Walden's Wits

Heart Surgery And Healing Wounds

2009-06-25T11:11:00.006-06:00

I have been laid off as of the first of this month and for the last few days, I've been doing some real soul searching. My wife usually lets me process stuff like this on my own, but by yesterday, it appeared that I was stuck. And I was stuck. What's worse, the enemy was taking pot shots at me and my heart. That's the worst, because recovering your heart is nearly impossible in those situations.

Being stuck is no fun. You don't have an answer and the longer you go, the uglier it gets. At issue was my role as a provider. For so long, my love as a father and husband has been expressed in that. Since my disability, it's been difficult, no... next to impossible to find ways to do this. It's not like I have the option to grind my way through 40 hours a week. I tried that and my body gives out on me. I need more than just the weekend to recover and employers don't like paying you a 40 hours-a-week salary for less than 40 hours of work, sometimes a lot less than 40 hours.

This fatherly need to provide for my family doesn't diminish even though my ability to do so has diminished. I can't stop providing for my family because I have this inner drive to do so that is as real as a mother's need to nurture and care for the daily needs of her children. It's real and I can't stop it from deeply affecting me when it is denied or squelched in some way.

My wife and I finally connected yesterday, which was overdue, way overdue. It's amazing how much of life's activities two people can share without talking about what really matters. The ingredients are two people and a quiet room, and we had the two people, but the quiet room took a while to get. When we did, we undid the lies the enemy had been slinging at me like drinks at a bar. It essentially came down to who my hope was in. My hope could not be in myself or my abilities. My hope couldn't be in a system that man created. My hope had to be in God and His plan for me. That's the "head" part; like I said before, the heart was much more involved and God took me and gently worked on me yesterday. The cynicism, the darkness, the anger built up out of frustration, and the poison malaise of indifference all had to go. I was getting hung up on the meaninglessness in life (Ecclesiastes, anyone?), and that's something only God can fix. He welcomed me into His arms and He held me while He worked on my heart. His love and grace for me through Jesus knows no bounds!

Today, I feel empty, but it's a good empty, like a blank sheet of paper ready to be filled up with drawings, musings, or folded into a wonderful paper airplane that soars across the room. I don't know what's next. I know my desire to provide is a good one and it has to be accommodated somehow. I know that I love to write, communicating God's love and spiritual truth. Beyond that, I'm ready for God to use me. My prayer is that He lets me do what I enjoy. Please pray for vision and clarity for me, if you think of it.

Successful Fatherhood Is Not What You Think

2009-06-18T09:00:00.006-06:00

I'm getting ready for CHEC for the next three days, but before I get so motivated my socks pop off, I want to nail something down first.

Todd Wilson is a wonderful dad and support to homeschoolers everywhere. I've pushed him on this blog many times. Today he sent out a Familyman e-mail to his list. A key portion says,

As I talked with [a group of dads] about their teenagers who were giving them fits, their wives who didn’t seem to think like them, and the deceptively deadly pull of success that beckons to them everyday, I saw tiredness in their eyes and heard emotion in their voices.

I listened to them and nodded in understanding until they finished. Then in a gentle but firm voice I said, “Man, I know exactly how you feel, but...you ‘da dad. You may feel like giving up, but your family is counting on you. You can’t give up on them. Get back in there, because although they may say harsh things...they still need you.”

They sighed, stiffened their chins in determination, and nodded in agreement. “You’re right, Todd,” they said. “Thanks for the reminder.” And then they walked away, ready to give it another shot.

Normally, I can't shut up about how good Todd is, but this time, I think he's missed the mark.

While Christ helps us be better fathers, the goal of Christianity is not to be the best parent in the world. We can't soldier on endlessly like thirsty men looking for an oasis. There comes a time when you can't take that next step, when you can't be the father you are called to be. What happens then?

The old saying goes, "God never gives us more than we can handle." I've even said it, like recently. But it's wrong! If it were true, how would we ever turn to God for help? He should--and does--give us more than we can handle. We need to find the end of ourselves so that God can be our ultimate source. We need the oasis to come to us, to offer us hope and aid in our fight. God must be that source. Our wives and families can't provide what we need. Our other relationships can't help either. The one place we can go is the one place we must go. We have a spirit of sonsWhile Christ helps us be better fathers, the goal of Christianity is not to be the best parent in the world. We can't soldier on endlessly like thirsty men looking for an oasis. There comes a time when you can't take that next step, when you can't be the father you are called to be. What happens then?hip by which we cry "Abba! Father! Daddy!"

How much of American Christianity is infused with the Invictus Success Syndrome? It's the version of Christianity that shows up in 30-minute, pyramid-shaped infomercials on some cable channel late at night. It's the one where you try harder and pursue success as an American dad. You are the captain of the ship and if you're exhausted and not successful, you're doing something wrong. I'm sorry, Todd, but how many men left that meeting nodding their heads at the failures they feel they've become?

Why not let God define what a successful father looks like? Instead of soldiering on, we should surrender all to His vision for us. Instead of getting back in there, we need to get back to Abba and let Him love us so that we can love them. By reaching out to the Father, we find that He is there supporting us, giving us what we need, so we can give them what they need. When we are confronted by the things we can't control, like the hearts and minds of our children, we need to know that God's grace is sufficient for us, because His power is made perfect in our weakness.

Peace A Casualty Of Conscience

2009-06-09T17:56:00.005-06:00

One of my peers once said that there is no creature on the planet that is more miserable, angry, or disconsolate than a Christian who has violated their conscience. I can't help but agree. All day long, I've been agitated, upset and inconsolable. Nothing has brought me the peace I normally have. Why? What did I do?

I borrowed a game.

