They're baaaack

Suvia and the 3 Amigos returned from their month away with Wild Tales from (down)East and a camera-card full of photos. Here, I think, is my favorite.

What kind of cold-hearted mother calmly snaps this picture instead of rushing to her young son's aid? But wait, she protests:

• Just before the camera came out, Diesel had been happily playing in the mud, and was standing there muddy and smiling;
• he doesn't ride a bike yet; Dylan's bike had been lying there all morning, and just happened to be in the frame;
• The holes in those jeans weren't new;
• he was upset that Nana had gone to the Post Office without him (and who can blame her, with all that mud?).

So the picture is eloquently misleading. Nice work, Suvia. A future with National Geographic awaits.

There were some other great pictures as well, summarizing new stages in young lives. Timo turned 1 and learned to walk right on schedule. Much like a novice ice skater, he often catches an outside edge and lands on his (amply padded) derriere. Fortunately, since this video was taken, he has managed to kick his dependence on saliva-soaked socks.

And last but not least, Dylan's reading has really taken off; he spent much of the month making mincemeat of Volumes 1-30(!) of the Magic Treehouse series.

There goes the neighborhood

So I joined Facebook this week. (Kester made me do it.) Before I fully grasped what was happening, it had harvested my Gmail address book and was knocking on a few dozen virtual doors asking to be "friends." Afterwards I marveled at all the people who'd preceded me (and were now welcoming me) to this lively terra nova, without having ever mentioned it.
So far my "sphere" is mostly fairly young (18-22 or so ... must be that film series I'm doing with my church's "college/20s/30s" crowd); so I'm trying not to creep anyone out. Still, I think some may already have mixed feelings about my presence there: I inadvertently learned a few "secrets" meant for -- well, probably not me. Oops. Sorry to intrude; I guess if "no man is an island" [& this is a SOCIAL NETWORK after all] then my efforts to be unobtrusive, and other people's efforts to keep secrets, are a bit limited. On balance, I think that's a good thing... Shades of Life together... Let's just be careful out there.

El Viaje Misterioso de Nuestro Jomer

No, we're not blogging in tongues (how cool would that be?). That's just the title of the Simpsons episode I watched the other night (thanks Ryan): Homer eats a Jallucinogenic Jabanero and embarks on a Mysterious Voyage as reality warps before his eyes. Cartooning at its finest. (If I weren't on a Web-fast this week, there'd be a picture right about here. Posting via email has its limitations.)

I'm on a bit of viaje misterioso myself this month: with Suvia and the 3 amigos away in Maine all month beating the heat, I've got the house and schedule to myself. In the whitespace, I'm discovering all kinds of things. The first week was fun; I dropped into the nearby up-and-coming pub, twice, and finally got to hear acoustic-speed-rockers ilyAIMY perform. I'd forgotten how much I like good live, local music. That first week also established what a distracted, self-absorbed slob I can be when no-one's around to see it. Plants died; I ran out of underwear; stayed up till 2am; the dog escaped; I kept forgetting to call the family; ugh.

In the second week, I've been watching and reflecting on the film "About a Boy," a clever story that runs as deep as you want to go on the themes of isolation, community, charity, and friendship. I'm confronted with my poverty of relationships: for who knows how long I've used my family as a handy excuse for not seeking out meaningful friendships; and I've seen my family mostly as constraints and duties, rather than people to share life deeply with. So, both at home and elsewhere, it's been a lot of pointless, painless, joyless, isolated "island living" -- I've been pretending "I'm bloody Ibiza!" (from the film).

... At this rate, weeks 3 and 4 should be interesting.

A hirsute tale

Sometime in April, one misstep led to another and after nearly 42 clean-shaven years, I decided to find out what nature had blessed (or cursed) me with in the facial-hair department.

Within a week I'd blown past The George Michael (greasy kids' stuff) and with shaggy grays coming in, I was hurtling towards The Dr. K.

(Whereupon, let us pause for the
[famous] 1996 haiku:
Open your present
No, you open your present
Kaczynski Christmas)

By the 6- or 7-week mark, I started getting the occasional compliment. (It was all polite silence before.) I took a couple of self-portraits. Still, I continued to hear a little involuntary shriek every time I passed one colleague's office.

