Defending my faith

I find it very interesting that a person’s character, beliefs, and faith are questioned by simply being on the opposite side of a political spectrum. We’ve encountered friends and family who can’t fathom not supporting a conservative candidate with a conservative agenda. From the shock and awe facial expressions, to the spam email chains and the doom and gloom speeches, we have seen and heard it all. If you haven’t guessed, Leslie and I both support Barack Obama for President. This wasn’t blind support of a candidate or let’s hop on the bandwagon support. Leslie and I both are pro-life and believe that marriage is ordained by God between a man and a woman so how could we support a candidate that is pro-choice and supports civil unions.

It is actually a simple thought process based on Jesus teachings. “Love one another as I have loved you.” We live in a society with poverty, prejudice, hatred, sickness, apathy, crime, violence, illiteracy, global warming, war, religious intolerance, and broken homes. There are many issues facing our cities, country, and our world. Yes there are some moral issues that face us but we should not shoulder our support in the political process for a few moral issues because there are many life issues that are just as important. My faith is not defined by a moral issue it is defined by believing in Jesus as the Son of God and his life, death, and resurrection as atonement for my sins.

I believe in the authority and holiness of the Bible and found the following post interesting: James Dobson Doesn’t Speak for Me

• What does speak for me is David's psalm celebrating how good and pleasant it is when we come together in unity;
• Micah speaks for me in reminding us that the Lord requires us to act justly, to love mercy and to walk humbly with Him;
• The prophet Isaiah speaks for me in his call for all to come and reason together and also to seek justice, encourage the oppressed and to defend the cause of the vulnerable;
• The book of Nehemiah speaks for me in its example to work with our neighbors, not against them, to restore what was broken in our communities
• The book of Matthew speaks for me in saying to bless those that curse you and pray for those who persecute you;
• The words of the apostle Paul speak for me in saying that words spoken and deeds done without love amount to nothing.
• The apostle John speaks for me in reminding us of Jesus' command to love one another. The world will know His disciples by that love.

This is just my two cents. I will gladly respect view points that differ from mine.

There Will Be Blood

As a parent I think one of the hardest things to deal with is your child being sick or hurt. I didn’t realize the truth in this until recently. As a baby, Zane was sick often with earaches and colds. As first time parents we would get alarmed with a spike in his temperature, a funny sounding cough, or excessive fussiness but we were pretty rationale and low key. Along came Eli and I think second child syndrome kicked in because we didn’t get as alarmed. We still attended to the boys as normal but it was more routine. We knew what needed to be done and did it. We went to the doctor when we needed help. Both boys have had cuts and bruises along the way. They will be boys.

Now to the blood. . . Zane was playing in the kitchen as he often does. On this particular Saturday afternoon he had a pair of kitchen tongs that he was pretending to pick berries or tomatoes with. I was washing something in the sink and all of a sudden I hear this scream and I turn to see him dancing around grabbing his finger. I look over at him and I start to see blood. I try to comfort him thinking that maybe he just pinched his finger or something but he is screaming like he is dying. The routine first aid father figure gear shifts into panicked dad that has a son that could have cut his finger off.

At this point Zane is “gushing” blood. (defined as non stop red blood dripping from a screaming child) I tell Leslie that this may be serious because it has not stopped bleeding and Zane is usually not one to cry non-stop once he has the necessary attention and comfort. Let me insert a time reference for you. It seemed like 20 minutes of bleeding but I guess a screaming child and red blood has a way of multiplying 5 into 20. After I couldn’t control the bleeding I uttered these words for the first time since the birth of our children: “I think we need to go to the emergency room, this is serious, and it is a major gash that may need stitches.” Zane’s reaction as he screams and blood drips, “I can’t feel my finger”. The thought running through my head “My son is going to lose one of his fingers”. Of course this was not vocalized because my rational wife says, “Just apply pressure” then scoops Zane up and applies pressure. Within a few minutes Zane is fine, a band-aid is applied and we go about our day.

What caused such a low key dad and son to give an Oscar winning performance? I’ve thought about this over the last couple of days and have no response. I’m just glad to have a wife who knows that there will be blood.

