Glimpses of Aslan's Mane

... And on we go!

2011-04-21T13:11:00.001-04:00

SO ...

I seem to have attracted a couple of readers! I'd be pleased except for the comments that were left.

I have my suspicions as to who "Anonymous" is ... I'll let any readers that may read this blog (which is probably none as I've been inactive for so long!) comment here with their guesses.

Dave

... The odyssey continues

2011-04-19T12:50:00.002-04:00

Alive I am ...

One more step, two more steps ... It seems like 100 years of parenting since the split with the BP ex. I know she and her attorney follow this blog, more power to them. We are making it. They throw lies and innuendo, but somehow, we are still standing.

Thank God.

... Were not the right Man on our side ...

2009-10-26T16:20:00.003-04:00

... And HE must win the battle.

It's a tough day. Waiting is so incredibly hard.

But I'm linking up with the "Waiting Underground" ...

There's a lot of us out there who are waiting. Maybe all of God's true children are waiting. I share my struggle. I talk of the wait.

And others tell me where they're waiting. Where they've waited.

How they didn't wait. How they jumped in ... and screwed things up.

Let me commend to all of us who are waiting, Bob the Tomato. That's right, the noted Veggie Tale. The limbless, hairless vegetable who loves God.

Or at least his creator and voice, Phil Vischer.

I think God wanted me to get this message last week. Hopped in the car and Christian Radio was on. God has been quietly instructing me to flip it on lately ... and I haven't gone there in years.

And I'm appalled at what's there. I'm seriously moved to ... wait, that's another story.

But Friday morning I heard a voice that was vaguely familiar ... Tighe jumped in the car with me ... we headed to school to a great story that captivated us both.

Now understand that I haven't had Christian radio on as a habit for years. So for my radio to be set there is simply a God thing ...

And the story ... about a man serving God by creating wonderful talking vegetables that have certainly blessed me, inspired my kids and made all of us laugh for years ... The story of that man serving God in his dream and finding ... that God would not allow a dream to become an idol.

So many thoughts there... But the idea that it's not about what I DO FOR GOD. It's whose I am. HIS.

And that it's WAITING that allows me to KNOW the lover of my soul.

... Great is thy faithfulness my God ...

Check out Phil Vischer (aka Bob the Tomato) on Focus on the Family ...

I hope this link stays active for a time ... When Your Dreams Die ...

Dave

Our own private housing crisis ...

2009-10-23T01:04:00.002-04:00

Slip slidin' away ... you know the nearer your destination the more it's slip-slidin' away ...

My home, our home, at 17 Woodland Drive, is no longer our home. The bank did what the bank has threatened to do for the 15 years we had this predatory lender ... they foreclosed.

I could have paid. I could have refinanced. I could have done a loan modification. I suppose I even could have delayed with a bankruptcy.

But when you combine a predatory lender with an angry ex-spouse you get ... foreclosure.

Spouses have to sign for any changes to occur when they have an interest in a property.

But it's only a thing. Things don't last.

There are memories from 17 Woodland. There are some wonderful memories ... Birthdays ... first everythings for 4 of the 5 kids ... tooth fairy visits ... food creations that went well ... and some that didn't but we laughed anyway.

And then there are the other memories. Police visits because of violent assaults by Mom. Vicious attacks. Screaming at neighbors. Clothes, dirt, grime, purchases all piled so high we couldn't walk around them ... and the yelling if we tried to fix it.

So we did the final cleanout. Since mom was taken out of the home (unwillingly but SO necessarily) we had already gutted 60 cu yards of trash in dumpsters. Old stuff that was too "precious" to part with had already been disposed of ... after she passed it by on several walk-throughs. Old carpet too rotten to stay on the floor. Newpapers, magazines, handouts from who knows where ... all kept for the possible day ... but not taken by her when she left ... and again, passed over in walk-through after walk-through.

That stuff had incredible power. She brought it up time and again in court... DON'T YOU DARE DUMP MY STUFF. Some had to go. Insects, space, time required it to go. But so much we still held on to. She would come and get it. She demanded it all stay for her inspection. For her to cherish. For her to control our lives with by it's demanding presence.

But then, a move-out date loomed. There was no choice. What freedom we had when we moved her stuff out for her to take. Of course, she took almost none of it. "But don't throw it out."

Stuff controls us. Not just her, all of us. I felt such freedom letting go of so many things. Letting go of this house that was always too big as a project ... too much to be done by a busy family ... to rehab a house in as bad shape as it was 18 years ago ...

So we let it all go ... a total of 120 cu yards of stuff we pitched. So much more we sold, gave away, recycled. Working to make a blessing out of all this ... stuff.

And we are beginning to walk in freedom. We're STILL sorting through, pitching, protecting the very little that's priceless.

Stuff ... holds us with an angry death grip. God begs us to let our stuff go and hold on to Him. Our stuff comforts us, helps us not see our own weaknesses and our own flaws. It also cruds up everything, gives us stumbling blocks beyond measure.

The house is gone ... but the home is still being built.

Lost in "Let's Remember"...

2009-01-14T12:46:00.002-05:00

I am. I am lost and awash. Thanks to Facebook I've been talking to people I haven't talked to in 30 and more years.

All of it is good to bring the years into focus. Years slip by and we change. But the changes aren't put in side-by-side comparison with the past very often. Who was I then? Who am I now?

I was insanely idealistic. I think I still am.

Some of the comparisons are hard. I still haven't finished my first screenplay, my first Broadway play. My great novel has not yet been written. I am not yet a captain of industry.

But I have 5 great kids and a good job.

I think I'm doin' great.

Dave Nichols

Away ... and a manger

2008-12-21T23:48:00.003-05:00

"...See Tighe, that's just like Jesus' manger..."

Now I KNOW I've read the Christmas story to my kids. We've talked at length about the real meaning of Christmas (that's a phrase used so much it needs its own acronym, "trmoc").

So it shocked me when my friend Connie said something to my youngest about a manger and he said, "What's a manger?"

I felt devastated. I felt like I'd absolutely let my kids down. Like they had been given no Christian training by me at all. Like I was a heathen of a parent.

If you've followed my irregular posts, you know I've said how surprised I am at times at the shape of my life. There was always a picture in my mind of a sweet Christian family gathered around a table and praying. Learning. Drinking in Jesus.

I don't mean to demean that picture, it's a beautiful one. I wish it for my kids.

But God had work to do first. And it all kind of crystallized today, Sunday.

What a wonderful church God has blessed us with. During this advent service, our amazing worship team has been encouraged by our pastor to cut loose after the benediction with any appropriate Christmas song they want...

They've rocked us out to fellowship time to Rudolph. They've done the Eagles Please Be Home for Christmas. Today they left us with Jingle Bell Rock.

I grabbed a coffee and boogied back to Connie and Rand. Yes, I was... GASP... dancing! I passed the wife of one of our elders... I honestly don't know her well but her husband, Darryl Erickson, is from Montana I believe and has a background in the Evangelical (Swedish) Covenant Church as have I. Darryl is one of my favorite people, though I know him far too little as well.

As I passed Darryl's wife I said, "I suppose I shouldn't be dancing... I went to Seattle Pacific". She laughed and said, I want to dance to, and I went to Wheaton.

We stood there swapping stories of restrictions on activities... hers more extreme from being in the Christian College movement a few years before I was.

And tonight as our worship bands absolutely rocked the house it hit me... ALL of this I've gone through... Tighe not knowing the manger story well (though he DOES know Jesus), my kids not having been in church for years (there's a story behind that)... but all of that... has been a grace.

So much of the legalistic crud I had woven into the heart of my worship is gone... and none of it is in them. They come to Jesus free of the idea that their works will make them whole. They are moving joyously (finally) into a church relationship and a knowledge of the Bible free of the idea that some kinds of thinking about God might damn them... didn't we who grew up like that have to cross every theological "I" and get it right? I did! God forbid I should think an Arminian thought or a Charismatic one.

THANK GOD for the freedom we have in Christ. Thank God for the hard, painful path that has flushed this OUT of my family.

As the psalmist said in Psalm 16...

The lines are fallen unto me in pleasant places; yea, I have a goodly heritage. Psalm 16:6

Praise you God, for although the road be rough, the destination is gold.

Dave

.... and now, an important announcement ...

2008-02-12T10:14:00.002-05:00

To my vast reading audience (all 7 of you!) I have reserved Internet domain names for this blog. You can now get here with any of the following:

www.aslansmane.com
www.aslansmane.net
www.aslans-mane.com
www.aslans-mane.net

D--

Plea to Huckabee Supporters...

2008-02-11T13:01:00.000-05:00

I hear many say that Huckabee is just in this for the VP spot. I don't think so. I think they still believe they have a shot. Maybe I'm naive.

Regardless, phone calls into Virginia are vitally important! If you have never phone-banked for a candidate, it's gotten SO much easier. It all happens right here on your computer, and on your cell or home phone.

The campaign will give you numbers right on a web page and you make the calls.

If you're not already a "Huckabee Ranger" then start here:

Phone calls for Huckabee sign-in

Good luck and have fun!

D--

Wow, what a weekend... and other ramblings...

2008-02-11T12:51:00.000-05:00

Doncha just love this political year? It's almost like watching the Superbowl as a Pats fan... nothing is coming out as it's supposed to!

That tickles me for so many reasons. The biggest is, I see people becoming INVOLVED. I see us as a people CARING about the political process. HOPE replaces hopelessness when that happens.

HOPE might be the theme for this political season. And it almost looks like SOME of the candidates can keep that going even for those that vote against them... It almost seems as if there are SOME candidates who will open their arms (at least some) and pull in those who don't agree. Who will listen and not reject out of hand.

Wouldn't it be great if this continues through the general election?

But Washington, my Washington state... HOW in the world could the GOP there STOP counting ballots? Their defense is ... it doesn't matter. That they took essentially a "straw poll".

While that's not the way my memory has it, it might have changed. Even so, what a black eye to simply throw away a bunch of votes. It makes it look like the fix is in.

And does it tickle you like it does me to see this race reshape? Huckabee is finally getting props as a Conservative. Read his speech to the Conservative Political Action Convention in 2007 (CPAC) here (Haven't seen his Saturday speech post yet):

Gov. Huckabee's CPAC 2008 Speech

For those of us who LOVE politics, who follow it like many follow sports, this is like having a year long World Series!

The only way this could get better is if BOTH conventions are brokered.

YES!

D--

View from the trenches ...

2008-02-05T23:33:00.000-05:00

How is it that Romney is so desperate to get Huckabee out of the race? He calls Huckabee a "Tax and Spend Liberal." Then says that Huckabee is robbing his rightful votes.

Hmmmmmmm. Let's think about that one for a minute.

Yup. It's muddy out here. The footing is slippery and folks are fallin all over the place, sayin' all sorts of silly things.

D--

Huckabee is THE Conservative ...

2008-01-25T14:53:00.001-05:00

I am a Huck-a-Fan. I've made that clear. I'm still working for the campaign, making phone calls whenever I can.

Huckabee won me over with his fresh application of Conservatism. I've been reviled as a Liberal in my own town because I supported teacher salary increases. I've written in support of tax increases.

And I stand by my tax increase stands. OVERALL taxes need to decrease. But when roads are deteriorating, when schools are falling apart, it takes MONEY to fix those things. SOMETIMES CONSERVATIVES ARE MOST CONSERVATIVE WHEN THEY SUPPORT A TAX INCREASE.

After all, Conservatives are not anarchists. We believe in less intrusion and less government. But most Conservatives SUPPORT good roads and bridges as indispensable to the Free Market Economy. And MOST Conservatives believe ONLY government is in a position to do this kind of building.

I AM a Conservative. The guiding principles in my political world view are self-sufficiency and small government. But as in anything, the Conservatives of the past believe THEIR conservatism is the only way.

Like the Princess and the Pea, the only thing that underlying principle works its way out into real living. Being hidebound to the past, rigid and inflexible, loses elections, stifles economies, locks out good ideas, strips the political discourse of the value of the underlying principles.

This is why I support Huckabee even through the complaints that he is a Liberal in Sheep's Clothing. He isn't, I'm convinced of it, and here's an article from The Conservative Voicethat states it just the same way... Please take a look and see what you think:

Huckabee: The New Face of Conservatism?

D--

This one made me cry...

2008-01-25T14:33:00.000-05:00

Followed a link and saw this video on CNN. It's from KOMO TV4... From my hometown, Seattle.

Lyman, WA where this takes place is on the North Cascades Highway, one of the most beautiful roads in America... I don't know if I've ever been through Lyman, I had to look it up on the map.

Homecomings are always sweet, but please, look at this one and remember how much is given by some.

A Homecoming

D--

Comments PLEASE!! ...

2008-01-25T00:01:00.000-05:00

Friends, Romans, Countrymen...

Take a look at this video of Jim Wallis on Comedy Central's The Daily Show. Wallis is founder of Sojourners, a left-side Evangelical political and social action group. His viewpoints represent the majority view I came up against daily in my Christian University (Seattle Pacific) days.

Don't dismiss this out of hand, or too readily embrace it either. Chew on it, and then react here, if you would be so kind.

I'm still chewing on this myself, and I'm not ready with my own thoughts... But you can guess I soon will be.

D--

Judicial Restraint???...

2008-01-17T18:43:00.000-05:00

There have been several news stories lately where judges have held defendants in their courts in contempt for some unusual reasons. The ones I most remember are where folks wrote something in the notation section of a check. In one case it was profane. In the other, I believe it was on the order of, "the judge is an idiot...".

In both cases, there were extra punishments... fines and maybe even jail time.

I squirmed a bit at that. Seems to me that if the defendant is paying the bill they can write just about anything except a threat on that check. No matter what the Supreme Court might rule on that, it just seems to me that it's simply an exercise of free speech.

What's next? If they don't like the check image I've used -- maybe I favor a rock band they find offensive, or I have a Christian theme -- can they hold me in contempt for that?

What's next?

I'll tell you what's next. No reading in the courtroom!

I had occasion to visit court today. I didn't do anything bad, I'm just trying to dig out of a financial mess and sometimes that means court. Today it did.

Knowing that the courtroom here in my town can be very slow, I took a good book. A book on making ideas "Sticky". It's a great read.

As I was unloading my pockets for the metal detector, the guard warned me, "Don't read that book in the courtroom."

I was shocked, and told him so. He told me it was the opinion of the main judge that reading a book in his courtroom is contempt.

"You can take that book in, but if Judge K******N sees you reading it, he'll hold you in contempt."

I wanted to say that I already hold that particular judge in contempt myself, but I didn't. I did say, "If he did that, I'd just have to fight it."

The guard raised himself up and said, "What did you say?"

I got ahold of myself and said, "Oh, nothing, I'm biting my tongue now."

So let me get this straight. An attorney can read a brief in court. A police officer can read and review notes for a trial he's waiting on. But I can't read a book?

D--

Ronald Reagan...

2008-01-15T12:31:00.001-05:00

I suppose I'm not a good Conservative. I don't think Ronald Reagan was a full-blown Conservative.

In some ways, I'm not sure he was effective as a governing President.

GASP.

When I run for office, this blog is going to haunt me! My politically/academically trained daughter tells me a politician must avoid thoughts that can't be expressed in a few words or less. This is that kind of thought. So here goes!

Reagan did an incredible job shifting the political center. The Left had moved the perceived center a good deal to the left from Roosevelt to Carter.

Reagan WAS the GREAT COMMUNICATOR. His articulation of Supply Side Economics (aka Voodoo Economics) made it a de facto understanding in the American thought process. More revenue WAS brought in by cutting taxes and rewarding economic growth.

BUT Reagan accepted huge deficits. The Left was right about that. He did not use his bully pulpit to argue against Big Government. That has always seemed his lazy legacy.

Perhaps he did not think he could argue against Communism, argue to cut taxes AND argue to cut government. Actually cutting government is the touchiest of all of those. It's where you make liars of most any screaming Conservative.

And so Reagan ended up talking the talk but not much walking the walk, in this observer's opinion.

The consequence is we still have huge government. Clinton actually did more to cut entitlements than Reagan did.

D--

Shaking off the "L" word...

2008-01-14T14:35:00.000-05:00

Well, that's it. Mike Huckabee isn't a real Conservative. Fred Thompson told me so.

Funny how these things work. Back when Thompson was weighing his options an independent analysis mentioned he might well have trouble with "real" conservatives. That author declared him a southern moderate.

Now he's the real-deal -- according to Fred.

Huckabee is now a Liberal -- according to Fred.

Why? He questioned our foreign policy a couple of weeks ago. Huckabee said we were arrogant in some ways.

Actually, Huckabee is the Conservative on this... The world has shifted.

As much as I'm a Bush supporter, the truth is that the Bush White House has adopted in many ways a Liberal Wilsonian foreign policy -- Nation Building, making the Middle East a place of Democracy.

It's called "Wilsonian" hearkening back to the First World War. Remember the cry, "Make the world safe for democracy!"?

Here's the shift: Liberals are arguing for a more isolationist less intrusive foreign policy.

It's not the first time. In a sense the Conservative push to attack Communism was Wilsonian. The Liberal response was Conservative isolationism.

It can be argued that Iraq AND the war against Communism in South Korea and Vietnam all had clear and compelling national interests. In that way, the nation-building, Wilsonian policy becomes a Conservative policy. These things just aren't pure.

