Stephanie and Somebody

"They encourage one another with the words, 'Be strong!' The craftsmen rush to make new idols. The carver hurries the goldsmith, and the molder helps at the anvil. 'Good,' they say. 'It's coming along fine.' Carefully they join the parts together, then fasten the thing in place so it won't fall over."

-Isaiah 41.6-7

There are reports of three deaths related to Black Friday shopping--one in which a man was stampeded at a Wal-Mart, and two in a shooting incident at a Toys-R-Us.

The man stampeded was given CPR on-site and then transported to a local hospital where the official determination could be made. The store decided to close for a few hours--A FEW HOURS! The customers who had trampled the man to death and the many others who stepped over his body or around rescue workers as they tried in vain to save him COMPLAINED that they could not complete their holiday shopping immediately and would have to wait less than a day to make their purchases.

I read this blog post just about a week ago. It has a link to a Wal-Mart stampede video from a few years back.

The writer of the Sojourners blog wonders if his antipathy toward Black Friday might not be a kind of upper class privilege, especially after someone told him it was. But who exactly is dignified by this kind of chaos?

The media reports all have the same bland, thoughtless musings about what could have been done to prevent the tragedy--more security, maybe Wal-Mart is to blame for selling things so cheaply, whatever. But maybe the problem is our own greed, and the many ways in which that greed is played upon, encouraged, and rewarded. Maybe what needs to be discounted is the fundamental way in which we value things in American society.

One thing is certain: Fear has gripped our nation. These are not the signs of a confident society, but of one the world has new cause to ridicule and revile--and they are beginning to accept the invitation.

We finally get to see a Chiefs game in its entirety, and they lose because they can't figure out the best way to convert points after touchdowns.

And, as an update to the last couple of posts, Obama won the election. Just thought you'd like to know.

Here's a quick look at my hesitations when I consider voting for McCain:

1. Sarah Palin.

2. He has talked about increasing support for pregnant women considering abortions, which absolutely has to be a part of any strategy to decrease the number of abortions in America. In fact, the late Jerry Falwell even recognized that, as his organization changed direction years ago in trying to give more support to young women. As Christians if we don't do this, I fear we are as guilty as the Pharisees of "putting heavy burdens on the people, but you yourselves don't lift a finger to help them." McCain has indicated support for helping women, but I don't think he actually has a plan at all. Sure, an Obama presidency could mean the end of fighting to end abortion through legal action, and to be honest that worries me a little. But shouldn't legal action be at best a secondary strategy for Christians?

3. McCain's strategy to show himself a maverick doesn't really do much for me. We are just about to get out from under a "bring 'em on" Texas gunslinger who had no problem going against the collective wisdom of our allies. Do we really need someone who is proud of how many times he has stuck it to his friends? That may not be entirely fair--after all, it's not like I would vote for someone incapable of independent thought. But still.

Okay, that's a lot quicker than what I did for Obama, but we're getting down to the wire here, people. Side note: I am really not liking the way people are disparaging us undecided voters, saying that we foolish or just don't care. Also, Ben Affleck as Keith Olberman was hilarious last night on SNL. Finally, stupid Chiefs.

My guess is that you have already answered that question as you begin reading this, which means that you are probably reading to find either support for your view or weaknesses in my post to highlight if I disagree. That's just the way it goes.

My question, though, is not rhetorical. I really do want to know if I can trust Obama, and right now that is the main reason why I am undecided.

There are many reasons why I have been asked by conservatives not to trust Obama, from his middle name to his supposed plot to turn the entire nation Islamic. But I want to list three actual reasons why I am asking the question:

1. Obama verbally committed to public financing for the general election, then went on to privately fund his campaign with a record-demolishing donation level. I think there is virtue in being able to change your strategy when the situation changes, but I also think Obama has effectively killed the public financing route in Presidential politics. Maybe it's not the best policy anyway, but his reversal still bugs me.

2. Obama built his campaign around the idea of change, yet he has asked for millions in earmarks. Now I know it may seem like I am just a McCain supporter masquerading as an undecided voter, but I have to tell you that I think McCain lost on this issue when he let Obama reframe it in the debates. Obama pointed out repeatedly that earmarks don't even amount to one half of one percent of the federal budget. But the significance of the earmark issue for his campaign is not so much the fiscal impact as it is the question of whether or not he really opposes politics as usual.

[SNL just came on with McCain and Tina Fey selling stuff on QVC--knives that cut the pork out. Nice timing. Funny thing, though, I almost didn't get the joke.]

