Friday, October 4, 2013

Popularity

    There are many things I want my children to be: honest, respectful, honorable, truthful, caring, kind, resourceful, hard-working. One thing I never want my children to be is popular. Certainly I want people to like my kids. I want them to have friends and I want those friendships to be deep and true. But please don't let them be popular.
 
     Popular is a fad and never lasts. To be popular is an endless race to conform to what everyone else is doing today. Tomorrow you must change again. There is no time to focus on who you really are as a person. All your time must be focused on what you look like, or what you are wearing, or just keeping up on the latest trends.

     Popularity is what turns a Disney princess into a drugged-out train-wreck prostituting herself in an attempt to shock the world and win a few more moments in the spotlight. The very nature of popularity forces you to compromise what you believe in. Let's be honest, having core values and principles that you stand by will often put you in very unpopular positions. Being popular is easy.  Being true to who you are is very difficult. It takes a very strong and confident person to hold true to what they believe with the cultural winds shifting from moment to moment.

     It has been said that character is who you are when no one is looking. I want that to be what my children focus on.  Most people don't have a clue what their true character is. How could they? We never take the time to ask ourselves what really make us who we are.  We flood our lives with so much stimulation that we don't have a moment to be quiet and contemplate the important things.  Our life has become a non-stop flood of flashing lights and noise. The quiet makes us uncomfortable. Being alone forces us to look at ourselves, and we don't like to do that.  We need to though. We need to take time to ask ourselves what we really believe. Not just what we think we should believe, but what truly drives the decisions we make every day. A person of character lives their lives the same when they are alone in their bedroom as they do when they are in the public spotlight.

     I want my children to be people of integrity.  The kind of people who are true to themselves and their convictions. I want them to be willing to take a stand for the truth when doing so is decidedly unpopular. Yes, they will be ridiculed.  They will be made fun of and uncomfortable and pressured to conform. But if I raise them right, then hopefully they will realize they are strong enough to handle the pressure. They will understand that trying to please other people is an impossible and pointless goal. A person of integrity stands for God and His principles which never change. At the end of the day they can look at them selves in the mirror without shame.

     Sure the popular people get all the attention and fame.  They can make fortunes selling themselves for public consumption. But popularity does not make you happy or content. If it did, then all those celebrities in their multi-million dollar mansions should be the happiest people in the world.  There would be no tabloids talking about their endless failed relationships and drug rehab stents.

     It is people of integrity and character who change the world.  They are focused on more than just the moment. They are willing to give up instant gratification for something more lasting and real.  They are often lambasted and ridiculed, dismissed as out of touch or crazy. The popular folks don't like them because they have no power over them.  The "In Crowd" is jealous of the fact that they are content with being true to themselves, and so seek to destroy them. But when the noise dies down and when the latest style has changed for the hundredth time, it is always those people with integrity and character who have changed the world and made it better.

     

    

Sunday, August 25, 2013

A Reflection on Summer

     Summertime, I understand, is most people's favorite time of year.  I've never been one much inclined to that belief. I prefer the crisp fall air to the burning heat.  I love the quiet stillness that envelopes the world when winter lays a downy blanket of snow on the ground.  I relish the promise of life in the budding green of spring.  Summer has always struck me as a time to endure the baking of the sun.
     This summer has been an exception for me.  Maybe if I wanted to wax philosophical, I would stop to ponder that now I am solidly in the "summer" of my years, but I don't know that I want to swell on that. Whether or not that plays a part, I have enjoyed this summer.  It has not been excessively hot or dry.  I have spent more time than I usually do with my family.We have had some good times this year to be certain, but I think that something else has been happening to me.
     This has been a summer where I feel like I have become more creative.  I mean this in the literal sense.  It has been a season of making and doing.  I have gotten myself less entrenched in the virtual world that so often sucks me in and more involved in the real.
     It started with the bees.  Beekeeping has been very therapeutic to me. There is something magical about bees. The ritual of lighting the smoker and gathering up my tools, of donning my suit (although I have mostly abandoned that, preferring to work my hives unencumbered), of approaching the hives and watching the girls darting in and out of the hive in there incessant business. I enjoy the electric hum of life rising out of the hive when I lift off the lid. I really enjoy prying out the frames and looking for new eggs and growing larva.  I smile when I see the frames of honey filling up, anticipating its sweetness come harvest time.  And as I watch a hundred thousand bees in their ceaseless toil,  I can't help but wonder if this is not in some way how God views us.
     This summer has also seen my first successful attempt at gardening.  Now, I know I am a far cry short of a master gardener, but for the first time our freezer is stocked with bags of frozen veggies. I bought a pressure cooker and took up canning. As a child I would help my parents and grandparents pick and snap green beans. The work was monotonous, and yet the time I spent with my family was the kind of quality time that seems to be nonexistent today. Unfortunately, I have not had much success convincing my own family of the great benefits of bean snapping.  I however am finding that I really enjoy the time picking and snapping beans.  Sure it's hot and uncomfortable and leaves my middle aged back aching, but looking at a shelf stocked with quart jars full of home canned beans gives me such a sense of accomplishment.  And yes, they really do taste as good as I remember them tasting as a child. Now I know why I never liked the taste of beans from a grocery store can.  There really is no comparison.
     Then there was the kitchen table.  Karlye had been wanting a new one for quite some time. When my friend Mark Scribner built one, I knew that I wanted to do the same.  My grandfather had been a carpenter. I remember longingly looking at his tools as a small boy.  He died far to young, and I never learned from him. (I recently learned that he stubbornly refused to take his coumadin, which most likely contributed to his sudden death.  As a physician that really saddens me.) I feel like God provided a replacement grandfather for me this summer in the form of a 90 year old gentleman named Mel Taylor.  Mel has been a wood worker and teacher for 70 years.  When he moved into an assisted living facility several years ago, he donated his tools, along with his incredible expertise, to a group of men in our church. Every day Mel is at the woodshop, still teaching and still creating.  He seems at least 15 years younger than his true age. When I asked him if he would help me build a table, he not only agreed, he almost seemed passionate about the project.
     Within a day he showed up at my office with patterns cut out of parchment paper taken from the assisted living center's kitchen.  He had 4 designs in mind and wanted Karlye and I to decide which we thought we would like the best.  He went with me to a lumber mill and hand selected the rough cut lumber we would use.  He promised me that on my next day off, he would work with me to plane out the boards and cut the pieces.  Two days later when I showed up to start work, he and his troupe of woodworking disciples had already cut out most of the pieces and started gluing them together.  I watched in awe as his aged but nimble hands (the right one is missing 2 fingers) turned out the legs for the table and benches on the lathe.  My role was to watch and learn, and sand. My oldest son Will came along to help.  Together we sanded for hours. It was great to see Will so enraptured with learning as we saw the table coming together.  Mel even let him turn a wooden pen on the lathe.
    Once the table was done, I took it home and spent the next two weeks sanding more, scraping out the glue marks, and staining the wood. It felt good to be making something with my own hands. I woke up early one Saturday before the rest of the family was stirring and went out to work on the table. I heard a voice and turned around to see Mel carrying a big air compressor and air hose into my garage.  He was getting everything set up to spray the table with polyurethane. He spent the next 30 minutes instructing me on the finer points of using a scraper to make sure I had no imperfections in the stain.  I'm just glad I chose not to sleep in that morning.
     Now that the table is in place in the kitchen and has been broken in, I can't help walking past it without stopping and regarding it with a little bit of pride. I know I did very little of the actual building of it. Without Mel, and Mike Cook, and Larry Anderson, the table would not look anything close to how well it looks, if it even existed. Still though, I had a hand in creating something solid and real. I like to think that someday my grandchildren and great grandchildren will gather for dinner around that table, and in that room through my descendants and that table, I will have left my mark on the world.
     But now the summer is wrapping up and fall is quickly approaching.  School has started up.  I took my little girl to kindergarten this week. She is so small and yet so grown up. It has all happened far to quickly. On the second day of school I was walking her to her class, letting her lead me to show me that she could do it on her own.  She was holding my hand and chattering the whole way down the hall.  Suddenly she stopped and looked at me smiling as she let go of my hand. "You don't have to hold my hand any more" she said.  Those words stopped me dead in my tracks. I was overwhelmed with a twinge of sadness and a gush of pride. I had a glimpse for a moment of the not so distant future and a day when I would have to hand her off to some other man, trusting him to take care of her. It was the first realization for both of us that she is growing in independence. We continued on down the hall separated by just a few inches that now seemed like miles to me. She continued talking away, overjoyed by the thought of "big kid school".  Thirty seconds later she unconsciously reached up and took my hand again and I breathed a sigh of relief.  For now she was still my little girl. Then she saw her classroom and without looking back sprinted off to the adventures that awaited within.

