Suicide…

I wrote about about suicide in response to the death of a loved pastor. I see true community engagement as making so much of a difference with people who suffer from depression.

Decisions, Decisions…

One of the most difficult things for me about elder care is decision making. I started managing the care of my grandmother nearly five years ago, she was unable to care for herself and also unable to make decisions regarding her care needs. My difficulty is that she’s my elder, who am I to tell her what she needs to do, I should be relying on her wisdom and experience. The fact is that age has robbed her of both, and she is incapable. All of the professionals remind me of this fact, but she is still the lady that fed me macaroni and cheese and tucked me into bed.

Who am I to make decisions for her?

Who better?

This whole process continues to remind me that it wasn’t God’s plan that we get old, frail and die.

Minimum Maintenance Post…

Today’s another MMP, life and blogging sometimes do not mix. There was an interesting comment or two worth searching for in the past few days. Check ‘em out…

Small Lake Near Brandon MN

Today we detoxed from a parental visit by paddling around a lake.  We have much to talk about and work through, and it was good to take a break from the stress for a short time…then back to life.

A Concert Induced Glow…

Twelve days ago we went to a “worship service” and left burdened and saddened by the vacant faces and shallow praise, I blogged about it here. Oddly enough at the same time I saw the poster at for the empty concert at the entry to my workplace, I saw a poster for Pat Surface. Likely few of you have heard of Pat, I however remembered his ad from Boundary Waters Journal, a Minnesota publication focusing on the Boundary Waters Canoe Area Wilderness. I downloaded a couple of mp3’s from the site referenced in the ad, enjoyed them and remember thinking that someday I ought to order a CD or two.

Standing at my workplace I inputted the data for both concerts into my PPC and went along (more or less) happily through life waiting as usual for the Outlook reminders that guide my life to go off. Well, one of those reminders went off yesterday, so we went to Grace Methodist in Fergus Falls on Saturday night and were treated to one of the best concerts we’ve ever attended. Pat was joined by Eli Bissonett on violin and Pat’s wife Donna who signed the lyrics in a combination of American Sign Language and Dance.

This time we stayed for the entire concert and bought four CD’s. I’ve already imported them into iTunes. His work is a self-described “blend of Celtic and Eastern European sounds and rhythms”, not being any sort of music expert I’m unable to comment otherwise. I simply loved the blend of acoustic guitar and violin and clear vocals, to me his style is pure “folk”, which is how he describes himself in person. I’ve no definition in my head for “folk” singing, other than to remember other groups called “folk”; Peter, Paul & Mary, The Mamas and the Papas and I think of Bob Dylan as a “folk” singer. I guess I would define “folk” singing as “clear, homespun acoustic music with a heartfelt, non-commercial message”.

“I’m a folk singer, do you know the difference between a ‘folk singer’ and a 24″ pizza?” Pat asks. “A 24″ pizza can feed a family of four.”

He is an unabashed believer in Jesus Christ and a strong environmentalist, which suits my own point of view. Two of the CD’s we purchased featured the photography of Jim Brandenburg, one of the world’s premier nature photographers, a Minnesotan. He also shared a song dedicated to Will Steger called Pathfinder (I hope my memory is serving me right), Steger is an arctic explorer and environmentalist.

This evening was a refreshing change from the “show” we attended ten days ago. It was wonderfully free of “hype” and did not try to sell sound pressure as a substitute for musicianship. We were not pressured to “worship”, nor were we overwhealmed with images and production. These guys simply played music. They were quiet and humble, very loving and joyful. Laurie and I were both touched to the point of tears. Laurie by a song about his musical family and their get-togethers, me by a song based on the poem Belleau Wood, which tells the story of a Christmas Peace on the front lines of WWI.

We were able to thank Pat, Donna and Eli after the performance. Pat is well over 6-1/2′ tall and Eli is not a whole lot shorter, Donna balanced things as she may have been a little bit shorter than my wife. It is a joy to meet and be blessed by the music and dance of fellow troubadours and sojourners. During the evening Pat, Eli and Donna kept returning to Will the Circle be Unbroken, and I couldn’t help but feel that they felt a special delight when singing “there’s a better, home ‘a waitin’, in the sky Lord in the sky.”

I read somewhere that the definition of “Sojourner” is someone who’s not at home.

Creativity Rediscovered…

If you noticed the photographs on the sidebar (this refers to a now defunct blog/format) you’ve been exposed to the second tine in Kent’s creative fork. As I grew up there was a lot of value placed on creativity, my mother was a high school sewing teacher and it seems that she was always making something or another. I did learn to sew and made some shirts and backpacking equipment, including a down sleeping bag we still use, but sewing wasn’t “my thing”.

