good grief

"What do people mean when they say, 'I am not afraid of God because I know He is good'? Have they never even been to a dentist?"- C.S. Lewis (A Grief Observed)

There are certain people I have met in life who seem to have problems in every aspect of their lives. I don't know if this is their own fault due to bad decisions, or if they are just incredibly unfortunate, or if God or Satan simply has it in for them. Whatever it is, I always feel very fortunate in comparison.

I have never had a serious medical issue. Neither has Golden or NJ. We had some close calls in our finances in the past, but we have always been better off than a lot of people I know. We haven't even lacked in friendships. Really, we have not had any horrifically bad situations in our lives. Certainly, we haven't experienced anything that would challenge my faith in God's existence or goodness. I have definitely been angry at God at times, but not because I thought He wasn't good or didn't exist.

Because I have not had horrifically bad experiences in my life, I sometimes wonder how strong my faith really is. It is easy to judge Job's wife for telling him to "curse God and die," (Job 2:9) but I can only imagine the suffering necessary to drive someone who believes in God to say that. When I hear Job's story told, I never really feel that the agony of the statement is given enough credit. There are few quotes in the entire Bible as strong to me as that one because it is so absolute. It was not uttered flippantly.

I have dealt with the issue of pain before, and I can come up with many reasons why pain is necessary. This does not mean that when I am pushed to the brink of despair that it is impossible for me to abandon faith in contrast to what I believe. I can believe in God all I want, but what will that matter if my visceral response is that He is too horrible to serve? I have always wondered how I would really hold up to something truly bad happening to me or someone very close to me.

I also wonder how much grief is necessary for God to complete His work in me or any other person. Do some people go through more than they need to? Do most people fold before it does any good? How do I respond to the man who gives up on God because he believes God gave up on him?

den-test

Today, I went to the dentist for a checkup and cleaning. It usually goes one of two ways. Either the person cleaning my teeth notes how it looks like I have done a good job with my teeth, or I get reminded about how important it is to brush and floss well. My last cleaning I got the "good job" routine. This time, not so much.

As I was sitting in the dentist chair it occurred to me that this was a bit like taking a test. I have the same unprepared feeling when I have not studied well enough for a test as when I have not been brushing and flossing enough. The good feeling of completing a test where I am confident in my answers is similar to how I feel when I am complemented on my flossing.

Like with a test, I also have a real good feeling when I leave the dentist's office. Another six months until I have to be tested again. Maybe I'll remember to floss before then.

the squirrel

This is a poem I wrote for a creative writing club in 1995 when I was much younger. We were supposed to write a poem about Spring, and this is what resulted.

The squirrel, our main character
Had hibernated all winter
Through all the freezing sleet and snow
He was warm in the ground below

He gathered nuts the prior fall
And in the ground he stored them all
Yet not noticing in the least
He put them in a heap of yeast

While he was in hibernation
His horde was in fermentation
So that first nut that he got
Was somewhat like a whiskey shot

Shocked by this taste in his coffer
He liked it so he tried another
Soon drunk on the ground he did lay
Thinking of what his wife would say

He soon dozed off without a fight
And lay like that through all the night
When he finally did awake
He had an Excedrin headache

His sight seemed to dance and hover
This squirrel had a hangover
Half digested nuts were heaved out
As he looked for his part of town

He had never heard such a shout
As the one that his spouse let out
He made this promise to his wife
“No more booze for all my life”

One year later and no smarter
He thinks his stash under water
What he hid them this time in
Is now some nitroglycerine

This poem is dedicated to the squirrel who was the unfortunate victim of an accidental explosion.

july books

Lately, I have been very bad at completing good books, so while I was on my last trip I resolved to finish two books I had started. This did not require too much effort since both books are very short, but I still had to convince myself to stick to it.

The Great Gatsby

I have been meaning to read this for several years. It is considered one of the great American classics from the last century, and I have not put the time I should reading real classics in recent years.

It was particularly difficult to stay interested in this book in the first three chapters because the main character is surrounded by three different groups of people in those chapters and I was having a hard time seeing how characters from one chapter would be relevant to those from another.

