Photo Update

I finally got a chance to post a few new pictures on Flickr. New house, Christmas, and lots of others of Rori. Enjoy.

The Story Continues

For those of you following our little story, there's not a whole lot more to report. I've continued working on (and am in the final phase of) recording and editing a new audio demo that I really hope will wow all the churches to whom I apply. On a totally random note, if you know a way to put such recordings up on a blog (without putting them in a video), let me know, I'd love to post the recording here to get your opinion.

We're currently in Canandaigua, and going back and forth between Crosswinds Church and Little Lakes Church, as Crosswinds has been home for a long time, and Little Lakes has given us a stream of opportunities to lead worship and keep on top of our skills. We've met some wonderful new people and been reunited with some old friends, which has been nice. The search for a job, however, continues in earnest, and we'd appreciate your continued prayers in that direction. Maybe you might also mention to Him that I'd love to be writing again, if only I could work up the words.

On that note, however, I have some fun stuff too: pictures. It seems in lieu of writing, these days, I've been overly inspired in the arts of recording and photography. I've just put two new sets up on flickr, here and here. But this is my favorite shot, from my sister's party celebrating her graduation from RIT this past weekend. Enjoy.

Pictures

New pictures up on flickr. Two new sets: here and here.

Feeling Sick

Well, I've been out of commission for a little while, first with a sinus infection, then with a stomach flu (from which I'm still recovering). In lieu of higher thought, here are some amusing articles from The Onion you may enjoy. A new software will age your photos, the NSF has discovered that science is hard, and CalTech physicists successfully split a bill. Also, I heartily recommend The Onion's Our Dumb World, the only atlas you'll ever need.

Also, it's been a little while since I pointed you all in the direction of the pictures, so there may be a few new ones up there you haven't seen. Like this one:

Rori's New Toy

Christian Agnosticism

I know. It's been ages. Allow me to update you all on the condition of my life.

I've finished my first summer course, in sociology of religion (a fantastic course, thanks Dr. Thobaben!), and have moved onto Old Testament over the internet. It's been an interesting ride so far, in the sense that I'd rather be doing a whole lot else but since I have to take it, it's proved modestly thought-provoking. It's also where the majority of my energy writing has gone, since it's an online class and there are discussion threads to be written.

But the biggest trouble has been my laptop. I made the mistake of not buying a Dell the last time and instead invested in an HP Tablet Laptop that, though the battery life is not nearly what I want, does some pretty cool things. However, a week and a half ago, my lappy decided to crash and not allow itself to power up. It's bad enough that the screen won't even turn on before the power fails. I panicked, because I hadn't backed up my hard drive since March, and I didn't think I'd be able to save my data. Fortunately, the HP help guy was actually pretty helpful and suggested I buy this little gizmo to turn the lappy's hard drive into a jump drive.

By God's grace alone, the data was all still there and I copied it over to my backup drive.

The lappy is now in California undergoing testing. In the meantime, I still have a laptop to use, but it's the very first laptop I ever got, and it's very,

very

slow.

It's been a humbling experience for the past week and a half. I used to think that the internet was slow because of the internet. Now I know it was just as much the laptop's fault. I can't multitask anymore because it can't handle more than one, maybe two programs open at once (my HP's duo core processor can handle up to six). So I'm in the slow lane for a few weeks, but I'm chugging along. But that's why I haven't written anything for my blog. That is about to change.

A few months ago I decided to change the "religion" label on my facebook account from "Follower of the Way" to "Christian Agnostic." It garnered a lot of questions, which I can't say surprised me much (that was the idea), but still, I think it's a concept worth exploring. Over the next however many posts I'm going to explore the idea of Christian Agnosticism, what it means, why I use the term, and perhaps tell a story about Ruffle the Potato Chip if I finish it in time (I'll explain when I get to it).

In the meantime, today was my daughter Rori's first birthday! Last night we took her out to Olive Garden where she had her first Ice Cream Sundae. It was fantastic. But I leave you with a picture of her (which is a link to other pictures, just click on it) for your enjoyment. Thanks for your patience!

