being relevant

when i was serving as a missionary in palestine back in 2000 and 2001 i made some comment about how it was hard to fathom how some people spend time worrying about whether their socks match. at the time, i was watching neighbors being terrorized by israeli shelling and helicopters, and was appropriately angry about what i was seeing.

but now i live in alabama, i have a stable job, and a great family, and it's been more than a year since i've contacted my representatives to advocate for justice for my friends in palestine, or my poorer neighbors down the street. i'm pretty sure i've gotten soft, and i'm ashamed by it. i've prioritized being liked over doing or saying what is right.

i know i can justify all of this easily if i want to, but i'm not interested in my own justifications. i know i ought to speak up when confronted by a bigot. and just because the majority of the people i see every day buy the crap they're sold on fox news doesn't mean i have to honor it by listening. enough's enough! time to throw the money changers back out, and it looks like i'll need to be the first to go! a little repentence is good for the soul.

who cares about being relevant when the conversation going on isn't worth having?

getting things backwards

Being a United Methodist minister I've gotten pretty used to hearing old people's opinions. I do a lot of listening... it's just part of the work. I'm not often given an opportunity to share my opinions (except in sermons, where I share liberally).

A few months back, I saw an old guy in the church roll his eyes when a mother began to breastfeed her child during the worship service. The mother noticed too. And we wonder why young people aren't interested in being around much?

Since the weather has gotten pretty, I've been taking Lily to the park, and every day, there is at least one parent or grandparent smoking next to the playground. Why is it considered acceptable in Alabama to poison children with smoke (or infant formula), but unacceptable for a kid to eat what a kid is designed to eat?

I'm not humble enough to think I've got it backwards this time. Maybe this preacher just feels like preaching!

On Education

Lily's classical education has begun!

We are diligently escorting Lily through all of the important topics and subjects she will find most crucial for her life. We got straight to it in Lily's first hour with music education, which included some family influence, as Lily listened to her Uncle Ben's third album with Great Lakes Diamond Times. Later, Lily learned about several important compositions, including the Beach Boys' Pet Sounds, the Beatles Revolver, and Gram Parsons GP. We haven't started any testing yet, but she seems to be picking it all at an alarmingly speedy rate.

We've done some work on theology and ethics through music as we sung John Prine's Your Flag Decal Won't Get you into Heaven Anymore, which has proven to be her favorite song so far. Lily also seems to enjoy Christmas must be tonight, but I seemed to lose her when I explained that Christmas follows the Christian season of Advent, and right now, we're in Lent, which leads us up to Easter, and the appropriate liturgical color for both of these seasons is purple. I'm not sure if her quizzical look stemmed from confusion or gas... but we'll keep working at it. I'm bound and determined to have her reading Barth and Wesley by her first birthday!

Grandma "Cookie" Crum will be glad to hear that the math education is progressing well too. Lily is working on shapes with the mobile above her bed, and we can only assume that her plaintive gazes mean she is differentiating clearly between the triangle, square, rectangle, trapezoid, and circle. She really is amazing!!!

We plan to get into some science a little later with the help of They Might be Giants and their album Science is Real. Sylvie wants to be sure Lily begins to learn about the big bang, evolution, and the periodic table. I'm supportive of these studies, though I'll need a bit of tutoring myself as we get into the finer points of molecular biology.

This parenting stuff is really getting my juices flowing! Gotta go now, Lily looks to be waning and I really want to read her the first chapter of Dietrich Bonhoeffer's Ethics before she fades completely!

bon appetit!

Being a dad is fun, and I've started doing the wackiest things. Like today at breakfast, I thought it would be great to pretend that the coffee press was a syrup bottle, and rationally poored syrup all over my pancakes. It sort of felt like one of those times when you wake up and wonder, where am I? Am I supposed to be doing something today? I looked down at my plate and thought, something isn't quite right here... and then a few long seconds later, my mind decided that the plate might not hold that much liquid, so I stopped pooring.

The good news is... coffee pancakes are a really good idea, and I'm surprised I hadn't ever tried them before. They're an especially good idea for a dad who has had very little sleep. I tried to convince Sylvia to try some of my syrup on her pancakes, but for some reason she just looked at me and almost fell out of her chair laughing. I'm glad I amused her!

