Duckabush Blog: Musings Archives

Dreams

The other night I went to bed before 10 pm – nearly an unprecedented event in my experience – I usually am much more of a night-owl unless I am sick. Even so, morning came much too quickly, and I’m feeling drowsy as I ride the train northward.

I’ve been watching Rudy lately – a movie about a kid who dreams of playing football for Notre Dame, and eventually (through sheer stubborn perseverance) fulfills that dream. While I am not much of a sports guy, I have to admire the diligence and effort this character puts into making his dream a reality. As with many of these sports movies, the musical score is very good, tugging at my emotions and pulling me in to the fantasy that playing for Notre Dame is somehow a noble objective in and of itself, worth the effort and passion that is poured into it by this young man.

Don't get me wrong, it is a very convincing delusion.

At one point in the movie, Rudy is discouraged and about to quit because of an unfortunate change in coaches and a promise made to him by the old coach that seems unlikely to be fulfilled. One of his mentors points out that by playing on the team and attending Notre Dame, Rudy has already accomplished something worth doing, and that he should not quit. “You’re five feet nothin’, a hundred and nothin’, and you’ve got hardly a speck of athletic ability – and you hung in with the best college football team in the land for two years! And you're also gonna walk out of here with a degree from the University of Notre Dame. ” Somehow, Rudy finds this encouraging and goes back to practice.

It makes me think about my own situation in life and the many gifts and opportunities that have been lavished on me. Watching Rudy struggle through his classes at Holy Cross (before he manages a transfer to Notre Dame) reminds me of my own college career and the intelligence that God has given me. While I may be currently working in a job that does not particularly challenge me intellectually, I work among some of the smartest people I have ever known. Perhaps the challenge for me here is to learn everything I can, without being distracted or discouraged by the mundanity of my job. While Rudy is mostly a fictional character, the movie was based (however loosely) on a real-life story – it makes me think about my own dreams and what I need to do to make them happen.

So, what are my dreams? I’ve always wanted to be a Dad and a husband – check for Dad, check for husband. Except it turns out these goals are lifelong marathons, not sprints, so I guess I’m living the dream. One career or vocation I’ve long wanted to pursue is to be a missionary – yet there is a sense of not being called to that yet (or is that just fear?) in my heart.

Sometimes you just have to rough up your dad.

I’ve never expected to be particularly successful in business, and I don’t think I have enough ability to compromise to be a politician. I’ve never felt called to be a pastor or any full-time ministry that would require a pastoral mindset (I just don’t seem to have that kind of patience). I guess I always wanted to be the lead developer on a team. I certainly enjoyed the work I did at Ford -- I really had fun finding the best way to accomplish things and laying down a pattern for the other developers.

When I was in college, Kathy and I attended the Urbana Missions Conference through InterVarsity Christian Fellowship. At that point I had not yet set foot on the career path I've chosen (or fallen into), and I remember being very much attracted to a computer job in Ghana or the Ivory Coast with one of the missions agencies. These past 15 years I have often remembered that dream and wondered what my life would have been like if I had pursued that opportunity.

Hard to believe we aren't still this young.

Strangely, one of the things that has always held me back was something that was said at that same conference. One of the speakers was trying to challenge the students at the conference to think seriously about having a missions mindset, and he said something like this: “If you’re not being a missionary on your own campuses, where you already speak the language and are familiar with the culture, how are you going to be a missionary in a foreign culture where you don’t speak the language?” I recall feeling very challenged by that statement and I returned to my campus with that in mind, but as I have aged, I haven’t become much bolder in my witness. I still struggle to speak openly about the Lord in the workplace or with strangers I meet – a sense of unworthiness continues to hold me back from even investigating mission opportunities.

It has also been rather scary to watch our friends who are in language school as they prepare to serve as missionaries in Thailand with New Tribes Missions. As they move from school to school, they pack their entire household into a tiny trailer – just the thought of limiting our stuff at that level is daunting.

Daniel & Zachary -- It is always hard to let the Burts go.

While we’ve never been wealthy by American standards, I have generally enjoyed a decent flow of income (except for a recent period of unemployment). What would it be like to be on the other end of the financial spectrum, to work in a field where wealth is not the measuring stick? I can’t imagine that I would be very good at raising support … maybe I could show slides of malnourished computer programs in Kenya and network routers starved of RAM in Mozambique?

I don’t think that this desire to be a missionary is something that Kathy shares, and I’m reasonably sure that God does not generally call a married person to ministry like this apart from their spouse. So perhaps this is merely a mid-life crisis brought on by lack of achievement and a less-than-exhilarating job? I’m at the right age for such a crisis, although calling this a ‘crisis’ seems a bit dramatic. I suppose I could rush out and purchase a sports car. Truth be told, if I get a decent raise, I’m thinking about buying a VW beetle to replace my rapidly-disintegrating bronze Escort.

I can picture it now – I bring it home and park it in the driveway, gleaming in the sun – the kids rush out, shouting, “Daddy bought a Herbie!” I smile proudly until they start jumping on the front of the car, when my smiles turn to panic: “Respect the perimeter – respect the perimeter around the Herbie!” (See Cheaper by the Dozen -- the latest remake.)

Maybe I should just go play football for Notre Dame.

The Bus of Life

After several weeks of no field trip Mondays, I finally came close to finishing the Camp Video project I’ve been working on the past months, and declared that field trips would be reinstated. We needed to drop off the first 50 copies of the DVD, so we set out for the Duckabush, amidst much rejoicing.

For a long time I have wanted to visit the Undersea Warfare museum in Keyport, and once I saw that admission was free, I determined to take the kids there. We packed a picnic lunch and headed north, arriving at Keyport in a little less than an hour.

The museum was very interesting but it held minimal appeal for the younger children. Most of their experience is with hands-on science museums, and they have come to expect that museums are like playgrounds. The U.S. Navy, aiming at adults and older children, do not permit most of their exhibits to be handled, which made the experience a little more sterile than my kids prefer. Rachel was rebuked for climbing on a torpedo within a minute of our arrival, setting a negative tone on the experience which was never really dispelled.

The Quilcene valley on a foggy Spring day.

We returned to our car to eat lunch and continued on our way to the Duckabush. Determined to redeem the day, I drove the kids to the Mt. Walker lookout point and let them feed the camp robber birds that congregate there.

For David, feeding birds is a great wonder of the world.

This was much more fun than looking at a bunch of stuffy old submarine models, and the kids vied with one another for the privilege of having the birds take potato chips out of their hands. The clouds were low, but broke clear of the mountains several times – it was good to see recent snow on the Olympic Mountains after such a dry winter.

Daniel is a little jumpy, but the birds eventually came to trust him.

I don't know quite why this part of the outing was such a hit, but they really seemed to get a kick out of random birds stealing our potato chips.

Joshua was a little worried the birds were getting too many saturated fats.

