Category: Uncategorized Page 16 of 71

I have mentioned before my delight in Nigel and Cheyenne Rudolph pottery, here and here (the mug referenced in this last post has since been replaced).

Now they are experiencing greater notoriety.

The article points out the utilitarian focus of their artistic work:

“Drinking coffee out of a mug that says ‘super dad’ is awesome, but I think when you drink coffee out of a handmade cup, it kind of puts it on another level,” he said. “You are paying attention to not only the coffee, you’re paying attention to the handle and the rim.”

These extra details, not offered by mass produced mugs, make the everyday activity of drinking more special, he said.

One does not ‘use’ an oil painting on the wall the same way one uses a mug. But both are art.

I love drinking my coffee out of a work of art.

Until I drop it.

—

I asked Nigel if he were to grow a full beard whether he would then be a Hairy Potter, but he has not answered me yet.

As I catch up on my reading, I have run across two blog posts linking kids and economics, both spawned by the same WSJ article on the subject.

Now, I’m on top of this. I note that the average cost of raising a child from 0 to 18 is something like $180,000. We’ve gotten five that far with one more to go, so I’m not surprised that I’m broke. But I also would say that I’m a very, very rich guy. (And hope to enjoy that wealth for a long time if the stress of having two very attractive and very available unwed daughters does not kill me first.)

Both blogs question whether the economics of satisfaction should control or be a factor in our child bearing decisions. Megan McCardle puts it bluntly:

And here’s where I wonder if we ought to re-examine our commitment to happiness. It seems to me that there’s possibly some merit — if we persevere and have the sense to learn from it — in the other-orientation that is (good) parenting. It’s fine to go through life happy, in other words, but I suspect we also want to go through life without becoming big fat self-absorbed jackasses. Children really help in that regard.

Mike Sacasas reacts in a similar vein:

…it seems misguided to capture the meaning of a child’s life and the experience of parenting with its tears and joys in a simple statistical survey or a budget line item. Perhaps it is the reduction of social life to economic life, that accounts for the changing patterns of childbearing; perhaps it is an almost narcissistic view of personal fulfillment.

I am not one advocating the ‘have as many children as you can’ mentality of some. (A wonderful review of this point of view here.) And I confess that there have been times when I’ve wanted to turn in my resignation as a parent, but have been unable to find the office where it was to be submitted.

That said, in the wonderfully providential way in which God has lead us, He has given to us a myriad of blessings, sometimes through pain, which could never be measured with economic instruments.

Though, it is clear, we are still broke.

I’m not sure why the following counsel (complete content here) appeals to me. There is a part of me that wants to point fingers at those who fail to heed it. But there is another part of me that knows I am the one who needs to have such wisdom always before me.

In short, the wisdom is as follows:

1. Don’t write things about people you’d be afraid to tell them in person.

This is, of course, particularly true in the digital age. It is just as wise to assume that anything you might say publicly will eventually end up in the hands of the one about whom you have spoken or written.

Related is this:

2. Be willing to encounter people you’ve criticized.

If we keep this in mind, we will seek to keep our criticism at a level that is rational, temperate, and respectful.

That this latter piece of advice comes from a young Ralph Nadar should take nothing away from it.

Once early in my ministry, a difficult letter had to be written to a person in the church. One of the elders wisely counseled me to write the letter but to not send it. Rather, he said, deliver it. Speak its content face to face. To hide behind the typewriter was a coward’s way of dealing with conflict.

Digital communication makes it easier for me to be a coward. Loving our neighbor does not mean that we must be silent unless we are face to face with them – face-on communication is not always possible. But love for neighbor does mean that we should never speak about someone in a way that we would not be willing to speak were they sitting across the table from us.

Writer Joyce Carol Oates, wrote recently an essay about her conflicted struggle to accept widowhood after the sudden death of her husband. It is a wonderful piece.

One of the tasks she faced was that of cleaning up the aftermath of her husband’s editorial work on the Ontario Review. The pile of submitted stories all had to receive ‘rejection’ notices since the publication was shutting down.

In communicating this, she wanted to find some way to encourage these young writers.

“Even in my numbed state I feel an impulse to encourage writers, or anyway a wish not to discourage them. Thinking It would have meant something to me, years ago.

I think I would like someone like this who, even in her sorrow, is thinking of others.

But her concern for these up and coming writers runs deeper than this. She senses that what these writers are seeking in their writing is significance, purpose, a sense of place. Her trauma has brought everything into perspective. She continues:

“Though nothing means much to me, now. The possibility of being ‘encouaged’ has become abstract and theoretical to me — ‘encouraged’ for what purpose?

Your writing will not save you. Managing to be published – by Ontario Review Press! – will not save you. Don’t be deluded.“

This is so poignant and so true. We fix our eyes upon a goal and think that if we only achieve that goal, we will be important, we will find significance, we will finally find meaning.

And we do, for a time.

But this voice of wisdom, loss, and reality says, “Your writing (marriage, business, childbearing, religion, morality) will not save you.”