3. Obama has clearly stated that he believes marriage is defined as between a man and a woman, but I learned just in the last couple of days that he is opposed to Proposition 8, the ballot item here in California that would amend the State Constitution to define marriage that way. The way he justifies that is a bit difficult to follow, and could easily be characterized as non-action increasing proportional to religious conviction. In the interest of full disclosure, I am leaning toward voting for Prop 8, but I wonder what compelling state interest there is in the matter. I also really hate pretty much all the ads on both sides of the issue.

So there you have it. I have a few worries with Obama that have not gone away. I'd like to hear how people have dealt with these specific issues. I don't really need to hear how McCain is a worse choice--I could easily have made a substantive list of worries for him as well. I do think that part of my worry surrounds Obama's stated commitment to reducing the number of abortions. I think that about covers the necessary disclosures.

Yes, we took the obligatory pumpkin patch pictures with Eden over the weekend. And yes, she was in a costume--an elephant, to be precise. Hope you like the pictures!

About a week ago a good friend of mine posted his view on the teachings of Jesus. (I encourage you to go read his post, along with some of the comments, especially the dialogue between Danny and Doug.) Here’s my summary of his main claims:

Jesus of Nazareth was nothing more than your everyday apocalyptic rabbi. He was eventually believed to be the Messiah and Son of God after a lot of embellishment and revisionist history. This theological development can be seen in how the Gospels present Jesus’ teachings and resurrection—the later the Gospel was written, the more Jesus became Christ. That’s not quite the way Danny presents it, but I think it’s a fair summary.

Concerning the resurrection, it is true that John’s account includes many more details than Mark’s. The oldest ending we have for Mark has no post-resurrection appearances of Jesus. John has several, including one very famous and detailed account. So was all of that invented between the time Mark and John wrote?

That would have to assume that each of the Evangelists included everything they knew to be true about the resurrection (i.e., we have all the data about what each writer believed within their Gospels). But consider that only Matthew and Luke include the ascension. Does that mean that Mark had never heard of it, then Matthew and Luke invented it, and then John edited it out because he didn’t believe it? The inclusions and exclusions of the Evangelists were decisions they made as writers of theological narratives. They weren’t interested in writing almanacs, so they did not include every bit of data they believed.

We can know this is true because of what Paul writes in 1 Corinthians 15.3-7 about the death, burial, resurrection, and post-resurrection appearances of Jesus. Paul’s letter predates Mark’s Gospel and provides some of the most unbelievable details of Jesus’ resurrection, including that he appeared to over 500 of his disciples at one time. So Mark would have had that information available to him (he did travel with Paul for a while, after all). So at the time of Mark’s writing, Jesus was already believed to be the resurrected Son of God.

Well, perhaps Paul is the one who invented Jesus Christ, and not John. Actually, Paul’s account is not his own invention, but the inclusion of a creedal statement that was already widely believed before he wrote his letter. Paul is “passing on what he received,” a phrase that for Jews referred especially to the faithful handing down of sacred traditions.

So if Paul didn’t invent the account of the resurrection or the post resurrection appearances, where did this creedal formula come from? Let’s take a look at the timeline, which goes backward from John’s Gospel until the death of Jesus (the numbers are dates by year in the first century):

95: John writes his Gospel, claims to be an eyewitness.
85: Luke writes his Gospel, claims to have verified with available eyewitnesses.
80: Matthew writes his Gospel, traditionally believed to be an eyewitness.
70: Mark writes his Gospel, traditionally believed to reflect Peter’s eyewitness account.
55: Paul writes to the Corinthians, “What I received I also passed on to you,” followed by what most critics (including the Jesus Seminar) believe to be a preformed creedal formula. The statement is intended to show unity with the other Apostles’ teaching (see especially verse 11), not Paul’s invention.
50-51: Paul preaches to the Corinthians, delivers to them what he had already received.
49-50: Paul meets privately with the leaders of the church in Jerusalem fourteen years after his first meeting to “set before them the gospel that I preach… for fear that I was running or had run my race in vain” (Galatians 2.2).
35-36: Three years after his conversion, Paul goes to Jerusalem to meet with Peter and James.
32-33: Paul’s conversion on the road to Damascus. Jesus Seminar believes formula predates Paul’s conversion.
30: Death and resurrection of Jesus. James D. G. Dunn (Christian NT scholar) believes creedal statement was formed by fall of 30 AD.

