D.C. Trip Day 2

On Day 2, we traveled to see the three buildings that represent the three branches of our U.S. government. But first, a really cool looking corridor. The side of the building said it was the "Post Office Building," as opposed to the "Old Post Office" across the street. However, the glass door entering into the actual office space said it was the office for the EPA. Go figure. We knew best as the place we changed Emerson's diaper.

As we walked NW on Pennsylvania Ave in the muggy heat, the revving of thousands of engines could be heard. Beginning on Constitution Ave near the Washington Mall the "Rolling Thunder" parade of 60,000 motorcycles began. Viewing all the motorcycles over the weekend certainly was a sight to see, but quickly turned into a nuisance when we were trying to get Emerson to take a nap!




















We finally made it to the White House in the late morning and Emerson had already about had it. He was sick of being in his stroller so I was carrying him around while trying to keep his burp cloth on his head to prevent any sunburn. Ah, the joys of parenting. After two months of parenting, you think you've got it all figured out. Everything seems so straight forward. He has a cry for a dirty diaper, a whimper for when he is tired, a scream of terror when he thinks he's going to starve to death, and a pain cry when he needs to burp or pass gas. So, you change him, feed him, burp him, and put him to sleep. Then, he discovers how to fight sleep to the point of temporary insanity. Then, the first vaccine which screws him up for a week (at least!). Then, you go on a trip and mess up his routine and schedule. Then, he starts teething. It's all a nice reminder that you don't know what the hell you're doing and its only by the grace of God that any child survives infancy (or that any parent survives parenting). The Bible tells us that children are a gift from the Lord. I'm guessing that if the authors of the Bible had elaborated on children any further nobody would have decided to become a parent.

And so, since I'm currently dealing with a fussy baby as I type this, I'll stop there and leave you with the following photos.

D.C. Trip Day 1

This past weekend, we spent some time in D.C. for a brief trip. The experience had a couple goals: to see how well Emerson travels in preparation for flying out to Utah in June (and the hills on the turnpike made Emerson's ears pop [as well as mine] and boy did he not like it!), to get out of Pittsburgh for a change, go some place inexpensive (virtually everything to see in DC is free), and so Amber could experience the capital for the first time. We didn't see as much as I had hoped to see (you never do, right?), but Amber will tell you I'm a bit too aggressive in my trip plans. Plus traveling with an infant just wears you out and slows you down. However, I'm totally digging pushing a stroller around - you can put all of your things in it rather than carry them!

So, here's a brief pictorial of Day 1 in pictures, starting with Emerson digging the Homewood Suites furniture and AC -- he was real sluggish in the heat and just woke right up when we got into the hotel. He did great the first day then had a train wreck on day two. Between the heat, change in routine, and possibly teething (we think) it was just too much.
Next, the Lincoln Memorial, which was probably the most moving site we visited. I'll have to write an entire blog later about that. An interesting aside - Reagan Int'l Airport is not far from downtown D.C. and planes fly directly over the Lincoln Memorial just a few hundred feet in the air, which was really spooky to me since I'm not used to that as it reminded me of Sept. 11. Then, there was the Vietnam Memorial which was packed with Vets and Bikers who were there for the "Rolling Thunder" Memorial Day parade (more on that on Day 2), so we just looked at it from a distance.

From there, we walked down the Mall toward the Washington Monument (America's biggest phallic symbol - I mean seriously, what's the point?) and the recently built WWII memorial. The WWII memorial was significant to me since my grandfather fought at the Battle of the Bulge and was wounded while serving for the 101st Airborne. It also was not in existence when I went to DC as a child. To be honest, its not really a spectacular sight to see, but its admirable to honor those who fought in the war... although my feelings are mixed. On one wall at the WWII memorial, there was a quote by General George C. Marshall which said: "We are determined that before the sun sets on this terrible struggle our flag will be recognized throughout the world as a symbol of freedom on the one hand and of overwhelming force on the other." It is too bad these qualities are believed to be inherently connected. I wonder, when freedom and "overwhelming force" are combined together, which one wins out? Which quality is America most known for today?

