Stupid Fat Hobbit

So, I finished reading ‘The Shack’ this morning and decided I should try to put some thoughts down before going out to the internet and seeing what the general response is there. About 2 months ago, a small group of people were talking about it while I was over at their house. They highly recommended the book but at the time I was reading something else, probably the Twilight series and I decided it could wait. Then a couple of weeks ago, my mom called me to ask me if I’d read it…My mom is a voracious reader and I’m the only child she has that loves reading as much as she does. I told her that I was re-reading The Lord of the Rings but that when I was finished, I would pick it up and read it…Now, if you haven’t read it yet and plan to (which I recommend), stop reading here as there will be some spoilers in this review…Okay, here we go…

Even though I’ve been in the room with people who’ve read the book, I had not heard anything about the premise of the book other than it was spiritual in nature. To say that the blatant religiousness of the book took me by surprise would be a major understatement. I was expecting some sideways reference to Jesus or possibly the Holy Spirit, not a weekend with the Holy Trinity. First, I’d like to cover what I liked about the book but I don’t want to cover the reason why he finds himself in a shack with the Trinity because I think each person will respond differently to that situation and I don’t want to tarnish it with anticipation.

• Anyway, much of what is written resonates deeply with my interpretation of religion. The thought that the basis of life is relationships and that the greatest relationship in the universe is that of the three persons of the Trinity should be very comfortable with everyone. I have always had a rather weird view of ‘organized religion’. There is a big part of me that believes the Church is necessary but there is another part that knows deep down inside that a lot of what we consider to be ‘Christian’ probably has nothing to do with what God set out to do when he created the first man. While I was reading the book, I thought often of my father, who I’ve tried to get to go to church many times, and many times he’s told me that he has a different kind of relationship with God and that he doesn’t need to go to church to experience it. For the first time, I think I actually believe him…
• I love the way the author paints the scenes with colors and scents. I’m a visual person and the better a person can draw their world, the easier it is for me to understand it.
• I love the way this book treats forgiveness. I can’t tell you how many times I’ve heard the phrase ‘forgive and forget’ as if these two things were linked and that one begets the other. In practice, I’ve given and received forgiveness many times and, knowing the situation has not been forgotten, felt like forgiveness has not taken place. In reality, we are not capable of consciously forgetting anything (that doesn’t come from this book) and life would be a lot easier to deal with if we understood that we may have to forgive someone many times for the same thing before true healing takes place.

There are one or two things about this book that I tend to disagree with though and I think it’s only fair to mention these also.

• First and foremost, you get the definite impression that the author does not believe in evil; especially in a personage such as the devil. Not only does he treat bad things as the absence of goodness (he says so much in comparing darkness to the absence of light); he doesn’t even mention the serpent in the Garden of Eden when Eve took the fruit from the tree of knowledge of good and evil.
• I’m not particularly thrilled with the way the book ends either. You almost get the impression that once the ‘real story’ has been explained, the author completely ran out of material and just shut the book down. It’s not very graceful and leaves the reader feeling disconnected somehow; like something is missing but not in a ‘I need to go and explore this mystery’ kind of way…It’s much more of a letdown feeling.

I’m sure there are many more theological debates that could be held but as this is a work of pseudo-fiction, we should probably not debate them here.

I feel quite certain that the author (or at least one of the co-authors) read and very-much liked ‘Jonathan Livingston Seagull’ and ‘One’ by Richard Bach. Reading this book, I got very close to the same feelings I had when I read those books as a young adult.

So, the long and the short of it is that The Shack is a very good read and will make you think about your relationship with God (all 3 of Him) and with others.

Happy Mother’s Day! I wish more than anything that I could be there to share this day with you. In the picture above, you can see the things that bring me more joy than I know I’ve ever deserved. A beautiful wife and two great kids enjoying themselves out in the sun. You’re the reason that I have that joy. You said yes 18 1/2 years ago and made my life complete and full. If there have been times of trouble, there have been many, many more times of joy. I will never forget the look on your face each time we realized that you had a new life growing inside of you. What a tremendous responsibility and blessing we have been given. And you, to have carried them inside of you for 9 months and go through all of the pain that childbirth brings, only to forget it immediately and marvel at the wonder of that new life. When you said yes to me, you also said yes to God and though maybe it wasn’t so obvious then, you also said yes to them.

