Our 3 Sons

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.”

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.

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.