So I sat down at a table at drop-in tonight, and asked the guys there what their hobbies were.
The first guy, a 16-year old pastor’s son, answered that he was a heroin junkie who’d just spent the last 20 years in prison. The next kid said he worked in Toronto as Superman, but had flown in for the evening. The next answered that he worked as a night janitor at a University where he liked to solve complex math equations left on the black board by professors during the day.
All 3 did this with straight faces and not a moments hesitation.
We didn’t forget his birthday — it was December 27, and he turned 3.
He’s adamant, though, that he’s not 3 until he gets a cake. And not just any cake. A blue Lightning McQueen chocolate cake.
With the busy-ness of Christmas, and his insistence that he wasn’t ready to be 3 yet (“Soon, daddy. Three soon.”) we thought it would be best to celebrate his big day a few weeks later. So this weekend we’re having some family, and a couple of his friends (and babysitters) over for the requested cake.
It’s hard to believe he’s 3 years old already! So much has happened in his little life time. Happy birthday, buddy! We love you.
In the secular world, wise people will tell you how to run your life. They’ll tell you that in order to succeed you need a 1, 5 and 10 year plan. That you need to write that plan down, and that you need to work toward the goals you established when doing it. Very few people succeed by accident – most are working toward something specific.
For 10 years, and with satisfactory success, we followed that advice. In fact, one of our first conversations together as a couple – even before we were married – was planning. We worked hard toward our goals, sacrificed, and accomplished pretty much everything we set out to get: 2.5 children, a house, a succession of better jobs, travel and adventure, and adequate financial stability.
For the last 2 years, I’ve been disconcerted that we haven’t had a plan. Our plan went as far as New York, and we weren’t really sure what was supposed to happen next.
In the past couple months, during which we’ve still had no set 1, 5 or 10 year plan, its occurred to me that despite this missing, and apparently key, part of our lives, things have unfolded pretty well anyway. And I’ve begun to wonder if maybe it’s not the planning that’s responsible at all. That maybe things happened not because of us, but despite us.
Maybe the key thing we need in life isn’t a plan. Maybe it’s obedience.
I’ll have more to say on this in future posts… we’ll make a series out of it.
In my first year of college, over 10 years ago now, I got my first cell phone. I’m sure my parent’s thought I was crazy — why would a student need their own cell phone? But I was young and full of credit, and it seemed important to me to have one. I certainly felt important carrying it around… despite the fact that it was a giant brick by today’s standards. At any rate, my cell phone had a feature called “SMS” where by my roommate and I could send each other short text messages. Although we had other friends with cell phones, I never could seem to convince them to use the service. I suspect most of them didn’t even have a clue they had it…
10 years later and texting is all the rage with kids these days, and all I can say is: I told you so.
Here’s another trend that I can’t seem to convince my friends of, but that I’m sure is going to change everything… in just a few years when this generation of kids grows up: digital content delivery.
The other night we wanted to rent a movie. I had in mind to find something from the late 80s or early 90s, so using only my remote control, I browsed Drama flicks from those decades. After finding a few of a theme that seemed interesting, I browsed for similar movies. Then, thinking perhaps I’d like to watch one with Harrison Ford in it, I searched for films starring him. Eventually, we settled on something completely unrelated using the recommendation engine.
The device that makes this possible is an AppleTV — but it doesn’t have to be. An XBox or a PS3 can do similar things. I happen to like the little Apple box myself. From the factory, it lets me browse and listen to my music collection, or buy new songs or albums instantly from the iTunes store; it lets me view my photos, or connect to Flickr and see my parent’s latest snaps from their travels. With a little hacking, it connects to my downloads directory on the computer upstairs so I can watch current TV shows with PVR-like functionality, or any of our library of 200 owned digital movies. And if we happen to miss a show we’re following, we can order up the episode from the iTunes store with the touch of a button.
We don’t have digital cable, we don’t rent a PVR from the cable company, and we never set foot in a Blockbuster, but I’d wager that we have a better TV and movie experience than anyone who pays $60 or more a month to some old-world provider. We have only a cheap Internet connection, and a $160 box from Apple, that give us literally a world of entertainment at our finger tips…
And just like the obscured usefulness of SMS 10 years ago, I can’t wait until the rest of the world catches up with this technology. You’re gonna wonder how you lived without it!