One comment I received: "You're looking more and more like your Savior!" High praise indeed. I'd been leading a class using the "Gospel of John" film of 2003, ... so I know I could never approach THAT hunky look (or so Suvia tells me). But on rereading the prophet Isaiah, I perceived the commenter's devious intent:

He had no beauty or majesty to attract us to him,
nothing in his appearance that we should desire him.

At about the 60-day mark, I began to worry that -ummm- The Charles Darwin was looming. And beyond that, what -- The Billy Gibbons? It was time for a trim. But wait; I'd started the beard in hopes of avoiding that kind of maintenance.

...so I chickened out. Beard's gone. I sort of miss it already: I never realized I had such a weak chin! Here, then, is the conclusion of the matter: some are genetically gifted; beards are for the rest of us. I think I'm growing a new one already.

Sheep Chutes / Earth As Art

[clearing the backlog...] On my recent trip I can't say I experienced Sioux Falls in any meaningful way -- too short a trip. I did, however, bring a camera with me; and on the way to my meeting I skidded to a stop to take the photo at left. Not something you see everyday in the Washington suburbs.

My destination there was the NASA/USGS data center and satellite receiving station, where I learned over lunch that the Landsat "Earth as Art" collections are now online at full resolution: dozens of beautifully rendered views of the planet, each 8,000x8,000 pixels (give or take), freely available for any use you care to dream up. Thought you'd like to know.

On Bullshit

On a recent business trip (to Sioux Falls, SD), I read (and reread (it's that short)) H.G. Frankfurt's "On Bullshit." I'd been curious about this book ever since I saw it on a "church planter's reading list" somewhere. Given my long-time involvement in federal bureaucracy and information technology consulting, the book rang very true in several places:

Someone who lies and someone who tells the truth are playing on opposite sides, so to speak, in the same game. Each responds to the facts as he understands them, although the response of the one is guided by the authority of the truth, while the response of the other defies that authority and refuses to meet its demands. The bullshitter ignores these demands altogether. He does not reject the authority of the truth, as the liar does, and oppose himself to it. He pays no attention to it at all. By virtue of this, bullshit is a greater enemy of the truth than lies are.

... Been there; done that; it's amazing what one can get away with on PowerPoint slides. I've seen plenty of speech that "ignores the demands of the truth" in the workplace, and even in church leadership; and I've produced my share of it and then some. It's so prevalent that we hardly even notice it creep into our talking and writing. I try to cut through it to verifiable facts and clear, precise, neutral language; but it's often a challenge. The damage has already been done -- as Frankfurt describes:

Telling lies does not unfit a person for telling the truth in the same way that bullshitting tends to. Through excessive indulgence in the latter activity, which involves making assertions without paying attention to anything except what it suits one to say, a person's normal habit of attending to the way things are may become attenuated or lost.

Yup. Been there. I can remember 'way back to my senior thesis presentation (20 years ago this month!) when I mixed lab-bench results with values that would have been nice to have. What looked like "proof" was just my playing "what-if" with a pocket calculator. My thesis advisor just nodded approvingly; but he wasn't too pleased when he found out the truth as he was giving me my grade. The mix-up wasn't intentional -- just careless on my part. (Oops, bullshit alarm going off again...)

i bought a crap detector, it emptied all my savings
it's got a hair trigger feel for the slightest provocation
not there to spill blood or judge out of line
it's just a modern convenience to save you some time
- Bill Mallonee, Earth Has No Sorrow

Drained! at last

Our new septic system is finally in place! Sure is nice to have proper wastewater management again. It was in late March, I think, that I finally faced my denial: the stinky, wet spot in the middle of the back lawn wasn't going to fix itself. We hoped it was just a cracked pipe: a team of plumbers dug around for a morning and said, "Uuhh, you've got bigger problems. Call your county health inspector... and don't flush or shower -- much -- or do any laundry, until it's fixed. Good luck."

Thus began a 6-week lesson in suburban infrastructure, (waste)water conservation, contract negotiation, humility, and patience, as we jumped through all sorts of hoops we never knew existed: soil testing (with a backhoe, 18 ft. down); surveying the project area; having blueprints drawn up and faxing them to a dozen contractors; waiting for callbacks; choosing a bidder; watching the back yard get torn up; and of course paying for it all (last part still in progress :-). The project turned out much larger than I'd imagined: the crew dug two 100-foot trenches, 6 feet deep; filled them with three (four? five?) dumptruck loads of gravel; buried a 10'x5'x5' concrete tank; and felled about 10 trees. The final stage will be to replant some 7,000 sq.ft. of grass in place of the resulting dustbowl; I hope to start that this week if the weather cooperates.