That's right. Horror of horrors, I asked a friend if I could borrow a game, he agreed, and I took it home last night. The game is a spoof on adventure games and it's hilarious, but it's also full of raunch, double-meanings, and dark humor.

Only last week, I felt the Holy Spirit rebuke me for indulging the darker side of my humor, which is two steps removed from cynicism, anarchy and despair. It's the kind of humor that surfaces in the joke that goes, "When I die, I want to go peacefully in my sleep like my grandfather, not screaming in terror like his passengers." Dark humor is like pepper or spice. A little bit adds flavor and dimension to life. Any more of it overpowers everything it touches.

The double-meanings and the raunchy stuff adds fuel to the fire. I try to ignore the stuff and just move on with the game, but that's like trying to ignore a big, flashing neon sign. I'm not fooling anyone but myself if I play the game and think it can't touch me. The worst part is trying to hide it from my son. If I'm keeping secrets like that from anyone in my family, something's wrong. Worse, young eyes see and hear more than we realize. Nope, that game's going back to it's owner and my son is getting an apology from me. I'm trusting he will learn not just from my successes, but also my failures.

Already, my peace is returning.

Freedom To Homeschool Listed As Factor In Survey Of Freedoms

2009-05-31T07:09:00.006-06:00

Folks who know me know that I love my home state of Colorado. I love its flag, its history, and its geography. More importantly, I love the freedom we have to homeschool our kids, which showed up in a university's survey of freedoms, going state by state. According to this article from the Grand Junction Sentinel, Colorado is "in a virtual tie with New Hampshire and South Dakota to be the most free state in the union." Not to do too much patting on the back here, but that's one thing I am very proud of. It's also one thing we have to guard very closely. The defense of freedom starts with words in print and words in speech and eventually ends with words in action.

Freedom Of Speech Isn't The Issue In T.V. Feud

2009-05-27T04:37:00.006-06:00

Family Guy and Two and a Half Men are two of the funniest shows on television. I've seen them and they are hilarious, but I can also state that they're also two of the raunchiest. So when the Parents Television Council notices and takes action, why are they surprised, let alone offended?

Yet offended they are, and they've fired their own shots in return. The problem is that they don't stick. Funny or no, I don't let Family Guy or 2.5 Men in the house. There's a difference between being funny and being good funny. Good funny is being funny without resorting to titilating and embarrasing their viewers. There are plenty of funny shows, but there aren't nearly enough good funny shows.

For movie reviews that help you make a choice, my pick has to be PluggedInOnline.com.

Questions Asked By Tourists Visiting Colorado

2009-05-22T01:46:00.005-06:00

I love living in Colorado. It is a wonderful state to live in. Vacationing is easy. Just pull into your own driveway, take the phone off the hook, put up a tent in the yard and technically, you're camping. Seriously, though, we have trouble taking a vacation to a place that's too close by. Driving thirty minutes to camp or stay in a hotel feels a little weird. So, folks in Denver like to think they'll retire to Colorado Springs. Colorado Springs folks think about retiring to Buena Vista or Leadville. I'm not sure where the folks from Leadville will retire to, but with the winters up there, I bet it will be someplace warmer or even tropical.

In honor of the start of summer break and the commencing of vacations, I thought I'd put up a list of things tourists have said while visiting Colorado or that people have asked Coloradoans when they defy reason and leave the state.

What time of year/At what altiitude do the deer turn into elk?
Where do you put the moguls in the summer?
You don't ski? I thought everyone in Colorado skied! (also applies to wearing cowboy hats)
Y'all got paved roads in Colorado? (not yet, but Woodrow Wilson mentioned we'd get some soon)
Do you own a horse?
Do you ski to school? (also applies to sled dogs)
Where do Rocky Mountain Oysters come from? Is there a lot of water in Colorado?
Do you need oxygen tanks to live there?
You live in an igloo right? (Bonus: How do you walk around your house without slipping?)
So what's South Park like? (Tell them Casa Bonita is real and they won't believe you.)
Why don't trees grow on top of your mountains?

The photo at right is from the top of Mt. Evans west of Denver. It's a bit of a read, but the details are riveting, especially when you count the screws used to mount the sign. There's a reason they did that.

For those who want to look more like a local or who really want to know what the answers are, I've put them down below.

Deer and elk look similar, with antlers, snouts and four hooves, but trust me, they are two very different species. Elk tastes better, in my opinion.
Moguls are turned inside out, shaken hard, and put on a plane from Aspen back to L.A. ...Wait, that's movie moguls. Ski moguls are mounds of snow that are created by skiers as they carve down the slopes.
Although I haven't seen a survey of state residents and skiing, I'll speculate that a surprising percentage of residents do not ski, and fewer still are those who have skied in the last three years. There are a lot of reasons for this, but lift tickets are horribly expensive, I-70 is terribly crowded, and we keep thinking we'll go next year.
Duh. These are likely the same people that ask if we ride horses everywhere or if we still fight Indians, both of which questions showed up on a "dumb questions" page online as legitimate, documentable inquiries.
See explanation 4 above. No, we do not, although it's practically required for someone to live in Golden. Do I have a cowboy hat and boots? Ain't tellin'.
See explanation 3 above. Skiing to school is not practical unless you live at the top of a mountain, and then you've got other problems, like lightning, wind, and a dog that refuses to go outside in either, remembering that the last time it did, it nearly died. If you tried to ski to school (without the aid of a snowmobile or truck known as skijoring), you'd have to cross-country ski, and then we'd accuse you of losing your mind.
No, there is not a lot of water in Colorado, which is why we have lawyers who litigate exclusively over water rights. The lack of an ocean and the lack of a local delicacy prompted a joke that's groin--er, grown into a novelty dish. I will not mention the ingredients, but you can read more about Rocky Mountain oysters here.
Contrary to all the press our altitude receives, people from below 2,000 feet ASL who take it easy the first 24 hours or so can acclimate fairly well if they drink plenty of water. People who don't are soon usually flat on their backs complaining about the lack of oxygen. That's when we bring them a tank and tell them not to drink alcohol while they're here. We breathe just like they do, only better.
Another Duh. Although, we have winter festivals with snow carving and such. How do we keep from slipping? Seal skin.
South Park is a big, empty broad expanse of Kansas that we imported to break up the monotony of all those mountains. There is no town called South Park, unless you count Fairplay's effort to capitalize on the show's popularity. It is brown (or white) and mostly treeless. Antelope do play, but mostly they just stand around, gawking at the tourists.
Above 11,200 feet or so, trees do not grow in Colorado. This is called timberline. It is too cold, snowy, dry and dark for trees to grow above that threshold. Alpine tundra is beautiful and has small wildflowers that manage to thrive in that climate, including my favorite, the Columbine.

