A Father's Legacy, January, #2 Your Name

Who gave you your name and why?

Did you have a nickname? How did you get it?

As my mom tells it, she gave me my name.  She says she had a friend in school who was named Aaron.  And, there was a TV show called the Big World of Little Aaron.  She liked the name and the show and my name became Aaron.  She also liked the name Cree from the Cree Indian Tribe,  and I became Aaron Cree.

No nickname.  At best, some friends in high school liked calling people by their name...backwards.  So, some called me Noraa.  Not really a nickname though.

A Fathers Legacy, January, #1 As a Child

What did you enjoy doing most as a child?  

Did you prefer doing it alone or with others?

I enjoyed creating.  Legos, Erector Sets, villages, shooting ranges...in short, I liked imagining and playing.  By myself or with others....sometimes.

I remember a time in the 3rd grade, I was attending school at Rimrock Elementary in Billings, Montana.  I had injured myself somehow, I don't remember how, or what the injury was but, I wasn't able to run around and play the typical school yard games of soccer, tag, football, smear the queer...etc.  So, I made up a stick village.  On the far side of the playground was a row of large old maple trees.  They left broken branches and twigs all over the west side of the grassy part of the playground.  I spent each recess wandering around gathering sticks and twigs and piled them in an open flat dirt and sod area between two of the trees.  In the following days, I spent my recesses laying out and creating a small stick village.  Roadways, fences, log cabin houses and garden plots.  As the week went on, my peers became curious about the small civilization I had been creating.  By Thursday afternoon nearly all of my classmates, as well as some from some of the other classes, were turning the whole area under those maples into a miniature stick town.  Those trying to avoid getting their clothes dirty were wandering around gathering up sticks and twigs while others expanded the area.  It was quite the organization, all the way up until the 2nd graders, trying to prove they were cooler than the 3rd graders, brought out their kickballs, and proceeded to turn our stick town into their own basketball court.  It took them moments to destroy that which had taken us almost the entire week to create.  But I still have images of those little houses and fences stuck in my head.  I still remember the feel of the twigs and the dirt as we snapped the sticks into equal lengths for fences and smoothed out pathways for roads and walks.

I also enjoyed setting up little green plastic army men up and down the side of a small hill that lined the back end of our backyard.  I lived on Carson Court in Ely, Nevada.  We lived in a small 3 bedroom house.  The backyard wasn't huge, but the property had hills, mountains, and pine tree forests as its west side backyard border.  As I stepped out the back door I was greeted by a nice sloping dirt hill.  This hill provided many adventures.  One of which was the land of many armed forces attacks and repels.  We, my brother, our neighbors, and I, would spend hours setting up a few hundred little green army men.  An assault force fortifying themselves behind pits, rocks, and bushes of the dirt hill.  Then, we would assemble our own arsenal, small pebbles, boulders, and some large rocks.  At a count of three, we would open fire.  The battlefield became alive.  The goal was to eliminate all of the invaders.  One by one, and sometimes in one fell swoop, the little green men would get squashed until only one remained.  A dozen well aimed shots later and the last green man would fall to our barrage.  Then, we'd set them all up again.  I can still smell and feel the dust that rose up from our cannon fodder.

Further up into the trees, beyond the small dirt hill, was a vast playground of pine trees, sage brush, horny toads, blue bellied lizards, and gun battles.  We spent many weekend hours playing cowboys, army men, and survivalist.  

Even at the age of 13, when young men are supposed to be giving up there childish ways and becoming men, I could be found out in the backyard in the tall grass with my G.I.Joe Men, tents, gun placements, and jet fighters re-enacting rescue missions and ambushes on enemy targets.

I still have many of the legos that I accumulated as a child.  I enjoy the transformation that happens when placing a "toy" in the hands of even adults can inspire us to think outside of the box and create that which we think is somehow impossible.

A Holy Heart (Part 1)

I once had to call and tell my family and friends that I had been ran over by a truck.  I had tread marks across my crown to prove it, but they still had a hard time believing me.  It was April Fools Day.  But that is a different story.

What we thought was going to be a fun adventure between a father and son, stomping through the woods, discharging firearms, sucking down bountiful portions of a bbq'd pig with other Christian brothers, turned out to be a greater adventure than we had anticipated.  Granted, the adventure really ramped up once we got home, the stomping through the woods makes for a good start.

