>Photo walking is a new hobby Aidyn and I have started since she got her Hello Kitty Digital Camera for Christmas. To kick this off please enjoy the show and let us know if you can guess the theme. For those who have a hard time Aidyn wrote this poem for you…
Leaves, bare or brown
isn’t that a wonderful sound?
blowing, swaying in the wind
falling to the ground,
but most are standing all around.
Watch and let us know if you have a guess.
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So this picture was taken by my six year old daughter on her Christmas gift. The Hello Kitty Digital Camera, has no view screen, a horrible UI, and has taken some work to figure out…other than that it is great. She is loving every moment taking pictures, so it was a great score for Christmas! Go Aidyn!
>I found great humor and was disturbed by that when I read Tim Ferriss article today, Why I started punching jerks again. Now I grew up with lots of violence in my neighborhood of Baltimore, MD. If anyone has watch the HBO show The Wire, I grew up one mile from that neighborhood. I was in my first fight, of significance, in the third grade. It was with an eighth grader. I got in one amazing shot right across his jaw..had to jump to land it…and that was about all I remember other than my head being bashed against a brink wall at some point. When I returned home, beaten badly, my brother showed no sympathy on my, but decided it was the best time to teach me to fight. After that I never lost a fight, I won’t say I won all of them a few may have been draws.
In my pea brain somewhere I do believe violence solves things. It gets results. Now with all of that said at 31 years old and a dad of two I have not been in a fight in ages, thankfully. Yet I still like a good action flick. When I step back I am able to see that there is satisfaction in engaging the world for change, even through violence. The question then becomes is violence the best means? From a Christian perspective the loud answer is, “Of course not!” Jesus would have never gone to the cross if that were the case. Now we live in a fallen world, and I know growing up there were times when the only thing a bully in my life understood was a hard blow to the head. I look back on that and it makes me sad. I still hate bullies, but these were kids who were doing awful things, and they learned it somewhere. I find it sad that as a kid the only solutions I knew was violence in order to get me out of circumstances of being bullied, and I feel really sad for the kids who were not strong/big/brave/goofy enough to stand up the way I did.
Anyway I guess that I do not support punching someone in the face not matter how much they might deserve it. Yet, that doesn’t mean I won’t pray that they do get it eventually. Call it Karma, or you reap what you sow, but they will get it and sometimes I even pray that I’ll get to witness it, not really.
>Yesterday was a very big day and an emotional one for me as Aidyn took her first communion. Now as Presbyterians we don’t have the 1st Communion thing down the way the Catholics do, but we did our best. I got to teach a six week class for the kids who ranged in age from 5-12 years old. Now that sounds like it might be challenging but it was great. The older kids I had in the class were amazing, and they younger ones I knew pretty well which included Aidyn.
So during the service yesterday the church purchased the kids beautiful ‘grown up’ Bibles. Jon the pastor prayed for them, and they came forward for the first time. What was really striking for me was the great promise this showed us. First that we are not alone as parents. Aidyn has demonstrated faith and been able to articulate her beliefs for about two years. Yet we were not in a community that was thinking about training children for worship. I know I had the authority just to make the decision, but I am really glad we waited and had an entire community invovled. Aidyn was very grateful too.
The other part that really struck me was that the three girls that were in the service to be received were very special. Of course Aidyn, then Jon & Lynn Harralson’s (pastor of Grace) oldest daughter, and Phil & Robin Peterson’s daughter familes that all sacrificed a great deal for this church and been through all the mess. As a matter of fact as I think about it now, just about all the kids who attended the class had families that had been through it in this church! It is amazing to see how God is faithful even through the hard times. There is a point as a parent where you realize that perhaps all the ambition and desires you had your whole life were wrong and perhaps the only thing God placed you on this earth to do is raise amazing kids who will change the world. In that I think God will surprising give us the desires and ambitions of our heart, but at least for me my focus has changed tons.
We celebrated with an awesome lunch with some friends, and Aidyn spend a good deal of the afternoon reading her new Bible. I am really grateful for God’s faithfulness to our family and especially Aidyn during this last year of transition. I am also very excited about all that he has in store for all of us in the future. Yesterday was a wonderful day to be reminded of these things.
>Thanksgiving has always been one of my favorite holidays. I love to eat, but that is only part of it. It was always a huge celebration at my house growing up, just after my birthday, and I love the fall! Anyway Aidyn and I are the only two who are up, and are watching the Macy’s Thanksgiving Day Parade. This year we decided just to take it easy, we were going to go out to eat and then my boss invited us over. There are going to be lots of kids and a great time for all of us. I figured it will give me plenty of opportunity to talk about how thankful I am for the two bonus I am going to receive and all the other fun that you get to have when hanging with the boss.
So here it is. I am thankful that I am beginning to learn just how important it is to take care of your family. I am thankful to have a new addition to our family, Taitum Serenity Stevens. I am thankful for feeling better, I was sick earlier in the week.
>Since Taitum has been born I’ve been in the kitchen! It has been great because normally working late prevents me from making any sort of meal worth talking about But these last few days I’ve really gone all out and Karin and I have enjoyed it. Karin said to me we should think of opening a restaurant, which I think she just said to be nice and because some good friends of ours are talking about it. My thoughts on it are this, it is the rare restaurant that makes lots of money. So it would not be the best investment. Also I don’t really love cooking that much or serving people. What I love is to eat! Eating is what motivates me to throw down in the kitchen. And I often prefer to eat things others have made me! So perhaps investing in a restaurant would be the way to go…only if it is close to my house and I could eat there regularly:)
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Watching bad TV, exhausted after trick or treating with the six year old…now snuggling with the six day old.
>To me how I get information is more important then the information I get. For instance, I can listen to preaching about a particular passage of the Bible forever, but it is essential in order for me to understand it I must read it myself and live it. From there the source is very important. I read somewhere recently that Thomas Jefferson did not read the newspaper but rather would ask people around him about it. That way, if you know the person at all, their perspective on the story comes through, often times with broadcast media the perspective is hard to uncover or so shades the story it is hard to believe it at all.
How does this relate to facebook for me. At this time facebook is nothing more than a way for me to communicate with friends. I have twitter on it, so they can know what I am doing at anytime, I post articles and sometimes my own blog. I also read the announcements and other public material my friends are posting. This allows me to not only gather information that is useful coming from my community, but also gives me filters as people comment on what they post. My community no has direct influence on how I learn, the same influence that broadcast media once had. Sure often times this means I get links of ping-pong, or funny commercials, or business time. I am alright with that because even entertainment and humor is influenced by my community. Now as much as I wish it were not true I do not like everyone that I am influenced by, daily I have to deal with opinions and views that might not be in line with mine, but it is important for me to interact and listen to those who I may not agree with or even like. In the same way I am willing to include many in my facebook friends, giving them a voice in my life. It is clear and easy to understand who has the most influence, look at those who I have the most connections with and those who interact the most. Sure facebook could develop some more formal settings or names for those you connect with to make this more clear, but why.
Just for fun or if you haven’t got enough of my rambling on this, check out an post that influenced my thinking on this:
http://scobleizer.com/2007/08/28/the-eight-ways-you-can-be-my-friend-or-enemy-online/
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Ready for the trip home.
My Girls.
There is nothing like being around a new born child during the first hours of her life. It makes you realize how wonderful life can be. Everything continues on yet it seems to stop for you. I am amazed!
>Karin went into labor about noon. Taitum Serenity Stevens was born at 4:11 (PST). Thanks for you prayers! Mom and baby are doing great. More to come later….
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