Dad, we have to keep reading

I feel a bit like a blog flunky. I tell my friends and family that I have a blog and then promise to keep it updated with info about me and the family - and then I just sort of... run out of things to say. If you have checked this blog over the last few weeks, thanks. Sorry I have been so lazy.

I did actually write a post on tax day - three days ago. It was a rather negative post, however, because of the amount we owed in taxes. I didn't end up publishing it - which is probably best.

It is now Friday afternoon and I feel much better than I did on tax day. I thought I would write about something much more pleasant.

A couple of months ago I mentioned that I was reading aloud the Lord of the Rings series to my oldest daughter. We are still going at it. She is enjoying the story a lot - I am enjoying the one-on-one time I get to spend with her. It's been great.

I went home for lunch today and read some more. We just finished "book 5" which is in the middle of "The Return of the King". If it has been a while since you have read those books, "book 5" ends with the suicidal assault on Mordor. The last scene has Pippen hearing eagles right before he blacks out because of the troll which just fell on top of him.

Here is the conversation between Abby and me after we finished the chapter.

Abby: Dad, we have to keep reading.
Me: I have to go back to work.
Abby: But... DAD!?
Me: Sweetie, I have to go back to the office.
Abby: Is Pippen dead?
Me: I can't tell you that.
Abby: But, Dad... we have to keep reading.
Me: Abby, I can't.
Abby: What's the next chapter called?
Me: The Tower of Cirith Ungol
Abby: Is it about Frodo?
Me: I can't tell you that.
Abby: DAD!?!

I love it.

A visit to the principal's office

Yesterday was a first for the Holmes' household. Kelly and I met with the principal of the Hesston public middle school to start the process of enrolling Abby and Emma for this next fall. That's right, our two home schooled kids will be braving the wild and woolly world of jr. high. They will officially enter the ranks of the Mighty Fighting Swathers.

(Those not from this area might be wondering what exactly a "swather" is. Fair question. It's a piece of farm equipment used to make hay bales.)

Yep. That's our mascot.

We had a very good visit with the principal. We also had a chance to meet the school counselor, a few of the teachers, the lunch ladies, and Lilly (the school's Golden Retriever who has free reign to walk the halls and go in and out of classrooms - very cool).

Kelly and I were very encouraged by our visit. I am looking forward to this new chapter in our family's life. Abby and Emma are nervous - which is to be expected - it's all very new. But, I am so proud of them. They are going to do awesome.

Spring, spring - glorious spring

In one of C.S. Lewis' books (I can't remember which one), he talks about the delicate balance between our need for permanence and our need for change. We each have both of those needs - in differing degrees. As a pastor I deal with people on both ends of the spectrum. Some have a high need for permanence and get very nervous whenever they experience any type of change. Others have a high need for change and feel bored and stagnant whenever things stay the same for too long. But, even those who love permanence don't eat the same food every day. We all need change - at least a little. Even those who love change feel uneasy when the thing being changed is something near and dear to their heart. We all need something secure to count on.

We need all need both change and permanence, but they seem at odds with one another.

The balance between the two is found in... rhythm.

We live in a cycle of rhythm every year in the coming and going of seasons. Every winter I long for spring. I desperately desire the change that spring brings. But is it really change? Every year spring is pretty much the same as the previous year. I know what to expect. I am not longing for something new and different. I am appreciating the cycle of the seasons. The seasons illustrate a permanent cycle of change. Spring feels new and exciting... every year.

Much the same happens within the church. I do not come from a tradition that puts much stock in the formal church calendar. But, even within my tradition we all look forward to singing the same songs at Christmas time, I cry at our Good Friday service... every year. Every time I celebrate Communion it is a little bit different - but for 2,000 years communion has remained very much the same. The Old Testament feasts and festivals illustrate this year by year cycle of change. There is a time for feasting, a time for fasting, a time for weeping, a time for laughing. It is not right to weep all the time. Nor is it right to laugh all the time.

Rhythm walks the line between permanence and change. Rhythm lets me grasp permanence and change at the same time.

I plan on tilling up a vegetable garden this evening when I get home. This weekend I plan on dividing and transplanting some perennials that are already coming up. In a couple of months flowers will be blooming and my family and I will be eating fresh lettuce from our garden. How do I know these things will happen? Because I know that in God's unchanging nature - winter will not last forever. Change is coming. The flowers will bloom. The birds will sing. This night will end. Our unchanging God brings necessary change into our lives.

I love spring.

Release The Cracken

When I was a kid there was a cheesy movie called Clash of the Titans. Other than the laughable special effects, the only memorable thing from the movie was the line, "release The Cracken". The Cracken is a mythological sea monster held in bondage at the bottom of sea by the Greek gods. The Cracken is a really bad thing.

I feel like The Cracken has been living in our home for about a month now.

Our family has been sick... for a month. We keep passing sicknesses around to each other. I guess that is what families do. We share.

And since it is not yet spring-time, it is still too cold to open the windows and air the place out. It's like we are living in a thermos bottle of germs. I just want to let the wind blow through - get that Cracken out of here.

Well, I thought we were all better. Kelly and the girls headed up the Iowa to see her sister's new baby and catch up with some friends. While at the house of one of our friends, Abby got sick... again.

I am so tired of this.

On a more positive note - perhaps if we export The Cracken to Cedar Rapids it will leave us alone.