And that's EXACTLY the point!!! Conservative and Liberal are shifty labels. I've been called both. Any thinking person will be.

As an aside, this, I believe, is the problem with Ron Paul... He's so incredibly doctrinaire that he ceases to make sense.

I come back to my undergrad Math degree. In math theory there's a proven principle that has VERY broad application.

In systems -- descriptions how things actually work -- any system is contradictory. A closed system (a system that claims to be the ONLY system with ALL the right answers) is shaky, falls apart, doesn't work.

An open system (one which understands that there is no absolutely PURE answer) is strong, consistent, resilient, effective.

That's what drew me to Huckabee... exactly because there are places where he understands a rigid adherence to an ideology falls in dust under pressure. But at the same time, holds strongly to central tenants as a guiding star.

D--

Just a bit down...

2008-01-10T21:36:00.001-05:00

Primary Day was completely amazing. The Primary party, I even donned a suit. And the boys and I wound up in the slush directing traffic. And it was great.

It's back to work, back to things that aren't near as fun. But they DO pay the bills.

I made some efforts to get involved with the SC campaign. We'll see where that goes. There's a part of me -- and I wonder if it's a responsible part or a part that just loves adventure too much -- that wants to run away and join this circus called politics.

Regardless, for those who believe with me that Gov. Huckabee is our best choice for President, volunteer your phone, your voice and a couple of hours on your weekend. Check out this link:

Phone Calls for Huckabee

Then check out THIS link:

Huck's Army

There's more out there... some sane, some not ... ah well, that's Politics!

D--

P-Day...

2008-01-08T10:55:00.000-05:00

It's Primary day here in sunny New Hampshire. Polls say McCain should take it, Huckabee a distant third. That's not bad considering where most placed him just a couple of weeks ago.

It's been an incredible experience to answer the phones over the last few days. Most calls are great. I can't count the number of times people said they were praying for the campaign.

The ... um ... oddballs are out too. Numerous calls with "dirt" on various candidates that the caller was sure we'd want to have. Calls too complaining that the Huckabee campaign was using "push" polls.

I HATE push polls. If you aren't familiar with them, they're when you get a call asking you for your candidate choice, then raising scurrilous accusations about a candidate and asking if it would change your mind if it's true. They're mean and nasty and the point is to throw out mud without throwing mud...

None of the 3 callers I spoke with who said they'd been push polled could give me a caller-id number, so it raises some questions. But it also makes me think the idea is to make Huckabee look bad, since he's said he would NOT push poll.

Politics is nasty.

Yesterday was so incredibly cool. I took the boys to downtown Manchester where it's a carnival. The world press is there. We dropped into the Red Arrow Diner for a light dinner and Channel 5 news' Ed Harding and crew were in there eating and interviewing. When we left, Channel 7 was doing the same thing.

On the street we saw Anderson Cooper at City Hall Plaza preparing for a show. ABC has the coolest studio... a trailer mounted on scissor lifts on an 18 wheeler. It's entirely glass on one side and lifted about 25 feet up... the view is out to the tree-lighted City Hall Plaza.... what a site.

Then on to the Radisson where we sat in on 96.9 WTKK Boston who is doing their talk shows live. We spent about 35-40 minutes listening and then I asked a question at the mic. G-Dawg walked behind a window where C-Span was broadcasting ... it looked like it was blacked out so we watched while he walked behind and waved animatedly... It wasn't blacked out ... :) OOPS.

Earlier I'd seen Tim Russert being interviewed by C-Span...

There's nothin' finer than New Hampshire at the Primaries!

At the polls today, the big crowds holding signs in M-Town were McCain and Obama. Looks like they'll be the big winners.

It's back to work for me and then off to the party tonight... Election night parties are great when your candidate does well, and a 3rd place finish is good for Huckabee...

What is fascinating is how our two campaigns seem to honestly like each other, at least at this point. Maybe a good ticket... Huckabee/McCain or McCain/Huckabee ...

D--

Primary education...

2008-01-04T20:55:00.000-05:00

What a day! I'm wiped out.

I spent my free moments between work assignments this morning phoning folks near Gov. Huckabee's event in Henniker, NH.

I've done phone banks before and this was really amazing. The first 3 days of calling in spare minutes was eye-opening. In past calling I've done, the response has been cool. But the number of excited people surprised me... Maybe 1 or 2 in 10 WANTED to go to the event.

The response was even more outstanding today after the Iowa results last night. It's fun to be a part of a happening.

And then this late afternoon I answered phones at the very busy NH headquarters.

The NH efforts have been a good deal less extensive than Iowa just because the resources were needed for the first state out of the gate. The thinking has been that Iowa is critical to Gov. Huckabee's efforts. He's been here in NH quite regularly, but on a shoestring.

So now the storm waves of success are crashing on a pretty sparsely populated beach. I was going to make outbound calls but the phones were ringing off the hook. I ended up fielding incoming calls.

The great fun was in handling the press calls. Reporters called for credentialing. The media advance guy in the caravan called in desperate for details as they neared the event in Henniker. He didn't think he'd gotten his point across and started to explain what press advance is... I told him I understood. he couldn't know that my daughter does advance in DC.

It was fun feeling a bit like I was watching HER job unfold.

Tomorrow I'm manning phones again, and then rallying and going to a debate party. It should be a blast!!!!

I like New Hampshire, but this political junkie thanks God for this posting in a special way every 4 years when it just gets fun beyond belief.

D--

No Matter What, It's HIS Story...

2007-12-10T17:40:00.000-05:00

Check out the Interactive Sermon blog for a great commentary on the Evangelical flap over the movie and books in "The Golden Compass" series. Here's my take...

The books are in my house, one of my kids has read some of them and gotten some enjoyment. I looked over the flap both before and after the controversy and come away completely underwhelmed about the nature of the fight.

Yes, the author has written them out of his antipathy to Jesus, the Scripture and the Gospel.

But here's the truth, this is still a Christian story.

I'm not defending the author, I'm confirming that we live in God's world and can never get away from it. So he puts names on the bad guys that sound like they're Christians. If you strip the names off the story, you'll recognize it... It's a Christian saga. He's just confused.

No one in this universe can exempt themselves from God's story. I've no doubt that if you read our DNA it would read "Gospel" all over it. Rebellion. Loss. Redemption. Honor. Hope. Glory. This IS My Father's World!

So this book gives me a great chance to point out to my kids how even when somebody seeks to defame Jesus, they praise Him.

No need to march in the streets... Just raise my hands and praise Him here... That's why we don't match Islam in its fury when we're "defamed".

Relax... There's really nothing to fight for.

Jesus shall reign where e'er the sun doth it's successive courses run.

D--

... Contra Politics ... Contra Spirituality ... Jesus ...

2007-12-05T22:44:00.000-05:00

I love life against the grain. I love the underdog. I love unexpected marriages and compassion in unlikely places.

My favorite wine is called Conundrum. It's a blend (Chardonnay and Riesling??? Pinot Grigio? I don't remember) with the quality of a varietal. Often blends use cheap varietals and mix them hiding the low quality. But Conundrum pairs an unlikely mix and winds up with distinct taste, not a bland mess.

I love Conundrum because I was introduced to this California wine when dining in a fine restaurant in Singapore captained by a Hawaiian chef.

My favorite dress shirt ever was a classic Nordstrom's pinpoint stripe. That year Nordy's had a blue stripe shirt, a green stripe shirt, a yellow stripe shirt, a black strip shirt and a red stripe shirt. You know the type of business shirt, alternating 1/4" strips of white and color. A little color but very very conservative.

Take that same shirt only ... make the back of one stripe combo, the front of another, the collar of another, the pocket and the placket of two more. You almost had to look twice to see that it wasn't just another stodgy shirt. The mix of things... that's where the beauty was. Color and fashion in an unexpected place. Traditional value lending the whole thing a classy air.

I met a gentleman tonight who is establishing a Christian philanthropy presence on Second Life, the hip alternative (or virtual) reality site. This is a wild and wooly place where Internet hipsters make a virtual life for themselves. They become anyone or anything they'd like to be, and live as that character throughout their time in that alternate universe.

This gentleman and a friend have established a site which links to Christian aid organzations... As people give in this alternate world, they can REALLY give... their results come up as changes to this presence... give money for a school and a school appears when it is really built.

Hipster tech meet Jesus... The Way, Truth and Life who told us to offer water to the thirsty and food for the hungry.

How about this... our next president makes a concerted effort to build a coalition government. He does not step down from his vision or his plans, but he includes the other political view, finding individuals who will work with rather than against from BOTH parties and a broad spectrum.

I love the wealthy man who takes off his coat and leaves it for the homeless man.

D--

... it's the Ultimate Big Tent...

2007-12-03T13:34:00.000-05:00

Being with Jesus means that there are all sorts of people in this tent called His Church.

I've gone on and on lately about what I believe to be the best political approach. And I absolutely believe those things.

But beneath all that, above all that, is the truth that Jesus saves all types of people, and I'd darn well better not reject them. All I have to do is remember Peter's experience.

Just before Peter was asked to bring the truth of Jesus to a fully Gentile household, God gave him the ultimate learning experience, a divine vision.

God used the object lesson of the kosher laws. Peter was hungry and God laid out a spread for him... of entirely unkosher food. Gotta love pulled pork!

God told Peter to get up and tuck in. Three times. Three times Peter said, "No, Lord, I couldn't." Finally God said, "What I have made holy, don't you DARE call unholy." (Revised D-- Version)

Immediately a cadre appeared at the door asking for Peter to come minister to a Roman army leader.

Peter did. He learned his lesson.

Have I learned mine? All these years later... a refugee from the hyper-critical "bastions of truth", of fundamentalism, of arrogant positivism?

The reason for this diatribe? Don Imus. Reading a report of his return to the radio and his reaction to the time of his exile. He criticized his so-called friends that savaged him. He spoke highly of Al Sharpton.

"I'd rather be in a foxhole with Al Sharpton than a lot of my so-called friends."

Sharpton extended an invitation to Imus and had him on his (Sharpton's) radio broadcast.

Sharpton is a minister who claims Jesus. I don't know if he does, but I know this, his attitude of forgiveness was more Christ-like than most you'll see.

Jesus accepts all who come to Him in repentance. Do I?

D--

Will the REAL conservative please stand up...

2007-11-26T22:13:00.000-05:00

So the link on Drudge says Huckabee is the False Conservative. The link takes you to a Washington Post article by Robert Novak outlining that Mike Huckabee is actually a tax and spend liberal wolf in GOP clothing. He takes broad swipes at Huckabee's Evangalical credentials and then slams him as a petty, nasty liberal.

Frankly, the snippy tone of the article says it all... that Novak is miffed that this outsider is gaining traction. But the charges are worth a brief examination.

Others have made the same charge against Hucakbee since he was responsible for the raising of some taxes in Arkansas. But are tax hikes always anti-conservative? Don't conservatives support some government programs?

I think honest conservatives will agree that taxes themselves aren't the issue, the issue is what the taxes are for. And from what I see, Huckabee supported taxes primarily to fix a damaged, broken highway infrastructure and a damaged broken education system. He lowered other taxes.

But the real kicker to me is when Novak compares Huckabee to Reagan and finds Huckabee wanting as a conservative. I have to laugh at that, because I believe the numbers show that while Reagan talked an extremely vital conservative talk, in actuality government grew faster than in Carter's time.

As Drudge would say... developing :)

D--

... Compassion from the Right

2007-11-19T16:34:00.000-05:00

Here's the typical stereotype: The left is compassionate, the right is greedy and only cares about themselves.

I don't buy that. I believe that only the right is truly compassionate. I believe that the left may WANT to be compassionate, may seek compassion as a value first and foremost. But I believe that their methods produce more bondage, more greed and less real results for those in need.

There is no doubt that there are times people need just a "hand up". Reagan talked much of a safety net. And going back to the time of the Great Depression, we bought into a system that said that this was government's role.

My argument is that government is the LAST place this compassion should come from.

I believe government compassion will ALWAYS become twisted. While some may care about the people they are helping and serving, in reality, human nature says that greed will always become a factor.

I've worked in the dispensing side of a state's Human Services department. They had no interest in seeing people freed from poverty and government assistance. They wanted to see MORE if anything.

In addition, the idea of government assistance is confiscatory and unfair. There are winners and losers. It's government playing Robin Hood. But since it's government, it's faith neutral so there is no moral safeguard.

Why should government be allowed to take from me and give to someone else? Isn't that the kind of policy that drove the Colonists to rebel in the first place?

The foundation of governmental taxation has a purpose. All are levied to provide services all can take advantage of. Roads, fire, police, sewer, recreation facilities, these are things that enhance the community at large, provide more economic opportunities.

To be honest, there has been a lot of talk that the "Great Society" program actually DID have a civic purpose. In the mid-60s our cities were burning. The violence was astounding.

Stupid civic policy led to enclaves of poverty and racial inequity. These became enclaves of violence. Many students of the time have recorded conversations by both left and right that set up the social programs as a firebreak.

Once in place, these policies couldn't be moved for fear of igniting the violence again. The Great Society was more a tranquilizing drug than therapy for poverty.

Never mind many of the programs caused dramatically more ravaging of the social structure. Much has been made that forced integration killed both white AND black neighborhoods. That equal opportunity put a stigma on the black march to equity. That Aid to Families with Dependant Children has bred generational bastardy. Fathers had no reason to stay around.

The Great Society gutted American cities and urban black communities. The moral and ethical ground was nearly permanently poisoned and salted over. Not much can grow there.

Real compassion wouldn't have been a quick fix. It never is. We want quick fixes as a society. Conservatives have a tough sell with the truth that low taxation and requiring responsibility is a far better long-term solution.

But that is the solution. Work is the only way forward. Yes, logjams must be broken and only government can do that. But once those logjams are broken, government must get out of the way. He which governs least governs best.

Real compassion isn't a quick band-aid. It isn't feel good. It's facing the tough truths courageously. The vast middle of our country needs to hear this again and again. They've bought the pablum that only the left cares, that the right doesn't.

The right cares and the right knows that real change is slow, but effective. That the left's fast-change is a forever lock into poverty.

Oh yes, and a forever lock to the people watering at the trough of easy money. These people are miserable, but the little that they have they owe to the left. They become a powerful message and a powerful vote. And we evil right-wingers (who truly care and weep over the situation) are demonized effectively again and again.

D--

Truth ... Left and Right ....

2007-11-16T16:47:00.000-05:00

SO... if it's so important to bridge the gap and get out of this demonization politics, why do I stay on the right? Wouldn't it be better to move left to the center, or just outright GO to the left?

I don't believe that's the correct way to be. I do have to say upfront that there are emphases on the left that we desperately need on the right if we are to be truly Christian. The Gospels and the James' Epistle make it clear that real faith MUST show a radical social commitment to the poor, the down-trodden.

But I believe the left hits it wrong... Let me point out some places where I think the flaws are serious.

First, there's the issue I discussed a year or more ago ... Most of the true left believes that man can keep getting better and better. This means that things like poverty and racism can get better and better.

But looking at the Bible it's clear that Man is STUCK in a miry clay. That sin surrounds us, that the world system is set against Jesus, and only Jesus is truly good.

YES, sometimes the secular system DOES right itself. Many times the Church has started that process.

However it comes, there is a certain level of common grace where this world periodically shudders and grudgingly realigns itself and rids itself of some evil. If this weren't so, there would be no living.

God holds this world together and Revelation tells us it's the Holy Spirit restraining evil that makes it so.

But yet, this world is mired. If you solve Black/White racism for a time, another evil divide will take its place. My politics have to take that into account, and I believe that separates me from the left.

I believe the left on the whole believes they can exert will and effort and fix things PERMANENTLY. But the Law of Unintended Consequences leaves us with things like Political Correctness ... a locking of minds and a new harsh repression of thought and speech. Give freedom in one place, another place devolves into evil.

Too, if you look to the state to be the change agent, the state usually simply swaps victims. Many believe that it's ok to pull back the rights of some to advance the rights of the formerly oppressed.

Friends on the left have told me they think that's ok ... that it's balancing things...

But payback is payback ... and that's what happens ... we just move from group to group being in vogue and demanding rights. It turns out not to be equal rights at all... it's actually often oppression. The French Revolution (admittedly an extreme case) devastated the rich to "balance" the damage done to the poor.

The problem is lthat only Jesus' power working through His people makes permanent change. That requires kneeling before Him... in humility. Only HE can show us that each of us is prone to be selfish with Him. And without Him our "movements" will be ultimately selfish.

How often does selfishness look like positive change?

The Bible actually tells us what why God invested governments with authority. The Apostle Paul laid out what the role of government was designed to be... Think of that, GOD actually designed government as HIS agent!!!

Romans 13:1-7
(1) Let every soul be subject to the governing authorities. For there is no authority except from God, and the authorities that exist are appointed by God.
(2) Therefore whoever resists the authority resists the ordinance of God, and those who resist will bring judgment on themselves.
(3) For rulers are not a terror to good works, but to evil. Do you want to be unafraid of the authority? Do what is good, and you will have praise from the same.
(4) For he is God's minister to you for good. But if you do evil, be afraid; for he does not bear the sword in vain; for he is God's minister, an avenger to execute wrath on him who practices evil.
(5) Therefore you must be subject, not only because of wrath but also for conscience' sake.
(6) For because of this you also pay taxes, for they are God's ministers attending continually to this very thing.
(7) Render therefore to all their due: taxes to whom taxes are due, customs to whom customs, fear to whom fear, honor to whom honor.

