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.

Daniel at age 2, when we first moved to WA in 1999.

For some reason it makes me think of the way that we look at life – often we focus on the dark grey clouds above us and the gloom that surrounds us, failing to notice that only a few miles away the sun is shining. When we first moved to Washington in 1999, we lived in a suburb of the East side of Seattle, and Kathy quickly discovered that sunshine or rain was often a very local phenomenon. She used to jump in the van with the kids (we only had three at that time) and drive around ‘chasing the sunshine’. Even though the blue skies were usually over Lake Washington, she often was able to find a park or a playground where it was not raining just a few miles from our house.

Rachel loves Daniel (1999).

Too often I think we accept spiritual gloom and rain in our lives when just a little effort to ‘chase the sunshine’ would be well-rewarded. So, ever practical, I immediately think of the spiritual analogue of our little red minivan. What kind of things can I do that have the potential to move me spiritually from one locale to another?

• Reading my Bible almost always helps me to affirm the superior reality of the Kingdom of God and to see with eyes of faith. Sometimes the gloom is an illusion, and the sun is shining right where I am – my eyes just need to be adjusted to see on the right frequency. The Word of God is excellent medicine for this kind of reality check.
• Prayer has the capability of dispelling the densest fogs or transporting me to new and interesting places.
• Worship (from the heart) always seems to lift my heart above the clouds.

Joshua loves Daniel (2000).

I’ve been thinking about one of my sons this morning – we have recently celebrated his eighth birthday, and there are many things I would like to teach him. Unfortunately, he has a less teachable spirit than I would prefer and pays attention to my instruction only when it suits him. On the day of Grandma's birthday party, he committed the faux pas of telling his Grandma how much we spent on one of her birthday presents, and both Kathy and I sharply rebuked him. He looked at me with a whipped-dog expression, seemingly unaware of his indiscretion, even though I had (that very morning) laboriously explained the desirability of concealing how much was spent for a particular gift.

Grand-Dad loves Daniel (2000).

In retrospect, I’m not sure he was actually present at the time – I may have been explaining that to Rachel or Joshua, so perhaps the sharpness of our tone was inappropriate. There is a distinct difference in attitude between Daniel and the older two – where they seem to hang on my words, squeezing and testing my instruction to come to a complete understanding, Daniel is usually so eager to go off and do something that he barely listens to what I say and retains much less than I expect. As a parent and a teacher I find it very discouraging – how can I capture his attention long enough to communicate even a tithe of the things I want to teach him?

Uncle Thom loves Daniel (2001).

Part of the problem is that I am lazy. I assume that my son knows something because I have explained it once or twice to the older kids – yet I am consistently finding that his understanding lags considerably behind theirs. Maybe I am unfairly expecting him to build on principles that have never been adequately explained to him. Yet one of the major advantages of having multiple children is that knowledge is frequently handed down from child to child – I know that the older kids spend a lot of their time telling the younger ones how to do what is right.

Sarah loves Daniel -- or does she fear him? (2002)

I’m thinking of declaring this the Year of Wisdom for Daniel. When I was a sophomore in college, I found myself sorely lacking in judgment and discernment. I spent a semester praying for wisdom and re-reading the book of Proverbs. Not long after that I lost my ROTC scholarship and ended up in the Army as an enlisted man for three years, proving that I was correct in my self-diagnosis. I have often felt that the time I spent in the Army was the answer to my prayer, and that my life has benefited greatly from the wisdom I gained through that experience. My family teases me for telling Army stories, yet I find that many of the lessons I learned (often painfully) during that short three-year period continue to be applicable.

Grandma loves Daniel (2002).

My parents often compare me with my middle son, and remark on how much he reminds them of me – which makes me sad, yet hopeful. Is there any way that I can teach my son so that he doesn’t have to learn everything the hard way?

Cousin Samuel loves Daniel (2003).

When I was in college the first time, I held back from asking questions because I didn’t want to reveal my ignorance (or the fact that I hadn’t done the reading required for that class period). When I returned from my enlistment in the Army, I had a keen sense of how much I was paying for each class period, and I asked questions any time I did not fully understand something. I learned a lot more the second time.

Uncle Phil loves Daniel (2004).

So I’m thinking of granting Daniel special privilege in this coming year, such that any time he has a question, he can invoke his Year of Wisdom privilege until he is satisfied that he understands something. This would mean that all other activity or conversation would stop until he was sure he understood. I think that we have gotten into the habit of explaining things quickly and incompletely and have assumed that he already had the intellectual foundation necessary to understand things, where he does not, in fact, have that level of enabling comprehension. If he could see it as a special privilege and would actually invoke it, this might be the way to remedy his lack of understanding.

David loves Daniel (2005).

Added to that, I’m considering a special study of the book of Proverbs just with Daniel – focusing on his spiritual discernment as a foundation to any life wisdom he might acquire. Although the Bible reading I do at night with the kids is aimed at Daniel’s level of understanding, perhaps he needs some additional special attention. Since we’re moving his bedtime from 8 pm to 8:30 pm, now that he has attained the lofty age of 8, a good use of that time might be for me to spend it teaching him. He does try my patience, though – it might not be the best thing for me to do at the end of the day, when my energy is low.

Tim-Daddy loves Daniel (2004).

In many ways, my middle boy has a very winsome spirit about him – sometimes he tries so hard to please us, it melts my heart. He can be very generous and kind when he is intentional, and his cheerful helpfulness is an example to us all. His eagerness to bring good news is almost comical, yet very precious. Surely I can build on those character traits?

Kathy loves Daniel (2004).

A few days after his birthday, we opened the last of Daniel’s birthday presents, which was a model airplane powered by air pressure, capable of flying a hundred yards or so. We took it over to a nearby park and (after some initial failure) managed to fly it several times. Daniel impressed me greatly by taking turns with his older brother and sister, allowing them to fly the new toy. At one point, he promised that Rachel could fly the plane on the next turn, yet when I announced that it would be the last flight, he changed his mind and took the turn for himself. Predictably, the last flight ended in an ignominious crash, so that no one enjoyed it, least of all Daniel. Yet when I chided him about not keeping his word, he seemed entirely insensitive to the idea that he had done anything wrong – a response that is sadly not unusual with him.

Sarah loves Daniel (again, 2005).

When negative consequences happen to me, am I prone to seeing myself as a victim, and do I fail to see the extent of my own culpability? Am I the last one to see that my conduct is not pleasing to God? Perhaps the trouble is not so much with my son, but rather with the fact that he mirrors so much of my own folly. Maybe the problem is not that I am failing to teach him, but rather that I am teaching him all too well.

A Year of Wisdom wouldn’t do me any harm, either.