Now that it's all over, flushing and showering still seem like exquisite luxuries; I'll never again take them for granted! To watch water gurgle down a drain and know it's going to a safe & healthy place -- what a comforting thought. :-) And we have a renewed appreciation for all the friends who welcomed us into their laundry rooms -- especially for cousin Silvia whose pick-up / drop-off laundry service was above & beyond.

Batterson hangs ten

The Leadnow/Fusion conference blew through town; not really my thing but I went to hear Don Miller (author of Blue Like Jazz and others) and Dan Kimball (author of Emerging Church and others). My impressions:

• It was my first time in a suburban megachurch. I expected it to be like other (merely) large churches I've known; but no-o-o. Not only was everything supersized; everything was super-perfect -- surround sound, stage lighting, HD video, theater seating, overall architecture, etc. I guess someone's got to be at the upper end of the size and polish range. Still, I had to chuckle at the incongruity of speakers dressed in deliberately casual clothing (to appeal to 20/30-somethings) but bathed in crisp pink-white lighting on a gleaming hardwood stage.
  
• I was impressed that the conference only charged $25 for an evening and a morning, including a working lunch and self-serve snack carts. (Somebody, somewhere, must've stood up to the suits.)
• I heard a few too many very polished talks for my tastes -- delivered mostly without notes, with just the right levels of enthusiasm, humor, and pathos. One of these is delightful; two are lavish; but I found three, four, five to be like too much maple syrup. (Somebody, please lose your train of thought or fumble a joke!)
  
• I realized with a shudder [so long, innocent idealism] that some are approaching "20/30-somethings" not (primarily) as a disaffected, skeptical, or unique group, requiring new emphases, metaphors, etc... but (mostly) as a market for fairly familiar forms of Christian media and ministry, just with slightly different wrappings.
  
• Miller and Kimball were exceptions to that; I felt they reached into a whole new set of metaphors and messages. Dan Kimball drew on his "They like Jesus - not Christians" theme to get people out of the "Christian Bubble". In describing the "bubble" he fearlessly waded right into several aspects of the conference itself (e.g., worship concerts; favoring int'l over local mission). Impressive.
• Don Miller wove some great stories, and vignettes from Robert McKee's Story Seminar, into a call to "write" worthwhile stories of our own, not with ink or camera but with our lives. He introduced the topic by asking people to answer two questions: "What's your favorite movie?" ... followed by "What's your favorite part of the Nicene Creed?"
• Gracia Burnham wisely chose not to rehash her well-known story (dramatized on video screens before she came onstage). Instead she spoke (briefly) of what she's doing now: like Moses in Exodus 4, she prays, "Lord, what have I got to tell people? I'm just a ditzy blonde whose life is a mess..." -- to which He replies, "...Who made your hair?"
• [update] I enjoyed watching Mark Batterson's flip-flops hang ten off the front edge of the stage throughout his talk. But he never did fall onto the audience -- a true professional! His "Chase The Lion" talk was as energetic as his 4-posts-a-day blog; at times a bit too close to a mere motivational speech ("live your life on offense, not defense!" "accumulate experiences, not possessions!"); still, he pointed to "Jesus the author and perfecter" of our stories, and to love as a source of fearlessness.

So, that was my foray into mainstream, suburban, big-budget, business-tainted, but still mostly well-intentioned, American Evangelical Christianity. To think that some would consider this "normal"! Still, I was glad to be there ... once in a while.

Andy Whitman, blast from the past

Well lookie here... Andy Whitman has been syndicating (?) excerpts from his near-daily blog with Paste Magazine ("Signs of life in music, film, and culture"). It'd been 12-13 years since I'd read Mr. Whitman's winsome writing, on the USENET (!) rec.music.christian newsgroup, where he sparked and fueled many a young person's exploration of "real thinking feeling people's music" with pointers to such artists as Peter Case, Victoria Williams, T-Bone Burnett, Bill Mallonee, et al. When he quit the newsgroup around 1995, it quickly lost what little creative / edgy content it had, and imploded in theological squabbles. But apparently, in all these years Andy's flair for writing and his passion for music haven't abated a bit. And his refreshing, holistic approach to music, life, faith, and culture seems to be shared by Paste Magazine as a whole. Nice to see some "signs of life" on the magazine rack.