We eventually arrived in the Duckabush Valley around 3 pm (so much for my intentions of getting an early start!) and handed the camp videos off for distribution. I’m not sure why the kids like visiting our old homestead so much – but they immediately scattered outside to re-acquaint themselves with the grounds.

Even in a large family, there is sometimes a little friction, but nothing that can't be worked out with a baseball bat.

After looking over the progress being made on the Retreat Center, we found ourselves down at ‘Twin Bridges’ where we played in the stream for what seemed like a long time. There is something about running water that will keep children amused indefinitely – indeed, I found myself quite engrossed in boat races. Through some freak chance, Daniel and David avoided falling into the stream and it was Rachel who had to go back to the house to change.

Sarah really enjoyed going back and forth across the bridges, as have many of her siblings before her.

While you might think that five children and their Dad would be unwelcome in polite society, one of our former neighbors insists that we visit whenever we are out that way, so we dutifully invited ourselves over to their house (it was sheer coincidence that it was dinner time). After enjoying conversation, pizza and macaroni and cheese, we sat down and watched one of the Camp DVDs together. The video seemed to be a success, and we tore ourselves away around 8 pm, heading home tired but happy. We missed the Burts, though – it doesn’t seem right to hang out at the Bringhams' house without them.

This weekend Kathy will be away on a women’s retreat and so I will have the kids to myself for much of the weekend – it will be interesting to see if I can maintain my ‘fun Daddy’ image for the long haul. It is supposed to be rainy, which will add to the challenge – everyone gets a little stir-crazy when it rains the whole weekend.

OK, so I had a lot of pictures of kids feeding birds. So sue me.

This morning my commute was a bit more exciting than usual – I got a late start and there were two accidents on the highway, so I had to run to catch my train. At a later stop, I saw a man coming down the stairs from an overhead walkway – he started to run, then he must have realized that he wouldn’t make it to the train in time, so he slowed down. Inexplicably, the train doors remained open much longer than expected, but by the time he realized this and resumed his headlong pace down the stairs, he was too late. I think life is like that sometimes – we don’t try to reach for something because we think we won’t make it, and then it turns out that if we only had tried we would have reached our goal. I guess that guy will take the bus in to work and will probably arrive 20 minutes late – how many of us are settling for the Bus of Life when we could, with a little exertion, be riding the train?

Spring into the Future

It is cool and crisp this bright Tuesday morning, and the sun made driving difficult as I rushed to reach the train station in time. Today (or maybe yesterday) is the first day of Spring – fittingly, we had the first frost that we have had for some time, today.

Kathy has been encouraging me to take these alfalfa tablets recommended by one of her friends in the Homeschool Co-op – I’m not sure they’re helping, but my allergies don’t seem as bad as they have been in previous years. Last year, of course, I was clever enough to be invited to Michigan for the celebration at Trinity Evangelical Presbyterian Church, and missed the worst of the allergy season.

It is funny to think of what a difference a year has made in our lives, remembering that at this time a year ago I was at the end of a 17-month period of unemployment. Now I have been working for my current employer for nearly a year and am anxiously awaiting my first annual review … I wonder where I will be a year from now?

Over the weekend I continued my unpopular ‘No field trips until the WNW 2004 DVD is finished’ program, much to the dismay of my children and (perhaps even more) my wife. Kathy managed to snatch a quick visit over to Julee’s house but otherwise missed her down-time on Monday grievously. Joshua cleverly persuaded me to read a few chapters of The Hobbit between DVD burns, but the others were largely neglected. My 'Dad ratings' are plummeting, and the pressure is on to come up with something really fun for next week’s outing. I made a wry comment to Kathy that I wouldn’t know what to do with myself if I ever finished this project – the kids all agreed that I could use my spare time planning our Monday field trips. How kind of them to think of a use for all that (otherwise wasted) time.

There is just something really cool about having a sister, as Kathy often laments.

I was off on Friday and haven’t checked my e-mail all weekend – I’m a little worried that something may have come up over that time that needed my attention. On the flip side, I’m a little worried that I wasn’t missed at all and that I am not very essential to my employer. I guess you can’t have it both ways. Today is my last day of alternate on-call – how nice that the pager hasn’t woken me up once during these last two weeks.

As the summer approaches our thoughts turn to the question of where we will live once our lease runs out on this house. We’ve been fairly happy here but are not eager to continue paying rent at this high rate. I’m of the mind to purchase a home in the Puyallup or Sumner areas, depending, of course, on a favorable performance review and some modest increase in pay. Kathy is very happy in Lakewood, though – maybe we could find a home that is a little closer to the train station yet still in easy range to the YMCA, the Homeschool Co-op and Julee’s house. Yesterday we scored a bag of chocolate-chip cookies from Kathy’s friend – such advantages are not to be overlooked in choosing a home.

The older kids continue to pray that we could move back to the Duckabush, but my work situation does not seem to be moving toward a work-from-home arrangement. Truth be told, I am not so inclined to push for permission to telecommute now that I see how happy Kathy is, living in the suburbs. Of course, it is non-trivial to buy a home when we are already paying a mortgage on our home in the Duckabush – house prices in the area are up as interest rates continue to be low. I think that space is one of our biggest priorities, although proximity to a train station looms in my thinking.

Neither Kathy nor I are big savers, so coming up with a 20% down-payment is pretty much out of the question. One possibility is to take advantage of my eligibility for a VA loan – but the funding fee of 1.5% - 2.25% is a bit of a deterrent, and even there it would be to our advantage to come up with a substantial down-payment. I guess if God wants us to own a home rather than pay rent, He can work out the finances.

The train is fairly full today, although initially it seemed very empty when we started out in Tacoma. People must be tired – a much higher proportion of people are dozing than usual. Or perhaps they are just closing their eyes against the slanting rays of the sun, unaccustomed as we are to its glory.

Daffodils and DVDs

After what seems an interminable stretch of warm and sunny days, this morning is cloudy and cool, and there is a rumor of this crazy wet stuff that falls from the skies (I think they call it ‘rain’). In spite of the universal cloud cover, sunshine bathes the slopes of The Mountain and illuminates the daffodil fields outside Puyallup to the delight of my eyes.

I woke at 4:50 this morning, wheezing and snurfling from my allergies, and spent some entertaining 40 minutes trying to get back to sleep, as the paper route lady with no muffler continued her plague of our street with her comings and goings. Eventually I gave up, and took solace in a long hot shower, only emerging when the water temperature began to fail. Whatever troubles may accrue in life, everything is more bearable when there is plenty of hot water.

I’ve been on-call this week, which was a source of some concern initially – I was worried that I wouldn’t know how to assign the tickets as they came in (finding who is responsible for a problem is a real challenge where I work). It has been a pretty quiet week, however, and I’ve only been paged a few times (and none at night). Today I hand off the duty to someone else, and I don’t come up for a turn again for several months.

