformers movie is out. I really wish they would have just made up a new franchise. I know. I know. I'm an annoying fan boy that just wants things to be the way they were when I was eight years old. The thing is, I might enjoy these movies if they just changed the names of the characters. That would remove my expectations.
• Maybe they could release a dubbed over version that replaces all the characters' names. They could call the movies, Giant, Over Complicated Looking, Explody Robot Destructo Machines. I'd pay to see that.
• They finally made a Simon Pegg movie I didn't like, How to Lose Friends and Alienate People. It wasn't totally terrible, but it was too long or poorly edited. I'm not sure. I just didn't get the same enjoyment out of the flick.
• Can someone clone Desmond Tutu please?
• I'm officially a year older this week. I don't really care for birthdays anymore. My hair has been grey for years now. No one cards me anymore. It's been a while since someone called me, "Young Man."
• We have a tent that claims it will sleep nine people. We put four air mattresses inside which left room for two people to sleep at our feet. If nine people slept together in that tent, it would be an intimate, lack of personal space, uncomfortable evening.
• My favorite headlines lately: "Police Say Drunk Man Tried to Operate on Dog" and "Monkey Steals Camera, Takes Self Portraits." Some would say they both contain the best parts of the story in the headlines, but I want to know what type of operation we were talking here. Was it brain surgery? Did the dog have a bowel obstruction?
• I don't like to judge other people's parenting skills, but when you go out to watch fireworks in public, you see things that you can't help but judge. If a kid throws a lit sparkler in the air toward a stranger holding a baby, you just don't hand him firecrackers ten minutes later for him to light by himself. It's like saying, "Here. You almost burned a stranger's baby, now go blow off your hands."
• A few years back the local TV news started running stories about what types of fireworks were legal in Michigan and which weren't. Basically, if it leaves the ground or explodes, it's illegal. Here's the catch. I was working at a newspaper at the time, and we were running ads for a local fireworks dealer that advertised bottle rockets and firecrackers (flying, exploding). We called the local police to see if the advertisement was promoting something illegal.
• Their response was this: Dealers can sell any type of fireworks. Consumers can buy any type of fireworks. Consumers can not legally set off any type of fireworks in Michigan just because they can legally purchase them here.
• Of course, no one really cares because you see huge displays flying and exploding in most Michigan suburbs all the time.
• I think I've stated this before: I'm not very nostalgic for actual eighties music. I do, however, enjoy modern music that is clearly heavily influenced by the eighties.

Random Randomness with a Strong Dash of the Politics

This one's a bit political folks. If such things anger you, you might want to steer clear.

• Owen has this habit of rambling about his imaginings. I remember similar traits in myself at this age. It usually goes something like this:
• "I was flying a plane through the lightning storm. Boom. It was like explosions. And I landed on an island that was covered in lava that I had to jump over, and there was these creatures… I went 'pow, pow, pow, pow' with my fists to stop them. I was running…"
• Somewhere toward the end he'll insert some question pertaining to reality like, "Can I have some ginger ale with dinner?"
• On my way home from Grand Blanc one day, I decided to travel Dort Highway north. It was the middle of the day. What could we encounter?
• How about a dude walking drunkenly through heavy traffic? The police pulled up and tried to detain him. He fought the officer.
• The officer, as cool as a cucumber, with little effort of his own, casually grabs the guy's arm, turns his own arm an obviously well practiced way, and takes the guy to the ground as if this maneuver were as easy to him as breathing.
• I observed all of this sitting at a traffic light.
• We watched Gnomeo and Juliet. The kids liked it.
• The voice talent was entirely British. As I watched the deer character, I thought I heard the voice of Ozzy Osbourne. I thought to myself, "No. It can't be. This is a Disney movie, and there are lots of British accents. There are probably thousands of British people that sound exactly like Ozzy. This is likely some dude I've never heard of." It ended up being Ozzy. I have a well tuned Ozzy ear apparently.
• We were in Borders book store last Friday. It was actually hopping with an open mic night. Even the employees were commenting on how busy they were.
• Minding my own business, two men walked up and stood about two feet from me arguing about politics. Without warning, the younger man shouts a reply that includes the N-word.
• Most people wouldn't call me quick to anger, but few things anger me more quickly than racism. The men were walking away at this point, and I very intently walked the opposite direction with many angry words boiling in my brain.
• I circled back around as a young lady was confronting the younger man about what he had just done. Another group of young ladies was standing closer to me openly making fun of the guy.
• Two minutes later I noticed that there were two transvestites in the store too. It actually made me happier to see them so comfortable. I'm often drawn to those that many would consider misfits.
• I watched a Presidential Candidate Debate recently. It doesn't matter which side it was for. Some of the questions seemed so pointless.
• "Do you consider yourself pro-life?" In this day and age, I feel this is a pointless question for many reasons especially when you consider which party the debate was for.
• They also asked, "Should the child of illegal immigrants receive emergency medical treatment without holding insurance?" This was a much better, much more telling question.
• To me, this question gets to the heart of the matter much more quickly. Or maybe a better way of putting it is, it tells us if there is a heart to begin with much more quickly.
• With the first question they're trying to point out that they have a connection to God or their perceived "Christian values." The problem is, with the second question, they often miss what should be the same connection.
• So often in politics things get turned into political jargon. The arguments start by discussing budgets, policies, and money instead of people and humanity.
• If a child is left to suffer in any way, the next question needs to be, "What happened to your heart?" Or maybe, "Do you think God, Christ, would let any child suffer if treatment was available?" Or perhaps, "What difference does age make when we're talking about humane treatment?"
• Another thing bothering me in the world of politics: all the talk about (from both sides) valuing small business. Don't get me wrong, I believe we need tons of small businesses to keep the economy going. I just get the impression that politicians are trying to sell small business as the answer for getting Americans back to work.
• Every small business job I've ever held only paid minimum wage and had zero chance at any benefits. This might help put money in our pockets, but it's a far cry from rebuilding the middle class. My personal opinion is that this strategy would only serve to increase the number of people working in the lowest paying professions instead of empowering more people to achieve more.

