A pair of tiny bare feet pitter pattered their way across the cold kitchen floor. The room was dark and deathly quiet, save the soft ticking of the towering clock, which stood in the hall as a monument to the untouchable nature of time itself.
Using light invading through windows in other rooms, Josh found his first target. A pair of dish towels hung from a bar under the window facing the main room. These he examined with great care.
One of the towels had a strawberry pattern, matching those on the dishes they commonly used. The corners were not matched perfectly, but they were close. With instinctual precision he drew the corners together and resettled the towels in their places. Perfect.
He turned his attention to the first cupboard to his right. With care, he touched the door handles.
In the hall, the chains of the clock startled him. The weights shifted, making a grinding sound. One slid, another lifted, followed by the familiar and dreadful, “Bing, bong, bong, bing!” In the still house, the racket could certainly have woken everyone.
At full tilt, Josh charged back to his assigned room, dancing first left and then right to avoid slamming into the deadly metal frame of his hide-a-bed. Gingerly, so as not to disturb his bed mate, he slid under the covers and peered back out through the open door.
There he waited, with his heart racing, the echoes of the clock reverberating through the house.
Everyone referred to this room simply as “the den”. It was an appropriate name, since it was where his parents placed their cubs at night. On a couple of occasions Josh’s sister Becky had taken this to an extreme, emerging from the den with a wadded paper tail sticking out of her pants, growling and meowing at anyone close enough to rub her face against.
For the moment she was asleep only two feet from him, her drooling face pressed against her pillow.
Josh waited.
And waited.
The clock continued to tick its cadence, but neither his parents, nor his grandparents, nor his brothers or older sister had emerged from their designated rooms.
Josh buckled up his courage and returned his feet to the floor and to the task at hand. He stepped carefully from the room, rechecking the doors immediately to his left to ensure they were, indeed, still closed. Not only so, he could hear the familiar snoring of several ancient persons.
For the second time that morning, he snuck through the open hall to his right and peered into the Christmas room at the sleeping bags of his siblings. They were easy to see, as they were lit by streetlamp through large open windows. Still and quiet.
Satisfied, Josh next addressed the clock. Looking up he read the hands in the dark, a trick he had mastered during the previous year. Six seventeen, it claimed. This information was meaningless to him, but it was interesting.
Bypassing the kitchen, Josh walked the long tight hall to the main room. During the day this hall was shorter and not all that unpleasant. At night, it was longer somehow, and dreadful.
Entering the main room, he passed the organ, the hand vacuum, and grandma’s chair on his left. Grandpa’s chair, a rather impressive item, was ahead and to the right. There, in front of him was the fireplace, which was not lit, and its implements.
Beside the fireplace and the open pan of split wood hung the mysterious poker. Pokers always reminded Josh of Murder She Wrote, since that was possibly the second most popular weapon murderers used, after the revolver of course. He thought about picking it up and holding it, but declined. The possibility of being caught greatly increased with the number of rules, or the enormity of those rules, that he broke.
He strolled across the room to the double-pane, glass, sliding door. Outside, the morning was merely at its beginning. In the enclosed backyard, just beyond the large, wood-slat deck, he could see hints of sunlight striking the tree.
With care, Josh unlocked the door and pulled. It budged, but only barely. Slipping his fingers in the crack he had made between the door and the sill, he wedged it open several inches further, just enough to slide through his deflated lungs and Dumbo ears.
The porch slats were comfortable to his feet, and the crisp air kissed his skin. A mild breeze brought to his nose the wonderful smells of paradise and freedom. It was intoxicating, rejuvenating, and joyous.
Josh stepped to the end of the porch, passing the forbidden stationary bicycle on his left, and took a seat.
In the mystique of the morning, he allowed his mind to wander, not that he was ever known to prevent it. Soon his thoughts were filled with images of kings and battles, dragons and towers, heroes and villains. His lips incoherently mimicked the orders of generals, servants, and warriors. His fingers outlined explosions, the fists of dictators, and aircraft diving on their targets.
Days grew to years, years to lifetimes, lifetimes to eras. No moment of history was left unexploited.
As his mind spun, the growing light continued to stir up life around him — first in tiny, nearly unnoticeable ways, and then more substantially. Ants picked up their trails from the day before. Beetles set out from hiding to adventures in the great unknown. Tiny shadows lifted, revealing hidden secrets of the life underneath the porch. The world of the miniature was animating rapidly and cheerfully.