Sunday, June 16, 2013

Fathers Day



     Well, another Fathers Day is drawing to a close and as usual while I appreciate my family telling me they are grateful for me, I also feel a little less than adequate. While I don't believe I am a bad dad, I also feel like I'm not as good a dad as my kids deserve. I seem to always come up short on patience and understanding. I feel like I'm far too often the grouchy middle aged dad so ridiculed and picked apart on endless sitcoms. It's not how I ever wanted my kids to see me, but I wonder if they do. 
     I feel like sometimes I'm losing control over the kids and they constantly challenge what I say and refuse to obey until I lose control over myself. Then I want to kick myself for losing my temper and not responding in love the way a good Christian father should. 
     Then somehow, just when I feel like I've obviously failed at fathering, some complete stranger comes up and tells me what wonderfully well behaved children I have. Or one of the kids tackles me with a big hug. Or something ridiculous happens and the whole family is laughing together. It's then that it hits me that even though I am far from perfect, maybe I'm not a complete failure. 
       One of these days I really want to sit down with my dad and ask him how he felt when he was my age and in the thick of fathering a large unruly family. Did he have the same doubts and insecurities?  I know he wasn't perfect either, but he did a darn good job of being a dad. I wonder why I've never asked him how he survived. I'll make that my Fathers Day resolution this year. I could really use a good father son talk. He's a great resource that I've failed to take advantage of. Despite being a dad, I never really have stopped needing a dad. 
      I've been on vacation with my family for over a week now. While there have been more than a few moments that really tried everyone's patience, we've also had some really great times together. I think I'll end this little blog with some pictures, a sort of highlight reel. I know that in the years to come the negative moments from this trip will be forgotten, but the fun moments are the ones that will last. I guess that's what makes fatherhood so rewarding in the long run. 



Sunday, April 14, 2013

We are beekeepers!

    Well the long expected day finally arrived and we got our bees. My amazing wife overcame her fears and picked them up for me bringing home about 20,000 bees in out minivan. They were all safely tucked away in a couple of screened wooden boxes. Still though, she went above and beyond.
  
   We let them stay in our basement a day until the weather warmed up enough to get them safely tucked away in their hives. Having never done this, I didn't really know how hard it would be.  It turns out it really wasn't all that hard.  We had a nice sunny day if just a little on the cool side.  Karlye invited several of her friends to witness the momentous occasion. I think mainly people came to see if I was going to get myself stung.






After getting everything set up, we had the kids step back and we opened up the box of bees and took out the queen (in her own little box) and then literally dumped in the bees.

    Josiah almost felt brave in his little "astronaut" get-up.

    




     After getting the majority of the bees in, I hung the queen's cage (one in each hive) and then shook as many more bees as possible over the top of her.  When you first put a new queen in a hive, you have to give the bees a few days to get acquainted with her, otherwise they might kill her.  If you leave her in her cage, they can feed her and get used to her but she will be safe until she is accepted.


     Once that was done, we closed everything up and called it a day.  We all had fun ( I think) and no one got stung.  I was quite happy with that.