Rori's Birthday

Ah, birthdays ... we celebrated Rori's a little early so that Kelly and Shannon could partake with us before they left for the Southwest. Cake was involved, as was a balloon, root beer, and an unfortunate incident with a candle. But she looked really cute in that dress ...

More photos on Flickr.

Kodak Moments

New Photos on Flickr.

Heard in Wilmore

Chris (holding Rori): "Feel the wrath of the BABY!!!!"
Liz: "Baby wrath? We'll have to get some cream for that ..."

Great Moments in History

Happy New Year

New photos up on Flickr.

Pictures

My thanks to Laura for pointing me in this direction:

Oh Yes. And more pictures up on Flickr.

Uber Cuteness

Rori had her first playtime today. By that, I mean today was the first time she played with any of her toys ... and somehow I was lucky enough to have my video camera on hand. Seriously, this is huge, I never have my video camera ready for this stuff. Anyway, this is mostly for the Grandparents and family, but I reckon there are a few others out there that'll find this more cuteness than they can handle.

You've been warned.

Big Yawn!

New photos on Flickr.

First(ish) Day of School

I started classes today for my second semester at Asbury, and boy, this semester is worlds different from the last.

For starters, I'm taking four classes instead of three. Three seemed like a lot at the time, but I'm figuring part of that had to do with moving the week before finals, culture shock at having moved to tiny little wilmore (am I now a "Wilmoron" as a lady asked today?) from big 'ol foreign Melbourne, and of course, having a slightly-depressed-at-our-living-conditions-but-also-pregnant wife. There was lots going on. But this semester is hard too; four classes isn't easy, especially when two of them - as I discovered last night at 7pm - overlap by an hour and fifteen minutes, a change that the registrar didn't bother to inform me or another student had happened. So now I have to decide what to do there, and it's honestly all a bit frustrating. But it'll get worked out, eventually. Or at least, I hope by friday, since that's when the drop/add deadline is. But of course, there's also the three-days-of-work thing (really seven because I'm managing Coldstone, but I only get paid for one), and of course, a newborn in the house.

What fun.

But I'm really looking forward to classes this semester. Dr. Martyn, of Teaching-My-India-Class fame, is also my professor for Vocation of Ministry (so it'll be nice to get to know him a bit before travelling overseas together). Dr. Pachuau (or "Kima" since nobody can pronounce his first name) is teaching a history of Christian Missions class, which ought to be long, but exciting; I'm a minority in his class, being but an ordinary white northerner. We'll see whether I take Dr. Hunter's class on Church Growth, or Dr. Ybarrola's (yes, that's his name) Anthropology class. But by far, I'm most interested in Dr. West's class on Cross-Cultural Leadership ... simply put, it is going to be fantastic. Dr. West is the sort of guy who prefers learning by conversation, working together rather than the traditional method of "I lecture and you absorb my worldly wisdom". He's extremely passionate about teaching and growing leaders, both in and out of the classroom, and today something in his introduction made me realize I'm going to need his insights before India. Dr. West and India are going to mess with me a lot, I'm beginning to realize, but ... in a good way (I hope).

And, just for Shawna, here's a cute picture of Rori. All others are on Flickr.

Fatherhood: Being in Denial

Being a father pretty much means that you spend a lot of your life in denial. When your baby girl spends another evening screaming (until she gets fed, then she only whimpers a little while), your mind gets all twisted funny and you say "she's beautiful" when strangers ask you how she is. Screaming baby is probably the worst sound ever, and that includes things like nails on chalkboard, John Phillips Sousa, squealing tires, or the words "it'll probably be fine."

I never realized this until I became a father myself, but it really makes a lot of other things come into perspective, like how after several years suddenly you say "hey, let's do it again!" I can't imagine having another child right now, Rori is pretty much the hardest thing we've ever done. But I imagine after a few years, I'll conveniently forget sleepless nights (I'm not complaining, they're worse for my poor wife), red-eye days, and the sound of a screaming infant. I'll say "you know, this was the best thing we ever did, let's do it again!" and we will. I've heard parents say it's not as bad the second time, but I'm not sure that I believe them; they must've gone through the denial process as well, since they have more than one child, so they can't really be trusted.