As the first insect lazily buzzed past him, he caught the call of morning birds, tossing their lovely melodies into the air.
His imagination merged with this miniature world. Now rather than utterly fiction, his explorers were riding the backs of the creatures Josh studied on the ground. They were searching for gold or for princesses. And then, as the real dissolved away the imagined, the tiny millipede became its own hero, strolling across the pavement, its legs moving in waves down the length of its body.
The wonderment of this beautiful and fascinating creation stirred Josh’s mind. He wondered if they knew anything of the God who gave them life. As if to draw them together, Josh began humming a hymn, the words to which he was utterly unacquainted.
As the notes grew less and less familiar, he switched again to a song he knew, joyfully glorifying his God on this tremendous morning. As if in response, the sun spilled light across the yard, bringing life to the remainder of creatures that inhabited the outside world. Josh drew deeper of his own breath and glorified his Father for the blessings they had this morning.
As he sang, with his head hanging upside-down to get a better view under the porch, he spied a tiny, grey spider strolling on the underside of a plank. As he watched, it walked up the ledge, and then continued down the length of the plank back toward the house. Josh flipped his legs into action to crawl behind it, being careful to avoid crushing the other life he had been observing.
Stopping and starting, no doubt curious at the mountain following him, the spider continued along his predatory way. Oblivious to the world but six inches in any direction, Josh followed like a lost puppy.
At the end of his journey, the spider slipped under a crack at the base of the sliding door. Josh puckered his lips in disappointment. At the very least, the spider could have attacked one of the ants along of way, or something.
Perhaps he wasn’t hungry. Perhaps he had been frightened. Perhaps that huge human foot in the frame of the sliding door had scarred him.
The blood drained from Josh’s face. His eyes picked up slightly to notice the hideous, thin pink fabric hanging above the feet. In his mind, Josh panicked, deeply worried about the near future of his backside.
Without even pulling his hands from the floor, he looked up at his mother, towering over him, strange contraptions hanging from her head. Her eyes were devoid of appreciation and respect for the wonderful world Josh had found on this beautiful morning.
Without a word, she stepped backward inside and out of the way. Josh obeyed the implied command. He stood, entered the house dejected, and walked back to his room — across the living room, down the tunnel hallway, and finally to his abode. His mother trailed him closely.
She simply pointed at his bed, and he returned promptly, laying down again next to his sister, who had missed on everything and was now fortunately facing the other direction. The door latched, leaving him in the quiet nothingness.
The earliest morning light was spilling into his room now, even as his own light began to fade, down the path and around the corner — regressing back into the world of imagination, where all children go when they have nowhere else to be. Even with his body not tired, his mind was at ease. In minutes, he returned to the dreamscape of heroes and villains.
Now that the storm has passed and since all my new equipment came in just before the storm, I thought that I should play around and take some pictures. Malachi and Jadon balked when I asked them to dress in their nice clothes. Once they realized that I was going to point my camera at them they complied quickly. Jadon is very comfortable in front of the camera. As long as I have a fast shutter speed, and think fast, I can get some great shots of Jadon. It will be a lot easier when he learns that pose and pause method. Right now he just poses and poses.
Malachi on the other had is like a deer in headlights when he gets infron of the camera. I happen to think that he is one of the cutest kids I have ever seen, and I always have. I believe it is ok for me to hold this opinion since he is my baby! He has a wonderful smile that can light up a room unless you have a camera. We did some smiling exersises and talked about how a real simle looks, but we were still having difficulty. I guess soemtimes you have to give your kids and ego stroking, because it was after I told him that he could be a model if he could just learn to smile like the camera was not there. I fiddled with the camera a while and got these shots. I told you he is cute.
Being Me
Filed under: Uncategorized
Thar be my first hurricane, mitees! Those two silly little tropical storms didn’t count.
Now that I’m a veteran, I’m going to speak on behalf of every hurricane survivor everywhere. “We just pretend it’s tough.”
That’s right… all you silly people living across the rest of the country don’t even realize that these “big huge hurricanes” aren’t really that much of a problem. Flooded house? Pish. Devistated islands? No problem. Vehicles full of water? At least the next time you took I-10 you could use the car-”pool” lane.
The reason we all live in hurricane alley is because we really like getting the extra days off work. Or, for the electricians and plumbers and roofers among us, we really like the overtime!