Like I said, I love Colorado. I plan to live here the rest of my life. I've seen nearly everything in the state, so if you're coming to Colorado, give me a shout and I'll pass along what I know.

Things Bitter Homeschoolers Would Like To Say

2009-05-14T10:42:00.003-06:00

These are the things a lot of homeschooling parents would like to tell non-homeschoolers if social conventions and basic human kindness went out the window. Here's #13 (my favorite):

13. Stop assuming that because the word "home" is right there in "homeschool," we never leave the house. We're the ones who go to the amusement parks, museums, and zoos in the middle of the week and in the off-season and laugh at you because you have to go on weekends and holidays when it's crowded and icky.

The rest are pretty good, mostly because they hit close to the mark. Don't say I didn't warn you.

Familyman: Leaving Texas

2009-05-14T04:55:00.003-06:00

I love Todd Wilson's latest post to his FamilyMan list. He makes a good point.

Hey Dad,

Hope this doesn’t offend any of my fellow dads in Texas, but we were all glad to leave the Lone Star State. I’m thinking we had a little too much unplanned time there…or maybe it was the way those Texans drive! Not only do they drive on the shoulder of the road…and are OK with that, but they have some mighty mixed up on and off ramps in their cities.

I’m sure we were almost killed at least a couple of times. Poor Gloria (the voice on our GPS) never talked so fast, “Get in the right lane…bear left, no I mean right…not that right lane, the other right lane…watch out for that oncoming car…Ahgggg!!! Can someone please unplug me?”

Whew! I’m getting worked up just writing about it.

Anyway, the kids and the RV are doing great, but all the time in the RV tends to put a strain on our marriage. In fact, I’m thinking about writing a book entitled “The Familyman’s RV Marriage Guide for Men.” I’m not sure of all the details, but I’ve been thinking about at least one chapter entitled, “The longer you wait to fix things, the harder they are to fix.”

Not only does it apply to RV problems like leaky toilets, tail light issues, and smoking motors, but it also applies to marriages…especially mine. You see the problem is that I’m a glass half-full kind of guy. I like to assume that things will get better on their own if I ignore them. Problem is…they don’t, especially when it applies to marriages…especially mine.

So, when I can tell that my wife is out of sorts, I kind of like to think that all she needs is a good night’s sleep. So, I plop into bed and go to sleep instead of dealing with it. Next morning, I wake to find that my wife is not over “it”. Instead, she’s a little MORE out of sorts. A few ‘sleeps’ later, and I’ve got marriage issues.

I’m just so stupid. When will I learn that if I take the time to address the problem when it’s first detected, it would make life a whole lot better for all of us? Because the truth is: the longer I wait to fix things, the harder they are to fix.

So, Dad, if you’re like me and have some “things” to fix, you better get at it.

You ‘da…Mr. Fix-it,
Todd Wilson

Thanks, Todd. Point taken.

Over Sanitization

2009-05-05T04:07:00.005-06:00

With all the fuss over influenza, it seems that hand sanitizer, paper masks and the like have been in higher demand. In this germ-conscious society, is there even such a thing as "over sanitized?"

Yes, if you listen to Brenda Freeman, CMO of Turner Animation, Young Adults and Kids Media division. She's the brilliant executive over Cartoon Network who used the exact term describing Cartoon Network's former line-up. She said,

"We are casting a wider net to open us up to new partnerships and new audiences, we want to become a dominant youth culture brand, ... We are going to break out of the over sanitized kids environment, and that's ok."

This is the kind of executive and this is the kind of decision that I *dream* of removing from the board room and putting in a real-life environment, in this case, a food court. I would pick up a meal from each food stand, place it on the table and invite Ms. Freeman to a free lunch. I would tell her that she was free to choose whatever she was in the mood for, but that one of the meals might be contaminated because one of the chefs--I forget which one--wasn't feeling well. Since she feels things can be over sanitized, I'm sure she wouldn't mind taking the risk. Especially if she's hungry for market share.

What good will it be for a man if he gains the whole world, yet forfeits his soul? Or what can a man give in exchange for his soul? For the Son of Man is going to come in his Father's glory with his angels, and then he will reward each person according to what he has done. - Jesus

HT: Plugged In Online.com

Early Christian Comics Shaped My Beliefs

2009-04-30T10:54:00.007-06:00

When I was a boy, I didn't read all that much because I had a visual disorder that kept my eyes from working together on the same words. As a result, I'd have to use the vision from one eye to read and subconsciously discard the vision from the other eye. Mentally, it was a stress point in my absorption and retention of information. This resulted in frustration and bad grades, especially under teachers that worked "visually," assigning independent reading, working a lot on the chalkboard, and so on.

I loved to read what I could concentrate on, however, and comic books (no joke) were very compatible with my visual disorder. The pictures were large enough that I could go frame by frame and retain a lot more. The problem was that my parents didn't go in for comics all that much and it would be a few more years before my visual disorder would be discovered and remedied. The one place I could get comic books of any sort was the Christian bookstores my mother shopped.

