Saturday, March 26, 2005
The grave is not empty. The sky is crying.
It isn't often that the natural world tracks so closely with our liturgical calendar. The sky has been grey, brown and stolid for the last few days, and our world cold and slushy. The hopes of watching the tulips bloom are buried under this late spring fallout of frigid wet. True: the snow is as white and pure as it always has been, but this late in March it becomes a sinister blockade to the renewal of life. Our thoughts have turned to life again - leaving the back door open, wearing the new sandals, no yelling about socks. Yet the table is still draped...
Our Good Friday service wasn't as Easter-ish as it has been in the past, but it lost all the momentum of the last few years. Strange to speak positively of an emphasis upon sin, darkness, and death, but that is what Good Friday brings to the fore. See what your sin has wrought. See the price the Father has paid for our reconciliation, our justification. See the cup of God's wrath poured out upon the Innocent, all for our sinful race. Do not start your 'devotion' with a joke. Do not sing yet of the resurrection and triumph of God in Christ, and of his people.
You do not yet get to wear white or pastels. The world remains frozen. At most, we might whisper to one another "Sunday is coming," but we whisper with the awe and soberness of those who witnessed the death of the Lamb.
(We can look to tomorrow's forecast, but the day we live in has us shivering.)
Our Good Friday service wasn't as Easter-ish as it has been in the past, but it lost all the momentum of the last few years. Strange to speak positively of an emphasis upon sin, darkness, and death, but that is what Good Friday brings to the fore. See what your sin has wrought. See the price the Father has paid for our reconciliation, our justification. See the cup of God's wrath poured out upon the Innocent, all for our sinful race. Do not start your 'devotion' with a joke. Do not sing yet of the resurrection and triumph of God in Christ, and of his people.
You do not yet get to wear white or pastels. The world remains frozen. At most, we might whisper to one another "Sunday is coming," but we whisper with the awe and soberness of those who witnessed the death of the Lamb.
(We can look to tomorrow's forecast, but the day we live in has us shivering.)
Thursday, March 17, 2005
There’s nothing holding me here now. I want to learn the ways of the Market and become a Proper Consumer like my fathers.
I made the rounds with N. yesterday. Breadstore. Big Lots. Thrift Store. They are all in the same aged, dirty strip mall. The commercial property provides a perfect snapshot of the area’s demographic: discount retail on one end. Big chaotic thrift store on the other, and in between you find no less than three rent-to-own shops, two tax preparation storefronts (‘se hablo espanol’), and a range of shops catering to a mostly Latino population (video store with lots of posters of people wielding revolvers, pollo restaurant, dollar store). The place is in desperate need of a facelift: like a weathered sleeping drunk, you can’t possibly imagine this place as youthful and spry and full of hope. Last summer we sidestepped a guy powerwashing the sidewalks, which just made the decades of gum a different shade of grey.
No destination shopping experience, this strip mall. Except for that anchor at the south end, the Unique Thrift store (and yes, there are two of them). I have seen many a fellow church-goer far from their swank suburbs perusing the aisles here. Even those entranced by mountain living will make the trip to town for the Unique experience. At any given moment at least half the clothes on my body harken from its racks (like, oh, these NorthFace fleece pants I have on right now). I don’t think a single bicycle helmet or pair of my children’s shoes offers a different provenance. You need to shop smart, of course. I have seen junk priced above retail in there at the same time that a pair of brand new Vasque Sundowner Gore-Tex boots is marked $2.92. Doc Martins. Tilley Hats. EMS jackets. Bodum French presses. German beer glasses. Coleman camp stoves -- all found at the Unique. True, the kids have to keep their jackets on at all times: twice J. has had to go into the back and ask the ladies if he could have his back after setting it on the floor to look at the books. That’s understandable, though, given that all those jackets originally came from the Unique racks.
“Moving. 3/19 30% off 3/20 50%”. I stopped cold in my tracks, staring at the magic marker sign. Can’t be. This place is always humming. It is often pleasantly flooded with the smell of freshly baked bread from the Subway next door. Just yesterday I heard Russian, Vietnamese, Spanish, and English in the store. Did they lose their lease? Do the mall managers hope to lure in a more lucrative anchor there on the barely visible corner? Are they -- as we speak -- in hardball negotiations with Nordstroms and Joslins?
