Second Drafts

Retail Therapy

In honor of Missouri's sales tax "holiday", I actually looked at - lo, even tried on - hangers full of "upscale resale clothing and accessories" this weekend at both locations of St. Louis' Scholar Shop (caution: clever homepage, though a bit naked).

After a family trip Friday night to the first store (in which Megan took full advantage of the 75% off sale), I made not one but two trips to the second store today, replenishing my wardrobe for the next decade for next to nothing.

Three trips in 24 hours, two of them on my own? Megan says I'm turning metrosexual.

Despite the great sales, my foray into shopping reassured me that I need not worry about becoming dependent on "retail therapy" to deal with life's problems. The reason is simple: the older I get, the less I like the way I look in clothes. Of course, the alternative is not really an option (I consider it a public service that I'm not a nudist), but it explains why I go shopping only once every ten years (that and I'm cheap).

I've lived most of my life not really caring what the mirror or anyone else thought of how I dressed or how I looked. And, while I wouldn't say any mid-life crisis is just around the corner (mine actually came early - at 30 - so it's nice to have it out of the way), I am more aware these days than I've ever been of what I do (and don't) look like in person, and I don't enjoy noticing myself noticing myself.

Maybe it's because I'm back in the world of high school - where it's almost a badge of honor to be preoccupied with one's appearance - that makes me think about this. Maybe being a teacher and around teenagers reminds me how much older than my students I really am. After all, at 37, I am approaching (if I haven't made it already) the "I could be their father" plateau, which is strange to me.

Maybe it's because I see and feel the effects of age on my body - the occasional soreness, the greater difficulty to maintain and drop weight - more than I did when I was younger. While I've never had great posture, my hunch seems more pronounced than I remember it being. I don't recall ever thinking of myself as a particularly "big" guy, but it seems I've become one (or at least one a whole lot bigger than the guy in my mind's eye when I visualize myself), and it bothers me.

All these thoughts were jumping around in my head today as I waited in line behind too many men and women in their late-40s and early-50s who've put themselves through more desperate measures than I'm willing to in order to fight off age - men trying too hard to look "cool" with their gold chains and spiked (and colored) hair; women with too much make-up and jewelry for a Saturday trying to find that one resale item that will make them look younger (or at least not older) than they really are.

But then, God used one woman to bring me back to a semblance of perspective. Probably in her mid-50s, this sweet lady had obviously suffered great disfigurement in a fire many years ago: her face, shoulders, and legs (she was wearing a tank top and shorts) were a patchwork of skin grafts from other parts of her body; she had no ears to speak of (just holes going into her head), and her eyes, nose, and mouth all appeared crooked due to the flames having horribly reshaped them.

Ironically, she was at the store both times I was (about four hours apart), probably because God wanted to ensure I didn't miss seeing her, just ahead of me in the line waiting for a dressing room, turn to a full-size mirror on the wall, hold up a pretty floral dress, and smile at what she saw. She didn't look around to see if anyone was watching; she didn't try to hide her face or her arms or her legs and somehow still get a peek at the dress; she didn't give off even a hint that she thought what she was doing was silly in light of her looks.

She just stood there and smiled back at herself - a beautiful, honest expression from a fellow human being so secure in something other than her appearance. And I - in all my aging, sore, Shamu-like, hunchbacked bigness - got to see it, and it was the best and truest "retail therapy" I could ever have hoped for, tax-free and all.

"And he (Jesus) said to his disciples, 'Therefore I tell you, do not be anxious about your life, what you will eat, nor about your body, what you will put on. For life is more than food, and the body more than clothing.'" Luke 12:22-23

Saying Thanks

As part of my Sabbath today, I wrote thank you notes all afternoon - to family who helped us buy and furnish our house; to friends who watched our kids and helped us move; to new neighbors who have been, well, pretty darn neighborly. In doing so, I realized I hadn't really offered any thanks to you, dear readers, for your help in (or tolerance of) our online efforts this past month, so I'd like to do that now.

In response to the CD offer, we ended up with a total of $1,883.21 from 40 different people toward our closing costs. Granted, this amount was short of our initial $3,000 goal, but due to complications the week before we moved, our costs actually went down, so it wasn't a big deal - we had what we needed. We were also able to write a campership check to Eagle Lake for $200, so that was good. To those who bought CDs and/or gave money to our effort, thank you.

Many of you left encouraging comments, sent supportive emails and letters, made enthusiastic phone calls, and generally served as cheerleaders in person throughout the process. Megan and I were both humbled by hearing from total strangers that they were praying for us. To those who shared your own hopes for ours, thank you.

Finally, most readers were patient and stuck with me despite my hijacking my own blog with the occasional inane whining about the home-buying process. To those who endured any especially selfish, narcissistic ranting (even more than my usual daily offering), thank you.

Chesterton said,

"I would maintain that thanks are the highest form of thought,
and that gratitude is happiness doubled by wonder."

While I'm not sure about the elevation of a blogged thank you note, the double-wonder of the happiness of my gratitude is real. To any and all who motivated that in me, thank you.

PS: Be sure to check out Megan's thoughts on the first two weeks - good ones, methinks.

Top Ten Ways to Frighten the New Neighbors

10. Introduce yourself...with psychoses.

9. Spread out all your crap stuff across the backyard and explain that, just for fun, you're re-creating the plane crash set from LOST.

8. Recruit high school students to help you move so everyone thinks you have 17 teenagers.

7. Ask if you can borrow a roll of toilet paper, and then ask if they want it back when you're done.

6. Make friends with your neighbor's dog(s), reminiscing about the dog you used to have until...well...something terrible happened.

5. Smile and wave. A lot.

4. Don't smile and wave. At all.

3. Remark that you're not sure exactly where your property line is, but really, what's a few feet between neighbors?

2. Inquire as to the official neighborhood protocol for party parking.

1. Mention you keep a blog.

We're in. More later.

Taking a Break from Boxes Linkage

It's been a long while since I've posted some linkage, so in light of it being Friday, here you go:

• We're still in need of about $1,000 for our home closing (in four days), so if you've yet to take advantage of our $10 Gets You 15 Songs deal, now is the time.


• In case you're wondering, Megan thinks she's losing it (but she's really doing okay).


• My friend, Jeff Morrison, sent me a link to the Breathe 2008 conference he's leading at Glen Eyrie next month. Between Jeff's heart and abilities in worship and the beauty of the place, this will be a good conference for all involved.


• Looking for a new bike? Consider (or don't) the vicious cycle. (hat tip: Coudal)


• Two weeks from today: The X-Files: I Want to Believe. Bring it.


• Interesting piece in Slate about the challenges public schools have to overcome to hire and keep good teachers.


• The folks at Mental Floss have some pretty clever T-shirts for sale. My favorites: Apathy, English Major, Entropy, Beethoven, and Hyperbole.

We're off to take a black lab named Bruce to his new home on the farm. Have a good weekend.

It's Hard to Soar Like an Eagle When You're a Turkey

In case you didn't know, Founding Father (sounds like a band name) Ben Franklin thought the turkey should be our national bird instead of the eagle. (I first learned this when I was doing the show 1776 - I played Richard Henry Lee - back in 1990 at the Jacksonville Theatre Guild.)

Though Franklin argues his point with John Adams in the show, the actual documentation of his thought comes from a letter he wrote to his daughter 18 months after the Great Seal (featuring an eagle) was adopted by Congress on June 20, 1782. An excerpt:

"For my own part I wish the Bald Eagle had not been chosen the Representative of our Country. He is a Bird of bad moral Character. He does not get his Living honestly. You may have seen him perched on some dead Tree near the River, where, too lazy to fish for himself, he watches the Labour of the Fishing Hawk; and when that diligent Bird has at length taken a Fish, and is bearing it to his Nest for the Support of his Mate and young Ones, the Bald Eagle pursues him and takes it from him.