Next, we walked by the Smithsonian Castle - a very beautiful building, but there's not much inside (its basically a visitor's center). We actually did not get to spend any time in the Smithsonian museums. That was on the docket for day two, but alas, we were too tired and Emerson too fussy to go through any of the myriad of museums that make up the Smithsonian (which is also free). I remember as a child, my older brother Brandon and I, while going through the Air and Space museum, made sure to touch the wing of every fighter plane we could get near.

Then, there was the National Holocaust Museum. We actually did not get to see much of it, because they sold out of tickets for the main exhibits literally just before we were going to get ours. So we walked around in there for a while, enjoyed the cool air, and rested our feet for awhile. Then, we made our way to leave when a security personnel shouted at us, "You're going to have to move aside, as we have a VIP coming through. Please step aside." I was expecting them to come in through the Exit doors to avoid the lines, but then an entourage of cops and guards and VIPs came through behind me. Amber was "so smitten" (as she said later) that she failed to tell me who was coming. But we were in the perfect place at just the right time for me to get off a couple (albeit lousy) shots of the VIP...

I guess Colonel Claus von Stauffenberg (Valkyrie) decided to visit the Holocaust Museum himself (you would have thought he had done it before the movie came out, right?). Hello, Tom Cruise. Dude, the guy is short.

"The War Prayer"

Caution: This post will make you extremely uncomfortable and will probably make you dislike me.

Amidst the Philippine-American War, Mark Twain wrote a short story entitled, The War Prayer. This brief work details the account of a patriotic church service focused on praying for the enlisted men headed off to war. During the service, the pastor of the church leads the congregation in a long prayer, asking for God’s presence with the American soldiers as they head into battle, to “aid, comfort, and encourage them in their patriotic work…shield them in the day of battle…make them strong and confident, invincible in the bloody onset; help them to crush the foe, grant to them and to their flag and country imperishable honor and glory.”

As the pastor prays, a frail, old man appears on the stage near the pulpit. As the pastor finishes his prayer, the old man touches him on the shoulder and speaks: “I come…bearing a message from Almighty God!” This messenger tells the congregation that this prayer has been heard, so long as they understood the “full import” it carries. It turns out, the prayer is not one but two, “one uttered, the other not.” But God has heard both. For, “When you have prayed for victory you have prayed for the many unmentioned results which follow victory—must follow it.” The messenger proceeds to tell them the unuttered part of the prayer:

“O Lord our God…Help us to cover their smiling fields with the pale forms of their patriot dead…
Help us to lay waste their humble homes with a hurricane of fire;
Help us to wring the hearts of their unoffending widows with unavailing grief;
Help us to turn them out roofless with their little children to wander unfriended…
For our sakes, who adore Thee, Lord,
Blast their hopes, blight their lives, protract their bitter pilgrimage…water their way with tears…
We ask it, in the spirit of love, of Him Who is the Source of Love
And who is the ever-faithful refuge and friend of all that are sore beset…”

The congregation’s response to the real truth of the prayer they had offered to heaven? “ It was believed afterward that the man was a lunatic, because there was no sense in what he said.” The End.

As I think of the $670 billion spent in Iraq for our military endeavor, the 4 million Iraqis displaced from their homes, the 1.3+ million Iraqis who have died since our invasion of their country, the pictures I have seen of orphaned and wounded Iraqi children, the ravaged Iraqi countryside, and the many years it will take for that country to be stabilized, I must ask, what kind of prayer did we pray? What are the implicit prayers we have prayed as a nation as we send our sons (and daughters) to Iraq? While the “unuttered” prayer in the story speaks only to the ravaging effects war has on the country being attacked, we need only think of the news headlines from this week alone to think of another implicit prayer at work as we pray for “victory”:

O God, may we damn our country before the eyes of the world.
May we shame ourselves by horrendous acts of torture upon the “enemy.”
May our leaders debate in anguish over the value of photographs depicting our soldiers’ actions.
May our men open fire upon their own platoon and send their fellow soldiers home in a coffin.
May Iraqi women be gang-raped and their families murdered.
May we hide from the truth, refusing to believe what “America” has become.