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?

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.

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.

Last Monday I took the kids in to the ‘big city’ to the Children’s Museum in the Seattle Center for the day. We had planned to go to the Pacific Science Center but couldn’t find our membership card – both Kathy and I called to see if they would accept some other form of proof of membership, but they were adamant (and rather rude) in their refusal. I guess some museum curators don’t want anyone to actually use their museum, or perhaps they are a little over-vigilant in wanting to make money.

David was particularly excited about taking the train home. All the kids have been pestering me for an opportunity to ride on the train – my glowing reports of the joys of the Sounder commuter train have tantalized them for months. Not wanting to get up as early as commuters (the poor wretches), we took a bus in to Seattle, then another bus (through the bus tunnel) as far as Westlake.

David kept us apprised of any Herbies that we passed.

We walked the rest of the way (about 15 blocks or so) to the Seattle Center. This proved to be a mistake – I should probably have taken a transfer and ridden the bus all the way through town. It was further than I had anticipated and several of the kids were tired by the time we arrived.

Dancing and music and a picnic lunch

We ate our lunch inside the Seattle Center listening to some live music and watching some elderly couples dancing. There were perhaps eight to twelve couples with the average age well over 70. It was somehow very poignant to listen to the strains of Danny Boy and watch these brave souls step (or in some cases, shuffle) around the floor. Not an accomplished ballroom dancer myself, I was vaguely encouraged to see that some of them had still not learned to dance very well even after a lifetime of opportunity, while others moved with a grace that belied their years. I sat and imagined that some of them had probably been married more than sixty years, and wondered what Kathy and I will be doing when I am 86 and she is a young thing of 81. They danced for more than two hours (just finishing up when we came out of the Children’s Museum) which I thought was pretty impressive in terms of mere stamina.

Joshua embarks on a brief career in broadcasting.

The kids enjoyed the Children’s Museum, although I thought it was not as nice as the one in Olympia. Many of the exhibits were damaged or dirty and a number of the moving parts were out of order. I suppose they get a much higher volume of visitor traffic at the Seattle Center than in the comparatively-sleepy Capitol district of Olympia. David provided some brief excitement by opening one of the alarmed exit doors, thinking it lead to another part of the exhibit. By apologizing abjectly, we managed to avoid a tongue-lashing, although David frowned for some time afterward, as he often does when embarrassed.

A bunch of blue-tongued skinks

After finishing our tour of the Children’s Museum, we stopped at the food court for Icee drinks, universally choosing Blue Raspberry over boring old Cherry. Although we were tempted to ride the Ferris Wheel (in honor of the recent home-school reading of the story describing Mr. Ferris’ first attempt) I felt that David and Sarah might not enjoy the ride. We settled on a conventional Merry-Go-Round which was well-appreciated by everyone, even me.

This might have been David & Sarah's first merry-go-round ride.

We rode the monorail back to Westlake, which was a vast improvement over walking, and caught the bus back to the train station without mishap. Discovering that we were almost an hour early, I took the kids on a quick run through the Uwajimaya shopping center (an oriental grocery store and food court near my work) and introduced them to a favorite lunch choice (Pahd Thai with Orange Chicken). I had an entertaining few minutes trying to buy train tickets for the three oldest kids – the ticket machines wouldn’t accept my credit card and some of my dollar bills were very wrinkled. As the train pulled into the station, the kids started to panic, not realizing that the train would be sitting there for another fifteen minutes or so. Fortunately, I had enough quarters to buy the last ticket, and we boarded with relief.

The monorail beats walking, any day of the week.

We devoured the Pahd Thai Chicken (if it hadn’t been for Daniel’s solicitous care, I wouldn’t have received any) and experienced only one mishap with an exploding Sprite. The other passengers looked on in hunger and envy, so I made the kids put the few remaining noodles away.

We certainly would not have been welcome in the Quiet Car.

David seemed a little let down by the train – I think he expected to sit up front in the engine and to pull the steam whistle, wearing an engineer’s cap. He is an interesting little fellow – I could see his face twisting and frowning as he looked out the window, struggling with disappointment. He is usually very careful not to say anything that could be construed as ungrateful, having learned from his older siblings’ negative example. I come down pretty hard on anyone who vocalizes an ungrateful spirit, recently having taken a piece of cake away from Daniel at a family party for this very reason. I’m proud to say that he took after his Mama and spoke only cheerful things – he is a good boy, and well do I love him.

We eventually arrived in Tacoma, found our car and headed home. It was a full day of treats – the kids must have thanked me at least five times each on the way home. Kathy spent a good part of the day with her dear friend Julee, so I think I can say that a good time was had by all.

There is a strange but happy side-effect from these field trip days. While I love my children dearly, I am finding that the more time I spend with them on outings such as these, the more I want to be with them again, and the warmer my heart feels toward the little rascals. You might think that it would be a chore to spend the day with five little children, but I find it to be very fulfilling.

Being cooped up in the house with a bunch of bickering kids is no picnic, but spending comparable time out of the house on a field trip seems to introduce a very different dynamic, which is a delightful surprise. It probably doesn’t hurt that I ply them with treats and take them on adventures.

Daniel loves to climb the tree in our front yard.

I’ve been reading in Ezra the last day or two, which chronicles one of the return parties from the 70-year exile in Babylon. The story starts out very cheerfully, with the Persian king granting permission to return, and supporting the endeavor with gifts and letters of authority. When Ezra arrived in Jerusalem, however, he found that a number of the existing Jewish leaders have taken foreign wives. Apparently this practice violated the covenant they had made with the Lord and had historically caused them to adopt the practices of the pagan people living in the lands around them.

Reading the last chapter of Nehemiah, I see that there was more to the story. Apparently a number of the children of these marriages could not even speak the Hebrew language, so thoroughly had they been assimilated into the local cultures. Additionally, the peoples of Moab and Ammon were explicitly excluded from the assembly of Israel, in accordance with Deuteronomy 23:3, because of those nations hostility to Israel when they returned from Egypt. Nehemiah writes that he even resorted to beating some of the men and pulling out their hair in an effort to shame them into doing what was right. Nehemiah seems to have been a real stickler for following the law – I must say that I like him and admire his courage. He seems to have had his enemies, though – throughout the book and four times in the last chapter Nehemiah calls on God to witness what he has done and to remember those who opposed him.

And yet Ruth was a Moabitess, and an ancestor of David. How strange are the ways of God!