The season is here

The air is warming, the trees are in bloom, the birds are singing, the playground is a buzz and water ice is being served. Yum-o! I have been craving the cold treat that you just can’t get enough of. Today, I had the pleasure of having this sweet temptation for the first time this year. Oh how I’ve been waiting for this day since September when they closed the red doors on the building. Italian water ice is a cross between shaved ice and a slurpee. It is the best thing on a hot day and we love to have dinner and then walk down the street to our favorite place. There’s no debate that John's Water Ice, at 7th and Christian in South Philly, is the real deal. It is only open seasonally, and there are four flavors: cherry, chocolate, lemon and pineapple. On the weekends during the summer they produce an additional special flavor. My favorite is cherry, Leslie likes the chocolate, and Zane insist on only eating the cherry. On a really hot day I’ll get a medium with half cherry and half chocolate.

An Obama Moment

This past week we had the opportunity to get involved with the campaign activities here in Pennsylvania. On Sunday, I went canvassing in our neighborhood. It was interesting to see the dynamics and passion of various people. Some voters were adamant that they would not support Obama and others were on the fence. We did not knock on every door only those that were uncommitted (i.e. did not have a sign in their window).

Most people were very civilized but others were not as nice. The funny thing is that we were only reminding people about the upcoming election and whether or not Senator Obama could expect their support. If it was no, we thanked them for their time and went to the next door. It was very respectful. It was also funny to see people try to avoid answering the door. This was another first time experience.

On Tuesday we were invited to stand outside a rally, wave signs, and cheer for Obama. As the event was ending we had the pleasure of being where his motorcade was going to pass by. As he drove by us he rolled down his window and waved. I think I was star struck but Zane was just as excited. The rest of the evening Zane said, “Obama waved at me”.

Eli has also joined in the Obama movement. He has added his name to his vocabulary, well sort of. When he sees an Obama sign he says “Mama”.

Awakened to Stones on My Window

That's right, I woke up to someone throwing stones on my bedroom window. And my bedroom window is on the third floor.

Apparently I was a heavy sleeper this morning. Mike had to head out of town for the day and he started out early. So, after he left, I I went back to sleep. I'm normally a light sleeper but not today, I guess!

I thought I heard something hit our screen door and figured it was just a stray newspaper being delivered. Then I hear something hit my window. So, I jumped up and looked out the window and see Mike's rental car in the middle of the street. Realizing in my mind what I can only assume must be happening, I rushed down the stairs and flung open the door without even confirming that it was my husband outside and not some crazy intruder! Luckily it was my poor husband who had accidentaly forgotten his cell phone and was locked outside of the house!

And he'd been outside my door banging, ringing the doorbell, and honking his horn for 15 minutes! I just cannot believe that I was in that deep of a sleep! And I really feel bad for my neighbors because they were probably not such light sleepers at 6:30 in the morning.

I feel bad that this happened to Mike when I know he was trying to get on the road and out of town, but hey, I'm not the one who forgot my phone!

And he does get brownie points in my book for: a) actually hitting the window with the rocks and b) actually locking the door on his way out (something he never does).

Unplugged

We are officially on a TV sabbatical. At first it wasn’t by choice because our TV gave up on us, I’m sure from overuse. Actually it was 9 years old and had been warning us for sometime now. However, after much discussion we have decided not to buy a new TV. At first there were some withdrawals from not being able to watch some of our favorite shows but we’ve had the infamous writers strike and a trip to Texas to help us cope through the first couple of weeks. We are officially at day number 39 and counting. We cancelled our cable but are hanging on to our online movie rentals--since we do have a computer.

What have I learned during this transition? 1) A new big screen plasma with all the bells and whistles that my heart could desire doesn’t come cheap. If I give it some time maybe I’ll convince my self that a television that has images as tall as my children is not a necessity in life. 2) As a family we’ve gained a huge chunk of time back in our lives that we didn’t realize was missing. We’ve become more oriented and tuned into each other instead of the box in the center of the room. We play games, talk about our days, read, play outside and just rest. We’ve also been able to reorient our living room. 3) It is not necessary to keep up with the Desperate Housewives, Brothers & Sisters, House, American Idols and Wolf Blitzer’s. (There are many, many, many other shows that filled our time) The world around us will go on and so should we. 4) I don’t feel as isolated as I thought I would. The water cooler talk that I thought I would miss really is very minimal. Again more time in my day. 5) Children really are like a sponge. Around the time that our television was going out we had been watching a lot of CNN and there were several election ads, not to mention the fact that we were in Texas just before the primary elections. Needless to say Zane now does a really good imitation of Barack Obama. Whenever he sees a picture of him online or a billboard he says in a deep voice “I’m Barack Obama and I approve this message.”

I’m sure we’ll have a television again some day but for now we are enjoy being unplugged.

Michael