...For the Truth the Turkey is in Comparison a much more respectable Bird, and withal a true original Native of America...He is besides, though a little vain and silly, a Bird of Courage, and would not hesitate to attack a Grenadier of the British Guards who should presume to invade his Farm Yard with a red Coat on."

I'm with Franklin on this one, and I did my best imitation of said turkey - especially the "vain and silly" part - in response to my kids' desire insatiable and bloodthirsty lust to find and watch a fireworks show - any fireworks show - last night. Megan and I were tired (I'd taken the girls for a two-hour hike around Powder Valley conservation area in the afternoon, and we'd just had a nice meal and three-hour visit with our friends, the Sargents, in the evening, which was a perfect lead-in to an early bedtime). Thus, I tried to appease the ladies with a few televised versions of all things pyrotechnic from New York and Boston.

This seemed to work for a while, until someone in the neighborhood had the gall to shoot off a few live rounds two blocks over.The sound, of course, lured the girls outdoors, but unfortunately for them (and me - remember, it's all about me), they heard more than they saw, resulting in incessant begging and whining to go somewhere - anywhere - to see the fireworks. I knew then that any hope of ending the evening without conflict was over, as they'd already had their baths and Megan had already taken a catnap since we got home. Worse yet, Daddy was going to be the bad guy, and not even Will Smith would be able to save this Independence Day.

I know, I know: not only am I a terrible father, I am also a terrible American. I should be shot and hung and forced to watch C-Span. I get that. But I'm a turkey; I'm not an eagle. I don't relish the whole let's-blow-up-millions-of-dollars-worth-of-fireworks-to-prove-ourselves-a-great-nation mentality. It's too flashy; it's too easy. Sure, I love the music and the marches that go with them, but I would love those anyway. I don't need fireworks to appreciate great music.

I didn't wear red, white, and blue on the Fourth of July - not in protest, but because we're packing and trying to settle into a neighborhood to make a long-term investment in a local community. I'm lucky to find a fresh pair of whitie-tighties these days, let alone something red, white, and blue.

I'm a turkey, I tell you; I'm not an eagle.

I don't need to be front row at a Live on the Levee (or what's left of it) concert or capitalize on any one of a jillion July 4th sales going on around the city to make the most of the holiday. Sure, we have the right to "life, liberty, and the pursuit of happiness," but I seriously doubt Thomas Jefferson was thinking too specifically of over-done corporate sponsorships and blowout Fourth of July sales when he sat down to write King George to let us go.

I don't want to fight traffic and attend some big July 4th event. Instead, I very much like the idea of walking around the neighborhood mid-morning, noticing the lack of traffic, and being grateful that most folks get a day off and can be home. Not only is the freedom to do something a great thing, but freedom to not do something is often even better, especially if you can do (or not do) it with those closest to you.

I'm a turkey, remember; I'm not an eagle.

Yes, I take pride in our country and am grateful for our freedoms (even when I wonder sometimes about what freedom protects). No, I'm not waiting for us to become a perfect nation to merit a "legitimate" celebration (though I recognize my idealist tendencies and how they can sometimes come across). And yes, we'll make things up to the girls today when we (in good American fashion) buy their affections by taking them to a movie this morning (courtesy of Megan's folks).

But I don't know if I'll ever change my turkey ways. I suppose you could cry fowl with regard to my thinking and tell me to hang it on my beak, but to do otherwise would just not be true to my inner bird.

Gobble, gobble.

Remember Not to Forget: Update

On Monday, I told you about my idea to offer 15 of my songs for $10 to raise the $3,000 Megan and I need to close on our house this month. Here's an update on how things are going:

• Good news: So far, we've received $286.24, which is almost 10%. Several folks have given (all cheerfully, as far as we know), with gifts ranging from $10 to $100, and it appears a handful have even chosen to download the songs. Thank you.


• More good news: Our closing date has been moved up from the 18th to the 15th of July. That's right: we move in 12 days, which is better for us all the way around...except for the fact that we have to write a check earlier than anticipated.

If we divide the remaining $2731.76 across the next 12 days, we need $228/day to come in by the 15th. If you still want to help, let's just say sooner is better than later.

Three easy ways to buy:

1. For those who would like to pay online, go to Revolution MoneyExchange, log in, click “Send Money,” and enter my email address (cmdunham [@] gmail.com). (Note: If you don’t have an RME account, it’s a nice thing to have; just click below to sign up - it’s free - and we’ll also get a $10 referral fee.)
   


2. For those who would prefer to pay by PayPal (sorry: non-credit, non-debit payments only), log in, click “Send Money,” and enter Megan’s email address (halfpinthouse [at] gmail.com).


3. For those who would rather just send something, please make a check out to Craig Dunham and mail to 8827 Litzsinger Road, Brentwood, MO, 63144.

One more thing that would be helpful is, if you have a blog, would you consider an endorsement and link? We haven't had much of either of these, and word-of-mouth and scale would seem to be important in making this idea work. A big thanks to Tim and Kerry (and anyone else who linked to us that we don't know about) for their linking efforts already.        

I'll post another update on our progress sometime next week. In the meantime, thanks for considering our opportunity, and have a festive and freeedom-filled Fourth of July weekend.

$10 Gets You 15 Songs (and Us This House)

Six weeks ago, I posted an entry hinting that we were trying to buy a house here in St. Louis. The good news is, we're no longer trying; we've bought a house, and it's pictured above.

Neat story: after our offers for the initial house got shot down (twice) by the bank, we decided to let things sit. I went to South Dakota and pretended to be a wilderness guy for two weeks; Megan and the girls (along with our realtor, Diane), looked around at a handful of houses, but really didn't find too much in our price range. No big deal.

Then the house shown above went on the market and, get this: it's a block-and-a-half down the street from the one we were originally pursuing, $60K cheaper, and in immaculate condition compared to the fixer-upper for which we were going to have to pay more. The owners (sweet Christian people) have lived in the house 33 years, are moving into a retirement village next month for health reasons, and needed to sell the house asap (thus the fair asking price). Because we felt the house was easily worth what they were asking (kind of refreshing in the still-inflated real estate market), we gave them the full price. We move in three weeks.

Now comes the hard part: paying for it. My parents are loaning us the 5% down payment, but Megan and I need to come up with an additional $3,000 to bring to the closing to cover lender fees, title fees, and a few months' worth of taxes and insurance. As of now, we don't have it, but we've come up with an idea we think could work (with a little help from the Internet).

Since 2008 marks the 15th anniversary of my foray into music recording, I thought I'd put together a "greatest hits" collection (yes, smirking allowed - you know who you are). The compilation is called Remember Not to Forget: Songs (1993-2000) and the deal is this: $10 gets you 15 songs from all five albums I recorded, along with a custom-designed CD liner with music lyrics and credits, all available for immediate download.

Of course, you're welcome to send more than ten bucks if you feel so compelled, but you don't need to in order to get the songs (actually, you don't need to send anything to get the songs, but we hope you will). Obviously, it's going to take a lot of $10 purchases (300, to be exact) to add up to $3,000, so if you'd just buy the songs and put in a plug for us through your network(s), we'll see what happens. Who knows? It is the Internet, right?

We're set to close on the house July 18th, so the sooner the better (again, click here for all the details). Thanks in advance for any help you might be able to give us, and thanks to those of you who prayed for our house-hunting efforts. After living in eight different places in a dozen years, we're hoping this is the last move for a very, very long time.