Besides, it gives us the opportunity to compare our evacuation skills to those of New Orleans. Sadly, this year, they won. Good on’ya Govs.
On a more serious side, there’s a passage of Scripture that holds new meaning to me. I can think of only one sermon I have heard on this passage… but I don’t remember anything about it except that I found coloring O’s, Q’s, and D’s in the bulletin to be much more entertaining. I do, however, distinctly remember that the pastor said it was important.
In Luke chapter 16, Jesus tells a story of a certain shrewd businessman who discovered he was suddenly out of favor with his master for wasting his master’s possessions.
Being shrewd, his priorities made a sudden and dramatic shift. Rather than focus on the efforts of making money for his master (whether he was good at this or not Jesus did not say), he chose instead to make friends (at his master’s personal expense, of course). This way, when the master tossed him out, he suddenly had a whole host of friends who were more than happy to pay his unemployment benefits (18 months or whenever he receives employment with compensation of at least 90% of his previous employment, whichever is shorter).
This story of Jesus’ strikes me in a new light.
Here we sit, chalk full of tons of goodies and wealth. We have an abundance of food, clothing, and even a few cookies Jadon hasn’t discovered yet. while we walked away from Ike with everything, there are thousands upon thousands who lost it all. I’m reminded of an old lady who guilted her son into staying with her on Galveston Island. How fortunate for her he “happened” to have life jackets with him. She lost everything she owned in this whole world, nearly losing her own life and her son’s.
Basicly, God called back from her everything He had given her. As Christians we know that everything we have is God-given and God-owned. At any time, God may require everything He has given us to be forfeited.
This isn’t because God is being mean to us or even necessarying targeting us for “a lesson on living without”. It is simply because the blessings and sorrows rain on both the evil and the good.
Looking at this story of Jesus’, we’re all managers of God’s possessions. Not once in his story does Jesus refer to something the manager owned. Instead, he said that the manager owned nothing.
In time, God will call each of us to give an account of them. The question is, have we been using God’s possessions to the enrichment of others? Or have we horded them to ourselves? While this moral seems so intuitively obvious, I would question each of our actions in carrying it out.
I live in Houston. Several of our cities have been destroyed — our neighbors. These neighbors who last week had homes, tables, computers, sofas, and beds are now destitute. Some of them have fewer remaining possessions than the beggers under the I-10 overpasses.
Now what will the people of God do with their wealth?
I might point out that Jesus concludes his story with his ever-quoted condemnation, “You cannot serve both God and Money.”
Filed under: Malachi
When we were at the hospital while I was being induced with our first son, I asked Josh to write a newsletter for the family, in order to keep him busy. Josh being Josh, he took it literally and wrote a news article in the the paper JL&M Press. The story title: B-day War is over. It was a report on a military surge on Natal Bliss. To this day I can’t help but smile when I read the story. Tonight we pulled out the old boxes and found the article and blew the dust off of it. We read it to a very impatient Malachi who wondered why he had to listen to this weird story until he found out that it was about him. I hope you enjoy this as much as we do.
B-day War is over!
After nine tricky months on the treacherous soil of pregnancy, the Garvin family finally can declare victory. Dr. Linda Widing, obstetrician and battle strategist, told JL&M Press that the war took a serious turn last Tuesday. Garvin forces, under the direction and command of Widing, made a Naval offensive as they broke into the waters of Natal Bliss. Bliss was quickly put to flight as wave after wave of contractions rippled through the Natal landscape.
But the war did not end there. It quickly became a waiting game, a game that seemed to settle into a steady pace until Natal Bliss began becoming anything but blissful. Enemy forces surged into the area, forcing the Garvin forces into a defensive position until Dr. Torres arrived with his Epidural force. On Wednesday, at about 2:30pm Pacific Standard Time, Epidural broke the enemy lines and again reclaimed the field. From that time until about 8:00pm PST that night, the battle was slow and intense with ground being gained by Garvin troops, about a centimeter per hour.
Widing returned again with extra forces and supplies to finish off the battle, but Bliss forces were determined to fight to the death. Surrender was not an option. Widing led the way as Garvin forces fought for a grueling half hour to extract the prisoner taken by Bliss. No matter how hard Garvin forces pushed, though, Bliss refused to allow the prisoner leave. With the survival of the prisoner and Garvin forces being the concern, Widing placed a call to Garvin leadership. Finally, after consulting with Garvin leadership, the order was given to implement a direct strike at the heart of the region.