Over the weekend I have been working on the much-delayed Wilderness Northwest 2004 Day Camp DVD, and so I didn’t take the kids on any kind of outing (except a brief walk around a nearby lake). I felt that I needed to stay near the house in case I was paged – as it turned out, this was an unnecessary precaution. If I hadn’t stayed home, though, it would be just my luck that I’d be off in some remote place and all kinds of trouble would break loose.

I have five children, but they ride like a thousand.
I’m trying hard to finish the DVD before Easter – it is rapidly coming to the point that if I don’t finish soon, the video will be of little use to Jody and the camp. Initially I told Jody I hoped to finish by Thanksgiving, then Christmas and Valentines’ Day. Easter is pretty much my last fall-back position – beyond that, kids will already have signed up for the 2005 camp session. I don’t know how movie directors can stand to cut out all those good scenes – I’m trying to cut about 40 hours of video down to about 130 minutes, and it is a real challenge.

Over the weekend we attended a seminar on preventing child abuse and molestation at church – a required seminar for all those volunteering to serve with children’s ministries. A chilling and unpleasant topic, the seminar ran from 8:30 am to 1:30 pm Saturday, effectively monopolizing the day. On a more positive note, I had the opportunity to see an old friend and mentor who preached at Main Post Chapel on Fort Lewis, and to chat with him for more than half an hour after the service. We also attended the Concert of Prayer at church Sunday night, which was a lot more fun than I expected. Joshua, Rachel and Daniel joined us and were not afraid to pray out loud in their small groups – I was proud of them.

I always brace myself on Tuesdays, because it is the start of my week, now that I am working four-day work-weeks. But it is remarkable how quickly the weekend comes along again – working only four days is a privilege I am coming to really enjoy.

Ice Cream Tantrums

Special Days with David are full of fun and laughter.

Now that Christmas is over (and we have finally taken down our tree) we are getting back into a more scheduled lifestyle. Kathy has hit the homeschooling trail hard, and I’ve re-established Special Days with each of the kids. Strangely, most of them have come to prefer that I snuggle down on Big Blue (our new double recliner) and read to them, preferably with ice cream at the end of the hour. I recently started reading The Hobbit to Joshua and All Creatures Great and Small to Rachel. David and Sarah gather up a huge stack of books – only Daniel holds firm as a computer game player.

Book rascals

I was very impressed with little Sarah last week by the way she handled David’s Special Day. Her day is on Friday, and when Tuesday rolls around (David’s day) it seems to her to be about time for another day of her own. It is very hard for her to accept that I am reading to David and not to her. Traditionally I exclude the other children from whatever activity I am doing with the ‘special’ child, but David graciously allows Sarah to listen when I read him books – although he makes it clear that she may not sit between us. When it came time to have ice cream, Sarah had a hard time. I told her that it was not her Special Day and that the ice cream was only for David (and, of course, me). I reminded Sarah that her Special Day was on Friday and that she and I could have ice cream then. (Note that Special Days come, and Special Days go, but I get ice cream every weekday. I wonder who came up with that plan?) I'm thinking about marketing it as a new best-selling eating program -- maybe I'll call it the Fat Beach Diet?

Who wouldn't give this girl their ice cream?

Sarah actually handled it very well. She went and reported to Kathy with a sad face that the ice cream was only for David and Daddy. Then she came back and sat on the love seat and watched us eat. I’ve known a few two-year-olds in my time, and I can’t think of many that would handle such a thing without fussing and ruining the time for everyone involved – I was very proud of her character. After waiting a few moments to ensure that she was not about to launch into a tirade, I gave her the rest of my ice cream. I wonder if God sometimes waits to see how I will react to hardship before he rewards or blesses me? How much ice cream have I missed in my tantrums, and was any of it double chocolate chunk? Reflections of this sort can keep one awake nights.

Administrative Announcement

Due to the incessant bombardment of automated blog 'comments' advertising online poker and other less savory 'offerings', I have reluctantly shut down the comments feature on my weblog. Please feel free to e-mail me with any comments.

On a gentler note, may the Lord bless you and bring you joy on this glorious Christmas Eve.

Veteran Shopping Bringham Cousins

Another weekend has gone by, and Christmas rapidly approaches. I am always astounded at how quickly Monday morning arrives, especially when my alarm goes off. Today was a very good day in that I found a back exercise that gives me some relief from the pain of a recent injury. In the past ten days, I have experienced considerable pain in getting out of bed – my vertebrae seem to bitterly resent the transition from recumbent to vertical. It has frequently taken me 10-15 minutes of sitting cross-legged on the floor, rocking in pain, before I could walk comfortably to the bathroom or stand in the shower. Today I tried lying on my back and bringing both knees up toward my chest, holding them there for 45-60 seconds – hurray, it seemed to work, and I was able to get out of bed with nothing more than the usual morning sluggishness! How delightful that our bodies can heal, thanks be to God!

Our packages are pretty much all mailed off, except for one or two gifts that are not time-sensitive. Now our attention turns toward the impending arrival of the Kansas Edgrens. My brother is not able to get away from the demands of his job this season and so will remain in Korea – we will miss his sardonic wit and silliness, among other things. But Elizabeth, Timothy, Rebecca and Samuel arrive this afternoon, with much fanfare. I wonder how much it would cost to hire a small brass band to provide some genuine fanfare – I guess you need at least two trumpeters and a French horn … I’m not sure what the standards are for this kind of thing. It would be fun to meet them at the gate with a small celebratory band. Admittedly, airport security would never cooperate unless they were incentivized, but it could probably be arranged. Maybe I should have stuck with my studies as a trumpeter, even though I never got past third chair.

It is getting pretty grim as Kathy and I squabble with my parents for our fair share of time with ‘the cousins’. A lot of people think my Mom and Dad are sweet, godly people – but they don’t know the ugly truth. Last night I tried to put in our family’s bid for a few small social engagements with Elizabeth and the kids – but I was firmly rebuffed. My folks obviously intend to hog the Kansas Edgrens for themselves, abusing their position as host, with no regard for propriety or fair play. It is sad to see two people reach such depths of moral deterioration in their dotage, but I guess it is just a lesson to us all, to be on our guard. Even Solomon turned away from God in the last days of his life. But I’m struggling with the shame of it all – this is just not the kind of thing you expect to see in your own parents!

My parents aren't complete ogres. They did invite us over to dinner, so we could at least see our beloved relatives.