Where is our Joy?

I don't like to stereotype, and I don't want anything in the following post to sound racist toward any group including the group I would easily be lumped into…

For Memorial Day, we traveled to Port Huron. We found a city park with a large playground for the kids, picnic areas, plenty of shade, and a large beach. I enjoy our Great Lakes. Lake Huron is only an hour’s drive away. Something about the water, the sand, and the soft grass feeds my soul.

The park showcased the melting pot that our country embodies. It was fun to family watch. This is the soil where my form of patriotism grows, in our open arms, in our diversity, and in our families.

A large latino family claimed a large, sunny chunk of the park to play soccer. They were having so much fun. They kept shouting, "Goal!"

I worried a bit about my kids wanting to join in. Then I realized that I might want to join in.

A large arabic family played very interesting music. The young women all joined hands and danced for a short time. My son, Gage thought that was cool. I couldn't help but think about how that embodied freedom and comfort - to dance in public like that in a setting that isn't known for dancing.

As a large Indian family walked in, I noticed that the men were pushing the baby strollers. At first I thought there were no women in the group. They trailed behind a few minutes later. As the day went on, it was obvious that the men were the main caretakers for the kids.

There were other large family groups around us that weren't just speaking English. I couldn't identify them all, but they had one thing in common, they were large families. There were many interracial families too.

In contrast, most of the caucasian-only families were small (4 to 5), a mother, a father, and 2.5 kids. Most of the non-caucasian families numbered 10 to 15+ with people from multiple generations. I'm guessing that they contained great grandchildren all the way through great grandparents.

It had me wondering… and maybe it’s just my family, but why don’t we get together in such large, extended family groups anymore? We did when we were kids.

Maybe I’m generalizing too much. It was only one day at one park, and it was a holiday. But I still wonder, why don’t we value the same things? I mean, here were multiple cultures all with obvious, strong family ties, except for one.

And where is our joy? We don’t dance in the park. We don’t stake out large sections of a park to play games together. We rarely see one another anymore. If it happens once a year, we’re satisfied. Or are we?

