Children of the Sabbath

Growing up, I remember sermons where we were led to feel guilty for doing anything but going to church on Sunday. Work and sports, especially, were not to be done on the Sabbath. Never mind that mom still didn’t get off the hook for cooking – or if we went out to eat, we might simultaneously judge the waitress for working but thank her for the juicy steak.

Of course, this points to several dilemmas with regard to the Sabbath, some of which date back thousands of years: What exactly is allowed on the Sabbath? Can we eat? Walk? Can donkeys be led out for water (Luke 13:15), or are they not to do any work at all (Deut. 5:14)? Can we pull our horse (or car) out of a ditch? Go shopping? Pull the weeds? Mow the grass? And of course, which day is the Sabbath? The Jew or Seventh-Day Adventist will say Saturday, while most other Christians say Sunday; however, the fact that the Western world predominately functions on a five-day work week (wherein many work on Saturday or Sunday and then take other days off throughout the week, even), further complicates the matter with regard to its original intent (especially since Genesis 2:2-3 says nothing about going to any kind of house of worship).

Honestly, I’m not quite interested in these questions at the moment, but a different one: namely, why is practicing Sabbath so hard? This notion of taking a break or rest from our regular routine of work is considered by many people—whether religious or nonreligious—to be extremely important for one’s health and overall quality of life. So why is it so hard to do implement or incorporate into one’s life?

This brings me back to the sermons. Not only did such sermons make me feel guilty for playing baseball or football on Sunday (never mind that baseball and football stars who were Christians were always the plenary speakers at our youth events), but one’s lack of practicing the Sabbath was always blamed on some (sinful) drive to find one’s identity in work, on greed for a bigger paycheck, on addiction to technology (TV, movies, music, internet, cell phone). Us adults have become too serious, the preacher says, too preoccupied with the ways of the world, the value system of secular liberalism. We need, instead, to become like little children who know how to enjoy life, play freely, be spontaneous, and rest quietly in the arms of Jesus.

Now it’s not that I don’t recognize elements of truth in the words I have inserted into the mouth of the preacher. I no doubt often base my identity and significance in working toward the next accolade (an award or publication) or waste too much time scrolling through my Facebook newsfeed. But I wonder if the difficulty of Sabbath is more primordial than this, more rooted in how we function as humans than some intentional desire to break the 4th commandment. Most of us sleep at night, and most of us plan vacations, so we obviously recognize the importance of rest.

Then it dawned on me as Amber was recounting a conversation with Emerson the other day. Emerson at three years old still has little sense of time (e.g., an hour, day, month, year don’t really mean anything to him), but he has a pretty good handle on the days of the week. Amber was giving a little quiz: “What happens on Sunday?” E: “We go to church!” “And on Monday?...” Emerson could make out his entire week: Monday and Wednesdays, he knows, he goes to Lydia’s house; Tuesday and Thursday Lydia comes to our house; Friday he’s home with mom; Sunday we go to church. And Saturday. . . a blank stare. Saturday’s a black hole for little E. How can anyone not grasp Saturday, the best day of the week?

Amber and I had this same conversation the night after I went to a parent orientation at Montessori where E will be going to school next year. In the morning, they kids are all in the same classroom with the same teacher, while in the afternoon they have “specials” – art, PE, music, etc. – with other teachers. For this reason, the presenter was emphasizing that for little kids it is often best just to do half days: “Parents really like specials,” she said, “Three year-olds don’t. They like the routine and consistency of the classroom.”

Routine. Consistency. The Mundane. We often rail against these things. We often say these are the things of the Establishment, the things that crush creativity and spontaneity. But for Emerson—or any three year-old—the lack of routine is the very reason Saturday is a black hole to
him. The reality is, while it is certainly true that children are far more imaginative, playful, spontaneous, and creative than adults (although whoever said they rest quietly hasn't been around many three year-olds), these things only reveal themselves within routine: wake up, wake up mom and dad, breakfast, play time, snack time, nap time, lunch time, library trip, park time, dinner time, see neighborhood kids outside time, pajamas and watch Curious George time, bed time. Saturday is an anomaly for a three year-old, a blip in the week when parents don’t stick to the routine.

The reality is we all like routine, whether we’re three or thirty. The habits and daily movements of our lives our not only ingrained on our bodies—whether it’s taking a shower, working X amount of hours, driving to the story, eating dinner at a certain time, etc.—but they’re ingrained into the very fabric of who we are as persons and shape the way we come to expect or anticipate the future. This is why adding or changing something into our weekly mix is so difficult. But the more substance and definition that change has, then the easier it is for it to become readily recognized and assimilated into our lives. If, for instance, Saturday was routinely something like: wake up, pancakes, go to the grocery store, nap time, lunch time, Dad does yard work, special family time, bed time—then perhaps Saturday wouldn’t be such a black hole for little E.

Which brings me back to the Sabbath. Regardless of whether its Saturday or Sunday (or whether Sabbath is something for every day), whether one condones sports on that day or doesn’t, whether one’s off day is Monday instead, or whether or not one’s Sabbath practice includes some religious function, the poetic rest of Sabbath is so difficult for us, I think, because it often so nebulous, so ill-defined, and thus, so difficult to place into our everyday lives as a ritual and rhythm. If Sabbath is simply defined by the “nots” (Do not work, do not play, do not. . . ), if it is thus defined as nothing, it means nothing. We must give Sabbath a name, a form, and shape if it is to have significance and meaning, like Adam expanding his world and giving significance to it through the naming of the animals (Gen. 2:19). As philosopher, Maurice Merleau-Ponty writes, “For the child the thing is not known until it is named, the name is the essence of the thing and resides in it on the same footing as its colour and its form.” We cannot know the Sabbath, let alone practice it, unless we know what it entails.

Now again, this could mean something different depending on one’s (non)religious background. Perhaps Sabbath entails practicing certain spiritual disciplines: prayer, meditation, silence, and so forth. Perhaps Sabbath simply means doing the things that bring refreshment, life, and energy, which could be anything from taking a walk at the park, having friends over, a long nap, reading a book, taking part in a hobby, or even doing yard work. However we describe it, Sabbath rest only comes when we can name what gives us rest and conscientiously incorporate that into our weekly (even daily) rhythms. To do so, however, Sabbath cannot be understood quite simply as a break from the routine—that leads to the view that we can simply fill up on rest (or spirituality or God) one day so we can do whatever we want the rest of the week, thus dualistically separating the practice from life and alienating rest/spirituality from the daily grind. Sabbath itself must have a routine, must have its own meaning (as must our weekly activities) so they can mutually inform and permeate each other with fruitful significance.

And now that that Eureka moment has passed. . . how do I do this in my own life?

Osama, True Grit, and Thoughts on Justice

As the world writes, tweets, posts, and comments on the killing of Osama Bin Laden, I am struck by the disparate responses in America, especially among Christians. To describe it succinctly (and albeit, reductionistically), there are two camps: (1) those who are celebrating the death of OBL proclaiming that justice has now been down, and (2) those who portray the American military operation as an act of imperialism and revenge. Both groups are vitriolic against the other: (1) critiques (2) for lacking compassion toward those who lost loved ones in 9/11. (2) critiques (1) for perpetuating the cycle of death, and thereby becoming implicated in the very things we hate in OBL.