I don't want to give too much away for the few who have not yet read Gatsby, but the story is an illustration of strong and, I believe, deeply misguided love. The main character spends time with his rich cousin, then with his rich neighbor. Later he discovers the connection that binds the two. I greatly appreciated the melancholy conclusion of the book because it appeared to be headed the direction of the sentimental romance for a while. Gatsby is meant to illustrate the emptiness of wealthy life in the 1920s, and it is successful.

A Grief Observed

I am a little embarrassed to admit that I had to make a pledge to myself to finish this book. It only takes about an hour-and-a-half to read in one uninterrupted sitting. I have also read it before, so I shouldn't have to stop and think about certain passages as much.

I actually started this book in part to refresh my mind about some things Lewis said for a different blog post that I have been planning. That post will come shortly.

C.S. Lewis wrote this one as a journal of his thoughts and feelings in the months after his wife died. It was initially released under a pseudonym, but so many of his friends recommended that he read the book that he finally confessed to being the author.

I appreciate Lewis' earlier book The Problem of Pain because he dealt with this very difficult issue very academically. The problem with that prior work, though, is that it feels like it is being written by someone who is not currently experiencing pain. He just does not feel empathetic enough for a lot of people to accept what he has to say. A Grief Observed does not suffer this problem.

In this work, Lewis seems the most frustrated about the things people say to help him get through the death of his loved one. "She isn't experiencing pain any more." What makes you believe that? "You should not fear because God is good." Why isn't a good God more scary than an evil one?

I know that I will be reading this book again some time in the future, because I can imagine it would be very cathartic when going through a hard time. That is the real reason I have the book in the first place.

summer trip: the end

Miles total: 2986

Golden read through my posts about the trip for the first time tonight. One thing that she noted was that I probably wrote too much. I am going to try to keep this to a few observations. There are no pictures because I did not have the camera easily available to me very much.

When we entered Indiana the first thing I saw were four or five huge signs for Tom Raper RVs and Home Sales. Am I the only person who thinks a different company name would work better? It is possible that the guy's name is an advantage because people remember it.

We saw Dash and T for supper in Terre Haute and a walk around the local mall. It was a great diversion after spending seven hours on the road.

As I was driving through Effingham, Illinois, I remembered a little too late that I wanted to snap a picture of the giant cross visible from the highway. The thing is huge, and I only started noticing it on trips in the past few years. I am not sure if this is because it was built a few years ago or if I was always asleep during this part of the trip in the past. A picture where you can get a sense of the cross' size can be found at this site.

NJ is healthy now, but he had some of his worst moments on the final day of the trip. I think the crazy schedule was getting to him. He was very pleasant to be around once we got him home, though.

So, to those who have kept up with the trip, I appreciate your patience. For those who haven't, you can start reading my posts again after today.

summer trip: day ten

Miles so far: 2119

As I expected, the last two days have been the least active of all the days of the trip so far. This is something I needed before starting the final leg of the trip, and is a big reason why I planned to stay until Saturday instead of leaving earlier.

My dad manages the school bus terminal for a school district here in the Pittsburgh area. Yesterday, my dad took NJ to the local high school and the terminal to show him off to some of the people he works with. NJ was apparently rather popular.

Last night one of my aunts visited for a couple of hours to see NJ for the first time. This morning, we met with one of my cousins, though he had seen NJ before.

This afternoon, we couldn't think of much to do. I had been typing information about relatives into my laptop, so my mom got the idea to visit a couple of the local cemeteries where relatives (mostly dead ones) are buried. This sounds boring, but I did enjoy it.My parents took Golden and I out for steak this night to celebrate my birthday. I loved the steak, but I feel bad about them spending so much money when we visit.

It is difficult for me to comprehend that within twelve hours we will be departing for Kansas. Tomorrow morning we leave for Terre Haute, Indiana, and we will arrive home some time Sunday evening. Probably the thing I am the most depressed about is that I will be at work the next day. I probably should have scheduled a day to recover from the vacation, but who has that kind of time?

summer trip: day eight

Miles so far: 2072

I now know that I under-calculated the number of miles that we would travel on the trip. I know that it is about eight hundred miles from my parents' house to our house, so it is now looking like a three thousand mile trip.

Also, for as bad as NJ looked on Monday, Tuesday morning he looked a lot better. Now, almost all signs of pox are gone.

Tuesday morning we left around ten for Scranton. We probably would have left sooner, but someone who will remain nameless was a little sluggish that morning.