I have absolved my consumer conscience through the Unique Thrift Store. Whatever we need we find there, maybe not on the first visit, but eventually. Kids need sneakers or a new parka or dress pants? Off to Unique with a ten-spot! This has been great for the family budget, but it has also slightly warped my internal understanding regarding consumption and possessions. You see, one can shop and buy lots of things as long as they are really, really good deals. The problem is, you still end up with a lot of stuff. And, too, the money saved should then be free for explicit Kingdom use, but it ends up back in queue to be spent on more amazing bargains. Worried about corporate behaviours, sweatshops, and the like? Don’t fret your mind – just buy the stuff used so the Big Moneygrubbers don’t see a cent of your money. Your hands remain clean, especially when you pay with plastic.
We will still have a nice thrift store around. There’s a nice one over on Sheridan. Twice as far away, but still only about a mile. That’s where I found J.’s lost bike, my crystal ashtray, and a Burley bike trailer for $15. They only take cash, though.
No destination shopping experience, this strip mall. Except for that anchor at the south end, the Unique Thrift store (and yes, there are two of them). I have seen many a fellow church-goer far from their swank suburbs perusing the aisles here. Even those entranced by mountain living will make the trip to town for the Unique experience. At any given moment at least half the clothes on my body harken from its racks (like, oh, these NorthFace fleece pants I have on right now). I don’t think a single bicycle helmet or pair of my children’s shoes offers a different provenance. You need to shop smart, of course. I have seen junk priced above retail in there at the same time that a pair of brand new Vasque Sundowner Gore-Tex boots is marked $2.92. Doc Martins. Tilley Hats. EMS jackets. Bodum French presses. German beer glasses. Coleman camp stoves -- all found at the Unique. True, the kids have to keep their jackets on at all times: twice J. has had to go into the back and ask the ladies if he could have his back after setting it on the floor to look at the books. That’s understandable, though, given that all those jackets originally came from the Unique racks.
“Moving. 3/19 30% off 3/20 50%”. I stopped cold in my tracks, staring at the magic marker sign. Can’t be. This place is always humming. It is often pleasantly flooded with the smell of freshly baked bread from the Subway next door. Just yesterday I heard Russian, Vietnamese, Spanish, and English in the store. Did they lose their lease? Do the mall managers hope to lure in a more lucrative anchor there on the barely visible corner? Are they -- as we speak -- in hardball negotiations with Nordstroms and Joslins?
I have absolved my consumer conscience through the Unique Thrift Store. Whatever we need we find there, maybe not on the first visit, but eventually. Kids need sneakers or a new parka or dress pants? Off to Unique with a ten-spot! This has been great for the family budget, but it has also slightly warped my internal understanding regarding consumption and possessions. You see, one can shop and buy lots of things as long as they are really, really good deals. The problem is, you still end up with a lot of stuff. And, too, the money saved should then be free for explicit Kingdom use, but it ends up back in queue to be spent on more amazing bargains. Worried about corporate behaviours, sweatshops, and the like? Don’t fret your mind – just buy the stuff used so the Big Moneygrubbers don’t see a cent of your money. Your hands remain clean, especially when you pay with plastic.
We will still have a nice thrift store around. There’s a nice one over on Sheridan. Twice as far away, but still only about a mile. That’s where I found J.’s lost bike, my crystal ashtray, and a Burley bike trailer for $15. They only take cash, though.
Saturday, March 12, 2005
We needed to destroy the tree in order to save it, sir.
The ground is littered with sticks, and a dime-sized blister has developed on my thumb. Three down, two to go.
We moved into this little house in late July, 1998. The cherry tree had already given up its bounty (to the listing agent, I might add), but the nectarine and apricot trees were in all their summer glory. So too were the raspberries, currents, and a small blueberry bush. J. was three at the time and quickly tapped into his primal foragin skills. He didn’t’ have a solid bowel movement for weeks, all that fruit gurgling through his little frame with alacrity. The next summer was banner, too: we measured the cherries by the gallon (I stored them frozen in the breakroom fridge at work, to the annoyance of many people who never used the freezer but just didn’t like the idea of me keeping energy costs down by filling it with personal frozen items). Nectarines were sliced and frozen and gave us amazing smoothies into January. I made syrups and even a funky mead from all the currents. But then our edenic yard dried up. We haven’t had a harvest of note in at least three years. The drought? God’s curse upon his rebellious people on the corner of Linley and Vassar? Has my kindness with the reluctant pruners been misconstrued?