So government's role is to keep civil order. It's a pretty restricted role. It's role is NOT taking care of people. That's NOT God's design. So when government steps in on that role, it is actually usurping the Church. It is NOT health care. Again, that is something given to the church.

Government fails at all the social help issues. There is SOME safety net, but the more government tries to provide, the less people are motivated to work...

OOOoops, this belongs in another post... and there it shall be!

Back to the main point... I DO come at things from a right point of view and I believe that it's an approach for government that works better because it follws the design laid out by God.

D--

... Right On Man!

2007-11-15T13:39:00.001-05:00

In my pontifications of yesterday (understand that I AM infallible in my pontifications, just like the pontiff...) I discussed my nomination for chief problem of our time. I suggested that we MUST find a way to bridge the left-right divide. That we must quell this bickering and get on with things.

The problem with blogging is that I end up mulling over my own posts. I've been mulling this over. Here's my difficulty...

I believe the left is damaging. I believe that the political construct of the left moves us to less freedom and to more bondage.

SO I'm a hypocrite. I say I want to open dialog and work in a shared manner.

But I'll admit, the answers have to come out in a way that my political template can accept. If they don't, I can't accept them.

Does that mean the divide will live? That truly this can't be dealt with? That we are split and that's just that?

My problem is that looking at the left I see a template that generally seeks government to solve problems. I believe if solutions come down that way, the unintended consequence is a government that grows ever-bigger, more onerous and more dictatorial.

My left friends believe that if my laissez-faire approach is followed, that the poor will suffer and the rich and powerful will run roughshod.

As Drudge would say ... developing

D--

... the most important thing ...

2007-11-14T21:33:00.000-05:00

A long conversation today with a person I care for deeply convinces me all the more that there is a vital need in this country. The need is to bridge the gap between left and right.

Those of us on the right often feel marginalized. The common currency of conversation is far to the left of where we believe we need to be. The media now is beginning to admit that they ARE to the left (by some numbers 90% of reporters in major media outlets self-identify as left or far-left).

We feel the pressure to tell us our morality and our spiritual certainty are offensive. We are taken as unloving, mean, nasty.

To be honest, some of our number ARE all those things.

But mostly, our defensiveness shows.

But what must it be like to be left and look at our gospel of love? Acquaintances of mine who were involved in anti-abortion activities openly adopted military tactics and communications equipment. Gay couples get screamed at. Our churches come off as sanctuaries for the perfect.

So how can we EVER solve problems? A left-leaning friend asks, "How about some kind of nationalized health care?" My response is... "That's socialism, whaddya want, a fallen Soviet Union?"

I propose moving aid back to churches. Their response is, "Yeah, and then the non-believers will go hungry. You're heartless."

We've got a knee-jerk chasm. I honestly believe it's our number one issue.

How can we EVER fix Iraq, terrorism, health care, taxation, etc. etc. etc. if we can't talk? The talk further and further degenerates. Good ideas are swept away. WE alienate the middle who think we're all crazy... and they become prime pickings for silver throated despots.

We need the healing of leadership. Leadership that IS founded on a solid world view and political view.

We need someone who is solid in a particular view. A faux middle can fake this, but it will make things worse. Only Nixon could go to China, only Clinton could cut welfare.

We need a leader of principle who understand this. And yes, I DO believe that Huckabee is the only one addressing this issue. Others talk about it, he's named the solution approach (vertical politics).

Left or right, check it out. SOMEBODY has GOT to get this done. We need decency and honor and we must demand it from both sides. And somebody needs to lead that charge.

D--

Do we want a Christian President?

2007-11-13T22:14:00.001-05:00

A link from a visitor kind enough to leave their URL (see comments in the preceding post) has started a blog. The point of the blog is to support Gov. Mike Huckabee (YEAH!) and to usher in a Christian President (?).

I put a ? next to that because I don't think I agree with that aim.

This is a tough one to explain.

I went to a Huckabee event on Saturday. More on that later. For now, consider the overheard words of a woman at my church. This woman was rehashing the event with my pastor. I don't know the lady, but she was obviously there at the event.

"I'm a social conservative, but I don't want the Church to try to usher in morality through politics. I think that's the wrong way to go about things. That's the Church's role and I don't want anyone or any party getting in the way of that."

AMEN SISTER!

I've valued Chuck Colson's writings on the Church and Politics. He points out how the Church can so easily become the servant of a party or a campaign.

The Church is the Bride of Christ. HE is our ONLY Master. In bowing before Him WE are changed, and that change may well rankle the party or the campaign. So be it. That is the nature of how Jesus changes the world.

I do not want a Christian President. I would love to have a man of passionate Christian faith in the Oval Office. I see those as different. I will not vote for a man just because he is the "Christian Candidate". Nor will I shy away from choosing a secular man over a Christian if I believe him to be the better leader or the better President.

All that being said, I want Huckabee for President. He's my candidate. But I don't want to limit support to the 25% of people or less in this country that claim "Evangelical Christian" as their affiliation. I'd love to see a "Jews for Huckabee" or "Atheists United for Mike" spring up.

D--

Wondering About Blogs ...

2007-11-11T21:57:00.000-05:00

There's a whole lotta bloggin' goin' on. NABLOPOMO or whatever it's called is encouraging folks to blog every day. I'm not doing that program, but it HAS encouraged me to blog more often.

But that leaves me with a question. Personal blogs tend to be ... personal. There's something very therapeutic about the lives and struggles of others... but how much is too much? How much is just whining?

Will my blog have value on the serious political subjects if I also include those struggles that beset my life?

Food for thought. I suppose if I decide that the mhy blog should not be too personal, all these blogs will just

Poof

Disappear :)

D--

... There's Gotta Be Chamberpots ...

2007-11-09T23:19:00.000-05:00

And now, a word from our sponsor:

Romans 9:20-23
(20) But indeed, O man, who are you to reply against God? Will the thing formed say to him who formed it, "Why have you made me like this?"
(21) Does not the potter have power over the clay, from the same lump to make one vessel for honor and another for dishonor?
(22) What if God, wanting to show His wrath and to make His power known, endured with much longsuffering the vessels of wrath prepared for destruction,
(23) and that He might make known the riches of His glory on the vessels of mercy, which He had prepared beforehand for glory,

I want to be a vessel of honor. I want to be a vessel of glory. I want to shine. I want to glow. I want to be special. I want ... I want ... I want ...

For 40 years now, I've begged God to tell me what I should do, and who I should be. I look at that now and think it's silly. I look at it now and realize what I was really asking Him was how I could find a road to greatness.

Not greatness before Him (though ask me, I'd tell you that was what I wanted, what I want).

Nope, the greatness I sought was the greatness of man's adulation. I tasted more than a little of this... I had a pretty great run in school. Lots of academic awards, lots of praise.

But it ended. I associated the awards and the praise with pleasing God. I associated it with being GREAT for God.

But I lay Romans 9 alongside The Discovery Channels hit show, "Dirty Jobs." and a message is born.

First, the silliness. "Lord, what do you want me to be?"

He already made me. He already gifted me. He already promised He'd never leave nor forsake me. He already has led me through every page of my life.

Sounds like He's already made me (and is further making me) into what is right for me.

So what's the hassle?

Maybe it's that I don't like it. Or THINK I won't like who and what He's made. My prayer really could be, "Lord, make me something different... PLEASE!"

Romans 9 says he makes vessels for work. Some utilitarian pots for cooking and serving, some beautiful decorative pots to show the wonders of His artistry, some chamber pots.

Man, there's gotta chamberpots. Don't know what one is? Wellll... before there were toilets, stuff still had to be ... collected and disposed of... and ... well... those pots were held in the bedchambers ... Yeah... you probably catch the drift.

The wonders of Dirty Jobs is seeing how incredibly vital poop removal, pee filtering, garbage hauling, etc, how vital it is. Imagine if there were no way to get the poo out of the house.

God has already made me, and is constantly shaping me. Stop already with the "what should I do?. Start with the Thanks be to God for giving me life and salvation. And then be ready for whatever use this vessel has in store. If it's poo collector, then I will do my best to thank God for giving me such a vital position.

D--

A Ford, not a Lincoln...

2007-11-08T21:30:00.000-05:00

A decent man. A good man.

I have just finished an outstanding book, Write it When I'm Gone. It is the work of former Newsweek political correspondent Thomas DeFrank.

DeFrank was assigned to Gerald Ford when Ford was made Nixon's VP. The Newsweek editors rightly thought Nixon wasn't going to last long and they wanted a reporter who could become trusted with Ford.

DeFrank not only became trusted by Ford, but became a friend and later a confidant. Ford agreed to regular interviews in the years after his presidency with the caveat that the contents would not be divulged until after his death.

What a walk down memory lane. What a great reflection on a man who served his country in the toughest post... patching together a torn and battered land.

Thank you, Jerry Ford. Thank you for holding us together, for being the stable, calm helmsman for our battered ship of state.

A good reminder that we can't alwasy predict our path, but that character and courage shine best in darkness.

D--

My choice ... Huckabee

2007-11-07T12:50:00.000-05:00

My night at the New Hampshire Presidential Debates in Durham a few weeks back was different than I'd expected. I'd thought I'd be accompanied by my eldest (a politico in DC) and my good liberal Democrat friend.

Life intervened and my kiddo won her prized job in DC and my friend had a commitment she could not shake.

I pressed my 15 year old son and 16 year old daughter into being my companions.

They were not pleased. It seemed it was going to be the most boring event ever forced upon them. There was a virtual coup in the SUV on the way to Durham. If either had had a license, I have no doubt they would have forced me to the side of the road, dumped me in the back and headed to Hampton for fried dough.

But instead, we scarfed down pasta and tasty cakelets at the pre-dinner and made our way in to the debate. Slowly they were won over by the hoopla and the pageantry.

And then the real fun began! Their highlight of the night (and mine) was the heated exchange between Rep. Ron Paul and Gov. Mike Huckabee over our role in Iraq.

Yes, I pretty strongly lean to the libertarian side of things. I believe that we work best when we govern least. But I'm a realist and was glad to see Gov. Huckabee fire back at Paul. His cut and run would absolutely destroy our military.

Huckabee showed life, a grasp of the issues and an ability to articulate. Guiliani came off as a recording ("What I did in New York"), Romney seemed robotic and lifeless, McCain seemed like a tired, wise (and a little bit cranky) grampa. The others were almost absent from the stage, except for Paul ... whose libertarianism seemed more crazed than sage.

I'm an evangelical Christian. I believe (as my sporadic posts show) that faith MUST inform politics... that it does whether we admit it or not. I believe that it is our duty to serve in the temporal world as well as the spiritual one. And this service takes the place of being well-informed citizens.

But I am NOT a lock-step evangelical conservative. I am conservative and libertarian. That is an informed decision primarily from my faith. But I am deeply suspicious of most of the moves to get an evangelical power base.

So I come to my support of Gov. Huckabee NOT because he is an evangelical like myself. I come to my support because he makes sense. He seems to be a man of his word. He is a principled pragmatist.

AND I believe he is in touch with what I believe is the biggest issue our country faces, our deep divide. His "Vertical Politics" that seeks to reach the issues and deal with them and strip the left/right argument resonates with me.

So today I have signed up to work for and be a part of the Gov. Mike Huckabee for President campaign.

D--

The world, she is a-changin'

2007-07-17T01:02:00.000-04:00

Saw an article in Information Week that spoke of Google's move to offline application chunks. They are giving, free, to developers hunks of code that will work inside any browser.

The chunks (I think they were called "bricks") will allow word-processing, spreadsheet and other standard computing apps to be downloaded once and then used off-line. Google is encouraging "mashups" such as what has been done with Google Maps (real-estate companies employing Google to map out sale properties, etc).

On top of that, Novell announced they were pulling back from their non-litigate agreement with Microsoft. They'd entered into that under threat that MS would sue them for patent infringement over intellectual property inside SUSE Linux (now owned by Novell).

MS has been pushing these agreements on the big Open Source players to force them to limit development and cooperate with MS. There has to be a reason that MS is trying to get a control on Open Source... and the reason is Open Source can now compete on a level playing field with MS ... and is absolutely free -- except for support which is where these companies aim to maike their money.

But Novell is considering pulling out of the agreement. The reason is that the Open Source world has crafted a new license, called GPLv3. The license takes aim square at alliances like MS/Novell. Core GPL software (i.e. Linux core) cannot be distributed by any company in such an alliance.

These two windstorms are highly significant. The world of software and high proprietary costs are beginning to evaporate. We're looking not just at a commodity world. We're looking at a world whose only analog is the free library. You won't have to buy the software, you just download it when needed.

I see a world where the PC is no longer an operating system which runs multiple programs. I see a world where the browser will be the operating system.

The paradigm has shifted. It may already be too late for MS.

D--

The Best All-Star Moment

2007-07-11T14:54:00.000-04:00

Cardinal Albert Pujols never even got to play last night... There's debate over why. But he gave me the best moment of the whole affair.

The night before during the 2nd round of the Home Run Derby a little boy, maybe 4? stood... dressed just like Pujols. I assume it was his son.

When Pujols needed a towel, the little boy trotted it over to him. When he hit, the camera went in on the little boy and his face glowed. When he missed, the little boy looked as if he had missed.

I love baseball.

D--

Thoughts on Iraq, Iran, War and Peace

2007-07-10T11:43:00.000-04:00

"Third aircraft carrier sent to waters off Iran..."

That headline started a conversation with my favorite war skeptic.

"Shoot, that means more boys dying," was her response.

I firmly believe war has a necessary place. I wonder about Iraq, but I understand the premise. Like it or not we are in a war... a war with Islam. We are the infidels. Our culture is their enemy.

We can either choose our battles or have them chosen for us. Military wisdom says that in that situation, the wisest thing to do is to choose your battle, choose your ground.

Either take the war on your own grounds and lose some, or have it brought to you and lose many many more...

Israeli intelligence is saying that we're running out of time to destroy Iran's nuclear ability. Imagine a nuclear Iran... When they speak with a bomb in one hand, will we HAVE to listen??? Are we willing to strike pre-emptively regardless of public opinion...

It seems to me we must.

D--

:) Here we go again

2007-07-07T14:18:00.000-04:00

Just a quick thought on the primary. Candidates are giving lip-service to New Hampshire, saying it's still important, but look at their agendas. And look at our own Merrimack Fourth of July parade. Only Duncan Hunter (GOP) and Bill Richardson (Dem) were a part.

Four years ago we had Kerry, Dean, Edwards, and all the 2nd and third tier.

Another interesting note, the only folks with any decent contingents were Dem, Clinton, Obama and Edwards.

D--

Picking up the Gauntlet...

2007-03-30T14:08:00.000-04:00

Why is it so danged hard to keep up with my blog? Might it be life? Might it be illness, a dam bursting in my hot-water-heater? Might it be a washing maching breaking? Might it be its replacement also breaking?

Might it be life?

I've been active of late in the local realm here in M-Town. Our school board is going through yet another spasm of "tax-cutting". I used to be right in line with the tax cutters until I realized that they were more about gutting than cutting.

I admit it, I LOVE the political process... the game of it... the heat of battle... the smell of gunpowder... the roar of the greasepaint and the smell of the crowd!!

General Lee is quoted and saying to General Stonewall Jackson, "It is a good thing that war is so bloody and terrible else we would learn to love it too much."

As for the picture, it turns out I am still not free to fully discuss the how and why that we got in to a receiving line on the South Lawn of the Whitehouse. All I CAN say is that I'm very proud of my eldest daughter. Her access badge has a different color and a different letter than ours.

Where to go next here...

D--

A Pause ... and a Picture

2006-12-08T11:59:00.000-05:00

It was a great Thanksgiving. Got to see my eldest... Got to fix turkey dinner in a tiny kitchen in a big apartment.

Had a great time... In DC. In a place where everywhere we turned, politics was there to remind us.

And we had an amazing event. The picture is attached. I can't talk much about it now, but will in a couple of weeks... Still, this is a great system of government where our leaders are still reachable.

D--

None is not a choice...

2006-11-17T11:37:00.000-05:00

Pick a party.

It's pretty obvious that my view of the world mirrors Thomas Sowell (see earlier post). I believe deeply that we are in a fallen world.

That man's heart never changes.

That left to his own devices, man will inevitably be selfish, self-serving, self-seeking.

That we are not getting better and better.

That we are in a constrained spiral.

That sometimes we are spiralling up to a point.

That sometimes we are spiralling down.

That the dregs of the Roman Empire and the depths of Nazi Germany and the horrors of Stalin's Gulag are the natural outcomes of one-sided rule.

That's why I believe in our parties.

I desperately believe we need the Conservatives (today that's the GOP mostly) to remind us that we are individuals and that collectivism batters incentive, trashes the economy, lowers a yoke of bondage to the group.

I desperately believe (though I don't want to) that we need the Liberals (mostly the Democratic party) to remind us that the group must work as a whole to lay out a safety net, that individualism can leave many in the dust.

As believers we must have BOTH parts to us... we are a body... we are one in Christ... we are individually saved and stand alone before our Judge.