The dating of Paul’s statement in 1 Corinthians 15, which provides details of the resurrection long before the writing of the Gospels, may not be “established fact.” But when the Jesus Seminar dates it before Paul was even a Christian, we can safely say scholarly consensus is that Paul did not invent it.

The force of this is to shrink the time within which legendary accretion must have taken place, and to remove at least one pillar in Danny’s argument that between Mark and John Jesus went from apocalyptic rabbi to resurrected Son of God. In reality, the confessional content of the Christian faith seems consistent throughout the first century, including the last 30 years. The most fantastic details of Jesus’ resurrection were already widely believed somewhere between six months to three years after the supposed event—that’s more than 35 years before Mark wrote his Gospel.

What about Paul’s statement in Galatians 1.12 that he got the gospel directly from Jesus, and was not taught it by any person? Does that mean he wrote the gospel and is responsible for inventing Jesus Christ?

Paul’s concern in Galatians to establish as historical fact his direct contact with Christ in receiving the gospel has more to do with establishing his legitimacy as an Apostle, as in 1 Corinthians 15. He intends to show independent corroboration of the gospel, an effort any naturalist could applaud, while also showing his complete unity with the other Apostles’ preaching. This is why he emphasizes both his direct experience of Christ as well as his preaching of the same gospel message.

Not only that, he places the preaching of the one true gospel above his own legitimacy as an Apostle. In Galatians 1.8-9 he curses anyone—including himself—who preaches a different gospel than what he delivered to them. And in 1 Corinthians 15.11 he says hearing and believing the one true gospel is more important than who preaches it. But what is clear is that Paul believed that he was preaching the same gospel, and he used the well-known formula to show his unity with the other Apostles, even though he first received the message from Christ himself.

So the historical picture looks like this: Jesus dies around 30 AD and his disciples believe he is raised from the dead. Within three years of that event a creed has been formed to guide orthodox Christian belief about what the gospel is, including accounts of five separate post-resurrection appearances. Shortly thereafter, Paul converts dramatically after claiming that Jesus appeared to him. In two separate meetings in Jerusalem, Paul meets with Peter, James, and John and they all determine together that Paul is preaching the truth about the resurrection.

Paul becomes a missionary and preaches this message to the Gentiles, sending letters to the Gentile churches later to ensure their spiritual growth. As the eyewitness generation begins to pass, Mark and others take the written and eyewitness accounts of the life, death, and resurrection of Jesus and compose theological narratives that are true to what is already considered to be orthodox belief. Before he dies, John writes his Gospel, which includes some of the most mature reflections on the resurrection experience.

I’ll touch on Danny’s other point about the development of Jesus’ teaching within the Gospels a bit later. How clear was his message? Is there unity across the Gospels about his message, or do we have embellishment and revisionist history? How much disagreement was there on Jesus’ core message? Was Jesus wrong? I hope to get to these questions within the week.

"I'll be home for Christmas...."

We'll be flying in and out of St. Louis on December 21 and January 1. Somewhere in the middle there we'll head over to Kansas City, and there will likely be a stop in Jefferson City as well, I am told. We're excited to come back for a bit, although we're still trying to figure out who's going to watch Eden while we're gone.

Speaking of, here are a couple of pictures from today:

Question: Last night, how many times did Eden fart so loud that it woke us all up from a dead sleep?

I love this girl!

A couple of nights ago Eden was a bit fussy, where "fussy" stands for "screaming like we were murdering her slowly until the neighbors were ready to gather a lynch mob and break into our apartment to stop the atrocity, torches and clubs in hand," and "a bit" stands for "reaching the level of general public alarm not seen since the days when Los Angeles went black for fear of Japanese long range balloon bombs." I think you know exactly what I mean.

So we swaddled her up tight ("...baby's first straight jacket...") and took turns trying to calm her, which typically consists of striking the right balance between volume and spit in the otherwise rude but nevertheless effective "shush." Eventually she did calm, and we were mostly asleep. At some point I woke up and had the hardest time trying to figure out if I was at that moment holding Eden. I had nearly determined that I was, in fact, holding my pillow when all at once I thought I traced the contours of a little foot enveloped in soft blankets. I honestly could not figure out what was going on.

So I asked Stephanie, "Where is she?" Not getting a straight answer, I became more emphatic, "Is she even in here?"

I would rate Stephanie's overall response somewhere closer to amused than informative. In fact, before I rejoined the living the following morning, I think Stephanie's mom and sister-in-law both had sufficient command of the story to be able to repeat my questions to me as punchlines rather than statements of fatherly concern.

