Anniversaries

Autumn is an inherently nostalgic time for me.  The dip in temperatures, change of wardrobe  and falling leaves stir up memories of halcyon days long gone.  That feeling is amplified in my family because between September 13 and November 22 of each year we celebrate five birthdays and our wedding anniversary in addition to Halloween and (sometimes) Thanksgiving.  The final third of each year provides a predictable overdose of reminiscence.

Yesterday was our thirteenth wedding anniversary.  My memories of the event are as crisp as the temperatures we enjoyed on our wedding day.  Friends and family from all over the U.S. and Canada had flown in to celebrate with us, and we surrounded ourselves with seven bridesmaids and eight groomsmen on the stage, a phalanx of brothers and sisters covenanting to hold us to our vows before God.  Most of all I remember my youthful bride, inexplicably radiant as she walked down the aisle toward a guy who felt like he’d just won the lottery.  Last night we looked through a scrapbook that Toria made years ago, documenting our engagement, wedding and honeymoon.  We look ridiculously young in those pictures.  Looking back now, it seems that we hardly knew each other.  But things have worked out pretty well.

Some of the many things that have worked out well are our children.    The third of our four celebrates his birthday today.  This morning he woke to pancakes and presents.  He was as delighted opening his new Star Wars toys as I was opening mine 30+ years ago.  I put him on the school bus with a smile on his face, anticipating a full day of recognition. 

In twelve days we’ll observe our oldest’s birthday.  November 22 carries some pretty heavy historical baggage.  On a day when lots of people will be telling stories about where they were when JFK was assassinated, we’ll be celebrating the birth of a kid born 35 years later. 

I find it notable that the concept of “anniversary” – whether for weddings, births or assassinations, is central to our concept of remembrance.  It’s part of our psychological DNA.  God put it there.  Annual observances in the form of feasts and festivals was and is a critical part of the Jewish recognition of God’s prior acts of deliverance and mercy.  Time and again God calls his people to remember.  Time and again his people falter when they forget. 

A properly observed anniversary serves as a psychological monument to an event worthy of remembrance.  I don’t think that anniversaries are overdone.  I think that they are underdone, or done poorly.  What if each Easter served to truly re-orient the wayward mind and to fix it on Christ’s atoning sacrifice?  What if each Thanksgiving led to a genuine outpouring of gratitude to the giver of all good gifts?  What if each Christmas directed us toward the never-failing promises of an eternal God?  Better yet, what if each Sunday’s worship accomplished those things?  Or best of all, what if we ordered each day around remembrance of what God has accomplished in us, and inviting Him to accomplish more through us?

So, perhaps these months don’t provide an overdose of remembrance so much as a proper dose.  To the extent this season leaves me fatigued, I suspect it’s not because I am remembering but because I am forgetting.  I am forgetting the very purpose of these observances. 

Is there strife in your marriage?  Then I suggest that you remember the days when you were falling in love.  Are you struggling with your child?  Then I suggest that you remember the vows you made as you first held that child and brought him into your home.  Are you struggling with anxiety?  Then I suggest you remember the times that God has provided and prevailed in your life, and commit to memory some of his many promises of protection and provision.  There’s a great deal of wisdom in not merely seeking to learn something new, but in diligently and purposefully remembering what we already know. 

Remember the wonders He has done, his miracles, and the judgments he pronounced.  I Chronicles 16:12

 

A Prayer

This morning I had the privilege of leading congregational prayer at our church.  It was also the morning when first graders were recognized in front of the congration and given Bibles.  My son was among them.  As I prepared for prayer this week, I thought a lot about my son and the other children receiving Bibles.  My thoughts resulted in the following prayer.  It’s not a verbatim recitation of what I prayed because I didn’t write it out word-for-word, but it’s close.

Heavenly Father, I am so grateful this morning for these children who stood before us and received their Bibles.  I pray that you would take this Word that we have put in their hands and install it in their hearts and minds. 

I pray that as they read your word, they would adopt the heart the psalmist who prayed “The law of your mouth is more precious to me  than thousands of gold and silver pieces.”