Enter Spire Christian Comics. I started with Barney Bear and then Archie and later still the adventure and biographical comics. They were benign with faith-based themes that were clearly intended for a churched, Christian audience. I still remember many of them, but I didn't realize their effects on my understanding of God until very recently.

At the risk of going on a bit of a bunny trail, I'll fill you in. I was talking with my daughter about how we can still trust God, even if it means that we would die. She had brought up Savannah and her parents, saying that their faith in God didn't protect her from death. I worked to help her understand that the question lacked eternal perspective. Life here on this planet is deceptively real. Because this world is all that we remember, we think that this life is all there is to reality, even though the Bible and even our own experiences lead us to conclude otherwise. The true foundation of reality is found in the eternal. Even Plato's cave alludes to the unseen perfection. Finally, I showed her 1 Corinthians 13, where Paul writes,

Love never fails. But where there are prophecies, they will cease; where there are tongues, they will be stilled; where there is knowledge, it will pass away. For we know in part and we prophesy in part, but when perfection comes, the imperfect disappears. When I was a child, I talked like a child, I thought like a child, I reasoned like a child. When I became a man, I put childish ways behind me. Now we see but a poor reflection as in a mirror; then we shall see face to face. Now I know in part; then I shall know fully, even as I am fully known.

And now these three remain: faith, hope and love. But the greatest of these is love.

We were reading that together and I casually mentioned that faith, hope and love were based on time. Faith is based on things in the past. Hope is based on the future. Love is based on the present. She asked me if I came up with that myself and I did a little mental sleuthing to figure out where I caught that bit of insight. The answer: Al Hartley in one of his Archie comics!

The longer I parent, the more it's driven home that we are shaped so much in the first 15 years or so in life. We carry forward the worldview and beliefs that we learn from childhood. This is why my family and I view homeschool as critical to our children's future.

A fellow Spire Comics collector has made some Adobe scans of his comics, long since out of print. Sadly, there are no Barney Bear scans. Maybe I still have my "Barney Bear Wakes Up!" deep in a moving box. I'll see if I can find it.

A Son Comes Home

2009-04-17T09:33:00.002-06:00

When I regularly watched nighttime TV--I can't stand most shows now--I remember enjoying a laugh or two and then getting blindsided by a slam on Christianity or God. As a sincere follower of Jesus, those potshots usually hit a little close to home and left me thinking, "The writers just don't get it."

Fast-forward your DVRs to today where one of those writers finds himself among those he used to malign. Joe Eszterhas finally "gets it." He writes,

I am witness to and the beneficiary of God's love for all of us. ... I am witness, too, to the fact that His love is so strong that it was even able to open my rusty old closed heart. I will thank Him forever because He gave me new life and a heart which is truly able to love for the first time in my life. His love is mine.

A "cocaine cowboy" comes home and finds that God not only left the light on for him, but He ran across the north 40 to grab him up in His arms. Do we sit back like the other son, saying, "Great. Woo-hoo. Just wonderful," or do we join with God, rejoicing over Joe's life won back from death and hell?

God's love reaches beyond those rusted doors, behind the graffiti-scrawled walls, down into the lowest places we dare conceive our hearts can sink to. It reaches out, breaking through those defenses and reaching the heart of the most desperate with hope, the most abandoned with security, and the most broken with healing. His love does that. It takes the used up, the abused, the disfigured, the maligned and the humble and lifts them up, bringing glory to Himself. "The LORD has done this, and it is marvelous in our eyes."

Stem Cells: The Source Matters

2009-04-10T10:25:00.007-06:00

Like Michael J. Fox, who suffers from Parkinsons, I also have been hoping that stem cell research will yield new hope in finding cures for chronic diseases, including my own. Unlike him, however, I have steadfastly opposed using embryonic stem cells, the cells obtained from destroying living human embryos. President Obama recinded Bush's ban on Federal funding of the research, proving to me that he could care less about destroying human life in the name of research.

Fox is on a book tour, but on his stop at Oprah, Dr. Oz offered some great news that would surprise this "optimist" of embryonic stem cell research.

Thanks to Dr. Oz for clearing the air on this. Hopefully, more people will open their eyes to the benefits of adult stem cell research.

Prayer Needed

2009-04-01T21:28:00.003-06:00

Folks, I need to request prayer. Tuesday night, I came down with a stomach virus that has tripped every Fibromyalgia 'hard point" in my body. Normally, I deal with one or two or three. This is all of them at once (12!), and I can safely say that I have never felt worse. It has not let up, except for the nausea, which mercifully ended today about noon.

Please pray for me to recover. Thank you.

A New Favorite Added To My Collection

2009-03-25T14:10:00.005-06:00

I know that this is a bit of a break, but I need to post about my latest favorite movie. It isn't Spartacus. It isn't Gladiator. It isn't even Braveheart, although I love that one. No, it's... Wall-E. I can hear the "What?!" from here. Yes, Wall-E. Why would I pick this movie? I guess it's because it's a great film and I can deeply relate to it.

Wall-E is someone who soldiers on in an incredible task, even when the work couldn't possibly be done by him. Perhaps he goes by faith that it will all be worth it, or maybe he just finds pleasure in doing a job. I understand both. He replaces his worn out parts, much like I want to, in order to keep going. He finds comfort in the little idiosyncrasies and odd little interests in life.

Then, the woman of his dreams shows up, and he's smitten. I'm still smitten, even after 16 years. He lets her into his life and he loves her, taking risks for her, even if there's no gain for him, although I've found the opposite. Later, he finds more purpose in her "Directive" than he even finds in his own survival. He values Ev-ah's mission that ultimately gives people a glimpse of what life can be (the plant). Like the captain says, "I don't want to survive. I want to live!" I want people to find life in Christ, and that is worth facing my own demise.