Today, as every day, I hope and pray that God wraps you in an envelope of peace and quiet. That the stress of the past few months can be wiped away and that you can be allowed to enjoy your Mother’s Day with your children. I can’t wait till we can be together as a family once again and celebrate these times without the distance between us. I love you more than anything other than God himself and I want the whole world to know that you are my life, you are my reason for carrying on each day, and that your love makes me wish I were a better man so that I could feel like I deserve it. So rest, my love. Be joyful today and celebrate the fact that God has blessed you with two of His children to raise, they are the reason you can call this day your own. Without them, you’d only be the best wife in the world, not the best mother as well. God bless you more today than any other day.

With all my heart and love,
Patrick

My teenaged son and I were having a heated conversation not too long ago about school, grades, and the amount of time he spends NOT being concerned with either. As a teenager, he felt it necessary to come up with some wonderful, snide retort that let me know that teenagers don’t need to discuss mundane things like education with their father’s; especially when there are still a couple of YouTube videos out there he has not yet seen. My son, summoning all of his teenage wisdom, said this: “Don’t worry dad, three more years and I’ll be out of your hair.” In the span of a microsecond, my brain said things to me like “You got that right, buddy”, “Do we really have to wait that long?”, “Smack him! Smack him, hard!”, “Try to remember, you were 15 once also.”, “It could be worse, he could be you.”, “Where DO you hide the body parts so that they can’t be found?”, “Oh come on, smack him!”. My brain is very fast, and rather caustic! Unfortunately, my mouth has been rather slow on the uptake since my “friends” at work have been reminding me that most people have a “gatekeeper” (you are more than welcome to picture me holding my hands in front of me and making the quotation marks with my fingers, if you would like) that keeps the things in their brains from making it to their lips! Whatever! So now I have a dilemma because I want my son to respect me but I also dearly want to stove in his cranium with a pan (which obviously would make it hard for him to respect me, duh). I paused a couple of seconds, exhaled deeply for dramatic effect and looked my son directly in the eyes and heard this come out of my mouth…”Son, you will never, ever be out of my hair. You may be out of my house, even in another state but I will always love you and always worry about you. And, believe it or not I don’t want you out of my hair. I might want you to be a better person but I don’t want to lose you.” Up until that point, I had never seen a teenager open their mouth to formulate a response and then close it dumbfounded (at least not without doing it on purpose to make a point). He was completely taken aback by this. He didn’t run to his desk and start doing his homework; but he didn’t lose his cool and start arguing either.

Naturally, after he walked away, I sat back and basked in the glow of what I had just accomplished. No fight, no (more) sarcastic looks or phrases, just stunned silence followed by a stroll out of the room to digest what he had just heard and try to discover if his dad really meant it or if there was a new method to sarcasm that his father was trying to impart on him. Either way, I had just gotten away with a major coup and I was very proud of myself. The back-patting machine was going full bore. Then my brain started having this little discussion inside my head that went something like this.
“That was very good, wasn’t it?”
“Yes, it was. How did you come up with that? You’re really not that good you know.”
“Maybe, after 15 years I’m finally starting to come into my own.”
“Yeah, and Hillary’s going to be a wonderful Secretary of State. Really, where’d you get that from?”
“Can’t I have just a single moment? Leave me alone.”
“Do you think your mother had anything to do with this?”
“She’s 1800 miles away. How could she?”

You see, my brain knew something that I didn’t remember knowing and it wanted to remind me of it. I hate playing games; I am a very direct person and I would prefer my brain to treat me the same way, but I had to give you some insight, didn’t I? Eventually, I was taken back to a conversation I had with my mother several years ago. I don’t remember exactly how we got on the subject but I distinctly remember saying to her, “Aren’t you glad all your kids are grown and you can stop worrying about them?” To which my mother replied that you never stop worrying about your children. In fact, she said, if they told you the truth beforehand, you’d never have children. The truth is, once your first child is born, you will never be able to stop worrying again as long as you live.
Can you imagine? And sure enough, it was way too late to try to stuff those little buggers back where they came from! So, my brain was very satisfied with itself for stealing my glory and making me realize that I had not actually become a great father overnight as well as giving me more things to think about as my teenager (who thinks I’m an idiot) becomes a man.