Now, I think both positions have a point and more should be said of both groups. In (1), I am not including the half drunk college students who stormed the streets of D.C. the night of the announcement, as if OBL's death is akin to winning a basketball game (I hear students at WVU went out and burned coaches in the street when they received the news). Such kinds of celebrations are an embarrassment. Rather, (1) represents those who are trying to get closure from the devastating events that transpired nearly 10 years ago, who hope for a better world tomorrow, who firmly believe that good has triumphed over evil. And I think it is unfair to judge these people as celebrating the death of human life, rather, they are celebrating the possibility of peace, the possibility that their loved ones in the armed forces will soon return home, (for Muslim Americans) the possibility that they will no longer be viewed as a secret terrorist, and the possibility that the death of one will prevent the death and suffering of many others. For all of these reasons, celebration would seem appropriate, just as it was when WWII (or any war) was finally ended. There are plenty of prooftexts for this view: "When justice is done, it brings joy to the righteous but terror to evildoers" (Prov 21:15); “I will sing to the LORD, for he is highly exalted. Both horse and driver he has hurled into the sea" (Ex. 15:1); "Deliver me, my God! Strike all my enemies on the jaw; break the teeth of the wicked" (Ps. 3:7).

Group (2) takes the road of pacifism, calling up MLK who reminds us, "Hate cannot drive out hate; only love can do that. Hate multiplies hate, violence multiplies violence..." Thus, as JR Daniel Kirk describes it, by pursuing the death of OBL, we have implicated ourselves in an "economy of death." Thus, we as members of the Kingdom of God should not take part in such an economy. Brian McLaren writes similarly, "Joyfully celebrating the killing of a killer who joyfully celebrated killing carries an irony that I hope will not be lost on us. Are we learning anything, or simply spinning harder in the cycle of violence?" And once again, there are many prooftexts for this view: “Do not rejoice when your enemies fall, and do not let your heart be glad when they stumble” (Prov 24:17); "As I live, says the Lord GOD, I have no pleasure in the death of the wicked, but that the wicked turn from his way and live" (Eze. 33:11); "Do not repay anyone evil for evil....If your enemy is hungry, feed him; if he is thirsty, give him something to drink" (Rom. 12:17, 20).


Now, I'm not going to attempt to navigate between explaining which of these texts we should agree with, or how they should be synthesized, or offer a hermeneutic that allows for violent war on a political level but pacifism on the personal level. Indeed, I'm not even sure we should be trying to apply Bible verses in such a way to the political sphere, as it implies that the war against terrorism is a holy war, a war against good and evil wherein we have proof that God is on our side (And I'm especially skeptical I can say how God feels or thinks--talking about emotions and God is a whole problem in and of itself!). Further, such questions simply don't interest me because I feel that they simply amount to manipulating the verses to conform to whatever political view one already has to begin with. Rather, I'm drawn to the question: what exactly is the difference between justice and revenge? Before offering a too hasty distinction, I want to begin a few months ago where the question was first problematized for me.

Last December, I watched the Coen Brothers' version of True Grit (both versions are equally worth watching). If you haven't seen the movie (or read the book), the story is of a 14 year-old girl who is on a mission to find the man who killed her father out in the wild west. The local governing authorities have to many problems of their own to go after the murderer and takes matters into her own hands. Intent on having the man hanged, she hires a U.S. Marshall and Texas Ranger and goes after the perpetrator herself (and winds up shooting and killing him herself as he was attempting to attack her). Is this justice? Is it revenge? Is violence OK in the name of self-defense? Merriam-Webster specifically describes revenge as "taking matters into one's own hands," so this would seem to fit the bill, and yet if the local authorities were sitting on their hands, what else could be done? Or should the girl just forgiven the man and hoped he came clean?

With this in mind, I asked my question to one of my friends who reflected on Facebook that revenge, not justice, had been served in the case of OBL. He replied, "Honestly, I think our entire justice system is nothing but revenge in situations where victims aren't compensated and community isn't restored. So I don't know. What I do know is that nothing is fundamentally different and so that's not justice." We both agreed that it is hardly the case that had OBL been given a "trial by jury" then the whole event would have been fair. A trial would have been a joke, a circus, and if anything, an opportunity for him to spout more propaganda and truly go down as a martyr for his cause.

Now, I think this two-fold definition of justice is quite good. To add to it, Dictionary.com, uses "righteousness," "conformity to law," and bringing someone to court as useful definitions of justice. But it could also simply be "the administering of deserved punishment or reward." If we stick with just this simple definition, the actions of the U.S. military would seem to fit the bill. As for the two-fold definition, I think that certainly, those who are celebrating do so because they believe restoration is going to happen on some level: particularly US relations with the rest of the world may be strengthened or the neighboring communities in Afghanistan and Pakistan that have been devastated because of Al Qaeda and the war can achieve a newfound peace.

But we are still led to ask whether violence really does ultimately lead to true justice, as in, true peace. Further, the two-fold definition of justice, while good, creates a tremendous difficulty: the fact is that it is impossible for the victims of OBL's terror to be compensated. Indeed, whenever the crime is murder (or rape or torture or psychological damage or...), one could say that it is impossible to truly compensate the victims, and thus, justice is forever deferred.

As much as I am a pacifist and personally believe in the power of love and forgiveness, I find it hypocritical to criticize all acts of war, violence, military operations, etc (some pacifists even condemn the work of police forces), as I am the beneficiary of those who risk their lives, whether that be policemen in my neighborhood or soldiers on the other side of the world. Yes, we can certainly ask whether particular actions are warranted (i.e., Should we have gone into Iraq in the first place?), but to condemn all actions that are violent in nature (technically, acts of non-violence have an aspect of violence to them anyway) would require me to refuse to reap the benefits of a neighborhood, economy, or national heritage that is the result of said violence.

Perhaps it is the case that all violence and all death should be mourned--even the death of the most vile people on earth. But at the same time, we must conclude that there are situations where negotiations, diplomacy, and non-violent actions fail, where war is the only response left (but perhaps doesn't deserve to be called a "solution") in order to curb the deaths and violence that occur in our world. This was the view of those ordinary citizens who took action on Flight 93 nearly ten year ago. It was also the view of German Lutheran pastor, Dietrich Bonhoeffer, who took part in an assassination attempt of Adolf Hitler while simultaneously believing it was a sin to murder, especially one who was in a place of authority (the attempt, obviously, failed, and Bonhoeffer was later put to death by the Nazis). And I want to believe it is the view guiding NATO's current actions in Libya and the death of OBL.

All that said, perhaps the events that have conspired are the closest to justice we'll ever get. There is no pure altruism, no possible way for us to tease out a clear demarcation between an action done in the name of justice and one done in the name of revenge. Thus, in the end, a comment made by someone to Brian McLaren's seems to best summarize my thoughts: "Perhaps everyone is right. Perhaps the death of Osama Bin Laden has made this world more safe. I do not believe, however, that his death has made this world more beautiful."

Happy Birthday, Emerson

Emerson, today you now longer have to say that you’re only one. You’re finally two. It has flown by so fast for your parents.

Emerson, I love you. You brighten up each day of my life. You are fun, you are cute, you energize me – and take the energy out of me! I love to share my day with you and share what happens in our days together, because they are always a surprise. You shock me. I never know what you’re going to come up with next, how you’ll respond to situation, what kind of face you’ll give from one day to the next. Today, you’ll learn something new, do something new, that you haven’t done before. You show me that this life that we have is a gift, a miracle.

You have two names that we gave you when you were born. You are named after two people, Emerson Jude.