Noah and I started this last Saturday loading up the van with his 22 rifle, some chairs, some water bottles, hats, ammo, and directions to the "Pig and Pistol" event that our church puts on each year at a member's property out in near Woodstock.  When we arrived, the sound of high caliber rifle fire and manly comradarie could be heard coming from somewhere deep in the wooded property.  

After several hours of rifle firing fun, the call of dinner was pronounced.  The younger boys snacked on good meat and "pass around" dishes while challenging each other in several rounds of a spontaneous archery competition.  While the older boys sat around the Q and the firepit chatting about this and that and the other thing.  

When eating was over and stomach's were full, palettes satiated, it was time to venture off and explore the nearby creek and water fall.  I enjoyed playing with our camera, getting shots of boys being boys and water falls falling.  The weather was wet, but it didn't dampen our spirits.  In fact, the rain in the air probably helped to make the environment comfortable rather than hot and muggy.  

After the creek had been sufficiently explored, rocks and sticks had been thrown into the falls and many feet had gotten wet, it was time for one last round at the range.  And then it was time to head home, fun had been had by all. 

Now, this is where the story normally ends.  This is usually the part where we pat each other on the back, say goodbye, make plans for next year.  Get home, clean up and talk about what had been.  

Noah and I got home, we cleaned up, and then we sat down for dinner.  Our pants were still wet from the creek.  Our shoes were still dirty from the woods.  We checked each other over for ticks and felt safe we were clean.  We prayed and thanked God for the day of fun and the food set before us.  We thanked God for keeping us safe throughout the day and for the blessings before us and the adventure to come.  Little did we know what adventure lied but minutes away.

Before I go on.  Let me say this.  God is not in the event, he may cause an event to occur, or obstruct one from happening, but He is not to be found in the event itself.  God is found in the people he places in the event to either reveal his presence, or allow others to feel and be his heart and hands.

In the event above, God was not in the firearms or the bbq, he was not in the arrow or the competition.  He was found in the grace and generosity of those who shared their rifles and ammo, in the one who gave his time to cook while others played.  He was found in the joy of a father teaching his sons and watching over them, allowing them to be boys while making sure they were safe from any terrible harm. He was found in the gathering of brothers who shared the common bond of being His adopted children, or in being one of those that He was actively seeking.  And that is where He is found in the following.

I had taken only a few bites of my lovingly cooked raviollis when I felt my left pinky and ring finger start to twitch.  As if they had a mind of their own.  I risked a glance to see what they thought they were doing and virtigo took over, right there before my eyes my fingers, then hand, then wrist, forearm and shoulder, all started to twist inward and levitate above the table.  I glanced at my wife, she asked me a question I was certain I was supposed to answer, but a warm and tingling feeling was creeping up my arm and I was caught wondering why nobody else was curious about what my hand was doing without my wanting it to.  The warm and tingling feeling continued into my chest and up the left side of my neck, "are you alright?" was my wife's inquiry.  "Answer me.  Say something" came her plea.  I couldn't lift my arm.  My face was going numb, my lips and tongue were beginning to feel swollen and thick.  My wife rose up from her chair and approached me, I looked up into her blurry face, "Aaron, are you ok."  My brain was telling itself, "Move your lips, you have to move your lips and speak out of your mouth....oh my gosh...what was that posting on Facebook?...signs of a stroke are...curl the tongue, can I curl my tongue...was it curl the tongue or fold it?....and what was the phrase?...If I can't say something without slurring..."  I looked at my wife and slurred out, " I can't move." That is what my brain said it had just uttered, what I had actually said is anyone's guess.

I was having a stroke.  I am 39 years old, don't drink, don't smoke, don't do drugs, and am in relatively good health, and I was having a stroke.     With no early warning signs, no other indicators, I was having a stroke and there was nothing I could do to stop it.  "Go over to Colleen's and see if they have a nurse" I heard my wife tell my daughter.