Quote of the day - Friday 2/15

I have been re-reading Under the Unpredictable Plant by Eugene Peterson. This book, along with others by Peterson written specifically to pastors has proven to be great grounding for me. He is within a Christian tradition that is slightly different from the one I occupy or have been raised in. But, he writes of the pastoral vocation with a beauty and honesty that is rare among contemporary authors.

Here is a good quote:


"The Psalms are the school for people learning to pray. Fundamentally, prayer is our response to the God who speaks to us. God's word is always first. He gets the first word in, always. We answer. We come to consciousness in a world addressed by God. We need to learn how to answer, really answer - not merely Yesser, Nosir - our whole being in response. How do we do this? We don't know the language. We are so under-developed in this God-addressed world. We learn well enough how to speak to our parents and pass examinations in our schools and count out the right change at the drugstore, but answering God? Are we going to make do by trial and error? Are we going to get by on what we overhear in the streets? Israel and Church put the Psalms into our hands and say, "Here, this is our text. Practice these prayers so that you learn the full range and the vast depth of your lives in response to God.

For eighteen hundred years virtually every church used this text. Only in the last couple of hundred years has it been discarded [as our prayer guide]...

For there is no lack of the impulse to pray. And there is no scarcity of requests to pray. Desire and demand keep the matter of prayer before us constantly. So why are so many lives prayerless? Simply because "the well is deep and you have nothing to draw with." We need a bucket. We need a container that holds water. Desire and demands are a sieve. We need a vessel suited to lowering desires and demands into the deep Jacob's Well of God's presence and word and bringing them to the surface again. The Psalms are such a bucket. They are not the prayer itself but the most adequate container for prayer that has ever been devised. Refusal to use this psalms-bucket, once we comprehend its function, is willfully wrong-headed. It is not impossible, perhaps, to construct a container of a different shape and material that will serve makeshift. It has certainly been done often enough. But why settle for such as that when we have this magnificently designed and spaciously proportioned container given to us and at hand?"

I am not sure why these paragraphs impact me as hard as they do. I was not raised in a Christian environment that values the past. My Christian tradition proudly proclaims that it has abandoned old Christian traditions. We no longer recite prayers or creeds. Even though nearly two millennia of Christians have used memorized creeds and prayers to develop the spiritual life, we don't do such things anymore. We've moved on. And, granted, I think there is a lot to be said about seeing a relationship with God as individual and unique, free from (empty) ritual and recitations. Ritual and recitations often end up producing empty religion and legalism.

But in our protection of individuality and our drive for personal religious experience, I think we have lost something. We no longer give people the Psalms and say, "study these and learn how to pray." We value individuality too much for that. We tell people to "speak your heart". Which is certainly true to say – God hears our heart – we don’t need fancy language. But, I think it is also true that the Psalms reveal aspects of the heart that we didn't know were there. The Psalms take us deeper.

I guess I am writing all this because I have been feeling pretty "shallow" lately. And I am coming to believe that generations of Christ's followers were probably on to something by seeing the Psalms as their prayer guide.

Without meaning to, I think I have neglected God's tool to take me deeper in my prayer life. God gave me this book in my Bible - for a reason.

Happy Valentine's Day

When you are surrounded by women like I am (with a wife and 3 daughters), you forget Valentine’s Day at your own peril. This is a big day in the Holmes' household - lots of chocolate, lots of flowers, lots of heart shaped cookies with frosting and sprinkles. Fun times.

Because of schedules, however, mine and Kelly's official valentine's dinner won't be until tomorrow. Which is actually fine with me because I will be able to get half price on flowers tomorrow (but don't tell my wife). My two oldest girls will be spending the night with friends. Gracie will be going to bed early and I will be making a gourmet meal for two (at least I hope it will be gourmet).

I am continually amazed that I get to be married to the wife God has given me. I am the most blessed man I know. Truly. God has been so very gracious to me. And my greatest earthly blessing is my beloved Kelly. What an amazing woman. This May we will be celebrating 15 years of marriage. She is more beautiful now than she was then.

To Gracie and Emma and Abby and most of all, to my lovely Kelly - Happy, Happy Valentine's Day.

And the winner is...

We went to a Superbowl party yesterday. One of the members of my small-group invited the group over to watch the game because they have a really big screen by which to watch such things. I have never seen a screen that big inside someone's home. It was really, really big. It was a good 11 to 12 feet across and 7 to 8 feet tall. I am not kidding.

We were watching the game in style.

I was rooting for the Giants. Not because I care anything about the Giants, but because they were the underdog. I always root for the underdog. It's just the way I am. My only exception to that rule is when U.T. is playing, or the San Antonio Spurs, or the Texas Rangers baseball team. I always root for them. In the case of the Rangers, they are usually the underdog anyway. They are pretty bad.

So, anyway, I was rooting for the Giants, which made for an excellent Superbowl - a real nail-biter.

But, everyone knows that the game is not the only attraction on Superbowl Sunday. There are also commercials.

Every year big companies spend big bucks to hire the biggest advertising agencies to do their best commercials to air on Superbowl Sunday. Usually, the commercials are not nearly worth the hype. Most are utterly forgettable or leave you wondering what product they were trying to sell. Way to go, advertisers.

The best commercial BY FAR was not produced by Nike or Gatorade or Pepsi or Coke, but by the NFL itself. Their spot about Chester Pitts "Mr. Oboe" was just great.

If you didn't see it, you can watch it here http://superad.nfl.com/