Ralph Waldo Emerson was a poet, a philosopher, and a scholar much like your dad. He thought about the world, about God, about love, and all in all loved to be out in nature—much like yourself. He spent time thinking about how amazing and wonderful the world is.

While you may not yet be a philosopher yourself, you approach the world with a spirit of awe and wonder—and philosophy, as Aristotle says, begins in wonder. You have also reminded this philosopher (your dad) quite a number of philosophical truths. You have taught me about free will – about how I cannot control you, you are not a robot, and you did not come with an instruction manual. Like Kierkegaard’s faith, which is a leap in the dark, so is parenthood. You have taught me, as Chesterton said, that the best things in life should be done, even if badly. Parenting is one of those things. We are all amateurs, blindly learning what it means to be a parent and learning from our mistakes. Thank you for letting me make mistakes.

You have taught me what it means to live in the present (and frankly, I can’t live in the past because I still get enough sleep to remember it). You force me to put down my future, to stop worrying about what I need to get done tomorrow, stop living in the world of anxiety and success and let each day come and accept it as a gift. You enjoy the now, like a lily in the field, trusting God to clothe you – or just, running around naked and not worrying about clothing at all.

You are also named after Saint Jude, the patron saint of lost causes, the saint of the marginalized, the outcast, the forgotten. I want you to remember that we serve a God who loves the nobodies. He does not give up on anyone. May you be a person who loves the unlovable, who cares for those who are forgotten by our society.

Emerson I love you. We, your parents, are thankful for you, and we wish you a happy birthday.

Of Mice and Men and Mothballs

This week, I may have just made the stupidest decision of my life.

By the end of this story, you might feel sorry for me. You will certainly laugh your ass off.

But the chaos started a couple weeks ago.

I was driving to work, freezing cold outside, defrost roaring inside, when suddenly to my shock, I literally watched a crack grow across my windshield. We actually already had a crack on our windshield, but it wasn’t in the line of sight, so it passed PA inspections (ugh… inspections). Now with two, probably not.

The next week, we called Comcast (twice) because it seemed like our cable was going out. It wasn’t – it was just our third TV to die in about four months. Then Amber scraped a pole in a parking garage with our brand new 2009 Civic (not the one with the cracked windshield). I once read Sheldon Vanauken’s A Severe Mercy, where he wrote that he and his wife always purposefully dented their new cars to quickly remind themselves about not to put their love in temporal items. Needless to say, I didn’t take it as well—but I couldn’t be too harsh given the two parking tickets I got in January…

Sunday night (this week) we were awoken around 2 am to the sound of a rodent (we thought it was a mouse but it could be a squirrel) chewing on something in the wall of our bedroom. I was disturbed for a second, and given that I’m deaf in one ear, was able to put my good ear on the pillow and pretend it wasn’t happening. Amber was not too happy about my apathetic response and promptly nudged me and asked what I was going to do about it. I didn’t do anything, hoping the little critter would just go away.

Monday, we dragged our gigantic tube TV across the floor to make our way down the basement stairs, into the car, and on to the TV recycling center. When we took it into the kitchen, it completely destroyed our already cracked threshold.

Monday night, I was awoken again to the sound of a critter, this time above our ceiling. Clearly, he was not going away and he was finding a way into our attic. Amber woke up, heard the noise, and started looking up what to do to get rid of mice in your attic. She spouted off a list of things I would have to go purchase at Home Depot (once I shoveled the four inches of fresh snow off the driveway) in the morning: De-Con, the plug-ins that supposedly send off a signal mice don’t like, and mothballs. Yes, according to many websites, mothballs will rid you of your pests.

Tuesday night, I went up into the attic and threw mothballs throughout the attic – often purposely throwing at the far reaches of the attic and even down the sides into our walls where the little critter sounds had come from. I had been a successfully good husband.

I should have done more homework first.

No less than thirty minutes later, the entire house smelled of mothballs. So, yes, many people use mothballs as a deterrent for mice because they hate the smell. It is also a deterrent for humans. The smell is only the half of it. Mothballs kill moths and larvae. How? By suffocation. They are gassed to death. According to other websites, mothballs can also kill humans.

At this point, Amber asked me how I placed the mothballs and told me I should go get them out of the attic. I explained to that that was an impossible feat. Mothballs are white and the size of marbles. Insulation is slightly pinkish but basically looks white, especially in poor lighting. This is a needle in a haystack kind of thing.

After refusing to respond to her determined request for two hours, at 11pm, I read up on mothballs on the internet and freaked out. They are very dangerous little things. As this one guy writes, they are evil. In fact, I discovered on the internet that there were other not so informed deter the mice homeowners who had made the same mistake as I. One threw four boxes of mothballs into his attic and finally he and his family moved into his mother’s house for a month. Thankfully, I thought, I had only thrown around ¾ of a box.

So, we set up an air mattress downstairs and over our silently sleeping two year-old—and I rigged our box fan into the vent in the attic to increase circulation. I slept on the couch. I did not sleep for long. At 4:30, I woke up and could not fall back asleep, fearing for our lives and running through the mind the fact that I had dumbly put my family in a gas trap.

At 6AM, I drove to Home Depot and bought a number of items to clear out the attic. Then, I emailed my boss to tell her I wouldn’t be in for work, and rounded it out with a quick email plea for help to some of my friends. Then, up I went into the attic from where I would not return for a long while.

There was no way to remove the mothballs without removing the insulation. This is not rolled insulation. It is blown-in, which means it is chopped up into a trillion pieces and looks like an enormous pillow fight explosion. This was, indeed, insulation I and a friend had installed a few months before (thanks Kylie).

From 7-9, I gathered insulation into trash bags by myself. Then my friend, Ben, came over and helped while Amber watched E and their two year-old (she and E are only four days apart) for an hour and a half until Amber had to leave for work (at which time, Ben would have to stop helping to watch E). I dropped Ben off, I went back to work.

At 11:45 I got a call from my friend Sean, who was free and coming over. Hallelujah. I stopped for a brief lunch. I tried heating up my food in the microwave, and it sparked like mad – as it did last night. Our microwave has also died.

I ate my homemade mac and cheese cold. It was gross. But it was homemade.

We worked, gathering insulation in trash bags and discovering moth balls as if they were buried gold nuggets until 4:30. 75 trash bags later, we had cleared out the attic (now I have a garage fully of trash bags), and we had 30 confirmed mothball sightings. I had been in my attic for nearly 10 hours, all day long thinking, “If this is the dumbest thing I do in my life, I should be proud… No I’ll never live this one down.” My body hurts.

We’ve also gathered up all the odor eliminator products we could find. I have a pile of charcoal and some lava rocks in the attic. Amber placed out some old containers of baking soda and fennel seed. And I must say, after leaving the windows open all day and doing all that we did, we have smelled a remarkable improvement. Now, we have a very smelly garage… But alas, there are still mothballs in our walls that we cannot get out so we’re not quite sure how well we solved the problem.

After all this, I had to go teach a college course from 6-8:30p.m. After cleaning up from the mess, and showering, fifteen minutes later, I met up with a babysitter who would watch E before Amber got home for just a hour. I then drove downtown and hit an onslaught of traffic due to a Pittsburgh Penguins game and had to park a mile away.

We slept again on an air mattress downstairs. I can’t remember the last time my body felt this sore. By Thursday morning, Amber was paranoid that she was getting sick from the smell—even though I taped up the door to the garage, the smell of mothballs knocked me over when I opened the door to the basement. I had planned to wait to move the trash bags of insulation to a friend’s shed—the very friend who helped me blow in the insulation in the first place!—until Saturday, but it couldn’t wait. I moved all the bags outside, and we opened the windows to our house for the rest of the day (it was 40 degrees today). After a few hours, Amber came home and said the house smelled fine, but once she turned on the heater the smell started to come back, albeit faintly.