I pray also that they would plead, as the same psalmist pled, “One thing I have asked from the Lord, that I shall seek:  That I will dwell in the house of the Lord all the days of my life.”

I pray that they would hear and believe and obey the words of your son Jesus when he said “Do not lay up for yourselves treasures on earth where moth and rust destroy and where thieves break in and steal, but store up for yourselves treasures in heaven where moth and rust do not destroy and thieves do not break in and steal.  For where your treasure is, there your heart is also.”

I pray that they would take on the heart of Paul who said “I count all things to be loss in view of the surpassing value of knowing Christ Jesus my Lord for whom I have suffered the loss of all things, and count them but rubbish so that I may gain Christ.”

I pray that they would have an overcoming faith, born of God, fearless, devoted, passionate, unwavering and unattached to the things of this world.

For those of us who are older, whose love has perhaps grown cold like the Church at Ephesus, whose effectiveness for you has been choked to the point of fruitlessness by worries and the deceitfulness of riches and desire for other things, I pray that we’d stop conforming to the patterns of this world and would instead be transformed by the renewing of our minds.  I pray that we would have a heart that desires, first and foremost, to walk in the light as you are in the light so that we can have fellowship with you.  I pray that we would come to you as these children come.

I pray that we’d stop viewing our eternal hope as some distant abstraction only to be realized after our deaths, and that we’d recognize that you are  not merely the source of eternal life, but you are eternal life, and we can have fellowship with you now.  Infuse our lives with an urgent vitality directed toward serving your kingdom.

Lest we think that we are too far gone, too entrenched in the world, too unusable, I claim your promise that you are able to do more abundantly beyond all that we ask or think according to the power that works within us.

Break our shackles Father.  Tear down the walls of experience and expectation and usher in a new awakening of your power in us, your servants.  Here, today, at this very hour.  Amen.

 

The Petersons (Rocky Mountain Adventure, Part II)

In the summer of 1936 my grandfather got a raise.  He’d been making $2.50 a night working 12-hour shifts at a chicken hatchery in Cedar Falls, Iowa.  He was the last man standing after several grueling weeks and he asked his boss to bump his nightly wage up to $3.00.  He got the raise, which he deemed sufficient to allow him to marry my grandmother, which he did almost exactly 73 years ago today.  The next summer they had their first of six children, the third of whom was my father.  By my count, my grandparents now have 62 direct lineal descendants.  When you throw in spouses and babies on the way we have - well, a whole bunch of us.   Though my grandparents are no longer with us, their legacy runs strong as evidenced by the large gathering of  Petersons at the YMCA of the Rockies in June.

My father and his siblings grew up on a farm in Minnesota, but in the typical diaspora of the 20th century American family, they all left the farm and spread out around the country.  About a third of the family moved back to Minnesota eventually, and the rest of us live in places as varied as Southern California, Ohio, Texas and Georgia.  We try to get together every few years, and some of my greatest memories are from those reunions.

In simpler times our reunions were full of games, intra-generational athletic competitions, and lots of conversation.  Though things have changed a lot with our wired generation, we still spend our time with games, intra-generational athletic competitions, and lots of conversation.  For whatever reason, my family is particularly fond of Yahtzee.  I’ve got to admit that it’s still a thrill to roll five 6’s.

This year’s twist is that we were enjoying each other’s company in the midst of the Rocky Mountains.  The YMCA gave us use of the “Texas Room”, which was an old cabin with a nice front porch that served as family headquarters.   Hundreds of games were won and lost, old stories re-told, and new memories created.   One of my favorite memories was standing with my cousins and uncles in front of the Texas Room watching a massive thunderstorm roll in.  After the sun set, the lightning continued on the other side of a ridge of mountains surrounding the camp.  It looked like a horrifically wonderful artillery barrage between warring armies, and it went on for hours.  I’d never seen anything like it.

