to my boys: what i love about you (#743)

dear jack and cade,

you know i love you.  i tell you all the time.  but it occurs to me from time to time that there are a billion different reasons why i love you, and that if i don't write down at least a few of them, i will forget them, and i will never be able to explain it to you when i'm old and slobbery and you have to change my pants.  there are a million moments in every day, it seems, and most of them give me new reasons to fall in love with you.  here are a few of them...

i love that when i leave for work you two monkeys run to the big bay window in the living room and wait to see my car driving up the driveway, when you begin jumping like caffeinated kangaroos and waving furiously to me, like its the last time you'll ever see me.  i wave back, just as uninhibited.  and i beep the horn.  and through the glass of our house, and across the front yard, i hold you in a father's embrace like you can't even imagine.  it makes me cry almost every time.

i love that when you are partway through dress or undress and you so often suddenly get infected with some sort of dancing disease which causes you to gyrate and shake your bodies like some tribal warleader in full blown fury.  i love the way your shoulder blades point out of your skinny little backs, waving under your soft clean skin, a perfect orchestra of body and movement, a witness to God's miracle of life, and a reminder to me of the joy i too often surrender in place of worry.

i love that when i wake you up in the morning and i lie in your bed with you for those few blessed moments when you are coming back to the land of the aware, you allow me in with total trust, welcoming me into your sleepy warm world.  and i love how your little blankets, which you've been cradling in comfort all night, smell like just a little bit of heaven, full of your warmth and dripping with your dreams.  i breath you in. 

and i want to keep breathing you in, in all these little mundane magnificent moments.  just thought i should tell you, before it slipped my mind: i love you.

the thanksgiving adventures of captain rex

my sister is an elementary school teacher, and she does this really fun activity with her class:  each weekend one of the children gets to take home "captain rex" the rubber chicken.  they welcome captain rex into their home and then write about the experience.  the writing goes into the binder, and they keep a journal of all of captain rex's adventures.  for example, one student rescued captain rex from tragic peril in the swimming pool.  others took him to sporting events, or let him play with their toys (including dress up with barbie). 

we were so fortunate that captain rex came to spend thanksgiving weekend with our family, and i was able to snap a few photos of our time together. 

i had the opportunity to sit down over a couple cans of mountain dew with captain rex early in the day on thanksgiving.  when i say "couple of cans" i mean that i had a couple of cans while i watched rexy throw back 6 or 7 of them.  i lost count.  he sure likes his caffeine.  still, in between him sticking his beak into the beverage, we were able to have some good conversation in which we got to know one another.  it turns out that the captain is actually a retired sheep chicken, having had a long and somewhat decorated career herding sheep.  he showed me this great picture from his glory days:

after captain rex was suitably hopped up on mountain dew, and we had seen enough of the macy's thanksgiving day parade, it was turkey time.  needless to say, el capitan was a bit uncomfortable with a feast of fowl, so he refrained from eating actual turkey, opting instead to have a private conversation with this paper turkey, insisting that it was some distant relative. 

after failing to get the paper turkey to respond, captain rex let us know that he was famished.  when we found out that his favorite food is bacon (he calls it power strips), we fried him about 4 pounds of bacon and he went crazy until the caffeine wore off and he collapsed into a satisfied bacon-induced sleep. 

and that was just thanksgiving!  we had many other exciting adventures with captain rex the retired sheep chicken, but those tales will have to wait for another day.  for now, always remember that too much mountain dew is never a good thing (even for a rubber chicken). 

keep your eyes open

today i quote from brennan manning about Christ's presence in Christmas.  we can lament that Christ is out of Christmas, or we can keep our eyes open and celebrate that Christ is in every moment of this blessed season:

once a year the Christmas season strikes both the sacred and secular spheres of life with sledgehammer force: suddenly Jesus Christ is everywhere.  for approximately one month his presence is inescapable.  you may accept him or reject him, affirm him or deny him, but you cannot ignore him.  of course he is proclaimed in speech, song, and symbol in all the Christian churches.  but he rides every red-nosed reindeer, lurks begind every cabbage patch doll, resonates in the most desacralized "season's greetings."  remotely or proximately, he is toasted in every cup of Christmas cheer.  each sprig of holly is a hint of his holiness, each cluster of mistletoe a sign he is here. 

for those who claim his name, Christmas heralds this luminous truth: the God of jesus Christ is our abslute future.  such is the deeply hopeful character of this sacred season.  by God's free doing in bethlehem, nothing can separate us from the love of God in Christ Jesus.  Light, life, and love are on our side. 