Under normal circumstances, the trip would have taken five-and-a-half hours. Since we stopped for lunch at an actual restaurant, dealt with some of NJ's digestive problems, and took a scenic tour of the the area around Nescopeck, Pennsylvania, while I insisted that we weren't lost, we arrived at our destination almost eight hours later.

Just about every time Golden has visited the keystone state it has been in the winter in overcast weather. Not only that, but she has visited mostly the areas of the state still reeling from steel and copper mills shutting down decades ago. As a result, she has had a less than stellar opinion of Pennsylvania. Every time she heard someone call it a beautiful state she disagreed with this assessment, though she kept this opinion to herself. This time she got to see some of the more beautiful areas of the state in the summer sun. I believe that her opinion of the state improved.



I did give some thought to what I consider a mountain as I travelled through the Appalachians. I think that because all of the Appalachian mountains that I have seen are covered in trees, I never considered them mountains. I always figured it was the size of the Rockies that made me view them more as mountains than the Appalachians. I now think it is just because the Rockies are rocky. The fact that most Appalachian peaks are tree-covered makes me see them as overgrown hills.

My grandmother and great aunt are staying with my aunt in her house north of Scranton. It is a large farm house away from the population that was probably built around the turn of the twentieth century, which they are currently remodelling. My aunt's grandson and granddaughter are currently also at the house, so there were people everywhere.

The area around the farm house is something that Dwight Schrute would be proud of. I didn't see any beet farms, but I know I must not have been looking closely enough. I schruted it.A big part of the reason that we travelled to Pennsylvania in the first place is so my grandmother could see her great-grandson. She repeatedly expressed her appreciation that we brought NJ to see her. Two problems, though, are that she is having trouble with her memory and NJ would cry any time we tried to hand him to her. He simply would not have someone other than his mom hold him. Even though there was not much more I could do, I feel bad that she didn't get to hold him without him crying.

Around noon today, my aunt took Golden and I to the Teen Challenge adolescent center where my uncle works. Then she took us around Scranton. The Teen Challenge center is very new and is still in the building process. The views from the complex are spectacular, though.The point of going into Scranton was to see if we could find the "Welcome to Scranton" sign from The Office theme. We found a newer sign, but not the old one. I believe I heard that the old one was taken down, but that it might be around somewhere for visitors to see. That information didn't help us any.We got a late start to my parents' home today, which made all of us a bit nervous given how long it took to get there. The trip back was two hours shorter than the trip there, though, since NJ didn't cause much trouble.

After today, I am feeling pretty good. The next two days should be much slower with no excessive travelling, though I do have a few things scheduled. Going at a slower pace is something I am beginning to really appreciate.

summer trip: day six

Miles so far: 1441

So much has happened since last post. Normally, I might dwell on that, but due to complications with my laptop's ability to plug into an Internet connection, I am outside mooching off someone else's wireless connection. Needless to say, I am short on battery power. No taking time to upload pictures for this post, either.

The main reason that Golden and I planned this trip when we did was to go to her cousin's wedding. On the way there we determined that taking NJ into the main service was a bad idea, so I entertained him in the church lobby while the wedding occurred. In this weird turn of events, I met the bride for the first time and had a short conversation right before she walked down the aisle. I'm never sure what to say in those instances.

Last post I complained a little about it not really being a vacation. Actually, Golden's aunt and uncle have done everything in their power to make things comfortable for everyone. Dash would be interested to know that I am now practiced up on ladder golf, which is a game where two golf balls that are tethered together are hurled at a plastic structure containing rungs. Golden's aunt and uncle hosted several rounds of that game.

NJ does not have a fever any more, but he has what looks like a full-blown case of chicken pox. He got vaccinated for it last week, and everything we can find on the vaccine says that the reactions don't occur in most kids, and when they do they are minor. I'd like to see the stats on that, though, because we can't be the only case.

On the way across Ohio to see my sister I took a few back roads to save time and money, thus skipping most of the Ohio turnpike, but hitting every traffic light in every small town along that stretch. I don't recommend that strategy to anyone else.

The last two nights NJ has been horrible come bedtime and has ended up in our bed. We have a policy that he never sleeps in our bed, so you know it had to be bad. Tonight he seems better, and I think that is mostly due to a stabilizing schedule.