Well, as the wonderful poet and theologian Carl Sagan once said, “If you wish to make an apple pie truly from scratch, you must first invent the universe.” Deep, huh?

Oh, and for those of you who read the title and continued on because of it, I have something to say to you. Shame on you, go to confession now!

This is sooooo true! Look closely at the following picture and you’ll see 4 very happy people celebrating Christmas together. In 4 days, this picture will be exactly 1 year old. Two of the people are now deployed to the nether regions of the world and the other two will be celebrating Christmas alone (assuming you don’t count 6 kids, 2 dogs, a cat and a hermit crab between them).

Merry Christmas June! Merry Christmas Ward!
Merry Christmas Debbie, my love! I am missing you very much.

18 years. Can you believe it? It’s been a tough journey but I know that it has just made us stronger together. I can’t wait to see what the next 18 have to bring us. I pray for you each and every day and know that God will return you safe and sound to me. And remember:

It takes one good well deep and everflowing
It takes one good well to draw from night and day
Pure and fine it’s yours and mine and it’s always enough
We got one good well overflowing with everlasting love

I love you,
Goodnight.

All I can say is WOW! Our priest spoke this weekend about right to life issues and how Catholics are mandated by their claim to be a Catholic to vote for life. He spoke of several things, not just Roe v. Wade and the Freedom of Choice Act but he talked about how we need to stop crisis pregnancy at the source and how we have to do everything in our power to help those in crisis pregnancy situations.

His arguments were very compelling. He spoke about how some laws were inherently bad and we recognized them as such. So, slavery was bad and no reasonably intelligent person would agree today that ‘a person should be allowed to choose whether or not they should own slaves’. He spoke that way in regards to spousal abuse also, so that no reasonably intelligent person would agree that ‘a person should be allowed to choose whether or not they can beat their spouse’. Yet we are willing to engage this same type of conversation about the murder of unborn babies. Like me, he followed the abortion argument to it’s logical conclusion (and then some) which is to say “Where do we stop?” There are some countries that are already arguing for and promoting euthanasia as a means of allowing people to die with ‘dignity’. He asked, “why stop there?”; what about the infirmed?, those born with debilitating diseases?, teenagers that we just can’t control? (he got a chuckle for saying this but I’m not sure that was his intention). One more statement that he made was important I think. He said (to the effect of) that the country is responsible for making laws but it is up to the Church to be a moral compass for the country. People didn’t just start believing slavery was bad, the moral climate of the country got to the point where everyone, not just those deeply involved with their church, began to realize that slavery was bad because all men are created equal. Many people died bringing this to fruition and there are still people out there who believe they are better than others strictly because of their race but that is certainly not the pervasive feeling throughout the country.

I believe that abortion is the same way; most people understand that murder is bad but they allow themselves to be bullied into believing that the unborn are somehow not human. Because they do not fall into the ‘viable’ category they are somehow not human yet if you wait a little while, would they somehow be something else? If you apply the scientific process what would you conclude? Every single time in human history when a human egg and a human sperm have united, they have produced a human child. Not 10%, not 50%, not 99.99999%, but 100% of the time. So the argument moves to ‘when does the sperm and the egg become a child?’ This is the argument I like the most because not too long ago, we did not have any real evidence. Today however we know that immediately after the sperm and the egg unite, the new life begins; the cells start splitting and (though it may not yet look like it) little Tommy or little Janey is on the way.

So what exactly are we left with in this whole Pro-Life argument? I’ll tell you. We are left with those who have the courage to stand up for what is right and have an open, honest debate with the pro-choice people. It’s not our job to try and understand what the other side is saying. It is not our job to agree that sometimes, just maybe sometimes, there is a valid reason for aborting a baby. It is our job to present a reasoned, well thought out argument for the sanctity of all life not matter what state it is in.