On Saturday I took the older kids out shopping – it was quite a madhouse out there. We were foolish enough to attempt Tacoma Mall as our first stop – it took 15 minutes to get from the highway exit to the parking lot, and 20 minutes to get out! The mall is a stone’s throw from the highway. It was maddening watching the traffic on the other side of the fence zip along as we sat motionless behind half a billion shoppers. The stores were crowded and the lines were long – my back was aching from the outset. But I was impressed with my older three – they were surprisingly generous in spending their accumulated wealth on their siblings and cousins, and not once did I hear the dreaded words, “Can I buy something for myself?” For reasons of secrecy, I went through the checkout line three times (once with each of the older three) – not my idea of a fun time. We moved on to visit Ross’, Bed Bath & Beyond, Barnes & Noble and finally Target, each time waiting through the lines. The line at Ross’ was so long that I ruthlessly abandoned Joshua to it and took the other two kids to Bed, Bath & Beyond – we made a circuit of the whole store and returned to Ross’, finding Joshua still in line. He was not particularly amused, but bore it without too many recriminations. I had fortified each of the children with a Slurpee after our harrowing escape from Tacoma Mall, so their spirits didn’t begin to flag until we finished Target (where the checkout lanes were blessedly short). Heading home, I began mischievously suggesting additional shopping destinations, while the kids chanted “Home, home, home” at the top of their lungs. A proposed visit to Ikea (40 minutes to the north, and known to be extremely crowded) brought out the most strident opposition, and so we returned home as conquering heroes.

I thought that Rachel really handled the news well, that we needed to go back to Tacoma Mall on Sunday.

The Bringhams came to visit us Saturday evening, arriving in time for supper and staying late into the evening, to celebrate Tom’s 50th birthday and to either celebrate or mourn the outcome of Tom’s recent application to the postmaster position in Brinnon. As we discovered, he did not get the job – I was encouraged by the way he bore the news cheerfully. It is hard when God says ‘No’, even when we trust Him to do the best thing.

The birthday boy himself, complete with entourage.

Our original plan had been to visit “ZooLights” – an elaborate Christmas light display offered by the Point Defiance Zoo. So after dinner we all piled into our respective minivans and drove to the north end of Tacoma, only to find that the entire population of Pierce County was there before us. People were parking on the street a half-mile from the zoo parking lot (which was presumably also full). Wisely deciding that discretion is the better part of valor, we turned our minivans around and headed back to the house for cake and ice cream. Still not very familiar with Tacoma, I led us haphazardly through some of the less-well-known neighborhoods until we finally found our way to a recognizable route home. The Bringhams stayed and talked fairly late, considering they were facing a 90-minute trip home – Tom left with Jeremiah and Teddi around 10 pm, but Casey and Annjanette stayed until after 11:30 pm. It was a delightful visit that brought back many happy memories of late-night gatherings in the Duckabush.

Sarah sure loves her 'Aunt' Casey.

Sarah and David have both been sick over the weekend, suffering from various flu-like symptoms, and so I stayed home with them and with Daniel while Kathy attended the Lake City church with the older two. In the afternoon we had the opportunity to go Christmas caroling at the nearby Veterans’ Hospital – I took the older three and joined my parent’s Sunday School class. It was very sad to see the people at the Hospital – they seem to be the wreckage and driftwood of humanity, cast up on a cold and uncaring rocky beach far from the warmth of home. Many of them showed little comprehension of the reason for our visit, staring blankly at us without expression as we sang. Our society is so shielded from any encounter with old or handicapped people – I was glad to have the opportunity to show this side of life to the kids.

Dreary Monday

It is a dark and dreary Monday, and I’m stuck sitting in traffic. The train is packed, which suggests that many saw the rainclouds and (like me) determined not to join the throngs splashing along on I-5. Usually this train moves along briskly, but today we seem to have lost priority and must wait patiently on some freight train or other. Not that I’m eager to get to work – on a day like this, people should all stay home and enjoy a good book in front of the fire.

I remember some job I had in which I always had Mondays off – that seems a very good way to live, as I recall. Working on Mondays is like waking up at 2:30 a.m. – it just isn’t right. I don’t think I’ve ever heard someone say,

“Yep, I got plenty of rest and enjoyed myself all weekend. Whooo-eee -- it is good to be back at work today!”

I suppose there are some who feel that way, but I hope not to meet such people, at least not today when I feel so gloomy.

Seattle is a beautiful place to live, but not in early December. The ugly warehouses and industrial detritus that we pass do little to lift the soul or inspire the poet. It seems a stark contrast to the blaze of lights and Christmas decorations we enjoyed last night as I finally set up the tree – definitely this part of Seattle could use some Christmas cheer.

He always was a snappy dresser.

I guess this day can't be all bad -- it is the birthday of my favorite brother. Happy birthday, Mark!

Worship

I seem to have finally settled on a church near our home, after trying five other churches, although Kathy continues to cast a roving eye at another church in the area. While there is probably always a better church on the other side of the fence, I feel that our family needs the stability of choosing a church, and this one has a number of the elements we consider critical. First, they are governed by a board of male elders. Church government structure wasn’t always so important to me, but after a negative experience with one church, I have come to consider this a critical criterion in choosing a church. We enjoy the liveliness of the worship service, which seems well-designed to glorify God in a joyful manner. The pastor of the church is a good preacher, and is forthright and likeable. There is a good program for our children, but no Sunday school for grownups (a worrying trend: Sunday school seems to have fallen out of vogue in many churches). The church has a large number of home-group Bible studies (we have not yet managed to join one, but have high hopes).

Our pastor has recently started a series on Worship. Ordinarily, after leading us in a few songs, the music team nips off-stage before the offering is taken. But last week they stayed on the platform for the duration of the service. After the pastor identified a number of the ways that we worship (Praise, Thanksgiving, etc.) we would sing a song that highlighted that attribute of the worship experience.

This week he focused on the different modes of worship, and again we were invited to a higher level of participation than is usual. We were taught on each subject and then practiced singing, shouting, bowing, clapping and the raising of hands as some of the modes of worship frequently mentioned in the Bible. The pastor claimed he couldn’t dance and thus was unwilling to teach on that expression – I suspect he knew that many of us would be a little put off by being required to dance in church.

Once again, I throw in a bunch of non-pertinent pictures, just because I can.

Participative worship is a bit of a stretch for me – I’m more comfortable with a reserved, unemotional worship style. I don’t generally raise my hands or clap or shout ‘Amen’ during the service. I have never been known to leap over chairs or dance in the aisles and am suspicious of churches that are long on emotional worship experience and (sometimes correspondingly) short on Biblical teaching.

But it seems that solid teaching and enthusiastic worship are not mutually exclusive. This pastor does an excellent job of sticking closely to the scriptures in his preaching and teaching, yet the worship that we enjoy is vibrant and full of emotion. It was a strange experience for me to progress through the various physical modes and through my corresponding emotional responses.

Singing was not very hard – I am a firm believer in singing loudly (and occasionally on-key) and am no stranger to the feeling of joy and enthusiasm that often accompanies such expression. Most songs have lyrics I can sing without hesitation, although there are a few that contain excessive hyperbole that I won’t sing. There is a chorus we used to sing in a previous church that talks about the way that God’s presence can be ‘felt’ in the church – it includes the phrase, “I can hear the angel wings brushing the walls” or something like that. Call me stubborn, but I have never yet heard the angel wings, so I don’t sing that song. Being a bit of a literalist, I’m not that keen on poetic license, anyway.