That and flying through space with a fire extinguisher looks pretty cool too.

I may be looking at an ocean when the world sees a pond, but I get a lot out of this kids movie because I'm still a kid in so many ways.

A Father's Words To His Son

2009-03-20T10:06:00.005-06:00

Yesterday evening, I made a mistake. I flat out sinned. I let my anger about my disability boil over and I yelled at my 10 year-old son, who didn't feel like helping out with an extra chore before bed. Whatever he did, he did not deserve the angry words that I let out of my mouth. The moment they were out, I wanted them back. Watching my brave boy fighting the tears, my anger crumbled and I could see that I had just wounded my son's heart. Anything else quickly faded away as I realized that I must immediately reverse course and begin to rebuild my connection to my son.

I reached out by saying, "Oh son, I'm so sorry. I didn't mean that." That was a beginning, but he needed much more. "What I said was wrong. That's not my heart towards you! I love you and I treasure you!" I said. Addressing the spiritual component, I prayed in repentance, "God, please forgive me for hurting your son," --he and I are both kid brothers of Jesus Christ-- "and for wounding his heart. Please bring healing and help me not to do that again." Hot tears flowed and slowly we were on the mend.

This is all to say that I am another human failing and in need of a "Successor," and that any wisdom I've shown is God working through me, not me being some kind of an uber-dad. The above also tempers the following, which is an open letter to my son that I read to him about a week ago. Dads, please feel free to take this letter as a basis for your own to pass on to your sons and daughters.*

Dear [son],

Every day of my time with you, I have tried to live my life as an example of the man I hope you will be someday. While one letter won’t make a huge difference in this, I hope it does pass on some of the stuff I might have missed saying to you, some of the things we just don’t talk about from day to day. In this letter, I hope to go over the things I’ve learned through experience, and maybe some of the stuff I knew but didn’t fully realize how important that stuff really was.

For example, I didn’t realize that a person’s life is shaped by the little choices they make every day as much as it is by the big decisions like what you will do for a career, where you will live, and so on. The little choices that you make, the mundane and overlooked ones, such as what you’ll have for lunch today, what you’ll buy, or how you treat your friend, will have a cumulative effect, one so powerful that it can limit or even eliminate your options in a big decision you want to make.

Speaking of big decisions, there is none greater than who you will marry. You can be successful in every other area of your life, and it can all be poisoned by a difficult marriage. How will you know who to marry? We will go over a lot of that together in the next few years, as well as making you ready for your future wife. However, I know of one test that will help you know for sure if she is the one. The people who know you best, the people who can be honest, will know if she is the one for you. These people will have known you for several years and they will need to get to know her. Trust their advice! On the other hand, if you don’t have any of these people in your life, maybe you are too detached to be thinking about getting married. If that’s the case, it’s better to slow things down, put down some roots, and start rebuilding friendships you can rely on.

I’ve told you often that relationships are what life is all about. If your relationships are good, then everything else in your life can go wrong, and you will still be okay. Having the right people on your team truly is make-or-break. Here are some good qualities to find in friends: wisdom, honesty, loyalty, godliness, graciousness, patience, and compassion. A lot of these are found in 1 Corinthians 13. If God blesses you, you may have maybe three or four friends over your lifetime that embody all of these traits. Hold onto them! If you’re having trouble finding friends like this, make sure you are already showing these traits in your own life. Be a friend to gain a friend. It’s true that “birds of a feather flock together,” and people will be naturally attracted to others with the same traits.

Be careful about friendships with the opposite sex. I am not saying that you shouldn’t have them, but I am saying they require extra care. What may exist in your mind as a perfectly legitimate friendship may be entirely different on her side. Do not be careless with other people’s hearts.

Perhaps the biggest risk I have taken in raising you is that I have intentionally avoided things which might have scarred or put blisters and calluses on your heart. Because of that, I have some specific advice for you. The world runs on rules that, even if we don’t live by them, we have to be mindful of. The first of which is that the material world in which we live functions on money. Everything you see, hear, taste, smell, or feel, everything is related to money. The ground you walk on, the air you breathe, and the food you eat are all for sale. And, they can all be purchased by someone other than you. Everything material has a price tag. Despite all of this, do not let the material things replace the immaterial things, such as love, respect and the human heart.

On your birthday, I was the first to hold you besides the doctors and nurses. I consider that a great honor. When you hold your own child, you will become a father, and there is something mystical, wonderful and miraculous that goes on in your heart that day. It switches from “my wife and I,” to “we.” Your fatherly instincts kick in, and you know you would move heaven and earth if they were in the way of your little child. A father will do anything he can to preserve his child from harm. This instinct is something you must experience to fully understand.

Remember that this world is broken. It was broken more than 5000 years ago. It will still be broken when we die. The only thing that will change all that is the “in the flesh” return of Jesus Christ. Only God can repair all the damage that sin has done to this world. When He does, the only things that we will have left are the relationships around us. The Kingdom of Heaven is all about relationships. Live in that reality!

Son, there will likely be other letters, other times when we will talk, just like we did recently. I want to give you these tools and tricks of the trade of Fatherhood, just like I would hand you my tool box someday and let you go out into the world. Put these things in your own children’s toolboxes, and you could be as happy and content as I am today.

Finally, Son, if it’s not apparent by now, I want you to know that I truly love you as my son. There is nothing you can do to change that fact, and I promise I will continue to love you as long as I live and for eternity. You are my son, and I couldn’t be prouder of you.

Sincerely,

Your Dad

There it is. That's my open letter. I promised it over a month ago and yes! I actually delivered! Thanks, God.

