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Let me apologize…

There’s a story about  a group of men who brought a woman to Jesus claiming that they caught her in the act of adultery. I love this story for many reasons. The first is that is based on a “sin” that we can all agree on. The second is that it’s a woman being blamed and the group of men are religious leaders. It is a picture of the powerful pouncing on the weak and wounded.

Jesus isn’t reactive. He doesn’t argue or debate their theory, he actually affirms their knowledge of the law. He then follows it up by saying, “You who has no sin, throw the first stone…” After, he quietly waits.

The oldest of the religious leaders begin to back away, for they understood the secret of the law; guilty of one, guilty of all. The scene ends with a woman, standing in her guilt, and Jesus. This is the way every story of someone who truly experiences God’s love ends. We don’t need anyone else to point out our sin. It’s just me, standing in my guilt, and Jesus.

“Where have they gone?” he asks. There is no response. “I don’t condemn you either.” This defines love.

At another time, Jesus told his followers that the world would know they were his followers by their love. In the recent week, I doubt that the church at large is known by its love. But this isn’t a new experience, especially to those in the LGBT community; for many, the church has never been a place of love, forgiveness, or no-condemnation.

To my dear friends, co-workers, and family members who have experience anything other than the love Jesus demonstrated by those claiming to be his followers, let me apologize. I pray that you will experience such love in your lifetime. Please remember, if Jesus were walking around on earth today, we’d be the group he would be hanging with; not the arrogant, big mouth, religious condemners who we are all sick of hearing.

To my family members, acquaintances, co-workers who are the arrogant, big mouth, religious condemners who we are all sick of hearing, I pray that you too experience the kind of love Jesus demonstrated. I am confident that once you do, your definition of love will instantly change and you will want nothing more than to share this love. When that happens, let us know, we would love for you to hang out with us!

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There’s a leak in my diaper

Since there is nothing else going on in our daughter and son-in-law’s life this summer, Austyn decided it would be a great time to potty train Emery.

There are a few developmental issue that we are all waiting for Emery to discover. One is knowing when there is too much food in her mouth, preferably before she is choking. The second in being potty trained. At the age of four, these two things put her behind on the charts; but she knows what a sphere, cylinder, and pyramid are, so we’re not very concerned about the other two.

As a reward for peeing on the potty, Emery gets treats. This is great EXCEPT that since the day they arrived, I give her treats for just being cute. Mommy gives her one or two Gummies for her attempts on the potty chair, I give her five for just asking. There five colors in the packages I buy and she always knows which one is missing. I feel this is brilliant and she should be rewarded for her intelligence.

Now that we have connected Gummies to potting, whenever she wants a treat, she says, “I’m going to go pee so I can get treats.” She then proceeds to the bathroom, dutifully sits on the seat which is just her size. When she reappears, she announces her success with hands cupped in anticipation. Mommy goes and checks for accuracy, I reach for the bag and begin counting to five.

This evening as she stood motionless on the deck with liquid trickling down her pant leg, she informed us, “I think my diaper has a leak.” In deed there was.

A short time later, as I was cleaning up the kitchen she came in asking for Gummies… “Neenee, can I have Gummie Bears…I want some Gummie Bears…I’m going to go sit on the potty so I can have a treat…my diaper’s still leaking….”

It was so much easier before mommy got here!

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Sirens

It started with a simple question, “What are the sirens on the side of the highway for? Tornados?

We don’t have Tornados here?

Hurricanes?

We don’t have those either.

Earthquakes?

No, we’ve lived here for seven years and never felt one.

Then what are they for?

High Surf – it tells us when it isn’t safe to walk on the beach… The avalanche of fears continued, forcing his little imagination to create escape plans, survival techniques, and new building codes. Fear left to the imagination is impossible to corral.

I didn’t dare tell this six year old about the nuclear power plant just a few miles away and if we ever hear those sirens we will toast the psychedelic sunset and melt into eternity, he had enough on his plate.

Six, sixty or eighty-six, fear will always be with us. I will refer once again to Dr. Who from whence comes great wisdom. As I watched the end of an episode titled Listen, I wiped the tears as I reached for the remote to rewind. The second go, I sat up straight with kleenex in hand, and by the third, I was kneeling in front of the screen. I heard something that spoke deep within, something that grabbed my soul and screamed “pay attention!”

So, please listen…

This is just a dream, but very clever people can hear dreams, so please just listen. I know you’re afraid, and being afraid is alright. Didn’t anyone tell you – fear is a super power? Fear can make you faster and clever and stronger. 

If you are very wise and very strong, fear doesn’t have to make you cruel or cowardly, fear can make you kind.

It doesn’t matter if there’s nothing under the bed, or in the dark, so long as you know it’s okay to be afraid of it. 