People with four or five kids ... or seven ... are really off their rocker. I don't know what they were thinking.

But there are other parts of being in denial. For one, I suddenly started wondering about every word that came out of my mouth. Liz spends all her time with Rori, which means that she gets ALL the screaming, which inevitably leads to new vocabulary words that neither of us intended. Me, I went the other way, worrying that the smallest mishandle could turn my child into a psycho-killer or some kind of freak, like a circus clown or a laywer or something. You never can be too careful; I don't want to scar her for life, that costs money later on for shrinks and drugs that just aren't that healthy.

Another part is that I stopped buying stuff. Ok, not true - I stopped buying stuff for ME. Who knew there could be so much crap for a baby? There's the stroller, the crib, the little seat thingummy which is neither a stroller nor a crib (papazan?), there's the high-chair, there's the special tub, the diaper genie, there's the porto-crib, the hundreds of batteries of various (and uncommon) sizes, and of course, the piles and piles of diapers. Now, we were really fortunate to have fantastic family and friends that helped us a lot with most of this stuff (ex: we have yet to buy our own diapers), but at the same time, I don't make a ton to supplement. Coldstone and the Optometrist's offices pay decent, but only in the last month or so. So when I discovered that we had to travel, I wondered how I could get there fastest without using up too much gas. Is it more efficient to fill up at half-a-tank or at empty? Which is the best place to get gas? Can we pack more food and just forego restaurants? Do we have to take breaks every hour for Rori or can Liz sit in the back and feed her a bottle of the free formula we got from the hospital?

Yeah. I know.

The hardest part is being in denial about my time. There are a lot of things I like to do; I like to write, to read, to play my guitar, to listen to music, to talk to friends online, to peruse various websites, to do dinner out, to go to movies ... and most of them I haven't done in a while. For Liz it's worse, she can't even get basic house chores done without the baby squealing about being put down (and apparently the fancy baby bjorn gizmo isn't good enough, Rori hates it so far). But I still feel a twinge about the stuff I have to give up. I miss having hours to write about whatever. I miss being able to talk about nothing with my friends for hours online (sharing dumb websites with pictures of cats). I miss being able to just go to a movie or dinner with Liz. These days I get to snatch a few minutes each day at work to add a few more sentences to a post or to edit a picture. I miss having free time.

And yet here I am. It's not like I have a huge choice in the matter at this point, but I still think I'd prefer to give up this stuff rather than send her back. I love my daughter. I didn't believe it'd happen, but there really is something remarkable about having your own child. I'm not really into kids much; I like adults, they can hold intelligent conversations with you. But put Rori in my arms and I turn into a blathering idiot who exaddurates his smiles and coos in the most bizzare fashion. I've learned the baby bounce, which consists of making up a dance while simultaneously patting her back and bouncing my arms. It doesn't always work, so then I have to make up something else (Liz has gotten really good at this).

Maybe being in denial isn't such a bad thing. Scripture says that God is such a father as well; is it that he built us with these tendencies? Did God make us guys to be fathers willing to lay down all that's important to us so that our daughters and sons could grow up to be the best they can? I think so. I'm still in the brooding stage - it's never going to be an easy thing to be in denial - but I hope that eventually this will be second nature for me. I hope that I can do as good a job as my father did; I learned so much about giving up for my daughter from him. I remember wondering why it was that when we went out to the store, why it was that even though my sister and I got stuff, and sometimes even my Mom, Dad never did. Dad loves sailing, but for my mother and sister he invested to buy a pair of horses (and not a boat). I learned about that part of God from Dad. I hope and pray that, like Dad did for us, I can tell my daughter that she gets what's best for her even when it means I have to give up what I thought I wanted.