Next we practiced shouting, with focus on the words ‘Amen’ and ‘Praise the Lord!” Again, this wasn’t too difficult for me, although I’m wary of using this mode of expression as a way to say, ‘Hey, look at me, aren’t I spiritual!” I’ve attended churches where one or two people sing out an ‘Amen’ or ‘Preach it, brother’ every time the pastor pauses or finishes a sentence – personally, I find it pretty distracting, although it might be an encouragement to a pastor. At least he would know that someone was awake. But in this case, the whole congregation was invited to shout out together, and I found it … surprisingly powerful. There was a feeling of inhibitions being cast off and of moving to a higher level of sincerity in my worship toward God, disregarding the opinions of those around me. Since worship is all about God and very little about me, this seems appropriate. I shouldn’t be worried about looking (or being) a fool for Jesus’ sake. It made me think about the way the Israelites would sometimes shout -- as they did while marching around Jericho, for example.

Sometimes it is fun to just say "Wow!" to God.

We moved on to bowing and kneeling, which was a major departure from my usual worship style. I’ve attended churches with kneelers, but rarely used them; in such cases the practice has been thoroughly encysted with rote and ritual. The pastor simply asked us to kneel in place (if we could fit) or to bow our heads while the worship team sung ‘We Bow Down’ (a praise chorus made popular by Twila Paris). I scooted out to the aisle and dropped to one knee, attempting to humbly present my soul before the throne of God. As I knelt there before the King, I began to weep, tears dropping off the end of my nose and onto the carpet, creating a sizeable damp patch. I had the sense of being like one of the vassals of King Richard (the Lionheart) in the days of Robin Hood, presenting myself before the King upon his unexpected return and accounting for my conduct and my secretive support of his usurping brother, Prince John. While I have not openly supported my King’s enemies, there are many sinful things I have done which do not stand up well to scrutiny. It was a very uncomfortable feeling, yet one I am loath to forget. The simple physical sensation of bowing my head and causing my body to kneel seemed to produce in me feelings of humility and subordination to God that are (sadly) quite unusual for me. I felt deeply ashamed as I knelt there in the shabby rags of my pride and arrogance, squinting my eyes against the glory of the King of Kings and Lord of Lords. And so I wept for the entire song, unable to sing a word, although I know it well.

We moved on to clapping (which I dislike, possessing not a rhythmic bone in my body) – several times the pastor had us clap for God, giving Him honor with our hands. The problem with clapping for God is the question: how do you stop? God is worthy of infinite praise; he who stops first is somehow unspiritual, and there is no clear end-point as there is with a song. While I have no problem with giving honor to God, I don’t think clapping is the best avenue of expression for that – I’d much rather sing or shout something more meaningful that engages the mind. Plus, I was getting bruised hands from trying to be super-spiritual. :)

Finally, we sang a chorus with our hands raised – the pastor talked about how this posture communicates (among other things) affection, vulnerability and trust toward God. I was a bit skeptical, but I found that I did actually feel a little more connected to God when singing with my hands raised. I’m not sure I will adopt this practice as a part of my worship style, but I am much more open to it than I was before.

It was a moving experience, one which transformed a routine church service into a visit to the actual House of God. I have reflected on this most of the week, and have come to a few tentative conclusions:

• While any worship style can, over time, become rote and meaningless, some styles are less prone than others to becoming disconnected from the heart.


• Proper worship of God needs to incorporate a sense of humility. Kneeling seems to go a long way toward accomplishing this.


• I need to be a lot less concerned about what other people think of me, and a lot more concerned about what God thinks of me, when I am attending a worship service.

When King David wanted to honor God by bringing the Ark of the Covenant into Jerusalem, the occasion was marred by the death of Uzzah, son of the man who had kept the Ark in the years since it was fearfully and apologetically returned to Israel by the Philistines (as described in I Samuel 6 & 7). Uzzah, who ought to have known better, touched the Ark to steady it when one of the oxen pulling the cart stumbled; the wrath of God killed him for his presumption. This made David think less about the Ark as a talisman of God’s favor and more about God’s holiness and majesty – so he left the Ark outside the city for three months while he thought it over.

When he finally did bring the Ark into the city, it was with elaborate precautions and sacrifices. David himself was so anxious to please the Lord that he set aside his kingly dignity and danced in his undergarments in front of the Ark as it was brought into Jerusalem (II Samuel 6). David seemed to understand (as his wife, Michal, did not) that the only audience worth caring about was God.

Who knows? Maybe I’ll start dancing at church one of these days ...

Life in the Big City

Today is the last day of the class I have been taking at the University of Washington. Each Friday I take off early from work and from 2-5 pm I pretend I’m back in college (except for the Frisbee, wargaming, and sleeping-in until 1 pm). The course materials have been dull, and I have been rather bored. But I have found that enjoyment of academic pursuits are a lot about what you put into them … in my case, I get what I ‘paid’ for, since I’ve put little effort into this class. Over the past several weeks, I’ve gotten behind on my semester-end project and had to put in a lot of time this past week to catch up. Ironically, now that I am crunched for time, I find that the coursework interests me and I wish I had made better use of my opportunities to explore some of the more obscure facets. Today I present my class project – I feel a little sheepish about how much more developed it could have been. Hopefully I can bring this lesson forward, if they offer another class that interests me.

This is 4th Avenue, where I go on Friday afternoons for my class.

It is strange to live in the ‘city’ after spending four years in the wilds of the Olympic Peninsula. So many things are very convenient and accessible. Yesterday we had cable internet service installed at the house – for the first time ever we are enjoying a heady, high-speed alternative to 56K dialup. While many websites are still slow, download speeds for large content is brisk – it is very pleasant to surf the web without cement blocks on your feet. I spent almost two hours wrestling with our cable modem before I discovered that the connection could not be shared between several machines (only a single IP address is assigned to the cable modem). It turns out that (in order to share the high-speed connection) I need a router to sit between my computers and the modem – at the cost of another $60, arrrgghhh.

This is a strange building I often walk past -- I'd hate to be in there if another big earthquake strikes.

Kathy and I have been talking lately about the future – this life in Lakewood feels very temporary to me. I would like to either move back to the Duckabush (if my work would permit) or move closer to work (maybe near the Puyallup or Sumner train stations) once our lease is up with this house in August, 2005. Sometimes we talk about moving to Michigan (although our memories of the winters there have not sufficiently faded). Kathy really likes living in Lakewood – but my folks plan to move away (and I suspect she has the happy ability to be content anywhere). Then there is the question of my brother and his family – will they really move to Fort Lewis, or will they stay in Kansas, where they are very happy? Our families seem to be cursed (like Superman and Clark Kent) to never live in the same town. While I was finishing school in Virginia, Mark was in Germany. By the time he was assigned to Fort Monroe (VA), I had moved to CT. Then he was in Dayton, OH, but left around the same time I moved to Michigan. It would be typically ironic if my brother’s family moved here only to have us pull up stakes and move away.