What about the safety of the mother? Come on Hobbit, you have to agree that if the doctor says the mother will die delivering this baby, we should be able to abort the baby. NO I DON’T! I cannot give life to anything therefore I should not be willing to take life from anything either. One of the arguments in this case is that “we cannot be sure that the sperm and egg are a life”. If we cannot be sure it is a life, it stands to reason that we cannot be sure it is NOT a life. Which side makes more sense, allowing it to grow and see if it becomes a life or killing it, ensuring that we will never know?

So what can you do? First and foremost, you need to educate yourself on the issue so that you can make an informed case for life. Secondly, you need to vote pro-life. This is not me speaking to you, this is Pope John Paul II speaking in Evangelium Vitae that the single most fundamental right of the human being is the right to life and that no government or power be allowed to create any law which would subvert that right. All Catholics must and all Christians should be compelled to vote for the candidate who will uphold the right to life. This has nothing to do with what you think is correct or, more importantly, what your conscience is telling you; this has to do with fundamental truths and, perhaps, the reason why we are Catholics in the first place. Sometimes, it is important for us to rely on those whose job it is to educate us in our morality. In this case, it is Pope John Paul II; a man who almost all religious leaders considered to be fundamentally grounded in the gospel of Jesus Christ! He is telling us that this one subject is more important than anything else to mankind. It is THE foundational principal upon which all other moral decisions depend! Vote pro-life and then follow up to ensure that your candidates are keeping their word.

I am not a good secret keeper. When people ask me if I can keep a secret, my standard reply is “I don’t know, I’ve never tried”. But Debbie and I have had a secret for about a month now that I’ve been keeping from the kids. Not only have I been keeping it from the kids, I’ve been feeding them a bunch of hogwash and letting their imaginations run wild with it at the same time (another thing I am not strong at).
For a little over a month now, the kids have been knowing that we’re having guests come and visit. At first, the only clues they received were, “They haven’t been on the east coast for a while”, “They have 2 kids”. That sort of thing. As we got closer to the date (yesterday), the kids excitement started ramping up. I would say something like “they are not married to each other” and the next day Becka would have built this whole elaborate story, that she would then convey to Jeremy, about how they are divorced and how one kid is coming with one adult. It was the most fun I’ve had in a very, very long time.
Last night, we picked up Jeremy from soccer practice and went out to the airport. I stood back from the Arrivals board and checked the gate and then went and sat down in the generic, public area. The plane we were waiting for was 25 minutes early so the kids were thinking one arrival time, while the plane was actually already on the ground. There were a couple of News crews at the airport and that kept them relatively distracted for a good while as well. Finally, we’re standing along the railing watching the people exit Customs when I turn to my daughter and say, “Hey look, that woman looks like Mommy”. Becka looks at her and then looks at me and says, “Yeah, she really does”. 2 seconds went by before the light whacked her in the head like a Frisbee doing 40 miles per hour and she went “Hey, wait a second, it is Mommy”. It was the most priceless moment I’ve ever seen.
Debbie is in town for a couple of conferences with her boss and so we get her back for 2 precious weeks before she has to go back to violence and unrest. For the adults in the household, reality is way too present to let the joy be complete but for the kids, having mom back in the house is just a true happiness. We’re going to try to squeeze 3 months of the past into these 2 weeks (wish us luck) and then we’re going to have to say goodbye again for another 3 months. I am certain this new goodbye will be harder than the first but I have my wife back in my arms again and that means more to me right now that any future pain could possibly be worth.

It’s still a turd!

My wife’s husband is a turd. I kind of like the guy but really he is. Imagine if you will that you are a woman (for some of you this will not require imagination); you are stationed in a foreign country where women are considered to be one step below dogs on the ladder of life. You are required to drive 20 minutes back and forth to work each day, by yourself, knowing that if you break down or get a flat you will most likely be harassed (if you’re lucky) or harmed (if you’re not). Imagine that a huge terrorist bomb goes off less than a mile from where you are working. A bomb so devastating that you FEEL it in your chair! You pick up the phone and call your husband to let him know you’re okay even before he knows there is a problem and what does he do? He blogs about HIS feelings! What a jerk!