On a completely different (though not wholly dissimilar note), the idea that our prayers often have an unuttered aspect to them makes me wonder about the underside of all our prayers, wonder how often all kinds of prayers of blessing for ourselves turn out to be a curse upon someone else. One man thanks God for a sunny day at the beach; a farmer down the road curses God for allowing his crops to die. One man prays their team will win; another prays in support of the opponent [does God care?]. One man thanks God for the 4-course meal before him; a child in Haiti wonders if God is going to do anything about the world food crisis. One man thanks God he has a new job because the new factory did indeed open; another man curses God for being laid off as the company relocates. How do we reconcile this fact? How does God deal with all of this (Which reminds me of the move Bruce Almighty when Bruce makes a computer program to keep track of everyone’s prayers and simply replies “Yes” to all of them.)? Your thoughts?

"Fireproof" : A Review

If you haven't heard of Fireproof, it's the latest made-for-Christian-audience movie that amazed critics by turning a stellar profit – beginning with a $500,000 budget and grossing over $33 million in theatres (but let's not get too excited quite yet). Indeed, the movie has taken on a life of its own, spawning the publishing of two books which have made the New York Times Bestseller list and have generated “Fireproof your marriage” conferences in church all throughout the country.

Fireproof, made by a church ministry that also filmed Facing the Giants, is the story of Caleb Holt (aka Kirk Cameron), a firefighter who's marriage is on the rocks as he struggles with internet porn, has an incontrollable temper, and saves his earnings for a boat while his wife's mother struggles to recover from a stroke. [spoiler alert] The basic plot of the story can be summarized quite simply: Caleb and his wife, Catherine, decide to get a divorce; Caleb's dad gives him a journal of things to do for his wife over the course of 40 days (like buy her flowers, clean the house, don't respond to her with sarcastic remarks, etc) as an attempt to save the marriage; Caleb's Christian co-worker, Michael, continues to challenge him to keep at the activities in the journal even when they go awry; Catherine is pursued by Dr. Keller at her job at the hospital; Caleb performs a number of heroics as a firefighter; Caleb receives divorce papers from his wife; Caleb finds Jesus; Caleb wins Catherine back when she finds out he donated the $24,000 he had saved for his boat to medical supplies for her mom. And they live happily ever after.

I wanted to like this movie. In fact, there were even three scenes when I got choked up a bit – which happened to be the same three scenes Kirk Cameron was capable of convincing me with his acting abilities. It wasn't the poor acting that bothered me so much (I was expecting that), nor the poor script with zero artistic presentation. What bothered me was the kind of Christianity portrayed in the movie and the myriad of stereotypes and caricatures that were utilized throughout it. The basic message of the movie is: its impossible to love your spouse unless you're a Christian – a message that is both untrue and offensive. Every single character in the movie who has a positive relationship is a Christian, and their marriages only got solid when they gave their lives to Jesus. Caleb's simplistic conversion experience in the movie adds to this naïve picture, as everything in his life comes together with relative ease after Jesus takes control.

Furthermore, the roles of each character play to general stereotypes that make the movie all the more distasteful: The steady portrayal of women in the movie is that they are weak-willed and over-emotional and not as responsible for the solidity of a marriage as the husband (although there is one highlight at the very end that is noteworthy). The gossips in the hospital where Catherine works are led by a heavy-set black woman. All of Catherine's “unchristian” friends continually tell her to ditch her husband. All of Caleb's co-workers (with the exception of Michael the Christian, of course) are egotistical and immature men. All the Christians are pure saints and the unChristians are either villains or only their for a dose of humor in the movie. And Caleb solves his addiction to porn by smashing his computer with a baseball bat (as if that really got to his heart).

Now don't get me wrong, I'm sure this movie and the subsequent books and conferences that have come from it have helped people (although my guess is, for the most part, it has only been seen by conservative Christians who watched it because it was what they wanted to hear). They may have even saved some marriages. The advice given to Caleb in the journal and some of the truths talked about in the movie regarding the difficulties of love and marriage are indeed helpful. And I wholeheartedly believe Christianity has something to say about marriage. But rather than creating another Christian entertainment fad that we sell to death so conservative Christians have something to spend their money on without feeling guilty (e.g., Prayer of Jabez, Passion of the Christ, Left Behind, etc), why can't we just make quality art, honest art, and tell stories about the mystery and messyness of life and stop acting like life and faith are so simple, as if we unquestioningly have all the answers (how many of these Christian marriages will need re-saving just in time for the next fad to come around?)? If we are going to communicate a message of hope to our world it can't be so compartmentalized, simplistic, naïve, and lack reflection about the not-so-black-and-white world we live in.