 

Things do change.  My parents, aunts and uncles have moved into the patriarchal and matriarchal roles of their own clans. My cousins and I constantly watched, corrected and entertained our kids just as our parents had done for us 30 years ago.  We have a family web site now and stay in touch daily, so there was little news to share.  But what remained unchanged was the tremendous sense of love we have for each other.  It’s not a small thing to drive or fly a big family across the country, and it meant a lot to all of us that so many were willing to make the sacrifice.

I love my family.  There is no Prescott Bush, Joe Kennedy or Pierre DuPont in our lineage, but there is a nobility that transcends wealth.   My grandfather and grandmother were imperfect people, but unquestionably people of faith and prayer.  I see the fruit of their faithfulness in my parents, aunts and uncles, cousins, my cousins children, and in my own kids.  I aspire to leave that kind of legacy, and pray that one day my children’s children and their children will choose to lay aside worldly concerns, sacrifice a bit of their earthly treasure, and gather with a similar spirit of affection for one another.

In 1981 my grandfather wrote a brief history of his early life for my sister and me.  He concluded with these words:

The years have been hard at times but they have also been rewarding.   Grandma and I have enjoyed each other for forty five
years now.   We are happy to have six children, all Christians and married to Christians and to have eighteen grandchildren whom we love so dearly and are happy for everyone of them, and now our first grandchild is married so we have another granddaughter to love.   We pray for each of you every day and ask the Lord to bless and keep you in His tender care, always.

As related in the written history he left with us, my grandfather worked hard all of this life for modest monetary gain.  He was driving teams of horses in the field with his brother when he was only 9 years old.  He never finished high school, and probably never made more than a few thousand dollars a year.  He died at the age of 89.   My grandmother’s life was also hard.  She started a family during the Great Depression, lost her only sibling (a bona fide war hero) to a kamikaze pilot in WWII,  and she lived her last years afflicted with Alzheimer’s.  But despite those obstacles, they left a unified, functioning, loving and healthy family that I am persuaded will be a blessing for generations to come.

My grandparents left us virtually nothing monetarily.  But as I consider the things of my life that will remain, my grandparents’ legacy of faith stands out as something precious, enduring and imperishable.

 

Being a Dad

I love being a dad.  I’ve got four kids – 10, 9, 6 and 3.  Of all the riches of this life, nothing compares to having a house full of offspring.  Our house is not a neat and polished place.  It is filled with dings and scuffs and evidences of activity.  Each day brings unexpected blessings and challenges with these four sentient, sinful and marvelous creatures under our roof, and I wouldn’t have it any other way. 

My second child, Mary Kate, was born on Father’s Day.  She was the greatest Father’s Day gift ever.   As evidence that I’m a normal guy as well as a dad, one of the many things I remember about the day of her birth is watching Tiger Woods win the U.S. Open – while my wife was in labor.  I also remember saying to my wife immediately after the delivery, “well, that one was pretty easy.”  Yes, I can be oblivious.

We just wrapped up Mary Kate’s 9th birthday party, and I continue to marvel at the differences between boys and girls.  During our son’s 10th, his friends were playing indoor tackle football at 4:00 a.m.  Mary Kate and her friends made crafts and conversed quietly through the night, allowing us to sleep.  But as I watched my remarkably creative daughter interact with her friends, I mostly felt gratitude.  A few years ago she was in the hospital with an affliction that had the doctors baffled.  I remember thinking that I’d give everything I had just to see her well again.  She’s well now, and it’s easy to forget that her health was ever in doubt. 

I remember scary complications during our oldest’s delivery when the emergency medical staff was summoned. I remember our youngest arriving without the benefit of a doctor and the umbilical cord wrapped around her neck. I remember the children we lost before they arrived.  But I look at the four now living in our chaotic house and marvel at their beauty. 

Whatever else this life has to offer, I have to consider myself blessed.

Sure, there are days when I wish I could have more uninterrupted conversation with my wife, more time to sleep, more opportunities to get together with the guys, and more time to indulge in my many interests, but in the end my kids enrich me in ways I’d never experience otherwise.  They make me a better man.