Mark Scandrette & Soul Graffiti

I joined the Emergent Village DC Cohort for a dinner with hippie cowboy preacher poet Mark Scandrette. He asked us a bunch of questions (? wasn't expecting that); read (and riffed on) excerpts from his new book "Soul Graffiti"; and (with a slight nudge from Mike) closed his eyes and recited his poem "ReIMAGINE!" -- a sort of trippy psalm spiced with wordplay, bright urban sounds and colors, a fleeting mention of "Tai-Chi Mariachi"... you get the idea.

"Soul Graffiti (Making a life in the way of Jesus)" is a book best read slowly and savored. I'm halfway through; I may reread some chapters before going on; I'm surprised at how many times I've paused and thought, "this is what I've been wanting to say but hadn't found the words." Instead of a real book review, I'll post "gems" from the book as I stumble across them. The "ReIMAGINE!" poem above is one (so go ahead, give it a listen); and here's another:

"Graffiti can be a plea for identity or a proclamation to puncture the darkness. ... The fragmentation I recognize in the world and in myself weighed heavily upon me as I cut words into a waxed paper stencil. I prayed as I sprayed the paint through the stencil out onto the sidewalk: CREATOR - RECREATE HERE NOW - INSTIGATE A REVOLUTION OF FAITH HOPE & LOVE...... What question or statement would you shout out to the universe or to God right now? Go public with your yelping. Write it with chalk on the sidewalk or post it on a Web site and see what kind of response you get."

More excerpts in a later post.

"Where Uncle Phil go?"

My brother visited us from Los Angeles for a couple of days this week. He quickly made three young new friends, including 2-y.o. Diesel, pictured here finding a shoulder to lean on at The Awakening in DC. (I'd hoped the statue would be partially submerged after all the rain upstream; but we got some great pictures anyway.)

[UPDATE: the day after posting this, I read that "in the coming months" the Awakening would be moved across the river. I'm pretty sure it will lose some of its charm -- but we'll see...]

It was great to see Phil and his nephews interact, really for the first time. (Previous encounters were all at some kind of family reunion, with kids relegated to a separate room, and lots of competing activity.) In fact, I don't think our boys have bonded so eagerly with any other visitor. A few hours after Phil left, Diesel headed toward the guestroom: "Where Uncle Phil go?" He wasn't very pleased with the answer he got.

On Phil's last evening here, he and I escaped to the nearby brewery for drinks and conversation. Not a frequent occurrence for me anymore ... with anyone! let alone my brother from another planet. Quite a treat. Funny though, we were both tired enough that we stopped to get coffee on the way. (He can blame his fatigue on jet lag and time zones; me I'm just a doofus -- no matter how hard I try to pin the blame on baby Timo.)

Here's to more visits from Uncle Phil.

Gratitude

I'm such a lousy blogger that I forgot to bring a camera on our early-morning visit to the Washington cherry blossoms last week. So imagine, if you will, standing under a canopy of translucent Yoshino blooms that both glowed from the gentle sun shining through them, and shimmered and flickered in the reflections off the Tidal Basin... all of this against a cloudless blue backdrop.

Less famous, but equally delightful, is the Awakening statue at the tip of Hains Point. On this day, its appeal seemed especially broad: toddlers sat on the statue's teeth and fingers while high-schoolers dared each other to jump off his knee, 12 feet down to the ground.

It was a much more successful visit than we had any right to expect, especially with three little boys along for the trip: we found parking on the Potomac; missed the crowds; soaked in the day's best light and springtime warmth; and were home by mid-morning. And wouldn't you know it, the remainder of that week turned rainy and increasingly cold. "Lord, you give us what we need -- and sometimes so much more."

A few days later, I caught a nice picture of the unseasonable weather: I'm not sure when the DC area last saw snow in April, but there it was. I took this out our front window as we were waking up. (Click to see the full-size picture.)


With all of our sickly grass hidden under snow, the front yard looked pretty inviting! Hopefully this spring & summer we'll get it to look nice even without snow on it.

