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Checked Out: Week 20

It seems like the perfect storm this week when it comes to books for me. I already had Requiem, the final book in the Delirium series. Then Allegiant, the final book in the Divergent series arrived at the library for me. Not to mention I have to finish my book club book, The Sound of … Continue reading Checked Out: Week 20

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When I’m Old

When I’m old I want to be vibrant To sparkle with life Not wither and fade Like weather vanes In a dry season I want to still dream These young man’s dreams To fall and rise again As persistent as time With its staid patterns Yet random in places Where you can find me Never … Continue reading When I’m Old

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Childbirth Memories: 1995

hupTruth be told, I really hadn’t expected my sister to say yes, but after she did there was absolutely no way I was going to back out. I had actually been joking. You know, the type of joke where you laugh but the other person doesn’t. Yeah, my sister definitely wasn’t laughing when she said yes, and just like that I was going to witness a live birth. We were a month away from her due date but I got freaked out pretty much right away.

I was 18 at the time, having just started college that fall, and I had no clue at all about life beyond school. In fact, I didn’t even know much about school at the time either, having already missed multiple classes by that October. It was a whole new world for me, of parties, parties, and more parties. Eventually I knew I would have to grow up but that seemed to be in the far off future, something hazy to 18-year-old me. So, when my sister said yes, it was a huge dose of reality hitting me hard.

When I found out she was pregnant I was curious. I mean, for ages it had been just the three of us (my mom, my sister, and me), and I didn’t quite know how things would change adding someone else to the mix. And then there was becoming an uncle, something that seemed to me like an old person’s job back then. In fact, the first thing that crossed my mind when I found out was my own uncles, how solid and adult they were. I knew that wasn’t going to be me, not at first anyway. Maybe that’s why I asked to be there in the first place. Perhaps I knew even then that the experience would change me in numerous ways. Continue reading “Childbirth Memories: 1995”

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Childbirth Memories: 2006

mpinkinitialtrpng_square_canvas_pillowBack in early 2006, my wife and I found ourselves at a childbirth class. Now, I had seen about a bunch of them, but only on TV shows, and usually those shows were treating the class itself in a comical light. Sometimes there were slick watermelons, or fathers fainting while watching the birthing video, and always there was an animated instructor who seemed like she should have been teaching a Zumba class instead. Things were a little different in real life.

For one, the class was in Cooperstown, which is an hour and a half drive for us, so we didn’t sign up lightly. We were both completely on board since it was our first pregnancy, and since we were both just a little bit nervous about what would happen when the time came, when labor started. My wife had read all the books (she always reads all the books) but reading about it and going through it are two entirely different things. We figured it would be helpful to go through the process of learning along with several other couples at the same time.

So we took the drive on a frigid late January morning, with two pillows in the back seat and an open mind for whatever was going to occur. When we got there the building looked a lot like an old church to me, minus the steeple (and the priest). Other couples were already there milling about on the lawn, carrying pillows, so we figured it was the right place. Then the instructor arrived, and we found out pretty quickly that she was a registered nurse who had been through about a metric ton of live births. We were in good hands. Continue reading “Childbirth Memories: 2006”

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God is Just Like Me

“Yeah, I found God and he was absolutely just like me. He opened my mouth, looked down my throat, and told me I was thirsty.” -Ed Kowalczyk

I thought I knew who God was, back when I was little. My parents taught me to pray to this supreme being, this ruler of the universe. They taught me that God was always there for me, that He answered my prayers, even if sometimes the answer was no, or wait. And I couldn’t wrap my brain around someone who wasn’t able to be seen, who didn’t speak to me like my friends spoke to me, but they told me that He was my best friend, and that He was to be honored at all times, through my actions and through my words.

The first time I said a bad word I thought God was going to knock me dead right there on the spot. And when I snuck out to the movies with my sister against His teachings, I thought the world was going to come crashing down on my head, because not only did my parents teach me that God was there for me, but they told me that He was also firm.

Of course the Bible did nothing to dispel either one of these primary assertions, either. In the Old Testament the God I saw was unyielding, the firm God that was liable to strike me down for swearing or for sneaking out to the movies. While in the New Testament the God I saw was represented by his “son,” Jesus Christ, who was for the most part non-violent and spoke in a quiet but effective voice. Which one was the real God, the tough one who took no guff, or the one who was slow to anger and who believed in second chances? They were both supposed to be, but I could never reconcile it.

Interestingly enough, no one else could reconcile it for me either. And I asked everyone. What I did get from all the searching was that God is simply unfathomable, in both who He is and in why He does what He does. Simply put, that means don’t question Him or His motives because we will never know. I found it ironic, though, because God supposedly gave us free will, and a questioning nature, but when it comes to Him we aren’t ever going to know. And we should be alright with that. Apparently.

“I don’t know if God exists, but it would be better for his reputation if he didn’t.” -Jules Renard

For a while I honestly didn’t know if God existed. I bought into the whole idea that people wouldn’t be dying in Ethiopia or Chicago if there was a God who truly cared about them, that women wouldn’t be raped, and that there would be no hardships in life. If there were a God, and if that God honestly loved everyone as the good book says, then why did bad things happen to good people? And it all came back to free will. Continue reading “God is Just Like Me”