When I was in my 20’s, before I’d met my wife and had convinced myself I never would, I felt pangs of grief when I saw parents with young children because I suspected I’d never have my own.  That emotion seemed very unmanly at the time, but now I know what I was longing for.  I was made for this. 

The books of Psalms includes the phrase “As arrows are in the hand of a mighty man; so are children of the youth.  Happy is the man that hath his quiver full of them.”  I have a quiver full. So, as this Father’s Day approaches, I’m not looking for gifts or “me time.”  I’m just glad that I fall into the category of Dad.

 

Things of Which I Want More, Things of Which I Want Less

I usually make New Year Resolutions.   While I admittedly have a mixed record of success in years past, making goals seems better than not making them.  Plus, I think the process of reflecting on the shape I’d like my life to take is time well spent.  In lieu of a more conventional list of resolutions, I’m creating two lists.  In one list I itemize things of which I want more, and in the other things of which I want less.  Try as I might – there are 24 hours in a day and 365 days in a year (actually one less than last year), so if some things increase, other things have to diminish.   In no particular order, here they are:

Things of Which I Want Less
Television
Noise
Anger
Discouragement
Arguments
Unbelief
Worry
The World
Time Inside
Unintentional obligations

Things of Which I Want More
Books
Music
Peace
Hope
Conversation
Faith
Sleep
The Word
Time Outside
Intentional time with family and friends

I pray that my life will continue to take that shape as God continues the good work that he has begun in me.

 

The Accumulation of Small Things

For good or for ill, the accumulation of small things greatly affects my outlook on life.   On Christmas morning, my youngest son woke up at 4:00  and refused to go back to sleep.  Well, “refused” is an unfair word because I think he wanted to sleep, but he was so out of his head excited about the gifts under the tree that he just couldn’t do it.  Later, he complained to me that he hates going to sleep and wants to stop doing it because he just has to lie still and do nothing.  I asked him what he thought about when he went to sleep, and he told me that he didn’t think about anything – he was asleep, after all.  “I just dream and see lots of black stuff” he said.  Makes sense.  In any event,  by the time the legitimate wake-up time arrived, I was exhausted and ornery during the “most wonderful time of the year” as my kids  ripped into their much anticipated gifts.  That was one small thing.

Another small thing – my digital camera has stopped talking to my computer.  Previously, when I plugged it in, a program would open automatically, download my pictures and place them in files by date.  For some reason, either my camera or my computer decided to stop their cooperative relationship.  My calls to the Costco “concierge” and our resulting conference call with Canon’s help line resulted in both IT representatives saying “really sorry, but we can’t fix that.” 

Then, my Sony video camera software decided to stop burning DVD’s.  Again, it used to be easy.  I’d select videos that I’d downloaded to my computer, select “burn DVD”, and 45 minutes later “voila!”, a cherished DVD full of family memories.  Now, I get an unhelpful, ambiguous “error occurred” message every time.  So much for keeping a video record of our family memories.   Oh well, people did without video for most of human history, so I’ll survive.  Still, it’s another small thing.

Then, there’s the fact that until yesterday the weather had been persistently gray and rainy for what seemed weeks.  We need the rain, but my mood had started to match the gloomy skies.  Another small thing.

The accumulation of those negative small things put me in a pretty serious funk. 

Then again, maybe it was the fact that all of those small things occurred against the backdrop of some bigger things.  2008 was not a banner year professionally.  I represent clients who work in commercial real estate, and trading was very slow this year.  2009 looks to be worse.  What work we do have is dealing with distressed assets and stressed clients.  As I track the steady drumbeat of horrific economic  news, my naturally pessimistic mind wanders to absurdities like how I can find sources of food following the breakdown of  our social infrastructure.  Maybe I can catch some of the abundant rabbits in our yard and start breeding.  Or, if we can hold out until spring, maybe we can cultivate a large portion of our yard.   Oh, the dark places my natural mind can go.