     If you noticed that the two hives look different, it's because I wanted to run a little experiment.  You can use wood frames or plastic.  I wanted to see if the bees liked one better than the other and so I'm going to have one hive with wood frames.  That hive belongs to "Karlye Bee".  The one with the black plastic frames belongs to "Gracie Bee". (We decided that each of the ladies in this house needed a queen named after them.)

Elijah seemed to enjoy the whole process

     I then gave them a couple of days to get settled in and used to their new queens.  Today me and a couple of the boys headed back out to check on them, see if they had started drawing out any comb, and to let the queens free to start laying eggs.

  
Hives all set up with bees installed

I opened up both hives and was happy to see that after 2 days, the girls had already gotten down to work and had drawn out a small amount of comb about 1/4 of an inch deep.  I got out the queens and then popped out the cork that was holding them in their cages.

Gracie Bee

     I then set the cages down and the little gals just walked on out and slipped down between the frames to begin their reigns. 

Gracie Bee as she leaves her cage and gets ready to start laying lots of eggs.

     And that's about all there is to say at this point about my new adventure. So far so good.  No stings, no problems.  I know they will come, but for now I'm quite content. Karlye is being supportive, although I know she really doesn't care all that much.  The boys are excited for now.  I'd like to think that that will last for the next few years, but I'm not going to hold my breath. At least for now it's something we can do as a family and enjoy.  That alone almost makes it worth the effort.


Sunday, April 7, 2013

The value of a life

    I just wanted to pass this along. Our pastor shared this video today in church. There is not really anything to add. God doesn't make mistakes. There is no life without value. Please watch this


David Ring video. Click here to visit the website.

Tuesday, April 2, 2013

"I don't want to go to Bethlehem"

     Last night while tucking Grace into bed I asked her, "Are you my princess?"
     She replied "Yes daddy".
     So then I asked her, "Will you still be my princess when you're all grown up?"  I thought that was a safe question.  Apparently not.  She immediately burst into tears.
     "I don't want to grow up and be a mommy."
     "It's okay." I told her. "You can stay my little girl as long as you want."
     "No I can't", she replied, "because you and mommy will get old and die and I won't have anyone to take care of me!"  By now she was out right sobbing.
     I was still trying to calm her down.  "I am not going to die until you are a grown up lady with kids of your own, so you don't need to worry about that now."
     "But I don't want to get old because then I will die."
     "Grace", I said,"when we die, we don't have to be afraid, because we get to go be with God and we will be together forever."
     "But I don't want to go to Bethlehem.  I don't think Jesus will let me take my checked blankie."

     While that conversation was cute, it was also one of those difficult ones to have.  How do we talk to out kids about death?  I remember laying in bed as a child thinking about old age and dying and it was scary.  I wish I could say that I didn't still have nights where sleep won't come and I'm having those same questions and fears spinning around me in the darkness.  We all fear death.  We may laugh about it or try and rationalize it out of our mind, but every one of us is going to die.  So how do we help our kids deal with death? 

     Many people don't like to talk about death, because they really don't know what they believe about it.  There are also a lot of people today who have no faith.  They think that after death, we cease to exist.  The end.  Those people would be critical of me telling my little girl that we can  have the promise of spending eternity with God after we die.  They would say that I offer a fairy tale to assuage her fears but that I am really only deceiving her.

     I think I am intelligent enough to have looked at my faith critically.  I would say that I have come to my beliefs, not through a blind faith in an ancient mythology, but through a rational investigation of the issue.  I think the vast majority of people today and throughout history would agree with me, that we are more than just advanced animals.  We have a spiritual side that exists outside of our synaptic responses.  We don't stop existing once we die.  There is more to life than this physical world.

     To hold to a world view that says we are nothing more than the molecules we are made of to me seems a very grim and empty view of life.  First of all, to look at the universe and all the complexity that exists from the sub-atomic level to the 10 trillion cells that make up each of our bodies, to the vast galactic clusters and to state that it all is the result of random chance strikes me as a far larger leap of faith than I am capable of.  It goes against common sense and the laws of nature to see complex order and attribute it to random chance.  Yet many people are so resistant to the thought of God that they would invest their life energy denying the truths that any child can see.  Why?  Because if there is a God, then we are not in charge of our own life.  If there is a God then there is absolute truth; there is absolute right and wrong.  That means we can't just pick and choose what is truth for us.

     If there is no God and nothing exists beyond this physical world then we really are just some accident of random chance.  We are told that the universe is 14 billion years old.  The average person live some 75 years.  If we looked at this proportionally and the universe was 75 years old your entire life span would be over in 12 seconds.  There is an estimated 100 billion people who have been born on this planet.  There ate 100 billion stars in out galaxy and about 100 billion galaxies.  Can you even grasp how insignificant that makes each of our lives.  Why worry about human rights and suffering let alone taking care of the planet.  It's all going to gone and burnt up in a few minutes of galactic time.  It won't matter what we do, we have no impact on the universe.  Our lives,even humanity as a whole is quite literally leaves as much of an imprint on the universe and the footprint of an ant.  That is the only rational way to view the world without God that I can see.  Somehow though, even the most ardent atheist lives his life like there is meaning.  Often they are passionate about making a difference in the world.  To me it defies logic to deny the existence of meaning and then struggle for a reason to find meaning in life.

     So Grace, (Will, Caleb, Josiah, and Elijah) I understand that sometimes it is scary to contemplate death.  I am probably past the halfway point through my life and it has gone by awfully fast.  Sometimes I lay awake at night thinking about death, and I imagine that the older I get, the more real it will become.  One thing I can tell you is that I do believe that there is more to life than the 70-80 years we spend on this earth.  I couldn't sleep at night if I didn't believe that life was meaningless.  I also wouldn't tell you something that I didn't believe, just to make you feel better.

     Some people may make fun of me for my faith.  They will ignore the fact that they have placed just as much faith in essentially nothing.  That's okay.  Everyone is entitled to believe what they want. I have come to believe that God created each one of us with a purpose and to have a relationship with Him.  I believe that we have all turned away from God, but that He loved  us enough to take on human flesh and die in our place in order to reestablish that relationship.  I believe that He overcame death and offers us a chance to join him in a world outside of this one once we die.  I don't have to fear death, because it's not until we die in this physical body that we really experience the life we were designed for.  In the Bible, Paul talked about our bodies being like seeds.  A seed was not really alive until it was buried and "died".  Only then would it truly come alive and grow into the thing it was meant to be.  I do believe that that is what death is like.  I hope that someday you all can say that you too have this confidence.