"the virgin shall be with child and will give birth to a son, and they will call him Immanuel"--which means, "God with us."  -Matthew 1:23

find your elizabeth (retreat!)

yesterday we started the christmas decorating process.  and wow is it daunting.  box after box after box to open up and see what lies within, freeing ghosts of christmases past from crumpled up newspaper.  all the current decorations have to be taken down and put away and things cleaned before the Christmas decorations go up.  we spent a great deal of time on this yesterday afternoon, and didn't finish.  there are still boxes to be opened.  there is still a space for a christmas tree.  there are still cards to be sent and things to be bought and packages to wrap and so on.  daunting.

in church yesterday we read from luke 1 when the angel gabriel is talking to mary and he tells her that she is going to be pregnant and have this child.  and its not just that (as if that wasn't enough), but he tells her in verses 32 and 33 that the child "will be great and will be called the Son of the Most High.  The Lord God will give him the throne of his father David, and he will reign over the hosue of Jacob forever; his kingdom will never end."  wow.  such a high dramatic beginning to all of this. 

how do you begin a season that way?  whether it be a pregnancy or a job or a project or just getting ready for Christmas, how do you begin when the bar is set so high? 

mary retreated.  that's right.  she got away.  she got out of town.  literally.  she took the 80 mile trip to the hill country of judea to visit her (also pregnant) relative elizabeth, and she stayed for three months.  we don't know exactly what she was doing there, but it isn't hard to imagine that she was taking some much needed time to get her mind right, to get her heart right for such an overwhelming future. 

what about us?  we might not have three months to retreat (although a three-month caribbean cruise sounds okay to me right now), but we can certainly carve out some time in our hectic schedules to retreat from it all and be sure to get our minds and hearts right for the weeks that lie ahead!  sure there are boxes to wrap and cards to send and trimmings to....trim...but these things will all get done.  and if we take the time right now to retreat to the "hill country of judea," we may find that those activities will be accompanied by joy, delight, wonder and expectation, rather than dread and anxiety. 

my prayer for my family (and yours) this advent is that you will slow down and evaluate your advent; that you will retreat to the hill country, find your elizabeth, and get your head and heart right for Christmas.  do it now, before it's too late. 

psalm 69:30

here's to you having a great day, and not just one in which you fill yourself to the gills with food and fat and blessings of every kind, but also one in which you find a way in your spirit to sing out to the giver of every good gift a song of thanksgiving.  here's to a little time of reflection for each of us today, an opportunity to carve out some space for reflecting on the amazingness of this life of ours.  make up a song.  write a poem.  talk to your creator.  just do something to say 'thank you.'  and have a blessed thanksgiving.

grace|peace,

greg.

an advent of anticipation

just an aisle over from the turkey decorations you can find the stockings and christmas wreaths. it seems that stores continue to start the “holiday” season earlier and earlier each year. and it’s not just the stores:  last tuesday night my kids watched a christmas special on tv!  as much as i don’t like the commercialization, there is one thing i actually enjoy about the early start to the christmas season: it gives us more time to anticipate.
we don’t normally think of anticipation as a good thing, but as advent begins on sunday, i need to remind myself that anticipation is a great thing during this season. advent is a time to eagerly wait for the coming of Jesus into my heart once again. but i don’t particularly like waiting and anticipating. it doesn’t fit well with my “everything now” lifestyle.

i remember when shannon and i were engaged for 14 months, but living 6 hours apart from one another while she finished college and i worked in new jersey.  during january of that year she planned a visit to spend a few days in the great garden state during her break from school.  well, being a bachelor, the house was not automatically ready for such a visit!  i had to prepare!  i vacuumed and dusted and vacuumed and dusted again.  i put all the dishes away and scrubbed parts of my kitchen i didn’t even know existed.  on the day she was to arrive, i lit candles and spent a great deal of time in front of the mirror making sure every hair was in place.  i was waiting for my love’s arrival, with eager expectation.  i wasn’t just waiting, like in a line or in traffic.  i was waiting, making sure everything was ready, eagerly anticipating the arrival of the one i was expecting with great joy.

what about us?  do we approach christmas with the same kind of anticipation?  are we eagerly awaiting the One who is Love to come into our homes and our hearts again this year?  are we getting every part of our lives lined up so that we will be ready for Christ’s arrival?  my prayer as i navigate the aisles of holiday trinkets and the hours of commercialized programming, is that i will seize the moments of advent and use them to ready my life for the coming of Jesus.  i don’t want to just let christmas happen this year.  i want to anticipate it, with eager expectation!  joy is coming!  Love is coming!  Jesus is coming!

thankful for the man-to-man defense

well, monday morning has arrived, and so has my lovely wife from her weekend in atlanta.  beyond the happy reunion of seeing someone you miss, this is significant for another reason as well:  both of my children and (perhaps more significantly) myself survived the weekend.  and by that i mean that we were all alive right now.  maybe a little worse for the wear.  but still living.  i call it success.  it was close as we almost had at least one case of general tso's overload, but we survived that one.  i even got them dressed and to church early yesterday, which was quite the accomplishment!  i thought they looked pretty cute, too!  evidence:

but seriously, this weekend i gave great thanks for shannon and for the man-to-man defense that we normally employ in parenting.  this zone defense was exhausting.  i have all the respect in the world for single parents.  i'm not sure i could do it fulltime.  have a great monday.

ps.  yes, i am ignoring the steelers game yesterday.  don't have the tools to deal with it emotionally right now.  : |