Ultimately the men of Judah took an oath to ‘put away’ these foreign wives and their children; presumably sending them back to their non-Jewish relatives, with the aim of re-establishing their covenant with God and maintaining the purity of the ‘holy race’. It made me sad to think of the fathers explaining to their little children that they were ‘unholy’ and had to be sent away. I can’t help wondering if there wasn’t a better way to honor the holiness of God and to keep the covenant without breaking up these families, perhaps by offering up some expensive sacrifice or going through some exhaustive baptism ceremony? Wasn’t there a precedent for bringing aliens into the assembly of Israel, as was apparently done with Rahab and her entire family?

I'd have a hard time sending these three away, even if their Mom was an Ammonite.
(Picture from 1999.)

(I’ve often wondered if this same Rahab is the one mentioned in the genealogy of Jesus, mother to Boaz. Now that I think about it, there would have been only three generations, to span the entire period of the Judges, which seems to have been more in the ballpark of 300 years. Not saying it couldn't have been the same Rahab, but perhaps it was actually someone who was named after her.)

In Malachi 2:16 it is written, ‘“I hate divorce”, says the Lord God of Israel … ‘. Yet only a few verses before, Malachi also speaks against the practice of marriage outside the covenant. Is there is any application of this principle within the context of the New Covenant? What does God think of our nation’s now-commonplace practice of divorcing ‘the wife of our youth’ and marrying outside the faith?

The wife of my youth with her new haircut.

Ultimately our relationship to God comes first, which may explain why Paul tells the Corinthians that if an unbelieving spouse wants to break up the marriage, we are to let them do so. Yet we also know that marriage is a picture of our relationship with God and is one of the few institutions established by God. I think it would have been very hard to live in the time of Ezra, and to make the choice to ‘put away’ a wife from outside the covenant. It makes me wonder if there are things in my life that, while similar to things that God blesses, are actually man-made substitutions from ‘outside the covenant’? Certainly a job can become like a ‘foreign wife’ if it is relied upon apart from God for provision, or if it becomes a God in itself. I can see how certain friendships might be ‘unholy’ and a believer might come to the point of ‘putting away’ those relationships which hinder them in their walk with God. Maybe I’m trying too hard to find application in this historical event.

Perhaps the essence of the application is that anything that lures us away from God (as happened with Solomon and his pagan wives) should be treated ruthlessly. As Jesus says in Matthew 5:30:

“And if your right hand causes you to sin, cut it off and throw it away. It is better for you to lose one part of your body than for your whole body to be thrown into hell.”

One thing that constantly amazes me is the depth and beauty of God's creation.

Rachel spent part of the weekend out at the Duckabush with her friend Leanne and my Mom. On Saturday evening, before she came home, Rachel called and asked if Leanne might be allowed to come to our house for the remainder of the weekend. Knowing that it would fall to me to make the three-hour round-trip drive to return Leanne to her home, I eventually (and rather reluctantly) agreed.

David really enjoys his gymnastics class, offered at the local YMCA on Tuesday and Thursdays.

Last week in our Sunday school class we were talking about modeling servant-hood to our children, and I was convicted about the way that I talk about service in front of my children. Many times when I serve others it is after considerable persuasion and with little graciousness on my part – I identify closely with the son who said he wouldn’t go work for his father (and later did), in the parable Jesus taught. Our class discussed the use of a phrase like “I would love to do that for you!” or something similar. It is interesting to note that such language frees the served person from obligation to reciprocate and sends a clear message that this service is done as unto the Lord. In turn, this allows the served person to choose to reciprocate, which can rebound to additional blessing for them. Service is a choice, and there should be no question of hypocrisy – it just takes a moment to make up your mind that you will do it before you speak, so that you have time to decide to be glad about it.

Knowing that I would be seeing Leanne’s Dad (the director of Wilderness Northwest), I was determined to make some progress on the DVD of Summer Camp 2004 for that organization. I stayed up until 4 am burning a demo DVD for Jody’s review, and so we got a later start on our Field Trip than we usually do. My children had never been bowling before; I decided to take them bowling at Timber Lanes, conveniently located in Shelton, about half-way between Lakewood and the Duckabush.

Kathy packed us a lunch and shooed us out the door very patiently and graciously, considering we didn’t leave until noon. We swung by the bank to pay our monthly rent and ate lunch at a cool playground area adjacent to the bowling alley. Of course it began to rain just as we got there, but the kids were unfazed, shouting happily about the storm and the likelihood of pirates as they clambered about the play structure merrily.

We spent almost two hours bowling a single game, with Rachel, Daniel and David bowling against Joshua, Leanne and myself. They beat us handily with more than a 100-point margin – Joshua maintains that the bumper gates in the gutters gave them a considerable advantage, but I’m not so sure. David got several strikes and spares, routinely getting three and sometimes even four chances to knock down each set of pins. The machine had trouble registering his bowling ball, which crawled along at the speed of a lively glacier. Sarah ‘helped’ me and shouted with excitement every time my ball came up out of the ball return – “There’s my ball!” Sadly, she had to learn not to grab at the bowling balls as they came up out of the return the hard way, and spent several tearful minutes sucking her fingers on the bench. I was surprised at this, because Sarah is usually very cautious and listens closely when warned that something is dangerous. The proprietor of the bowling alley personally came down to our lane and gave all the kids a lecture about the hazards of the ball return machine. I guess I should have played it up a little more – sometimes I feign an injury (especially with something hot) while she is watching to give her a sense of healthy respect. We had the establishment almost entirely to ourselves, and it wasn’t too terribly smoky, about which I had been worried. A good time was had by all.

Although Sarah technically is too young to join 'Nastics, sometimes Kathy sneaks her in.

Eventually we tore ourselves away from the game, with many a regretful glance back toward the video arcade. I had bought each of the children a small pop at the bowling alley, which was a big hit, especially because we had not packed enough drinks for lunch.

We arrived at the Duckabush around 4 pm, and spent an entertaining 20 minutes watching video clips from the Camp DVD with Jody. Unfortunately, he had to take Leanne somewhere, and so we were soon left at our own devices. We swung by our old house (everyone needed to go to the bathroom) and decided to watch a movie, just for old time’s sake.

I called Kathy and asked her if she missed us – there was a long pause, and then she said, “Well, no.” The honesty somehow made me glad, although she called back about a half-hour later and said, “Now I miss you.” Of course, it is safe to miss us when we are 90 minutes away, heh heh. We ate a nutritious dinner of Hot Cocoa and Macaroni & Cheese, finished the movie and cleaned up – it felt good to be at the old homestead, even furnished with unfamiliar furniture and decorations.

Knowing that we couldn’t leave the valley without stopping in at the Bringhams, we dropped by “just for a few minutes”. I hadn’t reckoned with Tom’s crafty conversational wiles, though; we stayed for almost an hour, engaged in interesting discussion. We arrived at home around 9:30 pm, tired and happy, except for Daniel, who was tired but not particularly happy.