I met the guy that my sister has been seeing for the first time yesterday. We talked a lot of history and politics. I think we both enjoyed that.

Today, we went to a state park in the area for a few minutes before deciding that miniature golf would be the most entertaining thing to do. My mom watched NJ while we played. I didn't do so well, but that mattered much less than the fact that we got to do something entertaining without having to worry about NJ.

Tomorrow. we leave for Scranton. To the question from an earlier post, yes, this is the Scranton from The Office. Unfortunately, the show is not filmed in the city, so there is not much to see from the show in Scranton. I'll be visiting my grandmother, though, so I'll have more important things to worry about.

summer trip: day three

Miles so far: 776

The first day of the trip, while we did a lot of travelling on the road, still felt like a vacation. The last two days have not. There have been good moments, so this isn't all bad. I will try not to make this come across too negative, but I am not going to lie, either.

Wednesday did not start off well because NJ woke up at 5:20 and did not go back to bed. As everyone who reads this blog should have figured out, this ruined Golden's day more than mine. We left Bloomington on schedule and met my cousin south of Chicago. She had a baby three to four months ago and she lives a half mile from one of the roads on our planned itinerary, so it would have been wrong for us not to meet somewhere and take pictures of each other's baby. NJ is just short of twenty pounds at a year and MJ (his cousin) is seventeen pounds at less than four months. Golden and I did not help NJ out too much in the size department.Golden's grandparents and her aunt and uncle live a little south of Kalamazoo, Michigan. Her grandmother somehow got the idea that we would be in town Wednesday evening rather than Thursday evening, so we were under considerable pressure to get to Michigan as quickly as possible.

The good part was that we all enjoyed playing games at Golden's aunt and uncle's house on Thursday night. The bad part was that NJ had been battling a fever all day and got real hot (about 102 degrees). We had to rush him to the hotel and try to cool him down.

It doesn't sound like much, but Golden and I agreed that Thursday kicked our butts.

Today we visited one of Golden's friends from college and her two kids (pictured below) over lunch. Her husband is in Iraq right now with the Army, so I think she is interested in anything to get out of the house. It was a nice break for us as well.We went back to see Golden's family after that visit and eventually ended up at her grandparents' apartment. We spent most of the afternoon there before going out for supper. As we were driving back to the apartment, Golden noted that NJ's diaper was leaking. Bad. Really bad.

We had to throw away the clothes that NJ was wearing, and six adults spent about a half hour getting the car, the car seat, and NJ bearable (still not actually clean). The one really funny element to the story was that, while everyone else was heavily involved with cleaning up NJ's mess, Golden's grandfather was preparing his fishing rod as if he had no clue what everyone else was doing. He was so focused on wanting to go fishing, he wasn't phased by anything else that was happening. After the quick cleaning job, we came back to the hotel to clean NJ and the car seat better.

So, the current situation is that NJ is still feverish and our vehicle now smells like the inside of a heavily-utilized cattle car. I am hoping that in short order we can upgrade the situation to mildly warm and a cattle car that has not been used for a while.

summer trip: day one

Miles so far: 387

I'm posting from Bloomington, Illinois, so most everything is working according to plan. This is just random stuff from the past day.

First, I have realized that yesterday I may have overstated the number of miles that we will be travelling a tad. I know my grandmother, who we plan to visit, lives in Scranton. I have not calculated how far that truly is, largely because I don't want to know yet.

Last night I had aspirations of helping Golden pack. Then the baseball All-Star Game came on. Actually, the main problem was that I had no idea what I was doing. I packed one small bag of books and a couple of DVDs for me, and Golden did most of the rest of the work. I did chip in some and I also packed the car. Putting suitcases in the car is an easier job than putting the clothes in the the suitcases, but it is something.

One thing I found annoying about the All-Star Game was that the guide on the TV said it started at 7, but the game actually started at 8. There was an hour of pre-game show before the actual game. Had that actually been on the guide, I would have been fine with it. I would have known what to expect. I also know that you can count on a half hour of pre-game before most major sporting events. The thing is baseball is already a slow enough game. I see no point in extending any baseball game a full hour.