     But for tonight while these thoughts are more than your innocent little mind can wrap around, Grace, please know that I am hear to protect you now and for the next 40 + years (hopefully).  I mean it when I say you can stay little for as long as you want, because I know you won't want to stay little for very long.  When you are scared of the unknown, I will hold your hand.  And while I can't make any promises, if you still want it when you get to "Bethlehem", I think Jesus will let you keep your check blankie.

Saturday, March 30, 2013

Setting up the Hives

 
     So how do you set up bee hives?  I really don't know.  I've done a little reading on the internet and had a little advice from some people who know a lot more about it than I do.  I've bought the equipment. The boys and I went and picked that up a month or so ago on a nice snowy day.

  It looked a little scarey and overwhelming sitting in the bed of my truck.  But I got it home and set it up temporarily in the basement of my office until I had a more permanent location for it.  Once I had it set up in the basement, it looked pretty cool to me, but then I'm a 42 year old nerdy guy with 5 kids, so "cool" is a pretty relative term.

     Anyway, everything has been here and and waiting for the bees to arrive.  I figured I couldn't keep them in the basement for ever and would have to find a good place to set them up outside, once the snow finally cleared away.  Since the bees are supposed to arrive sometime in the next 7-14 days, I figured I better get to work on it this weekend.  So that's what we did.


   I almost wish the hives could remain clean and new, but of course I would rather they be buzzing and filling up with bees and honey.  If you've never looked into a bee hive, it's basically a wooden box filled with hanging frames.  The bees crawl all over the frames, laying down wax and building up comb,  some of the comb is used for egg laying and raising up baby bees and the rest is used for storage.  Mostly to store that yummy golden honey. One of the things that I've read and been told, is that you need to keep the hives off the ground a little so that other things like ants, mice, and other various critters can't get in and eat up all the honey.  So I wanted to build a stand for the hives.  This is what I came up with.  I pretty much stole the basic concept off of other bee keeper's blogs because I did a Google search to see what other people used.



     It is made from treated lumber.  I used 2x6's to make a 8'x18" top supported by 18 inch legs cut from 4x4's.  The legs are bolted on with lag screws and the rest is held together with decking screws.  I think it should hold up fairly well.  I plan on painting it later after the wood has died out some.  To make it more stable I buried some cinder block to make a level, solid base to set on.




     After it was in the ground and leveled out, then all we had to do was stack up the hive supers and sit back and enjoy the warm weather while we wait for the bees to come in.  That's when the real fun begins.

On the way home, Caleb informed me that he wants to get one of those Squares to attach to the iPhone so he can start taking credit card orders for his honey.  He certainly doesn't lack any confidence.  Hey, if he likes this and can make it profitable, more power to him.  We are going to have to find some way to pay for college.  I'm afraid it's going to take a few more hives for that...

Thursday, March 28, 2013

And the winner is...Us!

    First of all, I want to say thanks to everyone who got on and voted for this blog of mine.  Thanks to your kind persistence I now have the top Fatherhood Blog of 2013 according to About.com Reader's Choice Awards.  Many of you have asked me what that means.  That's about it, a nice title. There is no big monetary prize, no fame or celebrity status.  Just the satisfaction that I was noticed and nominated and that I have lots of good and supportive friends who got our and showed their support.

     What it has done is encourage me to get back to blogging more.  I like writing and sharing what I write, but honestly it takes time and I don't always have a lot of spare time to write.  I have been motivated to get back to the keyboard.  Writing is how I sort through issues that are on my mind.  I write for myself.  It helps me sort out what I'm thinking and lets me look at my thoughts from another perspective.  It also lets me put into words the things I want to tell my kids someday.  They may never ask my advice, but I want them to be able to get some of it in the future when they decide they want a helping of it.

     So thanks to you all for your encouragement to get back to writing, to keeping this blog going.  It is an honor to have so many people take the time to read what I write.  I hope you keep coming back and I hope you find some of the things you find in this blog thought provoking, enjoyable, or entertaining. 

     I have slowed down my writing over the last couple of weeks because I have Family Practice Boards looming over my head.  That's the once every 10 years test that determines if I am a competent doctor.  On April 19th I have to sit through an 8 hour, 370 question test over everything I have ever learned.  I've been preoccupied with studying.  I think my fathering and husband skills are getting a little neglected as well.  I'm pretty grumpy and on edge the majority of the time these days.  All I can say is that I can't hardly wait until this is all over.
 
    Caleb and I are excited that out bees are arriving in the next couple of weeks.  Our beehives are here and ready for their new occupants.  I look forward to posting about our new apiary adventures and I'm sure I will have some metaphysical musings inspired by the bees. I'm sure you all can't wait.

Saturday, March 23, 2013

Indiana Jones Cake

Elijah is obsessed with Indiana Jones. Since he was a baby he has been playing "Badapada" Jones. ("Badapada" is his interpretation of the Indiana Jones theme music.) So what better cake to make him than an Indiana Jones fedora?

Friday, March 15, 2013

March Madness

     For many people March is a time of year for kicking back and watching some basketball, getting outside and enjoying the beginning of spring, or just enjoying the longer days and warmer air.  For me, March is becoming a tradition of it's own.  For my family, March Madness has come to mean that my wife and her mother load all 5 kids in the van and drive for 2 days to visit relatives in San Antonio, leaving me at home alone for a week.  Yes, for one week a year I have the house to myself, without the noise and chaos that usually permeates my life. 

     Today Karlye and Dede and the 5 rug rats left on their annual trek.  Most guys might be planning a night out with their buddies, doing all the guy things that they never get to do.  I have no interest in that.  Tonight, I am going to go home and enjoy the silence.  I am going to take a few hours and decompress.  I  crave alone time, and this week I am going to enjoy every minute of it.