Summer Plans

My friend, Ed, asked for a post on what summer holds. Here it is.

1. I'm one of seven Westminster teachers taking 28 high school students on Summer Seminar to South Dakota for two weeks in June. Over the course of a 12-day trip to and through the Badlands and Black Hills of South Dakota, students will explore the theme of “shalom” (restoration) through three, two-day course cores in literature, ethics, and science. The culmination of the course will be a writing project that integrates a travel journal, a guided project (literary analysis of readings, poetry, photography, etc.), and their understanding of the Christian worldview (I'm in charge of this "integration" part). Should be fun.

2. Speaking of Westminster, I'm hoping to take a half-day a week to work on my teaching. I've kept a semi-detailed calendar of what I covered (either intentionally or unintentionally) each day this past school year, and I'd like to give that some evaluation and attention in order to figure out what I actually taught and how to do it better. Armed with some honest feedback from my students and revised scopes and sequences from the Bible department, I want to put some good work into how to teach as a more effective translator.

3. In addition to thinking about teaching, I'll be participating in a class offered by Covenant titled "Spirit, Church, and Last Things" online this summer. After my experience with Ancient & Medieval Church History this past semester (good class, but I wasn't as consistent as I wanted to be in keeping up), I'm not all that thrilled about online learning, but you do what you've got to get in the classes you need to finish a degree.

4. I've got piles of books from a variety of genres that I want to read. Personally, I'd also like to get back to more devotional reading and journal writing as, for better or worse, the blog has taken over the time I have in the past done both, and I can feel the difference in heart and hand. There's just no replacement for meditative reading and writing, but I've not done much of either for a long while. Oh yeah, I'm also supposed to be writing/finishing the first draft of a book this summer.

5. I'm working on some leader development training and initiatives for Memorial for this summer and fall, and hope to do some planning/recruiting for those. Unfortunately, this is an area that got bumped to the back burner this past school year because of my first year teaching, but I'm glad for the request and opportunity to still be involved in this way a year later. I think our family is also going to start attending a small group over the summer, which should be interesting (I'm not really much of a small group guy).

6. While I've not really gained any significant weight, I'd like to shed some pounds and actually get back on an exercise regimen of some sort. For whatever reason, I just enjoy exercising my brain much more than I do my body. Guess I'm just too Neo-Platonic for my own good.

7. We may get some tickets to a couple Cards games in July - just when it's hot enough to really be miserable. I imagine I'll do a fair amount of yard mowing, grilling, and sweating this summer, not to mention cursing the I-64 construction still going on (it will be interesting to see how increased tourist traffic during the summer months affects things; so far, we've managed, but it's getting old).

8. We'll also make a few weekend trips to the farm over the summer, as there's nothing better than sitting with a cold glass of iced tea out on the back patio listening to the corn grow. I'm sure there will be pictures.

9. While buying a house and moving is, I suppose, still a possibility over the next couple of months, the further we get into summer, the less excited I'm going to be about it. Obviously if the bank warms to our terms soon, we're not going to walk away from things, but we're not exactly going house-hunting either.

10. Of course, the best part about summer will be being home more with Megan and the girls - playing in the backyard, going to the library, reading books, renting and watching a flick, seeing friends, and just being a family. We've tried to keep formal activities for the little ladies to a minimum, so we're hoping it will be pretty laidback. I want/need to read to them more at night (Megan's been handling most of that all school year), as I don't want to miss the window here - they're all just growing up so too fast.

In a nutshell, that's our summer.

A Degree of Transition

A reader named Kevin recently left a comment inquiring as to my reasons for transitioning from a Masters of Divinity to MA degrees in theological studies and educational ministries at Covenant. As I just wrote my official transition request letter to the seminary faculty a couple of weeks ago, I thought I'd post it here for him (and anyone else) who might be interested.

Obviously, there's a lot more to a decision like this than a one-page letter can capture, but for the sake of everybody's attention spans, this should suffice for now. Feel free to leave a comment if you want more specifics and I'll be glad to share a few (or at least make some up).

Dear Covenant Faculty,

This letter is an appeal for your approval of my request to transition from Covenant's M.Div. track to a dual-track of M.A.T.S. and M.A.E.M., effective at the end of this spring semester. My reasons for making this change stem from both calling and common sense.

In 2005, my main reason for coming to Covenant was to invite new voices of input to speak into my life – personally, emotionally, spiritually, theologically. I had little aspiration to pursue ordained pastoral ministry, but had set my sights on the M.Div. nonetheless, as it was the most comprehensive degree Covenant offered.

After two years as a full-time seminary student, as well as this past year as a part-time student also teaching full-time at Westminster Christian Academy, a switch from the M.Div. to a double masters in theological studies and educational ministries seems apropos to equip me in my call to write at a popular level and teach at a high school level.

If all goes according to plan, I anticipate finishing the M.A.T.S. one year from now, then completing the M.A.E.M. the following year. The conclusion of these degrees is important not only for what it represents of my studies, but also for the sake of beginning to reallocate resources of time and finances to our four daughters’ education.

Megan and I look forward to staying in St. Louis after completing these degrees. In addition to our involvement at Memorial Presbyterian, I plan to continue teaching at Westminster in the areas of Biblical Ethics and New Testament, as well as be of any help to the seminary (and The Schaeffer Institute) that I can.

All that said, I would appreciate your endorsement of our plan by approving this request. It goes without saying, but thank you for your investment in my life and ministry in my time at Covenant. I count it a privilege to have had this opportunity to learn from you.

Gratefully,

Craig Dunham

PS: For more information about my thought process, please consult Drs. Douglass, Guthrie, or Barrs, as they have been on the receiving end (perhaps to their chagrin) of most of my degree transition conversations and know my heart in the matter.

I'll let you know what the faculty say when I hear back from them next week.

Play Ball!

The Cardinals officially open their season at home today against the Colorado Rockies. I'm interested to see how much all the off-season changes (and there have been many) pay off, particularly the much-mentioned bringing up of "homegrown" players from within the system. We still have no pitching (a starting rotation of five righthanders?), but it's baseball, so it can't be all bad.

Now if somebody could get something done with Crater Ballpark Village, St. Louis might be taken seriously as a city with an actual downtown. Here's what it's supposed to look like if it's ever finished (er, started); here's what it looks like now (and has for a year-and-a-half). While the city decides what to do, can somebody at least sod this eyesore so families can picnic before a game?

Play ball!

When Renting Has Its Advantages

Even if you don't live in St. Louis, you still might have heard about all the rain the Midwest has received of late. Though we don't live near any overflowing riverbanks, here's a shot of our own little tragedy as a result of the rain: as of early this morning, Cair Paravel is no more.

The tree (a Chinese Elm) had grown at a 60-degree angle for many years. From what we can tell, all the water eroded the root system enough that the tree's weight (it was big) just toppled it over. In fact, as we were piecing all this together, our 7-year-old showed us a picture she took of this crack in the ground at the base of the tree just yesterday that might have clued us in that it was going to go (so much for being parents aware of their children's play environment).

Thankfully, the tree went down around 4:30 a.m. with no little people in or around the playhouse at the time. Something like that would have been a true tragedy, which we're very grateful to God didn't happen.

Despite clouds of sadness here at the Half Pint House, there do seem to be a few silver linings: from what our landlord and I could tell from our inspection this morning, the playhouse broke the fall and is (still) holding up the bulk of the weight of the tree, salvaging the garage and bringing some redemption to the ruins of its destruction (not to mention points for us with our landlord in building something in our backyard that saved his garage).