The Bigger Picture (Part II)

Sorry for the long pause in writing, I've been ... busy. Busy is probably the opposite of hyperbole, let's say I've been slowly going insane over the past four weeks. I've had work; at Coldstone, we once again no longer have a manager, making that three managers in four months that have either been fired or quit on us. This time, though, they decided to go a different route and give me all the responsibilities without the salary. Oh, I got a raise, for which I'm grateful, but I'd just as well not be the one in charge. It's one of those "I could get fired if anything bad happens!" which doesn't make it easy to sleep at night. But I love my new job at the optometrist's office. The people are great, the doctors are fantastic, and the work pace is steady. And I get to sit down most of the day instead of stand.

Then there's the baby. She's fantastic (new pictures on flickr), if a bit fussy sometimes. Actually, she's been fussy a lot lately, giving Liz a run for her sanity every two hours. And I really mean every ... two ... hours. My parents were here a week and a half ago, which was awesome. And this past weekend was the Paine family reunion in Illinois. We had a good time, but getting there took a lot longer than we expected due to torrential rains in Indiana, a huge traffic jam in Louisville, and of course, the usual delays from having a four-week-old baby to worry about. But in and amongst all this I haven't had time for reading, much less any writing. But I have a very slow day at work today, so I thought I'd pick up the story where I left off in the last post.

* * *

There are lots of kinds of scripture, but the hardest thing for many Christians to wrap their head around is determining whether a certain passage of poetry should be taken literally or metaphorically. Scripture itself isn't even in historical order, though it roughly moves from earlier to later with some interruptions. For example, the letters of Paul are not in chronological order, likewise for much of the later old testament. Some books (or parts of books) seem fairly indicative of history, though told as a bard would in the early Celtic legends. Others seem to be simply emotional expression, though we could probably match them to historical events (many of the psalms are like this). Still others are both; they contain many levels of history, symbolism, metaphor, truth.

The book of Genesis is this last sort of scripture; it happened, but it's also metaphorical, full of symbols that mean a lot if you understand the perspective of those who wrote it and heard it first. Like the book of Joshua, Genesis is much more than it appears. Its authorship is somewhat debatable; some say that Moses wrote it, but most historians these days believe that Moses was merely a collector of many other works, adding his own commentary as needed. Its original authorship seems to include Adam himself, Noah, Enoch, Abraham, Isaac, and Jacob, the many fathers of the Israeli nation. Historians and Bible Scholars tend to agree that Genesis wasn't written by just one person, but by many. Speaking from a literary standpoint, the style shifts back and forth, changing voice. We can tell when one person is writing and then another takes up the next line of the story (Sidenote: the methods for this used are often the same used in criminology and linguistic forensics, when researchers are able to tell one "voice" from another because of their writing style. You know, like in CSI).

But Genesis 1 is the crux of it all, the most debated passage in scripture these days. Evolutionists, creationists, and everybody in between seems to have an opinion about what this passage means. Genesis 1 is written in the form of a poem, an illustration of the beginning of something. You can see it over and over again, with two different refrains: "And God said, let there be __ and there was", and "and there was evening, and there was morning, the __ day." As a poem, it's not half bad, though I imagine it was probably far more impressive in its original tongue. Poetry usually is.

At the start, it says "in the beginning, God created the heavens and the earth." My first reaction is, in the beginning of ... what, exactly? Of time? Of space? Of everything? We don't seem to be off to a good start if the text is pure history; important details are left out. Looking closer, you could spend ages studying just verses 1 and 2:

(1) In the begining, God created the heavens and the earth. (2) Now the earth was formless and empty, darkness was over the surface of the deep, and the Spirit of God was hovering over the waters.

So let's see if I understand this right. In the beginning, God creates the heavens and the earth. There's no particular indication of what "heaven" means here, but most likely it would indicate that space beyond earth's atmosphere, a place we typically associate with a void. But you have to remember, if before this there was only God, there would first have to be created a place in which a universe could exist. And the earth.