     Of course there is a down side.  I am studying for Boards.  I have 500 pages of study material that I am trying to transform into flash cards that I can then memorize.  I will need to spend the whole week doing that, because I won't get another chance to be able to study like this, completely undistributed.  I know myself too well and it is going to take a lot of will power to resist the temptation to squander this precious study time.  This is the best gift my wife could give me right now.  She loves her vacations and visiting her family and I love time alone and need to get this done, so it's a win-win scenario.

     As much as I am happy to be alone for a few days, I find myself checking my family tracker app on my phone every few minutes to see where Karlye and the kids are.  I see this little trail of blue dots marking their progress along I-35 as they slowly march south.  The farther they get, the more melancholy I get, because as much as I enjoy having them gone, part of me can't stand the fact that they aren't near me.  So even though it's completely quiet here in my office, I can still hear little voices in my imagination.  I hear arguments about who is taking whose iPod, I hear someone saying zip, zip, zip as they count horses they pass while playing our family's favorite road-trip game.* I can see the trash accumulating on the van floor, and hear "I'm hungry" every 30 seconds or so.

     With all this freedom that I have, what do you think am I looking forward to the most tonight?  Facetime with Karlye and the brood.  I just want to hear about the trip, because even though I'm not there, I want to be a part of it in some way since such a big part of my life is there and I am here and feel out of place not sharing the experience.

      So March has started to become important to me the last few years because it lets me get some needed peace and quiet, but mostly because it reminds me how much I need Karlye.  It reminds me that every minute I miss watching my boys and girl grow up is a minute I can never replace.  So I will sit quietly and relax tonight, all the while checking their progress on my phone and praying that God will get them safely to San Antonio and safely back to me.  Oh, and if He could make them come back a little better behaved than I remember, that would be even better. 

So have a great trip my little ones.  Enjoy the time with your family Karlye.  Most of all, hurry back to me so I can wrap my arms around you again and tell you in person how much I love you.


*We call the game Bury Your Horses.  I learned it somewhere back in high school.  I highly recommend it because it can fill up some monotonous travel time through rural areas on a long road trip.  Each person says zip each time they see a horse, only one person gets to count each horse and saying zip for another type of animal, like a cow, takes a point away.  You compete to see who can get the most horses on the trip.  When someone sees a cemetery, they say "Bury Your Horses" and everyone else's horse count goes back to zero.

Wednesday, March 13, 2013

Faith and science: My complicated ideas.






     I am a person who believes in God.  I believe that we were created by Him, in His image.  I also have a career that is founded in science.  For my entire educational life I have been told that the two mix like oil and water.  Since high school I have had educators ridicule me for believing that God created the world.  I have been openly mocked on Facebook for trying to engage in a discussion about an intelligent design to the universe.  We live in a time where science is a religion, the accepted religion of the culture.  Beware, when you question what they believe, they get angry.

     At the same time, I have come to see my Christian faith as far more than a list of guiding principles for getting along in life.  I have seen God work in my life and the lives of people I know.  Today I am more convinced than ever that the Bible is the source of truth.  Consequently, over the last 30  plus years, I've had to come to a place where I can rationally blend my faith and scientific knowledge of how the universe works.  At times my faith has wavered, but when I asked myself hard questions about what I believed, I always came back to one point.  Either this universe is the result of random chance and nothing ultimately has any meaning, or it was created and designed by what must be an unimaginably intelligent Being.  Logic tells me that order doesn't arise out of chaos, especially when the complexity of the order of the universe, at any level you choose to look, is more complex than what we can entirely understand.  I always come back to God and the things I have seen Him do.

     As a father, I am concerned that I see the culture rubbing off too much on my children.  They are constantly bombarded with the message that faith is meaningless.  They are told that science is the only truth.  Even their cartoons are teaching them an evolutionary world view.  I have heard my boys arguing about if dinosaurs lived millions of years ago or not. At the same time, they are constantly being sucked into a virtual reality through games and movies where truth is able to be rewritten and they can exist in a world separated from reality, to the point that the virtual worlds are far more enjoyable than real life.  How am I, as a parent, supposed to deal with this?  How do you teach your children or at least supply them with enough of a foundation that they will be able to weather the storms of an anti-christian world view without losing their faith.  I want my children to know that it is okay to question what they believe, because if God is true and rational, then our thoughts and observations should lead us back to Him.

     Over time I've developed some ideas, that although purely speculative, at least allow me to combine my faith with what I know about science in a logical way.  I've tried to explain my thoughts to others with various degrees of success.  I think many people might think I've become a heretic, while others see me as a religious fanatic. There has to be a proper balance between the two, I may have not struck it completely, but I've come close enough that I can live with it.  I want to at least put down my thoughts in writing in a way that my kids can hopefully understand.  They may not care, they may not agree with me as they get older, but I want them to know what I believe and why I believe it.  In a few short years they will have to decide what they believe as they launch out into the world.  I don't want to leave them totally unprepared.  I can at least give them a starting point to begin forming their own beliefs.

From this point on, read at your own risk.  I am going to try and explain my thoughts on this subject.  I have no idea if it makes any sense to anyone else, but here goes:

     As I look into the whole Creation/Evolution/Intelligent Design discussion, there are a few assumptions that lay the foundation for what I believe.  First of all, the universe exists.  We are here, in reality.  Secondly, there was a beginning to the universe.  Third, the universe is so complex, and so well structured that it is impossible to have come about by random chance.  If there was a designer and creator of the universe several things must be true about Him as well.  He must be rational and unimaginably intelligent.  He must exist outside of and apart from the universe.  Existing before and outside of the universe, he is not limited by space and time (which exist as part of the universe). Since God exists outside of the universe, there is no way science can prove or disprove his existence.  Only if he were to choose to interact with the universe, would we be able to perceive or understand him.