So I thought of posting the story here a day or two ago for the world's enjoyment. But then I realized that I was becoming what I did not want to become. Actually, I realized it earlier than that, when Stephanie and I went to a wedding last Saturday. And yes, everyone there marveled at how quickly we were out in public after having a baby. Their surprise at times bordered on criminal disgust at our emerging negligence in being parents, parting with our precious newborn so soon. Why, if I were not indomitably at home in even the most hostile social situations, I would have felt like going to the wedding was not a sign of fraternal commitment to our friends, but of parental ineptitude in setting priorities. Which is to say, as the ceremonial bliss heightened, I wondered if I were not actually a complete failure already.

Even before that dark experience (it was a night wedding, after all), there was the brighter moment of getting parenting advice from a passing stranger who, by all accounts, had just finished very badly in the seventeenth annual Diana Ross Look Alike Contest, although in all fairness she may have only had Diana's police mugshots available to her, in which case I am sure she was counseled to accept her honorable mention trophy under protest. It was a brighter moment, as astute readers have already concluded, simply because it was daytime, and certainly not because the brilliance of my parenting instincts were being written about with such superlative praise that critics would be forced to conclude that the real story must be buried somewhere far beneath the crust of legendary accretion.

We were walking through the park in the cool of the day (Random Reaching Biblical Allusion Man makes his return...). I had Eden in a Baby Bjorn (think more baby carrier, less stork dress) as we walked along with Steph's mom. Diana interrupted her rendition of "Ain't No Mountain High Enough" for the sweet, understated expression of concern: "Your baby is burning!" ... Yeah ... So before she could follow that up with, "And you're going to burn too for what you're doing to her!" we ran away with tears in our eyes.

So by the time I got to the wedding, I was a good bit wiser. I was not afraid of public ridicule once I remembered that I had come to the wedding armed, though perhaps not in the manner I would have wished to be. I came with pictures and video of Eden loaded up my iPod for the world to see (it would have been disruptive to have Eden at the ceremony, and besides, when she's asleep in the back seat who can wake her?). For most inquisitors, the ploy worked. Those baby pictures sure make people pee all over themselves. But about halfway through the reception the jig was up. I reached triumphantly into my pocket to pull out the iPod in a move of sheer social brilliance and before my finger could brush the magic wheel... "Oh, you're that dad now."

That's the point where you're supposed to fold your cards and push away from the table as gracefully as possible, or with gentle resignation tip your king onto his side, or push the button for floor two and make your best attempt at a facial gesture that says, "Why does it smell so bad in here?" If it had been a military wedding, I surely would have been the French commander invited to fall upon his own sword.

So when we got to the pillow incident, you can see the rationale for my hesitation at posting the story. That's not because I am afraid people will think I am a bad father--as far as I can tell, the jury came back while I was getting warmed up for my opening statement. Rather, it's because profuse public affection for your new child is so annoyingly predictable that it borders on mundane. Quite frankly, no one is as interested in your child as you are. No one gives a crap how good your kid can crap, and even if someone did, a swift technical report would be much preferable to a novella as full of crap as the poor kid's diaper. No one wants to read it, no one needs to know it, and no one thinks Jesus Christ, Jr., has been born to you.

And yet....

And yet when I hold her as she sleeps I find myself convinced that peace is not a meaningless term, but a deep, perhaps even eternal calm that we could know if only we stopped splashing around long enough to let it settle in. And yet when she smiles the day is over for me and nothing more needs to be accomplished, even if it is just a gas bubble that could have as easily surfaced as a shriek--it makes no difference to me. And yet I celebrate every poop, pee, burp, fart, cry, and sneeze as achievements to be applauded because they are signs that a life I cannot guarantee yet surges up within her from the deepest well. And yet on the eve of returning to work at a time when my influence on an organization has never been higher, I hold on to a pillow story and put off sleep to keep the morning from sneaking up on me all at once.

And yet I am that dad.

Here's Eden's first short film. More will follow, I am sure.

Thanks to Danny for help in getting me trained to upload videos.

Day two of being parents is here, and so far we're doing well. As you can see below, Eden has quite a bit of hair. Maybe I can teach her how to twirl it properly some day.

Yesterday I was going out to bring some friends in from the waiting room and stopped by to look at Eden while she was in the nursery. There was another baby there, and his family was crowded around the window. Eden was the biggest baby born here yesterday, and the grandma looked at her called her "gorda nina," which can literally be translated "fat girl." (Actually, gorda is a term of endearment for little babies.) They didn't know I was standing there until I said, "Yeah, she's a big girl, but we sure like her." [Awkward pause.] We then had a nice short conversation and I went on to get my friends. One of the younger ladies in the party gave me a tentative congratulations as I left, and then I heard them whispering as I went down the hallway. It was pretty funny.