But then, the accumulation of positive small things can bring my perspective back into balance.  I ran Sunday afternoon and again this morning.  After putting on a few holiday pounds and falling off the exercise wagon for awhile, it felt good to push back against my physical decline.  Last night, I had dinner at my in-laws and we laughed and had great conversation. This morning, after my run, I sat down for breakfast with my sleep-resistant son and watched him gleefully consume some cereal, staring at me with a goofy smile on his face and asking me why I had to go to work.  He drives me crazy, but I love that kid.   And this morning the sun is out and the sky is blue.  Things look less bleak today.

In John’s gospel, he quoted Jesus, who said of times to come, “Therefore, you too have grief now, but I will see you again, and your heart will rejoice, and no one will take your joy away from you…These things I have spoken to you so that in Me you may have peace. In the world you have tribulation, but take courage, I have overcome the world.”  (John 16: 22, 33)  When I hear those words, I tend to limit their application to someone experiencing “real” affliction, but I think that God is mindful of the accumulation of small things and how they affect us, the thorns and toil of a fallen world.  In afflictions great and small, we can take heart that the day is coming when no one can take our joy.  Reflecting on the greater things that await can take the sting out of my current trials, but sometimes it takes a blue sky to remind me.

But in the meantime, if anyone has a notion as to how I can fix my computer, I’d still appreciate a call.

 

2008 Jingle Jog

We just finished running the 3rd annual Jingle Jog at the kids’ school.  Will, Mary Kate and Jack each ran in a a 1-mile heat, and I ran with each of them, so I got my running in for the day.  It was cold, but it’s a fun event.   Running a mile seems surprisingly hard for them, though I might be forgetting how hard it was for me at their age.  I have a great time being a Dad in this family.  I hope the rest of them are having as much fun as I am.

After the race, the D.J. had the kids dancing.  I couldn’t resist filming Grace Anne, who shows some real aptitude.

done

Once I started taking video of Grace Anne, I got distracted by her hot mom.  It’s amazing that she can pull this off in a big red parka.

done

 

Yeah, I’m a pretty blessed guy.

 

On the Video Below

Work is busy, so blogging will probably be light this month.  Hopefully, this video recap of our year can tide you over for the time being.  I was disappointed in the video quality, because the original photos and footage are pretty stellar for the most part.  I was especially disappointed that the text is so difficult to read.  But, hopefully you can get the gist and join me in celebrating a great year.  With all the gloom and doom inundating us from all sides, it’s good to appreciate the simpler and significant things.

 

TIP: FOR A SUPERIOR VIEWING EXPERIENCE, CLICK THE LINK ABOVE RATHER THAN THE PLAYER BELOW, THEN SELECT “WATCH IN HIGH QUALITY” JUST BELOW THE RIGHT SIDE OF THE VIEWER.  IT’S MUCH SHARPER.

 

Expectations

Low expectations have been the prelude to some of the greatest moments of my life.  There’s a great joy to entering into an experience with modest expectations, only to have them vastly exceeded.  That concept applies to concerts, restaurants, vacations or football seasons.  It’s enough to make me wonder if there’s not some grim wisdom to pessimism.  If you expect the worst, then you’re prepared for it when it comes, and if it doesn’t, then you’re in for a pleasant surprise.  Of course, the down side to pessimism is that you spend your life so preoccupied with unpleasant potentialities that you fail to enjoy the good moments when they come.

When I bought the family canoe a few weeks ago, I did so with expectations of a hundred Saturday afternoons floating down the gentle Chattahoochee River with the kids, seizing those quiet moments to impart wisdom and build memories for a lifetime.  Yesterday I took our three oldest on our second canoe trip.  The first trip was a success.  Only Mary Kate was with me on that trip, and it rained, but overall it was a lot of fun.  This time I chose to up the ante by adding our two boys and bringing along our fishing poles.  Some of you could write the end to this story.

Canoeing with three kids is tough.  Teaching three kids 9 and under to fish is tough too.  Now try doing both at once… while feeding them lunch…and navigating shoals. 

As I was baiting one hook, another was lodged in an obstruction, the canoe was turning sideways, and a paddle was knocked into the water.  Take that particular moment and multiply it tenfold and you have a pretty good taste of my afternoon.