Truth be told, we do have some misgivings about moving back to the Olympic peninsula, even if circumstances permitted and we could bring ourselves to give up high-speed internet service. Kathy and I were very hurt by the relational damage that came out of our disagreement with the local church's leadership, and we’re not sure that we could be happy there after all that has happened, and the way that relationships have been soured. It is such a tiny community that a little discord goes a long way.

My folks are enjoying the use of our house in the Duckabush valley as an experimental retreat center, while they continue to wait for the main Retreat House to be built. After a thorough cleaning by our beloved Judy, my folks have been furiously outfitting the house with beds and furniture. I understand that the first official retreat is scheduled in December – it is exciting to see this dream become more of a reality. On Saturday we are holding a board meeting out at the ‘Duckabush House’ (as our former home is now styled) and will likely discuss plans to move forward now that we finally have a permit to build the main retreat lodge. It is sad to me to think that we lived there all those years and only now that we are not there is the retreat center being built – again, we seem to be out of step with the proper schedule of things.

Every day, when I come to the platform, there are two identical trains sitting there. One goes south to Tacoma, while the other either sits there for another 30 minutes or heads north to Everett. The trains are both marked 'Tacoma' but only one is the proper train. It is a source of considerable confusion for me, not what I need at the end of a long day.

I’ve been reading in I Kings about the dedication of Solomon’s temple – what a surprisingly interesting passage! The description of the temple furnishings was reminiscent of the tabernacle passages in the Pentateuch – a modern Christian is left wondering why so much narrative was provided on a physical description of the temple when the time or space could have been (better?) used in moral instruction or revelation of God’s nature. I think that our post-modern cynicism and familiarity with spiritual things may cause us to seriously underestimate the holiness and majesty of God. Solomon had 120,000 sheep sacrificed (and sundry other animals) for the dedication of the temple of the Lord God. Most of us would have stopped at a ceremonial 12, if we could bring ourselves to sacrifice at all. The mind boggles at the scale of the bloodshed – yet Solomon’s long-winded and prophetic prayer seems to indicate that he had a pretty good idea of who God is. It must have been really something to be working in the temple when the Presence of God filled the temple area with a cloud – how awesome to see with your eyes a shadow of God’s majesty.

It is always good to be reminded of the awesome power of God – I know that I am prone to continually exaggerate my own importance in the scheme of things. Yesterday I was feeling gloomy (mostly due to a lack of sleep) and was thinking critical thoughts about the way that God is managing my life. Sad to think that I have still not learned the lesson that it is not all about me.

One of the things that troubles me is that I am not enjoying my work very much. A lot of what I do is pretty tedious and there is little opportunity to do anything well. I am almost always under time pressure such that I find myself always reacting and never working proactively. Much of my work is of the use-once, throw-away variety, which is unsatisfying to me. I tend to enjoy building something that has at least some lasting value – a non-trivial challenge in the world of software development. Even the best of computer systems cannot hope for much more than a five-year lifespan. Sadly, the prospects for change are fairly limited – there is no immediate hope of changing this job into something more interesting.

Almost immediately it seemed to me that the Holy Spirit put a thought into my head: what did the Lord do before beginning his public ministry at age 30? Here we have the Creator of the universe, King of King and Lord of Lords, who is willing to waste his time doing rough carpentry? Talk about throw-away work – from an eternal perspective, the things He built out of wood didn’t last very long. Surely He had better things to do with His time? Yet we find no mention of His activities between age 12 and 30.

I find that somehow comforting, as I speculate about the plan for Jesus’ life on earth. Were those 18 years important in terms of building a reputation, or giving Jesus credibility? Or were they critical in fulfilling the requirement that He be ‘tempted in all ways that we are tempted’? Whatever the reason, isn’t it likely that this time of my life, which seems to be going nowhere, is accomplishing some divine purpose?

It is hard to be patient, though. I guess that is one of the temptations Jesus faced – it surfaces in His remark to Mary at the wedding feast in Cana – “My time has not yet come.” (John 2) A human (and Jesus was fully human, yet fully God) feels the pull of time keenly – it must have been hard to wait on the timing set by the Father for the beginning of His public ministry. Jesus’ response to Mary’s faith and the immediate launching of His public ministry make me wonder if He was surprised to find that, in fact, the time had come for the gathering of His disciples and the beginning of His teaching and healing ministry.

Now that I have turned 39, I am a little more conscious of my mortality and the time that I have spent on various pursuits, some of them pretty worthless, some of them having eternal value. I guess all I can do is be patient, trying to redeem the time at work as best I can, watching for the opportunity to make something useful out of this time and learning whatever lessons God teaches me.

Birthday 39

It is a cool and dreary Friday afternoon, and the train is nearly full. Like many others, I hate fighting the southbound traffic on Fridays, which is usually worse when the roads are wet, and so I made sure to take the train today. I feel a little let down, because it was my birthday today, but there was nothing particularly special about it (at least so far).

Traditionally, I always take my birthday off from work, ever since I was scheduled to work at Holiday Inn on the evening of my 17th birthday, and decided to quit as a birthday present to myself. I have often joked that it is a warning sign to any employer if I don’t take my birthday off – they ought to start looking for a replacement. I think this may be an exception to that rule, since I have so little time off accrued, and much of it is spoken-for next summer. Having been unemployed for so long, I expect I’ll think long and hard before quitting any job.

This morning I was awakened before my alarm by a heavy, pounding rain. Here in the beautiful Northwest, we prefer rains that waft in as a gentle mist, keeping the foliage green and the reservoirs full, yet not seriously inconveniencing anyone. It is a courteous, gentlemanly rain, not like that brash, villainous rain they get in the Southeast.

But there is nothing courteous or gentlemanly about a rain like this morning’s, especially one that wakes me at 5:20 am. It is certainly true that I do not sleep as well with Kathy away. I roll around all night in a luxury of space that I simply do not deserve, and my conscience knows it and keeps my sleep uneasy.

There is a stark contrast between my daily schedule and that of the rest of my family, these days. As a reader might suppose from reading this blog, my life could be described by some as being comprised of long periods of boredom relieved by short periods of ennui. My work, fascinating though it may be to some, does not lend itself to epic story-telling, and my off-hours are spent mostly in quiet pursuits, such as reading or playing computer games. Insomniacs Anonymous has frequently sought me on as a guest speaker, and I understand that an MP3 file of my famous lecture on the relevance of IMS DB/DC COBOL programming is a popular download among those suffering from severe sleeplessness.

Kathy, however, is at the hub of all that is exciting and interesting, as her brother’s wedding preparations near completion and relatives flock in from all corners of the globe. I keep trying to persuade her to write a blog entry, but she cannot seem to tear herself away from the events of the day long enough to reflect. I understand that a power outage has struck the hotel where many of the out-of-town visitors are staying, and that some relatives are missing, presumed, well, missing. My children have joined Grand-dad in a frenzy of last-minute preparation of the Thornhollow grounds, but further details are not available.

