“Daddy” Fears

Dads have a rough life.

Moms do too.

In fact, a mom’s life is more difficult. Moms have the baby growing inside of them, stealing all of their nutrients. Moms have nine months of almost complete discomfort. *My condolences* Moms have to laboriously push to make that baby come out of them.  *My most sincere condolences* Then, once life begins– well, I think you know the routine. *Condolences again*

But Dads, what do we have do, besides coach (or faint) during labor? Dads have to stop on road trips every half-hour for Momma’s potty breaks. Dads have to keep Momma happy for nine months, buying crave foods and flowers, giving massages, etc. Dads have to be understanding when Momma experiences intense hormonal changes or goes through her morning ritual of harfing in the toilet. Dads have to tuck Momma into bed at 8pm because Momma needs her sleep. Dads have to pick up the daily chores of laundry, dishes, vacuuming, etc. Dads have to worry about the financial black hole that is coming, as they try to provide for all of the overpriced baby goods. Dads, in short, have to weather the storm.

But how? How do we weather this storm and maintain our own sanity? I have three suggestions:

  1. Read “A Guy’s Guide to Pregnancy” by Frank Mungeam. It is a wonderful read, concise and hilarious.
  2. Maintain a good sense of humor.
  3. When you start to lose it, remember Mungeam’s Golden Rule of Expectant Dads: “It could be worse–you could be pregnant!”

Beauty (Pt. 5)

I hestitated putting this post under the title of Beauty (Pt. 5). First, I was afraid people wouldn’t read it because they’re sick of me talking about beauty. Second, I wasn’t sure if it would fit in this series. But the more I thought about it, this post belongs in the Beauty series. So, what am I talking about?

Ideas. The intellect. The mind. The soul. They all go together.

A couple months ago, I was talking to a friend about the difference between knowledge and understanding. We talked about how we love to learn, but we aren’t always sure what it is we are learning. We talked about how easy it is to “know” something, but how difficult it is to “understand” or “comprehend” or “have experience of the things learned.” Wisdom is certainly different than knowledge. Experiencing something is certainly different than knowing some facts about some thing. I believe much of our intellect, especially in the information age, is used in the process of exposure. We’re exposed to ideas. We’re exposed to content. We’re exposed to facts. But it takes a special person to take those exposures, those facts, that content, and actually connect the dots. It takes a certain amount of musing and reflection before we can actually understand or comprehend what we are learning.

And finally, weeks, months, or years later, that learning will become a part of us. And we will share it.

Tax Dollars

It’s everyone’s favorite time of the year–TAX TIME!

Of course, you can hear a hint of sarcasm in this statement. Not everyone likes filling out the forms or doing the math. But certainly everyone enjoys receiving a refund. It’s treated like a gift from the gods (aka the IRS), and we look forward to using it on that item we’ve craved for so long (a new TV, a new Iphone, etc). Unfortunately, sometimes, it has to be used on that latest unexpected bill (fixing the car, paying a medical expense, etc.) Regardless of how we use it, the idea of tax-payer dollars intrigues me. For the 2009 fiscal year, 140 million individuals filed taxes, totaling $1.175 trillion. So my question is where does all this money go?

Not being an auditor or IRS agent, I cannot trace the paper trail exactly, but I can tell you this: The budget for the Department of Defense is $548 billion. We send Israel $8 million a day (just for good measure) totaling $3 billion per year. This year, we decided to use that exact same amount ($3 billion) to help our floundering K-12 education system. Ironically, we added twice that amount to NASA’s budget, so we can keep exploring areas in space. Using our tax dollars, the Navy spent a meager $109,000 to fly four F-18s over the stadium in Dallas (which was closed). Obviously, this last effort sounds like chump change compared to the other examples, but bringing it down to the average Joe’s income–let’s say you make $50,000/year. That’s not too bad in my estimation. But then again, you just worked 730 days for four jets to show up on a TV screen for 2 seconds. Do you feel like that was a wise use of that money?

The moral of these statistics is not to quit paying taxes. After all, the IRS is kind enough to give us a few hundred dollars back each year. I do hope, however, that this gives you a slight taste of where American interests lie.

Beauty (Pt. 4)

In this series of posts, I have been setting forth various manifestations of beauty. 

If you believe there are different classifications of beauty, then I have introduced natural, relational, and physical beauty thus far. This would be a taste of structural beauty.

If you want to stay away from the classifications, then here is just another manifestation of beauty:

 

 

(Kudos to the person who can tell me which people group might not see this building as beautiful or lovely, and why.)

Beauty (Pt.1)

Yesterday, I asked a good friend of mine to define “beauty.”

He said beauty is different for everyone. He also said there are different types of beauty (physical, emotional, social, and spiritual). While I agree with the latter, I disagree with the former. I think beauty is beauty and people will recognize it as such. Here’s what I mean by that:

I was driving to Sisters, Oregon two weekends ago. A long stretch of the drive is spent going through a mountain valley. On the way there, it was all snow, all white, cliffs and evergreens. On the way home, the temperature had risen 15 degrees. All the snow was melting and it was raining. So, on one side of the road was a river, raging and roaring. On the other side of the road was waterfall after waterfall, rushing down the steep cliffs and literally falling into the ditch on the side of the road. At a couple points, the water from the falls would gush onto the road, sweeping across into the river. And yes, I was driving in the daytime, so all was well and safe.

If you can picture such a drive, would you call it beauty?http://www.flickr.com/photos/goodreverendflash/5275329696/