But I believe if we do not choose one party or the other to be involved with we are saying that Christ does not belong in the Public Square. That we abandon the ideas of the parties to the godless who will run them both into the ground and attempt to gain absolute precedence.

Christians ARE the middle.. but only if we are engaged.

But still...

Which party?

D--

Party Animals...

2006-11-16T14:27:00.000-05:00

What about party affiliation? Can an avid disciple of Jesus be active in a party? Is it right, or should they remain actively independent??

First, it is my belief that the CHURCH of Jesus should NEVER attach themselves to a party. I believe the American Evangelical church has done that too much today. Say Evangelical, and you hear Republican.

The problem is that Jesus is superior to politics. The church can be the handmaiden only of Jesus, and not of a party as well.

Power-politics, also, is not the way that Jesus' Kingdom is realized.

My Kingdom is not of this world.

Remember?

That said, the American system IS a party system. As individuals, if we are activist (SHOULD we be activist??) the only adequate mechanism to work within is the party.

To say we should NOT be party members strikes me as saying we should not belong to any corporation or organization outside the Church of Jesus.

Not very practical.

Yet party membership is often delusional. IT's so easy to forget that it IS Jesus' Kingdom we seek. That we are working for a Kingdom and Master not of this world. That we will NOT make His Kingdom come by any means save His power.

And Jesus' power is usually at cross-purposes with the World.

But if we absent ourselves from parties (retreating back to the Evangelical/Fundamentalist model of pre-1976) we cede the ground. We are to be IN the world and not OF the world.

But which party???

D--

One State, Two State, Red State, Blue State

2006-11-15T16:29:00.000-05:00

Just a quick one today... Emerging church "father" Brian McLaren has said that Christians should not be Red or Blue, but should be Purple.

Meaning? We need to stay away from party affiliations. The whole of the gospel is not containable in either.

More on that tomorrow...

D--

Compare and Contrast...

2006-11-14T10:12:00.000-05:00

Thomas Sowell is an incredible thinker and writer. Occupying the Ruth and Milton Friedman Chair at the Hoover Institute at Stanford (an amazing common-sense think-tank ... alright ... CONSERVATIVE think-tank) Sowell is an economist with breadth.

His book Conflict of Vision lays out the roots of this political divide we find ourselves in. In 1900 the discussion was of monopolies and monetary standards. But there was actually a pretty common ground from which these individuals fought.

Even in the Civil War, there was a common ground. It didn't stop bloodshed. But it made talking possible.

Sowell points out the vast difference between the American and the French revolutions. And in so doing he points out the divide we now face in this country.

The American revolution took a view of man that was limited. Man is constrained by his own sin and fallenness. Whether that view is held as a religious view, or simply a common-sense one, those holding that view crafted a country of checks and balances.

The American Revolution had an end. It did not seek to destroy what came before, only to put in its place something superior.

The French Revolution adoped the glorious progress of Man... if unchecked, Man could and would advance and perfect and throw off all bondage and emerge ... clean, pure, renewed.

For a modern mythology, check out the Star Trek universe... Man would overcome an Earth of conflict to reach for the stars and found the best hope for the universe.

So the French Revolution cast off all morals of the past, all ties. The Revolutionaries believed that Equality, Liberty and Fraternity would be enough to craft a society ever moving to perfection.

It did not move to perfection. It moved to a horrific scourge of purgings and brutality.

Meanwhile, the American Revolution checked its own impulses to spin out of control (and it almost DID spin out of control the very same way... the Revolutionary soldiers, unpaid, almost ran amok, the Whiskey Rebellion almost tore apart the fragile federation of States).

But the recognition that man is constrained by his own fallenness began a ferment that became, a decade later, the Constitution. Checks and balances.

Fast forward. The true conflict today is not Democrat/Republican. It's not even, in a way, liberal/conservative. After all, there are liberals and Democrats who are closer in action and belief to conservative Republicans than some other Republicans. And there are some conservatives who espouse a world more suited to the French Revolution.

The base of our political life today is the conflict of vision.

There are those who believe that man is fallen and society can be good but never perfect... that all actions have a cost. That the prevailing rule is the Law of Unintended Consequences. That cleaning the air rubs the economy. That letting the economy flow unfettered dirties the water... and on and on...

There are those who believe that Man can become perfected... evolve... become ever better. All that's needed is the right legislators, judges and leaders. All that's needed is for the obstructionists to get out of the way ... or be forced aside. Unfettered, man's best instincts will drive us out of darkness, poverty and sin.

D--

Why Does 1900 Matter???

2006-11-13T12:12:00.000-05:00

Something happened around the turn of the last century. Christianity was profoundly changed.

Modernism happened.

The scientific method permeated Christianity and split it in two.

Splitting to one side were those who embraced fully the modern secular life. God was about ethics and morals. Good and kind living.

To the other side went those (who may actually have been equally modern and scientific) who embraced fully the authority and inerrancy of the Bible. Who embraced man's fallen nature and necessity for salvation completely apart from himself.

The group that hold tightly to the Biblical realm of Christianity retreated. They had enough internal battles to keep themselves busy.

Recognizing that man was inherently sinful and inherently unable to save himself, recognizing that the mission of Jesus to save was in danger of being overshadowed by modernism, this more conservative church concentrated on salvation and fought it's battles for doctrinal purity.

There was a lot to fight. At times it seemed as if Biblical salvation would disappear. As if Biblical confession and doctrine would be wiped away.

The Professing church became known as Fundamentalist... concentrating on the Fundamentals of faith. They adoped that label as a badge of honor.

Slowly, though, this church's withdrawal marked it as out of touch and irrelevant. By the late 60s, the church was the only place that still looked like Ozzie and Harrie.

American social issues mattered little. Those concerned with social concerns were suspicious. Social concerns marked the churches who no longer held to any Biblical authority.

The Fundamentalist church was very concerned with social concerns outside America. they poured immense amounts of time and energy into misison work, establishing hospitals, working on plans for better farming and procedures in villages.

After all, a man with an empty stomach couldn't hear the gospel! And it was better to teach a man to fish than to simply give him fish.

Abroad, the Fundamentalists worked so much social work that their orgnizations like World Vision and others created problems we associate here with American welfare.

There are whole areas of Africa that will not allow such organizations to operate because their barrage of food and aid decimate what little local economy there is.

The Fundamentalists became spiritual at home and ignored politics.

Until the revolutionary 60s. The 60s and 70s woke them up. They did not recognize America. They had to act and act fast.

But their culture was alien to the social problems that the revolutionaries saw. They saw an entirely different set of social problems. Permissiveness. Immorality.

And so was born the Christian Right.

Consideration Break...

2006-11-12T11:53:00.000-05:00

This blog has been silent for a few days. It's taken me a while to digest Tuesday's election. I'm still digesting.

This headline is what I'm currently chewing on... it's worth registering with the New York Times to read this article:

Incoming Democrats Put Populism Before Ideology

Populism lives.

D

The Life of Bryan...

2006-11-07T09:49:00.000-05:00

The years around 1900 were fascinating ones for European Christianity. The confluence of science, technology, Christian saturation, missions and world exploration had led to an amazing thoery.

It was taken pretty much as gospel that European (and hence American) Christians had done such a good job of living Christianity that the world was just about ready to turn a corner. Poverty would be a thing of the past. Disease was just about over. The earth was bending to the will of man.

Why, Christian society had done it... We had brought about the millenium... Lions were about ready to lay down with lambs. All it would take was a little more work. A little more effort... Christian effort.

A magazine was launched at this time which is still around today. It was called, "Christian Century." After all, would not the 20th century truly be the Christian Century?

All this was before WWI... that war to end all wars which ironically was the precipitating cause of almost every war we've fought since then, particularly our trauma today in the Middle East.

This was the Christianity that William Jennings Bryan embraced. It seemed thoroughly Biblical. He even warred against Darwinism and modernism in Biblical interpretation.

But a careful reading of his Christian writings show that his was a pretty secular Christianity. Jesus was commended for His example more than His Salvation. Standing at the crossroads of a dominant Evangelical Christianity and a dominant secular Christianity, Bryan spoke as an Evangelical but his message was secular.

One only needs to look at the results of that time. The vibrant Christian movements of the Salvation Army, the YMCA and other similar organizations were what characterized the age.

And yet, within 20 years, the centrality of Jesus was eliminated in favor of social work. The Gospel was about helping people, not realizing the helplessness outside of Christ.

When Bryan is viewed in this light, that particular Christian politic is more evident. That we now have such a hard split between adherance to real faith and adnerance to helping others becomes more obvious. It's a factor of what happened in those days.

Somerset Maugham puts words in his hero's mouth in Of Human Bondage. The hero speaks of how the time at the turn of the century broke society free of their religious and spiritual roots. Yet there was no ethic to replace the Christian ethic, so they held on to it.

And bit by bit, that ethic has grown and hardened into a religion of its own... but bereft of the correction and centrality of Jesus and HIS own ethic. Picking and choosing, our society today chooses tolerance and inclusion (certainly a message of Christ) without the balance of justice and right living.

D--

Christian Politics...

2006-11-06T17:51:00.000-05:00

Is this the future of Jesus' Church??

www.jesuscampthemovie.com

Why William Jennings Bryan?

2006-11-06T12:40:00.000-05:00

You will not crucify humanity on a cross of gold!

And the crowd in the Kansas City convention hall went absolutely beserk.

It's hard to believe that monetary policy was the monstrous issue of the 1896 presidential race.

Maybe it was a different time. Maybe people studied politics more, knew economics better. Maybe, for all the cries of "country bumpkin" the East Coast elite dished out, maybe those bumpkins knew more than all but a few economists do today.

And they probably did.

Because it affected them so profoundly.

The vast middle of the US, the breadbasket, was small farmers at the turn of the century. Farmers are surprisingly like any other small business man... they desperately need capital. They invented, after all, the term "seed money".

The banking elite wanted only gold as the backer of currency. Gold provided more stability, it was thought. Big business very much loved that currency was limited to gold reserves on hand.

But for small farmers, the limited supply of gold meant a limited supply of money, and most of that in the hands of the bankers and big business.

Limited money supply meant limited money available for loans every spring to put seed in the ground. Expensive money.

As the US pushed a single-metal currency, farmers' access to capital was starved off.

It was this issue that drove young Congressman William Jennings Bryan. He was from a farm state, born in another farm state.

Very quickly he made his name as an orator. It had always been his goal, as he had seen what God had given him in talent, to use the spoken word to effect change for the good of the common man.

He arrived in Chicago a relatively inexperienced Congressman. His Democratic party wasn't that different from the Republican. They were backed by old money and didn't listen to the cries of the little man.

It was the time of the Populist party. When Communism seemed better than Capitalism.

And Bryan was the immense underdog arriving at the 1896 Democratic convention. The Populist party and several others were threatening to tear the Western/Southern 2/3s of the Democratic party and render the Democrats even more marginalized than they currently were.

Bryan had the ability to fill a 15,000 seat auditorium with his voice alone... and he had words that mattered and words that held together. He was an ORATOR.

His passion for the people brought the house down. The "Cross of Gold" speech is still the standard for American political oratory.

Politics and religion met in Bryan... And he left Kansas City the upstart surpise, the nominee of his party.

D--

... And What About Morality?

2006-11-05T13:07:00.000-05:00

Rev. Ted Haggard's troubles shine a bright spotlight on the disucssion of Christians in politics. Haggard's story would be huge without the gay marriage debate. With it, it just underlines that Christianity is just a powerplay for moral hammering.

Evangelical Christians look little different than the Catholic Church of the Middle Ages. Loud, strident ... and hypocritical.

Should believers back down from moral politics, or politics as a whole? Is taking moral stands something that hurts rather than hinders the cause of Christ and the communication of the Gospel?

We end up looking like rigid nasty spiteful buffoons.

Yet a fall like this is nothing new. Mankind is inherently sinful and we will often turn away from Jesus' power and love. Our culture sees it most with sex, but we quietly do it with money and with many other areas.

Perhaps in this search for a real Christian political expression this needs to be kept in mind, that what people should see first is Jesus. And I don't think that's where we're headed right now.

D--

In Times of War...

2006-11-02T07:57:00.000-05:00

I was planning on a logical progression of these thoughts, but ran across something as I read this morning that was too good not to post now...

My current read is a history by Victor Davis Hanson. I highly recommend his Ripples of Battle. Hanson is a classicist whose books continually answer the question, "Why should I care?". Why should I care about history and what went before?

A Christian High School teacher of mine was known for her phrase: "Man's Heart Never Changes". That could be the subtitle of this post, and perhaps the first tenent of a Christian political understanding.

My current read is about the Peloponnesian War. That famous conflict between the Greeks that we studied in school. And it's full of application. The title of this Hanson book is A War Like No Others.

From this morning's chapter about political turmoil at home while the troops were out fighting... turmoil both in Athens and in Sparta:

When the war appeared to be stalemated and the eventual victor uncertain, internal revolution was less likely. Yet after a particular setback...one side or the other grew emboldened that change at home might reflect the course of the larger war. If proof were needed that many people lack an ideology but instead prefer to look first to their own self-interests, no better examples exist than the first Peloponnesian War... the ebb and flow of Greek opinion that followed each particular Sparan or Athenian reverse. War ... when combined with political tension, turned what would have otherwise been heated, but mostly restrained, civil disputes into unchecked bloodletting. ... Thucydides (the War's notable historian) thought civil unrest and coups were central to his story of the war itself and that soon after hostilities broke out the "entire Hellenic world, so to speak, was so convulsed."

Oligarchs usually sought to parade their cause under the misleading rubric of wishing for "a temperate aristocracy". Democrats countered by professing loyalty to the idea of "equality under the law". Once the struggle began, the former were rarely temperate and the latter seldom lawful.

We are not shedding blood over our current war. But we did during the Viet Nam era. Any biography of a Nixon insider shows how much the mental instability of that administration was tinged by the horror of violent overthrow of our very government. Of machine gun emplacements wrapped by mounds of sandbags in the basement corridors of the White House and Congress.

I hadn't thought about it, but there truly is blood in the streets at home when there is war abroad. Generally the war is longer in duration than the tidal wave of patriotism upon the start of conflict. As the war drags, the political opponents begin to use the war as leverage.

What does that mean for the disciple of Christ who engages in politics?

Our position on issues must be carefully separated out from the current sweep of emotion. Who and what we are as redeemed men and women is easily pulled or pushed along by either side of the war's aftermath at home. But we serve a King not of this world.

This, then, might be my first pillar... Our politics must move heavenward just as all areas of our lives do, as we are weaned from the flesh and more and more recognize our new creation in Christ.

Of course, what that means then must be answered.

D--

Political musings

2006-11-01T11:41:00.000-05:00

I'm hijacking my own blog for a time. It's silly season, mid-term elections. I've always been fascinated--held captive really--by politics. So for a time this will be a political commentary blog.

I'm in the midst of reading a second political book in a row... Just recently finished a book I recommend to any interested in political history.

That book was A Godly Hero. It's a biography of William Jennings Bryan. He was a 3-time Democratic presidential candidate. An Illinois boy who found fame and fortune by his mellifluous voice and passionate stands.

The history is fascinating because it covers a time when what we now take to be leftist politics was highly Christian in nature. It covers a time when Western populism was nearly socialist, when Communism was considered a viable option. When Christianity and the causes of the left marched in lockstep.

Those days are past, but I want to use this space to seek out what is a Christian political manifesto.

I'm not happy that the Evangelical church has made a tight alliance with the GOP. I'm not comfortable that the social causes of Jesus are now owned by the rabid secularists.

I'm not happy that I squirm when the word Christian and Democrat are linked.

So ... hold on... here we go.

D--

Thoughts on politics

2006-10-10T10:46:00.000-04:00

I've been studying my reactions to the Mark Foley scandal. I'm not comfortable with my own thinking...

First of all, I'm disgusted with both parties. And I'm disgusted with the media coverage. There is no doubt in my mind that this is an engineered scandal... that the Democratic party held onto this information and timed it's release to squash any GOP headway at the midterms.

I've looked at the blog that "broke" this data (I think it's www.stopsexualpredators.com or something like that... I don't have it in front of me). It's pretty clear that it's a site manufactured to LOOK like a grass-roots anti-abuse site... but if you look at it critically it seems scripted. It leads to only one true "blockbuster" and that's this one... It's shrewd.

So their pontificating about the GOP not dealing with this information earlier rings hollow if you look at this deeply. They had the info and held it too, for exactly the same reason... to protect electoral advantage.

Now my own dis-ease... I find myself almost letting Foley off the hook because of the use of this as a political football. I find myself guilty of the same things...

It's tough in politics... because it's so easy to believe that the cause is worth more than the people.

D--

In Defense of Starbucks...

2006-08-30T12:52:00.000-04:00

I've written here before that I was concerned about the trashing of Starbuck's. The conservative Christian core (or is that corps) led by Focus on the Family pointed out complaints based largely on comments on their cups.

Starbucks does run a "The Way I See It" series of brief quotes from luminaries and other customers. Some comments run in past months were in defense of gay rights.

OK, I may not agree with that particular series, but there were many I have agreed with, smiled at or disagreed but had good thoughts stimulated.

I find it interesting that Starbucks is coming under fire from a variety of sources. I chuckle to hear the Left denigrating it as a symptom of the multi-cultural glut. Of the massive standardization and blight.