On the first day of travelling, NJ was not the problem we expected him to be. He was actually kind of lethargic in the car. Once we got to the hotel room, though, he let all of his pent up energy loose. NJ wore Golden out so much that she went to bed around 8:30. Before I hear about how I should be helping out more, he is at a stage where if he sees Golden, it isn't good enough for him to be with me. He has to be with her.

We took mostly interstates today, but there was an hour-and-a-half stretch of two-lane state road on our journey. I learned that gas stations on back roads in Missouri and Illinois charge a twenty cent premium per gallon of gas. Me, being the cheap person that I am, ran on fumes until I found a station on the next interstate to save that twenty cents.

Golden is reading a parenting book while I drive. Because of this, she informed me today that we are not supposed to excessively use the word "no" with NJ. Instead, we should use more positive terms to make our point. For example, telling him, "I'll play with you later because the book that I am reading right now because that makes me happy," is better than saying, "No, I can't play with you because I am reading." This is apparently because it helps encourage him to consider other peoples' wants as well. That's going to be a challenge.

I'll close with a picture I took today in Laddonia, Missouri. I actually marked its location on my map ahead of time because I remembered seeing the sign when we drove through the town on the way to Chicago a few years ago. Not only have the town and the state not removed the sign, there are four signs (two north and two south) that look almost identical.If I lived in that community, I think I would try to get into whatever government exists there and find some other way of describing junction on the sign. Since it is on Highway 54, including the highway number somewhere on the sign would help.

My intention was to post this on Panoramio, which is a site where users can map pictures to a specific location and they eventually show up in Google Earth. Someone else beat me to it in just the last month, though. The picture already uploaded is of one of the other signs, but there is little point to have two pictures of almost exactly the same thing in Google Earth.

I am not sure what the specific schedule is for the next few days, but I assume that I will get at least one more post in before the end of the week. We'll see.

bon voyage

Tomorrow morning Golden, NJ, and myself are cramming into the car and starting a very long road trip that will send us to Michigan and across Pennsylvania before returning home. It will be nice to see family, and for family to see NJ.

Unfortunately, the first thing I think of when someone says the word, "fun," is not necessarily travelling 2,500 miles in a car with a one-year-old. We are breaking the trip into pieces that might be small enough to deal with, though, so maybe I am being overly pessimistic.

I am kind of torn about this trip. I am excited about family getting to see NJ and I am excited about staying in hotels. I am a little on edge about the tight schedule that we have planned, though. I don't think we have any days off on the whole trip.

I expect that I will have time to post through this week, though I am not sure. Next week is a complete toss up. I will try to provide updates, but don't be disappointed if the site is dead for a few days.

If all goes well the next update will be in Bloomington, Illinois, tomorrow night. Wish us well.

raise your hand...

...only if you're sure.

As I have grown up going to church and have attended more services than I could ever count, I have been in many services where there were altar calls. This is a sampling of what I typically hear.

"...and now I would like to ask you to close your eyes and bow your heads. As you heard in the sermon earlier today, blah blah blah blah blah blah, blah. Blaahhh, blah bla-blah blah blah blah blaahhh blah-bid-dee-blah. So, if that applies to you please come to the front of the room or at least raise your hand."

Not only do I occasionally have a hard time concentrating on sermons, I even have a hard time concentrating on the altar calls at the end of the sermons. When it comes time for the call to be given I am rarely really sure if I am expected to respond or not. It's usually a safe bet for "not," but I do get queasy when I here or see a lot of movement that indicates that almost everyone else is responding. That happened yesterday morning, so Golden and I left a little early to pick up NJ.

Another thing that I noticed is that when I am actually paying attention I usually get an itch somewhere on my head at the same time that people are supposed to be raising their hands for salvation, healing, or whatever. I sometimes wonder how many of the people counted as raising their hands were only scratching their ears. Maybe I'm the only person with that experience, though.

the nineteenth century

Sometimes when we are taking care of NJ or just doing things around the house we have the television on more or less for background noise. This afternoon something that got some background noise play was The Apple Dumpling Gang Rides Again. The movie is a western/comedy sequel made in the 1970s. The movie is entertaining enough, which actually is quite an accomplishment for a western.

I really do not like most movies or television shows set in the 1800s. This is not because I have not given them a chance. I have watched my share of movies from the era. I used to watch Westerns with my dad and I have seen many of movies of what I consider the other big major nineteenth century genre: romance.

