A Dart to the Heart

One of the things I do with my boys is going on bike rides with them on the weekends. A bit more specifically, I pedal, they ride.

It started with my oldest when he was 14 months old. We got a bike seat and put him on it, and off Daddy and son went. Usually, he fell asleep within a short while, but eventually, he grew up enough to stay awake for a longer ride. This eventually morphed into weekend rides to a local restaurant for breakfast. It has been a great and precious time with each of my boys as we ride, eat, and ride back home again.

With four kiddos, they each now get a ride every other weekend (I ride Saturday and Sunday mornings - we go to church Saturday night). The older two now go on a "half-bike" that attaches to the back of mine, so they help with the pedaling. The younger two are still in the original seat behind me.

They each have certain places they want to go for breakfast, so I get a somewhat varied menu over the course of the weekend.

Son #2 and I go to a bagel shop not too far away. Cinnamon-Raisin bagels toasted, with peanut butter. Yum!

Last Friday night, I mentioned to #2 that it was his turn for a ride tomorrow. He was not enthusiastic, and asked if I would just go and bring him back a bagel. This kind of misses the whole point of the ride, so I questioned him about it. They all have always loved going on the rides.

What came to light stabbed me in the heart like only "rotten father guilt" can do.

Here's the deal: Over the course of the past few months, as we sit down to eat our bagels, I have been looking at the newspapers the bagel place sets out for customers. At first, it was just a glance, but gradually slid into full-on reading the sports and opinion pages while my son sat there eating. He no longer had Dad across the table, just the back of the paper.

What a jerk I can be.

He never said anything to me about it, but it gradually stole the fun out of the rides with Dad.

I cannot believe I did this! When you step back and look at something like this, the wrongness of it it is so obvious! But in the midst of the slow slide, it never seems that bad. I was a boiling frog at my son's expense.

Right then and there, as I heard his words, I took his hands, looked in his eyes, and promised him I would never do that again. I apologized profusely, and promised him again that I would never do that.

Being the better man than me, he forgave me immediately.

The next day, we went to the bagel store, got the bagels, but this time we were armed with paper and pens to play tick-tac-toe, and the "make boxes from a grid of dots" game (anybody know if this game has a name?).

It was great.

I hope and pray that I will never slide into something like that again.

Ever.

Ever.

I have these four incredible gifts, and I choose to see if the Dodgers won intead of talking to my kid across the table?

Oh please...

To Write Love on Her Arms

If you haven't read this story yet, follow the link and then let me know what you think.
Click Here!

This is what love is supposed to look like.

Why do I want it to be so much safer?

Nose, meet your grindstone

Yes, it's true. My summer vacation is over, and I start back teaching this next week.

The fiends! How can they expect anyone to be ready to teach with only 3 months off?!?!?

My students will just need to excuse me when my lectures are incoherent, my demonstrations are shabby, and my enthusiasm with the course material is fleeting at best.

Wait a minute...I'm tenured! That's the way we ALWAYS teach!!!


Ahhh. Ain't life grand!

The sting of death

I really did have lots of good intentions on posting stuff again right on the heels of my last post.

But then...

My friend Claude's 18 year old daughter dies at a concert.

My friend Bruce's wife dies of a heart attack (age 46).

My Colleague Rick's wife dies of cancer.

And worst of all...
Christmas day, 2005. The phone rings.
"Holly Jolly Christmas!" I blab like a fool (I'm good at the fool thing).
"Hey, this is Jay" (I was best man at his wedding). "I'm sorry to mess up Christmas, but Dee and I are at the hospital. Last night, something wasn't right with the pregnancy. Dee couldn't feel the baby move." (Dee was less than a month away from bearing their first child, a son.) "Anyway, something went wrong, and the baby died."

Death, here's your sting. Damn you.
Sooner rather than later, please.

Elijah Jay.
2005 to 2005.
Now, waiting for us on the far side of the Jordan.

Even in this, God is working redemption. There will be a school in India bearing Elijah's name. It will be reaching and teaching the Untouchables, pounding a nail in the coffin of the caste system.

I'll be back.

How shall we respond?

This strikes me as very Christian - not in the sense of evangelism, but in the sense of stewardship.

This is our Fathers' world. We are to tend to it, and care for it.

We are all created in His image. Shouldn't we strive to "set free those who are oppresed"?

The proposal of the writer of this article seems to me to follow these directions.

What say you?

How dare you actually read what i write!

Remember that last post about walking away from blogging?

Never mind.

Here is a comment I got from Sandra on my last post, and my response:

At 8:15 PM, January 30, 2006, Sandra said...
We all struggle with the issues of time, talents, gifts...how do we use them, when, where, to the greatest good...

The men you mentioned in your next to last post...you questioned if they are now using their God given gifts & talents to their fullest advantage because they either felt lead to go in a different direction or chose to go in a different direction.

You asked, "But, I think the whole thing does raise the issue I started with: as Christians, what is our responsibility in using our gifts and talents for the world at-large?"

And you? You have a talent for writing as a Christian father. Should you narrow your world and stop writing your blog?

Your honesty will be missed as will your writing and the heart cries. God bless you, yours and the work of your hands in whatever direction you go.

May the worst of 2006 be from the best of 2005. Agape & Shalom...

Sandra @ Thistle Cove Farm

My Response:
Sandra,

Ouch. But, thanks for the painful reminder of my own words. That's the blessing/curse of the blogosphere: accountability for what we said.

You have also convinced me to write again.

It's not about me, at all. It's about a chance to touch someone else's life with a bit of truth about this God we serve. How can I walk away from that?

Thank you.

-Steve

Life is very busy, and posting may be light, but the point is what God does with this, and who He brings to these postings.

So...

Let the blogging (re)begin!!

Goodbye for now

Not many (if any) will probably read this, but it seems unfinished to just stop posting, and say nothing.

I haven't posted in ages, and will not in the near future.

A couple of reasons:
First, life with 4 boys is busy! They and my wife need me more than the blogosphere.
If/when things settle down more, we'll see about some posting. Right now, other priorities beckon.

Second, my original purpose for blogging was getting muddied. I was less and less writing about how God touches our lives, and more and more just about stuff. There are pleny of more interesting stuff writers than me. Go find them.

I guess that's all for now. I will still be a blog reader, and sometimes commenter, but not so much a writer.
Writing is hard for me. The long pauses between thoughts don't show up on the written page (screen?), but they take their toll on me.

May you all see the fingerprint of God as you walk through this life.