So, as a precautionary measure, we are sleeping somewhere else tonight and staying away from the house for another day. Hopefully by the weekend this little trip through Purgatory will be over.

Lessons learned:
- The internet tells the truth, just not always the whole truth on the same webpage.
- Moth balls are a strong deterrent for many animals… and for people too.
- Always read the label.
- I have a new appreciation for the term, “fuming.”

P.S. – We still have a critter in our attic.

Emerson's Words

So, we've been trying to tally up a list of all the words, ASL signs (largely thanks to "Signing Time" videos), and sounds Emerson uses to communicate with us now at 20 months, and here's what we came up with. Not that he's a genius or anything, but you can sure tell where his interests lie (balls, animals, and trucks!):

Spoken words:
Ball
Dog
Cat
Truck
Tow truck (“ta tuck”)
Tractor (“tac ta”)
Car
Yuck
Sock
Shoes (“shoooo”)
Hat
Momma
Dadda
Nite Nite
Baby (“dada,” not to be confused with Daddy…)
Duck
Shark
Cookie
Cheese
Banana (“nana”)
Juice (“joo”)
Hot
“Deck Dopter” (helicopter – we’ve only heard this one once)
“Ana” (his term for virtually everything that flies)
Please
One (“un”)
Two
Boot (“boop”)
Yes (“yah”)
No
Nose
Mouth (“Moum”)
Eye (“aah”)
All done
Bye bye (“nye nye” – he never says this to people… in fact, the only time he really says it is when we’re flushing stink bugs down the toilet!)
More

ASL (sign language):
Hug
Toothbrush
More / Help / Ball (they all look alike these days… depends on the context!)
Cold
Eat / Food
Milk
Drink
Apple
Cookie
Cheese
Cracker
Ice cream
Coat
Hat
Bath
Mom
Dad
Grandma
Book
Fish
Bird
Alligator/Crocodile
Tiger
Elephant
Bear
Spider
Octopus
Hippopotamus
Rhinocerous
Giraffe
Zebra
Lobster/Crab
Camel
Starfish
Grumpy (he learned this from pointing out this dog in a Clifford book that was always angry!)
Please
Hurt
Sorry (we’re starting to use this one quite a bit!)
Sleep
Cell Phone (holds palm up to his ear)
Work
Airplane
Train
All done
Baseball
Basketball

Sounds:
Grr (bear)
Rarr (lion, tiger, and quite a few others)
Wadda Wadda Wadda (penguin)
Eee Eee (monkey)
Arf Arf! (dog)
Hamph (crocodile)
Hop! (frog)
Arr Arr (sea lion)
Twee twee (bird)
Caw Caw (parrot)
Baaa (Sheep/goat)
Haa haa (Horse – he literally fake laughs)
Mmmmm (cow)
Buck buck (chicken)
Doo Doo! (rooster)
Snort (pig – he makes a snorting sound and wrinkles his nose)
Eww (Skunk – he also plugs his nose with his fingers and wrinkles his face, which is the same thing he does if he has a dirty diaper)
Ssss (snake)
Whoo (owl)
Hhhmmmm (elephant)
Pppfff (human fart)
WhoOOO (Fire truck)
Choo Choo (train)

Emerson Ball Skills

So Emerson has really been showing off his ball throwing skills lately. Check out his great form (and hilarious leg kick) in the following videos:



[If the video doesn't come up, go to this link]



[Again, if the video doesn't come up go to this link]

Pumpkin Patch

Amber's mom was in town this past week, and we took Emerson to the pumpkin patch. Here's a comparison with last year. I can't believe this is the same kid!

And a comparison of Halloween costumes:

France yada yada

After a brief interlude from posting about our France trip, I've finally made the time to finish up sharing the highlights of our trip. This and one more post should do it!

Day 7
Today is Sunday, and after the exhausting day we had yesterday, we decide to stay close to the hotel. We start off the day with a trip to Isle Sur La Sorgue’s locally famous market—on Sunday practically the entire town is overrun with street vendors selling everything from spices to fruits to dresses to paintings. Amber bought a summer dress, along with our hummus, some amazing peaches, and a couple cold drinks (a rarity in France, especially if you don’t want to pay double the price).

After our time in the market, we went back to the room and swam in the hotel pool, did some laundry, took a nap, and entertained ourselves by watching Emerson run around the room.

In the evening, its back out on the town to get a good dinner (as long as Emerson can make it through the meal without crashing…). Since most places don’t open until 7:30 (the French eat late!), we went to the park and started dinner off with an ice cream cone :). And once again, Emerson was entertaining the locals, stole an older kids soccer ball, and all and all made us laugh out loud on a regular basis.

For dinner, we had a bottle of rosé wine (which is popular in the Provence region), along with our meals: mine was melon and slices of meat for my entrée and filet mignon and French fries for the plat, while Amber had escargot and salmon. Emerson was so thirsty when we first sat down that he immediately pointed at my glass of wine and was asking for it. Me thinking he wouldn't like it after the initial sip, let him try it only to have him start chugging it down! Sad to say, Emerson just couldn’t sit still and was really tired, so one of us wound up walking around town with him while the other ate dinner.

Day 8
This morning, we checked out of our hotel and are slated to drive a rental car to Les Baux in the evening. Before getting the car (let’s not even talk about how much it cost to have it for just one day!!!), we walked around Avignon to see the famous sites—the Palace of the Popes and St Benezet Bridge most of all. If you look at some of our photos from Avignon, you’ll see tons of posters hung up everywhere. That’s because we were in Avignon during the time of their famous theatre festival they’ve been having for over sixty years that attracts an extra 100,000 people to the city.

In the rental car, after our sleep deprived son had finally fallen asleep and I had figured out how to get out of the city, we were off to the Dentelles de Montmirail mountain region (not without stopping in a little tiny town to ask for directions!) where the air is electricfied with the sound of cicadas (its so loud I thought something was wrong with our rental car) We visited some wineries that were in the middle of nowhere but well worth the trip. The little Chevy Spark (a car so small you won’t find in the States!) we rented had a rough time getting up the mountainside, but it was fun driving the 5-speed manual through the winding roads. The scenery was fantastic and the wine lovely (and cheap!), both of which reminded us of the Tuscany region in Italy.

Now, it was off to find Les Baux (again, I only had to stop and ask for directions once!), a little town on the top of a hill in the Alpilles mountains that was once a powerful defensive location in the middle ages (and long before then actually). There, we stayed in a little B&B and found a nice little (and quiet) restaurant to try out some more French cuisine. Nothing really notable to mention here but it was at this moment that it occurred to us that Emerson had lived off of little more than the inside of French baguettes for a week!

More Stories From France

Day 5
Before leaving Carcassone, we visited a local park, which gave Emerson ample time to expend some of his pent up energy (I never realized stopping at so many parks would become a necessary part of my vacation...). Thankfully, after lots of running around and lots of pushing him in his strollers, he finally fell asleep (and we were able to just carry his stroller right on the train and leave him in it).