Okay, now what you really came here for: Pictures!

Born 8.1.2008
5:28pm
8 pounds 13 ounces
22 1/4 inches

Baby and mom are doing great! 15 hours of labor, 35 minutes of pushing, 1 knot in the umbilical cord, 0 complications. Praise God!

And now for the first picture!

And another!

Here's a picture of Steph from yesterday evening. Her shirt says, "I can grow people."

Monday is supposed to be the day.... We'll let you know!

Everyone should go now to the Rabbit Room and purchase Ben Shive's album. It is incredibly stupendous, and you will agree or you will be dead by October.

Leida recently emailed me to ask for a poem that I wrote back in college about Africa. A bunch of my friends went there on a mission trip, and I was swept up by their stories and wrote a poem about my own experience of Africa through their words and memories. Hope you like it.

streets

we stood on the dirt road
cracked and rutted
thirsty for water
blanched by the hot African sun.

in my hat I did not fear the sun
that had darkened his small face
but made his smile blaze.

this child I had baited with candy to love me
now followed me wherever I went
eager
inquisitive
warning me of his approach
with the soft clash
of small feet against crumbling ground.

behind him an old woman squatted
over a hole in the middle of the village.
a gust of dirt-filled air passed between us
carrying the smell of distant fires.

and his words hung vivid in the air
a complicated question
I didn’t know how to answer
“Are the streets paved with gold
in America?”

So we are 30 weeks along now in the pregnancy, and the baby is beginning to really kick and move around. The other day we were about to get out of the car, and the top quadrant of Steph's belly ("Big Belly, Big Belly!!" as I now always refer to it) was pulsing up and down. Yeah, all Alien-like. But according to all the ultrasounds, we are not in fact having a chest burster for a daughter.

And her legs have caught up to the rest of her body. We were quite concerned that she would have short legs like her dad, but no. Other ultrasound revelations have not been so comforting.

One disconcerting moment occurred a couple of months ago when we got a good look at her face. I made a comment, perhaps a sentimental tidbit or perhaps a witty retort--who can be sure? Right afterward the little girl yawned. Bored of me already, eh?

So there are 10 weeks left until the due date. The other day out of nowhere I blurted out, "Steph, we're going to have a baby." It was matter of fact. It was informative. It was absurd. Steph assured me that she had already checked out all the appropriate books on the subject, and many of the salient passages had already been marked. It was as if she knew that my Oprah moment was coming, that great cosmic "Aha!" in which we come into contact with pure experience, the ground of being, the source of all, and suddenly the obvious becomes as obvious as it really is.

I have heard that the Aztecs did not see the Conquistador ships even as they grew larger and larger on the horizon. They had no way of conceiving of something like those ships; no analog to connect what their senses told them with what they knew to be possible. But suddenly someone entirely new and foreign set foot on shore and their world was forever changed.

Just to be clear, I don't think our daughter is going to take over my land, infect me with strange diseases, and steal my wife. That might be considered over-extending the metaphor.

Well, hello! We had another doctor's appointment last week and everything is going just great. We found out we're having a girl! This makes the seventh (!) girl grandchild on my side of the family (no boys at all), but the first on Steph's side. Here are some pictures of Prego Steph (new action hero, no cape) from Easter, plus one of Cedric, Steph's nephew. Laura, Steph's sister-in-law, came to visit last week and apparently Cedric likes to do dishes.

Eager for more Hough news than what you can find here? Tired of all of my verbal meanderings? Wondering what Stephanie is thinking, doing, and writing?

Now you can find out! Announcing the World Premier of The Hough House. As you can read in Stephanie's first post there, you are going to find much more news and pictures than what you typically get here (although I did hit 20 posts again for the second year in a row!).

So now I'm just Somebody. As B.B. would say, "The thrill is gone."

(PS: Vote for Danny.)

So we're pregnant again. Just finishing week 18, actually, which means we're getting close to halfway done. July 29 is the due date, although Stephanie thinks the true due date should be July 28, since the doctor's highly sophisticated "spinny wheel" probably was not programmed to account for an extra day in February as this is a leap year. Let's just hope there's nothing else the doctor has to account for in a leap year.

You may be asking, If you've known since Thanksgiving that you were pregnant, why are you only posting about it now?

