horrible book

Today I read a horrible little book called Dinner with a Perfect Stranger. Cathy gave it to me to read, and since I had such a choppy day between breakfast with her, lunch with Alisa, picking up Katie early, and the conference at 2:30, I fit in the reading of it during the day. It is a simple little book of about 90 pages, and under no circumstances should anyone read it.

Here is the good part: it is a simple story of allowing the transforming love of Jesus to make a man into a better father, husband, employee, and man. That is significant, and I in no way mean to denigrate that.

However, it is the worst sort of fundamentalist trash. The approach to the other major world religions is dismissive, arrogant, and condescending. It is the height of arrogance to presume to talk about the other world religions from a Christian perspective. What could I possibly tell a Buddhist about Buddhism? Nothing that is not superficial, stereotypical, and frankly insulting. I do not mean to imply that there should not be dialogue between the faiths; quite the opposite. But what I can do is listen to a Buddhist describe his or her experience of the divine and tell him of mine and maybe we can each deepen the other's appreciation for their own experience. That is the way of ecumenism.

Besides, the same sort of questions "Jesus" poses about the other religions could just as easily be applied to Christianity. The author waves his hands at the discrepancies and flat out contradictions in the Bible. He says they are all simply irrelevant to the story, but the same kind of contradictions in other religions are proof of their falsehood. And there are plenty of serious contradictions in the Bible. The entire passion sequence is completely different in John than in the synoptic Gospels (Matt, Mark, and Luke.) What are the last words Jesus spoke on the cross: according to Matthew and Mark, it is, "My God! My God! Why have you abandoned me?" Luke reports, "Into your hands I commend my spirit." John reports simply, "It is finished." Did Jesus suffer - was he abandoned? - as Matthew and Mark report, or was Jesus completely in control from the end of the Last Supper through his death? John's report of the passion not only does not include the exclamation of abandonment, it is contradictory of it. This is not simply irrelevant to the story, as whether Jesus healed one or two blind men beside the Sea of Galilee.

It also reports the worst of atonement Christology. I just don't buy it. I never have, and I never will. Allah is not a God of perfect justice because he must either forgive sins - which would mean eliminating justice in which every sin is punished - or everyone is denied salvation. But the God of Christianity gets around this by paying for each sin himself? Someone needs to explain to me what the difference is between forgiving sins and paying for sins himself. Wouldn't perfect justice in this formulation require not only that every sin be punished, but also that every sin's punishment is meted out to its sinner?

He goes on to talk about the fact that God could alter the laws of the universe so that the Jews could win their wars as reported in the Old Testament. But what does that say of the morality of God? Do we really want to worship a God who allows the sun to stand still - which assumes, by the way, that the earth is the flat center of the universe - so that one people can properly murder and pillage another? Yikes.

So, in sum, do not read this book. Don't do it; it is crap. If you must read this book, please let me know and I will send you this version because the thought of the author or publisher making a single extra dime from this filth really turns my stomach. In short, this is why not all book burnings are bad.

a passage from what Jesus meant

I really, really like this paragraph from the beatitude "Blessed are those who mourn." He had been talking about Christopher Reeve, so the horse doesn't just pop out of nowhere.


"I do not believe it is God's benevolence when we escape suffering any more than it is His malevolence when we don't. God does not spook a horse, inflict one man with AIDS and spare another, is no more responsible for famines in Saharan Africa than for overflowing wheat silos in central Kansas, and did not lead some people into and others out of the World Trade Center on September 11, 2001. Life is arbitrary but God is not. God is not in the business of loading guns, breaking hearts, bankrupting families, dissolving once loving relationships, or destroying homes with a clap of thunder or a rush of rain. No, God does not engineer suffering and loss but rather calls us to redeem it, to die into something.


Amen.

September 29

I had a psychic reading done in May. No, it is not a usual thing for an accountant to do, but what is usual about me as an accountant?

Anyway, at the end of the reading, she predicted that today I would meet the next love of my life. Her name is to be Carly, and she works with kids, and is about 25 or 26 years old, and there will be an immediate connection with her and Katie, and something about bicycles, though Nan didn't know what the bicycles were about.

So who knows? This parent-teacher conference might be more productive than I would have ever dreamed, since I will likely see several women who work with children. I hope Carly is the brunette who helps the crossing guards in the afternoon. She is a hottie.

a poem

A dear friend sent me this poem by George Santaya today, and I don't know that anything has hit the spot quite like this in a long time.


Living you made it goodlier to live,
Dead you will make it easier to die.

II
With you a part of me hath passed away;
For in the peopled forest of my mind
A tree made leafless by this wintry wind
Shall never don again its green array.
Chapel and fireside, country road and bay,
Have something of their friendliness resigned;
Another, if I would, I could not find,
And I am grown much older in a day.
But yet I treasure in my memory
Your gift of charity, your mellow ease,
And the dear honour of your amity;
For these once mine, my life is rich with these.
And I scarce know which part may greater be,--
What I keep of you, or you rob of me.

18 months today

Today it is a year and a half of widowhood. The first year, I knew every month and hated every 28th, but since March, the day had gone largely unnoticed and certainly not commemorated. Heck, for the first six months, I knew how many weeks had passed each Sunday.

So this one is different than the last several months, and it hurts a little more. I don't know why. Ironically, maybe it is partly because I am happily dating someone right now. There is always a sense at some point in a relationship for me when I am just pissed that I am having to be in this dating place again.

I have been watching the first season of Everwood again, and they really do a tremendous job of writing in that show. It is simply amazing stuff, and it was Becky's favorite show, and we so enjoyed it together. Maybe that is also part of me missing her more this month than in prior ones.

But whatever the reasons, it has weighed heavy on me the last couple of days in particular. Certainly during Sunday school. Of course, we were discussing the beatitude, "Blessed are they that mourn, for they will comfort and be comforted." (My translation - the word comfort in Greek and in Latin implies both being comforted and doing the comforting, and our translation leaves out half of the blessing.) It is related to being the only dad at the birthday party Katie went to on Sunday. All of the rest of the dads were home watching football or doing whatever they do, and I got to be out at the party hitting on the moms. But I couldn't help reflecting that if Becky were here, I would have been home watching football while she and Katie went to the party, and that I would be the one missing out.

Thursday is the first parent-teacher conference. Yet another thing I would gladly have let Becky do. I hope it is productive and not just a love-fest for how amazing Katie is. Of course she is amazing; she is her mother's daughter. But I hope I come out with ideas about how to be a better dad and a better assistant to her education. There is certainly room for improvement; isn't there always?

Eighteen months. The last six months have passed more quickly than any individual month of the first twelve. 2004 lasted seventeen years, and 2005 has been back on a more normal pace, whatever that means. I don't know what this pain is today; it is certainly not the gut-wrenching horror of the first weeks and months. Maybe it is just grief the companion now, and a smaller wave just to let me know it is still here with me.

I miss you, sweetie. Differently than before, but as much as always. I love you.

grrrrrrrrrr

Came in 6th in the poker tourney tonight - top five pay. I got off to a good start, and had the chip lead while we were around 18 players or so, but couldn't make much happen after that. I was short-stacked in the end game - me and one other player were close to being eliminated, and she had her big blind folded back to her, so when the blinds came to me I would be the short stack. I got my money in with a pair against two overs, and it hit, and I was out in sixth. I could have waited for just a couple hands, but blinds were 300 and 600 and I was down to just 1400 in chips, with two hands before the blinds. If my trey's stand up, then I am back up to about 3500 thanks to picking up the blinds and the call, and then I can wait out the player who was lower.

Nothing more frustrating than playing for an hour and finishing one spot out of the money. Oh well. Now to bed.

Oh, and this just in, the White Sox suck.

so much for the Chiefs

I think I am about to nominate Willie Roaf for MVP of the NFL. The Chiefs looked absolutely unstoppable in the first two drives against the Jets to open the season, and their offense has been mighty ordinary since. They played enough defense to win a couple of games, but they looked like crap on both sides of the ball tonight. Egads.

But the good news is that it is just one game. They are still in a good spot, tied for first in the division, and while a win would have put a hammerlock on the division early, they have a road divisional win, and they are 2-1 having only been in the friendly confines once. So it is not panicky that they lost - they never win in Denver - but I would have liked a better showing out of the team than that.

math today!

I was back at Randolph today teaching, but it was math today, which was fun. We did least common multiples for the middle schoolers, which was cool. I wish I would be with them for a week, so I could run them through LCM's and greatest common factors and the fundamental theorem of algebra - though they don't call it that yet - and show how all of this stuff relates together.

Then we did some percents to decimals and fractions and that kind of stuff. Some talk of savings accounts and liquidity in math of money, and so while I doubt I was dealing with any future Fields Medallists, it was fun to be doing math again.

And it is 7:10 pm on September 26, and my thermometer is still reading 101 degrees. WTF?!?

a day

It has been a day.

I woke up this morning to the explosion of the mirror on by bathroom floor. It broke into approximately six million pieces. Scared the holy crap out of me, and left me frazzled all day.

Katie had a birthday party with a classmate, and there were about ten or so of her classmates there, and I got to meet lots of the moms. I was the only adult male except for the birthday girl's family. So I got to flirt with all of the moms, though they were married. But now that I am off the market as well, I guess that is good that they were married so I couldn't be leading anyone on.

I am teaching again tomorrow, who knows what. But Katie will ride on the bus to Felicia's house after school, and I will pick her up when I am done. So that will hopefully be exciting for her.

I am tired and heading to bed early tonight. G'nite all.

sorry for not posting

It has been a quiet week around here, hence the lack of posting.

I subbed for eighth grade history today; it was thrilling. We watched a movie so boring I couldn't imagine enjoying it, and I like documentary kinds of things. But spending an hour learning about Mound Builders in the Eastern Woodlands of the United States from 2000 BCE to 1500 CE was just boring. The guy was obviously reading from cue cards - which is understandable, for who would memorize that crap? - and the best parts were when they would compare the accomplishments of the native Americans to the Old World accomplishments at the same time. In the Americas, they were building 70 foot high piles of dirt by hand while Greece was at the height of its democracy. Let's see: a big pile of dirt or the Parthenon, Plato and Aristotle, Pythagorus and Euclid, democracy. Then they would compare the big piles of dirt during the Dark Ages. Last time I checked, even in the dark ages, the Europeans could write and had wheels. I mean, sheesh. And the film was doubly bad because everything was so speculative. Because there is no written record of the time, they really have no clue why they built this big piles of dirt. Could be astronomical - a la Stonehenge - could be religious, could be to have a lookout for coyotes.

Katie met the new girlfriend for the first time tonight. We went to Shanghai - Katie and my favorite Chinese place in town. It went well. Cathy was nervous as all heck - I offered to have sex with her beforehand to calm the nerves, but she declined (sigh) - but it all went well. Katie is such an easy child to get along with. She is so smart and personable and funny and charming. And then we came home, and Katie went over to a friend's house - they invited her over having rented the Muppets Wizard of Oz - and we watched a couple episodes of Everwood's first season.

When, oh when, will the second season be released? That is easily the best show on television. I can't even think of what would be second place. It is just amazing. Please, whoever is in charge of this, get the second season out!

I finally had a good day of poker yesterday after a bad run. Two tournaments, and I won 28 bucks in them. Not bad. Today I played one after Cathy left and got all my money in after the flop with 88 - flop was all below my eights - and was called by KJ (no flush draw either) but a king came on the turn and I was toast. Win the hand, and I am in the top three or so with 15 to play, but as it turns out, I was done dealing. Oh well. I still am about $50 ahead. I am not going to be making a living doing this anytime soon, but it is fun, and hanging out with the boys while playing is awesome.

I have the Colts over the Brownies in the elimination league I am in for football. So far, I have done well with the Steelers in week one and the Eagles in week two. Both games were decided early, which is nice. Hopefully, Manning et al can get the offense out of second gear this week and end it by halftime.

And on a football related note, a Chiefs win would be HUGE this week. It would leave them 3-0, which is cool enough. But no other team in the division would be better than 1-2, and they would have two road division wins in hand. One thing to keep in mind as the AFC West plays out this year, the Chiefs have a brutal opening stretch for the season. They have all three divisional road games before they have any divisional home games. They have the Eagles first and the rest of the NFC East later. So there schedule will be favorable down the stretch, so if they can put a 2 game lead plus huge tiebreaker advantage on the division during this stretch, they will be very well placed. The Chiefs schedule is not horrible. The NFC East has one really good team - Philly - and three decent teams, and the Chiefs get Philly in KC. The AFC East had two playoff reps last season, but the Jets have already been beaten, and New England is coming to KC also. And in the other AFC games, there is a roadie at Houston and a home game with Cincy, which is the way you would draw it up, I think, if you could choose.

A great article at espn.com about Rob Nen. If you are a sports fan, especially a baseball fan, this is a must read. Eric Neel did a fabulous job.

And now I am going to sleep.

What Jesus Meant

An amazing book about the beatitudes. It is the new book for our Sunday school class, and we are doing two beatitudes per week - Matt's version - for four weeks, but the book has been so good I have read the whole thing. Amazing. More about it later.

some comments on the creeds

On the Masai creed, a couple of comments:

The thing I like most about this creed is the paragraph about the life of Jesus. Jesus identifies with the most marginal of people. He was born poor, was a healer and a teacher. Jesus was a Jew, which is something that needs to be stated again and again and again. And this paragraph points out one of the biggest problems for me with the two main creeds, the Apostles Creed and the Nicene Creed. Those two do not talk about the life of Jesus at all. They jump straight from born of the virgin Mary (as if) to persecuted by Pilate, died, and buried.

In my mind, Jesus's death is only important because of his life, and not the other way around. Too often in Christianity, we muck this bit up. I am thinking in particular right now of the Mel Gibson movie, which was grotesque in its depiction of the execution of Jesus. But the movie was utterly lacking in context. Given the social situation of the time, Jesus was probably one of 50 Jews crucified that day, and each execution was just as brutal and terrible as Jesus's. Jesus's death is important, but it is important in the context of his life. He said, "Love your enemies," and he personified that by forgiving the men driving nails into his wrists.

And so I really like the paragraph about the life of Jesus, and his connection to the common man. I also really like the characterization of the world as good. We need to be better stewards of this world - there was a Christian group a couple of years ago that was built around the slogan, What would Jesus drive? - and we should take better care of our resources and of the creatures we share this planet with. And we should do this precisely because we are Christians because we believe in a world in which God created all things GOOD.

The Canadian creed I like very much also. I like that it emphasizes the continued experience of God and Jesus. God is creating; Jesus is transforming lives right here and right now. I like that there is no mention of stumbling blocks. It seems like we could all rally around this standard, whether we believe Mary was a virgin or not, whether Jesus bodily exited the grave or not, etc. Creeds should bring us together, not define heresy. That is the beauty of both the Jewish and Moslem creeds; they are simple statements.

And now I must sleep.

yet another reason to be Canadian

Here is the creed of the United Church of Canada:

We are not alone; we live in God's world.

We believe in God:
who has created and is creating,
who has come in Jesus, the word made flesh,
to reconcile and renew,
who works in us and others by the spirit.

We trust in God.

We are called to be the church:
to celebrate God's presence,
to live with respect in creation,
to love and serve others,
to seek justice and resist evil,
to proclaim Jesus, crucified and risen, our judge and our hope.

In life, in death, in life beyond death,
God is with us.

We are not alone.

Thanks be to God.

Masai Creed

We finished our study of creeds in our Sunday School class today, and it was tremendously interesting. I am going to put in a couple of the thousands of creeds that Christianity has generated over the centuries. This first one is the Masai Creed, developed by missionaries and tribespeople in Africa.

We believe in one High God, who out of love created the beautiful world and everything good in it. He created man (sorry for the sexism) and wanted man to be happy in the world. God loves the world and every nation and tribe on the earth. We have known this High God in the darkness, and now we know Him in the light. God promised in the book of his word, The Bible, that he would save the world and all nations and tribes.

We believe that God made good his promise by sending his son, Jesus Christ, a man of the flesh, a Jew by tribe, born poor in a little village, who left his home and was always on safari doing good, curing people by the power of God, teaching about God and man, showing that the meaning of religion is love. He was rejected by his people, tortured, and nailed hands and feet to a cross, and died. He was buried in the grave, but the hyenas did not touch him, and on the third day, he rose from that grave. He ascended into the skies. He is the Lord.

We believe that all our sins are forgiven through him. All who have faith in him must be sorry for their sins, be baptized in the Holy Spirit of God, live the rules of love, and share the bread together in love, to announce the good news to others until Jesus comes again. We are waiting for him. He is alive. He lives. This we believe. Amen.

great quote

I came across this quote from one of Jimmy Carter's books entitled Living Faith.

"At least I wasn't as certain in my beliefs as Miriam "Ma" Ferguson, who was elected governor of Texas in 1924. There was then, as now, an intense debate about whether Spanish should be used in public schools by children who had recently moved to our country from Mexico. Governor Ferguson, who opposed the use of Spanish, concluded the argument by holding up a Holy Bible and saying, 'If English was good enough for Jesus Christ, it is good enough for Texans!'"

I guess that would conclude the argument. How can there be any response.

sleepover final report

Well, Felicia woke up one more time, about 2 am, and this time I didn't hear her until she had woken up Katie. The solution agreed to by everyone was for them to move to my bed. Which sucked for me, but I am just the dad in this scenario. Katie is a full-contact sleeper, and I always wake up with sore spots I didn't have the night before. This morning it is the left side of my neck, where coincidentally I found her foot this morning. But Felicia woke up without incident and happy as a clam, though perhaps an hour or two earlier than I would have chosen.

So all in all, a fine success in her first sleepover.

sleepover almost a complete success

Well, we had a blast here tonight. Katie and Felicia played so well together. We went to the pool for about an hour, and that wore them out some, and it was a good excuse to get them into pajamas, and then they played some more, and then we read three bedtime stories, and then they went to bed about 9:15, and they played while in bed for another half hour or so, and then they were out.

Sadly, though, I just woke up to whimpering, and poor little Felicia had woken up and was crying in a strange bed. So I held her for a few minutes and she fell straight back asleep. Of course, now I am wide awake, and am trying to resist the urge to play another poker tournament. My string of seven straight cashes has been followed by four straight out of the money, and I am not happy about that. This last one I think I played as well as I play, just got unlucky. That is going to happen. I got left in the big blind with a 53 unsuited, and as it turns out, hit a straight on the turn on the following sequence: 4 6 Q (7) T. The small blind had made a small bet on the flop, which I and one player called. Then I made a larger bet on the turn, and moved in on the river. Somehow the dude played his 89 offsuit all the way through. I wouldn't even call the blind, but he called the blind and a small raise on the flop with nothing at all. I don't think there is any way I can figure this hand out. I am not a fan of calling my size of the pot bet with a draw, but the third player was with us the whole way, having completed the blind with Q4 and having made two pair on the flop, so maybe the pot odds were right. I was decimated and the two pair girl was sent packing. I managed to win a couple of hands to get into 12th place, still the short stack, and picked up pocket sevens, moved in, was called by AT suited, and lost that hand, too. The bottom line is I am chip leader if he doesn't hit his straight, and I am back in the game if my sevens hold up.

But all that being said, it is still four straight out of the money, including both yesterday and both today, my first two losing days in over a week. Ah well. I guess a good time to take a day off, and what with all the stuff on the slate for tomorrow - party for my mom's work, a party celebrating the end of comps for some of my old classmates, and the Notre Dame and FSU football games, I doubt there will be time for poker anyway.

And then it is jazz Sunday at church, and that will be awesome.

sleepover tonight

Katie's kindergarden friend Felicia is coming over for a sleepover tonight. She should get here in a couple of hours, and maybe her friends Elaney and Brianne might come over also, though I doubt they will sleep here tonight. Should be a blast.

Send advil.

not my night for poker

I had a nice string of seven straight tournaments online of getting into the money, and the $100 I invested at Poker Stars was just shy of $200. And then the streak came crashing down something fierce tonight as I bombed out of two tourneys early.

In the first one, I was left in the big blind with the seven-five of clubs, and the flop came A94, all clubs. This is the kind of hand I didn't want to muck about with, but wanted to win it right away. If another club hits, then some clown with the ten of clubs will take this hand down. So I move in with my stack, not a huge one thanks to a tough beat prior. Dude calls me with A6 offsuit. Um, okay. Except that it came runner runner aces to give him quads. Ouch.

Next tourney, I am again left in the big blind, this time with a nine-seven off-suit. Flop comes 754 rainbow, and somehow I am looking at top pair. I bet the size of the pot, figuring that this might take the pot down right away, and if not, it is likely to an overpair or two overcards, and I will be able to figure out which and how to play it down the stretch. One guy calls the bet, and I think that I am likely facing overcards for now. Next card comes a 9, and now I have two pair, and should even have an overpair beat, and so I make another bet about 2/3 the size of the pot, hoping this guy has an overpair still. The river pairs the four on the board, and this card worries me because now an overpair to the board has me beat. So I check but call his smallish bet, and the weasel had 54 suited and made trips on the river. Crappola.

So now I am shortstacked, and pick up K5 suited in the small blind, and I complete the blind when only one person called. Big blind checked, and the flop came KT5, and I have two pair. So I bet the size of the pot and get one caller, a blank comes on the turn, and I move in, and the dude calls, and he had KT and I am drawing dead to a five, which doesn't show.

These tournaments have 45 players, and I was out in 42nd and 39th place respectively. Fortunately, they were the $1.20 tourneys, so I am only out $2.40. I had a feeling before I sat down I wouldn't be lucky tonight, and then I wasn't. Hmmmmmm.

a letter at LCSC

I got this letter from a friend at the lung cancer support site, and I thought I would share some of it - enough hopefully to get the points across but not so much she would be identified by it, and then share my answer.


The deal is this--My Mama died a little under 2 months ago. She'd been married to my Daddy for 28 years. And they were SO in love right to the end.

But now... Dad is already doing the online dating thing, and has gone out on several dates, and is even starting to get a little serious with one lady in particular.

Quite honestly... It throws me for multiple loops. Just as I think I'm starting to be sort of ok with it, I spiral into just not being at all ok with it. I'm doing my best not to let on to Dad that I'm struggling with it so much. I try to be very nonchalant about it altogether. I hope this is the right thing to do. I want to be supportive of whatever he needs right now, but I have to work through a lot of feelings behind the scenes with this particular aspect.

It just feels so wrong to think of him with anybody else... Especially this soon. It feels really soon to me. I know my grief is still fresh. I still wake up some days with at least part of me not remembering that Mom is gone.

I'm not judging my Dad, and I would never want to tell him how to live his life. I just don't understand and it's hard for *ME* to process through. I get that it isn't about ME, but I still have to stumble through the feelings nonetheless...

And that's why I'm hoping you might have some perspective for me. Is this normal? I'm sure... there really is no normal, right? Do I need to be worried about it not being healthy for him? Can you help me understand where his motivations might lie? Loneliness? Missing Mom so much and cherishing what they had so much that he can't wait to get back into something similar? Something to fill the void? Someone to talk to that isn't his daughter? Someone to cuddle with (and possibly cuddle.... etc.)? All of that and more?

I don't know if having more perspective will help the way I feel or not. It might at least help me to cerebrally be logical about things even if emotionally I feel messy about them....


And now my reply:

I certainly have no idea what normal is. I know people say that you shouldn't get involved for a year. But that is a hit or miss proposition. I don't think there is a magic time to get involved or not.

I first knew I wanted to be dating six weeks after Becky died. I wasn't ready to date then, but I knew I wanted to someday. And I think it was and remains a tribute to Becky that I wanted to and now am dating. I loved being married, and I want those things back in my life again.

I started dating about four months after Becky died. In retrospect, it was too soon, though I do not regret it because I met and dated an amazing woman who is now one of my best friends. But in retrospect, I think it was at about ten months that I was actually ready to form a healthy relationship. Not that I did, just that I was ready to.

The day I am thinking of is the day I found out Becky had been awarded her doctorate from FSU. She died a couple of months before she was to have defended it, and it took a while for the rigamarole to get sorted out. And I went down to the church where we were married the next day - I was teaching a class at the university where we met at the time - and I went into the church. And I was talking out loud to Becky for the first time in many months, and I remember a sequence of thoughts. I remember saying, "You cannot hear me the way I need to be heard." And then I thought the next two: you cannot love me the way I need to be loved, and I cannot love you the way I need to love. And I think it was in that moment that I became aware of the transformation our love had undergone. I will love Becky for the rest of my days. But I cannot be in love with her anymore. I must have a physical presence in order to be in love, and so the love I have now is transformed, and it is different, and for me it was being aware of that transformation that was essential.

Now, all of that being said, there are tons of widows and widowers that get into relationships even earlier than I did. I ultimately don't think it is wise, and the reason is that for a couple of years after being widowed, we almost go through a whole new life cycle. We are very childish or at least childlike. In that everything and everyone is supposed to revolve around us and our pain. It is so total, and so consuming, that we cannot even fathom the world existing as it did. I remember driving to Becky's funeral and being angry that Walmart was open. I participated at a bulletin board like this one for young widows, and the one way I can always tell a really new widow is that selfishness. I don't mean that in a blaming way - I was there, too.

After a couple of months, the pain became less total, and parts of my personality began reemerging, and with a force that was very much like a second puberty. My sexuality emerged with even more thunder than when I was thirteen. It was much easier being celibate as a teenager because I didn't know what I was missing. After a decade of a healthy sex life, fifteen months ultimately of abstinence sucked and sucked bad. It caused me a lot of shame that I had to work through - the last several months of Becky's life, we didn't have a sex life, so to speak, and it was cool. And so it really shocked me when that part came up again. (Pun intended, lol)

And so now I guess I have entered a new adulthood, with a greater balance in my life - professionally, spiritually, sexually, and paternally. It is not easy, by any stretch, and there are days, especially a month ago today when Katie started school, that I miss Becky so much I physically ache. But those days are now relatively rare, and I spend most of my time and thoughts of Becky knowing what a blessing she has been and continues to be in my life.

The reason I talk about this process is that it seems to me really unlikely that someone we are compatible with a couple of months out will also be compatible two years out because of how drastic the changes are in our lives. And so I would encourage someone not to get into a serious relationship for several months if not a year or more. But at the same time, the realizations I came to after ten months might not have been possible for me until I had a few dating experiences. Maybe we have to get out there and make mistakes.

So the upshot is that it is normal, to some extent, to want to be in a relationship quickly. One of the things I experienced when Becky died, and this horrifies me still, is relief. She battled so hard; she struggled so much; she hurt so much. And it was a relief to not be fighting anymore, to not watch her in pain anymore. We stopped having sex about six months before she died, and it hurt her to have that happen. And so one of the things that happened is that I had to communicate my love for her in other ways. I had to communicate to her that she was still desirable while at the same time it was okay that we weren't sexually active anymore. And so every time I touched her arm or anything physical, it had to carry so much more meaning. I know that the first time I found myself kissing a woman after she died, it was so refreshing to be kissing and it be just affectionate and playful and fun and not have to carry such weight.

Maybe this is way more perspective than you ever wanted, but it is the first set of thoughts to jump out of my head, and I hope it helps in some way.

In Search of Paul

I just started John Dominic Crossan's new book entitled In Search of Paul, and 30 pages in, I can tell this is going to be good stuff. He weaves history with archaeology and exigesis to have a unique insight into a tremendously interesting character. If you haven't read any of his stuff, perhaps it would be best to start with The Historical Jesus or Jesus: A Revolutionary Biography. But all of his stuff is fabulous.

By the way, my dad pointed out a wonderful article in Newseek magazine. Here is a link:

http://www.msnbc.msn.com/id/9342324/site/newsweek

four weeks!!!

It is only four weeks until the first Spurs preseason game! That must mean training camp opens in like 2-3 weeks. Oh, happy day! With the Royals sucking and my fantasy baseball team out of the play-offs - shut up about that already - I am ready for the baseball play-offs and get them off the stage so that it can be NBA time again.

Actually, the NBA may be the worst professional sports league in existence - especially if you consider it the owner of the cover-your-eyes awful WNBA. But the Spurs. Ah, the Spurs. They do it right, and it is a joy being a Spurs fan. Let's tip it up!!!!

thoughts on stuff

I have been thinking a lot the last few days about God. I guess this is not too atypical. The hurricane has brought some of it on, and a conversation with my friend Caroline, and all sorts of things.

When I lived in Florida, the FSU baseball team was out on the West Coast, as I recall they were playing Stanford, but I could be wrong about the team. On their way to the stadium, the bus driver had a heart attack and died, and somehow one of the assistant coaches managed to get him out of the way, steer the bus safely to the side of the road, and avoid an accident. All of this in the middle of a busy California freeway. The gal who worked in the cubicle next to mine said something like, "I don't know how you could hear that story and not believe in God."

I was driving around today and the old Alabama song, "Roll On" came on the radio. And in the song, the same point is made; the main character drives a truck for a living, and is lost in a snow storm.

Oh, but the man upstairs was listening
When momma asked him to bring daddy home
And when the call came in it was daddy on the other end
Askin' her if she had been singin' the song

Lance Armstrong is everywhere on the news these days, and his story is truly remarkable. He was near death with testicular cancer that had spread to the lungs and brain. You just don't survive that, and yet he not only survived, but rebounded to win one of the most greuling events in sports seven times in a row. The magnitude of this accomplishment is boggles the mind. I do not know if he is a religious man or not, but there are stories of miraculous healings all the time, and people who credit God for their healing.

But I am always drawn to the flip side of the equation, too. If God gets credit for saving the FSU baseball team a few years ago, what happened with the thousands of accidents that took countless lives since? If God has the power to stop them - which would be required for giving credit in the one case - why not others? If Lance Armstrong was healed by God, why not Becky? Why not the countless others who die so prematurely from these diseases?

I don't know the answers to these questions. That is what is so frustrating about the whole deal. But I do know I am not quick to give God credit for the seemingly miraculous things that happen in our lives because I do not want to turn around and be forced to condemn God when the miraculous does not occur.

random thoughts

Is Lincoln Kennedy the largest human being ever? I was flipping around and caught some of the NFL channel, and he is on there with Rich Eisen and Rod Woodson. Woodson was a defensive back in the NFL for something like 33 years, and so while db's are small for the NFL, he is probably bigger than your average human. Lincoln Kennedy is like four times his size. Freaky big. Let me just say that if I ever have to rumble, I want Lincoln with me.

This just in: the White Sox suck. They will win the division and have a decent record and all of that, but they are completely overrated and will be bounced in the first round, be it by Anaheim, Oakland, New York, or Boston. (They can't play Cleveland, though they would bounce them, too.) It's got to suck being the White Sox; they haven't won a world series since 1917, they haven't been to a world series since 1959, and they aren't even the best losers in their city since the Cubbies haven't won since 1908 and haven't been since 1945.

Suck on, White Sox.

picture day a success

Katie wore a navy blue dress with sunflowers on it, and my mom came over to put a ribbon and a braid in her hair, and she of course looked totally adorable.

The other big happening of the day is the class made vegetable soup. Katie had to take two potatoes for her contribution, and they worked all afternoon on it. Mrs. Massey said the soup was delicious, but Katie said the soup was "not really good."

I have an interview on Thursday afternoon to be a substitute at Randolph High School and Middle School. I don't forsee a problem except managing Katie's schedule and mine on days that I am teaching. So wish me luck with that.

picture day tomorrow

One of the big red letter days of the school year is coming tomorrow - that's right. It is picture day. And so my mom is coming over in the morning to help Katie do her hair all pretty. And we have a pretty fall dress picked out, and they even let us choose the background color to hopefully match it.

So I hope that it is cute. I am sure it will be - it is a picture of Katie, after all. If I can figure out how to do it, I will post a link.

Chief's defense overrated?!?

Who would have thought that possible, but so many people are out there talking about how improved the Chiefs defense was today in their 27-7 win over the Jets. The Jets scored with under a minute left, and so anytime you are flirting with a shut-out after being one of the worst four defenses for three years running, you have to be happy with the effort.

But let's be real here. The Jets moved the ball basically at will; they just made huge mistakes. And so many of the mistakes were not caused by the Chiefs. It would be one thing if they kept fumbling the ball because of great tackles and strips by the defenders, but there were at least three of them that were poor exchanges from center to QB. It would be great if the interior push or a charging flanker blocked the field goal attempt, but in reality the kicker slipped and may have hit his own guy.

Now, they did not allow a rushing first down the whole game, and they held Curtis Martin in check, which is a feat. But 352 yards passing combined for Pennington and Fiedler is not so hot, nor is the 27 completions in 44 attempts.

So I am pleased with the win, though I think today's game would have been a nail-biter if the Jets had not made so many dumb mistakes. Of course, maybe the Chiefs would have opened the offense more had they not held a three score lead from the beginning of the second quarter on. But I am not pencilling in many Chiefs for the Pro Bowl just yet.

The end of the innocence

I was out on a date tonight, and one of my favorite songs came on: The End of the Innocence by Don Henley. Here is the piece of the lyric I most relate to right now:


I’m learning to live without you now
But I miss you sometimes
The more I know, the less I understand
All the things I thought I knew, I’m learning again
I’ve been tryin’ to get down
To the heart of the matter
But my will gets weak
And my thoughts seem to scatter


I think he is right, it is about forgiveness. We somehow as widows have to make peace with the world, with our circumstances, with God, with our spouses for all the things that were left undone or unsaid. Death ultimately, I guess, is what impels us to live better; why bother to make amends today, why bother to forgive if we have an infinite number of tomorrows to do so. It is late, and I don't understand much, and tomorrrow I will probably understand less.