Randomness: Freedoms, Insecurities incited by my wife, Olsen family…

• The Olsen twins have siblings? And someone allows them to be stars too? Do they need more money?
• Did you know they make all kinds of different milk? If you don't want regular old, from a cow, dairy milk, you can buy almond milk, soy milk, coconut milk that tastes like dairy milk, and non-dairy, lactose free, who knows what's really inside milk too. I haven't tried the last one, but the rest taste just fine as long as you get them sweetened in some way. Plain is… plain.
• My kids love it when my wife and I play video games. Super Mario is especially fun for them to watch. We do let them try to play, but they don't like that as much.
• Let me state this, I'm not a gun person. That doesn't mean that I think everyone should give up their guns or that it should be near impossible for normal people to own them. I totally understand hunting rifles. The personal protection stuff… well, you probably don't want me to get into that.
• Having said all this, I just don't understand why, when something public and violent happens involving guns, it's immediately inappropriate for people to start asking questions about gun regulations. As long as normal, non-criminal, sane people can still buy guns, why can't we talk about making it harder for crazy, felony convicted people to get guns?
• I heard one interview with a gun dealer. He had been coaching people on how to fill out the ownership application. He didn't see how that was a problem, circumventing the safety procedures. I lose sleep over poor grocery store etiquette. This guy doesn't lose sleep over possibly selling fire arms to people that shouldn't have them?
• I guess I feel similarly about violent rhetoric. I believe in free speech. I hate when people start talking about banning violent video games, but I also feel like, do you really want that nagging at you for the rest of your life? Maybe something you said set someone off? The wrong person was listening? Wouldn't it be easier to just not say these things so we don't even have to debate their effect?
• I believe in a Judgement of sorts that will come from God someday. I imagine that there will be tons of people there that we didn't even realize we'd wronged waiting to testify in some way. I imagine that many of these people never even crossed physical paths with us. Our actions have arms of their own don't they?
• I think it's sad that in 2011 the President's wife has to tell us to teach our kids to be more tolerant people.
• I love that current country musicians are writing songs about Johnny and June.
• Some things my wife makes me insecure about:
• I'm often worried that something is hanging from my nose even when it isn't. It likely has something to do with the increased level of nose hair I'm experiencing and it's supernatural re-growth speed. Oh, and my wife always tells me up front when she sees anything out of place in my nose. I actually appreciate that. It just makes me paranoid.
• On many, many occasions, I've returned home from some social event to have my wife ask whether or not I knew that I hadn't used enough deodorant or worn a shirt that clearly was too odorous to leave the house. She does, however, never let me leave the house in clothes that don't match. She catches that prior to my departure. We have to work on the odor thing. I DO SHOWER EVERY DAY.
• I'm always afraid that my clothes look too "eighties." I think she really means nineties.

Random Post: He-man, Pat Robertson, and that annoying Toyota Highlander Kid

• That Toyota Highlander kid, the one that mocks other kids for riding in "lesser" vehicles, I don't like him. I'm not sure how this is a good marketing strategy.
• One of the coolest things I received for Christmas was a classic, 1970's styled pair of Star Wars pajama pants. They rock.
• On a related note: The Iron Man PJ pants someone gave me are like butter. 'Nuff said.
• Bronner's is a Christmas decorations specialty store in our area. Do they have these in other states? We have two in our general area. Anyway, a group of younger people decided to vandalize the place this Christmas causing an estimated $40,000 worth of damage. Not a smart or kind act.
• One of the owners was quoted on the local news the following day. He said that anyone who would attack the spirit of Christmas during this time should be properly punished. I have to admit, in my opinion, in the spirit of Christmas, the owner should forgive the people that did this. In the true spirit of things, he should wash his hands of it. If local law enforcement must punish them, then they must, but one of the ultimate meanings of Christmas, in the true spirit of Christ's birth, undeserved forgiveness seems like the appropriate response.
• My son seems to think we own stock in the Winter Glove industry. I think we're hovering around the ten pair of misplaced gloves mark. You think we'd get smart and only buy one color so we could match up the mis-mates.
• I had an intensely proud moment one day, late last month. In the quiet of the day my youngest son, who is only 3, grabbed a small toy sword that was only about an inch long. He held it high over his head and said, "By uh hour of AySkull! I ave uh Owpurrr!!!" Over the next few days there were many fights in our house over who, in fact, was going to be He-man when both boys were playing together.
• I'm turning my kids into dorks.
• Pat Robertson endorses the legalization of marijuana? A lot of my facebook friends started posting things like, "Hey! Even the Christians are getting behind this issue!" Let me stop you right there, m'kay? As a Christian spokesperson, Mr. Robertson has kind of worn out any semblance of sanity. That was kind of out the door years ago. So, if you want him for your spokesperson, I wouldn't recommend it, but you can have him. I'm pretty sure he's gotten into a bad batch or two over the years. That might actually explain quite a lot.
• Whether or not Christians should support the legalization of pot is a whole other can of worms. I'm just saying, the support of most TV Evangelists isn't something to celebrate.
• As I tell people that my dad bought me a snow blower for Christmas, I've been getting congratulated a lot. It's like I won an award or achieved something. I had no idea.