Then we spent most of the day on a very long train trip to Avignon. We got there two hours later than expected, as there was fire on the tracks (in southern France, it rains on average only one day during the entire month of July). Alas, it gave Emerson more time to flirt with the other passengers. Once to Avignon, another short train to L'Isle Sur La Sorgue, a beautiful little town with shallow clear streams of water flowing all around it and dozens of water mills. First stop after checking into the hotel: the local bakery. Not a bad dinner. We ate in a local park that gave Emerson the space to run around (again). Then we walked around town a bit and Emerson got his first kiss - from an older French gal that had a fancy for him!

Honestly, this was the first of many cultural encounters that we had that simply would not have happened had we not taken Emerson with us. Traveling with a toddler is a tiring, extra complicated experience, but it most certainly opened opportunities for us to engage with the locals in ways we never would have expected. On numerous occasions, little children just walked right up to Emerson and started chatting with him. In fact, by the end of the trip, he was mimicking the French accent and trying to talk like them!

And now a brief interlude to display the many faces of Emerson Jude:

Day 6
Today totally did not turn out as I had planned it. For starters it was just way too hot (mid 90s). We went to Pont du Gard, the remains of an ancient Roman aqueduct, and Emerson fell asleep 5 minutes before our bus arrived. Then he totally flipped out after he fell headlong into the stream we were wading in. We headed back to the bus stop to make our way to Nimes only to watch the bus roundabout just in front of our stop and drive away. Needless to say, we were not the only ones stranded and wound up calling a taxi and splitting the costs with another couple who happened to get Phds from Indiana State University.

At Nimes, hungry and exhausted, we quickly search for some grub. Our first stop: a strawberry slushie. The lady explained to us (in French but with very descriptive hand gestures) that if we were going to feed the baby (“bebe”) any of it, to use the spoon part at the end of the straw and just give him little amounts so he wouldn’t get a “slurpee tumor” (at least that’s what we called them growing up). Amber and I didn’t think anything of it until both of us got headaches from drinking it too fast! After lunch, we had just enough energy (and time) to take tour of the Arena (like the Coliseum in Rome but far more preserved-they actually had it set up for a bunch of summer concerts.

With all of us exhausted, and Emerson not having had a long enough nap, it was back to the train station - one to Avignon and another to Isle Sur La Sorgue. Knowing a nice sit down dinner wouldn't be possible tonight, we picked up a few things from a grocery store and a sandwich shop. Bought a bottle of Cotes de Rhone red wine and asked the clerk if he had a corkscrew, his friend standing by told us we could stop by his shop down the street and he'd help us out--opened up shop just to open our wine bottle! At the sandwich shop, I ordered a "French original" which turned out to be a Philly steak sub with fries on top of it... Flew around the world just so I could eat at a place like Pittsburgh’s Primanti's!

Once back in the room, Emerson was now full of energy and running around like a madman. At one moment, he grunted and kind of hunched over (a telltale sign), said "oops," and then put his hand over his mouth and nose to say "P-ewww." Then when I shut off the light and said "night night," he sprinted around the bed and flipped on Amber's bedside lamp that she had shown him how to turn on not ten minutes earlier.

Finally, with the kid asleep and a half bottle of wine remaining, Amber and I are flipping between the FIFA world cup and some French reality show akin to America’s Fear Factor.

French Diaries pt. Deux

Day 3
Had a good conversation with two other conference participants on the bus from Ireland and Hong Kong. Actually, today had fewer presentations so a lot of my time was spent chatting and networking(largely on behalf of the Duquesne Press where I work).

I often find myself uncomfortable at these things, as if being on the outside looking in. It's not that people are unfriendly (NALS is far better than SPEP), but more so that the people who have spent a long time and work on Levinas and making him a prominent thinker in continental philosophy in the US have been doing it for quite some time back when it was just a few of them, and therefore, are closely knit.It could of course have to do with the fact that they just don't have the time to give to every single person-especially not when these society meetings are almost like class reunions-not to mention that one does not gain any notoriety in academia until one has published a book.

Nevertheless I'm grateful for those young professors who are willing to associate with us grad students (that NALS doesn't separate the presentations helps lessen the rift but the gulf still persists).

Tonight, I had a wonderful French with nine other participants representing the US, Canada, Bulgaria, Switzerland, and the UK. A number of them knew French so I didn't really have to work to get my order. Regardless, around the table of good food and French wine-and a Spain victory over Germany being monitored inthe background-we conversed and shared our lives with one another. Actually, one of the individuals from Canada had very similar interests as myself, and, it turns out, had published an article that I had found immensely helpful a couple years back.

Day 4
Amber and Emerson get to Toulouse. The buses I plan to take end up taking longer than I planned so I got to the airport late. Amber is on the verge of tears-I'm late, she's spent the whole night on a plane with Emerson on her own, and she can't find her bag (thankfully we found it before we left). Given the fact that I knew how short Amber's layovers were, I'm just glad she made it on all the flights! Emerson actually slept some on the plane, but he's still in a complete daze. I think he's a bit surprised to see Dad in this strange, new place, given that he hasn't seen him in a few days (he cried when I got out of the car at the airport!).

We went straight from the airport to the train station and booked tickets to Carcassone - a well-maintained medieval city with magnificient walls (and was the set for Robin Hood:Prince of Thieves, which makes for two Costner sets I've visited this summer). After settling into our room at the Abbey (which was quite nice), I went on a hunt for diapers.... A rather long hunt. At least it provided Emerson a chance to take a nap. Afterward, it was out to the castle and one a amazing meal - mussels covered with a cream sauce, lamb (Amber got duck), and a half carafe of local red wine for about $50. I could learn to like this life! Emerson woke up in the stroller not long before we arrived at the restaurant, so he was full of energy. We were fortunate that another little boy about his age was also there (and there were very few people there when we first got there, as is often the case as American tourists eat so much earlier than the French!), so they were able to run around the outdoor dining area together.

French Diaries

The last couple weeks, I was in Southern France, first for a conference presentation, and then for some vacation with the family. The next few posts will chronicle the highlights of our journey. Enjoy!

Day 1

Sunday afternoon (July 4th), I left for France (which quickly became Monday on the flight). I had two layovers at one hour a piece for my three flight to arrive in Toulouse at 10am and then figure out the public transportation in time to arrive at the university by 2:30 to present my paper. Needless to say, I had been nervous for several days about how close I was cutting it. Add to that, I didn't sleep for the entire flight so I was going about 27 hrs w/o sleep. Then, in Frankfurt I was getting panicky. In my short layover (thankfully our flight got in 20 min late) I had a long process before I could board the next plane. Once off the plane, I had to board a bus, wait for everyone else to board it, and then ride it to the terminal. Next was a bit of a line at passport control, which then forces you out of the security area even if you have another flight. Either way, I still had to get my ticket for the next flight since it was with Lufthansa and for some strange reason US airways (which I rode from Pgh to Charlotte) couldn't print out for me before I left home. After scrambling to find their ticket counter (which was completely electronic) I had to get the machine to finally read my passport before I could go back through security and find my gate. Surprisingly through all this I still got to the gate time to spare so I wandered to find an ATM and get some Euros. On this plane, I am surrounded by businessmen finalizing PowerPoint presentations for meetings and it seems like everyone here owns at least some kind of Apple product.

Once in Toulouse, I took a bus and then a subway to get to the Universitie. Once out of the subway and noticeably bewildered as to which way to go next, a nice elderly French woman led me to where I needed to go (actually all the French I have encountered thus far have been very kind which leads me to believe either belligerent French only live in Paris or they only appear when arrogant Americans show themselves). The paper went quite well (despite my lack of sleep!) and since then I've considered myself on vacation.

