Twins and Towers at Ten

"It's been ten whole years already? Wow! Hard to believe." Many a father will say something like that while shaking his head in disbelief, when his oldest approaches the 10th birthday. It's a milestone, not just for the kid, but for the parents. It's a head-shaker because I am reminded that on that day, 10 years ago, my life changed forever. In some ways, it has passed very quickly. In other ways, it seems like it's been every bit of ten years. There are two distinct things, though, about the ten-year anniversary of my dadhood. The first is that I became a father of not one, but two little bundles of joy that Tuesday morning. Abby was born at 8:48, followed by her brother Jacob at 8:50. The second is that their birth marked some rare joy in the midst of the darkest day in our nation's history. As my wife was in labor, a nurse came in and told us that an airplane had crashed into a skyscraper in New York. I turned on the labor room TV in order to find out details. But a minute later, a painful contraction led to a gentle but firm request that I switch off the TV and hold her hand. (I'm not sure how my hand-holding could make contractions better, but I had seen enough sitcoms to know that when your wife is in labor, you should be as accommodating as you can.) So off went the TV, and the plane incident was completely gone from my mind as we went into the operating room. I scrubbed my hands, paying attention to instructions from the nurse to get the dirt that was under my fingernails. I watched as the anesthesiologist stuck a needle in Beth's back. A few minutes later, I held her hand while chatting with the the same anesthesiologist as the surgeon and nurses prepared for the Caesarian. Before long, the nurse tapped me on the shoulder to alert me to a beautiful sight. I think my heart stopped momentarily as I saw my crying little girl, Abby. Her cry was so sad, and I melted. Her brother came out crying, too, but his cry was an angry one, and I chuckled. I was told they checked out just fine, and everything was right with the world. As far as I knew. [continue]

[via James Williams]

Not Overlooking the Obvious

HT: Brain Pickings, noticed here



[from The Jubilee Project]

[via Levellers]

The Rebel Jesus and Lyrics: The Christians and the Pagans

As Christ Also Loved...

[via Emotional Abuse And Your Faith, from this post]

To An Impossible Situation That Shouldn't Last Forever

I'll give the pope some credit here. He's certainly right that getting men to stop cheating on their wives en masse - as is the custom in many African ethno-linguistic groups, especially those in which having sex with a nursing mother is a cultural taboo - would certainly abate the spread of HIV. As would ending the practices of polygamy, marrying off twelve-year-old girls, and the use of rape as a weapon of war.

But the pope doesn't know what he's talking about. Only someone who's never set foot in an African hospital would claim that condom use doesn't help fight the HIV/AIDS epidemic. Because it does. It works. When a country increases access to information about and reduces the cost of condoms, its HIV rate goes down. This is not in dispute. It works especially well when you hand out condoms in conjunction with campaigns that encourage teenagers to abstain and husbands to be faithful to their wives. But access to condoms is a key part of the strategy.

...The reality of the situation pushes aside ideals and pontifications from on high. It forces an immediate, imperfect response to an impossible situation.

It would be great if the pope's vision of fidelity replaced the need for condom distribution in much of sub-Saharan Africa. The cost-prohibitive nature of all forms of contraception and disease-prevention mean that these programs are almost completely dependent on donor financing. That money won't last forever. There will have to be long-term, local solutions to these problems. But those kinds of cultural changes take a lifetime to implement. Given that there is no evidence that condom distribution increases promiscuity - or the HIV/AIDS seropositive rate - in sub-Saharan Africa, it's ridiculous to claim that these programs do more harm than good. And the at-risk people of Cameroon and Angola and Kenya and the Congo can't wait for norms to shift. I wonder if the pope thought of that. {full post}

[via Texas in Africa]

Lost In Their Own Journeys

How about this. I’m on a journey around the world. I have all my tickets purchased and my agendas. Sometime into my journey the travel becomes rocky … then, suddenly, everything is ripped from me … my tickets, my agendas, everything … including my identity. I’m alone in a foreign land with nothing but the clothes on my back. Oh, and two young children in tow who have also been stripped of everything, including their identities, except for the clothes on their backs. I am forced to figure out who I am, where I am, how to care for my children and myself, how to help them figure out who and where they are, etc.

Yet during this time, everyone else we were travelling with has moved on in the journey. There are points along the way we still see each other, such as educational and religious meetings. But it’s odd … because all these people have all these experiences we don’t have. They are refreshed, full of life and energy … and hope … and continued goals … moving forward.

Occasionally these people ask about us, but for the most part, they’re all lost in their own journeys. Meanwhile, we’re still struggling … trying to recreate our identities … to discover who and what we are … to reconfigure our futures, our journeys.

These years … where the rest of the world has moved forward … and we’ve been trying to heal and reconstruct our lives … these are The Lost Years.

It’s getting easier to see these differences, smile, and move on. But other times it’s all I can do not to cry.

[via The Order of Recon]

Why Christian Men Abuse their Wives

[via The World According To Bruce, HT: Suzanne's Bookshelf]

What are Canadians so blase about Father's Day?

[via jordoncooper.com]

Huckabee's Mutual Compromise?