(By the way, three simple tests were performed on me several times to see if any residual effects remained:
     1. Smile!  Since the face is numb or paralyzed, the smile will be awkward or not at all.  At the time of the stroke, I could barely move my lips to speak, let alone form a smile.
    2. Lift both arms over your head.  My left arm was dead in the water, completely paralyzed, I would not have been able to lift it at all.
    3. Say a short sentence.  Any sentence, any phrase, mine was, "I can't move."  Keep in mind, you may have to be direct.  My mind knew it needed to talk, but I couldn't think of anything to say, so I sat there letting my wife begin to worry.  It probably helps to give the victim something to say.  "Tell me your name!"  is my advice.
     A fourth is stick out your tongue, but I think this only works if the other three don't convince you first.  The tongue test is somewhat subjective without a real pass/fail.  It is dependent on your definition of crooked.  the left side of my tongue was numb and sticking it out would have made it a little crooked.  But I don't think I could have gotten my mouth open wide enough to stick out my tongue.)

By the time my wife had 911 on the phone and they asked her to perform these three tests on me, my symptoms were waning and I passed all of them.  Had she known these tests clearly, she would have performed them while sending my daughter, and dialing the phone, the outcome of my pass/fail would have been quite different.

This is where God steps in for the first part of this scene.  I could say He was always there, for He is fully welcome in our home and has never left us.  But he reveals himself here, sort of.  He introduced himself many weeks earlier in preparation for this event.  See, we have only recently relocated our family from one coast to the other of the United States.  We moved from just an hour away from the Pacific Coastline of the state of Oregon, to a couple of hours away from the East Coast in the state of New York.  One of our biggest fears in the move was that the people of New York would be offended by our presence, that they would be cold and unfriendly.  We found and moved into our new home in a rural mid-state area of the Hudson Valley.  A small cul de sac with a small number of homes.  Within an hour of our arrival to our new home, the neighborhood kids were standing at the end of our driveway hoping and wondering if we had kids, how many kids, and could they come out to play.  Fears of unfriendly New Yorkers were starting to evaporate on day one.  

A few weeks passed and several thunderstorms had hit, causing some nasty looking damage to our gravel driveway.  An evening later I found myself at the end of our driveway digging a run off control ditch while a man and his son were practicing riding bikes.  Greetings to one another turned into introductions, which turned into a 45 minute chat that had to end when our clothes were getting wet from the rain.  When I got inside it was time for dinner.  My family was seated for the meal and I proceeded to tell them about the family across the street.  Long story short, we were a new family to the area, needing some friends, and they were a family that could use some friends, some kids to play with that understand what it is like to live in a family with disabilities.  My wife and I have raised our kids to understand and accept that we are weird.  My explanation of the family across the street matched the description of ours.  They were weird and could use some friends.  We are weird and could use some friends.  My daughter looked at my wife and pondered, "do you think this is why God didn't let us get that other house and had us move here?"  Wise beyond her years and sensitive to the workings of our Lord.

Thus, as my wife ran me through the tests as instructed by 911, God reveals himself in the form of the neighbor rushing into our living room just ahead of the EMTs.  He watched out the front door and made sure they knew where to go.  He, unfortunately, has an intimate knowledge of the local area hospitals and was able to advise us on where to go and where not to go.  The EMTs asked me many questions, and wanted me to make some decisions I knew I was unable to make at that time and moment.  "Whatever my wife says goes right now."  I knew that something had happened to my brain, I was in a cloudy state of mind, but aware enough to say that I couldn't make good decisions, but my wife could.  "Ok then."  As the EMTs loaded me into the ambulance and prepared to usher me off to the advised hospital, this neighbor was ushering my wife out the door and to our van.  "Go, catch up to the ambulance and start following them, your kids are safe, I'll stay as long as you need me to...go!"  My wife and I were off to the hospital while God in the form of our neighbor stayed with our kids and kept them safe and calm.

The signs of stroke were starting to wane before the EMTs arrived.  By the time they arrived I was talking, able to move my arm, and able to tie my shoes.  I was stable in walking and able to move without assistance from my chair to the ambulance.  By the time we arrived at the hospital most of the numbness was gone and my mind was becoming clearer.  I still slurred a little bit, was slow to respond to basic questions, and my lips tongue and fingers still had mild numbness.  But I was able to answer the questions.  "Who is the current president...(oh man, do you have to bring him up right now?  O'Bummer? ) "Obama...who was the first president (should I answer Randolph of the first congress or give the actual?) Washington"  Yep, my brain was already back to being sarcastic and yet taking into consideration the severity of the situation, able to restrain itself.  It would lighten the hold on that restraint as time went on though.  The doctors were somewhat baffled.   How could a young man sitting in front of them have had a stroke.  The signs were there, but belief was not yet present.