I am loath to slice into the growth a tree has seen fit to exhibit. “You need to grow up that direction, Ms. Peach? By all means. Here, though. Lemme tie up that branch with a little parachute chord…there you go. Have fun growing a gangly limb!” Suckers and sprouts and scores of crowded shoots are just the Way Things Are. I take the same approach to my yard: if the grass stubbornly refuses to grow in one section, let’s say a prayer, let it die, and cover it with decorative mulch or river rock. Except for the radical pruning prompted by the blizzard’s dead weight two years back, I am sad to say I have not pruned any of my trees (except of dead branches or limbs which took aim at my head) since we moved in.
As it turns out, there is no kindness in failing to prune these trees. They are not native creatures flourishing by God’s design: they are cultural artifacts, human adjustments to this cosmos which should make our lives that much better. But, like Kentucky bluegrass or Shi'Tzu's: you cannot expect them to thrive on their own. There is no wisdom, then, in letting them take their course. Very few things, it turns out, are better off as a result of neglect.
So I arm myself with red clippers, a pruning saw, and long-handled pruners and go at it. It’s spring, now. Time to attack all those sprouts and shoots which have so quietly grown up over the winter. Over so many winters. One thing that surprised me as I snipped away at the nectarine yesterday: why was I so surprised at the lack of fruit? Why did I think that just because I occasionally saw some blossoms and leaves showed up on time that it would produce the produce I knew it capable of? No organism with such distractions as these manifold sprouts and branches could focus on its mandate.
Grow, happy trees! Again fulfill your mandate! Give us your bounty which was ordained beforehand! Glorify your creator with juicy, pump fruits!
We moved into this little house in late July, 1998. The cherry tree had already given up its bounty (to the listing agent, I might add), but the nectarine and apricot trees were in all their summer glory. So too were the raspberries, currents, and a small blueberry bush. J. was three at the time and quickly tapped into his primal foragin skills. He didn’t’ have a solid bowel movement for weeks, all that fruit gurgling through his little frame with alacrity. The next summer was banner, too: we measured the cherries by the gallon (I stored them frozen in the breakroom fridge at work, to the annoyance of many people who never used the freezer but just didn’t like the idea of me keeping energy costs down by filling it with personal frozen items). Nectarines were sliced and frozen and gave us amazing smoothies into January. I made syrups and even a funky mead from all the currents. But then our edenic yard dried up. We haven’t had a harvest of note in at least three years. The drought? God’s curse upon his rebellious people on the corner of Linley and Vassar? Has my kindness with the reluctant pruners been misconstrued?
I am loath to slice into the growth a tree has seen fit to exhibit. “You need to grow up that direction, Ms. Peach? By all means. Here, though. Lemme tie up that branch with a little parachute chord…there you go. Have fun growing a gangly limb!” Suckers and sprouts and scores of crowded shoots are just the Way Things Are. I take the same approach to my yard: if the grass stubbornly refuses to grow in one section, let’s say a prayer, let it die, and cover it with decorative mulch or river rock. Except for the radical pruning prompted by the blizzard’s dead weight two years back, I am sad to say I have not pruned any of my trees (except of dead branches or limbs which took aim at my head) since we moved in.
As it turns out, there is no kindness in failing to prune these trees. They are not native creatures flourishing by God’s design: they are cultural artifacts, human adjustments to this cosmos which should make our lives that much better. But, like Kentucky bluegrass or Shi'Tzu's: you cannot expect them to thrive on their own. There is no wisdom, then, in letting them take their course. Very few things, it turns out, are better off as a result of neglect.