Tomorrow I may need to try some hummus in my oatmeal, or maybe some cream in my orange juice. Just think of all the limitless possibilities with Lily as my muse!

Changing

So, Lily Sabine Crum was born yesterday morning at 3 a.m. eastern time in Chattanooga, Tennessee. The labor was intense, but as Sylvia has pointed out since, we got a really great prize to bring home with us at the end!

It's been so fun to have her. And since Sylvie did the birth naturally, and everything went well, the whole family was ready to head home within 10 hours of Lily's arrival.

One thing that was apparent with Lily almost immediately is that she received both of her parents' stubbornness. The girl knows what she wants! She likes to be settled in, and is not a fan of transitions. She doesn't seem to care for getting swaddled, but she really enjoys it once she is swaddled. She doesn't enjoy having her diaper changed, but she certainly enjoys having the old one off and the new one on. She doesn't like being passed around from one person to another, though she is completely comfortable with just about anyone holding her.

I joked with an one older member of the church earlier today that this behavior reminds me a little bit of a number of other older members of the church. They really don't like change when it is happening, but they can become comfortable once changes have been made.

Today, Sylvia and I are so aware of how blessed we are to have made it through the past couple of days with our terrific prize. This change was one we have been looking forward to for a long time, and we're enjoying soaking up what it means to be parents together.

On Lent

The Christian season of Lent is meant to be a time of preparation before Easter, in a similar way that Advent is a season of preparation before Christmas. I don’t know if it is just where I have been for the last several years, serving as a pastor in North Alabama, but I have witnessed, even in the Church, a sense that we should just rush forward and “get to it,” with each of these major Christian holy days. Last year, the Christmas rush began on November 1, when stores took down their Halloween paraphernalia and replaced it with Christmas junk. Soon the questions started coming, “When are we going to sing Christmas songs?” and I answered, “We’ll sing them when Christmas gets here.” Sadly, once we got to Christmas, everyone was done with it. When we gathered for a service of Lessons and Carols on the Sunday after Christmas everyone seemed exhausted and uninterested in celebrating.

In Lent we’re meant to focus on the things that are keeping each of us from developing a closer relationship with God, and work to remove them. We are meant to ask the question, “What is standing between me and God? What have I allowed to become a priority that really isn’t meant to be a priority? And, how can God help me fix this?”

For me this is simple… I am a pleaser! I like to be liked, and I don’t like to hurt other peoples’ feelings even if what I have said to them is appropriate. Having integrity requires a willingness to say what people do not necessarily want to hear, with compassion. And that is the challenge I have for this Lent, to say what needs to be said, not roughly or to hurt, but to say what needs to be said whether it is popular or not. I hope God gives me wisdom and courage for this task! I am deliberately spending more time in prayer this Lent to seek God's guidance here.

Racing?

Yesterday I took part in my first bicycle race, a 40-mile ride consisting of four loops around a ten-mile circuit at Camp Sumatanga in Gallant, AL. I read about the race the night before, and even though I hadn’t ridden my bike much over the last few weeks because of the cold and wet, I thought it might be fun to go give it a shot. I had to rush to get to Sumatanga in time for the start because I had a couple of meetings after worship at Church. I made it in time to get registered and threw on my clothes and had a chance to “warm up” by riding about a quarter of a mile before it was time to get started. Wearing my heart rate monitor, I looked down and realized that my heart was racing as I prepared for the start. No matter what I tried to do I couldn’t get it to slow down and relax. Finally, the USA cycling official gave us a go, and we took off, and I mean, we really took off! My heart pounded and my lungs began to burn as we tore down the opening stretch of the course up over 20 miles per hour, and closed in on 30. I looked down at my heart rate monitor to see my heart rate soar higher and higher. I heard a woman behind me exclaim, “Good grief,” as she quit pedaling and turned around to head back to the start. I thought to myself, “this is ridiculous, I could die here!” After what seemed like a lifetime, but turned out to be only 1.1 miles, I slowed down and settled in for what would turn out to be a nice training ride, realizing I have work to do before I do any more racing.

I finished the race/ride… dead last, and sufficiently humbled. My lungs are still mad at me today, and the 2600 calories I burned on my ride leave me a little sluggish, but somehow crazily tempted to do it all again once I get into better shape.