Will there be full restoration? Doubtful. But, at least the playhouse served a greater purpose than merely frustrating me for three solid days while building it last May. We may look into some kind of replacement in the future, but right now we're at the mercy of the Triangle of Reality (time, money, quality - you pick two) and will be for a while.

I'm glad I don't have to haggle with the insurance company or figure out how to get rid of the silly tree. Renting does have its advantages.

Coming to St. Louis

Here are two interesting events coming to town this week and in March:

A Conversation on Denominational Renewal
Tuesday-Thursday, February 26-28, 2008
Memorial Presbyterian Church

"What are our hopes for the church? In one sense, this is a deeply intimate question because it evokes the possibility of both disappointment and delight. And in another sense it is a necessary question, for the way in which it is answered will shape our life and labors in the world. In the past several years, many of us in the PCA - and many of you - have begun to ask this question with renewed, if cautious, energy. We think this question is best asked - and best answered - in community."

Accordance Bible Software Seminar
Saturday, March 29, 2008
Covenant Theological Seminary

"This all-day seminar will consist of two sessions with a break for lunch. The first session will introduce Accordance, the underlying concepts, the interface, and the range of available materials, and is suitable for non-users and new users. The second session will demonstrate the Atlas and other graphic tools, user tools and notes, and the advanced search and analysis capabilities of the Greek and Hebrew tagged texts and accompanying tools."

I'm hoping to make the Tuesday evening session of the conference this week (can't do more with school) and all of the seminar in March (end of Spring Break works well). Spread the word.

Shooting Sadness

Well, St. Louis (namely Kirkwood) made the national news again for all the wrong reasons.

Sigh.

The New Main & Main?

In yesterday's Post-Dispatch, "we" (that is, Westminster) made the paper in an article highlighting the school's plans for upcoming expansion and relocation in 2010. Despite an email from our development director voicing his enthusiasm for the piece (as well as Megan's assurance that it seemed okay to her), something about the article struck a weird chord in me.

I think my discomfort was largely due to the quote about the location being "at what school leaders are calling the crossroads of the region." I don't think of I-270/40 as such a crossroads (if that's the case, Covenant is literally at Ground Zero), but even if it were geographically, I certainly question the statement culturally - the idea of a "new school at the corner of Main and Main" seems ridiculous when the intersection referenced is made up of interstates, not streets. Culture doesn't happen when people are whizzing by at 70 m.p.h.; that's called "commuting."

At first, the writer isn't clear which "school leaders" made the aforementioned comment, but if you read down to the middle of the piece, the quote seems to be attributed to the leaders of the Christian Brothers College high school ten years ago, not to Westminster leaders today. Does that make it any better? I don't know, but for what it's worth, I've not read or heard this idea in any WCA literature or briefings to date, and I'm glad for it.

I'm grateful to be part of Westminster and, God willing, I look forward to being part of the move in 2010. That said, I-270/40 and the suburbs are not where I look for culture; rather, my hope is that I and the other teachers here can bring some with us when WCA moves further into suburbia in 18 months.

Not Like Fall at All

No, this isn't our yard or leaves, but I wish it/they were. Megan took this shot of our oldest during their trip to visit my sister three hours north in Illinois.

Here in St. Louis, our trees have the majority of their leaves (still green), and our yard just keeps growing. We had 80-degree temps this past weekend and, with the exception of a couple cooler days here and there in the past six weeks, it has not felt like Fall at all.

For the record, this hardly justifies the Nobel Peace Prize for Al Gore, but I do miss the chill in the autumn air nonetheless.

At The Pageant Tonight

Megan and the girls are heading out of town to visit my sister and her family in Tremont, IL, and I've got four free tickets to the The Pageant tonight for the Ticketmaster New Music Spotlight show with local/regional bands The Feed, Red Water Revival, John Henry & the Engine, and Caleb Travers & Big City Lights.

Doors open at 7 and the show starts at 8, but I probably won't get there until at least 9 (if not later) as I'm taking a class this weekend at Covenant. As far as I know, my friend Caleb (who I'm really going to see) doesn't go on until last anyway, so I'm hoping to show up just as he and his band take the stage.

Anybody want to go? You don't have to wait to go late with me (if, that is, we can figure out how to arrange a ticket drop sometime today). First come, first served (and yes, if someone wants all three tickets, that's fine - as long as you go). Leave a comment to get in line.

Just trying to share the love...

Stick a Fork in Us

We're done.

On Barry Bonds and Baseball History

It's been a while since I've talked a little baseball, so with the All-Star Break upon us and the season being half over, I thought now might be a good time. My Cardinals have been playing better, but I was hoping they'd have made it back to .500 by now. According to the PECOTA version of the postseason odds at Baseball Prospectus, the Cards have less then a 2% shot at making the playoffs while the Milwaukee Brewers have an 85% chance (hat tip: Viva El Birdos). In short, it doesn't look good, but there's still half a season left.

It was interesting reading the buzz generated by Barry Bonds and the San Francisco Giants coming to town this past weekend. Bonds is only five away from breaking Hank Aaron's all-time homerun record of 755 and, up until last week, Cardinal fans were deathly afraid he was going to do it in St. Louis. The overratedly "classy" Cardinal Nation booed Bonds every time he came to bat because of the whole steroids thing, which seems incredibly hypocritical considering their once-beloved Mark McGwire all but confessing in a congressional hearing a couple years ago to his own steroid use in breaking the one-year homerun record in 1998.

But I digress.

I don't particularly love or hate Bonds as a player, but I do wonder how baseball history will judge him. This passage from David James Duncan's The Brothers K, in which one character writes of the rise and demise of Roger Maris, would seem to apply:

"Insofar as the word 'radical' implies a drastic departure from accepted thinking and practices, it is only accurate to say that this crewcutted all-American Midwest farm boy (Roger Maris) was in fact the first famous radical of the Sixties. Who but a radical would sacrifice all-around excellence to focus on a single, iconoclastic facet of his experience? Who but a radical could earn so much antipathy from the meat-and-potatoes populace for so little reason, but still go on choosing public misery for the sake of his cause?

As this increasingly two-dimensional, nerve-powered, lifetime .260 hitter mounted his anxiety-ridden assault on the most famous feat of the three-dimensional, muscle-powered .342-hitting bon vivant whose bat built Yankee Stadium, even the most rabid New York fans began to feel that something odd was going on. Mickey Mantle also hit a lot of home runs in 1961 - fifty-four of them, in fact. But the contrast between his and Maris's homers was vast.

The Mick was just a canonical hero on a roll - a contemporary legend in chivalrous competition with legends of the past. Maris was a new kind of creature altogether. If Ruth was the Sultan of Swat, Maris was the Technician of Boink. For the sake of these boinks he had virtually given up the game of baseball, or at least given up the all-around game he'd played better than anyone just a year before. And the trouble that resulted was, in a sense, the same trouble into which the entire industrial world has fallen: obession works. Not beautifully, and not without tremendous costs. But for Roger E. Maris it worked sixty-one times.

Numbers, for all their vaunted accuracy, can be amaingly inaccurate little doodads. When Ruth's record finally teetered and fell, Maris found that in the opinion of many he hadn't scaled a height or conquered a legend at all: he'd become an object of dislike. Many people felt and even behaved, as if he were more the assassin of a legend than a conquering hero. When the Holy Relic Manufacturers trotted out their '61 in '61 trinkets, the stuff wouldn't sell; when the kids took to the sandlots the following spring, they went right on pretending they were Mantle and Berra and Mays; when Maris himself began his '62 season in a slump, the fans booed his game and emotions into a complete collapse; and when the Yankees traded him away to St. Louis, instead of retiring his number, they casually handed it to Graig Nettles a few years later."