An interesting parallel is John 1:1-5:

In the beginning was the Word, and the Word was with God, and the Word was God. He was with God in the beginning. Through him all things were made; without him nothing was made that has been made. In him was life, and that life was the light of all people. The light shines in the darkness, and the darkness has not overcome it.

John takes five verses to say what the author of Genesis 1 took two. We learn some interesting stuff in there, about the triune nature of God, about God's relationship with darkness, and about God's creative nature. It's a loaded text full of mystery, poetry, and truth.

But the next verse (Gen 1:2) makes the first seem odd; the earth was formless and empty. God first creates the heavens and the earth, but the earth was formless and empty. Genesis 1 begins not when there was nothing, but when there was already something. But in classic form, the scripture's author writes it as the understatement of the ages; in fact, understatement runs rampant through the biblical story. Think of Gabriel, "be not afraid." Really? Well, ok, if you say so. "Yep, God made everything. But THEN ..." Maybe the authors just knew that God can't be captured just in words, an idea we (read: modern-day people) might want to keep in mind more often.

If you think about it more, it makes sense that Genesis 1 is poetry; how else could you possibly capture, in any meaningful way, God's desire to produce creation? How else could you record something so beyond man? Scientific language will never do it justice; to say "first he did this, exactly this way, and then he did this, but in between there was this middle stage where this happened ..." seems to lose the message. Poetry (and art in general) is the best way to capture something so profound without resorting to massive volumes of text. Sure, it's less specific, doesn't give a "how", but it reads a lot better.

Besides, if God made it, does it matter exactly how He did it?

(to be continued)

[Caption Contest]

The winner gets ... um ... well, we'll start by seeing if anybody wins ...

(New Photos on Flickr)

Brought To You By ...

Day 4

God is funny sometimes. I got called into work last week for a day shift, totally forgetting about Liz's doctor appointment that day. After a bit of a fiasco with the scheduling, she said she had to switch the appointment to friday because her midwife wasn't available until then. And so we go to the appointment, and talk with the midwife, describing how Liz couldn't sleep last night because of a few contractions. So Nancy (the midwife) hooks her up to this monitor, and lo and behold, we discover her contractions are roughly 4 minutes apart, and very consistent - she's in labor. Nancy tells us not to panic, but to wait it out a little, to go home, get our stuff, and then, assuming the contractions remain consistent, to come back to the hospital. So we went home and picked up Sally and the labor bag and headed back.

We got to the hospital around 3ish, and due to some complications, Liz had to have both an IV and an epidural put in. Which was a shame, because the labor room had a whirlpool tub in it that she really wanted to use. Anyway, the doctor comes in, puts in the IV, and leaves for a little while to let an antibiotic set in, and a few hours later, comes back with this big cart of stuff. Liz sat upright off the side of the bed and he numbed the area, then put the needle in.

Now, some background here. I have no problem with needles, at least, I tell myself I don't. The idea of a needle going into my (or someone else's) arm and removing blood doesn't bother me on a mental level. But I think Freud may have been onto something when he talked about the subconscious, because as soon as the doctor pulled the needle out I made the mistake of looking at it. It was enormous, and again, that didn't bother me so much, in principle, but suddenly the room started feeling a bit warmer.

"Is it getting hot in here?" I asked, and suddenly Liz and the nurse exchanged very worried expressions.
"You better sit down, hun," said the nurse.
"Yeah, you look all grey and pasty," said Liz, who by this point was already going numb in her legs.
"What? No, I'm fine," I said, "it's just really warm in here, can we turn the heat down?"
"No, it's 72 in here right now, you go lay down," said the nurse.

I fumbled my way around the doctor over to a chair and sat down, feeling a bit rediculous and thinking I should be with Liz helping her. But I sort of fell into the seat (clue #1), and wasn't sure why I was having trouble sitting, so I leaned back a bit. That's when I started feeling nauseous; so I moved to a chair with a headrest, and figured that'd help. But it got worse. So I moved to the couch. Something in the back of my mind said "feet up" (thank goodness I was an Eagle Scout and learned all this valuable information about treating shock), and gradually I started feeling better. The doctor told Sal to grab something sugary from the cafeteria when he found out that I hadn't eaten much in the past few hours, so she got me this tasteless piece of pie (well, it was shaped like pie anyway). After that I was ok.