Apparently ticks and lyme disease can cause some strange neurological conditions that are otherwise unable to be explained.  Could this be a tick?  I was seeing spots, which typically precede a migraine for me, could this be an atypical assymetric migraine?  These were all theories developing at the hospital.  Ultimately though, ruling out a stroke could only be done with a CAT scan and an MRI.  The CAT was inconclusive,  not determined. And in walks God again.  This time for a bit of humor.  Into the ER room walks a big black man.  He is there to draw blood.  Lots of it.  Several vials of it.  One to detect lyme disease, another to test for....lots of it.  In conversation he learns that we are from Montana.  "Can I ask you folks a sensitive question?....Are there pockets of black people in Montana?"  Talk about off topic and out of the blue.  "Well...um...I know of a couple of black kids that I graduated with."  "And I know one black person from my home town."  "Yah, that's what I thought.  One of the xray techs is from Montana and he said that you guys had a couple pockets of black people.  I thought he was lying.  I might have to bring him in here and have him explain where those pockets are to you guys and see if he is telling the truth.  I wonder what pockets of black people he's talking about.  I mean, I know there are lots of pockets of black people in North Carolina, but I didn't think there were any in Montana.  Thanks"  The humorous part is, we are in the middle of coming to grips with I have just had a stroke and here is this man asking us a "sensitive" question about race pockets in Montana.  And yet, we remember him.  Among all the chaos, we remember a large black man asking about the racial make up of Montana.

The first hospital I went to is a stroke unit, but not on the weekends.  Several of the nurses commented about this, "don't ask" is what I was told.  How do you have a weekdays only stroke unit?  The CAT scan was inconclusive, the neurology team doesn't work weekends, and they didn't have an MRI machine.  I was transferred to a new hospital.  AMC, Albany Medical Center, is a learning hospital.  They had an MRI machine AND a neurology team on premises on the weekends.  Before I was loaded up into the ambulance, my wife and I pondered whether she should follow, or head home.  It was nearing 11pm.  In walks a young nurse, stuffy nose, coughing, and sneezing, but with clear words for a family not certain of what to do.  "If he were staying here for the night, what would you do tonight?"  "Go home, take care of the kids, and follow up in the morning."  "So, go home and do that.  There really isn't much more else that will happen tonight.  He is in good hands and going to a good hospital.  Go home and get some rest as if he were staying here."  So that is what we did.  My wife left me her tablet, a critical part to remember in this saga, what seemed like a good idea turned out to be a marvelous one.  And then I loaded up into another ambulance and headed north to Albany.

Quick note here for the ambulance drivers and EMTs of this world.  Everyone is acutely aware of what you are doing during an emergency, especially when you are not doing what they expect you to do.  The driver of the first ambulance decided that her hair was of utmost importance during her time around me.  My family and neighbors were very aware of the number of times she fixed and primped her hair.  Just an FYI.

The Albany crew was rather quick at getting me in and assessing what was known.  Unfortunately it tapered off from there.  I was a young, relatively healthy male, who had a stroke, but all signs and symptoms had faded.  Though my event was critical, it was for the most part, non-life threatening.  So, I made the bottom of the priority list.  I arrived at the ER of AMC around midnight.  I was rediagnosed soon after that.  But I would not be admitted to the hospital and placed in a bed till nearly 4am.  That's 2 Netflix movies while waiting in the ER listening to others throw fits and fight with the ER staff.  Thank goodness for free Wi-Fi and my wife's tablet.  But we are looking for God in this.  Where was God as I waited in the ER room?  Though the event happened around 7pm East Coast time, it happened around 4pm Pacific, and 5pm Mountain.  By 4am there were over 50 responses to my wife's first Facebook posting, made from the first ER room.  "PRAY!"  and praying they were.  Thanks to digital technology, forming a prayer chain is much faster these days.  Within hours my family, her family, and our friends all knew.  Power was being assembled in the heavens and here on Earth.  By Sunday morning word was out that I was in the hospital.  God was not in the technology, but in the response of human beings around the world uniting in my cause.

I once had to call my family and friends to tell them I was in the ER after getting ran over by a pickup truck on April Fools Day.  Talking to my family felt quite similar this time.  I was coherent, even sarcastic.  They had just as difficult of a time believing I was a stroke victim as they had believing the story of why I had tire tread marks across my crown.