There are a few things that I don't like about stories from the nineteenth century.

• A lot of movies about the era, and especially the romances, dwell on the social rules and interactions of the time. I am convinced that I would not be comfortable with most of the social rules from that era.
• Speaking of comfort, does anything look less comfortable than the clothes in Little House on the Prairie?
• I am not an outdoors person, so I might not have even survived one hundred fifty years ago.
• I don't long for a life with less technology.
• When I have visited museums and recreations of historical life, I have been struck by how unappealing the life appears. Examples of what I am talking about are the Deanna Rose Children's Farmstead and Fort Niagara.

Do you have reasons to like movies about the 1800s, or do you generally feel the same way I do?

the hunt is off

A recent discussion at work centered on whether hunting or fishing are incredibly fun or whether they do not make sense as entertainment. There have definitely been times in my life that I wanted to hunt and fish, but at the time I did not fully understand what this requires. For example, the following are just a few of the things that I might have a problem with.

• Getting up at 4:30 in the morning.
• Doing anything with deer urine.
• Sitting for hours on end in total silence.
• Sitting for hours on end in the elements.
• Identifying an animal in its natural habitat (color blindness).
• Actually killing an animal.
• Gutting the animal that I killed.

These outweigh the two things that I think are cool about hunting. I would like handling guns and eating the catch afterward. I could take care of these cravings with a stop to a firing range and a fast food joint, though.

One important thing to note is that I am all for hunting when it is done properly by other people. I have liked most of the wild game that I have had, and I understand that most hunting in the United States is used to control certain species' populations. I actually got my hunting and trapping card in Pennsylvania, so I have learned the list of benefits that hunting provides. I am just not one of those people who has to get up before sunrise with an orange vest and a gun to entertain myself.

patriotic

I considered not doing a post over the holiday because few people would be on blogs. I probably will be in a posting lull later in the month when we are visiting family, though, so it is probably worth adding something extra now. It is possible that some people will wish I didn't bother.

When 9/11 occurred I remember thinking that it was a bit convenient that patriotism was fashionable overnight. If patriotism was so important after the attacks, why wasn't it en vogue before? That was probably a bit cynical, but that was my honest first reaction.

I have always considered myself relatively patriotic. I knew which team to root for in the Olympics and military skirmishes. At least when I was growing up, it was easy to see the United States idealistically due to it's unique freedoms and the history behind those freedoms.

I am still very patriotic, but with reservations. It has little to do with current politics. I love the United States because, for all its problems, it is a better place to live than pretty much anywhere else. Also, the country has to be doing something right to tick off Hugo Chavez, Fidel Castro, Mahmoud Ahmadinejad, Kim Jong-il, Omar al-Bashir, et al. (Yes, I had to verify the spelling of Castro's name.)

Even if I like the United States I have to admit that the country is, and always has been, far from perfect. Again, this has little to do with my political opinions. This is because every country is run by imperfect people with imperfect purposes. I am not supposed to try to get heaven on earth anyway, so this should not be too much of a disappointment.

The question I have over the Independence Day holiday is how patriotic should a person, especially a Christian, be about the nation in which he or she lives. Is it wrong to feel a sense of loyalty to a fallible country? Is it wrong to go too far the other way and have no loyalty to a country which provides you with so much freedom? Where is the perfect, or at least proper, balance?

happy birthday, nj

I hope Golden wasn't planning to post this information today. I did not talk to her about it yet.

Today is NJ's first birthday. It is hard to think of NJ as anything but a baby, so him hitting the one year milestone is a little weird. He is headed into his toddler period and I am still coming to terms with having an infant.

I don't think we are going to do too much today because he has already had two celebrations. One was with my family a week ago and one was with Golden's family this past weekend. The picture below is from a week ago.
The birthday celebration on Saturday managed to be quite memorable because a tornado touched down a few miles from Golden's parents' house just an hour before we had the cake. Golden, her mom, and NJ went to a back closet for a few minutes when the radio indicated that a funnel cloud might be headed our way, but it didn't even get close enough for us to see it. Some day I will tell NJ that even God was celebrating his first birthday and just got a little carried away.

Besides being NJ's birthday, this is also the first day that Golden would be going to work if she was still at work, but isn't because she is not. So, everyone around the house has something to be happy about today. If only I were there.