Instead, I’ll regale you with tales of the course I am taking. In a partnership with the University of Washington, my employer offered a series of “continuing education” courses to those of us who require that sort of thing. Although my first choice course was cancelled, I did manage to enroll in another course, and spend three hours of my Friday afternoons across town listening to lectures about XML.

As it turns out, this is subject matter to rival my gripping IMS DB/DC discussion, and I find myself glazing over almost as soon as I settle in to my seat at the lab. To make matters worse, food and drink are banned from the classroom, so I am unable to jolt my system with a healthy swig of Diet Coke. From time to time I stagger out and take a gulp from the container I secret outside the classroom – I feel like some kind of derelict hitting the bottle. Maybe I should get a flask or a brown paper bag.

Recently the professor took a survey, and I had the opportunity to comment that I found the pace “way too slow”. It would seem that others agreed, because the instructor spoke with much more animation today and we were granted four hands-on exercises instead of the usual two. I suggested that he ask more questions, and so I cudgeled my molasses-filled brain and tried to actually answer when he did, in fact, ask. As with many things, you get out what you put into things – once I began to take a more active interest, I found myself more able to stay awake.

I had a lovely visit with my parents last night – strange to eat dinner & dessert with just the two of them – there was even a substantial amount of the Black Forest Cake left over! This would certainly never have happened if my horde of children were around – as it was, Dad and I put a brave face on it and each suffered through two pieces of cake. My Mom (who claims she ought to know this kind of thing) insists that I was born on the 6th of October. She hints that the doctor who delivered me was a bit on the inebriated side, and probably forgot to fill out the paperwork until he recovered from his hangover. Dad, ever the diplomatist, suggested we celebrate on the 7th as a sort of a compromise, and so I was treated to a birthday dinner and window-shopping excursion.

Thanks to my self-indulgent nature, I already have everything I could possibly want, and a fair number of things that I don’t want (as witnessed by the piles in our garage). I seem to be a difficult person for whom to buy a present.

I had planned to watch a DVD on my laptop today on the train-ride home – got the case out & opened it up – some fiend had put the case back but left the DVD in the player! Imagine my annoyance. Well, actually, readers of this blog probably know all about annoyance, as they hopelessly sift through the blather hoping for an occasional interesting word. I'd blather on, but the train seems to be arriving in Tacoma.

A Quiet Weekend

My folks took the older three kids to Lakewood for a couple of days – Kathy and I spent the time with only two little ones. It is very strange, remembering how life was, six or seven years ago when Joshua and Rachel were small. Of course, two children can suck up all your available time and attention just as well as five, except that nap time is a little quieter. After church I spent some time working on the Wilderness Northwest video, and then we went for a walk together in the late afternoon. We had a lovely visit with one of our neighbors; when we refused their invitation to come into the house (we were, after all, enjoying the outside) they all came out & sat on lawn chairs. We sat and talked for almost an hour – I was worried that we might have outstayed our welcome, dropping by unannounced as we did.

These two hardened criminals are frequently featured in the Police Blotter section of local newspapers.

One of the many things I like about living on the Duckabush is that most people have time for each other. Even a group of local teenagers (who could, in all courtesy, have simply made an appearance and then gone back to whatever they were doing) sat outside on the porch with us and talked. Of course, it didn’t hurt that David and Sarah were playing to the crowd, providing substantial entertainment by running around and making strange noises. There was a fierce kitten present, who kept stalking and pouncing on the kids, which was pretty funny. I think the kitten has some self-perception issues – she acts as though she were a 150-pound mountain lion.

Eventually we went home, and I made my rounds in my local garbageman role, gathering trash from a few neighboring homes (to help defray the cost of our dumpster). I wrestled with David and Sarah for a good long time, and somehow no one was injured (possibly a first), although David laughed so hysterically I thought he might faint. There is something very satisfying about the unbridled laugh of a little boy – it warms a very deep part of the soul that doesn’t get much sunlight.

You may have noticed that Sunday's blog entry was written by Kathy – for some reason, it pleases me greatly. I guess it is fun to have her join me in building something that I enjoy and value – “fellow workers in the vineyard” and all that (a quotation from one of our favorite holiday videos, Christmas in Connecticut).

Friday the 13th

It is Friday, the 13th, (well, it was when I wrote this, anyway) and so far nothing particularly unlucky has happened to me, although a pigeon just flew past my table inside the ferry and is now terrorizing nearby passengers with the fear that it may be incontinent. When I worked at the Department of Agriculture, one of my co-workers once suffered from a pigeon’s indiscretion on his bald spot – he was thoroughly disgusted, as I recall. Hopefully this bird can escape through the open doors at the front of the ferry without offending in this manner.

We were delayed leaving the dock by a large Egyptian ship, the Wadi Alrayan, registered out of Alexandria. Carrying in the neighborhood of 700 sea-containers (11 rows, 13 columns, stacked on average 5 high = 715), this squat barge-like vessel wallowed across our watery path in languid insolence. One can only speculate as to what Seattle could be shipping in such quantities to Egypt, if that is indeed the intended destination. At the rate they are currently traveling, I hope it isn’t anything perishable, like, say, coffee?

Today is the last day of Vacation Bible School at the Quilcene Bible Church – the reports I hear from the kids are very positive. Joshua was given a role in the closing program skit, which he invariably enjoys. I hope to get to the church in time to see some part of the program, if the road construction delays are not too severe.

[Roll the clock forward two hours ...]

As it happened, I walked in the door of the church just as Joshua was narrating for his group’s skit – I hope that he saw me standing in the back. He did a great job, and was complimented by a number of people. At the end, he stepped out of his role as narrator and joined those in the skit who were crossing over the bridge from death into life -- he wasn't too cool to physically climb up on the table and walk across, even though he could have avoided it as narrator. I guess he knew which side he wanted to be on -- I was proud of him. Now I’m sitting outside, behind the church, in self-imposed exile with my two youngest (and loudest) children, as the closing program continues in (relative) quiet.

Kathy and I are thinking seriously about moving to a rental house somewhere closer to my work. Whatever the future may hold, it seems that we must plan for the strong possibility that I will not be able to work from home in the near term. Kathy’s friend Julee was here Wednesday and Thursday, singing the praises of Lakewood. We contacted a rental agent and found a few homes that might provide enough room for our horde while not breaking us financially. One possibility is that we might make our existing home available to The Refuge over the course of the next year. Alternatively, we might find an inexpensive smaller home, and live part time in town, part time in the country. I think that both plans have merit – it will largely depend on what we find in terms of available rental properties.

MP3 Player

I bought a cool new MP3 player that has a little camera on it -- this is a picture I took with it:

I admit, I am easily amused by technological toys; it is a characteristic I share with my brother and (I'm afraid) a lot of other men. Let's face it -- most of us never did quite get enough walkie-talkies or remote-control cars or video games. My new Archos MP3 player can take still shots, video, or voice recordings and it even has a little screen (very small, unfortunately) on which you can watch movies. A few weeks ago I loaded "Freaky Friday" onto it and watched it on the bus.