So today, I owe you all an apology but especially my wife. The one whom I love and would give the world for. I’m so sorry that you are having to experience this. People whom you worked with have died or are severely injured. You are scared and alone and I cannot be there to listen or hold you or let you cry on my shoulder. I promised to always be there for you and I cannot. You should probably hate me but you don’t. I should have stopped to ask how you were feeling and if there was anything, anything at all that I could do for you but I didn’t. I’d like to use the excuse that you had to hangup quickly or perhaps that I was so shocked by what I was hearing that I couldn’t think straight but the fact of the matter is that I’m selfish. I was scared of what would happen to me and the kids if you were gone and I thanked God that you were safe but not so much because of your safety but because we would not have to go on without you. What a selfish turd you’ve married. At this very moment I am so glad you are a strong Catholic woman who would never divorce her husband, I’d deserve it.

As you can see, I have had time now to think about what I said and did not say to you when you called. I have had time to rethink my position. I still am scared of losing you but I no longer pray for your safety out of fear of losing you or because I cannot stand the thought of the world without you but because you have placed your life on the line so that others, those back home, can sleep in peace. Maybe not all of us back home are sleeping that way but there are many more that are than aren’t. Please, please, please stay safe. Pray the Canopy Prayer every day, it really works. Know that I am praying for you every hour of the day to come back to us safe and sound. I am constantly asking God to remove your fear and allow you to rest so that you can be at your best. For him to wrap you in the wings of your Guardian Angel and block out anything that would harm you. I know that we are meant to be together and that our love will be enough to get you through this time. I am so thankful for your strengths and your weaknesses. I love you.

Me <3

Yesterday, my next door neighbor (whose child is “one of Becka’s best friends”) (we can discuss the concept of many ‘best friends’ on another day) called to ask if Becka could go to a Potomac Nationals (Carolina Minor League) baseball game. Not having paid much attention to the league lately (we attended 2 games this season both of which had rain delays in which I got soaked due to lack of preparation), I sent my daughter along to enjoy a night of hot dogs and sodas without a second thought.  While she was out, I picked up my son, whose soccer team had just tied a team from Fredericksburg 4-4 and was very proud of his and his teams performance.  We decided to celebrate the game (they were not expecting such a good result) by going to Cheeseburger In Paradise (CIP).  For the uninitiated, CIP is a Jimmy Buffett themed restaurant with awesome food including but not limited to Sweet Potato Chips as an appetizer and Chocolate Nachos for dessert.  As a side note, I am the only male I know who will admit that there are things in life that chocolate can fix and CIP Chocolate Nachos fix all but the most stubborn of those things.  Anyway, while at CIP listening to Jeremy wax rhapsodically about his new girlfriend, the game, his new girlfriend, the game, his new girlfriend, and a little more new girlfriend, Becka is constantly texting me to let me know the status of the game. Once, the phone rang and it was her calling to let me know she had actually caught a baseball (she was ecstatic). After a few more verses on the soccer game (and the new girlfriend) Jeremy and I went home for a little Father/Book, Jeremy/Video Game time (it’s our favorite part of the day); except Jeremy’s video game was interrupted by a phone call from the aforementioned new girlfriend AND HE ACTUALLY STOPPED PLAYING THE GAME TO TALK TO THE GIRL (he must really like her this is not normal behavior for him).

Anyway, this post is supposed to be about Becka, not Jeremy, so…Becka calls later to let me know that the P-Nats won the ball game (the championship game of the season) and that they were going to stay behind for the celebration and to try to get hers’ and Camerons’ (best friend) baseballs autographed. “Oh yeah, I caught a second baseball so I gave one to Cameron” she says right before hanging up. So, “Cool” says I.  My daughter gets invited to a baseball game by one of her best friends that turns out to be the championship game of the season which our team wins and my daughter catches two baseballs and is sweet enough to hand one over to the best friend who invited her to the game in the first place and I’m thinking how lucky she is to have caught those two balls in the first place because she usually doesn’t even pay attention to the game when she goes and how she must have good parents who taught her to be selfless enough to part with a prized possession such as a caught baseball when I realize that 20 minutes have gone by and my phone is ringing again.  Of course it’s Becka and now she’s calling (totally excited) to tell me that while trying to get her baseball autographed this guy behind them yells to one of the players “Hey, bring out some bats” and he does! He apparently stepped into the dugout, grabbed a few bats and brought them out and handed one directly to…yep, you guessed it, my daughter! I didn’t ask her but I bet she peed her pants! She was SOOOOO excited and her daddy is SOOOOO blessed to be the one she wanted to call with all of this joy and excitement and tell him how much she loved him and how he’s the greatest daddy in the world and how God could not have made two people more suited to be daddy and daughter.  (Well, that’s what I heard, I couldn’t tell you what she actually said; it was going to fast and my heart was listening much better than my ears anyway.)