     Starting from those assumptions, I have in my mind a concept of how God, standing outside of this universe (whatever that may be) might create us and how that creation would appear to us.  The most important thing to understanding God, is understanding what it means for him to exist outside of space and time.  I read a book long ago that first got me thinking along these lines.  It is called Flatland: A Romance In Many Dimensions written by Edwin A. Abbott in 1884.  It is a book that describes in easy to understand terms what a 2 dimensional person in a 2 dimensional world experiences when he becomes aware of the 3rd dimension and then allows us to extrapolate what our experience might be if we interacted with higher dimension than the 4 we can perceive.  I read another book later on that was more purely mathematically based called Flatterland that expanded on these concepts.  Most recently I found a book by the Christian astrophysicist, Hugh Ross that attempts to apply these concepts to Biblical concepts such as the Trinity, and Predestination vs Free will, as well as creation.  Granted these are not easy concepts to grasp. 

     Then last month, Karlye signed Will up for a community college sponsored class on video game design.  Last week as I sat through the end of his class and he showed me what he was doing when he made a simple video game, I suddenly had an inspiration.  I think I have found a way to communicate what I have been thinking in a way he could understand.  I want to get it in writing while it's fresh in my mind.  I think it makes sense of a lot of things that we have been arguing about in the back and forth war between religion and science.  It relates to my kids because they can understand virtual worlds and how they are created.  They can see a game from both the perspective of the game designer/programmer and from the character in the game.  They can see that it is possible to have two completely different and yet equally true experiences of the game.  I think that these concepts can give us a better understanding of the universe and it's Creator.

     I like to play video games.  One of my favorite types of games is the MMORPG, or for you non-gamers, a Massively Multiplayer Online Role Playing game.  In these games there is a huge world that is open to freely explore as you interact with millions of other people playing the same game at the same time.  You have series of quests that you can chose to do to advance your character, there are certain events that take place, but just like in real life, there is no set way of going about how or what you want to do.  There are complex rules that control your actions in the game, but there is also a huge amount of freedom that you have as a character in the game.  The enjoyment of the games comes from the ability to immerse yourself in a new world and experience the thousands of things the programmers have created for your enjoyment.

     One thing I never really considered is how a programmer sees the game.  Then I sat in Will's class and saw the fundamentals of video game creation.  Will was programming a simple game.  He first had to create a room, a blank slate on which to build his game.  Next he had to create objects in the game.  Every object had to be assigned certain properties such as movement, rules of what it would do upon interacting with other objects, etc.  There was no specific order in which the objects had to be placed in the room and Will was able to go back and edit objects once they were placed.  The timeline a player in the game experiences means absolutely nothing to the game designer.  Suppose, for example, that in order to complete a quest a character must complete 4 challenges before he unlocks a 5th and final challenge.  As a player, I would never experience the final challenge until I have experienced the 4 preceding events.  A game designer could begin by programming the final event and work backwards ending with the design of the first challenge. As a player, I experience the flow of the game in a linear fashion.  A game designer is outside of the game world and sees the game from a non-linear fashion.  He designs a game knowing what I will experience as a player, while I play the game not knowing what each experience will lead to.   He could simultaneously be building landscapes in the game in multiple areas of the game world while as a player I can only be in one place at any given time.  Also once a piece of code is written, the programmer does not need to rewrite that code every time he wants to use it again.  He simply can copy and paste it into the program whenever he needs it.

     How does this relate to God creating the universe?  Well, here we can let our imaginations run a little.  Of course this is all hypothetical and at best would be a very over-simplified picture of God the creator, but let's think about this a bit.  God first creates the universe out of nothing.  It is a blank space.  He can't just plop down people into empty space, because we wouldn't survive.  First he has to put in place all the elements that sustain life.  Basics such as matter, energy, and time would come first.  To me it is not unreasonable that this sudden explosion of all matter and energy would appear much like what scientists describe as The Big Bang.  In fact, one of the biggest problems for evolutionary theory is the Big Bang, because that implies a definite beginning and a finite amount of time for the infinitely improbable series of random accidents leading to life to occur.  

     As time and space expands, God would be able to populate his new universe with particles, then atoms as conditions "within the game" allow them to be stable.  Later he can add stars, galaxies, and planets all interwoven and held together with gravity.  His creation is gradually being populated with the necessary objects to sustain life.  From God's perspective as the designer, time is just a variable, another coordinate at which an object is placed in the system.  He could just as easily move an object to a different time coordinate as he could from one point in space to another.  He can sit and observe multiple positions in time simultaneously.  He can do this, because unless one is inside the system, controlled by the rules of the system, there is no progression of time.  

     Now imagine with me that you have been playing one of these games for several years and have reached the highest level in the game, you now are playing end game content. Because it took you several years to reach that point in the game, can you say anything about how long it took the game designer to build the game?  No, because he isn't bound by the time constraints of the game.  Or put it this way.  Suppose if you played the game for 10 hours, you could increase your character's level by 1.  If I started out at level 1 and played my character to a level of 100 would take 1000 hours.  So in the game you meet another character that is level 80.  How old is that character?  Well, from an in the game perspective the character would have to be at least 800 hours old.  But suppose the game designer created a level 80 character and placed it in the game.  It would be brand new with the apparent age of 800 hours.   The player in the game would say it was 800 hours old and from his perspective, he would be correct because within the game it takes time to progress through the levels.  The designer would say it had been created instantaneously and he would be correct because he is not controlled by the game rules, he makes them.

     Now think of the universe as a hugely complex video game again.  From our perspective, we have to follow the rules of time.  A certain amount of time has to progress for changes to take place.  We measure the rate of change over time and then can extrapolate back to estimate longer passages of time.  Since there is no way within the physical laws of the universe to alter that rate of change, we assume that if something appears to be a certain age, then it is that age.  Operating outside of the system, God could create an object and place it in the system fully developed at any point in time he likes, making it simultaneously created in an instant (to Him), and old (to us).  He could have created you and placed you in your particular time coordinate before he created Abraham Lincoln.  My point is time is only important to us because we experience it.  God is outside of time and is not in any way constrained by it.  Because of this, I think when people argue about the age of the universe, it is irrelevant.  No matter how old the universe appears to us, God created it from an outside reference point.  If it took Him an instant or a week (although who can say what a week is to God) it would still appear to be billions of years old, because from our perspective inside of time, that is how long it appears to have existed and we cannot tell otherwise.  Even the most ardent supporters of a 6 day creation that I have talked to admit that there is apparent age.  My point is that all age is an appearance that we perceive and God does not.  Some people just can't get past that point. I understand, but can you at least see some validity to my idea?