So by now everyone’s heard of the underwear bomber — how’d you like to go down in infamy with that title? Anyway, here’s somethings maybe you didn’t know:
- He was allowed on an international flight with an expired Visa
- He had known connections to Al Queda
- His father contacted the CIA before his flight to warn them about his son
- His name was on a terrorist watch list
So what’s our reaction to this sweeping failure of our security theater? More theater. Now you can’t go to the bathroom or listen to your iPod during the last hour of an international flight, and you may not sleep with your hands under a blanket.
2009 is fading fast, and a whole new year stretches out before us. Before things slip away, I need to take time for my annual jonandnic.com re-cap…
For starters, this has been easily the most normal year of our lives — where by normal, I mean relatively sedate. We haven’t announced plans to move to another country, we haven’t worked 3 jobs between the two of us, and we’ve managed to fight off the yearly itch to find another place to live. We haven’t even made any major purchases this year. 2009 has, for us, been about shedding our youth, and finally embracing adulthood and parenthood.
In fact, we were feeling so good about this new normal life of keeping our kids alive and legal, that we hardly noticed when a good old-fashioned adventure snuck up on us out of the blue. Suddenly the life we were much more accustomed to was back with a vengeance — and it came to us, right here in our comfy little home, without us having to go anywhere to find it.
So comfortable were we that we almost turned it down — our own voices from our not-to-distant past, as well as the encouraging voices of family and new friends, made sure we didn’t. Which is good, because we don’t plan to ever!
And with the decision out of the way, I was off for 3 months of travel and trial, while Nicole’s mettle was tested on the home front — not alone, thanks to the afore-mentioned friends and family, but certainly more independant. Proving once again that when God sets a task before us, He sees it through for us.
Of course we continue to see all of these things — both the lessons in stability and those in adventure — as preparation and equipping. In the past year it’s become increasingly obvious that our own plans are meaningless… but as He did for a cop from Canada (and a teacher and a nurse that I know pretty well), we are confident that God is putting together a plan for us greater than we can imagine. As of 2009, we’re done trying to guess what that is, and done trying to put our own plan into place. We’re following God where ever He leads us, and obeying whatever He asks of us — even if we don’t understand it at the time.
Here comes 2010, and we can’t wait to see what He has in store — for us, and for you. A belated Merry Christmas, and an on-time Happy New Year to all of our readers. Thanks for hanging in there with us during a fairly blog-sparse year… hopefully next year will be better!
It certainly has its challenges, but having our two kids so close together is pretty great. Abi has never known what it was like to not have Ben around, and Ben doesn’t remember what it was like to not have Abi around. If we split them up, they cry for each other. When Abi wakes up from her nap before Ben does, she’s excited to wake him up too.
Similarily, putting them in the same room has had its challenges, but its been worth it. When they wake up in the morning, instead of wailing for one of us to come get them, they often play together quietly in Ben’s bed until Nic is ready to get them up. Of course, sometimes they play together when they should be napping together — you’d be amazed at how much of Ben’s bunk bed two toddlers can pull apart in 30 minutes!
The other day, our banker swung by with some paperwork for us to sign, and she said “It must be so nice to have twins!” She’s not the first person to make that mistake. Up close, its apparent that they’re different heights, but from a distance — or when they’re crammed into their double stroller — it’d be easy to be unsure. Abi’s vocabulary is advanced, and Ben’s remains a little behind. He can certainly put together more complicated sentences than her two-worders, but he rarely does it in front of strangers (and never on-demand) so they may seem to be about the same maturity that way.
Unfortunately, despite how much Ben loves her, Abi doesn’t count as his best friend. That title? Well, that’s reserved for his pretzels…
Yesterday I was terrified that I’d finally caught this Swine Flu that I’ve been (probably narrowly) avoiding for the past two months of travel. My throat was sore, my nose was running, and I was feeling achy. I prayed a lot and had a giant vitamin C smoothy and chicken noodle soup for lunch. By the end of the day I felt a lot better — only a runny nose remains.