It was very early Sunday morning.  I had spent the day before trampling the underbrush with my middle son.  And spent the evening being carted from one hospital, poked and prodded, blood drawn, and then carted to another hospital, questioned, poked and prodded.  And no real conclusion to what had really happened.  A lot of speculation, but nothing conclusive.  I was finally admitted, assigned a bed...it was 4am.

Asking for Help

Today was an interesting day.  Our oldest is nearly a teenager now.  Life with an autistic son, I am confident we are not ready for this.  We have been dealing with levels of defiance and disobedience for a little while now.  We take it with a grain of salt, every child must go through these stages.  We explained to our other kids just the other day how we have now entered into the stages where mom and dad start becoming dumber by the day.  My daughter was saddened by this, "we don't want to start thinking you are dumb daddy, you are smart."  I had to explain to her that as they get older we will trust them more.  That we are training them to make good decisions, even in the light of the opportunity to make bad ones.  That, as time goes by they will gain more and more of our trust to make good decisions, and, as time continues to go by, that trust will lead them to make bad decisions and we won't know.  As they find they can make more and more decisions without mom and dad knowing what the decisions were, they will begin to think that we are dumber because we don't know that they are getting away with making bad decisions.  I then had to explain to them that when that time comes, it will not be us who are the idiots, but our children who think that the consequences of bad decisions affect us, and not them.  When they finally realize that the decisions they make affect them, and not us, that is when we start looking a little smarter again.  But, they will still have to go through the time when they think that mom and dad are idiots for not knowing what they are doing.

Well, our oldest made one of those decisions today.  Titus was sent home today for taking a knife to school.  He was caught sneaking a kitchen knife out of the front pouch of his pull over sweatshirt.  Timing was not in his favor during this event either.  Just yesterday he felt cornered by a teacher that he has not worked well with all year so far.  In a burst of anger and frustration, our son told this teacher he wished that he was no longer on the earth.  An autistic teens equivalent of, "go to hell!!"  Which can also be taken as,"touch me again and I'll kill you."  So, threatening statements and the next day he brings a knife to school.  What else is the staff to think?

When we got the call from school, our thoughts went to the same conclusions, "what did he think he was doing?" and "where did he get this idea from?"  All of these were the wrong conclusion.

I remember when Titus was quite a bit younger.  We went to our church's Friday Family Night.  They were staffed with childcare for the kids, a gym with all kinds of things to play with, and an isolated room for adults to gather and have an evening of adult conversation.  Half way through the night one of the childcare staff approached our table, squatted next to my wife and I and delivered the words no parent wants to hear, "we can't find Titus."  He had been lingering near a drinking fountain, that was conveniently near a set of double doors leading out to the parking lot.  He was there one second, a turn of the head, and he was gone.  My wife and I went into panic mode.  For the first five minutes of hearing this news we were looking into every dark corner and busy street.  Then our minds came back to us.  Titus is quite predictable, you just have to remember to think like him.  He doesn't like the dark, dark and scary halls were scratched from possible routes, this also eliminated the parking lot that was poorly illuminated.  Busy streets were too far away, and not on his curiosity list.  So, we started looking at the things that would attract his little mind.  Buttons.  Elevator buttons, automatic door buttons, of which our church had a couple that Titus had become quite familiar with their locations over the times of our attendance.  Even split up and on opposites sides of the church, my wife and I found Titus within moments of each other.  Titus had gone out the side doors, around the corner, thru the automatic doors, up the elevator, and down the hall to the gymnasium back stair case.  He couldn't get the doors open, so he sat there waiting.  "You found me!" was his declaration when my wife found him sitting on the stairs.  She went thru the lower doors and there he was.  I was at the top of the stair well trying to figure out how to get the doors open.  Apparently the elevator opens on the inside, I was on the outside.  I tell you this to drive the point that, we panicked.  We went looking everywhere our son wasn't.  Today we also panicked.  We have been trained to conclude that if a kid takes a knife to school, its to hurt someone.  It was a bit odd for Titus to attempt such a thing, quite out of character, but he never ceases to surprise us.  So, we reacted to our unfounded conclusions.


Then there's Titus, stuck wondering what it is that he has done wrong, again. Because, unbeknownst to anyone, Titus lost the key to his locker on Monday afternoon.  His purpose for taking a knife to school was to try and pry the lock off of his locker, or, cut it off if necessary.  The week has been frustrating not having access to it and knives are good for getting into other things, they are made for cutting things.  What else would be a handier tool for cutting a lock off of a locker than a knife?