So Left and Right are complaining... that tells me there's something good going on. And here's what I think it is. Starbucks (and for that matter, Panera) are the first examples of a socially redeeming mass-market retail food chain.

Yes, McDonald's, Wendy's, Burger King have had their value. No really, I mean it, there is a value in the quick food. As any parent with a car full of kids trying to get from Point A to Point B in a limited amount of time. To be able to top of the blood sugar and keep them chewing (and not fighting) for a time is priceless.

But our food blob chains of the 50s and 60s enforced a certain individualization. A growing apart.

Interesting aside that CS Lewis pictured Hell in The Great Divorce as a place where people moved a little further apart from each other every day... the cold blackness descending ever-so-slowly on them, sliding further and further apart from the love and care of others...

But our new places are places that bring us together. Throw in Barnes and Noble and Borders with their coffee shops. These are places that invite us in. Invite us to share our lives.

The baristas who pour my coffee get to know me. They're encouraged to do that.

And as a believing Christian, I find that these are amazing places where God works. I'm in Starbucks now. It was here I first heard of John Eldredge. Where Blue Like Jazz first came to my attention. Where I've overheard some marvellous conversations.

It was in Panera where I first met my pastor and now my friend, Darin Shaw.

Even the cups. They urge me to slow down. To read. To reflect.

OK, some will be ideas I don't like. But some will be ideas that advance God's Kingdom...

Another aside... I wonder if Jim Dobson thought of submitting a gentle "The Way I See It..." He'd reach a far broader audience, and one that needs his message of Jesus' love.

So I came into Starbucks today, beaten and down... the first day of school, the kids are gone and I'm feeling the strain of 5 years of managing it all by myself.

And what should happen but the most amazing and sweet Christian meeting as I learned that one of my favorite baristas is a believer. She introduced me to another believer.

I'm humbled and I'm encouraged. Starbucks has created a place where God can work... by simply creating a space where we can meet, talk and connect.

That's a good thing.

D--

The Far Side of weather...

2006-08-02T16:59:00.000-04:00

Somebody actually said it to me today ... "Hot enough for you?"

Weatherbug says it's 98. But hey, don't worry. It's a wet heat.

I was in Starbuck's for a time this afternoon. The people were pouring in. So many of them obviously had never been in to a Starbuck's before.

I think I heard it 6 or 7 times in 90 minutes. "I'd like something cold, do you sell anything cold?"

Man.

Cultural recluses I guess.

I thought our entire Western Civilization had actually done away with the internal combustion engine and our reliance on fossil fuel and we were running on Frappucinos and iced lattes these days.

Which takes me back to the most miserable I've ever been in the heat...

My parents decided every summer from the year before my sister (2 years my senior) graduated high school until we I was out of college for 2 years that, "This is the last summer we'll be able to travel as a family."

So began the yearly installments. Before that, they'd been the "every so often" miserable trips ... maybe the "every 3 or 4 year torture chambers." Now, the dreaded all-family LoveBoat cruise became a necessary yearly event. OH my...

We started "small". Just a little trip around the whole United States in a 20' motor home. Seattle. Chicago. Boston. NYC. Charleston/Savannah (getting the picture?). Hobart, OK (don't ask). Montana. Home.

Perhaps that's where I developed this darn nervous tic tic tic tic tic.

Eventually it got to be a European vacation. This was actually inspired by me (I am shamed to admit it).

I desperately wanted to travel, so when I graduated college and had a job, I booked a trip to England. I wanted to just go and wander... but bowed to pressure (as I always did in those days) because it wasn't safe to just wander such a wild and violent country as England, Scotland and Wales.

This was before Braveheart so you can't blame Mel Gibson for that one.

I went on the ultimate old-folks tour. What a wonderful group! What social outlet!

The nearest person to my age was 40 years my senior, though a grammy and grampy or two HAD brought along a young teen or two.

England by motorbus. Yeehaw.

But I did have a great time anyway. My first time abroad. The first of the family to travel off the North American continent.

So of course, my sister had to take 4 trips in the next year. And then ... the family trip.

We wound up in Paris, our last stop.

It was about this time of year... I know because the World Cup was just ending.

We had rooms in Paris' Grand Hotel. Everyone was on floors 2 and 3. Except us. WE had the wonderful garrett rooms at the top of the hotel, the fifth floor. Oh they were so wonderfully quaint.

And one teensy problem. There was no a/c on the fifth floor. But never mind, Paris just doesn't get that...

HOT AS A STEAMBATH IN HELL?

Breeze? Windows?

Oh, did I mention my insane sister didn't like the fumes from the city, and didn't want to take a risk of getting raped (on the 5th floor)... so we had to shut and lock our windows.

Nevermind we were in the room next door to her... there was a connecting door... so we were required (Dad opted for conflict reduction) to keep the connecting door open so she could come in and check, several times a night. Vital to make SURE we hadn't snuck those windows open...

Until the night it hit about 100 in the city... she relented. We could open the windows...

Who knew there were that many Italians in Paris? Who knew the World Cup would end at about 1am? Who know how much noise Italians in Paris could make as they circled our block with music, horns, singing, fireworks.

Who knew it could go on until well after dawn?

I subsisted those few days in Paris on a little drink I discovered called a "Caffe Liegois"... Coffee. Cream. Sugar. Ice. Blended together. It may sound familiar...

How expensive could the lot of them be? When delivered by room service?

Ummmm.. $150?

Ever see the Far Side panel, "Nerds in Hell"? A couple of guys in geeky clothing and taped glasses... and one of them is saying ....

... hot enough for ya?

D--

Faux foe...

2006-07-29T23:29:00.000-04:00

... "I know, let's do it in a faux weathered surface, you know, one of those crackle things."

So spoke I in the heat of the moment, the flush of battle. When things were good and times were right. When we were fresh and unsullied. When I was REALLY stupid.

So right now we can't afford the really big fixes. But paint, who can't do paint?

First off, let me counteract a lie: "It's just a gallon of paint, that's CHEAP!"

OK, here's the truth. There's no such thing as "just a gallon of paint".

Lowe's knows this. Home Despot knows this.

I go in for a $0.10 latex glove and walk out with $138.99 worth of absolutely indispensible things I didn't know I needed.

And faux! Who invented the faux? How many faux (or fauxes, or faus, or fauxi?) were killed in the making of a quart of that stuff?

Next side note: The faux is the corporate iconic beast of the home shopping channel QVC.

So this room, this living room. Let me describe its original paint scheme as we obtained it... slime beige. It has an alternate name, urine creme. Too strong? I think not.

And the ceiling, WELLLLLLlll now THAT has been a work of art.

My original home design consultant (ex-wife) one Christmas looked at the faux (there it is again!) texture cracking off the ceiling and the beautiful browns and rusts and mildew-blacks of a long-gone storm and roof failure and said, "You know, with the angel up there on the tree against that background it looks almost like the Sistine Chapel!"

Right. A faux Sistine Chapel. If viewed through the prism of a Timothy Leary experience.

I'd tried to perk that room up. Spent more than I should on two couches. It just occurs to me now what they were. They were ... faux couches.

Faux suede. Micro fiber.

Now think about it. Fiber is fiber. Micro fiber means it's really little. Not really fibrous at all. Maybe under the microscope they're really more like little nubbins or balls. In fact, I know what they REALLY are... FAUX FIBER!!!

That impulsive furniture day, I'd looked that day at twills and denims and such... But no, said the clerk, "You have kids and cats, you need something that will really stand up... Only leather and micro-suede will do that."

My question 2.5 years later is: Stand up to what?

I knew instinctively that leather would NOT stand up to cat claws... but certainly faux suede would, right? Right. For 15.2 seconds. The couch arms are shreds. (Maybe I need faux cats.)

And to continue the thought string (more of a micro-thought-fiber, really), I thought until today that those couches were grey. I'd have SWORN to you they were gray. Grey. Gray.

Until I spoke my belief outloud today during another run to Lowe's to work on those walls.

I said "grey".

My current design consultant and her associate (brother) said, "Grey? Dad, what couches are YOU talking about."

Now I'm SURE I describe them as GRAY to the clerk at the furniture store. She agreed with me, grey. That was probably AFTER I said something about being red-green color-blind. (As a person who truly enjoys color and design, this always turns out to be just a tad-bit inconvenient.)

BUT... if the customer said gray, no need to correct him.

Come to think of it, I think they probably are a kind of gray. FAUX GREY.

SO... we painted on our "High Hiding Primer". That really worked. Hid the stuff we were really too lazy to fix. My 4th declared, "Dad, that's cool, let's just leave the walls like that!"

Oh no! We had plans. Color depth. Pop. Pow. Wow!

We were going to CRACKLE!

So we painted on the peachy-creamy undercoat. It looked good in the store.

It looked good on the walls!

HOORAY! We're doing well (I must add that the goal here was to surprise our interior coordinator/designer while she was on a babysitting foray... so the assistant and I were doing this quickly... always a good plan).

Next day we opened the faux crackle stuff. Figured out what it really was. Elmer's glue slightly thinned. And marked up to $13 a quart.

But we're gonna crackle so it's worth it.

Now another aside, the assistant and I have really got this painting thing down. I've now mastered the rolling edger (what a handy contraption... a pad that works like a roller/brush... a faux brush!). The assistant has the roller down.

I edge, he rolls... we did the 3 walls 15', 10', 15', in about 45 minutes. WOW are we good!

Only thing is... it's 10:45 when we finish. PM. Instructions say we must begin the next piece within 1-4 hours, or it's no-go.

11:45PM and we begin phase FOUR of this "pop, pow, wow". Here's the famous quote from the instructions: "For more dramatic surfaces, use a brush rather than a roller".

A brush. Ummm... I'm not good with brushes. I'm ok, but not great. Haven't really done it enough to be confident. Kinda tend to ... brush and brush and ... "Do not overwork topcoat as surface may become gummy."

OOOooh my. How did they know? Could they see into my future?

And when "surface becomes gummy" it ... well... it sags. The crackle faux stuff sticks to the top paint but SLIDES on the bottom paint. And slides. And slides.

Assistant is banished... He's not confident or steady enough with the brush. Course netierh am I.

It's 12:15. AM. The minions are sent to their perches in the lofts.

Progress is torturously slow. This whole missive is drafted while ... stroking. Up. Down. Over. My head is full.

I begin to get the hang of it, and by the time I'm on the back wall (3 hours later) I have crackle. But what of the early areas? WAAAAY too much "drama". The creamy show-through is big enough to ... to drive a faux through.

At 3:30 I stop looking at the clock. Later I look over my shoulder as I'm coming into the home ... stretch (reaching up for the high places) and see ... dawn breaking.

I put the last touches on and finally look at the clock... repair some sags too big to leave (ugh, that looks ugly up close) and wash the brushes, tumbling into bed for faux sleep at 7:30.

It's a work day. More like faux work I'm afraid, after that night.

... And when I awake ...

I HATE it.

No, not really that. I mean, it's ok, even kinda cool.

But I had something in my mind, and that wasn't it. Not even close. And the early places where there's so much light showing through... just NOT right. Not blending with the other walls.

Only one thing to do ... I have a faux collapse. A dad-breakdown.

My muse talked some sense into me (I was talking of paint remover and scraping the thing clean... what fauxlly). She recommended a couple of approaches, one of which I adopted today... It worked.

Any gueses????

That's right...

A faux finish!

D--

Amazing Fatwah ... Or ... The Confessions of a Baptized Humorist ...

2006-02-14T09:50:00.000-05:00

I'll admit it, I find the Danish cartoons hilarious. I suppose I'm risking a fatwah myself in saying it. But the picture of Mohammed in a turban of bombs... Of Mohammed urging terrorists to stop encouraging suicide bombers because, "We're running out of virgins..." All those make me laugh hard.

I admit, too, that I've always had a secret little love for Christian versions of the same. I thought the Church Lady on SNL was the funniest running skit they ever did (apologies Fernando). And who do you suppose is urging me to say that? Who? Who? Could it be ... SAAATTTTAAAAANNNNN????

When I was in college, The Wittenburg Door began it's regime as the Mad Magazine of Christian theology. Frankly, I sputtered about it being awful, but that was mostly because they were skewering my favorite theologians. I was too young to be confident in the face of humor.

Now, looking back, I see they were right.

So I wonder, why is it that the tradition of a free press, satire and humor have flourished in the countries saturated (at least at some point) by the Gospel? Why is it that in those places saturated by other religions, their symbols are simply not open to ANY humor??

Now understand, we Evangelicals and Fundamentalists have at times engaged in our own fatwah. But on the whole, we haven't bombed, maimed, murdered in reaction. Instead, we've tended to use that humor right back.

I believe that without GRACE man is pretty much humorless. Except for the humor of racism and bullying.

With grace, the grace Jesus poured out at Calvary, our minds have been opened to a new possibility. That all men are filled with foibles and sins. That our self-righteousness is funny and NEEDS to be poked and prodded.

Jesus used humor more than we now recognize. When he called the Pharisees "Whitewashed tombs" I've heard it said that it would have struck his audience as hilariously funny. He skewered the self-pious much like Dana Carvey did.

Our Savior shows us that humility, coming to Him as a little child, is the only way to seize His Kingdom. And there's nothing like the laughter of a little child.

D--

The Terrible Allure of the Past...

2006-01-18T22:54:00.000-05:00

Keeping The Faith -- Billy Joel

If it seems like I've been lost
In let's remember
If you think I'm feelin older
And missing my younger days
Oh, then you should have known
Me much better
Cause my past is something that never
Got in my way
Oh no

I am lost in "let's remember". It's 1982, 1983. It's California, La Habra, La Mirada, Bellflower, Long Beach.

I've just moved there, started grad school. I hook up with an old acquaintance and we start going out.

The days fly by. Joy is everywhere. Such freedom. Such discovery. Living truly on my own. Being an adult.

Dinner, a walk in Belmont. Hamburger Henry's for Marua Burgers. Cheesecake at Grandmas Sugarplums. Walks through the art gallery.

The movies. The music. The long late talks. Her hair, her scent. Her soft touch on the back of my hand.

Thank God we don't see the future. Thank God we walk forward with hope, with confidence.

Looking back I see that just 6 months later it had evaporated. The realities of marriage and what I know now were her sickness made the very same places seem like dry sawdust, not the sweet fruit of the so-recent days.

I looked up. I looked around. All I saw was fear. Choking, abandoning fear. Raging in my mind. Seeming to have lost all the joy.

How did joy disappear so suddenly? Eventually I forgot that the joy evaporated like a minute's rain in the desert. But it did. It left me parched, aching, fearful. Feelings I learned to live with but never understood, never identified again til so much later.

Joy disappeared suddenly because all was an illusion. Carefully crafted to make it seem like there was life. I had my hand in that too.

The past never got in my way. But these days, it looms, lurks, hulks.

I don't wish her back. But I ache for the joy that was. Or seemed to be.

I ache for the man I was. I ache for the dreams, shredded.

I'm tired.

D--

The Purple Butterfly...

2006-01-17T22:22:00.000-05:00

When Katie Retelle contracted leukemia, she had to leave school. She was left with a lot of time on her hands and picked up beading.

Her friends have taken up where her death left off... Their bead collection is online. All proceeds will go to the Leukemia Society.

D--

The Purple Butterfly Collection

Too much death. Too much dying...

2006-01-17T22:21:00.000-05:00

Beloved kitty Daisy, nearly 19 years old.

We had to euthanize her. These wonderful animals that mean so much. It hurts when they leave us.

She was a good and faithful friend.

D--

What the heck am I doing???

2006-01-10T23:26:00.000-05:00

Just thinking... Do people see Jesus in me? Are my kids growing toward Christ?

This life is SO different than what I envisioned...

In so many ways, for that I am SO grateful. This world we are in is REAL.

The coccoon of unrealism I grew up in (called the Evangelical community) was SO unreal. But still, in all of that, Jesus must never be lost.

Jesus, work in me. Shine in me.

D--

A Mild Defense of Happy Holidays...

2005-12-20T11:37:00.000-05:00

Never one to let sleeping words lie...

Several years I switched to saying "Happy Holidays." I worked in a company that was largely Jewish. They never chided me for saying "Merry Christmas." But for them, it wasn't the joyous greeting I meant it to be.

I decided that it was kinder to say "Happy Holidays." It expressed what I wished to express to them. Political Correctness had nothing to do with it (though I KNOW that it does in much of the current debate).

Just another thought to muddy the waters :)

D--

Empty chairs at empty tables...

2005-12-17T14:49:00.000-05:00

When we began to reclaim our lives from chaos, violence and destruction, the task seemed insurmountable. In over 10 years of living in this home, Whitney, my oldest, had never had a friend over. Ever.

One family surrounded her and supported her even before I awoke to the horror that we were living. Katie Retelle was Whit's friend from the time she was 6th grade. Whit would ride her bike down to their home on Joppa Road.

Sue, her mom, reached out to us, and especially to Whitney's mom. Though Tracy pretty much rejected the hand of comfort and support, Sue never wavered and always held our family close in heart and prayers.

When we began to wade through literally every path in the home covered with at least a foot of clothes, food, papers, cans, cups, Katie insisted she would help us. She came in and held trash bags. When we got down to the horribly stained smelly carpet, Katie was in there first, pulling, prying, ripping. Once up, the aged but pretty wood floors were a constant encouragement.