This is why St. Louisians love Stan "the Man" Musial - he did it all (offense and defense), year in and year out. Bonds and McGwire may hold homerun records (albeit with asterisks because of steroids), but guys like Mantle and Musial (or for a more local and contemporary example - Albert Pujols) tend to garner more honor over the long haul for their overall quality of play.

Friday Linkage

Running around today on a slew of errands: returning an overdue library book; trying to understand financial aid; doing some grading for Covenant's Access program; getting an eye exam; etc. This afternoon, our two oldest have their final day at The Magic House camp they've been enjoying this week (complete with program finale, which we're attending).

Afterward, we'll drop all four off tonight for some babysitting by a team of short-term missionaries raising funds to go to Red Lake, MN, to work with Native Americans this summer, while Megan and I (finally, after six months) redeem a Christmas gift certificate for dinner at the Top of the Riverfront restaurant downtown.

That said, I'm not thinking too much today, so here are some links for the end of your week:

• I like what Anthony Bradley has to say here on the Supreme Court's recent vote on racial desegregation of schools. Not hearing much of this perspective on the news.


• Jon Barlow is taking reader comments and plot theories on the upcoming release of the final Harry Potter book next month.


• Hearing/reading great things about Disney/Pixar's new movie, Ratatouille, written and directed by Academy Award-winning animation genius, Brad Bird. Now all I have to do is figure out how to pronounce it (I think it's "Rat-a-too-ee").


• The Spice Girls are planning a comeback, though it remains to be heard whether they'll actually be doing the singing (God help us all either way).


• Finally, meet the little capitalists of Half Pint House Lemonade, Inc. Also, Megan's holding a drawing for some free new books (because of her online influence, she now has publishers sending her product to promote), as well as working a deal with Sonlight on homeschool resources. Check it out.

I'm going to be enlisting your help next week, dear readers, for a magazine piece I've been asked to write in July (details to come), so be sure to check back later with insight in tow.

Have a good weekend.

Russ

So, immediately after my pathetic post yesterday, we got our collective rear in gear and made it to the Memorial Day service at Jefferson Barracks National Cemetery. It was hot last year, but the weather was overcast for much of the morning this year, so that was nice.

Probably the highlight of the morning, though, was getting to see our friend, Russ Sloan (pictured with the girls and me above). Russ, 80, is part of our Memorial Church family and was in the Marines in World War II. He met his wife (who is buried at Jefferson Barracks as she was in the Army) at a Good Friday service at our church, which Russ has been a member of since before the war.

When we first came to Memorial, Russ was serving as a deacon (at 78). He's been a really big fan of our family, and a personal encouragement to me in the different classes I've taught for Christian Education hour before church (he always joins my classes, even sitting in on the TwentySomeone series I did the first fall we were in St. Louis).

Russ has a great sense of humor (once, when I wore a suit to church to read Scripture for the service, he told me I looked like I was dressed for my own funeral), and Megan and I always enjoy seeing him around. Getting to take a picture with him in his military duds was fun for all of us (not that you can tell from the girls' faces in the picture - the sun had come out in the middle of the service and they were feeling the mugginess).

Anyway, while the service was good, seeing and knowing Russ in the midst of it made it all the more meaningful yesterday, as it helped add some real humanity to the equation of freedom.

On Josh Hancock

At the risk of perhaps stepping on a few St. Louis toes, I wanted to contribute a few thoughts to the ongoing discussion surrounding the death of Cardinals pitcher Josh Hancock last weekend. I would have done this earlier, but time did not allow. I also wanted to wait for the police report before throwing something out here not substantiated by the official investigation. On the backside of that investigation and report, my perspective has not changed.

Living in St. Louis, I've been amazed by the outpouring of sentiment from what is called (annoyingly so, in my opinion) "Cardinal Nation". People have created makeshift memorials and left flowers outside of Busch Stadium; you would think everyone actually knew the guy and just had him over for dinner during the last homestand or something. Though I appreciate the show of sympathy/empathy for Hancock, his family, and the Cardinals organization, the depth of it seems questionable to me, and mostly a function of Hancock being semi-famous.

While I respect the Cardinals as being one of the better organizations in baseball, I have been intrigued by how much of a hero they seem to have made Hancock. Granted, he was on the team and part of the Cardinals "family" (one of the most overused and misdefined terms of the past week), but would the Cardinals have done half as much of the public memorializing that they have if Hancock had actually killed someone driving drunk a week ago? Would a victim's family have stood for that? Would the public? Are you kidding me?

Listening to the first half of the press conference on the radio yesterday, I was once again reminded how hypocritical the media (as well as our country) is when it comes to issues of morality. Immediately following the Cardinals' opening statement, multiple reporters in the room began asking about the team's alcohol policy for the clubhouse and on the plane. The implication of the questions was clear: the Cardinals (having once been owned by Anheuser-Busch and still playing in Busch Stadium) must have contributed to Hancock's death in some way, and surely you're going to do something about that to protect "young" ballplayers like the 29-year-old Hancock (who also happened to be an adult). Since when does the media care about morality, legislated or otherwise?

Though the Cardinals did not allude then to any need to make changes in their current policy (Hancock, after all, was drinking at Shannon's, not at Busch), in this morning's Post-Dispatch, I read that the team caved to the pressure with a "CYA" move, pulling alcohol from the team's clubhouse (though not from the visitor's clubhouse), as well as choosing not to serve alcohol on return plane trips since players would be driving home from the airport. Are they going to stop handing out marijuana in the clubhouse and on the plane as well? Oh, wait a minute - Hancock (again, a 29-year-old adult) somehow got that all by himself.

I realize I may sound somewhat cynical, but I have yet to hear anybody raise these questions in the midst of the swirl of emotions surrounding Hancock's death. I don't mean any disrespect to Hancock or his family and I'm sorry he died, doing so with so little personal resolution in his areas of addiction. I'm sorry for the Cardinals and the hurt their personnel have experienced in the midst of what is (so far) their worst start as a team since 1990. I'm sorry for the fans - particularly the young ones, who are again having to understand that, as glorious a game as baseball is, those who play it can be not so much.

But most of all, I'm sorry we live in a fallen world that still believes the lie that morality covers a multitude of sins. Last I checked, that was still love's job.

Take Me Out to the Build-A-Bear

We, along with 50 other friends and acquaintances who benefitted from Megan's Ticketmaster-like talents (minus the service charge) are due to go to our first Cards game of the year tonight. Unfortunately, I'm concerned rain may spoil our fun: there's a 40% chance of precipitation forecasted for both today and tonight, and while that's less than 50/50 odds, it's in situations like this that we always and inevitably come out "winners".

The girls are pretty pumped to go, and Megan's parents are in town from Tulsa to go with us as well. We'll take the Metro in to avoid traffic and feel urban, as well as cart in all the drinks and goodies we can to avoid spending anything at the stadium (though I'm not a beer drinker, the principle of an $8.50 Bud Light is immoral, so this is our family's little personal protest).

In addition to taking in the game (or the rain - whichever we get to watch), the girls have gift certificates from the grandparents for the Build-A-Bear Workshop that they've been holding on to since Christmas and plan to redeem to "build" their very own "Cardinal Bear" (which seems more than a little confusing in terms of the scientific classification system of animals).

As you might be able to tell, I'm not all that excited about the prospect of four more stuffed anythings in the house (you'd think I'm a taxidermist with as many stuffed animals as we have around here). But, at least they'll be enduring symbols of the little ladies' pre-pubescent loyalty to the home team (or that's what they'll tell me when we're standing in line for half-an-hour missing the one inning in which the Cardinals actually score a few runs...).