During the ride home, Daniel had slumped down across his seat and fallen asleep on the bench directly behind Joshua, who was sitting up front beside me in the passenger seat. Somewhere around Olympia, Joshua became weary and decided to put his seat back into the reclining position. Imagine Daniel’s surprise and dismay to wake up with his head trapped in smothering darkness, pinned to the seat. Wrenching his head free, he scraped the side of his face, and cried for some little while. As a claustrophobe myself, I can’t say I would relish (or even mustard) waking up in that situation.

One place where Daniel really shines is in Homeschooling PE.

Wednesday evening I had a bit of an adventure – I heard on the news that the Sounder trains were cancelled due to some kind of labor relations problem with rail workers nationwide. I tried to get a bus schedule from Sound Transit’s website, but it was down, of course, due to the unusually large number of people probably doing the same thing. I was worried about the estimated 3000 extra commuters that would be piling onto the already-crowded buses – how could I manage to get a place on the bus? I envisioned hours of waiting at some bus stop, watching bus after bus pass by, each packed to the gills with irritable commuters. Not my idea of a fun way to spend a Wednesday evening.

I called Kathy to let her know that I wouldn’t be home any time soon, and she offered to call her good friend Julee to see if I could meet her husband somewhere in Seattle & carpool. Instead of being at his office in Seattle (where he was supposed to be) Colin answered the phone at his home in Lakewood (must have been working from home that day) and without missing a beat, responded, “Of course I’d be glad to pick Tim up!” He is a silly man, which is a big part of why we like him. I was tempted to call his bluff and ask him to drive the hour up to Seattle to fetch me home -- but a clever person like that will always have a quick rejoinder. “Oh, I’d love to, but my sick grandmother just called, and needs me to take her to the hospital,” or something like that.

Joshua would have come to pick me up, if he wasn't too busy in his new role as environmental activist.

Eventually I found the bus route map I needed and hatched a clever plan to walk upstream from the usual bus stop to catch the bus before it filled with disenfranchised rail passengers. As I cut across the plaza near the train station, I caught sight of two police officers lounging against a fence. On a whim, I asked them if they’d heard any news about the trains, and they told me that Sound Transit had managed to get one train running. They didn’t seem very confident or knowledgeable, but I decided to nip across the street and glance down into the station to see if there was a train waiting – sure enough, there it was!

I dashed down the steps, nearly trampling a TV cameraman in the middle of an interview with the station master, and boarded the train with a full minute to spare before it departed. The Sounder was nearly empty – everyone else must have believed the news and taken the buses.

I think that spiritual life is like that many times – we get ourselves all worked up fearing or dreading some adverse situation, only to discover that our fear and dreading was unnecessary and that God had already made a way for us to have joy. I’ve continued to read Hind’s Feet on High Places to the older children at night, and a recent chapter described just this sort of thing. Little Much-Afraid is faced with a fearsome climb of the Precipice Injury, and nearly turns back out of dread. But when she actually climbs the mountain, she finds it is bearable and not nearly what she expected. The scriptures teach that without faith it is impossible to please God – when we give ourselves over to fear and dread about the future, we are not exercising any kind of faith. Strange – I always thought I had faith. Maybe I never had the ‘tell this mountain to go throw itself into the sea’ kind (Matt 17:20), but a respectable amount of the ordinary ‘we badgers, we hold on’ (C.S. Lewis, Prince Caspian) kind of faith. These last two years have shown me how deficient I am. I think that a lot of my so-called 'faith' in God was really faith in myself -- it just wasn't revealed until I was tested. I think that true faith is, by definition, extraordinary. And yet there is honor and faith in quiet, steady holding on to the truth of who God is.

And then there is 'misplaced faith', demonstrated by these children who thought they would live to reach the bottom of the stairs.

And without faith it is impossible to please God, because anyone who comes to him must believe that he exists and that he rewards those who earnestly seek him. -- Hebrews 11:6

We celebrated David’s birthday on Saturday, complete with a train cake and grandparents. A friend from the Hood Canal area was visiting and stayed to snap pictures and help me play remote-control car tag on the basketball court with the kids. On Sunday we went to church and hosted a Bible study in the evening – it was a full weekend.

Playing tag with these two remote-controlled cars kept us occupied for more than two hours, I'm embarrassed to admit.

I had wanted to visit Mt. Rainier for our next field trip, and a little research suggested that a number of the hiking trails were open, although travel to the Paradise area (5400’ elevation) was restricted to those with snow chains. This has apparently been a year of minimal snowfall on Rainier, such that the sledding areas are closed due to insufficient accumulation (they require a full 60” of snow cover to protect the vegetation). I ran my suggestion past the Field Trip Quality Council and it was tentatively approved. Though technically a volcano, Rainier has been dormant in recorded history. After what seemed an eternity of searching the garage for boots and snow pants Monday morning, we all piled into the van and headed southeast.

Since we have moved into the suburbs, Rachel has honed her already-sharp eye for Volkswagon bugs and beetles. She recently set the record (21) of ‘Herbie sightings’ in a single day. We decided to try (as a team) to beat her record, and eventually we did, scoring a total of 35 Herbies in the course of the day. Each time we would see one, we would break into a loud and raucous chorus, sung to no particular tune:

Oh, we now have seen [insert proper number here] Herbies,
We now have seen [same number] Herbies,
Oh we now have seen,
We now have seen,
We now have seen [same number, repeated for emphasis] Herbies!

To while away the time between sightings, I would sing variations on the “I wish I could find that big mountain” theme while Rachel accompanied me with “but I’m too proud to ask for directions”. Eventually David asked us to stop, so we limited ourselves to one chorus per Herbie sighting – it was a great hardship.

Fortunately, Kathy can actually make a cake that is recognizable, so we didn't repeat the Winnie-the-Pooh cake debacle of 1996. Notice the 'Herbie' caboose -- we call that literary foreshadowing.

Competition was pretty fierce to be the first one to see a Herbie – Rachel had a very hard time subsuming her individual accomplishment into the team sightings (and kept a separate running total of how many she had seen, apart from how many we all had seen). I demonstrated my maturity by teasing her unmercifully about this. I’m not sure she ever did understand why it was so funny – I guess the apple doesn’t fall far from the tree.

We finally arrived at the Park Entrance, although I did stop a few times along the way for pictures of the mountain. This was done in tribute to my father’s long-standing tradition in which he would stop for every possible photo opportunity involving Mt. Rainier. As a child, I spent long minutes sitting in the car waiting for him to capture such photographic masterpieces as:

• Mt. Rainier looming over garbage cans
• Mt. Rainier looming over a field with cows
• Mt. Rainier looming over a field without cows
• Mt. Rainier looming over a few rusty cars
• Mt. Rainier looming amidst a large bunch of clouds

I might as well just start out with a gratuitous shot of The Mountain.

