Of Mice and Melon

There is much to catch you up on and so little precious time, so this blog post is essentially an update on a variety of things going on in our life.

Today is apt opportunity to provide a summary of our summer garden as we had our first snowfall here in Pittsburgh. Several weeks ago, the majority of our plants stopped producing (largely because the bees had left, I think) and most of the tomatoes were no longer ripening because it was getting cold. But that's not to say that the end of the season was uneventful. Not at all, indeed!

One day I went out there and almost walked through one of the largest, most wonderfully designed spiderwebs.... which would have been a lot more wonderful if it didn't have a ginormous spider in it - a feisty pregnant one at that. So what did I do? I did what my daring younger brother would do - I caught it and put it in a jar. Inside the jar, it spun a whole new web made this huge mothball sort of thing (full of eggs I presume) and just sat there. I kind of forgot all about it, and about two weeks later, at the beckoning of my wife for fear that they would get loose, hatch, and spread through the house, I went to dispose of the spider and throw its remains outside. It was STILL alive. I couldn't believe. Craziness.

Then there was the mystery plant that grew in our compost pile. It turned out to be a musk melon that fit in the palm of my hand. I picked it and cut it up to try it, but... well, needless to say there's a reason why they're supposed to be grown in tropical areas - it would have been three times in size and tasted ten times better!

Then there was the picking of our garden of what was left of the green tomatoes before the first frost. I told Amber I would do it, thinking I would get it done over the next weekend, only to find out that it was supposed to get below freezing the day I promised to do it! So, there I was out there after dark with a work lamp hung from my trash can wandering through our garden looking for what was left of our tomato crop. Anyone want some fried green tomatoes? Actually, we've put them in our basement in cardboard boxes and they are still changing color, which is a great thing!

In other news, we discovered this past weekend that we have/had a mouse. One morning we got up to find claw marks through a granola wrapper on the counter of our kitchen and half of the granola bar had been consumed. Uck. So, I checked under the stove behind the bottom drawer where I had long ago set a mouse trap and knew they had been known to congregate. I found mouse turds and a dead mouse in trap... which looked like it had been there for more than a few days. Even more Uck. Not sure if we've solved the problem, but we did a lot of major cleaning in the kitchen on Sunday afternoon and set up another trap.

And still in other, more pleasant, news this week I felt our baby boy kick for the first time! That's right, he's only four months old and he's already learning to declare his presence. It is, however, only the slightest tap and you really have to know what you're looking for. Amber said she was driving a couple days ago, drinking juice and listening to Journey on the radio and the kid was going nuts. Hilarious. So he's either a sugar addict or is going to have a crush on 80s music.

Is This Racism?

So, last Saturday, I was driving by a house only a couple blocks from mine on my way to the library book sale. It was one of those houses whose occupant has gone through a notable amount of work to make spooky for Halloween. He had transformed his lawn into a graveyard (an activity noticeably common among several of our neighbors and one for which I cannot personally comprehend its motivation!). Strewn across the grass were handmade tombstones all accompanied with what were supposed to be humorous clichés for epitaphs. There was one, for instance that said, “Rest In Pieces.” And there was another one that said, “Here lies an Atheist; all dressed up and nowhere to go.” Another one said, “Humpty Dumpty. ‘I was pushed.’”

But there was one out in the forefront that really caught me off guard as I drove, which said:

“-Juice- He got the noose.”

The first thing that crossed my mind was, “That guys condoning the lynching of black people!” Of course, I didn’t think he purposefully intended to imply such a notion, but there it was nonetheless. He was probably just trying to come up with something pithy that rhymed (another neighbor has a whole lawn full of things like, “Fred, fell and hit his head”), and meant it totally as a joke.

Now, you may be asking yourself, “How could that be construed to be condoning the lynching of black people?” Well, it’s quite simple really. “Noose” obviously refers to hanging people and “juice” is a nickname often associated (thought not entirely) among black people – “O.J.” Simpson was also nicknamed “The Juice” and the current quarterback for the Illinios college football team is named Juice Williams. It’s also the name of a 1992 film starring Tupac and the name of a couple different rappers.