The Comfort of the Cold

Like most of the country this past week, it's been cold here in St. Louis. But while I'm no polar bear, I haven't minded the barely-above-zero temperatures. Granted, we live in a house with a brand new furnace and have running hot water that makes a shower the highlight of the morning. But this is what I remember winter in February in the Midwest feeling like, and the familiarity is nice.

It's nice because it hasn't been this cold for this long in a while. Maybe global warming is the real deal or maybe the earth is just being the earth; I don't know. Regardless, it's been 15-20 years since I can recall a really frigid winter, and the constant low temperatures have triggered a weather-induced personal nostalgia I've been enjoying these past few days. Some memories:

• Sitting in the back of a farrowing stall in a drafty barn with my dad, "catching" new-born pigs as they were born and making sure they got under the heat lamps to survive the bitter north wind trying to get at them.


• Sledding with my two younger sisters down the big hill across the road from our house (back then, we used to get actual snow with the extreme cold). On one run, I went down headfirst at a pretty good speed, but then came face-to-face (literally) with a big ledge of solid ice jutting up from the snow when the runners on my sled stuck (the blood was amazing).


• Building a fairly elaborate snowfort in the five-foot-high snowdrifts along the banks of our gravel road (which no one was traveling on because of the ice), I spent hours in my igloo bunker, outlasting my sisters who eventually went inside where it was warm, leaving me as king of my domain.


• Coming to St. Louis for my first and only then-Cardinals football game against the Washington Redskins at old Busch Stadium. I couldn't feel my feet for hours after the game, as open concrete stadiums don't exactly generate or hold heat very well.


• Later, when I was in college and in Marching Mizzou, I remember playing a half-time show at Arrowhead Stadium in Kansas City and being so unbelievably miserable holding a brass trombone in the midst of 10-degree weather with sleet coming down. While I had on about eight layers of clothes (so much so that I looked the Michelin Man and could barely move), we weren't allowed to wear any kind of coat or poncho on top of our polyester uniforms for the sake of aesthetics (as if polyester has aesthetics). This was easily the coldest I've ever been.

I guess what I'm saying is that the last time it was this cold for this long, the world made a little more sense than it does now, if for no other reason than winter was winter and it was supposed to be cold. Now folks are so freaked out by the fact that winter is cold again because over the years it hasn't been, and it just feels wrong (or at least not quite right).

It's February, folks - it's supposed to be cold. Dress warm and live it up, as there's not a lot in our postmodern world today that's supposed to be anything anymore.

A Church for Everyone...Except for Me

As many of you know, I'm beginning the part-time/full-time job search for when we leave support in May. My tension here is trying to find a job that pays enough for our one-income family to live on (that is, eat and pay rent), while not having to work an excessive amount of hours in order to somehow stay full-time in seminary.

While I've not been at it too long (I don't need a job until June), the prospects have been less than encouraging, both in terms of pay and opportunity. Honestly, I just don't know how people live on minimum wage (or a little above), but I guess I'm on my way to finding out soon enough.

So, for kicks (and just to test the waters a bit), I applied for the role of "student ministries director" at a church (which will remain unnamed) here in town. While not my preference for reasons of possibly having to leave Memorial or to stop teaching at Wildwood (neither of which I want to do, and have communicated as much with my pastor and headmaster so they're aware of my intentions), I figured it didn't hurt to inquire.

What was the position? Overseeing the junior high, high school, and college ministries (approximately 200 students), something I've had ten years of similar experience doing at Eagle Lake, and written about (at least with regard to twenty-somethings) in TwentySomeone. While I tried not to think too arrogantly about it, I thought I might be a good candidate.

Earlier this week, I received a letter from the senior pastor of the church in response to the inquiry email/resume I sent him. At the top of the stationery was the church's slogan: "...a church for everyone!" Here's what it said:

"Thank you for taking the time to inquire about our Student Ministries Pastor position. It is obvious after considering your resume that you are passionate about making a difference in others' lives. That is exciting!

It does seem, however, after carefully reviewing what appear to be your strengths, gifts, and ministry history, and evaluating these areas in light of what we're seeking for this position, that we would not be a right 'fit' for each other. Thank you, though, for taking the time to prayerfully consider our staff position."

Of course, this was the pastor's prerogative and I'm sure he had his reasons (though I doubt very much they had to do with my "strengths, gifts, and ministry history" - I'm guessing denominational concerns were more the reason, and that's fine). However, I did have to laugh at the irony of getting a rejection letter with the slogan "...a church for everyone!" at the top. It may be "a church for everyone," but it's apparently not for me.

Random ministry lesson #4,329: Give thought to the myriad of purposes the church stationery will serve before settling on some slogan too cheesy, happy, and shiny. (Actually - stationery or other - don't settle on a cheesy, happy, shiny slogan at all.)

The Big Read

Our little book club at Memorial is taking part in The Big Read, a national effort modeled on successful "city read" programs designed to encourage literary reading by helping communities come together to read and discuss a single book. The selected book is Ray Bradbury's Fahrenheit 451.

Lectures, readings, art exhibitions, theater productions, book discussion groups, and film festivals are occurring in a variety of locations throughout St. Louis, all featuring themes and questions that Fahrenheit 451 raises about the power of books and reading.

There are several informal discussions of the book going on on Washington University's campus in February, and two discussions will be held at Kemper Art Museum on Sunday Feb. 11 and 18 at 2:00 p.m., followed by a docent led tour of the museum's new exhibition called Reality Bites: Making Avant-Garde Art in Post Wall Germany.

Our fearless leader, Heidi Kolk, has given us a month to read the book, culminating with a discussion on Sunday evening, February 18th (all are welcome - if you'd like to join us, drop me an email for details). Megan and I are hoping to take part in at least one of the community-sponsored events as well.

To possibly whet your appetite, below is a review I wrote of Fahrenheit 451 when I first read it a couple of years ago. The review is hardly in-depth, but it might give you an idea of the basic story and serve as an encouragement to pick up and read a good book.

With all the publicity generated by Michael Moore's film Fahrenheit 9/11, I thought it might be a good idea to read Ray Bradbury's original book of similar title. Fahrenheit 451 represents the temperature at which paper burns, which is fitting considering Bradbury's book is about censorship, and I enjoyed the futuristic story (which takes place now, fifty years later from when he originally wrote it) as it bears great and realistic resemblance to our ever-interesting (and complicated) world today.

The story follows one Guy Montag, a "fireman" whose job it is not to put out fires, but to start them in homes whose owners are reportedly hiding books. All seems well and fine to Guy (who has been burning books for ten years) until he has a conversation with Clarisse, a 17-year-old girl who questions him about his present occupation.

This gets Guy asking questions in his head, and at his next fire, he secretly salvages some books as part of his consideration of Clarisse's inquiries. He then meets a former professor (with no books, there is not much to teach; hence the "former" qualifier) and he relates to Guy that just because books are banned doesn't mean their content is lost and may one day be reclaimed.

Seeing the literary light, Guy has a drastic change of heart and, in the course of 24 hours, plots to single-handedly rage against the censorship machine, risking his job, relationships, and life to evoke such revolution. The rest of the book details his crusade, his ideas and motives that accompany it, and resolves in a satisfying and hopeful manner as he joins forces with other "book people" to one day create a new beginning from the ashes of censorship.

A bit vague and hodge-podge at the start, Bradbury's writing style smoothes out to tell a good story at a good pace. While his characters are semi-developed at best, Bradbury's main idea and overarching themes branching out from it are most interesting, especially when read in the light of the current political climate and clash of government mistrust and freedom of speech.