I estimate Dad has as many as a thousand pictures of Mt. Rainier and its environs – we used to tease him that he worshipped the Mountain, a charge he denied fiercely, but which did not deter him from stopping for yet another picture of Mt. Rainier looming over wild flowers.

We bought an annual pass to the park, confirming my optimistic intention of visiting at least twice more, and we drove on to our first objective – a restroom. Daniel continues to lead the family in his need for frequent rest stops; I had foolishly given him a Capri Sun about 40 minutes before we got to the park. We stopped at the campground at Sunshine Point, and enjoyed a half-hour of clambering over sun-baked rocks and volcanic sand along the banks of the Nisqually River. David really liked playing at the river, and later asked at least five times to go back there, in spite of the fact that he fell (or was he pushed?) in the river within the first minute of our visit. It was a little nerve-wracking for me to watch Sarah make her uncertain way over the rocks. I kept expecting an injury with expensive dental repercussions, but we were mercifully spared such a mishap.

Only David could look this cheerful after a dunking in the Nisqually.

We ate lunch at the Kautz Creek picnic area, enjoying the sunshine and spectacular view of the mountain, and throwing snowballs at one another. Although the bridge was out about 1.2 miles up the trail, I thought it might be nice to walk at least that far, remembering this trail from my own childhood. Surprisingly, the hike was mostly in shadow, a new-growth forest having mysteriously sprung up in the last thirty years or so. Joshua seemed very amused by my indignation over the ‘sudden’ growth of the forest and the fact that I considered 30 years a ‘short’ period of time – it made me feel like quite the geezer.

I rounded up the usual suspects, but we never did find out whether David fell or was pushed.

The kids enjoyed a running snowball fight throughout the hike, and we all had fun hiding in a big hollow tree, some more than others. The trail ended abruptly at a sharp drop-off where the bridge used to be, and we weren’t able to get down into the creek bed, which was disappointing (some of us would have welcomed another chance to fall in). I had neglected to place a mandate on jackets or sweatshirts, and we were all glad to get back to the sunny parking lot – it was pretty cool in the snowy forest. David and Sarah were tough little troopers, walking nearly the entire 2.4 miles roundtrip – I was very proud of them both. David could not resist picking up snow along the path, and so I took on the additional duties of Chief Hand Warmer.

It was a little snug, but I was fine, until I remembered Old Man Willow from Tolkien's The Fellowship of the Ring

We drove up to Longmire and explored the Inn and General Store there, buying a few obligatory postcards. We hiked the short ‘Walk of the Shadows’ loop around the Longmire meadow, and then played some more in the snow around the Inn. It was coming up on nap-time for the little ones, and so I decreed that we would head for home, keeping a sharp eye out for Herbies all the way. Everyone (except Joshua and probably me) dozed until we stopped off near home for ice cream cones at McDonald’s Playland – we sat around the table there and I told the kids how much I had enjoyed the day with them. They all agreed I was a wonderful Dad, so I gave them each their ice-cream cone. You can’t be too careful when fishing for compliments, I’ve found. I let them all play a little while, and then we went home.

Not even Washington, crossing the Delaware, looked this heroic.

It was a glorious day – we all were a little sunburned, and I managed to snap a number of pictures of the mountain that would make my Dad proud. Kathy got some well-needed respite from being a 24x7 parent and home-school teacher, and the kids got a chance to play in the snow. For some reason it is (so far, anyway) easier for me to set this field trip day aside than it is for me to set aside five distinct one-hour blocks on separate days – maybe the expectations aren’t quite as intense, or perhaps there is some other explanation. Whatever the reason, I finished the long weekend charged-up and ready to face my work-week again.

The Geneva Convention was thrown to the wind, as were caution and a few snowballs.

Kathy and I are really enjoying the Parenting class at our church, taught during the Sunday School hour by a couple with eight children. I think a lot of people are cheating themselves out of most of the joy of parenting – like anything else, it seems to be just a matter of applying a little effort to get the most out of it. We’re watching carefully to see how those with teenagers manage – I think we might be in for some wild and wooly times ahead.

A few weeks ago the leaders of the Parenting class had to be out of town and asked Kathy and I to teach. It was surprising to me how much I enjoyed the chance to teach and what a difference it made in my spiritual walk, to have the opportunity to exercise my spiritual gift. I think the lack of teaching opportunities is one of the things I've missed most – except for a brief visit to Michigan, I haven’t taught Sunday School in almost two years.

As it turned out, the leaders’ retreat was cancelled, but they let me teach anyway, which was very gracious but a little scary, since David and Kelly were there and could see it first-hand if I messed up. A number of our kids were sick, so Kathy stayed home while I taught the class, then we swapped and she went to church while I stayed home. Fortunately, she collaborated with me in advance, which turned out to be a big help.

Even the rocks Sarah throws are dainty.

One of the things we talked about this last week had to do with how we define success, and how we communicate those definitions to our children. I felt rather convicted that I have heavily bought into worldly measures of success, including power, prestige and (perhaps most of all) money. I was reminded that at the end of my life, it will matter a lot more what kind of a husband or Dad I was than what was printed on my business card (or if I even had one). At work we’re in the midst of Performance Review season, and my focus has been on finding ways to measure my strengths and weaknesses. I wonder what my review would look like, if I faced an annual review as Dad:

Please rate the employee according to the following criteria, using the following scale:

1. Strongly Agree


2. Agree


3. Disagree


4. Strongly Disagree


5. Not Enough Information

• Keeps his promises
• Is fun to be around
• Teaches the scripture
• Lives out what he teaches
• Tells the truth
• Works hard
• Pursues justice
• Acts with gentleness and compassion
• Forgives and doesn’t hold grudges
• Is generous
• Shows kindness
• Demonstrates patience
• Exercises self-control
• Loves others
• Provides for his family
• Disciplines his children
• Lives with his wife considerately
• Treats others as more important than himself

David and Sarah were very sweet to each other throughout the day.

Ultimately we will all face the King of Kings, receiving from His hand our eternal reward based on just such a review, only much more comprehensive, as our works are tested by fire. These kind of reflections encourage me take a deep breath and square my shoulders – I have some work to do on a few of those, I’m afraid.

Just 'cause you're home-schooled, doesn't mean you can't ride on a bus once in a while. But how many kids get to drive it?