Again, I don’t think the guy intended it to mean the comment to have that nature at all. In fact, I know he didn’t because I knocked on his door yesterday and asked him! That’s right, he turned about to be a guy about my age and he said it was a joke having to do with his friend named Josh. I don’t know what the joke is, and nor do I really care, but I just mentioned to him that I was a neighbor from nearby and thought I’d give him a heads up that some people might read the sign and find it offensive because it may be construed that he condones lynching. He, I think was astonished that I would say such a thing, but accepted the advice and that was the end of it.

But there’s still something nagging me here. Of course the sign is not explicit racism – like prohibiting a certain ethnic group from eating at your restaurant – and neither is it implicit racism – like overlooking the promotion of an African-American at a company [which, I might add, implicit discrimination and bigotry happen all the time in our society]. But might it be classified as unintentional racism?

Now why would I want to even suggest such a category? Because I think most of us are often so flippant with our words, our jokes, and our interactions with people (particularly those who are different from us) that we don’t even stop to think that what we say or do could sound racist or could be offensive. In other words, we just aren’t very sensitive to people. We are so consumed with ourselves, so accepting of the environment in which we have been raised, that we figure if someone is offended by what we say or do that it’s their problem.

Now, I’m not saying we should label my neighbor’s tombstone as a hate crime. That’s a bit extreme, and some activists – as evidenced by our current Presidential campaign – are sometimes too quick to shout “racism” when a white person is critical of the political views of a black person, for example. But the truth of the matter is, racism – explicit, implicit, and unintentional – is alive and well among us, and as Christians we ought to do whatever we can to create a culture of equality and charity. The truth is, there are enough white people in our country that won’t vote for Barack Obama simply because he’s black that he could conceivably lose the election because of racism (and about 30% of white voters would be upset if their daughter came home with a black boyfriend). In fact, just a couple days ago, Amber recounted a story from one of her friends who was canvassing on behalf of the Obama campaign. At one house, she knocked on the door and simply told the resident, “Hi we’re walking around on behalf of the Obama campaign and are just reminding people to vote on November 4th.” The resident replied, “Ma’am, there’s a reason why they call it the White House” and slammed the door.

We need to ask ourselves tough questions: Am I being racist when I lock my doors at the sight of a black person? Am I racist when I clutch my purse tighter when I see a black person? Am I being racist when I see a person of South American descent and instantly assume they’re an illegal immigrant from Mexico? Am I being racist when I see a black homeless person and try to avoid eye contact because I’m afraid they’re going to ask me for money?

I admit, I am not above saying things or doing things that are racist, sexist, and discriminatory. Amber has had to reprimand me on a couple occasions for saying to someone who knows English as a second language, “Wow, you have really good English,” which can come across as patronizing and derogatory rather than as a compliment if it sounds like I expect the person to know English, make it sound like English-speaking people are superior to the rest of the world, or act surprised that someone not from America or doesn’t look “American” (i.e., White Anglo) speaks English.

But we’re not going to learn how to be careful about such things as long as such dialogues are considered taboo and as long as we continue to remain segregated from those who are different from us, those who can give us guidance about the way the majority often offends the marginalized of society.

Drum Roll Please...

It's a boy! Check these out!

Side shot, little black spot is the heart, and you can kinda see a hand up above. He's got a big nose, which definitely means he's a Bahler.

Feet. Not much else to say except that I'm glad they found two of 'em!

Top of the head shot with a real clear picture of his hand. So cute!

The ultrasound tech did a good job of keeping the gender a secret up til the very end. She kept saying "Baby's head," "Baby's spine" (which was really cool to see), etc. And then, there it was. Definitely a boy - wasn't afraid to show his stuff. I had instant images of Calvin and Hobbes comic strips, and I can see him running through the house wet and naked already. There were a a couple times when he was scratching his head too (My mom said, "He must have been thinking" [as I always scratch my head when I think hard]). It was so cool. To think that you might already be able to see some of the personality of the child when they're that tiny. One of my coworkers said when she went to her first ultrasound, that was when she found out she was having twin boys. At one point, during the ultrasound, the two boys were facing each other and one of them visibly punched the other one in the face!! Needless to say, she said, they're still fighting with each other nine years later.