When I was a little kid I used to carry around the front of the case to my Mom’s Argus C3, a popular old 35mm rangefinder designed to resemble a brick. This was long before the word “ergonomics” entered our vocabulary. I was always fascinated by the thing, but it was a definite “no” object, I’m sure it was used to take the picture of me holding it’s case. When I was about 10 or so my folks got into photograpy. My Dad got a Nikkormat 35mm SLR and a couple of lenses, my mom got a Konica. I liked my Dad’s camera better ’cause my Mom’s was automatic, and I figured automatic cameras were for girls. This was long before the term “gender equity” entered our vocabulary.

I inhereted the Argus C3, and used the heck out of it. My Grandpa got into the whole thing too and got a Nikkormat like my Dad’s only his was in black, which is cooler than being in “non black”. Later after my Dad died and I inhereted his “non black” Nikkormat I traded it with my Grandpa so I could have a “black” Nikkormat. Black cameras had more “juice” among yearbook photographers. After my Dad’s death I saw the whole world through my photographs, I think that it was a way to “stop” things and events that seemed so out of control to me. The “world” has always seemed to me to have the contradictory traits of being too fast and too slow. Don’t ask me to explain that. I think photography was a way to disassociate a bit and at the same time look at things more closely. I loved darkroom work as it was “alone” work. Kodachrome and I Am a Rock by Simon & Garfunkel were my theme songs, and in retrospect I think that photography became therapy to me. I needed an identity, the man who helps you to develop identity went missing in my life, photography filled that need.

I had an opportunity to go to the Brooks Institute after High School, but I was too chicken so I went to a local community college after working at a print shop for a year. My photograpy petered out, I sold my equipment and moved on to the rest of life.

When my Grandfather died in ‘90 I inhereted the “non black” Nikkormat that I had traded him for the cool “black” Nikkormat. It would have been cool to say that this old friend coming back into my hands sparked a reinterest in photography, but it would not be true. That was the year in which I became a follower of Jesus, it was a painful and tumultuous year. When I became a believer I didn’t find my creativity rekindled, I allowed what was left of my creativity to be snuffed. It wasn’t until the last few years that I’ve been able to reconcile creativity and artistry with Christianity. I dated a lady prior to my marriage that was a believer and an artist, but somehow that part of me was still dormant. It’s tempting to blame the “world denying aspects of fundamentalism”, which is a factor, but the reality is that I was still uncomfortable with that part of me. I’m a slow, late bloomer. The world goes way too fast for me, remember?

At the time of our move we were undergoing somewhat of a crisis. My wife was sick of being married to someone who was pretty much directionless. She wanted me to have a “passion”. I think that she knew that there was something deep in me that was hidden away from her, and she wanted to know that part of “Kent”. She intuitively knew that she didn’t have access to the “whole man”. On the basis of a friend’s recommendation I read The Call by Os Guinness and worked through What Color is Your Parachute by Richard Bolles. Os’ teaching about primary and secondary callings, the Protestant and Catholic distortions and the “audience of One” all helped me to realize that my life wasn’t about pleasing others, it was about pleasing God. Parachute helped me to ascertain what I enjoyed, what I cared about.

Two more books that I read soon after completed the rekindling of the creative part of me. Blue Like Jazz by Donald Miller and A New Kind of Christian by Brian McLaren were instrumental in helping me to realize that there was an approach to following Jesus that wasn’t based on the world denying cynicism of fundamentalism. Both works helped release me from negativity and judgement and I’m grateful to both authors.

I picked up that Nikkormat a couple of years ago, but it took too long to get the film developed and I didn’t have a darkroom any longer. I researched digital cameras, and finally “jumping the Nikon ship” I bought a Canon A70, likely my last Canon as it’s already been in “the shop” once. Regardless, it’s been a Godsend, we’ve created well over 6,000 images in the past year. I was amazed at the quality of the output, and it’s macro capabilities are quite good, though it’s overall not well suited to my uses. I hope to upgrade to a Nikon D70 in the not-too-distant future.

I firmly believe that creativity is one of the key areas of our being that reflects the image of God. Genesis starts with His creativity and he shares the naming and stewardship of creation with his greatest work, mankind. The images we create are simply refections of what He created, all that we add is focus. My wife is the spotter, when she is in a woods she runs to and fro identifying flowers and mushrooms and trees and bugs. She’s like a little child, excited, my helpmate in my work of reflecting creation. She sees details I would not have noticed, she documents, she tends and nurtures. I lay on the ground with a camera and provide technical expertise, without her appreciation of the work of our Creator these images would not exist.

Please enjoy them.

There are many more, and many more being added on our commercial site, here and on the sidebar as Together by Design.

Locating Gas…

While in the doctor’s office this morning waiting for someone to locate a vein in my arm, I thought about how I’d rather not locate underground gas lines. My musing produced this (satire):

This morning sattelite imagery over Fergus Falls Minnesota indicated a moderate “heat bloom” in a trailer park just north of town.As events unfold it appears that, an underground utility locator, on his first day locating natural gas, transposed a number. Experts are theorizing that Kent Runge (tentatively identified by a co-worker) misread a measurment on a blueprint and marked a a gas line a being 25 inches from the side of a trailer when it was actually 52 inches distant. Details are sketchy, but a trenching crew may have been excavating at the same location.