     More difficult for me to conceptualize is the development of species and the apparent evolution over time of the various species.  Evolutionary theory is the holy scripture for the modern scientist.  You don't question it.  You just accept it on faith.  Because of this, most scientist will stop listening once you mention that there are serious issues with evolutionary theory. For example, while there is significant divergence and genetic changes within a specific species, the process of evolving from one species to another should result in a multiple of intermediaries. We don't see these transitional species now or in the fossil record.  There are large passages of time where we see no evidence of new species developing and then suddenly within a geologic instance a whole multitude of new species appear to have rapidly evolved.  There are issues of the mathematical improbability of something more complex than a simple amino acid developing by change without the perfect conditions in a well designed system, and yet we are supposed to believe that Complex strands of DNA able to carry copies of trillions of genetic codes just happened to come together and develop a way to self replicate.  That complex systems like blood clotting cascades with multiple necessary parts all working together developed all the parts simultaneously.  I find faith in evolution no less demanding than a faith in God.  In fact I think it take far more faith to believe the mathematically impossible happened by itself, than to believe that an intelligent being designed a working system that would be self-sufficient.

     How do I try and rectify a belief that God created all species and then Mankind as more than just a mere animal with the obvious (although incomplete) progression of genetics from lower species to higher species?  I think theistic evolution is a cop-out.  It doesn't address the problems with evolutionary theory and also weakens God's role in the Creation of man.  I believe that Man is unique in all creation, because he is created in the image of God, with the ability to think and create, but mostly because he is inherently moral, though fallen.  He is not just the most evolved in a long line of animals.

     So let's go back to my video game analogy.  Video games are written in computer code, life is written in genetic code.  When a programmer wants to insert a new object in the game, he doesn't start over from scratch and rewrite all the code.  Instead, he inserts tried and tested blocks of code that have been compiled into sub programs (forgive me, I am not knowledgeable of programming jargon).  So object A is representation of a flower.  I can cut and paste the code for this multiple times to produce multiple flowers.  Suppose flower A is a white flower and I want to create a red flower object.  Do I need to rewrite the entire code?  No, I just need to alter the line that determines color and leave the rest of the code intact, to produce a new flower B.  Now suppose I want a flower bush in my game.  I can modify the code to produce multiple flowers connected to a common base.  That is over simplified I know, but I think it conveys the idea I'm getting at.  Once God had designed the first DNA strand, he would not have needed to redesign it, only modify it.  Once he built the first cell, he would not have to recreate the cell, just combine multiple cells to make the first multicellular animal.  As he designed more diversified species gradually increasing their complexity and placed them in the appropriate time and space coordinate of this "game", it would have the appearance of a gradual development from species to species over time but would not require the interim species which don't seem to exist.  This is different from evolution because each species is created individually by God.  He would have to place single celled organisms in time first in order to break down nutrients into a form that would be usable by higher species.  So he placed them in the time continuum a "billion" years ago. He then placed the more advanced species into creation at a point in time where they could survive.  When he finally created Man, He would place him at a point in time where he could survive and thrive. man would share the biology of all life (plants and animals), but he would be more than just another animal, because God gave him a soul.

     Is that how God did it?  I don't have the foggiest idea, but it seems like one plausible explanation. For me, if I can come up with a plausible explanation, then I know God could.  It is not scientifically provable or disprovable, because once again, whatever method God used, he was operating outside of this universe.  Science is only able to function within this universe and is therefore unable to comment on God.  For me at least, this lets me live my life in a way that I can believe in a God who created me without seeing any contradiction to my faith or what is observable in the world through science.  Smarter people than me can no doubt tear this line of reasoning to shreds, but I would rather talk about how faith and science complement each other than to endlessly harp on about how they can't exist together.

     I know that this all seems a little esoteric.  I don't think I'm totally off base though when I talk about multiple dimensions and God operating outside of time.  Modern string theory predicts the existence of at least 10 dimensions in the universe.  We only experience four.  I think that there is so much that we don't understand about this universe and so how can we really grasp what lies beyond it.  I think too that most if not all the apparent contradictions we see between faith and science are based in the fact that we are looking at things from the constraints of the four dimensions we experience.  Could we imagine an eternity beyond them (which Christian doctrine states there is), then we are far less likely to get hung up on the silly arguments that plague us and often make us look ignorant or unable to give a rational explanation for what we believe.

     I hope that this will generate a lot of discussion.  Discussion is good.  Some people will question my faith when they read this, some my grasp of science, and others my sanity.  So what is your input? Let's begin a discussion. 

Monday, March 11, 2013

Elijah's 'Stache'



Reality

     The bad thing about writing about being a dad, especially when you try to write about being a better dad, is that you create a standard that you have to live up to.  I feel like every time I post something, there should be a disclaimer, "The author generally fails to follow his own advice."  There has been more than a few times when I have been asked my wife, "Do you ever read your blog?"  It's a harsh reminder that the most important people to me know the truth about what I am like.  There is no pretending to be someone I am not.  The blog they read is the one I live out in front of them from day to day.

     I'm not a bad dad, I don't think, but I often wonder if I'm a good dad.  I want to be this rational, empathetic, 1950's TV dad that knows just what to say in every difficult situation, who imparts pearls of wisdom with wit and humor, and who never loses his cool.  Unfortunately I think they see me more like a screaming, wild, nut-case who is overwhelmed and out of control.

     Other dad's seem to have a better handle on things.  I look at my brother, a leader in his church, always spending time with his kids.  His wife is always posting on Facebook the wonderful things he does for her and the kids.  That's what I want to be.  That's what I try to be, but I'm always coming up short.