Many of us "normal" people struggle with asking for help.  We will go thru great measures to try and prove that we are capable of succeeding on our own.  Asking for help is a sign of weakness in the normal every day world we now live in, how much more is this compounded by autism?  I can't help but wonder if it is more painful and outright scarier to ask for help, than taking a knife to school, even when knowing it is wrong.

I am reading a book by Twyla Tharp called The Collaborative Habit.  While describing her experience with a Seattle ballet company she makes a statement that intrigued me.

Connection with others is ... important.  Once upon a time, there was no difference between a bricklayer and a composer.  All work was an offering to [God], and thus, all work had equal meaning.  But, in the twentieth century that changed, and art came to exist for its own sake.

The change is sometimes called modernism.  But let's not get bogged down in language.  The issues is meaning- or rather, the lack of it.  The idea here is that human life no longer has spiritual meaning.  We are not part of a loving society, but rather are all in an ego-driven "army-of-one" each the center of an absurd cosmos, taking such happiness as we can find.  Collaboration? Why bother? You only live once; grab whatever you can.

Now look at this world just described, but from the eyes of someone struggling with autism.  What stands out to me throughout this passage is this, the enemy of this world has done an incredible job of selling us the lie that the individual and the collective must compete against each other.  That, if we are to be individually and wonderfully made specifically and purposely by the hand of God, then we are all only special if we consider ourselves individual and special.  Our brains struggle so hard with the idea that God can look upon us and love us equally and yet love us individually to the utmost depths of his love.  Where our minds break down is that we have a difficult time understanding infinite.   (I'm babbling here, but stay with me, it all comes back on itself)

What I am getting at is, we need help.  We do.  We need help.  And none of us have been trained to ask for it.  We love giving it.  We like helping others.  It makes us feel like we have something to contribute.  But all of us struggle with asking for it, seeking it.  Unfortunately, we also tire of asking for the help we do need only to get rejected, or regular reasons for why it can't be given.  How strange this is.  We need help.  Are uncomfortable asking for it.  When asked, don't really want to give it.  But are willing to help if on our own terms.  Its got to be one of the more paradoxical control issues of the human experience.

My son was sent home from school because he took in a knife rather than ask for assistance in opening his locker.  But he has an excuse that obstructs his reasoning in making this decision.

Today is Good Friday.  The Christian morbid celebration of the death of Christ.  Morbid because its the one death that we celebrate rather than morn.  Its a celebration because our God choose to lend a hand when none of us were asking for it.  Once again, my son has a neurological idiosyncrasy that disallows him from comfortably asking for help.  Yet, too many of us are not autistic, and we still struggle with asking for help.  Too many of us are not autistic, yet struggle with assisting others, unless its on our own terms.  I don't know how to respond to this, yet, because I am just as guilty of wanting that control.  I don't like asking for help, and I don't like giving it when its not on my own terms.  But there is one part of me that has no problem asking for help.  Lord, I am a sinner, and death is an inevitability.  Is there anything you can do to help?

Huh?

Ok,
I have to admit, sometimes, I don't get it.  For those of you out there in cyber world with a child with autism, you know what I mean when I say I get it.  Its an odd world, you have to walk in similar shoes to understand.

Just recently, my oldest son said something that I had no idea how to respond.

To begin this story you have to first understand that he is a very lean child.  I mean skinny.  Thin as a rail.  Tall for his age and we can't find a pair of pants that adjusts tight enough around his skinny little waste to keep them up.  No hips either, the legs run straight into his torso with no bump in between.  I almost think his little behind could fit into the palm of my hand.  Not saying that I have checked and measured this to confirm it, but, its equally tiny.

So, when he announced the other day that he was going to start eating more so he could grow bigger, we were thrilled.  We started wondering what kind of fat producing foods we could start feeding him to give his body some definition.  We used this desire to even introduce new foods into his diet.  When a, "yech that's gross" statement popped out, we followed it with a, "true, but it will help you grow bigger."

But then one evening over dinner I had to ask,"why do you want to grow bigger?"  It had finally tugged in my brain that this was a new desire and we hadn't inquired into what had sparked the new interest.  The response to this question is what has left me a bit speechless.   My son said," because I am too skinny here (and then indicated his chest) I need to be wider here so that I can grow breasts.  I am too skinny here for breasts.  When I have a baby I need to have breasts and I am too skinny here to have breasts."