Katie was our first dinner guest, and became a regular welcome presence. She called Tighe her boyfriend. He glowed every time.

Oh my God, how can it be?

October a year ago, she began feeling really crummy. It didn't pass.

She had leukemia. But that's so treatable these days.

Usually.

Today, must have been around 1 or 1:15 in the afternoon Katie Retelle, redhead goof, sharp-tongued loving Katie, Katie who would take nothin' from nobody, who hung on tight to her friends, Katie Retelle passed away.

I can't imagine the grief of her parents, her brother, her sister. I can't imagine the grief of Whitney or the rest of Katie's friends. I only know that someone special is no longer in this world, and I am poorer for it, and they, who were closer, are infinitely more poor than I today.

Katie, you were such a light to us. Thank you Katie. Godspeed.

D--

Prayers please...

2005-12-16T15:14:00.000-05:00

For Katie Retelle, 20. Katie has had leukemia for a bit over a year. It's been highly resistant to chemo. She's been waiting for a new treatment regimen.

She's taken a really bad turn today. Pray for her please.

D--

Counting My Blessings...

2005-12-14T14:56:00.000-05:00

These lyrics from the Diane Krall Christmas CD. The song is a lesser known Irving Berlin, recorded both by Bing Crosby and Eddie Fisher:

"Count Your Blessings Instead Of Sheep"

When I'm worried and I can't sleep
I count my blessing instead of sheep
And I fall asleep, counting my blessings

When my bankroll is gettin' small
I think of when I had none at all
And I fall asleep, counting my blessings

I think about a nursery
And I picture curly heads
And one by one I count them
As they slumber in their beds

If you're worried and you can't sleep
Just count your blessings instead of sheep
And you'll fall asleep counting your blessings.

So if you're worried and you can't sleep
Just count your blessings instead of sheep
And you'll fall asleep counting your blessings.

Nothing more need be said.

Well... after posting this, I realized something more DID need to be said:

I Stand In Awe

(Mark Altrogge)

You are beautiful beyond description
Too marvelous for words
Too wonderful for comprehension
Like nothing ever seen or heard
Who can grasp your infinite wisdom
Who can fathom the depth of your love
You are beautiful beyond description
Majesty enthroned above

And I stand, I stand in awe of you
I stand, I stand in awe of you
Holy God to whom all praise is due
I stand in awe of you.

Now THAT is complete...

D--

Musings on the "Paganity" of Christmas...

2005-12-12T22:52:00.000-05:00

Have any of you read Peace Child? It was a very popular book in the late 70s and early 80s.

It was a missionary/anthropologist telling of his experiences relating the gospel to a tribe in New Guinea. The tribe had never been exposed to the Gospel.

The author believed that God has put into every culture myths and stories as hooks to connect. Seeds of the gospel. Whispers and echos.

Paul did this on Mars Hill in Athens, relating God to the Unknown God. I think if many church goers heard that sermon with current Evangelical ears, they'd accuse Paul of being New Age.

That is what the early church fathers did when they came into an area. They are accused of "baptizing" holidays. Perhaps some did for ease and for purposes of diluting the gospel and increasing numbers.

But most of these people were sincere lovers of God, followers of Jesus. They longed to communicate their faith to a world that did not understand, just like we do.

But how to do it? Holy days and resident myths were perfect ways to do that, just as Paul had done.

Need to explain Christ's death and resurrection? Link it to the new life stories of spring and easter.

Need to explain light shining into darkness as Isaiah refers to the Messiah? In the middle of winter talk of Christ's birth. Link it to the Winter Solstice, a celebration of warmth and light in the midst of darkness.

The traditions got merged, yes. But at the HEART of what the church did is the Gospel.

I'm reminded of Narnia.

I had a favorite English pastor who would visit our Bible Conference, C. St. Clair Robinson (even his name was so veddy British). I asked him once about his opinion of Lewis. My favorite thinking writer then as now. He shocked me. He doubted Lewis' salvation. Narnia was a pagan erotic paean, so he said.

Sure, you could see Narnia that way. Apparently Tolkien saw Narnia that way. But with a baptized imagination (Lewis' term) you can see Christmas in all it's wonder, with the seminal myths that God wove into those very pagan cultures just SO Christianity could take root and flourish, and His Word come to us.

All truth is God's truth wherever it be found.

D--

The Nature of Redemption...

2005-12-12T12:20:00.000-05:00

The impending execution of Crips founder "Tookie" Wilson is prompting a firestorm of conversation over whether his "redemption" is enough to predicate his release from his death sentence.

I don't know the man's salvation status, I've heard very little about him. But the conversation had in it something which sparked a response.

A friend relayed that "Tookie's faith is getting him through."

OH man, I hope he has a stronger faith than mine!

My faith isn't enough. My efforts won't cut the mustard. I can't EVER hold on tight enough for what comes at me on a bad day.

It may just be an expression, I won't hold any man to what is said like that... but I hear that all the time, "His faith is getting him through." And I was struck... Our faith is NOT what gets us through, our FAITH is what is granted to us by our REDEEMER. Our REDEEMER gets us through.

So the conversation on redemption misses the point. It's the WHO of redemption, not the what. WHO has redeemed you?

D--

My Starbucks Runneth Over...

2005-12-09T12:51:00.000-05:00

So... Continuing on my Starbucks theme...

First off, I do not own stock in Starbucks. Yet.

Second, in my old Seattle days, I considered Starbucks inferior. Inferior to Stuart Brothers (later to become Seattle's Best Coffee). FAR inferior to Batdorf and Bronson in Olympia.

Still, all that was before my exile to New England, where coffee was unknown. They drink a brew up here they call "Dunkin's". It's not coffee, per se, but has a few coffee characteristics.

OH, how I ached for real coffee. And my tenacity has been rewarded. There is now a TRUE Starbucks within 10 miles of my home. Perhaps all this is why I object to a boycott? Naawww, it's strictly on principle grounds. Coffee grounds.

So yesterday as I sipped and noshed (OOOoooh their Gingerbread Loaf!!!!), I eavesdropped on a conversation behind me. Two Christian men talking about a book, Blue Like Jazz.

It sounded (and sounds) fascinating and I'm looking forward to reading it. It's author has founded a writer's community in Portland. So much is happening now in the Northwest with the Mars Hill forum at my alma mater SPU, and now this, the Burnside Writers' Group.

I urge you to check out http://www.donaldmillerwords.com. What I see blowing through the church is revolutionary and real. Embracing Christ and Him alone.

I fear a bit of antinomianism, and even see that in myself, but it may just be fear. After all, we're shredding decades of legalism.

D--

From whom should we buy?

2005-12-06T13:21:00.000-05:00

A recent Focus on the Family pushed my buttons and really got me thinking. They were running the list of initiatives various major American corporations have which run contrary to family values. Primarily, these are gay-agenda hot button issues.

Their suggestion is that we withhold our business from Starbucks because of a couple of egregious statements on their cups. For those not Starbucks-addicted, for a time Starbucks featured phrases from customers on their cups. One phrase was a gay man bemoaning the waste of time during the length he was closeted.

Focus was discussing how much effort and time it had taken them to move their bank just recently from Wells Fargo to another. Wells is actively promoting a campaign from GLAD (Gay Lesbian something) to jointly raise money to counter organizations such as Focus.

I highly respect Dr. Dobson and the Focus ministry. But I think they've got it wrong on this one.

I think their move away from Wells is well and good, and moreso, simply the right thing. But I think that *I* have to cautiously look at any wide "boycott".

First, hotbutton issues are troublesome. They miss the broader sweep of things.

Second, if we remove ourselves as Christians from the world, where will be the salt and light of our witness? Jesus went to the sinners, shouldn't we?

Third, and most importantly, Starbucks is just now FINALLY bringing a GOOD cup of coffee to New Hampshire. How could I possibly turn away?

They say all politics is local... in fact, it's so local it's centered in my tastebuds.

Quite seriously though, attempting to sway with the pocketbook strikes me as worldly. Individual beievers must be moved by the Spirit where the Spirit will move.

It could be the pocketbook is one place that God will lead us to consider (He has moved on my heart that way). But I fear it may actually render us impotent to move with the power He seeks us to experience and wield in other occasions.

Food for thought...

D--

writer's block...

2005-12-02T20:15:00.000-05:00

It's been forever since I've posted. I love writing here, and I'll admit it, it's been depression rearing its ugly head.

I am just now realizing how under the influence of down-ness I've been...

Yes there's reasons, but bottom-line, I am saved at a tremendous price and have SO much to be grateful for.

AND I've been seeing God answer prayer after prayer. So many of them involve remaking me, gouging and shaping me into His image.

I'm back and I'm going to do better at posting. This is important to me and I value you who wander by.

D--

Intelligent Design...

2005-11-10T14:30:00.000-05:00

Several times today I've run into Intelligent Design as a radio topic. The sources ranged from Christian (WDER AM 1320), to secular (Don Imus on WTKK 96.9 FM), to avidly opposed (NPR Day to Day).

The most maddening came from Ira Flatow, generally the host of Science Friday. On Day to Day he commented on a Kansas Board of Ed ruling that Intelligent Design must be included in any discussion of origins.

He was asked if Evolution is really a theory. "Well, in most truly scientific circles, it's actually taken as a Law or Principle."

He commented that they even had to CHANGE the very DEFINITION of SCIENCE! Why, in the definition, "Science is the observation and study of physical phenomenon," they struck the word physical.

If Mr. Flatow really looked at this defintion of science (before the ghastly change) the study of origins cannot in any way be science. There is no way to OBSERVE what happened in the past.

The further past, the less can be observed. When we get to the margins at the the beginning of the planet, the universe, time, we are out of the realm of science. It is all conjecture.

This tied in elegantly with a conversation on Radio Bible Class on WDER. They are beginning a segment on "Faith's Hall of Fame", Hebrews ch. 11. Notice how it starts:

1 Now faith is the reality of what is hoped for, the proof of what is not seen. 2 For by it our ancestors were approved. 3 By faith we understand that the universe was created by the word of God, so that what is seen has been made from things that are not visible.

The first place of faith in the believer's life is in understanding that God created all we see out of nothing. Our faith in God includes faith in Him as Creator.

We step back to the brink of time and peer over the edge. We see nothing. Neither side sees anything.

What we say happened is what we BELIEVE happened. And whether we are aware of it or not, BOTH SIDES say it this way. We do not apprehend this with the senses. BOTH sides apprehend this by faith.

Look at the reality of this. The evolutionist must believe that time and matter have always existed. That they are eternal. They must BELIEVE it for how else can it be known? Eternity past cannot be proven. It cannot be observed. It can be postulated as an a priori a before-the-fact-take-it-on-faith surmisal.

Postulating that a substance, a thing, an entity, a quantity, a value, a force, a whatever, exists outside the bounds of observation... that sounds a lot like belief doesn't it? Isn't belief what is mocked? How is one belief different or better than another belief, if it all comes down to belief?

What the Evolutionists believe is is exactly like the animists and the idolatrous of the mocked earlier times. It is a belief in an eternal deadness. An eternal something that has no will, no life, no force. It's basically modern-informed superstition.

It's dead, Jim (a Trek reference HERE D?)

On the other hand, the Intelligent Design theorist (aka the Creationist) asserts a belief in a willful intelligence, a person, a God.

BOTH lean on faith. Which faith makes more sense to you?

D--

Waiting...

2005-11-09T23:06:00.000-05:00

They say that you
Are able Lord
To mend this hurt
To heal this pain
To find that answer
Bring that aid
To bind that wound
And save that heart

They say that you
Are able Lord
To show the way
To lift the load
To bring that hope
To fight that fight
To grow this love
To stop this grief

But Lord I wait
I wait on you
And I don't see
Where is this hope
Where is this answer
Where is this joy
Where is this peace

When I will see
When I will know
That you do stand
That you do rise
You'll take my hand
That you aren't deaf
That you aren't blind
You hear my cry
Your peace I'll find

You died for me
You saved my heart
You filled my soul
You made me whole
You shaped my life
To make me yours
To bring me life
To teach me joy

If I but look
Your joy I'll see
Though I must wait
Transformation comes

A Flight of Fancy...

2005-11-07T08:02:00.000-05:00

I mentioned earlier my fun at building a tryout tape...

Here it is:

Lights, camera, action :) ...

Enjoy :).

D

What it's All About...

2005-11-05T01:16:00.000-05:00

We ARE in a war. We ARE in a passion play.

Two song lyrics by David Wilcox:

SHOW THE WAY

You say you see no hope,
You say you see no reason we should dream
That the world would ever change
You're saying love is foolish to believe
'Cause there'll always be some Crazy
With an Army or a Knife
To wake you from your day dream,
Put the fear back in your life...

Look... ... ...
If someone wrote a play
Just to glorify What's stronger than hate,
Would they not arrange the stage
To look as if the hero came too late?
He's almost in defeat
It's looking like the Evil side will win,
On the Edge of every seat,
From the moment that the whole thing begins

It is...

Chorus:
Love who makes the mortar
And it's love who stacked these stones
And it's love who made the stage here
Although it looks like we're alone
In this scene set in shadows
Like the night is here to stay
There is evil cast around us
But it's love that wrote the play...

For in this darkness love can show the way

So now the stage is set.
You feel your own heart beating in your chest.
This life's not over yet.
So we get up on our feet and do our best.
We play against the fear.
We play against the reasons not to try.
We're playing for the tears
Burning in the happy angel's eyes

For it's...
Love who makes the mortar
And it's love who stacked these stones
And it's love who made the stage here
Although it looks like we're alone
In this scene set in shadows
Like the night is here to stay
There is evil cast around us
But it's love that wrote the play...

For in this darkness love can show the way
..............................................

Â David Wilcox, all rights reserved

and one more ... what I played for my son ... my answer to what we do next, after we pray for God to rise up, victorious...

Rise

I see you dreaming by the ocean window
I hear you breathing like the waves upon the shore
The tide is turning on your time of sorrow
You will never be so lonesome any more

The breezes whisper as the curtain dances
Your dreams are deeper than the mystery of the sea
The sun itself is in the room beside you
With a message of how good your life can be

I know that a heart can just get buried
Stone by stone, crushing hope until it dies
Far away, but the message somehow carries
Beloved, it is time for you to rise.
Time for you to RISE UP...

With a sudden sense of wonder
Though the promise goes unspoken
As the joy comes to your eyes
When the joy comes to your eyes
From the burden you?ve been under
For your soul was never broken

Beloved, it is time for you to rise, time for you to rise.

There's nothing wrong with taking time for sleeping
Your eyes are weary with the things that you have seen
A deeper promise your soul is keeping
Right in time for this appointment in your dream

Angels whisper so as not to wake you
There's nothing else in this whole world for you to do
But follow on to where your dream may take you
To see your footsteps from an eagle's point of view

..............................................

Â David Wilcox, all rights reserved

Rise. Playing for the tears in the happy angels eyes. RISE.

D

Hard Truths...

2005-11-04T07:00:00.000-05:00

It's hard to know who reads this blog. I know a couple of people who check in now and again (more again than now since my posting has fallen off recently).

I know I've sent a couple of people here, even a work friend. That's a little scary, especially with what I'm about to post.

There have been some circumstances in our household that I am convinced are Satanic. *gasp*

"Oh *I* get it," maybe you're saying. He's one of THOSE kinds of people!

Well, I suppose, yes. I don't come to this lightly. I grew up as the church rediscovered the truth of our spiritual battle. I grew up around some pretty outrageous teaching, little of it grounded in Scripture.

But none of that matters... what matters is that I am convinced we are facing spiritual warfare. Some of it centers on the kids, some of it on money and work issues. I feel a bit like Daniel who agonized and prayed trying to understand a Scripture. He was told that Satan interefered with his answer.

So today is a prayer and fasting day for me. Remember Jesus' disciples hit a rough patch with their demon-throwing-out experiences, and Jesus said, "This type does not come out except by fasting and prayer."

I know people who have formulas for casting out demons. Who have rituals they practice.

But what I see in Scripture is a very simple battle. Putting on the whole armor of Christ (Eph 6) and imploring God on our behalf (Jude). And in this case, fasting and prayer.

I'll be praying for answers for our money disasters. I'll be praying for peace for the kids whose sleep has been terrorized, who don't want to go to their rooms.

If you pray, pray with me?

Thanks!

D

Hard to hold on...

2005-11-01T10:52:00.000-05:00

I've realized that one of the disciplines that's being worked on right now is perseverance. I have a tendency to try to shuck off things that aren't going well. It's not a bad thing, it's good to clean up non-working parts of your life.

But in this case, to start shucking off things would be very damaging. I have to sit with the difficulty and the unknowing. I can't write creditors and tell them when I'll pay because I have no idea. I can't dump my job because I need its flexibility.

It's a very tough place to be. To just sit with nothing to say and no amount of knowing. It's sheer fingernails' grip faith.

It's learning to wait on God. Wait when everything screams MOVE!

Oh God, rise up. How long can I sit? How long can I stay silent as You are silent? Rise up and answer, my only hope is You.

D

As it lifted...