     As my kids are getting older, they seem to be getting more obstinate and defiant.  I expect that comes with the age and will get worse throughout the teen years.  How much of that is my fault though.  How many of their bad behaviors have they learned from me.  How much of it is do to mistakes I've made in my parenting?  How much is due to the fact that I often feel like life is a minivan full of kids hurtling down the highway at full speed with no brakes and it's everything I can do just to keep the wheels on the road.

     Certainly I'm not the only parent that feels this way.  Maybe there are those who have it all figured out.  They have perfected the whole child-rearing thing and have raised up respectful and obedient children who only need the occasional mild correction.  If so, then can they come to our house and help us out?

     It's easy to list things I need to improve upon in my life.  I need to focus more on my spiritual walk and relationship with God.  I look at the list of the fruits of the Spirit in Galatians 5: love, joy, peace, patience, kindness, goodness, faith, gentleness, and self-control.  Many of those are lacking in my life, were I to be honest.  These are vital to being a good parent.  Maybe I need more time with my kids.  Maybe I'm just lazy when it comes to being a dad.

     I'm not trying to beat myself up.  I think that there are a lot of good things Karlye and I have done as parents.  I think we are raising good kids.  I just wish it was easier and there was a guarantee that if we do A, B, and C, everything will go effortlessly.  Unfortunately it doesn't work like that.

     Raising kids is hard work.  A family is a messy thing, and I'm not talking about the house.  I am going to make mistakes.  Sometimes I will do the right thing and it will still blow up in my face.  I don't mind the noise and clutter. I just want to know that I'm doing the best I can to raise the best kids I can.  I want my kids to be able to look back when they are adults and say that their mom and I were a positive influence in their lives.  I want them to be proud of where they came from.

     Fortunately, every day is a fresh start.  I can begin today to make the personal changes in my life that I need to make.  Yesterday's mistakes don't have to be repeated. I can admit my failures and my children can learn from me that God uses imperfect people, if they allow themselves to be used.  Most of all, everyday I am encouraged, because as hard as it gets, as frustrating as it can be, there is no greater experience in the world than being a parent.  I have the best teammate imaginable in my wife.  I have the best kids in the world.  I wouldn't trade one bit of it for anything.

Wednesday, March 6, 2013

My weird kids and their "Harlem Shake" video.

Bedtime for Grace

    I was terrified of having a daughter.  I think I still am to a large extent.  Despite a decade of medical education and another decade of practicing medication, I still have this fear of my little Gracie growing up and going through the whole puberty thing.  She already seems to possess far more attitude and drama than something so little and cute should possess.  Karlye tells me I give in to her way too much and that I let her get away with far more than I do the boys.  I outright deny that.  Okay, maybe I do have a little bit of a soft spot for my only little girl.  After all she is a miniature copy of her momma.

     Gracie is a daddy's girl.  She and I have a really great relationship, usually.  I would deny she has me wrapped around her finger; others may claim otherwise.  I know that I cherish her kisses and hugs.  I love to snuggle with her when we watch TV.  I love her complete trust and innocence.  I also know that she's growing up so fast.

     She has a temper, that's for sure.  Mommy feels the brunt of it more than I ever do.  Those two go at it all the time.  I have to admit it's kind of entertaining to sit back and watch the battle of the wills.  She is far less likely at this stage in her life to defy or talk back to me.  Oh sure, she gives me attitude too, but usually it's more subdued.

     Bedtime though is another issue.  Grace hates going to bed.  She fights it with her whole being.  I know she's exhausted, Karlye knows she's exhausted.  She just doesn't realize it.  She can stay up way after the boys drop to sleep.  She's constantly getting up to ask us questions, use the bathroom, look for her blanket or a toy to sleep with, basically any excuse to avoid lying in bed.  She sneaks her iPod into bed and watches Sponge Bob on Netflix or plays some little dress up game under the covers.  She hides in her closet and plays with her dolls.  It's been a major challenge just to get her to lay down and go to sleep.

     Recently though, I have discovered a unique talent that I have.  If I take the time to lay down beside her in her bed, I can have her to sleep in 5 minutes or less.  It works like this.  I confiscate the iPod.  She flips out and throws a minor hissy fit for about 30 seconds.  I have a Pandora station set up that plays Disney movie songs.  I put that on and place the iPod out of her reach.  I then ask her about her day.  She does calisthenics and throws her body into spasms all over the bed letting me know how "not tired" she is and how it's "not fair" that she has to sleep in a room by herself.  This lasts about a minute or two.  By the time the "Under the Sea" finishes playing, she has mostly calmed down enough to lay still enough for me to start rubbing her back.  She assures me a few more times that she is not tired and that she doesn't want me rubbing her back.  Then after a few more seconds I hear her breathing slow down and I feel the tenseness of her muscles relax.  At that point I know I've won.  By the end of the second song, she's out like a light.  I like to lay there for a few more minutes listening to her soft quiet breathing.  I see only my precious innocent little girl and I want to freeze those moments in time forever.

     I know that I will only be able to pull this off for a very short time. She's growing up too fast.  I wonder how our relationship will develop over the next few years.  Will I still be able to calm her down when she's ten years old and upset?  When she's fifteen?  Will she come to me with her worries and concerns?  Will her daddy become less relevant to her as she gains friends and loses her childhood.  I honestly don't know.  I will do my best though, to stay involved in her life.  I will listen when she has things she wants to talk about.  I will try to protect and comfort her through the difficult and trying times that I know are coming.  Will she appreciate it?  At times probably not.  She will probably fight me and tell me she doesn't want me getting involved much like she does now at bedtime.  The trick will be striking a balance between letting her grow into more freedom and independence, without losing the closeness we have between us.

     I wish I knew more about raising little girls.  Unfortunately I think I'm going to have to figure this one out as I go.  I have a great wife who can help me out.  I know we both will make mistakes, but it sure feels good when we get something right from time to time.