Well, first of all, how did you know that we found out at Thanksgiving? Ahhhh... HA!

Secondly, it's because we had a miscarriage last time. I don't know exactly why this made me reluctant to post, but it did. I think maybe I stayed a bit distant from the whole thing for a little while. Then, all of the sudden, we were at week 12 and heading toward the time when we had the miscarriage last time (beginning of week 14). Those two weeks were very long. Steph knew the point at which we had the miscarriage last time to the day, and it fell on a Sunday/Monday again. Going to bed that Sunday night was like putting down a really intense book just as you get to the climactic moment. The sun sets, and the sun also rises, and things move on. It felt like we had passed one of those makeshift memorials you see along the highway with the leaning cross and the sun-faded silk flowers. I don't know if this will make sense, but it wasn't until then that I began to think of this as a new baby, different from the last.

So the task now is to learn to hope again. Steph has been saying, and I've only recently begun to understand it, that our hope is for a baby, but our hope is in God. Even then, hope is a risk, not the last resort of the desperate as I used to think.

See you later, 2007. You done me wrong. You done me real wrong.

You were a tough year--maybe the toughest yet. And yet I still have some kind of regard for you. I don't think I would call it "like" or "fond memories" necessarily, but I am strangely sad to see you go. It's like when you get in a fight in fourth grade and pound each other with your little fists and roll around in the dirt until you're out of breath and agree the fight is over and then pass each other in the hallway at school the next day and exchange a look that says, "We're not going to be great friends or anything, but I respect you somehow even if I would still love to land one last good one right in your front teeth because we went through something together, you know, and saw it through until both of us were completely expended."

Yeah, that's about right. So goodbye, 2007. Sad to see you go, but don't go walking down any dark allies, you know what I mean?

If you're starting a band, I offer the following name:

Ominous Tricycle.

Just send the royalty checks to the normal location. Make them out to Stephanie.

Happy Birthday to Stephanie! 28 never looked so good. Damn, girl.

As a special birthday treat (a slight stretch, but I'll use it), there are ten new pictures in the closing pages of the San Francisco album. Stephanie took two of the pictures. In the captions I identify one of them--see if you can pick out the second.

That's right, I'm also listing this as a member of the 'Games' category of blog entries. Games never looked so lame. Damn, girl.

Not anymore, you're not!

Thanks to Danny's help, I grabbed a plugin for iPhoto that exports resized pictures. I think that's what happened, anyway. All I know is that there are now ten pictures in the San Francisco album.

We're supposed to be going on some tours tomorrow, so I should have a few more to post for you then.

Sorry, but I can't get the pictures small enough to load in a reasonable amount of time. But for now, you can go to the picture album page and see the San Francisco album where they will eventually reside.

Oh, and I checked the pictures again--the guy in the halter-vest was actually Rob Siemer. And I thought he was too shy to even wear shorts. Though in his defense he was wearing pants. Leather pants. The kind that are so shiny you can see your reflection in them. But then, how desperate must you be to attempt to see your reflection in Rob Siemer's pants?

I have often wondered about that myself. I do remember one time when I was running late for a job interview and I would have killed to see Flashy Pants, as he is known on the West Coast. I much prefer that to his East Coast nickname: Mirror Butt.

At the diner where we saw Rob, Stephanie asked me, "Do you remember when I said that awful thing about Jesus?" We were in St. Louis in June and we went out to eat with a minivan full of Shives (Ben, Beth, Josh, and Kirsten). We were talking about how we compare ourselves to other people who had already accomplished a lot by the time they were our age. This is a timely conversation to be having since I will be 30 in just over a month.

Then someone said that it was okay because Jesus didn't really do much until he was 30. At that point, Stephanie opined, "He didn't do much after 30 either."

But she's right--he only got three more years. In Swaziland the life expectancy is 34 years, which means if we move there I will only live for another 4 years (I think that's how it works).

I told Steph tonight that I have been thinking of not shaving or cutting my hair again until I get something published. Her burst of shocked laughter said much about her faith in me. Actually, it said more about her disdain for facial hair. And since it will take me longer than two days to publish anything, she loses no matter what.

I hope this meandering blog entry has made you forget about the disappointment of not having pictures to look at. You will have them soon.

My apologies to those who love pictures. Also, apologies to Stephanie for making it seem like she doesn't believe in me. And apologies to Rob for insinuating that he wears reflective apparel. Finally, apologies to Leida, who is, by most accounts at least, black. I am sorry for everything.