2005-10-25T23:08:00.000-04:00

For days
I wandered
Stripped of sight
Hindered in hearing

Light dim
Hope apart
City of my life
Dim, dark, hopeless, lost

Then, there
Light, Jesus
Hope, bare but there
Him, His light, His hope

Not mine
None of me
But Him, my light
My only hope, cling

Cling still
Circumstance
Unchanged but changed
Oh wondrous Jesus

Your heart
Your applied
Peace, joy, love, hope
Sun burning through mist

Light, yes
There IS light
The light is Him
In Him, In Him, hope.

D

And now for something COMPLETELY different...

2005-10-25T22:49:00.000-04:00

... And I've done something really odd, really different, and exhilerating. I've created a 3 minute video for the Food Network. I'm submitting it to be the Next Food Network Star.

It turned out well. It's something I'd love to do. If chosen, at the worst, I'd be a part of a funky reality show for 3 or so weeks. At best, I'd have a 6 week run on the Food Network.

Well, well, well. It makes me smile just to think of it. I'll research to see if I can post the video.

D

Whining as an art form...

2005-10-20T01:04:00.000-04:00

Are blogs becoming simply whine-fests? Is *MY* blog simply a whine fest?

I ask myself that off and on ... so in that light:

God is GOOD.

My kids are INCREDIBLE.

Fall is an amazing time. The colors are spectacular.

I am employed and money is coming into my bank account regularly!

I have a church I am fed at and people who meet with me to talk about Jesus!

I have people who love me.

Pass this blog on to 35 friends and you will be amazed! My "Number of times profile viewed" will increase by some number between 0 and 35!

Isn't THAT amazing?!?!?!?

D

So far that down is up...

2005-10-19T14:02:00.000-04:00

Can't say where I first heard that phrase in the title. But I sure get it. ... ...
...
...

It's hard to live like this. But it is a good thing to learn that pleasing men isn't the answer to life. That's an important thing for me to learn.

D

New Orleans and New Hampshire...

2005-10-18T09:47:00.000-04:00

http://www.aliveintruth.org/comm_emb_stories/larry_2.htm

This site is an oral history of what happened in New Orleans. This particular post talks of one man's efforts to protect his family and the horrific rumors that were flying through the New Orleans Convention Center.

The thing that struck me was this:

“Today I asked my twelve-year daughter if she remembered what happened in New Orleans.” He said she answered “Yes Daddy, I remember all of it.” and they held each other and cried.

OHHhhhhh my.

I had a conversation like that last night with my second, my 14 yo daughter.

Last night was a bad night for me, the worst in a couple of weeks of difficult times. My stomach has moved to a bad place, and last night it was at its worst. ON top of that, I don't have answers for questions which are pressing in on me.

She looked at me and asked if I was ok. "Have you ever felt like there was nothing but questions you couldn't answer?"

"Yeah, Dad, it's worst at night. At night I just can't shut out the problems anymore."

Her problems are expressed in terms of school, but I wonder how many of the OTHER struggles she's not talking about are coming from our mess of a family situation.

I have been at times over the last couple of days to the place where ... I couldn't. I could no longer try to patch, fix, repair. The levees are broke beyond broke. I am beyond that which I am able to bear. I am NOT functioning right. The house is falling apart. WE are starting to come apart as a family.

And I can't pull it together.

D

Does Trish Yearwood Know a Borderline?

2005-10-10T22:18:00.000-04:00

Listening to her new album. I've already mentioned "Georgia Rain".

Maybe the thing is that Country music is about lovin' and losin' which ain't always smart-like. Guess that defines getting into Borderline relationship.

But this song defines loving a Borderline... Only, I promise, the last line is NOT me...

"Trying To Love You"

I blew out all my plans.
The world fell in my hands,
The day that I began,
Tryin' to love you.

The secrets I have kept;
The nights I haven't slept.
I've laughed until I've wept,
Tryin' to love you.

Tryin' to love you...
No one's come as close or gone so far, (Tryin' to love you.)
I've lost and found myself in who you are. (Tryin' to love you.)
So easy and so hard tryin' to love you.

I've watched myself get stuck,
I squandered all my luck.
I've almost given up,
Tryin' to love you.

Tryin' to love you,
Broke my heart; it's chipped away my pride. (Tryin' to love you.)
Every time, I'd see that fault line slide. (Tryin' to love you.)
I've crossed the great divide tryin' to love you.

[Instrumental break]

Tryin' to love you,
I've screamed your name, I've slammed a thousand doors. (Tryin' to love you.)
An' I've worn a million miles across the floor. (Tryin' to love you.)
Still I could not ignore tryin' to love you.

It's pulled the best from me,
For all the world to see.
I guess I'll always be,
Tryin' to love you.
Mm, mmm, mm, mm.

Scattering Thoughts...

2005-10-09T01:46:00.000-04:00

Nice evening. Went to a birthday celebration, dinner and a movie. The movie was Wallace and Gromit. What wonderful visual puns tucked away in the corners. The closeups on the claymation were fantastic, you could see the working lines where the characters had been formed.

Had a good time talking about coffee while sitting at Starbucks. Learned about how Equal Exchange makes a difference for local growers, and how mercenary the normal system is.

While I'm a thorough-going capitalist, and am leery of cooperatives and the like, it seems to me that this is the kind of thing that relief-minded evangelical Christians should look into. It comes along the lines of second-order change.

I believe most relief efforts are first order change, and like most "more of the same" change efforts, the end result is generally at best dilution of value, and at worst, negation of value, a moving backwards. I remember when I did business in South Africa hearing talk of the reputation World Vision has for destroying local economies.

Common sense conservative Americans don't think things through, so we throw money at a problem through the church in the same way we criticize the liberal side for throwing money at problems here at home. It strikes me as I write this that we do EXACTLY overseas in many of these relief organizations what we criticize here at home as the welfare state.

Locals in South Africa told me how the abundant influx of free food into an area destroys local market economy. How can a farmer compete with free rice and beans from America? Why would you BUY when you can queue up and get free? Why would you plant if it seems the bloody Americans are going to swoop in next season and give away, hacking your hope at self-sufficiency at its roots?

Then again, those efforts to help the farmers are often just as foolish. Buy seed for the farmers to plant? Why should the farmer be frugal year after year and develop good practices? The Americans will take care of him. Why should he learn how to increase yield? The Americans will come and plow up more land for him to plant.

So interesting that overseas, the liberal community have it so much more right (it seems from this amateurish observer) than we do. Overseas, they work with a crop already plentiful, with high demand. They do not create an artificial market. They do not override the methods or take over a piece of the production cycle.

Instead, they step in as honest brokers. They fill the niche needed to allow the local economy to flourish. If done right, they would be disappearing as well, allowing local individuals to step in and take over that function, moving to their native place, top-level consumers of the product, being simply the importers.

Fascinating thoughts for the Sunday morning wee-hours.

Bed!

D

Strains of the Manger...

2005-10-06T12:21:00.000-04:00

Kindof an odd occurrence today at the coffee shop. Usually I hear soft jazz or classical lilting just under the crowd noise.

Today I became aware of a sweet sound ... a little different. I listened. It repeated over and over. It was a sweet whistling of Away In a Manger.

It was insistent. I looked around and saw a fellow whistling halfway across the restaurant. Nobody seemed to really register it, but it was there.

It occurs to me that the presence of Jesus in our world is like that. We know it. We all know it intuitively. It's the sweet tune that our hearts truly long to hear. So much is around it. But it's always there.

I love thee Lord Jesus
Look down from the sky
And stay by my cradle
'Til morning is nigh.

Time Passages...

2005-10-04T10:10:00.000-04:00

One song got me going... it led to another. It started with the new Trish Yearwood, "Georgia Rain." A heartbreaking ballad.

Then thinking about writing here I moved to "Time Passages." A funny aside. I always that that raspy voice was Rod Stewart. It's AL Stewart.

Time Passages

It was late in December, the sky turned to snow
All 'round the day was going down slow
Night, like a river, beginning to flow
I felt the beat of my mind go drifting into

 Time passages
 Years go falling in the fading light
 Time passages
 Buy me a ticket on the last train home tonight

Well, I'm not the kind to live in the past
The years run too short and the days too fast
The things you lean on are things that don't last
Well it's just now and then my line gets cast into these

 Time passages
 There's something back there that you left behind
 Time passages
 Buy me a ticket on the last train home tonight

Hear the echoes and feel yourself starting to turn
Don't know why you should feel that there's something to learn
It's just a game that you play

Well, the picture is changing, now you're part of a crowd
They're laughing at something, the music's loud
A girl comes toward you you once used to know
You reach out your hand, but you're all alone in those

 Time passages
 I know you're in there, you're just out of sight
 Time passages

 Buy me a ticket on the last train home tonight

A divorce after a long marriage is like that. For years I did a mental calculus. The pain of the present, whatever pain it was, was bearable. We had a shared future together. We'd look back on this together and the pain would have been bearable, because we came through together. Because we found happier times.

When divorce is necessary (and I know that sometimes it is), that equation is broken. Suddenly all the balance is left unbalanced. It takes a while, a long while, before a new mental set is built.

I loved her. And sometimes it wells up and hits me. There were good days, or at least better days... I say it that way because now I hardly know what the past was.

But there were better days. Days of hope. Days of shared dreams, shared jokes, shared life.

Her steady barrage of emails about what a cretin I am hurt more than she knows. Or maybe she does know. There's a love "velcro" that makes what she says stick.

In divorce, when love comes unhinged, there's a lot of feelings hidden in there that are prone to sudden appearance. "Georgia Rain" did it to me today.

D

Nothing Good Ever Happens to Our Family...

2005-09-29T08:38:00.000-04:00

That's what a couple of my kids have been saying. I have an idea that their pain is more intense than I think.

But something wonderful DID happen to our family. Our car was saved. I did have the money I needed to make the payment to keep the repossession away, but the check hadn't cleared the bank. Even that check was a wonderful gift from my cousin.

But it looked like all would be for nought. It would be too late. But a working acquaintance heard of my crisis through Connie, and offered a $300 bridge loan. If you prayed, God answered.

And...

I'm becoming a mantra to the kids ... Something WONDERFUL happened to our family even if nothing else EVER happened. My kids. Five incredible human beings that humble me.

Yes, we all brag on our kids, but mine are more special. They really are. It's not just that they are the best kids in every aspect, but they are ... wonderful.

OK, others' kids might be just as wonderful... it's just that I doubt it.

Nothing good ever happens? God has blessed me beyond measure.

D

Fatigue

2005-09-26T00:15:00.000-04:00

Wow, I'm exhausted. We're all exhausted. The kids are feeling what I'm feeling. They're even articulating it some.

We missed each other while I was gone. We had a nice weekend. Some of the stress released. My cousin blessed me with an incredibly generous financial gift that lifts the corner of the pressure.

We all felt the pressure lift up.

And now we feel it press back down. We feel a new week start.

I've spent a little quiet time with each kid tonight. We're all feeling so worn out. We're all tired of a house that is worn and desperately needs a cash infusion. The older ones who remember Seattle from a visit a few years back asked if we could move... then said, maybe they don't want to leave friends.

We all want out of this.

But out is through, or at least it seems to be. We are all crying to you, God. We're all so tired. We need YOUR HAND. MOVE O MY GOD! ARISE, let the world see you care for us, your children. Let us see you stand for the right and care for children.

... Let this Dad stand strong. My soul wants to faint. I'm so close to fainting. Hold me.

D

Time for an Ellipsis ... ... ...

2005-09-24T23:43:00.000-04:00

I've missed posting here. I didn't mean to slow down but time on the road will do that.

The road. The West. *sigh*. Time for an ellipsis ...

We had yet another team meeting out west. Out west being, specifically, San Jose. I've been intending for a long time to check out my parents' will. With money at such a high need right now, I looked into getting it sent to me. The cost to do that, to get the last will and testament of the dead, is between 30 and 100 dollars a person.

It made more sense to let Cisco foot the bill to get me to San Jose, then use frequent flyer miles and hotel reward points left over from the days I DID travel last year (when I didn't have the kids for an awful 3.5 months).

So... the quick answer is, they DID disinherit me. They said they would if I ever married, and they did. Disinherited me for marrying someone that shared the same personality disorder that Mom and Sis had. Time for an ellipsis...

But ... To be in Seattle. I've been back now 5 times in 14 years, nearly 4 years since the last time. Never has it seemed so much like home. I ached seeing the places I grew up. Places that were key in my early marriage, my college life. Places filled with pain, but also filled with hopes now dashed.

I'm back. I wish I could wave a magic wand and make the divorce over, the financial crisis over, the kids well protected, our lives free to move on. Tonight I've been talking to a friend about that over and over and over and over and ... well, you get the idea.

Kurt Kaiser, the fellow who wrote the classic "Pass It On"

"It only takes a spark to get a fire going, and soon all those around will warm up to it's glowing"

and who wrote "Oh How He Loves You and Me"

"Oh how He loves you and me. Oh how He loves you and me. He gave His life, what more could He give..."

also wrote a song "Thou Shalt Not Go Down but Through".

Sometimes Google fails me. I just tried to Google that, and it came up empty. It wasn't nearly as well known a song as the others. But I met Mr. Kaiser once and asked him about the song during a music conference. He said the song came from the time when he had a heart attack and thought he wasn't going to make it through rehab. He was surprised I knew the song. It was included in a songbook I had and I used to (badly) pound out the song on the piano. I think I MAY have heard a recording of it on some better-forgotten gospel album.

But the song was worth remembering... something like,

"When thou walkest through the water, thou shalt not go down but through."

Right now, I'd like this all to be over. I want God to end this. ENOUGH! It's been 20 years of nearly constant financial drain. Twenty years of nearly constant emotional drain. More, really, but that's what I count.

ENOUGH!

I've been reading John Eldredge, "Wild at Heart". God IS taking me into my wounded places. I feel as though I have no options, nowhere to turn. Just like I used to feel around my dad. Like there were no places I could go that were MY choices... Like I had no power, no way to make positive impacts on MY OWN LIFE.

*sigh* *ellipsis* ... ...

But. GOD IS ABLE!!!! TO DO ABUNDANTLY MORE THAN WE ASK OR THINK. DO I have even the SLIGHTEST IDEA of what He's forming in me?

So ... I loved the West, but I love the people I've formed relationships here. I'm frustrated waiting and feeling pain.

But I love God. I love Jesus. I love my kids. We're gonna be ok.

:)

D-

Divorce vs Cancer...

2005-09-12T14:23:00.000-04:00

"... But would you divorce your wife if she had incurable cancer? If she was horribly disfigured? Then how can you be divorcing her now?"

That's the question that absolutely stymied me for at least 2 years. I discovered my wife had an almost certainly untreatable (but for the grace of God) "mental disorder". (I put that in quotes because I'm still very uncomfortable with the line between will and disease.) Now that I knew this, how could I divorce her? Wouldn't the right thing be to stay? To put up with any discomfort?

Yet I am divorcing. So how can I *POSSIBLY* justify it?

I left for one single reason, although now I believe there are two reasons that come into play. The single reason was the safety and welfare of my children.

As she descended into illness, her "snaps" ("Watch her eyes, Dad, that's the clue," my eldest told me.) her breaks from reality became so much more common. The screaming. The yelling.

I was punching bag number one. My eldest was punching bag number two. My fourth of five was punching bag number three.

Initially "punching" was exclusively verbal. But don't for a minute think that's a little thing. "You're worthless. I know any children you ever bear will die. You'll never be a decent wife or mother. You have no value as a human being."

OK, bad enough. How about this? "I've been dreaming of killing you. Now I know exactly how I'd do it!"

I was in Tokyo on business. I was just starting for the day, in front of a room I was to address for the rest of the week. I got a frantic IM. "Dad, she keeps coming after me. She won't stop. I'm scared."

She went on to describe being pushed to the ground and sat on. A pillow being forced over her face and held down. Then the cold icy words, "This is just like I dreamed it would be."

My kiddo fought back and screamed enough to embarass her.

But here's what kills me. I wasn't sure I should believe the report. Wow is denial strong. I'd seen behaviors close to that.

It took two more years. It took a headlock and repeated blows to the head, me pulling on the other side to try to get her off the kid. It took all that and I still wasn't going to do anything. Then SHE went to the police and said *I* had been abusing her. That *I* had been beating HER. She didn't file a report, but called me, taunting that she had.

That did it. I was like a dead-man awakened.

The rest is history. Kinda. Long, tortured history.

It took two more years for me to give up hope... And realize that "If any man wishes to leave his wife he must give her a bill of divorcement."

I had to go back to the Old Testament and lean on that. I came to the point before God where to protect what He had given me, I had to take steps I wasn't sure He was in favor of (I am now, but that's another story).

The man with one talent buried it, knowing that his master (a picture of God) was exacting. A few "friends" have told me that I should have buried my head, ignored the beating, the murderous actions. That there was NO room for divorce.

I took a risk.

D

We rest on thee...

2005-09-10T15:46:00.000-04:00

Finlandia. I mentioned it before, and the hymn, "Be still my soul." Great hymn.

Funny though, as I spoke of it, and remembered it, I was actually thinking of another. Thank goodness for Google:

We rest on Thee, our Shield and our Defender!
We go not forth alone against the foe;
Strong in Thy strength, safe in Thy keeping tender,
We rest on Thee, and in Thy Name we go.
Strong in Thy strength, safe in Thy keeping tender,
We rest on Thee, and in Thy Name we go.