A surgical operation quickly ensued, with the capitol of Bliss, Utero, being the target. At 11:28pm, with Garvin forces suffering minimal losses, the extraction was complete. Medics immediately tended to the prisoner, a 9 lb 15 oz 22¼ inch male. Widing and Garvin forces remained in battle until early the following day. The ex-prisoner is reported to be agreeable and healthy, although able to provide little information at this time. Garvin public relations officials have said they have identified him as Malachi Eugene, a somewhat elusive figure until this time. It appears now that numerous movements over the face of the heartland of Natal have been due directly to his activity.
Garvin forces, now recovering from the struggle, face sleepless nights with the confused and often erratic behavior of Malachi, public relations officials say.
Filed under: Uncategorized
I planned on doing formal pictures of Cassian once school started. Of course that would be the time that Jadon would choose to take my camera a ruin it. Thankfully I had anticipated that this was a likely possibility and insured that camera the moment it arrived from the store. So what was a photographer to do in the mean time, when she has a baby who is getting older by the second. I mean he looked like a 2 month old when he was born and I was to tired and sore to do a proper newborn picture session. ( PTL I took 5 min one day and got a couple of nice newborn shots.) I felt that I had been deprived of my baby’s photos, because there was no way I was going to pay someone else to take portraits of my baby. Maybe this is why the youngest just gets shown pics of older siblings, and is told “you looked something like that.”
“HOO HOO” Heather to the rescue. My friend let me borrow her camera and this weekend we got some great shots of our boy. My new camera should be arriving shortly and even though it was tough I forgave Jadon. Now we just have to figure out how to keep him from doing it again.
So anyway you are most likely here to look at the photos. So without further adu here they are.
Filed under: Uncategorized
How thankful I am that the baby was crying. When things are bad… remember that it could be worse.
The story you are about to read is true. The names have been changed to protect the innocent.
This is the city – Houston, Texas. Home to 2.2 million people, dispersed over an area of 600 square miles, Houston squarely ranks as one of the greatest cities in America to live.
It was Saturday, August 16th, and we were working the night watch out of our home. In fact, we were trying to sleep. Cassie had been fairly easy to handle that night… no particular issues. My parter, Liane Gannon, was in and out of sleep.
5:13AM – The child decided that life was no longer tolerable without food. A bottle would need to be made in order to sustain his sleepy state. In my usual fashion, I began my brief ritual of waking while my partner kicked at me and moaned unintelligibly.
5:27AM – Still somewhat distant to the world, I took the baby and stood. My right foot planted firmly on the floor and my left stepping onto a pair of shorts which I had so carelessly discarded to the floor on an earlier day. Then I made my way into our living room.
Part way there, I noticed a prickling sensation on my left foot — the type you might receive when it is asleep. Shortly after, my foot felt as if on fire.
Brushing my hand over my foot, my fingers reported the distinctive sensation of several smooth granuals — the type of granuals that have six legs attached.
My heart began to race as I found the light switch, the burn in my foot increasing. Now lit, I could see no fewer than a dozen ants with their jaws burried into my skin. Two seconds, and they all lay decapitated on the rug. My baby, whom I had set down carefully (!), was now hungry and (HORROR!) not being held — a felony in all 50 states.
Storming back into my room, I ignited the incadecents, much to the great displeasure of my partner Gannon. There, on the shorts in which I had stepped, were numerous angry ants.
Panic swept into my bones. This couldn’t be all.
I snatched up the shorts and moved them, releasing quickly before any aggressors attempt to lock their mandibles of death into my fingers. Suddenly, the floor was alive with activity. Under my shorts were no fewer than 500 fire ants, all bent on destroying my peaceful Saturday morning!
Another pair of shorts lay next to the first (yes… I wore them both they day previous… sue me). Tossing them aside, another cauldron burst forth, releasing several hundred more ants. My mind raced, albeit more slowly than my hand. Grabbing the ant spray, which conveniently I had chosen to keep in my bedroom, I fell to the grip of Fear, Anger, Hate, and eventually the Dark Side. DIE!!!!!!!!!
Liquid penetrated their breathing holes, filling their lung-type-things with poison. Now I know that the Geneva Convention has condemned chemical warfare between signatories, but ants did not sign the accords. Consequently, I sprayed, took no prisoners of war, and would even have resorted to torture if it would have provided any useful information.