Here’s the crazy thing – I had fun.  We all did.  Don’t get me wrong, I had my moments of frustration.  Getting tangled amidst three fishing lines while chasing down a paddle floating with the current doesn’t bring out the best in me.  But I knew it would be chaotic.  Almost everything I do with my kids is chaotic. At some point in my parenting journey I recognized that nothing I plan will achieve the ideal.  The best I can hope for is managing the chaos, and a selective memory that salvages the best of things.

If I tried to limit our experiences to things that were easy and pleasant, I’d live in perpetual frustration. Easy and pleasant just don’t happen with 4 young kids, at least not in big, extended doses.

I think the secret to parenting a sizeable brood like mine is to avoid expectations, good ones or bad ones, and enter into every endeavor with an intention to show love to your kids however things turn out.  With consistently high expectations comes consistent disappointment.  Consistently low expectations are generally met.  Instead, I think we should learn to take things as they come, and laugh rather than rail at the chaos.  We’ll live longer, and one day our kids will thank us for it.

 

Vacation Ironies

There are a few basic things that I expect of vacation – that it will be free of stress, that I will get rest, and that I’ll have more time to do the things that I enjoy.  My vacations never fulfill those expectations.  Instead, I experience stress, come home more tired than I left and never spend much time exercising, writing, or playing the guitar.   I don’t know why.  Maybe it’s because I’ve got kids, lots of them, but I think there are other factors at work.

Stress comes with vacation because there’s lots of pressure associated with preparing clients and adversaries for my absence, a frequent pull on my attention while I’m gone, and a big pile of unpleasant stuff to work through that accumulates while I’m away.  Traveling itself carries a certain amount of stress, and there’s always the juggling of family members’ competing expectations and needs. 

On my normal day at home, I’m out of bed between 5:00 and 5:30, and I go back to bed around 10:30 or 11:00.  By the time Friday rolls around, I’m pretty exhausted and try to catch up a bit on the weekend.  You’d think that on vacation I’d get more sleep, and maybe I do, but I certainly don’t feel more rested.  Something about the different bed, the travel, or the active days in the hot sun drain me of a lot of energy.

During my regular life, I fantasize about having long periods of time to pursue my passions, but once I’m out of my routine, and not exercising in the pre-dawn hours, reading my Bible before the phone starts to ring, or frenetically blogging during spare moments in the day, I generally end up letting the day pass without doing any of those things.  It is, as the title of my post suggests, ironic.

Still, I enjoy vacations and work very hard to make them happen.  You might wonder why given my frustrations. 

What I did do on vacation last week was sit on a beautiful beach watching my kids play in the surf and sand, play two rounds of golf, visit a museum and aquarium, ride a ferry and introduce my kids to Bocce and Risk.  In short, on vacation I did a lot of things that I rarely do.

My favorite evening at the beach was when I cajoled the whole family (12 of us, including my in-laws, niece, and nephew) to participate in a talent show.  No one was excluded, not the two-year-olds, and not the skeptical 60+ year olds.  Granted, we stretched the term “talent” a little bit, but that’s what made it fun.  My son Jack gave a demonstration on the game of Bocce, Toria demonstrated how long she could hold a plank (I don’t know if I spelled that right, it’s some sort of yoga thing, and I’m not a yoga guy), and I did the more conventional guitar and song.  My favorite, though, was when 2-year-old Grace Anne did ballet.  She’s not taken any ballet, but she’s watched her older sister practice.  Grace Anne was wearing a long white dress and danced to a beautiful song.  She looked cherubic, and danced with surprising grace. 

We laughed a lot, played games, talked and enjoyed a lot of memorable experiences.  When my kids look back on their childhood, I suspect that weeks like the one we enjoyed at the beach will stand out in relief against the sameness of the frenetic life of a school year in the Atlanta suburbs. 

I’m thinking it’s time to change my metrics for measuring a successful vacation.  I think, for now, our vacations are primarily about creating memories, and strengthening the bonds that make us a family.  Using that measure, and adjusting my expectations, I think I’ll be able to enjoy the moments that are rather than resenting the moments that aren’t.