A few hours go by. Sal and I are bored, and Liz is fading in and out of consciousness (the poor girl was exhausted). We grabbed some dinner at Chipotle, and settled into the room for what we figured would be a few days of this. Not so. Around 11ish, Liz went into full labor, and got ready to push. After some debate, it was decided that I should have a chair to sit in while I held her hand. But nobody else knew that I had been praying until then.

"God, please let me be here for the birth. I don't want to get sick again."

Everybody figured I wouldn't make it, that I'd have to get a gurney so that I could still be in the same room with Liz while she delivered a baby and I fought to remain conscious. But she started pushing, and I suddenly discovered how awake a guy can be. It was surreal, almost like time slowed a bit. My job was to hold Liz's hand, so I pulled my ring off (advice from my mother) and set to it. But Nancy had to go get something, and before she got back, Liz went into another contraction. Noel (the RN helping Nancy) asked me to hold Liz's leg; you know, right where I'd have a full view of all the action. I think this is where I should have panicked, but no - I held her leg, AND her hand, and she pushed.

I did this the rest of the evening until suddenly, towards the end of one set of pushes, Nancy said "hey, I can see some hair!"
"Hair? Really?" I leaned over to look, and sure enough, amidst the blood, there were little black curls sticking out.
"Cool. Hey Liz, she's got hair!"
"What?"
"She's got hair!"

This continued with every feature until Aurora slipped into the world. It turns out her hair is auburn, not black. And I never passed out, never felt queasy, never even flinched. In fact, the number of times I actually checked the progress was rather remarkable, given my response to the epidural. But then the baby was here, and I had something else to think about.

"Did you bring your camera?" asked Noel.
"My ... what?" I was still focused on Liz.
"Your camera, did you bring one?"
"Yeah, sure, of course."
"Do you want to go take some pictures?"
I had to pause and consider this briefly, then look at Liz and make sure it was ok.
"Sure, I guess so."

I realized later that this had nothing to do with photography. The attending doctor had walked in and as I snapped pictures of the baby, he had pulled out another needle, this time to sew up a small tear. But I was too busy watching the nurse clean off my daughter, too busy taking pictures and picking my jaw up off the floor each time the baby moved to notice; it was all very clever, really. I do that a lot these days. Drop my jaw, I mean. Her little yawns get me every time. It's funny, but I didn't know that a guy could be so enthralled with every little movement, facial expression, and sound that a baby makes. But not every sound.

Case in point, the baby slept for the first two days, both in the hospital, crying only when we changed her diaper (yes, WE, though sometimes it took both me and Sally to figure it out). But then we got her home. At first, she slept (she likes riding in the car). We're thinking "yay, we got the quietest baby ever, she's so increadible" and we relaxed.

An hour later, the screaming began.

As it happens, there's this short period between birth and when the milk starts flowing that all the baby gets is this stuff called "colostrum," which is sweet, but not too abundent. It's fine in the hospital, when the baby is so tired from the birth that it wouldn't matter anyway, but there's like, one day after you leave that all she gets is small amounts of sweetness. And that's not good enough to quench hunger.

There's something particularly disturbing about an infant's cry. Not only is it disturbing as a sound (it's horrific if it's NOT your kid), but when you can't figure out what in the world is WRONG ... it's infuriating. You wonder what a horrible mistake you'd made and wonder if the kid will always be like this and does this make you a bad father and ... suddenly it hits you - you're tired, you haven't slept in days, your judgement is impaired, and you wonder how much worse it must be for your wife. And you stop complaining and put up with it. And then your amazing pediatrician (bless her heart) tells you to just give the poor kid a bottle of formula and breastfeed when the milk starts. And we did. And there was much rejoicing.

And she's still way too cute.

And I've never been so surprised to get eight solid hours of sleep (in two segments) in one night.

[New pictures here]