This is important because I’m in Seattle, and Nicole is flying out to join me. The kids are with her parent’s and she was up at 2am this morning, giving herself plenty of time at the border, so as to make it to Buffalo in time for her 7am flight… which got cancelled! Fortunately, the border had gone smoothly and she’d arrived so early that they were able to get her onto an earlier flight so she wouldn’t miss her connection in Chicago.
I haven’t been this excited to see her since… like our wedding day or something. All these places I’ve been and things I’ve seen over the past 2 months, and she hasn’t seen any of them. I can’t wait to show her around the campus, and explore Seattle with her. We have a fancy Christmas dinner tonite, at a super posh private club in downtown Seattle. Tomorrow we’re meeting our friends from New York, Jon and Virginia, who moved out here a few years ago. And most importantly, my hotel room won’t feel so alone… of course, knowing Nicole, it won’t be as neat and tidy either, but I’ll put up with that, because she puts up with me — and I sure like having her around!
I learned a lot this weekend, about a subject that I’ve only been peripherally aware of, and interested in, for the past few years. Allow me, if you would, to regurgitate some of it here for education and admonition…
In the 70’s, during a war we probably had no business involving ourselves in in the first place, the US became determined to stop the supply lines of weapons coming into Vietnam. To that end, under Nixon and Kissinger, two separate bombing campaigns were carried out on Cambodia – a neutral and defenseless country, that had no recourse save that promised to them by communist propaganda. A faceless, unseen enemy – us – dropped over 200,000 tons of bombs on the confused and terrified people of Cambodia, despite the fact that they had done nothing to provoke the attacks. More bombs were dropped on that little country than all of Europe during World War 2. The nation was devastated.
Opportunistic communist guerilla’s used the hatred and fear we inspired in the people to seize control, kicking off a civil war that ended in literal genocide. Between the lives shattered by American bombs, and those wiped out by the communists leaders that American activities had catalyzed, over 3 million were killed. 3 million non-combatant men, women and children, from a country who’s only offense was being located near a country that America was interested in controlling.
Make no mistake, the greater killing (or at least the more personal one) was performed by the communists. But they would have remained little more than thugs and terrorists had the American attack not taken place, forcing the desperate and decimated people to turn to the only organization promising hope and retribution in their country.
But the West wasn’t done raping this little country – literally. When UN aid was finally sent in, UN troops – including those from Canada – took advantage of the desperate people they found, buying little girls to abuse sexually during their off hours, teaching this nation – now devoid of any educator leaders, thanks to the genocide that had taken place – that the quickest way to put food on their table was to rent out their children, as early as 5 years of age, for sex with Western pedophiles. The UN troops brought not just abuse, but sexually transmitted diseases, including AIDS, sparking a nation-wide epidemic. Directly, and indirectly, my country and yours, dear reader, have on our hands the blood and innocence of an entire country.
We are so proud, in our first world nations, of our great civilization and our great accomplishments. We sit in our comfortable churches, and assuage our guilty consciences with the little tithe we might throw into the offering plate, or that one time that we helped out with a project in our church building or community… while the side-effects of this decadent culture we live in are simply statistics to us. We take no responsibility for the pain in the rest of the world – not even the pain we are responsible for.
Cambodia remains a broken, hurting country, where thousands of children will each be raped literally hundreds of times over this Christmas season – the average child prostitute has sex 8 times per week night, sometimes for as little as $2. Meanwhile, the Bible commands us to do something about it. If you’re accustomed to pausing at Christmas time and considering those less fortunate than you, perhaps you might want to do some reading on the situation in Cambodia in 2009. I know most of us we’re not taught about it in school – it was only in the past year that I’d ever heard the term “Khmer Rouge” – but the injustice continues anyway. And maybe we should spend some of our Christmas money this year, or our time in the coming year, doing something to help.
Learn to do right! Seek justice, encourage the oppressed. Defend the cause of the fatherless, plead the case of the widow. – Isaiah 1:17
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