So I arm myself with red clippers, a pruning saw, and long-handled pruners and go at it. It’s spring, now. Time to attack all those sprouts and shoots which have so quietly grown up over the winter. Over so many winters. One thing that surprised me as I snipped away at the nectarine yesterday: why was I so surprised at the lack of fruit? Why did I think that just because I occasionally saw some blossoms and leaves showed up on time that it would produce the produce I knew it capable of? No organism with such distractions as these manifold sprouts and branches could focus on its mandate.
Grow, happy trees! Again fulfill your mandate! Give us your bounty which was ordained beforehand! Glorify your creator with juicy, pump fruits!
Thursday, March 10, 2005
The baetis box is nearly complete!
I haven't organized my flyboxes in years. Typically I just shove new patterns into the old boxes wherever they might fit, and if there is no room I toss the new flies into smaller containers and fill up the vest pockets with a confusing array of ad hoc Solo cups.
Most of my flyboxes, then, are museums to my whims and skills as a tyer -- snapshots as to what I liked and what I could manage with the abililites and materials in my possession in 1996. The system works just fine until I find myself standing midstream, staring into a crowded flybox with no idea where such-and-such a pattern is hiding. I know I tied up a few #18 olive-biot bodied CDC emergers, you think. Maybe they're in my chest pocket? Maybe I left that container in the fanny pack? Meanwhile the trout ignore your grey dubbed deer-hair emergers and your #16 olive parachutes.
There are but a few organizing philosophies regarding flyboxes. The first (in chronology and simplicity) revolves around What You've Got. You just plunked down several c-notes for a rod and reel, waders, boots, vest and polarized glasses. Your one flybox holds every bug you own, from a black wooley worm to #14 Beadhead Hare's Ears to some Pale Morning Dun quills the guy at the shop recommended. Streamers, attractor patterns, hatch-matching duns - they all go into that one box. At $1.50 - $2.25 per fly, this system may work really well. Until you start tying your own flies.
When you begin knocking out a dozen or so bugs at a sitting, that one box gets full awfully fast. Now we need to be a little more sophisticated in our cataloging and organization. You have two ways to go: river-specific boxes, or species-specific. If you fish specific rivers often and don't mind several boxes full of redundant patterns, this will work fine. Except when you use up all the Blue-winged Olive Mayflies in your South Platte box and you need to take along your Green River box.
The better solution is to have species-specific boxes loaded to the gills, as it were. So if you are heading to the Arkansas River in April, you take the caddis and small mayfly boxes. Colorado in August? Caddis, terrestrial, and bigger mayflies. And if you plan on swinging by the Frying Pan during that trip, be sure to include the small mayfly, attractor dries, and Green Drake boxes. You see the trouble with this solution, don’t you? You might end up waddling onto the river like some fishing commando, bulging with ammo boxes. The price you pay to catch wary trout during dryfly season. [The observant reader will look at the box pictured above and say, Wait just a minute, Commando-A. You call this a baetis box, but it clearly is packed with not only trico patterns, but also SJ worms and not a few scuds and midges. What gives? Excellent! A little sleuth work would reveal that you are witnessing the evolution of a box before our very eyes. This particular Morel ultralight flybox began its life as a whim purchase to hold Bighorn bugs on a trip in 2000. It then was pressed into double-duty, holding patterns for the finicky trout in the Cheeseman Canyon stretch of the South Platte. Rather than purge its history, I just filled all its empty spaces with baetis patterns and called it good.]
A few final notes for anyone still reading: the retail value of the box above is well over $400. It holds around 325 flies. You can imagine the heartbreak this causes a guy when he loses a box (which I have done. More than once). Another note: my current library of flyboxes includes the following: a Wheatly swingleaf, for both caddis and larger mayflies; a small bristletack box for green drakes (including flavs); a small box for hoppers; a midge box (including Mysis patterns); an attractor nymph box; a 16-compartment aluminum box for attractor dries; a big ol’ streamer box; a big box for lake and small streams; a big box full of carp patterns; a mostly empty aluminum clip box for wetflies (including kokannee nymphs); and a stonefly box (which is a work in progress. Not a lot of opportunity for fishing exclusively for stones around here). The bass and pike flies are tossed into big organizing containers rather than proper boxes. I suppose if I ever fish those I could just toss them into an old margarine tub. No need to get fancy with bass or pike.