Tonight we took in another Washington-area delight, a Bowie Baysox game. There's something magical about a baseball diamond bathed in electric lights under a richly hued evening sky.

Because this is the Minor Leagues, the mood is calm and relaxed; the playing is great but the stakes are low; and tickets are cheap or free. We had comp tickets, so we didn't mind leaving after the 3rd inning (!) to get the boys into bed. Well worth a return visit.

The "Catch Me If You Can" pen

The local Staples store had these nice-looking pens on clearance this week. (...they gleam so ... but I don't really need another pen -- oh look, only 50 cents for a 3-pack...) Just as I was about to be reasonable and walk away, I saw that they were billed as somehow resistant to check fraud. And I spotted an ornate seal of approval on the back of the package: ... Abagnale .. A mouthful of a name ... Frank W. Abagnale ... Waitaminute ... That rings a bell ... Yes! This is the guy from "Catch Me If You Can," who singlehandedly invented dozens of tricks to forge documents, con people, and steal a few million dollars. At first I didn't get it: would we want Ronald McDonald certifying our filets mignons? But further study showed that Abagnale & Associates are a bona fide business -- lucrative enough, in fact, to pay back all the money he swindled. (Good thing he didn't pay them back four times over -- preachers everywhere would've made him a sermon illustration.) Among many other things, A&A helped formulate the Uni-Ball 207's special ink that sinks deeply into paper fibers and can't be washed out.

On the company Website, Abagnale comments on the book and movie and how he's changed since then. And Wikiquote has some juicy quips:

• "If my forgeries looked as bad as the CBS documents, it would have been 'Catch Me In Two Days'."
  • Frank Abagnale, on the Killian memos.

• "Remember what being an adult is: It has nothing to do with money or awards."
  • Frank Abagnale, speaking to high-school students in Highland Park, Texas [4]

• I had no fear -- like a kid driving down the freeway at 100 miles an hour.
  • Frank Abagnale [6]

• I did not make this film about Frank Abagnale because of what he did . . but because of what he has done with his life the past 30 years.
  • Steven Spielberg. [9]

I bought nine pens. I think I've already lost two.

Jonny Baker in Lancaster, PA

One man went out to mow - Uploaded by jonnybaker

Jonny Baker (a creative force in UK "Alternative Worship" and co-author of the rather unique book by that name) is giving a workshop series this week, entitled "Faithful Improvisation: Worship and Mission in Post-modern Times" in Lancaster, PA. Lancaster's closer than London; but still two hours away; so I can't be there myself, but hopefully I'm only a couple degrees of separation from someone who can. (It's all free and open to the public.)

I've never met Mr. Baker, but his blog and other writings (including his "worship tricks" series and Flickr photo collection) have been an inspiration to many, and a source of highly creative thinking about Christian worship, theology, and culture. And for me and presumably others, he was the first link to the outstanding work of Andrew Jones, Pete Rollins, Kester Brewin, Roger von Oech, et al. Here he is (above right) mowing a prayer labyrinth -- one of many concepts he's catalyzed in the UK emerging church scene.

The Man Lift

I often wonder whether I've run out of things to blog about -- but something noteworthy usually comes up amidst the impenetrable blandness [blindness?] of my days. Last Saturday I joined my church's Men's Ministry work crew. At left is the late-afternoon money shot -- too bad all that gossamer structure will have to disappear under walls and roof. Reminds me of the balsa gliders of my youth.

My highlight was operating the manlift pictured here for most of the morning. Gotta love the name; though there's nothing "manly" about operating it -- a joystick rotates the boom horizontally and vertically, and a toggle switch telescopes you in & out. So it's like a 3D video game (at a snail's pace). In my groggy Saturday-morning state of mind I found myself wondering what combinations of longitude, latitude, and radius adjustments would let me move parallel to the x, y, and z axes relative to the ground. Fortunately I kept this powerful conversation killer to myself. Just call me Mr. Cross-Cultural.

Curse your blessings

Nearly all the things I complain about -- lousy job, cranky kids, ragged yard, squeaky bicycle, etc. -- are closely tied to rich blessings: gainful employment, a loving family, a nice home on a lovely cycling road, etc. Some years ago I coined a snide little hymn: "Count your blessings, Curse them one by one / And it will surprise you what the Lord has done..."