I fell asleep reading my book, waiting for her to return but she came in and showed me the bat when she got home and it’s laying on the floor next to where she’s sleeping and I’m thinking that all the other dads out there should get to experience the joyful evening I had with my two children last night and that the only way this evening could have been better would have been if I could be in two places at once and I could have picked up my son from soccer AND gone to the game with my daughter but that’s probably what heaven will be like so I’ll wait…

God bless you all.

I used to believe that you could cure just about anything with Jagermeister.  I mean, you have a cold, try a little Jager. Ingrown Toenail, Jagermeister. Bad breakup from a long-term relationship, two shots ought to do it.  But I will shortly have 2 teenagers in this house and I don’t even think my old friend Mr. Meister will cure this one.

The funny thing is, I clearly remember saying at the birth of our second child (our daughter) “It will be just perfect, 2 years apart, boy then girl; perfect.  He’ll be able to protect her and they’ll be about the same age emotionally; it’ll be perfect”.  What kind of an idiot am I?!?!?! I am so ready to just chuck the two of them out of the house and talk to my wife about adopting a couple of Chinese kids who will be grateful for every single thing they have.

Right now, I’m refereeing the latest match in which child #1 is upset (not unhappy; livid) because child #2 chews her gum too loudly while child #2 (we’ll call her “the master of needling”) is pushing her book bag toward child #1 an inch at a time, while he’s not looking, just to get him all worked up about her stuff in his space.  Of course it doesn’t help that 14 (about to be 15) year old boy child believes that he deserves the same amount of respect (let’s call it reverence) from 12 (about to be 13) year old girl child that a World War II veteran of Omaha beach deserves from his country. Yeah, I got a whistle right here and I’m about to red flag the both of them. They are so lucky that I’m pro-life from conception to natural death right now! (That’s a joke folks, just a joke; remember blogs are therapy).

I wish I could even look forward to the hour or so at night after they go to sleep and I get to stay up and just enjoy the peace and quiet but who am I kidding; they could stay up so much later than me as to border on silly. The moment their little heads hit the pillow, so does mine and it’s light’s out for daddy baby.

It’s really too bad we don’t live in Texas anymore.  When we lived in Texas, the law was that I could buy my kids alcoholic beverages in restaurants (kind of a parental consent override to the drinking age law).  If we were still in Texas, I could apply the Jagermeister to the source of the problem (them) rather than the victim (me).  But I won’t do that either because I’m alone and what fun is it to get drunk when your wife is halfway around the world?  I mean, if I’m going to drink something that tastes like the distillery mixed Vick’s Formula 44 and Grain Alcohol; I at least want to be able to ply my lovely bride with it as well and then ravage her rockin’…oops, err, I mean hold her lovingly all night long.

And then there’s tomorrow night when I’m supposed to start attending a new men’s group that one of the priests at our church just recently started.  It’s all about Christian Fatherhood (in fact, the book we are using is called Christian Fatherhood by Steve Wood).  If you enjoy irony, you should be hog heaven right about now. It doesn’t matter though because my copy of the book has not arrived yet and I haven’t been able to read the first chapter like I was supposed to.  We’re supposed to smoke cigars after the meeting so I feel like I should go (cigars are a real guy thing and make our testosterone levels rise up).  Of course, I haven’t smoked a cigar since Thanksgiving Day 2001 (which might explain my low levels of testosterone more efficiently than just blaming middle-age) so I’ll probably just turn green and puke but there should be some entertainment value in that and I’ll be able to come home and blog about it…Yea!

Okay, I’m going to bed.  The only part of the day that I still control is bedtime.  The kids have to turn off everything electronic at 9:00 PM and lights out at 10.  I love it, I am still the king of the castle, I control the night! God bless you all.