Wednesday, March 09, 2005
Distinguished guests
Denver Seminary hosted D.A. Carson for its Spurgeon Lectures this week. I loaded the kids up with their schoolwork, kissed St. on the cheek and flew out the door to hear this prolific writer speak on suffering.
And quite a speaker Dr. Carson turned out to be. Engaging. Serious. Funny. The topic is hardly an easy one to expound upon without a morose fog descending on the assembly. My notes on the first day are downright anemic simply because you did not want to leave the flow of oratory to scribble something down.
After the talk, Pat turned to me and asked if I would like to join him and some others for a little coffee and refreshments with Dr. Carson in the President's office. Sure. Ok. Gotta get back to the kids sooner than later, but one cup of coffee and a few melon chunks with Don would be fine. And since I had never set foot in the president's office during my four years of schooling, I thought, why not now?
Even if I was wearing jeans and fleece at least I had shaved that morning.
Dr. Carson came in and shook hands. "I understand I am supposed to be meeting with distinguished people. So what makes you distinguished?" he asked Dr. Means on my right, a pastor of 20+ years and retired seminary professor. Quick! Hide!
Rather than run out, I was pressed into sitting down. Only for a few minutes! I insisted. Dr. Carson sat down and began the introductions. As it was, I sat at the far clockwise position, last in line. Pastors. Professors. The brother immediately before me graduated in 1997. He is from Liberia and has served as a missionary and teacher in Ethiopia. Currently he is back in the US teaching in churches about the role of Islam in Africa, but he is making plans to return to Liberia in six years to run for president. Of Liberia. "Wow," the group murmurs. "And you? David, was it?" I don't belong here. The melon cubes were not worth this terrific price.
One day I imagine I will be able to sit around such a table without awkwardness. Even if nothing "distinguishing" marks my resume, there will be this settled contentment which allows me to sit with those who are wise and godly, to sit at the gates without shame. The day I am no longer consumed with the small things.
[I'll write some on the content of the lectures in a bit. Right now the family is in the van, waiting for a run to Sam's club.]
And quite a speaker Dr. Carson turned out to be. Engaging. Serious. Funny. The topic is hardly an easy one to expound upon without a morose fog descending on the assembly. My notes on the first day are downright anemic simply because you did not want to leave the flow of oratory to scribble something down.
After the talk, Pat turned to me and asked if I would like to join him and some others for a little coffee and refreshments with Dr. Carson in the President's office. Sure. Ok. Gotta get back to the kids sooner than later, but one cup of coffee and a few melon chunks with Don would be fine. And since I had never set foot in the president's office during my four years of schooling, I thought, why not now?
Even if I was wearing jeans and fleece at least I had shaved that morning.
Dr. Carson came in and shook hands. "I understand I am supposed to be meeting with distinguished people. So what makes you distinguished?" he asked Dr. Means on my right, a pastor of 20+ years and retired seminary professor. Quick! Hide!
Rather than run out, I was pressed into sitting down. Only for a few minutes! I insisted. Dr. Carson sat down and began the introductions. As it was, I sat at the far clockwise position, last in line. Pastors. Professors. The brother immediately before me graduated in 1997. He is from Liberia and has served as a missionary and teacher in Ethiopia. Currently he is back in the US teaching in churches about the role of Islam in Africa, but he is making plans to return to Liberia in six years to run for president. Of Liberia. "Wow," the group murmurs. "And you? David, was it?" I don't belong here. The melon cubes were not worth this terrific price.
One day I imagine I will be able to sit around such a table without awkwardness. Even if nothing "distinguishing" marks my resume, there will be this settled contentment which allows me to sit with those who are wise and godly, to sit at the gates without shame. The day I am no longer consumed with the small things.
[I'll write some on the content of the lectures in a bit. Right now the family is in the van, waiting for a run to Sam's club.]
Saturday, March 05, 2005
A new record for the Adeodatus household
Two bikes stolen in the space of 20 hours. That brings the total number of bikes lost to five, I think (although that number may also include the aluminium scooter J got for Christmas a few years back). Usually we lose junky little bikes that the littlest ones leave on the sidewalk, but this time we lost two mountain bikes.