Comparable to George Orwell's 1984 and Aldous Huxley's Brave New World, Fahrenheit 451 is probably the most believable of these three "doomed future" stories as it does not come across so "futuristic" as it does "future-is-now" in terms of plot and perspective.

Of all three books, Fahrenheit 451 seems most organic in its storytelling, and this perhaps is what makes it more frightening to think that a few generations of bad decisions could very well cast us into a cauldron of censorship, a concept so foreign to us right now that it makes it all the more scary to think about and believe.

January Update/Open House

For what it's worth, I just posted our January update for our friends and supporters.

Also, we're having an informal open house this Saturday, January 20th, from 1-4 p.m. If you're within 8 hours of St. Louis, you're invited (of course, those outside of 8 hours are invited, but let's be realistic). Email me for the address (yes, it's paranoid, but the recent kidnapping in Kirkwood JUST 10 MINUTES AWAY makes me hesitant to post it for all to see).

Hope you can come - it'd especially be fun to meet some of you St. Louis blog-types. I promise: no fingerprinting or body cavity searches (though we may have the FBI database up on DSL).

Oh, the Weather Outside Is Frightful...

The first major storm of the winter looks to be making its way through St. Louis today and tonight, with freezing rain and potentially 4-10 inches of snow on top by tomorrow. Personally, I'll take all of it and then some, as the recent rash of spring-like 70-degree temperatures is screwing up my work ethic. I just work better when it's miserable.

Maybe it's because we don't have to go anywhere anytime soon, but there's something cool about the majority of a big city simply having to shut down because of weather. If nothing else, it just reminds us (okay, it reminds me) that we're only in control of earthly things to a point. My guess is that most of us could use this kind of reminder more than we actually get it.

Greetings from the Most Dangerous City in the U.S.

If you haven't yet heard, St. Louis is the most dangerous city in the U.S., at least according to this report, out today. In the study, the authors say that St. Louis...

"...has long been in the upper tiers of the annual ranking of the nation's safest and most dangerous cities...violent crime surged nearly 20 percent there from 2004 to last year, when the rate of such crimes rose much faster in the Midwest than in the rest of nation, according to FBI figures released in June."

I'll concur that when someone dies at the hands of another here in St. Louis, it does seem to be reported as particularly violent (though I'm not sure that death at the hands of another could be anything but so). Some of the news reports are disturbing, but since we don't watch the local news all that much, I guess we haven't picked up completely on their apparent frequency.

This may also be part of our not having a complete awareness:

"The study looks at crime only within St. Louis city limits, with a population of about 330,000. It doesn't take into account the suburbs in St. Louis County, which has roughly 980,000 residents."

Being on campus in St. Louis County, we don't exactly live in the rougher parts of town; in fact, we've been told that Creve Coeur is something like the sixth-wealthiest township in the country (even despite our dirt-poor seminary population), so there aren't a lot of drive-bys to contend with or drug deals going down on the corner (though the 'burbs have plenty of other junk going on inside the million dollar houses).

Still, while we go downtown (and know plenty of people who live there), the city as a whole doesn't seem all that bad. But obviously something is wrong (according to the article, St. Louis has been in the top ten of this list for the past ten years), and it reminds us again of Jeremiah's call to pursue good for the city in which we are "exiled" (sometimes seminary can feel that way):

"But seek the welfare of the city where I have sent you into exile, and pray to the LORD on its behalf, for in its welfare you will find your welfare." (Jeremiah 29:7)

This is why we're part of an urban (as opposed to suburban) church that has hopes of planting a church downtown in another three years. Indeed, there's much that needs to be done, so you can pray we'll be part of figuring out what and how for as long as we're here in St. Louis.

Unbelievable

Though we're out of town, we just watched the Cardinals beat the Tigers in the fifth (and final) game of the World Series in St. Louis. Having gone to a couple of games this summer and following them all through the post-season, I have to say it's a little unbelievable that we won. Since when did we get a pitching staff? And what kind of melonhead ever questions La Russa?

Good times, friends. Good times. Now maybe I can get some reading done in the evening again.

It's the Most Wonderful Time of the Year

I know, I know...too many baseball posts of late. But it's hard not to get excited, especially since we live in a city that will play host to some of the games later in the month (hopefully way later in the month). Granted, if I were a betting man (which I'm not), I probably wouldn't put many chips on our chances (same old story: pitching wins the World Series, and we don't have much), but you never know in baseball's "second season" - anything can happen.

Maybe it's because October is my favorite month or it's just the weather changing, but I love this time of year - with or without the playoffs (and even the World Series). The colors are beginning to appear, another bountiful harvest is taking place on our family farm, and people everywhere tend to enjoy the transition from summer to autumn. It's just a great time.

The beauty of it all, of course, is it's just better with baseball. One October several years ago, Megan and I watched nearly every playoff and World Series game Fox broadcasted. She always had some project she was working on; I was recovering from a long day at the Glen. We ate lots of popcorn, drank lots of Coke, and cheered both for and against the Yankees (let's be honest: you can't really love baseball and hate the Yanks - just something about those pin stripes...).

As it was last year, this October is going to be tricky for us to watch for a couple of reasons: one, we're too cheap for cable, so we don't get ESPN at all, and only get a fuzzy Fox in our basement apartment; and two, it's not like we don't have other responsibilities (studying, teaching, parenting) we need to attend to during the afternoons and evenings the games are on.

Still, the joy of baseball in October is that, if and when we have a spare moment (and can actually get the channel to come in), odds are there's going to be a baseball game on, one that a whole lot of people here in St. Louis (as well as throughout the country) are watching closely. Call us nostalgic, but this takes us back to when such shared experiences through one real-time medium made us feel more in touch with others than we sometimes do now.

So here's the question: Who are you picking to win the pennants and the World Series? Get your predictions in now. And go Cardinals.

Holding Our Collective Breath for the Redbirds

My oldest and I went to our last Cards game of the season on Thursday night, during which something (barely) resembling baseball was played by the home team. I'm not kidding: it was the worst major league game I've ever watched in person, as the Brewers beat the Birds, 9-4.

On Friday night, my sister, Jamie, and her family came down from Illinois to see the Cards whup up on Milwaukee, 10-5, complete with (another) Pujols homerun and a crowd that actually had a pulse after Albert resuscitated them. Jamie's family stayed with us last night after the game and, while I was a little jealous, I tried not to let it show.

Today, my second-born and I watched on TV the Cards beat (barely) the Brewers, 3-2, thanks to Scott Spiezio's bases-clearing triple in the bottom of the eighth and Jeff Suppan's solid pitching performance. (Note: I have no idea what La Russa was thinking unintentionally/intentionally walking the eighth batter to make the Brewers pull their pitcher for a pinch-hitter, who then promptly knocked in two runs. I like Tony, but sometimes I think he overthinks things.)

And now, I'm checking to see if the Braves finished off the Astros for us so we can rest Chris Carpenter on Sunday and save him for Tuesday night's first game of the playoffs against the Dodgers/Padres (if we make it that far) instead of having to clinch this silly division tomorrow.

Geez. You would think I'm a fan or something.

So What?

I just realized I missed the opening day of the NCAA football season yesterday. Oh well.

Anyone think less of me for not really giving a flying flip?

Just In Case There's Nothing to Talk About Later in Family Therapy

After a major amusement park bummer a week ago (and considering the calendar, knowing it was now or never), Megan and I braved the Labor Day Saturday crowd (which wasn't bad) and took the girls to Six Flags. With four "get-in-free" vouchers in hand (thanks, Mitchell and Lisa) and a two-year-old who was free, all we had to buy was one child's ticket and we were in.