Yes, in Thy Name, O Captain of salvation!
In Thy dear Name, all other names above;
Jesus our Righteousness, our sure Foundation,
Our Prince of glory and our King of love.
Jesus our Righteousness, our sure Foundation,
Our Prince of glory and our King of love.

We go in faith, our own great weakness feeling,
And needing more each day Thy grace to know:
Yet from our hearts a song of triumph pealing,
“We rest on Thee, and in Thy Name we go.”
Yet from our hearts a song of triumph pealing,
“We rest on Thee, and in Thy Name we go.”

We rest on Thee, our Shield and our Defender!
Thine is the battle, Thine shall be the praise;
When passing through the gates of pearly splendor,
Victors, we rest with Thee, through endless days.
When passing through the gates of pearly splendor,
Victors, we rest with Thee, through endless days.

"... Through gates of pearly splendor." No matter which of these two wonderful hymns (and they make great topical bookends), whenever I hear Finlandia I think of Jim Elliott.

Does anyone still remember or still talk of the Curaray River? Of Palm Beach? Of the five that died there?

"Through Gates of Splendor was nearly required reading in my Christian experience. But it wasn't a waste. It introduced me to Jim Elliott and to Elisabeth Elliott (whose writings I commend to the reader as one of the two best contemporary Christian authors in my opinion) and the other 4 members of "Operation: Auca".

I saturated myself for a time in the writing around this event, known in my day as the Auca Massacre. Their writings, especially those of Jim Elliott moved me, made me aware of a deep longing to be God's man:

He makes] His ministers a flame of fire. Am I ignitable? God deliver me from the dread asbestos of 'other things.' Saturate me with the oil of the Spirit that I may be aflame. But flame is transient, often short-lived. Canst thou bear this my soul—short life? In me there dwells the spirit of the Great Short-Lived, whose zeal for God's house consumed Him.

He is no fool who gives what he cannot kep to gain what he cannot lose.

O God, save me from a life of barrenness, following a formal pattern of ethics, and give instead that vital contact of soul with Thy divine life that fruit may be produced, and Life-abundant living-may be known again as the final proof for Christ’s message and work.

I often wonder what became of the man that I wanted to be or thought I would become. I think there is something that happens, though, to those of us who live longer lives. We look for inspiriation to these men of God who burned out quickly. We look at ourselves, who struggle and feel we have no testimony, no punch to our lives as God's men. It seems we aren't doing the job.

But that is, I believe, just the romanticism of what happened to those 4 men. It wasn't romantic to them as spears were shoved into them. They were thrust violently into Jesus' presence. Did it seem for a moment, did they in that moment share the sense of fruitlessness that I sometimes (often..) feel?

Or were they that qualitatively different from me?

In a way yes. They rooted out before God the things that held them back. I still falter on the airplane seat simply saying, "Jesus loves you." Not always, but sometimes.

God, spare ME from a life of uselessness. But just as much, spare me from a life wasted wishing I were someone else, in someone elses' discipleship walk.

D

Anatomy of a Divorce

2005-09-09T15:40:00.000-04:00

No ellipsises (how the heck DO you pluralize that? :)) this time. No sighs at the end. Just a wealth of different emotions.

My attorney's para-legal called today. Said my estranged wife's attorney had called. Reported I'd refused to pay the interim weekly money that the court ordered, and that I'd said I'd no longer pay it.

All untrue.

The court DID order me to pay last summer, when I got the kids back after nearly 4 months of difficulty for me and hell for them.

I want to whine here and talk about how unfair it is. How I pay all expenses for house and kids and STILL must pony up 650 a month ... OK, I DID just whine. But enough.

Still, I don't have it. I'm in collections on every debt I have because of that money and attorney fees. I'm out. Tapped dry. The pressure is immense.

So I said I couldn't pay today because I can't. And it gets reported as "He says he'll never pay again."

I'm tired of lies.

D

... Be still my soul ...

2005-09-08T13:18:00.000-04:00

Here at Panera and feeling none too well... I've got a sinus infection (whine whine), had it for 2 weeks. The first antibiotic didn't do the trick. The second has some question about allergic reaction, so it's just been getting worse while I wait for pharmacy and doc to figure it out.

That background is so you will understand that I'm emotional. Being sickie always makes me kinda maudlin. But it also is a time I can cue in to those places I need to on the sadder side of things.

Been flipping through orchestral music this afternoon. Turned to Sibelius. Loved playing his stuff in high school and college. I was listening to the Second Symphony (titled "Tempest"). You can hear the storm over the fjords. Was thinking of it as a soundtrack to the destruction in NOLA.

Then I turned to Finlandia. It's hit me so hard.

There's a hymn associated with the chorale in Finlandia. While the melody plays, I'm reading these words:

Be still, my soul: the Lord is on thy side.
Bear patiently the cross of grief or pain.
Leave to thy God to order and provide;
In every change, He faithful will remain.
Be still, my soul: thy best, thy heavenly Friend
Through thorny ways leads to a joyful end.

Be still, my soul: thy God doth undertake
To guide the future, as He has the past.
Thy hope, thy confidence let nothing shake;
All now mysterious shall be bright at last.
Be still, my soul: the waves and winds still know
His voice Who ruled them while He dwelt below.

Be still, my soul: when dearest friends depart,
And all is darkened in the vale of tears,
Then shalt thou better know His love, His heart,
Who comes to soothe thy sorrow and thy fears.
Be still, my soul: thy Jesus can repay
From His own fullness all He takes away.

Be still, my soul: the hour is hastening on
When we shall be forever with the Lord.
When disappointment, grief and fear are gone,
Sorrow forgot, love’s purest joys restored.
Be still, my soul: when change and tears are past
All safe and blessèd we shall meet at last.

Be still, my soul: begin the song of praise
On earth, be leaving, to Thy Lord on high;
Acknowledge Him in all thy words and ways,
So shall He view thee with a well pleased eye.
Be still, my soul: the Sun of life divine
Through passing clouds shall but more brightly shine.

Guys in the CCNH worship band, I urge you to do something with this one... and I promise you, it will take me to the ground in tears.

Seems I do a lot of that lately. Dissolve into tears.

Sitting here in Panera, I feel it well up. They know me here as the smiling cheerful face. What are they going to do when they see me dissolve into sobs?

.... Next post from the 6th Floor at SNHMC ...

On the Border...

2005-09-08T11:24:00.000-04:00

Ask my kids where I want to go out to eat, they'll tell you in a flash ... It's not Panera (though I'm there now, LOVE the wireless!). It's On the Border.

Ok, yes I love Mexican food. The best in a healthy (um, yeah) diet.

But the irony is that I've spent the better part of my life "on the border".

Have you ever had a friend that hurt themselves with cutting or half-hearted suicide attempts? Who seemed to delight in taking THEIR fault and somehow transferring it to you... so all was YOUR fault? Who flew into blistering rages, their eyes glazing over and seeming to lose touch with reality? Seemingly willing to do ANYTHING when in a rage to lash out and hurt? Nursing and cherishing perceived wrongs almost as though they were trophies?

If you have ever had a friend (most generally a woman) who was like that, you've lived as I have for almost all of my life.

The syndrome has a name. To those who have lived it it's name is horror, confusion. Some call it living in Oz.

But to therapists it's called Borderline Personality Disorder. BPD for short.

Where's the border and what's the disorder? All that in due time.

I first became aware of BPD when my now-estranged wife decided I had it. It was the perfect explanation at that time for the wrongs she "perceived" in me.

Anxious to somehow "fix" the mess our marriage and family had become, I attempted to own the latest diagnosis made over me.

As an aside, I must relay what my oldest kiddo and I used to call "The Oprah Syndrome". Oprah was on at 4pm I believe. I'd call home and talk to my daughter and ask what was on Oprah. It was self-defense. Because if some deviant male was on, I was in for a rough time when I got home... a new diagnosis of my deficient character.

So this diagnosis was not a new thing, just a new "wrapper" for that accusation that I was an unfit human being. If I could somehow muster a "fix" to this horrible wrong that I was, we would be living in harmony.

I spent a lot of time on the site www.bpdcentral.com . There were small pieces here and there that kinda sorta sounded like me, but it just didn't fit. I had an ability at that time to be able to spend 3 or 4 weeks wrestling with a "diagnosis" and eventually owning it. It almost made me crazy.

The worst part was that because I didn't REALLY fit the diagnosis, I couldn't STAY in the diagnosis. That "convinced repentant" state was required for our marriage to function. But I'd slip up and act normally and not like a sick person trying to get well.

(If you've stuck with me, this may be getting confusing. I'll keep posting these for a while to further explain all this, so it may get clear eventually. I hope.)

At the same time I was in therapy. I'd gone in for therapy because of my wife. She was continually "harming" herself in front of the kids. There was plenty I DID need to work on, and I knew it, but primarily I needed to know how to cope with this. With kids who themselves (at 3 and 4 years old) were saying they "wanted to kill themselves like Mommy".

The day in 2001 that she played like she was going to jump out of a moving car on the F E Everett Turnpike was the day I started looking for a therapist in earnest.

Thank God I found a good one. He not only dealt with me over the long term, but he convinced her to come in and begin a course of treatment for depression (the only diagnosis we had at that time).

My therapist continually sanity checked (for the first time in my life) the outrageous behavior I was living with (more on that later). I'd lived with stuff like this since I can remember, in my own family, and now in my marriage. This hardly seemed outrageous.

But he told me again and again that her behavior was as extreme as it gets. He used the word "psychotic".

As I described her behavior, he started thinking perhaps Bi-polar characteristics were in play. She responded to anti-depressants by becoming far more violent. He suggested Narcissistic Personality Disorder, but as I studied, it just didn't quite fit (close though).

When I suggested the Borderline diagnosis she had made of me, he started chuckling, then apologized and said, "Of course!". Turns out a key trait of the "disorder" is "splitting". Transferring the blackness in their own souls to others so they don't have to own it. She actually found her own diagnosis, then pushed it onto me.

It's a horror to live with. It's impossible to live with if it's full blown. I am the cause of any ill she feels. She is the cause of any good I have or feel. It's like living with a constant ego-suck. If I'm ok, I won't be for long, because she feeds on that. If she's cruddy, she won't be for long, because she vomits that out onto me and our kids (a couple in particular).

I'll stop this overlong post for now, but ask the reader to reflect on this passage from the book of Hebrews in the New Testament. Chapter 12:

4 Pursue peace with all people, and holiness, without which no one will see the Lord: 15 looking carefully lest anyone fall short of the grace of God; lest any root of bitterness springing up cause trouble, and by this many become defiled; 16 lest there be any fornicator or profane person like Esau, who for one morsel of food sold his birthright. 17 For you know that afterward, when he wanted to inherit the blessing, he was rejected, for he found no place for repentance, though he sought it diligently with tears.

On the Border. Not a nice place to live. No love there, no matter what promises were given. A lousy place to be a kid.

D

Sometimes it's better not to try so hard...

2005-09-06T22:08:00.000-04:00

I've been scanning through some of these blogs, just randomly.

... I see the tendency I find I'm struggling with. A desire to be relevant. Meaningful. And in my case, spiritually incisive.

I just erased 2/3 of a blog because... Because it's just SO easy to try to sound SO profound, and wind up flailing.

Seems to me that sometimes a funny story or a joke, or a single word may be better than a strained attempt to be spiritual... so...

How do we know there'll be Presbyterians (insert your favorite-to-pick-on-denomination here) in heaven? Because the Bible says "The dead in Christ shall rise first!"
So... it must be remembered, we came to CCNH because somebody measured their home windows wrong and my boiler broke and my kids were throwing a fit that day and I needed to get out! Don't tell ME God doesn't have a sense of humor!
Who were the smallest men in the Bible? The disciples that slept on their watch.
Did you know that God invented baseball? We saw it Sunday in Genesis 1... "In the big inning."
Yup, there was tennis too... "Moses served in Pharaoh's court."
Uh huh, and motorcycles! "The roar of Joshua's triumph was heard throughout the land!"

Shall I stop now?

D

Ideas that seemed good at the time...

2005-09-06T21:28:00.000-04:00

I came up with what I thought was a very clever rule for my girls (one college, one early high school). They could go out with anybody as long as the boy came with me on Wednesday nights.

Wednesday nights... in another blog I'll relate how different all this is for me, what's happened in the last 5 years. But suffice to say that these days on Wednesday nights I meet a group of friends. At a karate dojo.

We put on full gear, head hands and feet, mouth and (ahem) other stuff.... and we deliberately aim at each other. It's all in good fun, kicking and punching, but it gets pretty heated.

So I figured having any boy come down and see me spar (not terribly impressive) but see my FRIENDS spar (QUITE impressive)... well, I figured it would begin to put a proper fear and respect in them.

HA!

So my eldest daughter, through quite a chain of coincidences, begins corresponding with one of my senseis. I'm late 40s, I'm one of the old guys, and pretty late to be starting out. He's 21. They started dating.

He is a master at kicking my ... butt, face, tummy, back of my head, you name it, he's kicked it.

I lose that little game :).

D

Kid Stuff...

2005-09-05T23:33:00.000-04:00

Long day. Another long day on top of a long day.

I love these quiet night times. Of course it's too late. It's always too late!

At night I bring the laptop up to my two youngest's room. I sit there (loving wireless), surfing, thinking, answering questions, listening to music (loving streamed music).

Right now it's Chris Rice. Oooops, made a mistake tonight. Funky jazz isn't quite relaxing. "Daddy, I don't know why I can't go to sleep."

Ooops, made another mistake. Country isn't quite relaxing. Gotta love JoDee Messina though!

Daddy, we're poor.

How funny perspective is. They know how tight things are right now... That we're living without cable (GASP!). I keep telling them how MUCH we have. Lights. Heat and cool. We just had a killer veggy soup for dinner made almost entirely with veggies from our garden.

How blessed we are!

Our tummies are full. Our hearts are full. Our heads are cradled.

Sometimes I'm so grateful for this lean time. It shows more than the fat times just how wealthy we are.

Why I love the ellipsis...

2005-09-05T01:32:00.000-04:00

What the heck is an ellipsis?

Wikipedia sez: (No, wikipedia is NOT a wiccan book of incantations! It's an online freeby encyclopedia just so there's NO question and I don't get banned by Christian schools around the country.)

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ellipsis

Ellipsis Έλλειψις (plural: ellipses ελλείψεις, Greek for omission) in linguistics refers to any omitted part of speech that is understood, i.e. the omission is intentional. Analogously, in printing and writing, the term refers to the row of three dots (…) or asterisks (* * *) indicating such an intentional omission. This punctuation mark is also called a suspension point or simply dot-dot-dot.

An example is, “She went to … school.” In this sentence, “…” might represent the word “elementary,” or the word “no.” The use of ellipses can either mislead or clarify, and the reader must rely on the good intentions of the writer who uses it. Omission without indication by an ellipsis is always considered misleading.

An ellipsis can also be used to indicate a pause in speech or be used at the end of a sentence to indicate a trailing off into silence.

The biggest reason I love this quote is that it uses Greek characters! I KNEW there was a reason for a year's study of Greek! It's that feeling you get every 10 years or so when you actually USE the stuff you studied in college!

I use the ellipsis a lot... But not to omit... Rather in the latter sense... To indicate at the end of a sentece a trailing off into silence...

I guess I trail off into silence a lot. I don't think I trailed off into silence much when I was in my teens, or twenties. I'll bet I started using ellipses (hmmm, is that the plural?) in my 30s.

In your teens and twenties, you don't trail off into silence much... Leastways I didn't. You're too self-assured. You KNOW what you are saying. You KNOW you have an audience. You KNOW your audience is just waiting with bated breath to discover your every muttering. Why, as brilliant as your ideas are, it's a wonder you can pause to catch your breath!

Maybe that was just MY teens and twenties. Maybe the harsh realities of life hit others sooner than they hit me.

But I KNOW I trail off into silence more now by a quantum measure than I did in those days.

It seems so often that the thought starts light and becomes too heavy to carry any longer... That the certainty of the statement is more about confidence than surety... More a private matter than the trumpets and fanfares of a period.

It's a funny thing that I am more confident today of God's love than I ever was in my days of the period.

That when I say "His arms are upholding me", today I feel confidence where yesterday felt merely truth.

Truth occupies a place in the head. The steady stripping away of pride and hope in my OWN self and power has moved "truth" to a deep realization in the heart

Time and again I've seen Him work. Seen Him strip me naked of even what passed for belief. And then, lying in an utter heap of ... of shattered dreams, broken heart, tortured pride and pitiful self effort...

I see HIM. I see HIS WORK.

And all I can do at the end is look up in wonder with the sad, chastened, joyful, ecstatic ...

ellipsis

D

Glimpses of a life in question -- He's not a tame lion

2005-09-01T22:35:00.000-04:00

Well this isn't the life I planned.

I'm 47, divorcing, I'm a single dad.

I was the one who wrote the seminary position papers that divorce was never allowed for anything except terminal marital unfaithfulness. How different things look when life is lived.

I struggle at work, trying to survive in a confused and confusing realm, where position and prestige trump work and creativity. I work so far out of my realm of excellence I keep forgetting that once I was a contender.

Dazed and battered, I keep trying to follow Jesus. Sometimes He seems so far off.

I'm going to try to keep some record here of this time. I'll be as transparent as is prudent. Mostly this is for me, because I love to write and writing is like an exhausting workout. Something changes in the process.

D