Although at first I had thought to go to Mt. Rainier or Mt. St. Helens, the weather was not optimal and there was a volcanic activity warning in effect at Mt. St. Helens. Reluctantly, Kathy and I agreed that the children hadn't been that bad, so we decided to play it safe and go to the Hands-on Children’s Science Museum in Olympia. We opened a few presents to celebrate Valentine's Day, and then we got ready go. Kathy decided to stay home, so I set off with all five kids in our little red van. She concealed her sorrow at being left behind by shoving us out the door and locking the deadbolt, laughing maniacally. We all felt very sorry for her.

There was some kind of protest at the Capitol, and the museum parking was taken – we had a terrible time finding a parking spot. I was about to give up but the kids all prayed for a spot, and we found one on the street nearby. I was reminded of my dear friend and adoptive mom, Sue Casner, who taught me that God cares about the little things like parking places.

We had a few things to talk over with the legislature, and then we ate lunch.

The hands-on museum was fairly small and compact, but had many interesting exhibits, with something for all the kids from Sarah to Joshua. I took a few moments when we first arrived to talk over the building’s security with the museum receptionist. Apparently there was only one non-alarmed exit (right by the receptionist’s station) and they had a procedure for when one of the other doors was opened. Employees were assigned to go out each of the doors and had walkie-talkies by which they could communicate with the other workers – it seemed a good system which would prevent easy theft of a child. There were a few times when I lost sight of one child or another, but each time I found my errant child pretty quickly – the building felt secure and our family comprised about a fourth of their patrons for the duration of our visit.

Daniel helped out at the dentist's office, scheduling appointments and ruthlessly filing insurance claims. If you look closely, you can see him printing "Services NOT covered -- OUT OF NETWORK"

The kids loved it. We bought a year’s membership, since I think we will definitely want to go back at least once more during the year, and the price structure was such that two visits will 'pay' for the membership with room to spare. It is a great rainy-day activity, especially when the rest of the benighted kids are whiling away their days in public schools. I picked Monday as my day off partly because I figured most schools won’t tend to have field trips on Mondays – it seems to me it would be hard to get kids to remember the field trip over the weekend, and so Monday trips would cause logistical problems with permission forms, attire and lunches.

Sadly, it was determined that Joshua required extensive dental work, including several root canals and extractions. "Hurry it up with that novocaine!" shouts Dr. Rachel. "This guy's about to make a run for it!"

Sarah got her shirt and jacket wet in the water table before I noticed, and we were short on drinks for the kids (I, of course, had a Diet Dr. Pepper). Kathy had packed us a lunch, and we ate outside in the sunshine, a nice break from the museum.

It was a pretty good day. We were gone for a little more than five hours, and Kathy got some down-time for herself – I’m sure to her it seemed we were only gone a little while. In some ways, it doesn’t really matter what we do on Mondays as long as we are out of the house – Kathy doesn’t get much of a break from the kids, between being a Mom of five kids and homeschooling.

The kids loved playing with the ambulance and ER -- Sarah's real-life experience last September helped her to play the part of a patient convincingly.

One of the activities they had was a set of giant Builder Boards that you could use to build a play structure (like a little log house). Rachel and Daniel built a house without a door or window, so of course I had to prove that I could do one better, and I built a house with both. One of the museum workers passed by and remarked how many people forgot the door – I felt very smug. Then she noted that the average age of usual builders was 5 1/2, and I felt substantially less smug. It has been much too long since I was able to play with Lincoln Logs.

A lot of the pictures that I took were blurry, perhaps because of the low lighting in the museum. I was rather disappointed, because some of them would have been pretty good, if it weren’t for the fact that the kids were nearly indistinguishable. But hey, they were good pictures. Really.

"Captain, she won't take much more! She's breakin' up!

At the end of our visit we stopped by the souvenir shop, and bought some healthy snacks (ice cream sandwiches and cans of pop) and devoured them in the sunny little café area at the front of the museum. Kathy's had the kids reading nutrition books ever since, trying to undo my influence. We piled back in our van and headed home – a good time was had by all.

Now I’m a little worried – can I come up with another Field Trip that won’t be a disappointment? The weather has been clear and cold this week, but I’d really like to do something a little less sedentary than a museum. Each morning as I ride the train, Mt. Rainier calls me with its snow-covered slopes and majestic beauty. But they require snow-chains on some of the roads this time of the year, and I don’t have any (or any desire to purchase a set). Then there is Pioneer Farms, another hands-on exhibit that has been very popular with the kids in past years, but one that has some dependency on good weather. Although it has been sunny all week, now that the weekend is upon us, it is supposed to cloud over. I guess we can have no complaints – once again, we’ve had an unseasonably mild winter, both in terms of temperature and rain. It is hard to remember that we live in Washington, sometimes – this place is more like San Diego!

Sarah really loved the water table -- I told Kathy we really needed to remember to pack extra clothes for her next time.

Of course, nearly every kind of activity costs money, which is discouraging in these months after Christmas, when money is tight and bills are thick upon the ground. But I am enjoying the kids so much these days, it seems very much worth it. At the end of the day (or my life) I doubt I'll regret outings like this or the money spent. Nobody seems to request tombstone captions like, "If only I'd spent more time at the office!"

I have received permission to move to a four-day work week, starting this week (in fact, by the time I have published this, we've already had our first 'field trip day'). I am excited about the change and about the opportunity it will give me to go on field trips with the kids. As the weather starts to warm up and the days get longer, it will be good to be out and about – we’ve huddled indoors much of the winter. One trip I really want to make is to visit Mount Rainier – some days I see it looming majestically to the east as I travel on the train, but it has been many years since I paid my respects, and I have no decent digital pictures of the mountain.

Monday was the first day that it was still light (sort of) when I got off the train, and now I see a glimmering of light to the east as we move through Puyallup. Pretty soon my entire commute will be in daylight (at least on sunny days), which makes a big difference to me. The lack of light really seems to affect me – I get gloomy very easily in the winter here in Washington. It always surprises me how extremely the seasonal difference affects the length of day at this latitude – we’re almost six degrees north of Detroit, and the day gets pretty short in January. Of course, we have no complaints in terms of cold weather – again today I walked out the door in shirt sleeves – and the rain just doesn’t ever seem to materialize in any great amount.

I’ve been reading in II Chronicles lately, reviewing the exploits of the kings who followed Solomon in both Judah and the remainder of Israel. It is interesting to note that a substantial number of people from the tribes of Levi, Ephraim, Manasseh and Simeon also joined Judah and Benjamin once they saw that the southern kingdom was really following the Lord. I had always wondered at the disparity in size between Israel and Judah, and now I see that they were more evenly divided than I had suspected.