So, amidst the tempest 'n' tumult described earlier, it's been interesting to review the good things that were happening. Here's a list (call it "Ebenezer" if you will):

• Little T.Mo (8 months old yesterday) is learning to (a) sit up and (b) hold his own bottle. This is not just cute: it frees up Mom & Dad to do other things, like sweep or eat or sometimes even think.
• I finally dejunked the garage -- so thoroughly that it's sheltering not one but both cars (they'd been out in the rain / sun / hail / snow for months, maybe years). Our second car (... motor vehicle ... ok, minivan) has about 3" clearance front and back, and 1/64" (really!) under the tandem bicycle. It's a beautiful sight.
• My lovely Quicken Queen (and brand-new blogger) wrestled our taxes into submission: we're expecting a refund worth about a month's wages. (Note to self: revisit withholding.)
• Several geeky-glee moments: I finally downloaded the latest Fedora Core (6) Linux and installed it on our Frankensteinian kitchen computer. (*) I also snagged a Handera 330 (the nec plus ultra of handhelds) on eBay. And, thanks to a work-related visit to George Mason University, I got to shop at Micro Center (supermarket for geeks) in far-off Fairfax, VA.

... I'm sure several more items will occur to me as soon as I click "Publish." So ... to be continued, probably.

(*) This computer deserves its own blog. Starting with a motherboard and CPU from an office trash-heap, and a wood gift box at home; inspired by the world-famous Humidor PC; I got to tinkering. I'll post pictures when it's finished (... in 2010).

Hiatus

Just when blogging seemed to be going so well, becoming a nice habit, ... there went February. (I think we can agree "electric pee" was getting pretty -ah- stale after 18 days.) Not quite sure what happened. But for one thing, all my posts were late at night (Blogger's time-stamp shows when the writing started) -- which was doing nothing for health, sanity, or family harmony. And then my employer asked me to drop my current NASA commitment and head up a new project elsewhere. I was pretty sure I didn't want the new role; but I didn't want to leave my colleagues in the lurch. Unfortunately, this brought out the worst in me: instead of saying "No" promptly and clearly, I let the inner turmoil and second-guessing begin; I clammed up, and avoided them for most of a week. So mature and professional. People were leaving me voice-mail: "Did you get my email? Hope to hear from you. Here's my cell..." And of course, blogging is hard enough even when my inner thoughts are clear and confident. So, that's my story... Now that that awkward episode is over, things should pick up a bit around here.

In the midst of the hubbub, I found Sam Phillips' bizarre song "Zero Zero Zero!" oddly comforting: "... everything that I'm not is all that I've got." (If I'm a zero, at least I have a theme song.) And of course, there's always the beatitudes: "Blessed are the [zeroes], for theirs is the kingdom of heaven..."

Semantic aptitude 2: electric pee

Dylan's semantic aptitude makes it that much funnier when he misunderstands something. The other day he announced gloomily to Grammy and everyone at the table, "Mommy says I might have electric pee." ... Umm... run that by me again? Turns out he'd been told that for an upcoming doctor's visit, "you might have to collect your pee." He took a moment to process this new input, then joined in the general hilarity.

Intergalactic ailments

I recently changed my office calendar. This year for some reason, NASA's Occupational Health program has done a mass distribution of its "2007 HealthierYou" calendar, featuring some of the strangest collisions of form vs. content that I've ever seen. Pictured here is a sample of the delightful absurdities that will be gracing people's walls all year long (and now maybe yours, too, if you print that PDF). I've tried to construct some meaningful explanation but had to give up. Enjoy the tension. Stop making sense.

(Click on these to see them full-size.)

(Yes, this is the "really inane" post I promised last week.)

Semantic aptitude 1: Chameleon

5-year-old Dylan understands what's going on, better than most kids his age. The other day, out of the blue, he asked from the back of the car, "dad, ... so does he mean he has trouble loving himself?" Huh? I then realized we were listening to Michael Knott's Life of David CD, and he'd understood pretty clearly what this dark refrain was about:    

I'm the cunning culprit
and the little lamb
and I love all God's children
all but one
This chameleon

Not bad for a five-year-old. He asked whether it was a prayer; Actually, yes: a sad and honest prayer...




Note to self: some of the repertoire may be a bit more difficult to explain.