I'd also like to thank all of you who commented on the previous post about child-rearing as well as sponsoring a child. It's interesting how everyone has a different experience with their first kid. Back in Indianapolis, we hung out with a couple on a monthly basis to play board games who had a baby daughter, and it seemed like their lives barely changed at all - with the mere exception that they had to lug a bit more stuff with them when they came to our house. It just reminds me that as much as we try to come up with "one-size-fits-all" methods to so many things in this world, we don't really live in a world of universals (as much as we can think of them abstractly) but of particulars. We interact with individual and unique people with unique temperaments, likes and dislikes, and souls. This will even vary within families, no doubt. A parent may have a really calm or really antsy first child, and the second could be just the opposite.

Anywho, that's all for now... gotta get working on some homework!

One Child Coming, Another One Leaving

As my long intermission between blog posts would suggest, life has been quite busy here at the Bahler household. There's much to share, many stories to tell, and a lot of topics I want to touch upon in upcoming blog posts, but for the moment I'll suffice to write about one of them.

In two days, we go to get our first ultrasound. Our first pictures of our first child. Hopefully (s)he will dance a little jig so we can find out if its a boy or a girl. Amber's beginning to go into "nesting" mode and has taken up scouring the Craig's List ads for co-sleepers, cribs, and all things baby-related. We even bought diapers and other baby products on Sunday at CVS as they were greatly on sale. This is all well and good, and planning for the future is fine and dandy, but my mind has difficulty wrapping around what my life is going to be like in March of 2009 when it hasn't even had the time to think about next week. Last week was particularly difficulty thinking about all of this as we were hosting several strangers from out of town for a huge philosophy conference being hosted at Duquesne (more on that to come in later posts). So, I would come home each day completely exhausted and Amber would begin barraging me with questions about decorations for our baby room and crib designs. Of course, its not that I shouldn't be thinking about such things... its just going to take a while for me to get used to it!

On the other hand, a bit more than a week ago, I was notified that my sponsored child through Compassion International had been removed from the program. Upon finding out (which was frustrating to begin with, as my cell phone was called from a 1-800 number - and who picks up a call from a 1-800 number? - so I had to hear the news through a voice mail), I was shocked, then perplexed, and then angry. Abigail Asami is no longer my sponsored child. For nearly 11 years I've supported her - not that I'm saying this to boast, but simply to point out that this was a regular aspect of my life. Even more mesmerizing still is that she was kicked out because she's pregnant. My first thought when I heard this news was, "I wasn't a good enough sponsor. I should have contacted her more. I should have wrote more. I should have worked harder to go see her. I could have done something to prevent this." I thought, well, like a parent - about a girl who is no longer my child.

She's not a girl really either. She's 19 years old (Compassion children often do not graduate until they're 20 or 21) and has an 8th grade education. The Sponsor relations guy who called said she was healthy and was going to be fine because she had an interest in tailoring and had developed skills in being a seamstress. Well that's reassuring, but - and here is when my mind begins to flood with questions - what's a pregnant girl going to do out on her own with an 8th grade education? And why''s a child being kicked out of the program at the time when she needs support and encouragement and guidance the most? I wonder, if the Compassion workers were spending time talking about sex and puberty to my 18-year old instead of having her color pictures of animals to send to me with her letter, maybe she wouldn't have gotten into this mess.

Yesterday, I received a letter from Compassion and a final letter from my child (which, at times, sounds as if someone told her what to write). The Compassion letter states on one line, "Althought it is discouraging to see her start a family at such a young age, it may be helpful to understand that cultural values often influence these situations." So I ask myself, if its true that culture influences such situations, why should it be discouraging? Isn't it perfectly natural for a matured woman to start thinking about being a mother and being in a relationship? One of my cousins got married right out of high school and is getting ready to have her fourth child and she's not even 25 - something we might not embrace ourselves (because of certain other cultural influences), a circumstance we might consider difficult, but it doesn't have to be discouraging. Do Africans have to aspire to wait to start a family until they reach the age Americans are when they tend to start families these days?

I know all of this sounds like a rant and that I'm simply blaming Compassion for what has transpired. But at the moment, these are simply my raw thoughts and emotions on questions that I hope to get some answers. And I'm not against child sponsorship either - we will continue to support the other child we are sponsoring (although I may have to give some thought before taking on another one that I surmise Compassion is already sending my way). Child sponsorship, with all of its problems, is an awesome way to change the life of a child who would otherwise have little chance of success, and Compassion - as well as many other child sponsorship programs, are changing the lives of millions of children. But such a circumstance, such a dilemma, accentuates the weaknesses of the methodology behind a ministry of this kind and should cause us to question if there is a better way - a better way to visit the stranger and the orphan, a better way to make poverty history, and a better way to provide love and care to those who have been deprived of it.