Kathy keeps asking me if I'm getting any use out of it -- have I loaded up my music on it, etc. The truth of the matter is, I get a lot of fun just carrying it around. And no, I haven't loaded up my music on it yet. But I did shoot some footage of driving up 101 (holding the MP3 player up below the rearview mirror). That section of the road is pretty curvy -- driving with one hand on the wheel while taking video didn't improve things much. I'm thinking of speeding it up several times and sneaking it into the next Refuge or Wilderness Northwest video.

Heavenly Color

Driving along 101 this morning, I was nearly blinded by the glory of the early morning sun, reflected in the waters of the Hood Canal. My soul was touched with wonder in the way the light edges the greens of grass and trees and the mountains with gold. No one else was driving past at that time, and I cast only a fleeting glance toward the mountains -- it seems such a shame to let that depth of rich color go unrecorded. And yet God expends such beauty every day in profligate waste. By rights, there should have been bleachers full of people watching that sunrise for an hour or more.

As we pull away from the docks of Bainbridge Island, the hazy bulk of Mount Rainier becomes visible around the end of the coastline, suspended in ghostly majesty at the horizon. How terrible it would be to lose my sight, to no longer enjoy the subtle shadings of greens and blues in the water, sky, and forested shore. Even the works of man, ugly off-white storage tanks and rusty breakwaters cannot mar the stunning beauty of this day.

I am often frustrated by my inability to capture and store up the scenes my eye can see. I remember camping as a child in Kandersteg, Switzerland, and rising early one morning to take snapshots of the alps. I was bitterly disappointed when my pictures came back from the developer -- how bland and colorless they seemed in comparison to the glorious blues and golds I remembered. Although my digital camera performs much better than that ancient children's camera, I frequently feel dissatisfied with the pictures I take, particularly of distant landscapes.

Our ferry had to slow and turn to avoid a small boat that had plotted an intercept course -- finally the boat's captain realized his peril and swerved to avoid us -- a jarring note to the morning. As the Coast Guard patrol boat's hovering presence reminds, we live under the constant threat of terrorist activity. Thoughts of the attack against the USS Cole casts a sobering pall over my enjoyment of the morning light.

What would it be like to enjoy the glorious goodness and beauty of God without the ugly intrusion of man's sin? C.S. Lewis has perhaps described it best, in the final paragraph of The Last Battle:

... but the things that began to happen after that were so great and beautiful that I cannot write them. And for us, this is the end of all the stories, and we can most truly say that they all lived happily ever after. But for them it was only the beginning of the real story. All their life in this world and all their adventures in Narnia had only been the cover and the title page: now at last they were beginning Chapter One of the Great Story, which no one on earth has read: which goes on for ever: in which every chapter is better than the one before.

Spring!

While I hear of snow flurries in other parts of the world, we enjoyed sunshine and temperatures in the upper 60's (I even used the seventy word in one phone call boast). I happened to be out on the road on Saturday, and saw many trees just bursting forth in bloom, several captured here. God sure did a nice job creating this earth, didn't He?

The First Flower of 2004

Spring is almost here! The trees are budding, and the flowers are starting to bloom -- here is the first flower that I have seen growing outside this year. I think it is some kind of a violet -- if you know its actual name, please post a comment.

Censorship

Big Brother is watching!!

And editing these posts--beware all who dare to write.

KME (maybe)

To Blog or Not to Blog

That is the Question. But I don't have the answer. I Blog because I must. You Blog because you are a "bucko." Tonight the blogging is a bit daft but then perhaps this is just a draft and we are all safe from my beginning blogging.

KME

The Muffin

This is, as we call her, the muffin. When you are short, you tend to have to look up a lot.

Time for a haircut

There comes a time in a man's life when he just needs shorter hair. For me, that time comes about once every three weeks, when the shaggy hair on the side of my head starts (ugh!) touching my ears. If this warning sign is ignored, the hair will sometimes even get so long that it actually (shudder!) needs to be combed.

Sad to tell, we've reached such a point here at the green house in the woods. Kathy's been avoiding her duties as hairdresser but I managed to extract a promise from her to cut my hair tonight. Sometimes if I am overly obnoxious about it, I get the kind of haircut that I deserve, but in general she is pretty careful.

Back in 1992, when Kathy and I first moved to Connecticut, I went out for a haircut and was apalled (appalled?) to pay $16 plus $2 for a tip! I was used to paying $3.25 for a military haircut -- these civilian prices seemed excessive. We rushed out to Caldor's (a department store) and purchased our first hair cutting kit. Over the years, we've bought at least 4 replacement kits (it costs nearly as much for a new blade as for a whole new kit) and saved hundreds of dollars on haircuts. Figure $16 x 12 (minimum one a month) x 12 (years of marriage) less $18 x 5 (haircutting kits) -- we've saved $2214 just for me, not counting the kids! (I admit, I had to use the calculator although I started out trying to do it in my head. In kinder days I used to give Kathy $10 for cutting my hair, but now I just take her for granted.

Uh-oh. Tina just called, jeopardizing my whole haircut scheme -- just my luck that they will talk until Kathy is too tired to cut my hair, and I'll have to go another day as shaggy Tim. Life can be hard, sometimes.

Tomorrow I go to see my doctor, to discuss blood pressure, cyatic (ciatic? psyiatic?) nerve trouble, and for a general tuneup. How strange to have my body begin to run down -- I'm noticing little aches and pains and diminishing hearing and vision. What would it have been like to be one of those long-lived guys, like Adam or Methuselah -- would you spend the last 200 years or so as a geezer, or were they hale and hearty up until the last 15 or 20 years?

Serious questions, for serious people. :)

Mount Jupiter

This is the mountain that sits at the end of our valley.

Rainy Day Thoughts

Today was a fairly typical winter day in western Washington -- cool and rainy but not excessively so. I have been feeling vaguely melancholy most of the day -- it doesn't help that I am between projects in my work, reading a rather depressing David Gemmel novel, and lack a wood stove.

Really, when it comes down to it, a wood stove would really solve all my current ills. I can just imagine the cheery flames reflecting from the bright-colored enamel surface, waves of heat filling the great room and driving away the chill and gloom that seems to seep into my very bones.

Sometimes five children can be a real handful -- we notice it particularly around mealtimes, here at the Duckabush Edgren houselhold. Lately Kathy has been doing aerobics with Casey at 5:30 in the evening, and I have tended to work right up to (and sometimes through) dinner time. The kids seem to sense that no one is paying attention to them, and the chaos builds until either Kathy turns off her aerobic tape or I come out from my office to find out why we're seemingly being attacked by a regiment of enraged orangutans.

This is a really good night to settle in early to bed with a good movie. We're thinking of re-watching an old favorite, "The Man Who Knew Too Little" with Bill Murray.