We stayed for seven hours. And believe it or not, it was a blast: the crowds were thin, the weather was perfect, and the kids were great. It was amazing...especially for us (insert your favorite hapless scene from National Lampoon's Vacation here).

It'd been some twenty years since I'd been to Six Flags (our youth group used to drive down from Illinois once a summer for the annual mostly-pointless trip), and the place had built up quite a bit with lots of new rides and a very cool waterpark. Still, I knew that the coaster my oldest two (7 1/2 and 6) had to experience first if they were going to follow through on their rollercoaster smack-talking and prove their amusement park mettle was Daddy's old favorite, The Screamin' Eagle.

To my surprise, they rode it: the younger twice; the oldest three times. To be honest, I was amazed that they went through with it. But then I was probably more amazed that I, as their parent, allowed/encouraged them to experience the risk and trauma of a 110-ft. high, 92-ft. drop wooden rollercoaster that runs 3872 feet in length at 62 m.p.h.

If this doesn't come up in family therapy in twenty years, I don't know what will.

After the third time around, you would think I would have learned my lesson. However, as we were getting ready to leave just before the park closed, my seven-year-old begged me to take her on The Boss, the fifth fastest wooden rollercoaster in the world at 66 m.p.h., complete with a 122-ft. drop at a vertical angle of 52 degrees.

I ask you: What was a loving father to do? We ran up the long walkway, each semi-trying to talk the other out of riding the monster coaster, but neither one succeeding. During the ride, my seven-year-old closed her eyes for at least half the time, and I kept asking God to forgive me for my almost-beyond-being-forgiven irresponsibility in exposing my precious children to the emotional scarring that the experience of rollercoasters before puberty might produce.

Thankfully, the ride ended with no incident (that is, we lived). On the way back down the walkway, my seven-year-old declared that, indeed, she was "the boss of The Boss."

Oh, God, what have I done?

Introducing the Newest Poster Family for the YMCA

A couple days ago, Megan sent me this link with the subject header, "You're going to love this!"

Don't get me wrong: we've enjoyed our time at our local YMCA. And, as we do receive a scholarship in order to belong, we were glad to lend our name (as well as our daughters' picture, though the photographer didn't take a very good shot) to their fundraising efforts.

However, we need to clarify that a statement like "They found their way to the Edward Jones Family YMCA and their lives haven’t been the same," or the quote attributed to Megan that "It (the YMCA) has had a tremendous impact on our daily lives” is more hyperbolic than true.

We like the Y, but our lives aren't that different because of it. I also wouldn't say the impact on our daily lives has been all that "tremendous" (truthfully - unfortunately - it's not even been all that "daily" for most of the summer).

Also, we're not at St. Louis Theological Seminary, but Covenant Theological Seminary. (For a chuckle, visit the two sites and check out the distinct emphases, theological and otherwise.)

It's interesting how sloppy endorsements can get sometimes. It's also intriguing how very quickly our culture applies descriptions of "life change" and "impact" to things that really aren't able to live up to either moniker (insert your own examples here).

Before I seem too judgmental, let me say that I have done the same thing - with experiences, books, or even baseball - and that's to my shame. Truly, the only real "life change" and "impact" is the Gospel, "for it is the power of God for salvation to everyone who believes" (Romans 1:16).

So, if you came across our YMCA endorsement (which you probably didn't until now), we hope you took it with a grain of salt. And forgive me for any past or future indiscretions that ascribe more "life change" and "impact" to things which may not have the capacity to be either as well.

Some Housekeeping Details

In case anyone might be wondering what a seminary family's living space looks like, we've posted a pictorial tour of ours to satisfy your curiosity. (And no, it isn't always this picked up.)

In addition, in the upper right corner of the homepage here, I've made public our supporter section, which you're welcome to check for monthly updates on our ministry. God has faithfully provided (and continues to do so - see this month's update for evidence of that) through others, and it's humbling to be on the receiving end of this generosity.

As one might guess, we hope one day not to have to raise funds in order to do what we do, but until that happens, this seems to be part of how God has ordained to provide for our needs. We're grateful to those who give; we're grateful to those who pray; we're grateful to those who read our stuff and encourage us. If you fit into any of these categories, thanks.

For Perspective's Sake

I suppose I should comment a bit on the status of things here in St. Louis after the storms that came through earlier this week, but I'm afraid there's not much to report, at least for us. Apart from a few downed limbs and leaves (and a stoplight out here and there), we've not been too impacted by the storms. It seems most of the damage was to the north, south, and east, but here on the west side, we never lost power or walked out to find a tree on our minivan.

This, of course, doesn't mean that others haven't felt the effects. Listening to the radio yesterday, I was amazed at some of the stories people were calling in to tell - of live power lines flopping around in their backyards; of vehicles narrowly exited before being crushed by trees; of not having power for 3-5 days with no end in sight. Though probably somewhat embellished for radio, these were real stories, all. One thought I had while listening was just how helpless most of us (and I include myself) would be if there were really a major long-term disaster or war of some kind. Obviously, Katrina is an example of this; so was 9/11 to a degree.

Back in the spring, I read Stephen King's novel, The Stand, about a deadly virus that wipes out 99% of the country's population (and therefore its infrastructure), and it freaked me out a bit. What would we do if something like that really happened? I think about that book every time I get on I-64/40 on Sunday morning to go to church and the lanes are almost empty (okay, so I've got issues thinking about that every Sunday morning on our way to church).

We are so "soft" as a nation (particularly in our major cities) when it comes to doing without that to which we've become so accustomed. We forget people didn't have air conditioning fifty years ago and somehow survived; we forget going without power for days on end wasn't that big a deal a hundred years ago. For perspective, 80% of the world's population still lives this way, but we tend to forget about/deny that reality as well.

I'm not intending to make light of the situation in St. Louis now (nor am I trying to say that we as a people were somehow better in the past). But the recent storm damage and inconvenience should make us stop to think about just what is is we've come to expect from life, especially when considering what's going on in the Middle East, where people have no air conditioning, no power, and an enemy aggressively trying to kill you.

Then again, that might be too much perspective for some of us to handle.

Dern, It's Hot

We're supposed to be in the upper-90's to low-hundreds most of the week here in St. Louis, and I confess there's little I want to do other than stay inside somewhere and chill. Feeling my sluggish tendencies this morning, I made myself go with Megan to our YMCA to do something physical for an hour, but that's about it (and even that was in air-conditioning).

I've been paying attention to the temperature and its effects a little more this summer, partly because I'm "feeling it" more than I used to (no longer living in Colorado Springs at 6,200-ft. makes the humidity that much stickier), and partly because the high temperatures have been in the news with Al Gore and company and their global warming movie, An Inconvenient Truth, which I haven't seen (but want to).

Another of the reasons I've been thinking about the weather lately is this story from a few weeks ago on research postulating that one of the "drivers of the obesity tsunami" in America as "air conditioning, which establishes a comfortable temperature zone. In temperatures above this zone, people eat less. The rise in number of air-conditioned homes in the United States virtually mirrors the increase in the US obesity rate."

Experientially, I would certainly affirm the theory - I don't eat nearly as much when I'm hot, and I've wondered if maybe we ought to turn off the AC and turn on the fans for the sake of my waistline. My African friends in Uganda (where it's warm/hot year-round) only eat twice a day (and less when they do) because of the heat, and they are all quite thin and trim.

What do you think? Anything to this idea? If so, does it motivate you to do anything different in your lifestyle, or are you content as long as you're cool this summer?