This post is incredibly long, but let me close out with this. If there are any fathers (or sons) who want prayer for their relationship to be healed or restored, please leave a comment. I know that there are others with me on this blog who would be willing to pray for you.

*Please note that this offer does not release rights to the letter, in whole or in part, for any other kind of redistribution including publication. All copyrights still apply.

Life And Death

2009-03-09T11:50:00.005-06:00

In case you missed your memo from the ACLU, tomorrow, March 10th, is National Thank Your Abortion Provider Day. I'm not kidding. One week before the celebration of St. Patrick's Day, a Catholic saint, we have a celebration of death and destruction.

I'm trying to keep from being physically sick here.

If we're really going to celebrate death, why not a Jack Kevorkian day, or a 6 day long celebration of the Jewish Holocaust, one for every million people that Hitler killed? If we were to get really Malthusian about it, we could even give money to people that succeed in committing suicide during those days. That might seem too close to Muslim extremism, though. Wait a minute! Those guys kill lots of people. Like abortionists, these guys should have their own day too.

Forgive my sarcasm. This isn't about rights, people. It's about lives being cut apart and dismantled inside a mother's womb. What should be the safest place on earth is the most dangerous. Tell me that Satan isn't pleased by this twisted corrupting of creation. It should be mourned in the extreme, not celebrated.

God said to us long ago, "I have set before you life and death, blessings and curses. Now choose life, so that you and your children may live." Choose Life. It's such a simple and natural directive. How long will we choose death and thank the executioner? How long?

More information and help:

And some original artwork with a point:

Twitty Observation

2009-03-07T12:28:00.005-07:00

I'm a twit. My heart is a-twitter. There really is no good way to say that I'm tweeting lately. My latest tweet was actually quite good, but not fully developed. It should have said, "If I live by the pen, and the pen is mightier than the sword, then if those who live by the sword also die by the sword, then am I living dangerously?" Yikes! It's the attack of the aphorisms! Maybe I should wear my pithy helmet before I tweet.

I don't even know if the tweet has a logical conclusion. It's one of the dangers of twitter. You start off with the notion, develop the thought and by the time you've put half of it into the twitter box, it's a blinkin' blog post. One of my followers said it best when she said that to be a successful twitter-er, you have to be succinct, which--she says--she is not.

Ditto... I think.

Examining the Scriptures - James 1: Part 1 - Trials & Temptations

2009-03-01T09:54:00.006-07:00

The first chapter of James (NIV, NAS, MSG) is one of those landmark passages in the Bible that exposes much about the Christian life. Many Christians can find themselves nodding when they read James because they know exactly what he's talking about. They have lived it because, as Hebrews 8 says, God has written His law on their hearts. It is a chapter with something in it for every Christian, and that's why I want to examine it here on my blog.

1 James, a servant of God and of the Lord Jesus Christ,
To the twelve tribes scattered among the nations:
Greetings.

James is writing to his fellow Christian Jews. They share the commonality of the old covenant and the fledgling faith in the new covenant. What stands out to me is that James isn't standing on his credentials here. He simply writes that he's a servant of God and of the Lord Jesus Christ. He doesn't need to emphasize his experience or his education. He is simply a servant.

Trials and Temptations
2 Consider it pure joy, my brothers, whenever you face trials of many kinds, 3 because you know that the testing of your faith develops perseverance. 4 Perseverance must finish its work so that you may be mature and complete, not lacking anything.

James starts his letter off with a bang! This is something that probably knocked the scribe off his perch when he first read it. Instead of crying foul and singing the blues over persecution and "trials of many kinds," James goes the other direction entirely. He doesn't just say to be willing to go through it, not just "don't worry, be happy." He says to consider it pure joy! Be as happy as you can be that you're going through a horrible time, because it makes your faith real. Like a muscle, faith has to be exercised to be useful. The more you exercise your faith, the stronger it becomes.

Anyone who has exercised knows that building up muscle is painful and difficult to put up with. Moreover, I've climbed mountains, and I know that only the most conditioned, seasoned veterans can make a serious effort to conquer Everest. The training takes years of work, but candidates for the climb endure it willingly because they want to be ready and able to go. They work to have the endurance to make it to the top. They have put in so many hours strengthening their bodies to endure the greatest challenge in climbing.

Unlike the Everest hopeful, however, the Christian exercising their faith does not have an summit in mind. Instead, James offers a mature and complete faith as the goal for the Christian, being ready for anything that comes. Our perception is extremely limited, and we are in no position to declare, "At last, I've arrived!" The moment we do, it's our undoing because either we let go of the training or we allow pride to set us up for a fall. This is why James immediately advises going to God for wisdom. Wisdom guards the Christian against these mistakes.

5 If any of you lacks wisdom, he should ask God, who gives generously to all without finding fault, and it will be given to him. 6 But when he asks, he must believe and not doubt, because he who doubts is like a wave of the sea, blown and tossed by the wind. 7 That man should not think he will receive anything from the Lord; 8 he is a double-minded man, unstable in all he does.

Faith leads to believing that God can do what He offers and promises. Doubt is essentially anti-faith. Where faith says, "I believe," doubt says, "I disbelieve." So those who believe in God need to go all-or-nothing. You can't have two minds about anything in life and expect to go anywhere or do anything of consequence. Someone like that will not make use of any gift he is given. God, Who knows our thoughts, won't give what won't be used.

Solomon is a great example. When God offered Solomon anything, he asked only for wisdom, and God greatly blessed him. Solomon would later make great use of the gift. Here the offer of wisdom from God extends to everyone in the faith. This is not the worldly wisdom, the cover-your-tail, get-all-you-can and can-all-you-get wisdom. It is godly wisdom that does not go forward in spite of the supernatural, it goes forward embracing the supernatural. It looks beyond the temporary illusion of this life toward the eternal, lasting and real. James illustrates to this transcendent wisdom in the next few verses.