Down in the Park

It's park/playground season again. At the beginning of last summer, I became a stay at home father. Two or three times a week, I would take my boys to one of the great parks in our county. I observed a lot of things, some of them trivial, but some of them a little disheartening.

Some of the fun or funnier things: Parks are full of discarded band-aids. People will knowingly bring their unfriendly dogs to child infested areas, which makes me think they want to be sued. People usually won't make any effort to clean up messes made by their children's leaky or explosive diapers. I'm not the only stay at home father. The number of men accompanying their children seemed to increase as weeks went on.

I also noticed that people don't tend to teach their kids to be more social or even nice. Owen is our oldest at four years old. He hungers for social interaction, and we love to take him to these public places because he gets to interact with a wide variety of children he doesn't know. As the summer progressed, he got steadily better at introducing himself and making quick friends.

Unfortunately, not every kid wanted to play with him. Some were quite rude about it. When I would notice this, because it was usually pretty easy to overhear, I'd call Owen over. I'd explain to him that not everyone wanted to play with him, that he should probably just avoid those particular kids.

Now, I'm not saying that children shouldn't have the right to pick and choose who they want to play with, but it still surprises me that, to this day, I've never had another parent call their children over to ask them to be more accepting of Owen. No one has told their kids that we're in a fun zone where everyone should be encouraged to join in together.

There was one day where I heard an older kid run up to his father complaining that a younger kid wouldn't leave him alone. The father advised his kid to get forceful if he had to, even telling him to give the kid a little shove if he had to. To be honest, that angered me, which is probably not the healthiest response in and of itself.

These public places offer a great opportunity for our kids to interact with different ethnicities and cultures. We're sort of proud of the fact that neither of our boys has ever pointed out another person's skin color or distinguishing attributes. When they played with Jewish and Muslim kids, they didn't even point out their unique attire. Okay, we have had Owen recently point out a few people that are tall and large, but it had more to do with him being impressed than judgmental. We love that they get to interact in this way.

I just wish that more of us were willing to pull our kids aside and instruct them to interact. I wish playgrounds were areas where our kids would get a starter course in acceptance, that they were encouraged to include everyone so that everyone walked away with a fun experience.

Crying Out to Santa Claus

The following was actually part of a scrapbook/journal I keep for my kids every month. I thought I'd share it.

We took the boys to Genesee Valley mall Wednesday. Heidi had a day off. They played in the play area for about an hour. Then we set out for lunch in the food court.

We came upon their Santa set up. No one was there at that moment. Santa and the photo lady waved at us. Then Owen noticed Santa. He immediately started straining against Heidi’s grasp, stretching as close as he could. We were about 25 feet away. He started shouting his Christmas list at Santa, “I want a square Bakugan. A red one and a brown one. I want a Megatron and Bulk Head.” We couldn’t help but laugh. We explained to him that he needed to actually sit on Santa’s lap, but we couldn’t do it that day.

The malls are another example of a dying business model that doesn’t seem to want to change to save itself. They still charge way too much to visit Santa. They ban taking your own photos. They almost insist on the purchase of their photos. The cheapest mall photo we found was a 5x7 for $13. No thanks.

Even if saving their own image were off the table, they could be kind and take into consideration that many families are financially strapped this year. No such luck.

We’re planning on a Santa visit out in Lapeer this coming Tuesday. For $5 both of our kids can see Santa and Mrs. Claus. They take a 4x6 photo for us, and we can take as many other photos as we want.

It was fun to watch the other kids sitting on Santa’s lap. We had a good view from the food court. They’d shyly share their lists. You could see how timid each kid initially was. Santa would set them down, hand them a coloring book, and this love would break out over them. You could see it physically happen. They’d lose all fear. Their arms would fly up to hug Santa. It was great.

It finally dumped snow on us Wednesday night. I decided to take the boys out for a few minutes Thursday afternoon. It was cold though, about 15˚.

Owen tried to do all of the warm weather activities he had been doing in recent months, often sitting on snow covered riding toys. He was wet and cold very soon.

Gage refused to wear his mittens. He slowly walked around the backyard. He grabbed a few bare handed scoops of snow, clearly disliking it. After about five minutes, he walked into the middle of the grassed portion of our backyard, looked up at me and started crying.

I took him inside, where he started to cry harder. He wanted to be outside. It was like he was protesting reality. He was told he could go outside, but the outside I had taken him to was a harsh, cold place that wasn’t fun to be in.

I tried to calm both kids with some hot cocoa, but it was too hot. I just couldn’t win.