A local utility worker, refusing to identify himself was heard to say, “As sure as my name is Bjorn Pedderson, if I told that Charley Larson to stop smoking while sneaking up close to gas lines once, I told him a tausand times!”

Mr. Runge’s remains were identified by co-worker and supervisor Curt Court.

“When they asked me to drive up to Friberg Township to identify what’s left of Kent I thought, ‘What the…’, the cut was about twelve miles away in town. Then they pointed out what looked like a leg lying in a patch of poison ivy in the road ditch. ‘Sure enough’ I told ‘em ‘them’s his boots, er boot, see the orange paint?”

Court continued, “And he just had a worker’s comp claim for poison ivy…I guess this ‘ll be goin’ on worker’s comp too. This ain’t a good job for someone with that dyslexia stuff.”

“Anyway,” Court resumed, “I got to get going, I’ve got three more tickets to get done plus the damage report for this mess. Be lucky to get out fishin’ tonite.”

Court was heard to say as he left, “I hope we find his locator somewhere, those things ain’t cheap.”

We’ll have more details as they become available, but for now the residents of this Fergus Falls trailer park are picking up the pieces and jacking their trailers back up on cement blocks. One resident was heard to quip, “It could ‘a been worse, my sattelite dish seems ok.”

My Friend Flickr…

Via www.flickr.com I am able to place a “badge” on the sidebar of this blog that will randomly display our photographs. I hope you enjoy them, my wife and I are just now celebrating one year of involvement in digital photograpy.

I was quite obsessed with photograpy back in the late 70’s when I was in high school. I had my own darkroom and photographed for the school yearbook and newspaper. Photography is something that I wish I’d never put aside. We are in-process of putting together a commercial site for our photographic work that we hope will someday provide some positive cash flow.

That will probably happen around the time I become a famous writer…

Creation touches us. I hope you enjoy our vision of creation through these images I’ve added, it has been an act of worship to create them.

Being Critiqued…by my Wife.

I originally started this post on my birthday, which was some time ago. Around a year or so ago I prayed that God would show me what was “wrong” with me. He was faithful to that prayer. There are other prayers I would rather He granted so readily, but the fact that He granted this one is proof that I was praying something close to His will. Dang.

So what happened is this:

I went through a long period of time when all (“many” is probably more accurate and more likely representative of God’s perspective) of the things I’d been struggling with came to sort of a “head”. In all probability this was tougher on my wife than on me, I simply had to face all of these issues…Laurie had to live with them.

Then one day in a session with our pastoral counselor, a session during which I was venting my frustration and being critiqued so frequently, he said something like “why don’t you just thank Laurie when she critiques you, then ask her how she thinks you can improve.”

I looked him straight in the eye and said, “Do you do that?”

He looked right back at me and said, “Yes.”

I looked into his eyes for a moment, waiting for a flicker. I didn’t get one. He won. “How can I, do that?”, I asked.

“Do you believe your wife wants what’s best for you?”

That was a hard question to answer.

I basically have two “life mottos”, one from scripture, the other from e.e. cummings.

To be nobody but yourself, in a world which is doing it’s best, night and day, to make you like everybody else, means to fight the hardest battle which any human being can fight; and never stop fighting…

What our counselor was asking me to break was the assumption I’ve carried through life that everybody wants to change me from what I am into what they want me to be. When I became a believer I saw no need to abandon this “motto”, I “let God in”, I opened my heart and mind to the concept that there was somebody else on “my side” besides me.

My Wife.

I looked at my wife. What do I believe about her? What do I believe about marriage? Do I believe that we are in an adversarial relationship? Do I believe that she is selfish in how she wants me to be?

Maybe.

I asked her. “Are you ever selfish? Do you ever ask yourself if the things you ask me to change are ‘all about you’?”

“Yeah, I ask myself that. When I’m unsure I don’t ask.”, she replied.

Right at that moment, in the presence of two people that deeply care about me, and deeply care about me becoming the man that God wants me to be, I realized that I could trust my wife and my pastor.

He asked me, “Do you believe that I have an ‘agenda’?”

I was given the space to think for a few moments.

“No.”, I said.

The change in me was not immediate. I have many “programmed responses” that I’ve needed to “re-program”, but the change is taking place. It’s very freeing to trust, it’s a blessing to realize that there are people in life who care for you, love you and want what’s best for you. It’s empowering because I no longer feel like I have to “fight” everybody, I can let some people “in” and allow them to speak with authority and love in my life.

When my wife brings up an issue with me my first response is no longer “fight or flight”. I calm the raging inner storm, I pray for a second, then I thank her and ask her how I can improve.

The “Wall of Separation”…

I’m going to occasionally link posts from BHT to my own blog, generally when I think that a post I make in “the Tavern” compliments my theme here at Saints & Children. I wrote this piece on the “Wall of Separation” between church and state.