I finally went to my quarters for some rest - a dorm that oddly enough is quite far from the school - and well ... Let's say for 20 Euros a night I'm still not sure I got what I paid for! But I can manage no a/c, communal bathrooms, and morning construction right outside my window for a couple nights right?

After a shower and a brief respite it was back out for a special invitation for all the conference speakers for some amazing hors-d'oeuvre and (free!!) champagne with the mayor of Toulouse (who was just as young and reportedly just as dreadfully inexperienced as Pgh's Luke Ravenstahl) at the very beautiful town hall.

Finally, off to sleep.

Day 2
Today was not nearly as hectic. I slept off and on until 8:30 (2:30 Pgh time) and then went to the conference. There was not a whole lot I was interested in today and spent a bit of my time under a tree in the cool breeze reading a book.

After more conference proceedings and chats with other participants from numerous other countries, I went out for dinner with a couple professors from the communications dept at Duq (nice to have some friendly faces around) for my first French meal - and first legitimate meal since leaving Pgh. Oh wow. I ordered a vin rouge ordinaire (red house wine) that was quite tasty. The entree was a selection of meat cuts and sliced French bread (delicieux!), the plat a medium rare piece of steak topped with foie gras (and yes I understand there are a lot of ethical concerns surrounding this French delicacy... But it was soo good just to try it once!), and for dessert a nice offering of tiramisu. Magnifique!

After dinner I decided to head back (to type this report of course) to my room. Who knows why but my 10-trip subway ticket kept getting refused. So I was off to go ask a store clerk to break a 20 euro bill into change (the ticket machine doesn't take bills and wouldn't accept my credit card) - another chance to practice my French. With my handy Rick Steves phrase book, I'm off. "Je voudrais des pieces." said very poorly, the guy says, "only if I have enough." He opens his cash drawer and says he cannot help me. Next try: "Parlez-vous anglais?" A classic response: "No I speak no English." Okay new tactic: "Vous pouvez casser ca? Je voudrais dix billet et des pieces." Success and then my old ticket suddenly decides to work again. Well at least it was good practice!

My How Things Change...and Remain the Same

A lot can happen in a year







































But the Cubs still continue to lose...

Well, at least I finally got a haircut.

Field of Dreams

Yesterday, we went up to Dyersville, IA with Amber's parents to visit the Field of Dreams movie site. I gotta admit, I was happier than a kid in a candy store and even got a little sentimental. Not that I'm a big Kevin Costner fan (who is?), but it's one of my all-time favorite movies of my all-time favorite sport. So, I was ecstatic to get out there and play some ball. On the downside, the corn wasn't very tall at this time of year. Nevertheless, with my Sandberg jersy on, I guess it was appropriate that I played some second base (if the Iowa Cubs had been playing home games this weekend, we would've been in Des Moines instead of Dyersville!), and got a hit as well. Man, I miss baseball...

In Memoriam: Mark Zonneveld

This past weekend, I had the honor of officiating the funeral of a high school friend of mine. In addition to a couple songs and a few wonderful testimonials regarding Mark's life by family members of friends, I was privileged to speak on behalf of Mark and his family, to share some of my own remembrances of Mark, and invite the packed chapel hall to invite God into their suffering. It would be an understatement to say that it was a memorable event--anytime one is involved in a funeral, it is. The bond created between me and Mark's extended family as a result of sharing this day goes beyond words, and as much as the family was so happy to have me there, I am truly grateful to have been asked to perform the service and be a part of such a special (though bittersweet) day.

I began the service with a reading of Psalm 139:1-3, 13-18 (as requested by one of Mark's uncles) and then prayed:

Father God, we are gathered here today, wishing it were under better circumstances, but here to celebrate the life of Mark Zonneveld nonetheless. We lift our eyes up to you, for our help comes from the Maker of heaven and earth. You who neither slumber nor sleeps, look on us with favor today. Help us feel the string of death and be reminded that there is something terribly wrong with this picture. Assure us that it is OK to mourn for our friend and even that it’s OK to smile, and perhaps even laugh, as we remember him. In your Son’s name, Amen.


After a number of people shared memories about Mark and thoughts regarding his death, I read some testimonials of people who could not be at the funeral. Then I spoke:

I want to being by saying that it's an honor and privilege to stand here today and speak on behalf of the Zonneveld family. Mark and I were friends from high school. And though our contact with each other became periodic over the years as we went off to college, moved, and got jobs, he's one of only a handful of individuals in our graduating class I have kept in touch with.

We met on the first day of our freshman year in German class (and since I know there are a number of people in the audience who are fluent in German, I ask that you please not test my knowledge!). I sat down in the back of the room next to an extremely tall (well, compared to me!) but friendly guy. Mark was, as I quickly found out, extremely smart. I found out too that he could be quite stubborn, and when he was, he knew how to be a really good pain in the ass. But he was also kind, sympathetic, and was particularly sensitive to people who had physical restrictions or who didn't quite fit in as a result of his own struggles with epilepsy.

I’m sure we looked like an odd couple given he was literally twice my size, but we hit it off quite well, and for three years we saw each other every day in German class. I’d say we sat right next to each other all those semesters, but if I remember correctly, we got split up at some point because we talked too much in class.

Mark loved trying new things and having fun, and for him it didn’t require having exceptional skill at something to have fun at it. It was Mark who convinced me we should sing some karaoke while we were at the Noah's Ark water park the summer Mark asked me to go along with his family's annual vacation to the Wisconsin Dells. There were were, two high school kids hanging out with a bunch of people much older than us drinking Budweisers. Mark appropriately sang the Beach Boys song, “Fun, Fun, Fun,” while I, not knowing many songs on their playlist, I must embarrassingly admit, sang Garth Brooks's “The Dance.”

Then, there was the spring break just the two of us took a road trip up to Racine, Wisconsin to meet up with some friends of mine. I drove while Mark gladly counted the changes for the tolls around Chicago, and he always swore he counted corectly when the 50 pennies we threw in one toll never made the light turn green. We drove through anyways, but during the entire trip I wondered if cops would show up behind me.

And there was the day, after a fight with his mom and dad, Mark ran out of the house and took a long road trip of his own—the fight had to do with his driving privileges—all the way to the place he used to live in Illinois. On the way back, Mark pit stopped at my house, knowing it was a safe place to talk out loud and vent his frustrations. Of course, he knew at some pont he’d have to return hom and face the warranted disciplinary measures. But for now, he just need a safe place to talk and he knew I wouldn’t rat him out to his parents. We took our anger out on a bunch of pile of wood that needed to be chopped into firewood.

Perhaps my most embarrassing memory with the Zonnevelds was the morning of December 28th, 2003. Why do I know the exact day? Because that was the morning after my wedding night and we just happened to run into each other at the breakfast bar at the Homewood Suites in Lafayette! I assume the Zonnevelds were in town to see people over the holidays but I was too focused in sheepishly hightailing it to the door to remember our conversation!

Over the years, Mark and I often had conversations about God, about the Bible, life, and death. He was brave enough to go with me to church and a myriad of youth group functions. In fact, one summer he went to church camp with me and other kids from my church. One day that week, he and I and his counselor sat down to chat after a chapel service and Mark decided he wanted to commit his life to be a follower of Jesus. One could say that was a decision made at an emotional moment or amidst the pressure of peers and authority figures, but it was also a decision made after nearly four years of conversations Mark and I on the subject.

