Yearly Archives: 2005

rudy-thumb
Musings

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.

rudy.jpg
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.

April 2005 381.jpg
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.

urbana.jpg
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.

August 2003 192.jpg
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.

Share or follow
Share

Related posts:

Parenting

Year of Wisdom

This morning is a strange mixture of clouds and sunshine … a row of clouds darkens the morning but ends east of the highway and blue sky prevails beyond that. The mountain looms on the edge of darkness and light, pink-tinged in the sunrise.

Copy of DANTREE.JPG
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.

016_21a-890661.jpg
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.

JDTREE2.JPG
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.

21_18.JPG
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?

May-Nov20010171.jpg
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.

P3200030.JPG
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.

Img06.jpg
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?

Kathy and Sarah Birthday 2003 042.jpg
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.

Michigan 2004 394.jpg
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.

April 2005 115.jpg
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.

December 2004 (26).JPG
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?

December 2004 (27).JPG
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.

April 2005 100.jpg
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.

Share or follow
Share

Related posts:

Musings

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.

April 2005 046.jpg
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.

April 2005 055.jpg
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.

April 2005 038.jpg
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.

April 2005 056.jpg
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.

April 2005 078.jpg
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.

April 2005 081.jpg
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.

April 2005 059.jpg
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?

Share or follow
Share

Related posts:

Musings

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.

April 2005 008.jpg
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.

Share or follow
Share

Related posts:

OLYMPUS DIGITAL CAMERA
Musings

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.

Daffodil.jpg

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.

April 2005 002.jpg
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.

Share or follow
Share

Related posts: