Tonight was a big night at our house. Since Small came into the picture, Large and Medium have been sharing a bedroom, Small has been in a crib in his own room, and we have had a guest room. Until today. Today, in preparation for Extra Small's arrival, Small has moved into the shared bedroom with Medium....


....and Large is getting the guest room!


(Yes we're going to paint over the flowers. And get Large a bigger pajama shirt).

So far the change seems to be going well. We can still hear Small talking in the baby monitor, but Medium seems to be ignoring him so far as he has been instructed. :-)

UPDATE: Success!!

Our Christmas day at a glance...

The kids woke up to find that Santa arrived safely at our house. Our tradition has been for a long time to stay home for Christmas and welcome Santa in our home. We get up in the morning and have our own family Christmas, opening all the gifts from Santa and Mom and Dad. Around lunchish time, my family comes over and we have Christmas dinner and open the presents from the extended family. Here is a summary of the kids favorite gifts and their reactions.

Large: Most of Large's gifts were not specific to something he picked out. So, he had to take them all in, before deciding whether he was going to like them or not. Don't get me wrong, he had a very gracious attitude, but we didn't get the initial, "Whoohoo!" The biggest initial reaction came from an electric pencil sharpener that I was almost embarrassed to be including in his Christmas presents. Since we do home school a couple of days a week, he is in constant need of sharpening pencils. I'm not sure how we made it this long with only a twist-by-hand sharpener, but the length of time may have contributed to the big "Whoohoo!" we got when he opened this present. Poor kid, it should have been in his school supplies, but instead he had to wait for Christmas.

Upon further examination and trying out of his new things, his very favorite is his Nerf blasters that he and his brother received.
(no one was harmed in the making of this picture, because they know the consequences!)

Medium: He loved everything he got, and wanted more. At the end of the day, he was asking what else everyone got him. Not our most proud moment. Geo Trax has been a favorite in this house, as is anything Thomas or train related, but this toy has been greatness for years and years. They continue to come out with new stuff and Medium asks for more of it year after year. It has been a good investment, because it is played with almost daily and we still do not have any broken pieces and our 2 year old can put it together. Now that is a good toy! This year the thing requested was the GeoAir series. It proved to be a worthy addition. All the boys (yes, I do mean all of them, big boys included) were up in the boys room for hours working on building a city around the new GeoAir addition. We are already busting at the seams in our 50 gallon tub and now what are we to do with this addition. Oh well, we will figure it out.

Here is a picture of their creation. This is using not even a 1/3 of our tracks and accessories.

Small: Small was especially fun this year, because he is at the age that he can really respond to how excited he is. He responded to all his gifts with things like, "oh, coool!" and "Awesomme". As soon as any gift was unwrapped he would tell us, "Open Doors!" Translation: Take it out of the packaging and give it to me now! He loves all things Thomas. He did not receive anything that did not involve trains. His favorite for the first half of the day was "mac and macky." Max and Monty are dump trucks on the Island of Sodor with Thomas and his friends. Later in the day Grandma brought him the Giggling Troublesome Trucks that I think won out in the end.


All the gifts were dwarfed in comparison to the gifts that my creative sister-in-law brought over. She did a homemade Christmas and the kids LOVED them. Large's gift is hard to explain, but very near and dear to his heart. It was a special well thought out gift that was just perfect for him. Large has been running a store in the house for a couple of years now. He has been wanting a better display and store front for a while, but couldn't figure it out. His Aunt Alicia sat down with him and figured out something for him and it was more than he even imagined. Especially the handmade business cards that he couldn't believe were uniquely his. Medium got a very cool tepee fort and Small got a Tracks quiet book(displayed in the above photo). She also made us a family picnic blanket that is so pretty that I'm not sure I'll be able to ever set it on the ground outside. Here is a pic of the lovingly designed hand-crafted gifts.

Barry got The Office DVD Board Game, which was a hit. We played that in the evening hours with my family. And I was thrilled to get my much needed Dustbuster. The very powerful 15.8V Shark with attachments designed especially for pet hair. Whoohoo!

We finished the evening with our traditional "Happy Birthday Jesus" cake and sang Happy Birthday to Jesus while Small kept trying to blow out the non-existent candles.

All in all it was a great day full of food, family, and fun. Hope everyone had a Very Merry Christmas!

I once heard a Christmas Eve sermon where the pastor convinced me that Hark! The Herald Angels Sing is not only the greatest Christmas carol ever but pretty much the best song ever! It's both beautiful and theologically correct - and it captures the essence of Christmas and why it's such a time of joy. Here are the lyrics. Merry Christmas!

Hark the herald angels sing
"Glory to the newborn King!
Peace on earth and mercy mild
God and sinners reconciled"
Joyful, all ye nations rise
Join the triumph of the skies
With the angelic host proclaim:
"Christ is born in Bethlehem"
Hark! The herald angels sing
"Glory to the newborn King!"

Christ by highest heav'n adored
Christ the everlasting Lord!
Late in time behold Him come
Offspring of a Virgin's womb
Veiled in flesh the Godhead see
Hail the incarnate Deity
Pleased as man with man to dwell
Jesus, our Emmanuel
Hark! The herald angels sing
"Glory to the newborn King!"

Hail the heav'n-born Prince of Peace!
Hail the Son of Righteousness!
Light and life to all He brings
Ris'n with healing in His wings
Mild He lays His glory by
Born that man no more may die
Born to raise the sons of earth
Born to give them second birth
Hark! The herald angels sing
"Glory to the newborn King!"

We have an unfortunate Christmas "tradition" around our house of at least one of us having some sort of illness right around Christmas. When we're lucky it's merely an upper respiratory thing but strangely we tend to often have a stomach bug go through our house around this time of year. Large had it about a week ago, and when Small woke up this morning we had evidence that it was his turn (if ya know what I mean). But now that he has been up for a couple of hours, he hasn't given us anymore "evidence". So hopefully we're going to stay well this Christmas!

Here he is requesting yet another bowl of Cheerios - all of which he has held down so far.

This past weekend we went to Austin to go to Kim's sister's wedding. We had a great time but I think my favorite 3 minutes were those in the video below...

I read about a month ago on Pastor Mike's blog about an ad campaign being run in Washington, D.C. by the American Humanist Association that asks "Why believe in a god? Just be good for goodness' sake". Mike pointed out that without God then there really is no objective definition of "good" in the first place. This ad campaign came to mind last week when I was traveling for work. I brought along my copy of God in the Dock which is a collection of essays by CS Lewis, and I stumbled across an essay entitled "Man or Rabbit?" which made some points that are very relevant to the ad campaign. In the essay, Lewis answers almost the exact question posed in the ad, but from a different angle. His basic point is that the question itself is strange, because it suggests that the question we should ask when we are deciding what to believe about God is not "Is it true?", but rather, "Is it helpful?" Here are some excerpts:

Can’t you lead a good life without believing in Christianity?” This is the question on which I have been asked to write, and straight away, before I begin trying to answer it, I have a comment to make. The question sounds as if it were asked by a person who said to himself, “I don’t care whether Christianity is in fact true or not. I’m not interested in finding out whether the real universe is more what like the Christians say than what the Materialists say. All I’m interested in is leading a good life. I’m going to choose beliefs not because I think them true but because I find them helpful.” Now frankly, I find it hard to sympathise with this state of mind. One of the things that distinguishes man from the other animals is that he wants to know things, wants to find out what reality is like, simply for the sake of knowing. When that desire is completely quenched in anyone, I think he has become something less than human. As a matter of fact, I don’t believe any of you have really lost that desire. More probably, foolish preachers, by always telling you how much Christianity will help you and how good it is for society, have actually led you to forget that Christianity is not a patent medicine. Christianity claims to give an account of facts—to tell you what the real universe is like. Its account of the universe may be true, or it may not, and once the question is really before you, then your natural inquisitiveness must make you want to know the answer. If Christianity is untrue, then no honest man will want to believe it, however helpful it might be: if it is true, every honest man will want to believe it, even if it gives him no help at all.

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To such a man it might be enough to reply that he is really asking to be allowed to get on with being “good” before he has done his best to discover what good means. But that is not the whole story. We need not inquire whether God will punish him for his cowardice and laziness; they will punish themselves. The man is shirking. He is deliberately trying not to know whether Christianity is true or false, because he foresees endless trouble if it should turn out to be true. He is like the man who deliberately “forgets” to look at the notice board because, if he did, he might find his name down for some unpleasant duty. He is like the man who won’t look at his bank account because he’s afraid of what he might find there. He is like the man who won’t go to the doctor when he first feels a mysterious pain, because he is afraid of what the doctor might tell him.

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But still—for intellectual honour has sunk very low in our age—I hear someone whimpering on with his question, “Will it help me? Will it make me happy? Do you really think I’d be better if I became a Christian?” Well, if you must have it, my answer is “Yes.” But I don’t like giving an answer at all at this stage. Here is a door, behind which, according to some people, the secret of the universe is waiting for you. Either that’s true or it isn’t. And if it isn’t, then what the door really conceals is simply the greatest fraud, the most colossal “sell” on record. Isn’t it obviously the job of every man (that is a man and not a rabbit) to try to find out which, and then to devote his full energies either to serving this tremendous secret or to exposing and destroying this gigantic humbug? Faced with such an issue, can you really remain wholly absorbed in your own blessed “moral development”?
All right, Christianity will do you good—a great deal more good than you ever wanted or expected. And the first bit of good it will do you is to hammer into your head (you won’t enjoy that!) the fact that what you have hitherto called “good”—all that about “leading a decent life” and “being kind”—isn’t quite the magnificent and all-important affair you supposed. It will teach you that in fact you can’t be “good” (not for twenty-four hours) on your own moral efforts. And then it will teach you that even if you were, you still wouldn’t have achieved the purpose for which you were created. Mere morality is not the end of life.

Here is Medium's preschool class singing Feliz Navidad (Medium goes to a Spanish immersion preschool). He's quite the ham - notice who grabs the mic for the big finish!

Right now I'm in Helsinki, Finland for some technical meetings with the company I used to work for. Here are some pictures I took with my cell phone camera.

This is the view outside my hotel window:

Here's a store window decorated for Christmas at the "Stockmann" department store (very similar to Macy's or Dillard's)

A nearby street decorated for Christmas.

This is fantastic!

We are getting to the point that our children are starting to notice their friends' gaming systems and the commercials for them. Other than the Leapster, we do not have a gaming system in the house. The kids are familiar with playing the games on that, but all are very educational, and Large has had it for 3 years and is not into it anymore. Barry and I are not sure we want to introduce one into the house. Right now I am enjoying all the imaginative play they still pounce around the house doing. From experience, I know how addictive they can get. Besides, I'd be just as much worried about the time I spent on it as the kids. :)

The Wii is the new thing. We went to a friends house recently that had a Wii for the "Big Kids" (adults), and all the adults played. Large was very interested after that. He later saw commercials and saw his friends playing on one of their own. So when the subject of Christmas lists came up, Large was perusing through a toy magazine and saw the Wii. He said, "hmmm, this looks interesting to me." Then he was trying to make out the price. "2-49". I said, "it is $250." His eyes got really big and he said, "No! I don't want anyone to spend that much money on me!"

He is so sweet and responsible. Barry and I won't be spending that much on each other, nor am I sure I want one in the house, but man, that response makes me want to get it for him all the more. Love that kid!

tvguide.com has a list of all of the classic Christmas movies that will be on this season. My favorites are:

Charlie Brown Christmas
It's a Wonderful Life
The Family Man
A Christmas Story

What are your favorites?

Our Disney Trip in brief:

Day 1: We arrived in Orlando and after getting checked in spent the evening at the Magic Kingdom - basically just in time to see the parade and fireworks

Day 2: We spent the day at Magic Kingdom. The lines were very short this day so we got to do a lot of the good rides several times. The kids' favorite was the Space Ranger spin (pictured below).


We had dinner that night at the "Hoop De Doo Revue" which was a lot of fun for all of us.

Day 3: We spent the 3rd day at Epcot. The kids enjoyed getting autographs from and picures with Mickey, Minnie, Donald, Pluto, Goofy, Chip, and Dale. Actually Small was pretty freaked out by them.



We also got to see the aquarium and got to see a diver do a demonstration in the tank.



Day 4: The next day we went to Hollywood Studios. There was less here that the kids were interested in so we kept the day pretty short. We did get to see some good 3-D shows and stuff like that. That evening we went to Downtown Disney for dinner and looked around at some of the shops.

Day 5: Another Magic Kingdom day. By now the crowds had picked up for the holiday week so we weren't able to breeze through stuff as easily as before. But we checked out Tom Sawyer Island, and also Large braved Space Mountain which made his dad pretty proud!

Day 6: This was our Animal Kingdom day. Far and away the highlight of this day was the safari tour. We got to see some animals very close up!






We also got to see a good Lion King show.

Day 7: This was a second day at Epcot. We met my Uncle, Aunt, and Cousin who live in the Orlando area and spent the day going through the World Showcase with them.



Later, Large, Medium, and I went on the Test Track and Mission: Space rides which were a lot of fun.

Day 8: This was our final day and we used it to spend one more day in the Magic Kingdom and mostly redo the rides that the kids wanted to do again. We got to do the Space Ranger spin another two times, and the Astro Orbiter which they liked. We had lunch at the Crystal Palace restaurant where the kids were able to get autographs from their favorite Disney characters:




We also did the obligatory "It's a Small World" ride.


Here are a few pictures of the park decorated for Christmas.





Now that we're back home, 2 of our 3 kids have the usual fall sickness that we always get around here. But they timed it perfectly because we were not slowed down by sickness while at Disney World.

PS: Whew! I have officially achieved my NaBloPoMo commitment - my next blog post will probably not be for a very long time :-)

I went to the last SMU Mustangs football game of the season today. We lost. Again. Our record for the season was 1-11 (0-8 in conference). That makes about 20 years of pathetic football. I hope June turns things around soon.

We made it back home from Disney yesterday. We had a great time! I'll write more about the trip later. The picture below is of everybody giving the trip 2 thumbs up (except for Medium who gave the trip "ten thumbs up") as we were leaving for the last time.

Happy Thanksgiving everybody! Have a great time with your families, eat too much turkey, fall into a tryptophan-induced sleep while watching the Cowboys, and all that. And remember to give thanks to the One from whom the blessings we enjoy ultimately comes.

My family and I are on a plane today headed home from Disney World (unless something went horribly wrong). This will be the last of the prescheduled posts - tomorrow we're live!

Below is President Lincoln's proclamation which set the precedent for our annual Thanksgiving holiday in 1863.

The year that is drawing toward its close has been filled with the blessings of fruitful years and healthful skies. To these bounties, which are so constantly enjoyed that we are prone to forget the Source from which they come, others have been added which are of so extraordinary a nature that they can not fail to penetrate and soften even the heart which is habitually insensible to the ever-watchful providence of Almighty God.

In the midst of a civil war of unequaled magnitude and severity, which has sometimes seemed to foreign states to invite and to provoke their aggression, peace has been preserved with all nations, order has been maintained, the laws have been respected and obeyed, and harmony has prevailed everywhere, except in the theater of military conflict, while that theater has been greatly contracted by the advancing armies and navies of the Union.

Needful diversions of wealth and of strength from the field of peaceful industry to the national defense have not arrested the plow, the shuttle, or the ship; the ax has enlarged the borders of our settlements, and the mines, as well of iron and coal as of the precious metals, have yielded even more abundantly than theretofore. Population has steadily increased notwithstanding the waste that has been made in the camp, the siege, and the battlefield, and the country, rejoicing in the consciousness of augmented strength and vigor, is permitted to expect continuance of years with large increase of freedom.

No human counsel hath devised nor hath any mortal hand worked out these great things. They are the gracious gifts of the Most High God, who, while dealing with us in anger for our sins, hath nevertheless remembered mercy.

It has seemed to me fit and proper that they should be solemnly, reverently, and gratefully acknowledged, as with one heart and one voice, by the whole American people. I do therefore invite my fellow-citizens in every part of the United States, and also those who are at sea and those who are sojourning in foreign lands, to set apart and observe the last Thursday of November next as a day of thanksgiving and praise to our beneficent Father who dwelleth in the heavens. And I recommend to them that while offering up the ascriptions justly due to Him for such singular deliverances and blessings they do also, with humble penitence for our national perverseness and disobedience, commend to His tender care all those who have become widows, orphans, mourners, or sufferers in the lamentable civil strife in which we are unavoidably engaged, and fervently implore the interposition of the Almighty Hand to heal the wounds of the nation and to restore it, as soon as may be consistent with the Divine purposes, to the full enjoyment of peace, harmony, tranquility, and union.

In testimony wherof I have herunto set my hand and caused the seal of the United States to be affixed.

[Signed]
A. Lincoln

I think setting aside a major holiday for the sole purpose of thanking God for our blessings is one of our very best traditions in this country. I love everything about it. I love getting up early to put a turkey in the oven, spending the whole day cooking, gathering with the family for dinner, watching the Dallas Cowboys. All of it. I'm so thankful for all of the blessings in my life, especially for my wife Kim, and for our 3.5 boys. We have much to be thankful for!

Traveling for Thanksgiving has become a tradition for us. Last year we went on a really great trip to Chicago to visit Kim's brother and sister-in-law. We were expecting to have a traditional family Thanksgiving at Kim's brother's house, but as we were driving there her brother called us and asked if we would be interested in staying in a hotel downtown and going to the Thanksgiving Day parade in Chicago. We did and it was a blast! Here are some pictures from that trip.


A few shots from during the parade:





In the lobby of the hotel

I plan on starting the new tradition of reading Charles Dickens's A Christmas Carol during the Christmas season to my kids this year. I have actually never read the novella myself, but of course we all know the story. Last year I took Large and Medium to the play that a local theater put on and they really enjoyed it (though they didn't like the first ghost). I also enjoyed reading this pastor's blog series about the book a couple of years ago and decided then that I would start this tradition when the kids were old enough. Since Large has tackled most of the Chronicles of Narnia series I'm pretty sure he's ready. I'm excited about this tradition. Read Mark D. Roberts's blog series about the book - it's really interesting!

I have been really furious to hear about what is going on in California regarding the Proposition 8 vote. Scott Eckern, former artistic director of the California Musical Theater, was pressured to resign because of boycotts that had been called for on the theater, because Mr. Eckern had the audacity to give $1,000 to the Yes on Prop 8 campaign. Marjorie Christofferson, manager of El Coyote restaurant, has come under fire for the cruel act of giving $100 to the effort to maintain the definition of marriage as it has existed from time immemorial until just now. Several websites like this one have gone up listing the name and employers of people who gave money to the Yes on Prop 8 campaign. Note that these people gave personally to the campaign, and websites like this one have been started by people who got the list of donors and dug up information about where they work and put it out on the internet, with the purpose of boycotting the businesses that are run by these people. Interestingly, and hypocritically, the owners of the websites are anonymous.

This is absolutely unacceptable and it's not the way things are done in this country. When people have a disagreement politically, they argue their values and ideas vigorously, and then when the people have spoken, the loser concedes that his side has lost in the marketplace of ideas, accepts the result, and goes on with life. Men of good will can disagree on the merits of Proposition 8, but I don't believe men of good will can disagree about the unacceptability of the tactics being used by some in the No on Prop 8 camp. I can totally empathize with those on the No on Prop 8 side, but apparently some on the No on Prop 8 side cannot empathize with people like me who wish to preserve the definition of marriage. They're like little children throwing a tantrum because they lost the game.

One thing kids like is to be tricked. For instance, I was going to take my little nephew to Disney Land, but instead I drove him to an old burned-out warehouse. "Oh, no," I said, "DisneyLand burned down." He cried and cried, but I think that deep down he thought it was a pretty good joke. I started to drive over to the real Disney Land, but it was getting pretty late.

So the other day I'm at work and I get an email that says to go to this website to see some videos thanking us engineers "For making our lives safer, more productive, and fun". I wondered if it was a trap as watching streaming video is clearly against our company's acceptable internet usage policy, as made clear at orientation on my first day. However I went ahead and took the risk - so far no pink slip. Since the videos fall into the category of the unintentionally funny, I thought I'd share. Enjoy. And, you're welcome! :-)

So I figured out how to stay in this NaBloPo thing, even while on vacation where in all likelihood I will not have internet access (that I'm willing to pay for). Kim told me that this blogger site has a schedule feature where you can write blog entries in advance and schedule them to post at a later date. So, if you're reading this, then it must have worked, so if I was able to post something for every day I am gone on vacation then I will have stayed in!

So this morning we're off to the airport(s) (we're not all leaving from the same airport for reasons I explained before (we're cheap)). If we're somehow able to get access from the park then we'll throw in some live posts along with these pre-scheduled ones.

We're currently in the throes of packing for our early morning trip tomorrow so I'll keep this short. A Quiverful will be running at low power for the next several days but will be back live on November 28th.

Pictured below is my freakishly organized wife with the binder of Disney-related documentation (schedules, confirmation numbers, etc etc) complete with a homemade Mickey Mouse cover, in the midst of our living room floor which is littered with suitcases and a bunch of stuff that is supposed to go into the suitcases. Hoping not to make it a late night because it's going to be an early morning!

These days real life is sometimes more absurd than The Onion.

Case in point: http://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/worldnews/middleeast/saudiarabia/2963744/Mickey-Mouse-must-die-says-Saudi-Arabian-cleric.html

I'm not sure if The Onion will manage to stay in business if this continues. Seriously, a fatwa against Mickey Mouse? And if you're going to make a fatwa against a child's cartoon character, isn't Barney the place to start?

This is the pickup line that Large used in this vintage video that we got of him about 2.5 years ago calling a female friend of his on the phone, back when Large wasn't so Large, Medium was roughly Small's current age, and Kim was still pregnant with Small. At the time I hadn't yet taught Large my pickup lines (You must be tired because you've been running through my mind all night!). Hopefully he'll be a little smoother next time he calls a girl. Enjoy!

BLOG ENTRY!!

Remember this commercial?

I can't think of anything to write today, so here's something funny!

One week from today the family and I are going to be taking our "summer vacation" to Disney World! We can't wait. It has been well over a year since I have taken any length of time off, and I have had a fairly hectic several months with tight deadlines, angry customers, and lots more travel than I'm used to lately, so it's coming at a much needed time. Kim has been doing her extensive research that she is famous for and has found us some incredible deals. Seriously I think somebody should hire her to do this stuff! If anybody has plans to go to Disney World you should definitely pick her brain when we get back.

I thought you might get a kick out of our extreme cheapness as exhibited in our convoluted travel plan for WDW. We have a Visa card that earns Southwest Airlines points, and we have earned enough points for 4 round trip tickets. I also have American Airlines miles enough for 1 round trip but not 2 (I do now but I didn't when we made these reservations). We considered having one person fly on American and the other 4 fly on Southwest, but that would mean that one parent would have ALL of the kids. So we considered buying just one ticket on Southwest. Until we saw the price of that one ticket. Then we considered having one of us fly on American and pay for one more ticket on American so that we would only be paying for one ticket on American, which would allow us to balance the parent/child ratio. Until we saw the price. Then we realized that when Southwest Airlines gives free round trip tickets, the way their pricing works it's really 2 one-way tickets, so 4 round trips is 8 one-way tickets. So here's what we finally ended up doing: On the way there Kim, Large, and Small will use 3 one way tickets on Southwest, while Medium and I fly on two one-way tickets on AirTran (which our friend Greg who works for Expedia helped us to get a good deal on - making them much cheaper than the other options we considered). We'll meet up at the airport and will proceed to the Happiest Place on Earth from there as one reunited, happy family. Then for the flight home, we will use the 5 remaining one way tickets on Southwest, which means that we'll actually be on the same plane! I know, I know, we're really ridiculously cheap.

One bit of bad news though - we have found out that WiFi is $10 per day there!...so I'm not sure we're going to be able to keep up with this NaBloMo thing while we're there. I had been assuming that there would be some access to free broadband internet in the park, but not so according to what we read today. Our only hope is that this iPassConnect thing that I have through work will let us get online while we're there - otherwise I think I'll have to drop out of this challenge, just as the guy who challenged me in the first place did :-) I'm definitely not paying the $10 - or if I do I definitely will only do it a time or two.

PS: To any bad guys who may be reading this and planning on robbing us blind, we have a ferocious dog and nosy neighbors. And we're going to have the whole house booby trapped with a bunch of those laser things that only Jack Bauer can get past. So don't even think about it!

I took a half day off of work today to go to the Dallas Museum of Art to see the King Tut exhibit with Kim, the boys, and Large's 1st grade class. Large is studying Ancient Egypt at school, and since this exhibit is in town Kim arranged a field trip for Large's class. It was very interesting but was disappointed that the King Tut exhibit was missing one seemingly important thing: King Tut. Apparently that part of the exhibit stays in London.

Large is playing it cool and Medium is playing clueless in the picture below.

So far, so good on the NaBloPoMo challenge. It's hard to think of something to write every day for somebody like me who doesn't have a lot going on upstairs. It will be easier to think of something to write every day later this month because we're going on a vacation to Disney World, but for now I need a strategy. As you may have noticed my strategy lately has been to steal stuff from people who do have a lot going on upstairs. One such person is John McWhorter of the Manhattan Institute. You can listen to him on my favorite radio show, The Dennis Prager Show below. If what he says is true, and if Barack Obama basically governs from the center, as he seems to be indicating that he will (the Rahm Emanuel appointment notwithstanding) then this presidency could be a good thing for this country. I have adopted a "shake the etch-a-sketch and wait and see" approach rather than the "we're all doomed!!" approach. I hope John is right!





PS: As you can tell I'm having fun with this audio player widget that I figured out how to use

If someone were to ask me "What's the dealio with Jesus" I would say two things:

1) Don't use "dealio" - that's mine.
2) Listen to the following (or download it here). This is Tim Keller of Redeemer Presbyterian in New York City.

I really like this website called “Stuff Christians Like”. I don’t understand how that guy can be so funny day after day. Anyway the other day he had an entry where he said that Christians like to pretend to like C.S. Lewis. I know what he means - I definitely have more C.S. Lewis sitting impressively on my bookshelf than I'll actually ever read, because some of it is a little too cerebral for me. But I really do like a lot of it - including Mere Christianity (which is his masterpiece and is actually quite readable), Screwtape Letters, The Four Loves, Chronicles of Narnia, and the essays in God in the Dock and The Weight of Glory. I tend to like the shorter stuff better, and the following is the shortest C.S. Lewis essay I know of - but it packs a lot of wisdom in a short space. It's a somewhat obscure essay of his called "Three Kinds of Men" which is in one of his lesser known collections of essays called "Present Concerns. Here it is in its entirety - hope you enjoy:

Three Kinds of Men by CS Lewis

There are three kinds of people in the world. The first class is of those who live simply for their own sake and pleasure, regarding Man and Nature as so much raw material to be cut up into whatever shape may serve them. In the second class are those who acknowledge some other claim upon them – the will of God, the categorical imperative, or the good of society – and honestly try to pursue their own interests no further than this claim will allow. They try to surrender to the higher claim as much as it demands, like men paying a tax, but hope, like other taxpayers, that what is left over will be enough for them to live on. Their life is divided, like a soldier's or a schoolboy’s life, into time “on parade” and “off parade”, “in school” and “out of school”. But the third class is of those who can say like St Paul that for them “to live is Christ”. These people have got rid of the tiresome business of adjusting the rival claims of Self and God by the simple expedient of rejecting the claims of Self altogether. The old egoistic will has been turned round, reconditioned, and made into a new thing. The will of Christ no longer limits theirs; it is theirs. All their time, in belonging to Him, belongs also to them, for they are His.

And because there are three classes, any merely twofold division of the world into good and bad is disastrous. It overlooks the fact that the members of the second class (to which most of us belong) are always and necessarily unhappy. The tax which moral conscience levies on our desires does not in fact leave us enough to live on. As long as we are in this class we must either feel guilt because we have not paid the tax or penury because we have. The Christian doctrine that there is no “salvation” by works done to the moral law is a fact of daily experience. Back or on we must go. But there is no going on simply by our own efforts. If the new Self, the new Will, does not come at His own good pleasure to be born in us, we cannot produce Him synthetically.

The price of Christ is something, in a way, much easier than moral effort – it is to want Him. It is true that the wanting itself would be beyond our power but for one fact. The world is so built that, to help us desert our own satisfactions, they desert us. War and trouble and finally old age take from us one by one all those things that the natural Self hoped for at its setting out. Begging is our only wisdom, and want in the end makes it easier for us to be beggars. Even on those terms the Mercy will receive us.

Well the election is over, and it didn’t go the way I hoped. That’s ok – you win some and you lose some, and I had won the last couple so I was due I suppose. The world doesn't revolve around me, the people have spoken, and all that. Anyway I thought I would jot down a couple of thoughts about this election, which might be interesting to read in four years to see if my fears came true or if I was more worried than I needed to be.

Fears:

• Most importantly I fear that the pro-life movement has basically lost the battle for at least my lifetime. I predict that the aging liberal members of the Supreme Court will see this as a good time to retire. Barack Obama will appoint young activist judges in their place, which will easily be confirmed by a Democratic Senate. Therefore Roe v. Wade basically stands for my lifetime.

• I fear that raising taxes during a time of recession will bring about a depression. I fear the fact that Pelosi, Reid, and Obama, none of whom I have a lot of confidence in, are the three leaders of our country now in a time of economic downturn

• I fear that Iran will attack Israel to “test the mettle of this guy” as Joe Biden put it. And that he won’t pass the test and will instead enact a naïve foreign policy whereby he “talks to our enemies” giving them more credibility than they deserve

• I fear that we’ll pull out of Iraq too quickly, even after the surge has the effort succeeding.

• I fear that talk radio, the only source of conservative thought in American life today, will take a hit because the “fairness doctrine” will be reenacted. George Will (not exactly among the more fevered on the right) has predicted this:

http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/article/2008/09/17/AR2008091702975.html

Unless McCain is president, the government will reinstate the equally misnamed "fairness doctrine." Until Ronald Reagan eliminated it in 1987, that regulation discouraged freewheeling political programming by the threat of litigation over inherently vague standards of "fairness" in presenting "balanced" political views. In 1980 there were fewer than 100 radio talk shows nationwide. Today there are more than 1,400 stations entirely devoted to talk formats. Liberals, not satisfied with their domination of academia, Hollywood and most of the mainstream media, want to kill talk radio, where liberals have been unable to dent conservatives' dominance.

I'm not a nut - I believe these are legitimate fears. I'm not going to be consumed by them, but I do have them. However....

Hopes:

• I hope all of my many friends who thought that an Obama presidency will be an inspiration were exactly right.
  

• I hope that having an African-American president will put an end to some of the racial tension that still exists in this country.

• I hope that Barack Obama has a successful presidency. I have heard some people say that just as Carter brought about Reagan, Obama will bring about the next Reagan. That thought has crossed my mind too, but in order to hope that I would have to hope for bad things for my country for the next 4 years. I can’t do that, because I love my country. I’m rooting for Barack Obama all the way. He’s my president now – or at least he will be in January. I’ll pray for him daily and hope that he does well.

• I hope that if a chunk of my fears come true, we do indeed have a new Reagan on the scene in 4 years.

Thoughts/Notes:

• Bush will probably go down in history as a better president than he is perceived as today. The economy was robust during 7 of his 8 years. History will show that the Fannie/Freddie crash was not really his doing, even though it's typical to blame the current administration for such things. The war, though tedious, did depose the Taliban and Saddam Hussein. Both are things that needed to happen, even though war is awful and messy.
  
• I think Bush's inability or unwillingness to answer his critics may be the biggest reason Obama won. The "Bush Lied, People Died" sentiment was itself a lie. The intelligence gathered by intel agencies all over the world agreed that Saddam had WMDs. But Bush never really answered his critics, and a lie repeated endlessly without being answered is perceived as true. Therefore it's no wonder that so many people thought we needed a change.
  
• I suspect the split in the evangelical vote probably maps pretty closely to the evangelicals who like Brian McLaren and Rob Bell and those who don't. It would be interesting to see data on this.
• I'm not sure I'll ever get used to the "data can lie, but my feelings are reliable" mentality.
  
• Those of us who hoped that the election would turn out the other way have a responsibility to our kids to demonstrate where our hope really lies by not being completely bummed out for the next several months (or years). Let's get through the mourning process as quickly as possible and get on with life! Life is way more than politics, and we have had an unhealthy dose of politics in the last couple of years.
• We should pray for President-elect Obama. He has a big job, and he needs wisdom. We should encourage our kids to do the same.
• I think a friend of mine's prediction that "there will be violence no matter who wins" is absolutely wrong and am anxious to say "I told you so". I am personally feeling an especially strong urge to be a good loser and congratulate as many Obama supporters as I can find today.
  
• I'm ready to get my free pony!
  

I certainly think that we as a country made an error yesterday. But I’m absolutely willing to eat crow if I turn out to be wrong. And I hope I’m wrong.

Oh and I have to add, God is sovereign and will provide. He is still in control. Everything is going to be alright. :-) (Love that website!)

In all seriousness, my team lost but I am not despairing. My hope was not in John McCain but in the King of kings. This is actually an easier thing to remember when your guy doesn't win, so it's a blessing in that sense.

The king's heart is in the hand of the LORD; he directs it like a watercourse wherever he pleases. -- Proverbs 21:1

I'm just glad that now I can have my mind back and start thinking about something other than the election!!

My sister-in-law posted this link and I thought it also worthy of a post on our blog.

I really love the way these two trees in our front yard look in the fall. They are just starting to turn now. The one on the left was already here when we bought the house. At first I thought it was a Sweet Gum tree but then after I looked it up found that it's actually a "Uvalde Bigtooth Maple". It always turns bright orange in the fall. The one on the right is a Chinese Pistachio that we planted after we moved in.