Now, I do not want to paint a rose-colored picture of religion, as if praying a prayer makes all of one's cares just pass away. Quite the contrary, Mark’s relationship with God was a very difficult relationship—one of struggle—as it was intricately tied to his own struggles in life. Mark wondered why God made him the way he did, why he had to have embarrassing seizures in front of classmates, why he had been made to feel so childish because he wasn’t allowed to do something as minimal as drive a car.

As a result, over the years, long after that church camp decision, one could say that Mark distanced himself from God, wondered if God was even worth believing. I prefer to say that Mark's faith was honest, open, and raw. Mark was human—which is all God asks of us, to be truly human—and he was courageous enough to ask the difficult questions that many of us are afraid to ask. He struggled physically and emotionally in ways that many of us will never have to struggle. And perhaps as a result, his faith—even when it seemed like there was none at all—was more real than the majority of what we call reality in our everyday lives. As one thinker [Thomas Merton] has said, “God may be most present to us when he is absent than when he is present.”

This story may not resemble the Mark you remember—you may not have had such conversations with him. But I think it is an important part of his story and a part that I want to remember. But it is important for me because I sympathize with Mark’s story because I too have often quiestioned God, have called into question my particular religious upbringing, and remain skeptical about many of the claims people often make in the name of God or in the name of religion. But I also resonate with Marks’ struggle with god because I believe it more accurately portrays what this journey of life is all about. Far from those who reduce religion to a crutch for the weak or those who reduce it to a three-step self-help program to obtain personal happiness, the narratives we find in the Bible depict people engaged in struggle and raw honesty. They asked the tough questions. For instance, King David, who penned the words we read earlier, which beautifully depicts how we are “fearfully and wonderfull made” ends this prayer with an honest desire that his enemies would be destroyed. That’s an honest cry from a human who knows there is something wrong with the world.

But what I want to say to you today is that the God I believe in—the God Mark believed in—suffers with those who suffer and weeps with those who weep. As we mourn today, God mourns. And today as we struggle with the all-too-pugent reality of death, God beckons us to seek him who promises to be close to use, who promises that he rewards those who seek him. He asks us to take from him the grace we need to get through this day, and the next day—which may be even harder than today—and the next. And he invites you to start up a conversation with him, even if that conversation starts with, “God, I’m not even sure I believe in you.” God wants you to invite him into your struggles, into your life, to be willing to ask the difficult questions.

I want to end with a benediction. You may recognize it but it is a combination of a couple passages from Scripture. This is may prayer for all of you, but especially for the Zonneveld family:

May the Lord bless you and keep you;
May the Lord make his face shine upon you and be gracious to you.
May the Lord turn his face toward you and give you peace.
And may those who sow in tears reap songs of joy.

We left the chapel listening to "Learn to Laugh," a song I introduced to Mark and afterward became his favorite. It might not have fit the mood, but it certainly was fitting for Mark. For those who attended the service, packets of Mark's favorite Jelly Belly's were available along with packets of sunflower seeds, which were to be planted and once reaching to their full height, would remind people of Mark. Finally, people were able to write messages to Mark on helium balloons which were then let go outside to make their way up into the heavens. I was struck with the powerful symbolism--not of sending a message to Mark up in heaven, but of the significance of the event for the person letting go of the balloon (funerals are always for the living). At this final moment, we have to let go of the one we love, who has gone on ahead, and move forward with our lives.

Fevers, Flights, and a Funeral

Simply put, this past week was absolutely insane. Actually, it began late last week when Emerson had a temp of 102.5 on Thursday night. He was obviously not feeling well since he refused to eat anything (nothing for nearly three days!) and did not sleep well. Friday, I stayed home to monitor him and make sure things didn't get any worse, but after two full days of watching a sick kid on my own I was about to jump off our balcony. Thankfully, life was made a bit simpler by ordering pizza for dinner. But of course, fevers of our own kindly followed suit, and I spent the first couple days of the work week having chills, hot flashes, dizzy spells, and the worst sore throat I can remember since high school.

Then on Monday afternoon, I received a phone call that an old high school friend had died over the weekend. Mark struggled with epilepsy throughout his life, and it appears he suffered a massive seizure in his sleep on Sunday night. After the teary phone call, I asked Andrea, his sister, to keep me posted on the details and then made some phone calls of my own to notify some other friends of the news.

Tuesday, I took Emerson to the doctor just to make sure that whatever he had and gave to me wasn't strep (thankfully, we both tested negative). Then that night, Andrea called back to ask if I could officiate the entire funeral ceremony (I've spoken at two funerals before but never organized the entire thing). The Zonnevelds had never been connected with a church and felt really uncomfortable with a complete stranger involved with the service, so they asked me to officiate since I had been such a spiritual influence in Mark's life. I gladly accepted and quickly (a little too quickly it seems) bought tickets for a flight to Atlanta on Saturday morning.

On Wednesday, I was still really sick, but in addition to work, an unusually busy work schedule for Amber (we swapped Emerson in the middle of the day and I took him home on the bus), and a number of other to-do things that had to get done (the grass still needs mowed!), I now had to begin gathering thoughts on a eulogy. Thursday, I watched Emerson, worked on details for our summer vacation, and discussed details for the funeral with Andrea and her Uncle Rob. Things were finally starting to shape up. Then off to the salon to get my first really short haircut in 3 years.

On Friday night, I finished my draft on my actual message and figured I'd have to make time on the flight to give thought to my opening prayer and benediction. After Emerson went to bed, I went to print off my flight ticket to discover that somehow I managed to book a flight not for the weekend but for March 2011 (@*%#!!!!). Seriously, I'm not sure how that happened, but I immediately called Delta to see if I could get my flight switched. The guy told me I should call Expedia first (since I bought my tix through them), and then explained that if I were to switch my flight to the times I wanted it would cost about $400 more than the $300 I had already shelled out, and if I were to take one flight later it would still cost me $300 more. So, I called Expedia and after being on hold for a very long time, they told me I could get a flight for Saturday morning (not the flight I wanted but good enough) for an extra $129. So, I gave them my credit card number, received my new itinerary from Expedia, and went off to bed.

Saturday morning, I got up at 5:30AM, and I knew something was fishy when I couldn't print off my e-ticket (I had not been given a Delta confirmation code...). I went to the airport with my new Expedia itinerary (for a flight supposed to leave at 7:50), and the lady at the Delta desk tells me I'm not in their system and they only have a record that I inquired into the flight with the Delta guy from last night. Baffled as I was, I show the supervisor my receipt from Expedia, and after 10-15 minutes of going around, the supervisor says, "Well the flight has plenty of seats--but its now delayed for 9:15--but you didn't pay for this ticket." I insist that I gave the man from Expedia my credit card and paid extra to get my flights changed. The Supervisor finally prints off a ticket that has bold letters written on it: TICKET COUPON REQUIRED and attaches what obviously is whatever a ticket coupon is (I assume details regarding my switched flights??) and tells me that I did not pay for this ticket.

Upon arriving in Atlanta around 11:15 (at least the delay gave me good time to work on the funeral details!), I'm greeted with an "urgent" cell phone message from a supervisor at Expedia detailing to me that whatever the guy did for me the night before in transferring my tickets was not allowed since I had already been issued a ticket (which doesn't make sense since I didn't get my ticket until I got to the airport) and that I would have to work out my ticket situation with someone at the Delta counter at the airport. In short, I had no idea if I had a ticket to get home. Of course, I was happy enough that I had made it down there on time!