So listen, if you listen to nothing else, listen to this.  You are always going to be afraid, even if you learn to hide it. Fear is like – a companion, a constant companion always there, but thats okay, because fear can bring us together – fear can bring you home. 

Fear makes companions of us all.

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Gummie Bears, the miracle drug.

Having Emery around is always an adventure. During this current visit we are watching the barometric pressure closely to see what variances affect her the most. I have my wunderground weather map open of the computer at all times, allowing me to quickly access any drop or rise in pressure.

This past Sunday we were going 80 on the highway and didn’t realize that we had crossed through a low pressure front. Emery realized it and within less than a minute went from normal, to coughing, to throwing up. I may not be able to control the weather, but I can try to forecast it in hopes of keeping Emery her crazy high-energy self and not attached to a barf bag.

Emery typically has three responses when asked “How’s your head?” The first is, “It hurts.” If she’s smiling, we expect that she just wants some really good tasting medicine. If she’s sad, we get her that really good tasting medicine. Sometimes she’ll say, “It’s good,” and then a second later, “But not so good.” This response also qualifies for either ibuprofen or Tylenol. A few months ago she was getting medicine to prevent seizures twice a day; the fact that ibuprofen and Tylenol now fill her medicine bag gives reason to celebrate.  When Emery replies, “Good,” and there’s no follow-up, I shout and cheer and jump around the room which requires her to say, “Neenee, don’t do that.” So I stop, but continue on in my head.

This evening she came up to me with a smile on her face and said, “My head hurts.” Using the knowledge I have gained from studying my weather maps, observing her behavior, and basically just listening to her mother, I responded, “I’m sorry, we can’t have anymore medicine. How about a Gummi Bear? Do you think that would help?”

“Two red ones and a yellow one would.”

“They would?”

“Come on Neenee, let’s go get those healthy Gummi Bears!”

We’re making progress!

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When to have kids?

A recent conversation gave me cause to really think about this question. We currently have our two grandkids with us and at the age of fifty-four, both Jeff and I would agree, now is not the time to have little ones. This could be because there are toys on the living room floor, or juice stains on the carpet, or for the simple reason that as soon as they close their eyes, we can’t wait to do the same.

The reality is kids are only kids for a very short time. It’s a fraction of your life. And of that fraction of time, they are only really cute for about the first six years. After that, it’s a crap shoot.

What we fail to realize is that our kids are adults for a much longer period of time. I recall looking at our first just after he was placed in my arms and thinking, “I can’t wait for you to be twenty, so we can have really good talks.” From the very beginning, I saw my kids as who they would become.

Raising kids to be interesting adults, who are engaged in life with imaginations and interests and friendships and conversation and knowledge and drive and ambition and are people you just want to hang out with, starts shortly after they are born. It requires us to become part of their world instead of forcing them to live within ours. It requires love, guidance, freedom and most importantly being examples of adults who are imaginative, interesting, with a variety of friendships, conversationalist, knowledgeable with drive and ambition.

When to have kids? Whenever you want! But don’t wait too long because, the kid part is gone in a blink. The adult part lasts the rest of your life, and when done well, you won’t want to miss a day of it.

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A summer of changes…

A few months ago, Emery’s neurologist (not many four year olds can boast of having one of those) confessed that even if it meant loosing Emery as a patient, she would do much better living at sea level. Mom and Dad took this to heart and began the process of bringing to an end the life they’ve known for the past six years to relocate to the West Coast. Of course we all have our fingers crossed that Pismo Beach is their next destination, but time, jobs, and life have not yet shown their hands.

Barometric changes greatly effect Emery and in an attempt to get Emery out of what has already been a very active spring and summer weather pattern, Austyn and the kids flew into LAX today. On our ride home, Liam filled us in on the game plan which includes he and Emery staying with us until Mom and Dad can move all their stuff. According to Emery, this will be “yots, and yots of days”. Liam thinks it could be as many as 100!

It’s going to be a great summer. It’s going to be full of change, adventures, and toys all over the living room floor. There will be daily trips to the beach, lots of pancakes for breakfast, and Emery instructing Hoppy to move over so she can join him at the piano. We may get Emery to understand that we didn’t just put Ellie Dog in the ground, but that she died first. However, today she simply says that the grass in the back yard and Ellie are dead. (I think we’ll just leave it at that.)

I wish we could wiggle our noses, or blink our eyes like I Dream of Jeannie did, then stand back and watch it all fall into place. But life doesn’t work like that, and as I’ve come to realize, neither does God. There’s lessons to learn, tests to be taken, character to develop, and faith to build. Liam’s simple prayer tonight was, “Make everything in Colorado go well.” To that we all said, “AMEN!” Undoubtedly, in the end, everyone will be where they should be and we’ll all look back and think, How did that happen?

…of course that will be ‘yots’ and ‘yots’ of days from now.