My foot ached over the next three hours as I executed with prejudice over 2,000 ants in my bedroom. I am not exaggerating this figure. They were under the bed, behind furniture, and (this was the kicker) hiding in my baby’s clothing.
Tracing them through the room, I found their path of entry and poisoned it. For two weeks, I have not found another ant in my room.
For those interested in methods of burial, it should be noted that I did not follow the detestible and desecratory act of mass burial. Each ant was given his own respectful place of eternal rest — in my vacuum.
Even as I write this, I have had to scratch my itching foot (or as those in the South would say, “itch my scratching foot”). While this classifies as my second-worst encounter with these wretched creatures, it could have been vastly worse than anything I can remember. Had I not been taking the baby into the kitchen for a bottle, I would have put those shorts on.
Filed under: Cassian
Josh has been telling me for days that Cassian will grab a handful of his gorgeous hair and start tugging. Even though I spend most of the day with him I had never seen him pull his hair. The other night he was laying on the bed with us and let out this frighting cry. The look on his face was one of indignation and shock. I quickly picked him up to comfort him and found him with his hand on the back of his head full of hair. I tried to pull his hand away, but it was stuck fast. So gently I uncurled every finger, some of them twice, and removed his hand. When I was finished he looked up at me as if to say, “Why would anyone do that to me?”
Filed under: Luke
It is hard to grasp and comprehend what has happened. It is even harder to try to put it into words. For me life has latterly been a roller coaster. I am living in the midst of life and death. Fourteen days ago my son was born; Four days ago my best friend’s son went to be with Jesus.
How can such joy and grief dwell in the same place? I do not know how, but I know that it does.
God has built my faith in the past few weeks, as I prayed for the health and recovery of my son. I would ask of the Lord, and I would receive an answer.
15For we do not have a high priest who is unable to sympathize with our weaknesses, but we have one who has been tempted in every way, just as we are—yet was without sin. 16Let us then approach the throne of grace with confidence, so that we may receive mercy and find grace to help us in our time of need.
I wondered how does a person stay humble yet approach the throne with confidence. The answer is that we come as children. I certainly did not get everything that I asked God for; I wanted to bring my son home earlier than the hospital allowed, but I did see God’s hand at work answering my requests. So it is with the confidence and strengthening of faith that I will continue to approach God’s throne, so that you my find grace and mercy to help you in your time of need. Only now, I find myself at his feet at a loss for words, simply crying mercy, mercy and grace, grace. I pray for your safety, your soundness of mind, your healing, your comfort, and I ask the Holy Spirit to groan for you because I can’t think of what else I should ask for. I do have confidence that He will give you all you need, because He has shown Himself faithful time and again.
When you are ready my arms are open, my ears are listening, and my hands are warm. In the mean time I will petition our powerful and merciful God on your behalf.
Filed under: Luke
There is little that can be said to limit the suffering of a grieving mother. Her heart has been killed. Death and suffering are all that she sees. Her mind locks into the past. Her arms quiver and her body fails. She is shaken to the core. But her faith in God… her precious faith in God… this is all that remains.
Our God is at the heart of our lives. As Christians we talk about politics, sports, and our work with the greatest of ease, just as any other person of this world does. We enjoy television, books, and all the rest. Yet when the terrible calamities of life strike, when everything frivalous is cast aside, when even our own persons are thrown into the crucible of death, our God remains.
This is not a mystical event. It isn’t practised. We don’t think to ourselves, when our children have died, “Let’s see, I think I should meditate.” Clinging to our God is as natural as clinging to our friends and family. How could it not be? He is our Father.
“But God could have prevented this? God let the baby die!”
The call of the critic is simple, it is logical, and it is reasonable. For those who are without God, our continued faith is senseless. For those who have God, His decisions can be equally senseless. Why must we have a new baby born into this world merely 11 days before his would-be playmate is removed?
But we remember that this world is merely a dark shadow under the heavens, and that a believer’s death is merely a passage from the shadow into the light. Nothing of Luke has been lost. His future is bright.
In this knowledge we continue on. With the comfort of an eternal God in our hearts, we pick up the pieces of our hearts (as much as we can find) and again set foot in the world of men.
This is why we say, “Where, O death, is your victory? Where, O death, is your sting?” Death deals a horribly painful blow, but it cannot destroy us forever.
Rest in Peace, Precious Luke. We’ll hug again on the other side.