But if it dies...

Flowers paling and leaves in unbloom
Bear the trace of an unforgotten fall
Wind whispering coolly a dirge of a tune
And all that it touches answers the call

Wait for redemption
Wait now; just lie
There is no prevention
To this season long sigh

A bewildering force, this chill in the air
Life, once vibrant, it bends from the sway
Winter surprises when we’re unaware
Seizing the colors now fading to grey

Wait for redemption
At the end of the night
Wait for the sensation
Of warmth and the light

Fields now feel barren, as an empty womb
Save for the memory of fruit grown and ripe
Just remnants of soul, they march to their tomb
Ashen, defeated, what’s left merely tripe

Wait for redemption
‘Midst this promise of death
Hope, don’t you mention
Just save your breath

Trees were once thriving, budding with green
Now become naked, bequeathing their crowns
Such wasting away, they had not foreseen
To watch all their glory fall to the ground

Wait for redemption
Not beauty that fades
No self-preservation
Will bring you more days

Verily, I say, as you plunge to the soil
Though red and purple; soon yellow and brown
No matter the pain no matter the toil
The yield you produce will be worth going down

Wait for redemption
Lie down to die
A peculiar salvation
Your ruin brings forth life

Endure in destruction
Wait through the strife
Soon comes liberation
From the Giver of Life

Suffer through death’s fray
Emancipation
Will come on the day
Your leaves heal the nations

Pitter Patter Pitter Patter... Choo Choo!

So, I'll have to make this short, as I'm supposed to be doing homework right now and have to pick up Amber from an interpreting job in less than an hour.

This afternoon, Amber and I went for her first doctor appointment since the pregnancy. We're actually a little behind schedule, but today was the first day they could get us in, as they only take new patients at certain times of the day. We even saw another couple from our church there who are a couple months ahead of us in the process! So, they did some tests, asked us questions about our family health history, and gave us a bunch of stuff to read through. AND, we got to hear our little baby's heartbeat for the first time. Craziness. This is REALLY going to happen. Someone's not playing a cruel trick on us! Anyways, it took a while for the midwife to find the baby and get a good read on the heartbeat - with the magnified heart monitor doo-hicky thing-a-ma-jig. He's already learning to play hide and seek! But when she finally got it in the right place, the heartbeat sounded like a freight train. Seriously! Perhaps it was because it was beating at around 155 beats a minute, which apparently is normal and healthy.

Also, in today's news, I've discovered that my laptop had a virus on it and kindly passed it on to my flash drive whenever I stuck it in. This happened a couple times before I realized what was going on (when I stuck my flash drive in our desktop, the virus was immediately found and discarded and I just went on my merry way). Well, for some reason, the virus basically made my flash drive unreadable. Every time I plugged it into a computer, it wouldn't let me open the drive. I started panicking - all my work would be lost and I hadn't backed it up since I started working on a recent paper. Thankfully, I was able to do a virus check on the flash drive - only on my laptop, ironically (although I still couldn't access the drive) - and was able to delete the virus and then open the flash drive. I created a back up folder immediately. Whew!

And finally, a quote for the week (i have a lot of these saved up but I don't have the time to post it seems when they come to my mind!). If you haven't heard (since the news has been focused on only on two topics this week), there has been an ongoing meeting at the UN discussing the Milennium Development Goals and the various creative ways people and governments are helping to make poverty history. Jeffrey Sachs and Bono have been blogging about it at http://blogs.ft.com/mdg/. Below is a quote from Jeffrey Sachs (if you don't know who he is, you should) regarding the possibility of the $700 billion bailout that (he wrote this a week ago before it was shot down in the House):

"Many countries were at the table yesterday, but some big ones were exceptionally quiet. The US, Japan, Germany, France, Italy, and Canada, think that the MDGs are a spectator sport. Yes, the U.S. has stepped up its financing of disease control, but its overall aid level of 0.16 per cent of national income is the lowest of all rich countries (and compared with far more than 4 per cent of national income for the military). Why aren’t successes being scaled up? Not for lack of solutions and strategy, but for lack of follow through by the rich countries that promised (and promised and promised) to help.