Huh?

Backspace Backspace Backspace delete delete delete

I had an interesting experience today on Facebook.  I had posted a comment on a friends wall, one of those "Sum up XYZ in a single word" type requests.  So I did, I posted a one word comment that I felt was appropriate and fitting for the topic.  It wasn't too profound or deeply spiritual.  Just a simple one word response.  I went back to the post a few hours later and read through some of the other one word postings and then became very confused, frustrated, and a little angry with a new comment my friend had posted.  Some of the other one word responses were the same word I had chosen.  Yet, my friend had posted a comment directed at me, citing my name directly, declaring how shallow and two faced I was.  That I had a tendency to "post and run" using one word instigating postings and often simple unreflective one liners with disregard for the conversation at hand.  Needless to say I was shocked.  Others, whom I have never met and have no knowledge of began to chime in, following my friends lead.  I felt attacked and bewildered.

I began to type in a response that was indicative of the anger and shock I was feeling.  Then....backspace backspace backspace.  I let the keys sit idle for awhile.  I wondered if my friends account had been hacked and others were posthumously posting in his name.  I left my home and went and ran some errands, yet still pondered how I could appropriately respond to my friend and his compatriots' attack.

When I finally responded, I indicated how confusing my friend was being.  I needed clarification of his remarks before I laid into him with all that I could contrive.  This is where I was glad I had that backspace button.

After sometime my friend finally posted a new comment.  Apparently there were several other postings by another individual with the same name as mine.  Of which all of his comments had been removed before I had read them.  The comments from my friend and the other non-aquaintences were all in response to this other individual, and not to me.  But, since none of them had used last names in their posts, only this individuals first name, which is also my first name, I had taken them as responding to my posting.

But this made me wonder even more.  How many times do we respond simply to what we see and hear, having limited knowledge of the entire scene before us?  Unlike FB, e-mail, chat forums...and the like, there isn't a backspace on life.  We cannot delete the actions and words that we perform and release upon our fellow men.  By God's grace and our friends forgiveness, we can try to correct or amend the injury, but we cannot delete it from having happened.

God Spoke at the Rock and I heard the Voice of Two of His Angels

I got  a second chance to go back to NYC this last weekend. I felt a little more comfortable and a little bit more familiar with the area than my first time.  I had heard about the famous windows of the major retailers and wanted to check them out.  I was also aware of the famous Christmas Tree at Rockefeller Center and wanted to go back and see it with all of its decorations, and not all of the scaffolding.

Now that I think of it, the contrast of my first trip versus this second trip plays rather well with a touching event that occurred as I was mingling within the crowd of tree gazers.

As I was staring up at the tree and its decorations, I heard the distinct sounding voice of an individual with a mental disability.  Please don't take this wrong, but sometimes the cadence, sentences and pronunciation of words from an individual with a disability is very telling.  And thus, I was touched by this individual's words, "See right there Micheal.  That's what we'll look like when we go see Jesus.  Do you see those angels right there, they're beautiful and perfect, and that's what we'll look like when we go see Jesus.  Do you see them, so pretty and perfect.  Yep, God's blessing will be on us and we'll get to look like that."  Another man next to the first, head cocked just so slightly off to the side and a little off balance responded to the first, "That sounds just about fine to me."

I asked the first man if the man standing next to him was his brother, or a friend, or ...?  "This here is my friend!"  The first proclaimed.

"Well God bless both of you, may God bless both you and your friend this Christmas."

"Well thank you very much.  Thank you"

And the three of us shook hands.  And I left to see the rest of the Christmas windows.

But these two men stuck in my head.  First, I was comforted by the fact that these two men were able to venture out on their own, together, to take in the sights of Christmas.  I was touched by their ability to not only see God in Christmas, but imagine His blessing upon them in a time to come.  I was comforted and touched because these were answers to questions I have been asking God myself.  Will my son be able to go out on his own and take in the sights of Christmas.  Perhaps not alone, but I pray that the Lord has an awesome friend for him to go out and see the world with.  Will my son ever be able to imagine God's blessing upon him?  Why not?  In fact, right now it makes me wonder what he thinks he will get to look like when he goes to see Jesus.  Oh man, the wonders that could be going on right now.