Good night.

no karate after all

Katie and I have been getting over being a little sick, and so she was coughing a little bit, so I decided to wait a week on the karate class. The last thing I want to have happen is it be a negative experience for her that ruins her on it potentially forever.

In other news, Katie got a letter from her grandmother Wease detailing all of her and Grandpa Charley's latest travel adventures. It absolutely made her day to get mail and have it be such an interesting letter. We went out to our map puzzle in the Florida room and looked at all of the places she talked about in her letter.

karate tonight

Katie has her first class of karate tonight at 6:15 at Ed White Middle School. The classes are for children 5 and up, and she has shown an interest. I like the idea of focusing on confidence, discipline, and respect. The last two I could surely use more of, the first I seem to have in abundance. We will try it for a month and then decide whether to keep it up.

a bit on tennis

What on earth is the USTA doing in negotiating their TV contracts?????

Maybe it is just here or in the central time zone or whatever, but evidently the USA Network has to cut off their coverage of tennis at 11:30 our time or some such, and then CBS picks up the highlight show later. Except here anyway, we had to wait for another half hour of Letterman and a half hour of Extra if we wanted to watch. In the mean time, there is an amazing match going on between Agassi and Blake. Two Americans, one 35, the other a wild card entry because he broke his freaking neck 15 months ago. James Blake roars to a two set lead, playing the best tennis this side of Roger Federer I have seen in years. Then Agassi, down two sets and a break, gets a new gear, rallies to break back at 3-3 in the third, and put a seed of doubt into Blake. He wins the third and fourth sets, and then as we are just settling down to watch the fifth set, even those of us who thought we would be going to bed hours earlier, they have to interrupt coverage.

I pulled up the point by point coverage on ESPN.com, and now that I know the winner - Agassi 8-6 in the fifth set tiebreaker - now I am not going to watch the dang thing until it is an Instant Classic on ESPN. Because I will not reward the asinine jackass who wrote the contract that meant I couldn't see the end of this when I was absolutely transfixed. Dad gum it, I thought we had this all figured out with the Heidi game between the Jets and the Raiders back in the day. If the coverage had been seamless, and we had just had to change channels and announcers, that would have been okay. But the hour delay is ridiculous.

In the mean time, there have been three great American stories on the men's side of the draw, even with Roddick busting out. Agassi and Blake have been amazing. Agassi is the only player on the singles tour older than me, and he is more than 2.5 years older than me. Blake broke his neck and then lost his father to cancer a couple of months earlier. He is also the man who handled the racial epithet thrown at him by another player a few years ago, and made his way through Harvard. And then you have Agassi's semifinal opponent, who has come basically from nowhere to make a run to the semifinals by winning three straight five setters.

Grrrrr. And I played in an online poker tournament, and was busted out when a guy went all in with a gutshot straight draw when I had trip aces, and then hit it. That just isn't right. I win that hand and I am chip leader by 40% or so with twelve people left, and instead I am on the rail, out $1.20.

a failure the likes we have never known

Like all Americans, I have been trying to do what I can do to help hurricane victims. Pray, donate money, spend time at shelters, whatever. The most important thing to happen now is that everyone who needs help gets it.

For the first time today, I stepped back a little bit from the situation and read some things, and frankly it is startling. I have no love for this president. I voted against him both times, voted against him for governor of Texas way back in the day. But I also haven't hated him the way so many seem to. But maybe that is changing.

What has happened in New Orleans in the last couple of weeks is a horrible tragedy, and that a hurricane hit the city is not the fault of anybody. But our government's response has been so ridiculous. It is simply the greatest failure in the history of the United States. I read Andrew Sullivan pretty regularly, and The New Republic, and the New York Times. And the overwhelming, disgusting feeling I get is that this country is being run by Marie Antoinette. Bush is ignoring the situation, then diverting badly needed help for photo opportunities, then off talking about medicare drug benefits. What?!? I have not seen but a thousandth of a percent of the calamity, and it will be with me the rest of my days. And then we find out that the three top officials in FEMA have no emergency management experience. I am sure they are nice guys and great at the country club. But governing is serious business. And it is time for serious people to take up the business again.

The bottom line for me is that the age of endless campaigning must end. The ideological differences between the right and the left are ultimately trivial. What the last generation has left us with is a cadre of politicians who want to be elected but don't want to govern. Say what you will about Bill Clinton, who was surely a flawed president, but at least he would have had a finger on the emotional pulse of the nation. The current president is so out of touch he does not understand that. He is so out of touch.

This must be a watershed moment in the history of our country. There is no choice; we cannot allow this kind of gross incompetence to stand, and we cannot be distracted by what I am sure will be petty blame throwing from one side of the aisle to the other, because it is not like the Democratic politicians are the model of statesmenship. But this must be the time when we say that the era of country club governance is over.

Katie story

We were out at dinner the other night when "Scarborough Fair" by Simon and Garfunkle came on. Katie started singing along, and the waitress was amazed that she knew the song. "I like Paul Simon!" she said enthusiastically. The waitress was further amazed and asked if she knew who Paul Simon sang with. "Of course," she said, "Miss Piggy."

The Paul Simon episode of the Muppet Show is one of her favorites, and sure enough, Scarborough Fair has Miss Piggy singing the "Parsley, sage, rosemary and thyme" bit.

profound thought

I have been reading Bishop Spong's book as I mentioned below. I came across a very profound thought this evening as I read: "We must never confuse our perception of God with God." No matter what our perception, it is limited by our language, our expression, our perception.

Robert Fulghum along time ago had a similar thought. He said the one phrase he would put on a bumper sticker to remind himself all the time is, "I might be wrong."

There is much wisdom in humility. I wish I had more of both.

missed the first convoy

They had enough drivers for the first convoy to leave about 4:30 this morning. They didn't tell us, and the earliest I could have gone was 7:30 after getting Katie to school. So we missed the first group leaving. But it looks like they may turn around and make another run just as soon as the vans get back, so we might be headed out tomorrow.