"The UN meetings were abuzz that the US could find $700 billion for a bailout of its corrupt and errant banks but couldn’t find a small fraction of that for the world’s poor and dying. It didn’t make sense to the world community. The puzzlement was all the greater since the very banks being bailed out so generously had awarded themselves more than $30 billion in bonuses early this year, roughly the world’s entire aid budget for 800 million people in sub-Saharan Africa."

Hm...It certainly makes you wonder. John McCain is focused on spreading American ideals through Iraq, while Barack Obama has called America "the world's last great hope." And yet, when the rubber meets the road, both of them are more committed to an isolationist view after all, valuing our economy (by making it less free) and the protection of our precious Wall Street (by opting to go into more debt to China...) when we should be leading the way in ending poverty.

I Hate September

September is always a hard month for me. In September of 1997, my high school sunday school teacher died in a plane crash at the Purdue University Airport. A week later, Rich Mullins, a well known Christian recording artist died in a plane crash.

Then, in 2003, my grandfather died - my first real experience with the death of a family member (aside from the funerals my parents dragged me to for a great aunt so-and-so when I was a kid and have somewhat frightening memories of meeting really weird old people). It's not that it was unexpected - his health had been going downhill since November 8th the year before - a night I well remember because I was staying at their house, having come to Indianapolis to celebrate Amber's brithday when I awoke in the middle of the night to paramedics in my grandparent's hallway. It's that a complex influx of various emotions came together (and still come together) when my grandfather died.

Grandpa McCool brought me up on the Cubs, even got me the monthly Cubs "Vineline" magazine and taught me how to keep a box score while I watched games on TV. The Cubs, as is usually the case, always lose in September. 2003 was no exception... that damned disastrous season. Bartman. The goat. A 3-0 lead over the Marlins and they still lost. I was heartbroken. I wanted them to win for my grandpa more than anything else.

And then I was asked to preach at my grandfather's funeral. I was a senior in college doing my first funeral for my grandpa. That in itself is a dizzying experience. But more than any other event I can point to, it was also the day I became an adult - the day people actually looked at me as an adult, treated me as a mature person. It was the first time my uncles and friends of my parents talked to me as if I were a man. Me being the artsy person that I was, not only spoke at my grandpa's funeral, I wrote a song for the occasion a few days before on the 19th of September, 2003.

So, it should come as no surprise that all these emotions should start flooding back this week as it is the 5-year anniversary of his death. But there is more to it than that. This year marks the 100th anniversary since the Cubs have won a World Series, and today I just watched them clinch the division title with a win over the Cardinals. Last week, I saw replays of Carlos Zambrano pitch the first no-hitter for the Cubs since 1972. This could be the year! And if you're a serious Cub fan, you have to check out http://sports.espn.go.com/espn/eticket/story?page=cubs100

But it gets more eerie than that. On Thursday, I was at my first elder's meeting for our church (yeah, can you believe it?! They made me an elder!), and our co-pastor mentioned that he was just asked by his ailing grandfather if he would speak at his funeral. This also happens to be John's first funeral, so I told him I did the same thing several years ago. I started swelling up with emotions just thinking about it on Thursday night (it didn't help that I've been exhausted at the end of every week since school starts. As my wife could testify, I tend to cry about everything when I'm really tired). John (our pastor) told me he wanted to talk to me about it after the meeting, but we didn't get the chance as the meeting ran long and he got a phone call right afterwards. So, yesterday I sent him an email detailing what I did for my grandpa's funeral (as well as Amber's grandma's funeral which I spoke at last March), and even sent him an attachment of my notes from my message along with the lyrics for the song I wrote. Yesterday was September 19th - FIVE YEARS TO THE DAY THAT I WROTE THE SONG. Craziness.

It's amazing to think that we're given this life to live to influence others and make a difference. But its crazy to think that sometimes the greatest impact - for better or worse - often comes long after we're gone. Which is why I've reasoned that (and this is only the kind of thing a philosopher reason about) if there is some kind of "judgment seat" we'll have after we die, if we are accounted for all that we have done, for good or bad, then it must not happen for quite a long time after our death, for the affects of our lives continue from generation to generation.

Which is why the lime-sized kid in Amber's womb is going to root for the Cubs.