At this point, my first priority is to be there for the family and then to perform a funeral. When I got to Mark's parents' house, they greeted me with great bear hugs and tears. It is a bittersweet moment to mourn the loss of a friend, yet at the same time, feel so honored that people are so appreciative of your mere presence (It also changes the way you hug your own child after you hug the father of the person you're doing a funeral for). There were also relatives who had flown in from Germany, Holland, and China, and old friends from Illinois, all who welcomed me and treated me as part of the family (and while I was there it was not at all uncommon for table conversation to move seamlessly from English to Dutch to German (amazing!)). It was such a rich and profound moment--we were on holy ground--and it had never been more real to me that my calling right now was to be the body of Jesus to these people simply by being there, offering a sympathetic touch, a kind word, and a mournful tear.

The funeral was just wonderful [more on that in another post as this one is already quite long!], and I was in awe of how many people were there. Aside from family and close friends, dozens of coworkers of Mark attended as well as scores of parents and children who had been in one of Carla's (Mark's mom) elementary school classes. It truly was a diverse mix of people, and yet as various members of Mark's family shared memories and I spoke, an amazing sense of camaraderie and unity of spirit could be sensed. These people had gathered to remember a person they loved and to show their love to a hurting family. Everyone afterward was truly appreciative of what I had said, and I was just thankful to be a part of this special moment, despite how unfortunate it was.

I didn't get around to calling Expedia again until around 6PM (and checked one-way flights on someone's IPhone if it came down to just getting an altogether new itinerary to get home). Still at this point, the Expedia website and their phone tree are reading my itinerary as if my flight tomorrow is a "go." Then, the lady from Expedia proceeds to also read through my itinerary but explains that I must work out my ticket with the Delta counter. Since her explanation still did not tell me whether or not I actually still had a ticket for Sunday morning, I finally said, "So are you telling me that I have a confirmed ticket for tomorrow morning or not." After being on hold for a good while (she obviously needed to confer with her supervisor!), I was given a Delta confirmation of my flight itinerary.

So, by this point, I'm happy that at least I'm in Delta's system which is more than I could say the flight before. Then, I get an email from Delta confirming my flight and they have me on a different flight than what Expedia had told me ten minutes before. I went with Delta's information, printed off all the material from their website that showed I had a flight with them, and headed off to the airport Sunday morning. I can tell you I was more nervous going up to the Delta ticket counter than I was preaching at the funeral! Thankfully, I got my ticket, again with big words: TICKET COUPON REQUIRED. But the lady didn't staple anything onto my ticket. Through security and on to the gate, and let's just see what happens. The guy scanning tickets at the gate asked, me if I had a ticket coupon, and I tell him, "This is all the lady gave me." He shakes his head and types on half a dozen different windows on his computer screen and out comes an identical ticket with no big words typed on it. Finally, home free. And despite the fiasco, at least I got a couple extra packages of Delta's tasty gingerbread cookies from the nice flight hostess!

Communicating With a One Year-Old

We've been absolutely amazed at how much Emerson is really developing an understanding of communication/language over the past couple months. No doubt, for months now he has found ways to tell us what he wants by fussing and staring at an object (when he's hungry or thirsty), reaching out for us (when he wants to be held), squirming (when he wants down), having a trantrum or pushing on us (when he wants our attention or wants to wake us up. If we're at the computer, he'll even turn our swivel chair!), or making one of his many facial expressions (to show he's frustrated, upset, got hurt, etc).

No however, its really clear he understands a lot of the things we are saying and has figured out that the use of words and signs is a real productive way to tell us what he wants too. Over the past few weeks, I can't remember how many times, I've pointed at something and said, "Can you bring ___ to Daddy?" and he does it. One of the blessings of this kind of communication is that he becomes a little helper and (at least a little) less of a deterrent when doing a chore. For instance, he loves it when I sweep the floor, and now he's been assigned to carry the dustpan from room to room and hand it to me when I'm ready. But he still loves to walk right through my pile of dirt too :).

There seem to be so many terms he's grasping that there's no way I could list them all. He clearly knows what shoes are and will sometimes even go pick his up and bring them to you when he knows its time to go. He knows what "outside" means, or at least, he knows it means doing one of the things he absolutely loves to do (and these days, we can rarely get him back in without him screaming bloody murder!). On the other hand, "Night-night" is one of the words he dreads (I can hear him yelling upstairs as I type!). And when I'm pretty sure he just did his business in his diaper, I ask, "Emerson did you stinky?"--typically, when the answer's yes, he'll contort his face and wrinkle his nose (although, this morning he had a "guilty as charged" look and just laughed at me).

As for the sign language he's finally managed to incorporate, he now signs "more," "please" (this is one's quite an accomplishment since before when we'd ask him to say please, he would just get even madder, as if to say, "You know what I want, now just give it to me!! Sometimes, its really cute when he says please, and he signs it with both hands, as if to say, "Yes!!! I'll do anything for a saltine cracker!"), "milk," "ball" (which looks a lot like "more"), "hat," "eat," "finish" (all done), and of all things, "toothbrush" (one of our babysitters got him a book with a number of signs, and somehow this one caught on when others didn't!). He signs toothbrush now every morning when we're in the bathroom, so we finally gave him one of his own (without any paste, of course) and he clearly knows how to use it (and it doubles as a teether!).

With regard to words he now uses, or at least is trying to imitate, he often says "up," which can mean that he wants up onto the bed or couch, wants us to wake up and get out of bed to play, wants out of his highchair, wants picked up, or even that he wants to go downstairs. He learned "hop" from a kids video and even bounces up and down, but it often comes out as "bop." "Banana," which is one of his favorite foods is "ana." "Outside" sounds like "ow eye." "Hobbes" (his stuffed lion) is "opf." "Hat" is "at." From time to time, he even says "irt" (dirt), "og" (dog), and "ock" (rock) when we're outside and pointing out different things we see. Additionally, "mmmm" has become a regular when he takes a bite of something (even before he's had a chance to taste it!) , and he says "ahh" after he's had (refreshing) drink of water (and if you haven't seen this video, go to my facebook page or perhaps i'll have to post it here too). Then, of course, there are the many other "words" he uses when he wants us to do something, but we haven't been able to decipher those yet. And then there's the nonverbal communication, like the habit he's now gotten into, when we're taking a shower and we won't let him in, to throw things into the tub (his toys, my clean boxers, etc) out of protest.

Among other things, Emerson's memory is simply out of this world. If he has been someplace, he remembers whatever it was he liked about it. For instance, a few weeks ago, Amber's parents were in town and Beckie (Amber's mom) took E up and down the escalator while we were at Borders one day. This past Tuesday, I stopped by Borders to look for something, and Emerson darted straight for the escalators and that was all he wanted to do. At church, he knows exactly where the steps to the stage are and darts and heads for them every week. At home, all of a sudden, E will go up the stairs and into a particular room to find something as if he was thinking about the entire process from the very beginning. And he's figured out which cabinet door leads to the cereal boxes and has even managed to open them from time to time.

Every day is a new journey with new surprises and new frustrations as our kid is constantly on the move, which makes it exhausting and hard to get anything done (try planting flowers when your kid is either playing in the dirt, pulling off flower petals in an attempt to imitate you pulling weeds, or picking up garden tools that are likely to impale him and running in the opposite direction!). But no matter how badly we'd like to tie his legs up and duct tape his mouth some days, his cute face, smile, expressions, and many antics always make us laugh. Like my mom said, no matter what it is that kid is doing, you can't deny that he sure is cute!