It is so sad, and yet as always, the human spirit shines through in such times. So many people with such live hearts and minds. I want to be like them.

sports and tragedy

I do not want to denigrate the role sports can have in easing pain after a tragedy. Not at all. Jack Buck had an amazing career as a broadcaster, but his best moment of all may have been in delivering the address to the Cardinals on the first night baseball returned after 9/11. We come together in sports in a unique way. It is not like a movie where we just watch passively. Since 90% or more of the people at a game are for the home team, a sporting event symbolizes a community pulling together. And it is good to step back and realize that the other team is just us also - yes, even the Lakers - but we get together and yell together and win together or lose together. Whatever sports is, in the hometown it is together. And so sports have a unique place in our society after tragedy.

That being said, I really don't need to hear the interviews of all the athletes about their families living in the South. It sucks for them, but it sucks for all of them. It is not a greater tragedy that Brett Favre's grandmother is stuck in the bayou than it is if Joe Schmoe's grandmother is. And another general truth is that athletes are not experts on anything other than athletics. There are exceptions of course - I surely would not argue that David Robinson, Muhammed Ali, and Arthur Ashe were not brilliant outside of their arenas. But in general, athletes aren't really that interesting talking about athletics. Getting them outside their expertise just makes it worse. Part of Jordan's and Tiger's genius as marketing entities is that they stay out of broader, more societal issues. Granted, there are better things in life to aspire to than being a marketing genius, but if you don't have anything to contribute, why open your mouth?

I watched Steve McNair of the Titans on Sportscenter tonight - not all of it, but a decent chunk anyway - and he was clearly uncomfortable. He had perspective - look, he said, my family is all alive. All of the things can be replaced, and so there are a lot of people a lot worse than we are. And he wanted privacy - does he really need to address his feelings when he couldn't get through to family? His answer was the same as what most any person would say - them telling me it is okay, don't worry, didn't alleviate much of the stress. I still need to see for myself. I will have this tension until I do.

Athletes have used their spotlight to talk in other areas forever, I reckon. The first presidential election I remember was 1980, and even George Brett was out campaigning that year. He picked the right - but losing - candidate, at least. But he didn't come across particularly intelligent in his support. He was a great ballplayer. His political acumen didn't measure up. I forgave him.

Sports will do their part to aid in the healing process without any help from the talking heads. I guess that is my only point. I didn't need to hear everytime I checked out the SC-UCF game that Tulane's football players and coaches have moved to SMU. That is wonderful of SMU, but what is being done for the thousands of students who aren't athletes? The announcers of the games were amazed that teams from the same conference were helping each other, sharing weight rooms. Huh? Do we have to think of each other so consistently as enemies on the playing field that we have this little perspective?

They are really just us. Even the Lakers are not enemies. Can we let that be a symbol for the way we deal with each other globally? We are all brothers and sisters on this little planet. We are all trying to live as meaningful a life as we can, shaped by our traditions and religions and societies. So let's allow sports to be our metaphor again, and take a step back, and see the interconnectedness of the earth and its people. We will still try to shove the ball down your throat, but we will be aware that we are brothers.

off to Baton Rouge

Tomorrow morning my brother and I are going with a convoy to Baton Rouge. Our church has filled up our vans with drinking water and food, and we will take that to Louisiana, and we will return with about 25 people left homeless by the storm.

It is not much, but it is what I can do. My parents will pick Katie up from school and keep her overnight. The pictures of the devastation are just stunning. We had several hurricanes come reasonably close to us in Tallahassee while we were there, but nothing like this.

September Grass

Well, the sun's not so hot in the sky today
And you know I can see summertime slipping on away
A few more geese are gone, a few more leaves turning red
But the grass is as soft as a feather in a featherbed

So I'll be king and you'll be queen
Our kingdom's gonna be this little patch of green

Won't you lie down here right now
In this September grass
Won't you lie down with me now
September grass

Oh the memory is like the sweetest pain
Yeah, I kissed the girl at a football game
I can still smell the sweat and the grass stains
We walked home together. I was never the same.

But that was a long time ago
And where is she now? I don't know

Won't you lie down here right now
In this September grass
Won't you lie down with me now
September grass

Oh, September grass is the sweetest kind
It goes down easy like apple wine
Hope you don't mind if I pour you some
Made that much sweeter by the winter to come

Do you see those ants dancing on a blade of grass?
Do you know what I know? That's you and me, baby
We're so small and the world's so vast
We found each other down in the grass

Won't you lie down with me right here
September grass
Won't you lie down with me now
In this September grass

Lie down
Lie down
Lie down
Lie down
(repeat)

Won't you lie down here right now
In this September grass
Won't you lie down here now
In this September grass

This is maybe my favorite James Taylor song of all time, off of the October Road album, which is definitely my favorite JT album.

Becky and I went to Shreveport to see him in concert when he was touring with that album. It was the most wonderful time of our lives. We were both established in Nacogdoches - she had just finished her first semester at SFA and while I wasn't a gigantic fan of where I was working, I was at least looking forward to a tax season to really show what I could do. The concert was our anniversary gift to each other.

As we drove home we talked about all sorts of stuff. That is was time to potty-train Katie, and help her lose her pacifier. Becky thought she was two months away from finishing her dissertation, and we decided it was time to have another baby.

Of course, it never happened. Less than a month later, our lives were turned upside down by the cancer diagnosis. But for that weekend for sure, and really the two years in particular we spent in Nacogdoches, I was king and she was queen of a little patch of green. We did drink of that apple wine, though we had no idea of the winter that was to come. But my memory of it anyway is all the sweeter for the winter that lay ahead.