Now Mike Huckabee is running for President of the United States. He is asked about his endorsement of the SBC's family statement. Before a national television audience he gives the impression that he is offering a vigorous defense of the SBC's family statement, but what interpretation of relations within the family is he giving? Is he giving the SBC's husband-as-ruler-of-the-family interpretation or is he giving the Mainstream Baptist "mutually submissive" relations interpretation? You make the call.

[via Mainstream Baptist]

Huckabee's dodge about mutual submission doesn't fit the SBC code that he endorsed.

If a wife's relationship to her husband is analogous to a man's relationship to God, it seems that "gracious submission" can't be mutual. After all, godfearing Baptist men aren't told to offer advice to God, nor manipulate the Almighty to get their own way. They're just supposed to accept that God knows best, even if His dictates seem ridiculous.

For example, Mike Huckabee's God tells him that he's not a primate, and Huck doesn't give the Good Lord any guff.

[via Majikthise]

Huckabee is once again trying to toe a line--and a line that Bush didn't have to manage. Bush could simply throw out some code words to the faithful and be done with it. But Huck is trying so very hard to convince the church goers that he is their guy that he has to be far more explicit about his faith. But on the other side, he has to assure the rest of America that he isn't a fundamentalist--which of course, he is. Here (and I think that is why his initial response is irritation) he is forced to explain church language to the secular audience. And if they don't follow up, it sounds like the SBC is some bastion of feminine equality.

End of the day--Huckabee is just as much of a politician as Hillary or anyone else. He lies and dissembles and essentially tells the audience what they want to hear--even if that contradicts what he told the church last Sunday.

Sigh.

[via Steak's Blog]

and while we're on the subject:

Nowhere in scripture can one find a guarantee that if a wife is submissive, her husband will never leave.

Husbands leave. Wives leave. No guarantees do we have about our marriage partner.

[via Reality Check]

Containing Control

Coercive Control
Coercive Control, cont.
Coercive Control : 3
Coercive Control : 4
Coercive Control : 5
[via Suzanne's Bookshelf]

Pleasing and Placing

Pleasing Each Other

and

"Christian women should know their place."

There, I said it. In fact, I would even go so far as to say that if they don't "know their place" they cannot minister effectively.

Of course, I could also say the same thing of Christian men. They must "know their place" if they are to minister effectively. {continue...}

[via Complegalitarian]

Losing Contact

Am I going nuts? Becoming co-dependant? Reverting to an earlier state when I had to be told what to do and when to do it?

What was going on?

....I shouldn’t find my identity in my friends. Friends pass away.

I shouldn’t find my identity in my family because my Family of Origin weighs me down with too much baggage.

I shouldn’t find my identity as a parent. For that’s too oppressive to my children.

I shouldn’t find my identity as a husband. For that’s chaining my wife to MY happiness.

So where DO I find my identity?

...That’s why I grieve when a relationship is lost. When I change churches. When I lose contact with friends. When my family goes to Edmonton. And that's okay. That's what's supposed to happen.

[via Kevin G Powell]

Isn't That Romantic?

They met online. Poured out their hearts to each other. They each thought they had found a soul mate with whom they could spend the rest of their lives.

The only problem: they were already married. To each other. {more...}

[via the view from her]

Can a Liberal Learn from Mark Driscoll?

[via Threads from Henry's Web]

Distinquished Ladies

There's a subtle implication that Ruth Graham's life was somehow less than the life of the modern-day pastor's wife - a misfortune of being trapped in her husband's shadow. I wonder if the opposite is true: Ruth Graham actually lived an example of pronounced individuality. Today's famous pastor's wives seem to work hard to do the same thing as their husbands. I don't want to diminish the importance of what they do, I'm just questioning whether this actually gives them a singular identity, or simply blurs them into an almost indistinguishable extension of their husband. In today's upside down culture, we often discount the unique achievements of a quiet life, while pursuing celebrity, which ultimately diminishes us with its sameness. Something that can never be said about Ruth Graham.

[via the view from her]

Another Part of Father's Day

Remember widows who lost their companions and single mothers who lost the father of their child/ren today. Especially remember the daughters who are confused/struggling with their identity because of an absent father, and help those who resent their mothers for it.

Because Men Are...Animals?

Animal Dads: HAPPY FATHER'S DAY!

[via Mission: Kim Possible!]

Mother’s Day Blues

[via Levellers]

(Hours of) Labours of Love

But what is worse? The thought that "even if we don't have another baby, I have just given birth to another daughter, which means that 20+ years from now, I'm going to feel so bad for my two daughters who will have to push their own babies out, and I really don't want them to have to go through that pain." And I had visions of myself reading the Psalms and listening to Mozart for Mothers-To-Be (or maybe I'd get them to make a Grandmothers-To-Be cd) every night for the next 20 years, all because I was worried about the hours of labour my daughters may have to go through!

And now, I miss the labour and my time in the hospital.

[via Vandermeander, emphasis mine]

Supreme Court's Ban on "Partial-Birth" Abortion: A Pro-Life Liberal's Take

[via Blue Christian on a Red Background]