9 The brother in humble circumstances ought to take pride in his high position. 10 But the one who is rich should take pride in his low position, because he will pass away like a wild flower. 11 For the sun rises with scorching heat and withers the plant; its blossom falls and its beauty is destroyed. In the same way, the rich man will fade away even while he goes about his business.

Christians can make the error of believing that riches are a sign that God approves of a person's heart. On the other hand, we can also mistakenly believe that only the poor can be spiritual. James makes the point that riches and poverty are not good or evil of themselves, but each offers its own opportunity to move forward in the faith. The poor Christian develops faith by relying on God for daily providence and the rich Christian develops faith by looking beyond temporary riches and seeking God's eternal glory.

If it isn't good or evil, why does James link the poor with high position and the rich with low position? It seems that he is taking Matthew 23:12 into account when Jesus said, "Whoever exalts himself will be humbled, and whoever humbles himself will be exalted." James views his world with the topsy-turvy glasses of the Kingdom and uses the irony of high vs. low to emphasize the difference between worldly and Kingdom perspectives.

James ties it all together in the last verse here,

12 Blessed is the man who perseveres under trial, because when he has stood the test, he will receive the crown of life that God has promised to those who love him.

That is the result of our goal! We will have "arrived" only when we receive that crown of life. God makes the award to us when our time is over and we have completed the test. He is the ultimate judge and only He can give something that is eternal. Anything man gives is temporary. Even that Awana award you may have earned in the 5th grade is landfill material. The lasting, eternal award of life is what we truly crave, and we only get it when we've stood the test.

13 When tempted, no one should say, "God is tempting me." For God cannot be tempted by evil, nor does he tempt anyone; 14 but each one is tempted when, by his own evil desire, he is dragged away and enticed. 15 Then, after desire has conceived, it gives birth to sin; and sin, when it is full-grown, gives birth to death.

James is trying to help us understand that while God allows us to be tested, He does not do the temptation. The desires of our hearts drag us away from God and entice us to sin. He doesn't point out Satan as the source of temptation, as dualism would have us believe. No, Satan is an accessory to the crime, not necessary for sin to come forward.

Christians can be lead into a time of testing just like the testing the Spirit led Jesus to face. Jesus had to stare down the darkest desires of His fully human heart and steadfastly resist those desires using the Word of God. He did not use his human strength, but God's strength, to resist the desire. Verse 15 paints a picture that every farmer, shepherd or parent can understand. Desire conceives sin and gives birth to it, and once sin itself is fully developed, it gives birth to death. Sin is something that seems good at the time, but when it plays out, yields death to the user. It's also necessary to point out that having desires is not sinful, but the act of entertaining those desires allows sin to be conceived. We are not sinful for having human desires for power, sex, money, etc. It is when we pay attention to those desires, when we feed and nurture those desires that we blunder forward into sin. Temptation toward death can't come from the same source as the source of life. Instead of God tempting us, God gives us gifts that lead toward life and love.

16 Don't be deceived, my dear brothers. 17 Every good and perfect gift is from above, coming down from the Father of the heavenly lights, who does not change like shifting shadows. 18 He chose to give us birth through the word of truth, that we might be a kind of first-fruits of all he created.

The same God who created the sun is unchanging and constant, in other words, completely unlike the Greek gods of the time who saturated Mediterranean culture. Greek gods were capricious and arbitrary in their dealings with men. Instead, God persists in giving life to us, re-birthing us from death to life through the Gospel, making us the forerunners, the standard-bearers of the new heaven and new earth, crowned with this new life.

Stay tuned for part 2

When A Curriculum Doesn't Work

2009-02-28T10:50:00.007-07:00

Marsha over at the Heart of the Matter Online is blogging about how it's okay to be a quitter. Homeschooling parents take heed.

I Am A Newspaper Guy Without My Newspaper

2009-02-27T14:30:00.007-07:00

My newspaper died today.

The Rocky Mountain News started daily publication in 1860, a full year before the "War Between the States." If you look at the front page of the very first issue, it says Cherry Creek, K. T. That K.T. stands for Kansas Territory because Colorado wasn't a state until 16 years later in 1876. After 149 years of the daily Rocky Mountain News, Denver will wake up tomorrow to find that she's gone, terminated by a guy in a suit, as Littwin says. Instead of soldiering on and keeping jobs in the deepening economic turmoil, Scripps shafted the paper.

Nearly as long as there has been a Denver, there has been a Rocky Mountain News. My grandmother was a typesetter for them long ago. She worked many years as a single mom to my mother. Years later, she received a gift from them commemorating the 125th anniversary of the paper and she was so tickled that they remembered her. They remembered her because the Rocky had heart. Unlike that broadsheet abomination, the Rocky was a family.

More importantly, my grandmother gained some satisfaction that she was a part of something that was making a difference in the lives of people. When you got the paper, you had news of all sorts that mattered. It came in length of details that was ruled more by the cost of ink than by the time it took someone to regurgitate the facts to a camera. Am I a newspaper guy? You better believe it. The newspapers gave enough information to form an opinion about something. The nightly news shows jump from story to story, never giving you the opportunity to look deeper.

But the nightly news didn't kill the Rocky. Was it the Internet instead? No, the net has been popular for 15 years or nearly that. The Rocky adapted, and put out a superior product online. People still bought the paper, though, because it's tough to bring your computer with you to the park, the cafe, or the bathroom. No, the Internet may have wounded circulation, but it didn't kill it. What killed my Rocky is the tightening purse strings in Denver and beyond. People, it seems, like to eat, and if the choice comes down to paper or food, people find the food more useful. The Rocky, which survived the Great Depression of the 1930s, will not survive the depression we now find ourselves in.