J called sobbing from his school yesterday. Through the gulps for air and slurred language I gathered that he neglected to lock his bike to the fence and someone took it during the day. He thought he'd forgotten his lock, but no: it was just in the new packs we put on last week rather than in his backpack. (So the thief not only got a really nice mountain bike with brand new rear panniers, he's also got a good lock and cable to make sure he doesn't suffer the same fate he inflicted. Grrrrrr). The other bike was a little mountain bike that doesn't currently fit anybody. The neighbor girl was riding it the evening before its disappearance, and I have no idea where she left it.
The record shows that I handled the loses with less than joyful forebearance. J's last bike was stolen more dramatically: it was leaning against the inside of our chainlink fence and somebody reached over and horked it. When we were dang close to broke last fall J & I discovered this new bike at the thrift store for $14 and spent weeks stripping it to the frame and removing years of caked-on neglect. I installed all my vintage mountain bike parts to make it into a very nice bike, especially for a fourthgrader. Strong wheels. Quick drivetrain. New grips, chain, saddle, tires. J even got a cool little black bell for Christmas. We hatched this plan for late spring to ride up Waterton Canyon to the South Platte, then up through Woodland Park and up and over Rampart Range down to Monument. It was to be a very scenic two-three day trip, mostly on dirt roads.
The pneumatikos dad would have placed the disappointment and anger into perspective and spoken words of faith and encouragement to a distraught ten-year-old. The best this psuxikos father could muster was biting my tongue for the first fourty minutes he was home. Then I told him I was going to be angry for a while (not a long while, though it might seem like it), and that even though he made a bad decision, he is allowed to make some bad deisions as a kid. That's how you learn. And I still loved him, even if through clenched teeth.
Today, maybe, I'll have the faith to actually pray with him for the bike's return (or at least for the thief's salvation), and talk about the way God works such things for good, even when they are the result of our foolish decisions. That said: anybody got a decent 16" or 17" bike they aren't using at the moment? We do have an extra lock that I can almost guarantee will be used conscientiously from here on out.
(as for the other bike and the neighbor girl: I'm keeping my eye on her...)
J called sobbing from his school yesterday. Through the gulps for air and slurred language I gathered that he neglected to lock his bike to the fence and someone took it during the day. He thought he'd forgotten his lock, but no: it was just in the new packs we put on last week rather than in his backpack. (So the thief not only got a really nice mountain bike with brand new rear panniers, he's also got a good lock and cable to make sure he doesn't suffer the same fate he inflicted. Grrrrrr). The other bike was a little mountain bike that doesn't currently fit anybody. The neighbor girl was riding it the evening before its disappearance, and I have no idea where she left it.
The record shows that I handled the loses with less than joyful forebearance. J's last bike was stolen more dramatically: it was leaning against the inside of our chainlink fence and somebody reached over and horked it. When we were dang close to broke last fall J & I discovered this new bike at the thrift store for $14 and spent weeks stripping it to the frame and removing years of caked-on neglect. I installed all my vintage mountain bike parts to make it into a very nice bike, especially for a fourthgrader. Strong wheels. Quick drivetrain. New grips, chain, saddle, tires. J even got a cool little black bell for Christmas. We hatched this plan for late spring to ride up Waterton Canyon to the South Platte, then up through Woodland Park and up and over Rampart Range down to Monument. It was to be a very scenic two-three day trip, mostly on dirt roads.
The pneumatikos dad would have placed the disappointment and anger into perspective and spoken words of faith and encouragement to a distraught ten-year-old. The best this psuxikos father could muster was biting my tongue for the first fourty minutes he was home. Then I told him I was going to be angry for a while (not a long while, though it might seem like it), and that even though he made a bad decision, he is allowed to make some bad deisions as a kid. That's how you learn. And I still loved him, even if through clenched teeth.
Today, maybe, I'll have the faith to actually pray with him for the bike's return (or at least for the thief's salvation), and talk about the way God works such things for good, even when they are the result of our foolish decisions. That said: anybody got a decent 16" or 17" bike they aren't using at the moment? We do have an extra lock that I can almost guarantee will be used conscientiously from here on out.
(as for the other bike and the neighbor girl: I'm keeping my eye on her...)