Under Rehoboam, Judah makes one attempt to re-unite the kingdom, but is instructed by a prophet of the Lord to desist from civil war. Some years later, under Abijah, king of Judah, there is a massive battle between Judah and Israel in which 500,000 soldiers from Israel (more than 60% of their army) are killed. Although this is a major triumph of God over the pagan idols of Israel, I wonder what it must have been like to have such huge casualties in Israel. Perhaps as many as one in five of the men of Israel were killed? It must have been a very bittersweet victory for the people of Judah, to see God’s judgment come upon the northern kingdom in that way.

It is sad to note that king Asa, although he trusts in God in dealing with a foreign invasion from the south, ends his reign badly. Toward the latter part of Asa’s rule in Judah, the king of Israel began to fortify a town near the border to stem the tides of those defecting from his kingdom to Judah. Much like the iron curtain or the Berlin Wall, this pagan king seeks to prevent any of his subjects who loved God from voting with their feet and heading south. Although this seemed to be an opportunity for God to teach the nation of Israel yet another lesson about His sovereignty, Asa chooses not to trust in God, but rather sends tribute to the king of Aram, hiring him to attack Israel to take the pressure off Judah.

Perhaps Asa lacked the counsel of a good Queen?

Ultimately this choice is shown to be bad, yet the knowledge seems to embitter Asa against the Lord and he ends his life with a painful illness, still refusing to turn to God for healing. It is a sad progression of one bad choice followed by others, each seemingly cementing Asa’s stubborn position and souring his reign. Towards the end of his life, II Chronicles 16 records that this once-godly king began to oppress some of his people brutally, effectively doing the work of the Enemy by discouraging any further southward migration among the people of Israel.

I suspect it was the desire of God to re-unite the kingdoms of Judah and Israel or at least to draw all of those who loved Him south into Judah. If I was a God-fearing person in, say, the tribe of Issachar, I would have thought seriously about relocating to Judah during the early years of Asa. Toward the end of his reign, though, I expect that there was no need for a fortified city to guard the border – Asa’s oppression was enough to keep any remaining god-fearing subjects of Israel at home.

Over the past months I have allowed my heart to become a little cold toward God, perhaps consciously and unconsciously blaming Him for some of the disappointment in my life. This story of Asa rings a warning bell in my mind, and I am convicted of my lack of humility toward God. Asa could have repented of his lack of trust in God, turned away from his stubborn pride, and ended his life as one of the most godly kings of Judah. Instead, he became more and more set against God, imprisoning God’s messenger and ultimately betraying his trust as king over God’s people and bringing shame upon God’s name.

The prophet Micah gives a very succinct summary of our responsibilities:
"He has shown thee, O Man, what is good and what the Lord requires of thee: to do justice, to love mercy, and to walk humbly with thy God." Micah 6:8

Once more, I need to humble my heart before God and to trust Him. You’d think I would learn this, once and for all!

I’ve been reading the allegory, “Hind’s Feet on High Places” to the kids at night lately – I’m not sure they are really getting it (I wonder I understand it myself, for that matter). One of the things that surprises me every time I read it is the choice of companions that the Shepherd makes for poor little Much-Afraid, as she heads off on her epic journey to the High Places. Sorrow and Suffering are definitely not the companions I would choose for my own journey to the High Places – like Much-Afraid, I would much prefer Joy and Peace, to encourage and strengthen me on the way. Yet God seems to care more about our development along the way than our speed or comfort in arriving at our destination. This is a hard teaching, and it resonates as truth, but I really don’t have a good handle on it yet.

I guess that once we are with the Lord in Heaven, there will be no more resistance or impediment to loving Him, and everyone will be able to fully give themselves to Him in love and adoration. Yet we know that true love is only possible where there is a choice, a choice we must apparently make outside eternity – which is probably why God does not take us immediately home to be with Him. Is it possible that the extent, depth, or quality of our love is also determined by the growth that we experience during our short lives on this planet?

Throughout my marriage with Kathy, one of the things that makes our relationship special is the confidence we have in each other’s love and fidelity. Because we were both still virgins when we married, we knew that we could trust each other. Sometimes, when life is hard and we have disagreements, it is natural to wonder about the depth of each other’s love – it is at times like that when it becomes very important to remember that your spouse chose to marry you over all others.

If everything was always easy, and life was one long honeymoon, I wonder if our love for each other would ever grow? Love is about sacrifice and putting the other person ahead of yourself more than it is about hearts and flowers. Perhaps the preciousness of our love for God is in its depth and completeness – maybe the sweetness of our savor is increased as we demonstrate our willingness to love Him deeply and truly in spite of hardship.

One night after I finished work, Kathy wanted to go to Costco and Target to do a little shopping, but I wanted to stay home. At first I refused to go with her (for some reason she didn’t want to drive to Costco at night) but then I remembered that the scriptures instruct husbands to love their wives as Christ loved the Church, and to lay down their lives for their wives. So I told the kids about this and lay myself down on the floor in the living room, telling Kathy that I would go with her if she wanted me to. Joshua immediately pounced on me, taking advantage of my prone position – I was forced to remind him of the frequent brochures and flyers I receive from the Spitsbergen Military Boarding School and Arctic Exploration Center (SMBSAEC).

West Spitsbergen, controlled by Norway and nestled in the warm and sunny Svarbald archipelago, is the home of one of the finest military boarding schools available. While some complain that the latitude (near the 82nd parallel) makes the winters a bit long and nippy, others maintain that such is the talk of sissies.

We went to Costco to pick up a new mattress for Sarah (we think she is ready to take the big step of moving from her crib to a real bed) and checked the prices for replacement glasses for Daniel. I bought everyone ice cream and we wheeled the mattress out with the four younger kids all sitting on the mattress happily eating their chocolate and vanilla swirls, much to the envy of several bystanders. A good time was had by all until we got to Target, where the lines were long and Kathy was delayed while the rest of us waited in the van. The mattress (which was now resting on the heads of all five children) began to be much less fun, and we were all glad to be on our way home again when Kathy finally emerged.

About a half-mile from home we witnessed an accident between a man in a big SUV and a woman and child in a smaller sedan – fortunately no one was hurt, but there were shards of plastic everywhere, filling the intersection. Both drivers insisted that the other one had run the red light; unfortunately Kathy and I had not seen enough of the collision to reliably testify. The little boy, perhaps five years old, was pretty shaken up and cried and cried while his mom held him and shouted at the other driver. The woman who was hit may have been uninsured … I felt badly for her and prayed with her, but there was little else I could do apart from sweep up the debris. The police never did come to investigate the accident, which I thought was pretty unprofessional.