So if there's any consolation in the final edition of a great newspaper, it's that her passing is neither unnoticed nor unmourned. Reading the Rocky as a kid helped me understand the world around me in a way that no other medium could do. It trained my mind to ask good questions and to expect good answers. It showed me what good journalism, what good writing will do for people. My first letters to the editor were published in the Rocky. It will always be my newspaper, and today was its final day.

What Fatherhood Is Worth

2009-02-25T19:06:00.006-07:00

A friend of mine sent me the following quote. It's a priest responding to a complaining father out of the book Power to the People by Laura Ingraham.

"The time you spend with your children may prevent you from having the promotion you've always wanted, may force you to sacrifice friendships and hobbies that you wanted to pursue, and may even place a strain on your marriage. But this is what you must do. You are their father and the relationship you have with these children will affect them for the rest of their lives."

We all do it. We forget the size of the shadow we cast, and who it falls on. As fathers, our actions affect so much more than just ourselves. It ripples down to our children and our grandchildren. It's not just a single act for good or ill. It's a series, a pattern we imbue on our children. We can't just show up at graduation and say, "I'm here. Good job, son." It's being there, day after long and weary day, for each of our children. Fatherhood is less quality time and more quantity time with quality thrown it from time to time. Friendships, hobbies, and career goals die a quiet death as fathers decide that they will make time for their children. It is a noble calling to be a father, and it is worth everything you put in.

"I had big dreams when I was a child. But without my dad, those dreams might not have come true. He brought stability to my life. He made my world a safe place in which to think and to learn. And though not every boy may aspire to become a football coach, every father can aspire to become the dad of his child's dreams. But to make that a reality, fathers must choose daily to work toward that goal."
— Super Bowl Champion Pittsburgh Steelers coach Mike Tomlin

What more needs to be said?

Little 5 Year-old Calls 911, Saves Dad's Life

2009-02-24T12:17:00.003-07:00

This little bit of homeschooling paid the boy's dad back in spades. This is just another part of the curricula for us.

Good job, Tyler.

Tiger Balm, Tolkien and Taking A Little Off The Top

2009-02-12T23:00:00.006-07:00

I know. I know I haven't published anything in close to 10 days (10!) but I've been writing--oh, I've been writing! In my mind, more than anything, actually, because I can't sit at the keys. Something about this weather lately has been kicking me back and forth from the bed to the bathroom to the den, right past the keys, and straight underneath warm blankets that smell of Tiger Balm, Ben Gay and Green Tea, much like I do, I'm afraid.

I have been reading Tolkien again, and like a chameleon, I take on the voice of the author in my thoughts and my writing. Terrible thing, really. Talking in half sentences like this. Dangling participles over capricious phrases, writing like this can be a chore.

Why am I reading Tolkien? Well, I made the kids a promise. Sarah (12) and Bubba (9) are approaching the age where their peers are asking them "You haven't seen The Lord of the Rings?" Like they're asking them if they still suck their thumbs. So, I turned to them one evening and told them, "If you can read through the books, you're ready to watch the movies." Ha! I thought, This will be fun. Bubba will bog down in the Council of Elrond. Everyone does. He'll get discouraged and pick it up again when he's ready.

He's on page 210 of the Two Towers, far outpacing his sister! Aigh!

As a result, we just watched the first hour of the Special, Extended, Super-Colossal, And-You-Thought-The-Books-Were-Long Edition DVD of the Fellowship of the Ring. They are eating it up! And this even after I showed them the long segments on Tolkien and how they adapted the book to the movie, which are really helpful for people who read the books. It seems they're the ones that get steamed about Tom Bombadil only showing up on milk cartons--"Have you seen me?"--on Hobbit first-breakfast tables.

Anyway, I've been writing. I have an open letter to my son that I plan to put up soon, if I can get around to editing it. It's all about relationships, but I won't tip my hand too much. I also have something about skiing, but I don't want to drag anyone through that's not willing, so I'll give fair warning in the title. Nothing like getting snow in you keyboard from an errant skier.

So I'll close with a quick observation in a field I am mostly inexperienced at analyzing, politics. Never has our fair Republic been in greater danger of falling to the wolves. The center of political power in America, Congress has already purchased--ipso facto--the banks of our nation with their bailout. They are now calling their erstwhile managers to account for the money. Does anyone else think this a little... well, what's the word... incredible? Here we have an entity so incapable of fiscal responsibility, it took them years to discover that the House checking accounts were a little overdrawn. There's only one thing worse than Congress ousting the Golden Circle of Bank Presidents and their cadre, and that is Congress letting them stay in power. So where's the danger? If things get worse under a liberal President and a liberal Congress, the state of our societal morals tells me that we will have a French Revolution, not an American one, looking us straight in the eyes.

Small-time Observation: The thing about history is that you have so many years to think about other people's mistakes and the thing about the present is that you have so little time to fix your own.

He Knows Your Heart

2009-02-04T15:48:00.005-07:00

Last night, I was up late again. I didn't know why I couldn't get to the sleepy point where I knew I was ready for bed. I'd had a medical appointment yesterday and the news wasn't entirely positive. Add to it the news that our house payment will be going up next month. I watched the hours tick away. Two o'clock ticked by, three o'clock, then four... Finally, at five, I asked out of frustration, "What is it?!"

"Steve," I felt the Holy Spirit say, "you're not trusting me!"

"Oh."

"Go and lie down. Leave the rest to me."

I did, and I fell asleep as God brought scriptures and promises to my mind.

Aaron gets it. We may fool others. We may fool ourselves, but we don't fool God. God knows our hearts much better than we do.

JellyTelly Launch

2009-01-30T16:52:00.000-07:00

Hmm. JellyTelly. Interesting.