Today is a rainy day, and the train is pretty full already, and we haven’t even reached Tukwila. I think a lot of people are like me, in that they sometimes take the train, and sometimes drive their cars to work. Personally, I like the variety – there is nothing quite like sitting in traffic to make one appreciate the train, even if it is crowded. I heard yesterday that the Washington State Ferries have finally implemented a wireless network on the ferries and in the terminals – that will be very nice for the commuters, I think, if people can handle e-mail and be connected to their work systems. I wonder if I will ever be a ferry commuter again? In many ways my heart is divided about moving back to the Duckabush.

Daniel loves gymnastics, especially the foam pit. As far as we know, that other little boy survived this encounter.

Last Friday marked the beginning of our involvement in a local homeschooling cooperative – the kids are very excited about spending the day in classes rather than doing the usual schoolwork at home. They are each enrolled in four classes, two before lunch and two after, from 8:45 in the morning until 3:00 pm. Kathy is required also to work as an assistant in one of the classes, so the whole family (except me) is involved. I’m a little jealous – I do hope that they enjoy their classes and teachers – the co-op seems to be well-run and fairly comprehensive in terms of the classes offered, with what seems to be as many as a hundred children enrolled. This semester covers the next sixteen weeks, ending in May, so it is a big undertaking.

My mind keeps coming back to poor king Asa and his stubborn embitterment toward God – I went back and re-read part of his story. This blog entry has already gone too long, but I think it is worth noting the difference between Asa’s reaction and that of king David, when confronted with his adultery. Instead of having a teachable heart, Asa became angry with the prophet who rebuked him and put him in prison. David, in contrast, accepted the rebuke of Nathan and repented before the Lord. It seems to be less about the severity of the sin and much more about our response to God when corrected. I need to look for the Holy Spirit’s conviction and correction in my life and be humble and responsive to His rebuke. In the words of Paul:

Do you not know that in a race all the runners run, but only one gets the prize? Run in such a way as to get the prize. Everyone who competes in the games goes into strict training. They do it to get a crown that will not last; but we do it to get a crown that will last forever. Therefore I do not run like a man running aimlessly; I do not fight like a man beating the air. No, I beat my body and make it my slave so that after I have preached to others, I myself will not be disqualified for the prize. I Corinthians 9:24-27

I’ve been thinking quite a bit lately about hope. It seems to me that hope is a critical ingredient to happiness (or maybe joy) and is one of the major advantages that followers of Jesus have over the rest of mankind. I am frequently astonished that people who don’t love God are able to face their days at all, without the hope that we have in Christ. Sometimes it is no picnic even for those of us who have that hope – it is quite possible to become bogged down in the hopelessness of daily existence. One of the things I have had trouble with in my job is that there is no particular hope for advancement or improvement. For a few weeks after Christmas, I have been moping around, allowing myself to act as though I had nothing better to look forward to than a series of tedious and mundane workdays, briefly and occasionally interspersed with weekends. The promise of eternity seemed a long way off, and I found myself becoming depressed.

Christmas morning -- breakfast at a very hopeful moment.

I think one of the big lies that Satan would have Christians believe is that our hope is only good for eternity, and that here on earth, we are no better off than the next guy. Nothing could be further from the truth! It dawned on me with surprising force that the hope that I have is a daily and powerful hope – I can eagerly look forward to each day to see what God is going to do in it, in spite of my distaste for the work that I do. The God that I serve is powerful and active and regularly intervenes in the most dismal of circumstances – I run the risk of missing His activity in my life if I wallow in gloomy hopelessness.

One of my favorite stories in the Old Testament is the account of Shadrach, Meschach and Abednego – three teenagers brought to Babylon after the fall of Jerusalem. I think it would have been very easy for a young Jew to become depressed and feel hopeless during that 70-year period of exile from Israel. These young men, selected for the service of this pagan enemy king, almost certainly resented being wrenched away from their families and the comforts of home, particularly if they were of the nobility. I think I would have been daunted by the hopelessness of captivity and reports of the eventual complete destruction of Jerusalem. But these young men held firm to their faith in God and continued to honor and glorify Him, even to the point of being willing to be burned alive rather than deny their Lord.

The other night Kathy asked me why it was that following God was so hard, sometimes. It made me think for a moment – is that necessarily true? I guess it all comes down to your view of the flesh and the unregenerate heart of sinful man. If you accept the Biblical description of the flesh and the way it wars against the spirit, then it is not surprising that obeying God would be hard, much, or even all of the time.

In the letters to the seven churches in the first few chapters of Revelation, the apostle John, writing through the Spirit, reports on what will be given ‘to he who overcomes’:

• the right to eat from the tree of life
• will not be hurt at all by the second death
• some of the hidden manna
• a white stone with a new name
• authority over the nations
• the morning star
• be dressed in white
• never have your name blotted out from the book of Life
• be acknowledged before the Father and His angels
• be made into a pillar in the temple of God
• the right to sit with Jesus on the throne of God

So, what is to be overcome? Certainly temptation to sin and the persecution of others. But for many of us, the most difficult thing to overcome is more subtle – it is the struggle between our spirit and our flesh, and it is not something that can be overcome once for all. Jesus said that the one who would follow him must take up his cross daily -- a strange juxtaposition of the mundane daily struggle with sin and selfishness and the extreme heroic imagery of Jesus carrying His cross to Golgotha.

Joshua often enjoys a seat by the fire.

I’ve been reading Bible-related animal stories to the kids at night during ‘Chapter Time’ – fictional stories about animals reacting to various human events loosely associated with scriptural stories. After we prayed, I sent each child to bed, calling them by a silly nickname. Names are such powerful things – each child waited until I called them by their nickname and ran off delightedly telling the others what I had called them. “Off to bed, Faithful!” I said to Rachel, making a pun on the lavender-colored hooded sweatshirt that she wears 24x7 until we have begun calling it ‘Old Faithful’. “Get into your bunk, ‘Toothless in Tacoma’!” I said to Daniel, teasing him about the recent removal of his two lower front teeth. Even Sarah wanted to be called something, so I dubbed her “Muffin Toes” which all agreed was appropriate. “Brown Eyes” (David) and “Special Boy” (Joshua, in honor of Thursday being his Special Day) ran off to bed well-satisfied.

Two roses -- both still blooming at Christmas

I really like being a Dad, which is a good thing, considering how much time it requires. It will be a strange thing to have these rascals grow up and move out – assuming they ever do.

I update the schedules each week (Sunday night) and print them out on cardstock. Each child has their own clipboard that holds their handwriting sheets (using the Start Write computer program) and current chart.

Click this link to view it: Joshua's Schedule

Hooray for Homeschooling!

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.