Worth pondering.

Last week sometime, the Orlando Sentinel ran a story about a cosmetic surgeon who will help you if you would like to trade in your current nose for Nicole Kidman’s.

The surgeon featured in the article advises his patients to bring a loved one with them to an initial consultation. It helps, he believes, to have the support of family.

That is all very wise. But a quote extracted from the text and made prominent at the top of the page did grab my attention.

This “face-altering” surgeon is quoted as saying:

“Four ears are better than two.”

For a brief moment I wondered if this were some strange new fad.

The blogs listed on the sidebar as ‘Worthwhile Blogs’ are blogs generally produced by friends of mine. But they are not therefore worth your while. They are worth your while because they are written by people with interesting things to say.

I added a new one this morning.

Troy is a friend of mine in his last year at New College of Florida in Sarasota. He is a thoughtful and passionate young man (and recently married) sorting out what it means to be a Christian and a part of Christ’s church. Those are things all of us need to think deeply about. I commend Troy-Think to you.

We now live in Oviedo, Florida.

Oviedo is in northeast Orlando. It borders Winter Springs and Winter Park.

A friend of mine is being considered for a ministry opportunity in nearby Winter Garden. Another friend lives in Winter Haven.

There is some kind of pattern here.

So, I wonder. In New York, or Ohio, or Michigan, or North Dakota, are there towns called Summer Springs, Summer Park, Summer Garden, or Summer Haven?

Just wondering.

With quite a bit of regret, before we left Bradenton, I wrote my final monthly column for the Bradenton Herald. I am grateful to the editors there – Jim, Jennifer, Joan – who have become through this process great friends and a source of great encouragement. They will be missed.

The column was published this past Saturday, can be found here for a time, and is copied below.

+ + + + +

Embracing Change

The mother looked at her child playing with two other four year olds, and moved by sentiment remarked to the other mothers, “Oh, I wish they would always stay this age.” Her friends nodded in agreement.

The wise among us see that such desires are sentimental poppycock. Still, change is something few embrace, and many fear.

In the 2002 movie Tuck Everlasting a family finds a spring of perpetual youth. Having drunk the water of this remote and magical spring, each member of the Tuck family no longer ages and cannot die. Life goes on, but they do not change.

Sentimental mothers aside, life without change, the Tucks discover, is not life at all. Explaining their strange life to a young girl who has discovered their secret, Angus, the father, says, “What we Tucks have, you can’t call it living. We just… are. We’re like rocks, stuck at the side of a stream.”

We understand that. But change scares some of us so much that we prefer to be unchanging rocks.

When my Bradenton grandfather died I was 12 and visited Bradenton for what I ‘knew’ would be the last time. I was surprised, then, when God, twenty years later, led me as a young pastor back to Bradenton.

What I had not expected has been exceptionally good.

I’ve been pastor at Hope Presbyterian Church in Bradenton now for nearly 25 years. Some applaud what they judge to be my faithfulness. They don’t see the deep fear of change that lurks under the surface of my longevity.

That fear has been subdued as the door has opened to be the pastor of a wonderful church (Covenant Presbyterian) in a new community (Oviedo, Florida).

J.R.R Tolkien mused, through his Hobbit character Bilbo,

“It’s a dangerous business…going out of your door…. You step into the Road, and if you don’t keep your feet, there is no knowing where you might be swept off to.”

We are being ‘swept off’ to Oviedo. We leave beloved things behind, but we look for the blessing ahead. God is the Lord of this Road. His blessing would have been lost if Abraham had stayed in Ur, Moses in Midian, Lincoln in Springfield, Bilbo in Hobbiton, and I, once, in St. Louis or now, in Bradenton.

In the end, we know that we are not rocks, but people, and that the future is not blank and fearful, but ruled by God and full of promise.

Who can fear that road?

[This is mirrored here from Somber and Dull’s previous host, Blogger.]

*DRUMROLL, PLEASE*

We return to posting in order to announce that we are moving….

“Moving?” you say. “Moving?”

“Randy, we KNOW that you have moved. I mean, that’s the explanation for the spotty posting over the last two months. We get it. You already told us. For goodness sake, if you are going to return to posting, tell us something we don’t already know.”

I hear your protests. But I am telling you something new.

One of the projects that I have wanted to address for well over six months is a move of Somber and Dull from its “Blogger” mooring to a dock in the “WordPress” pool. For some of you that makes no sense, to others of you, you understand why. So, that is what we have done. Same author, same content, different address, and different look.

And (ta-da!) Somber and Dull will now appear with its own domain name. Back in February I posed the question of the most appropriate domain name for a republished blog. Good arguments were given in favor of a couple of different options, and so I decided not to decide between them. Henceforth, both

randygreenwald.com

and

randygreenwald.com

will take you to the new blog.

This has required some attention on my part. It will require a bit on yours as well, especially if you are using an RSS reader (explanation here), or subscribe by email, to keep up with this blog. You will need to make sure that your reader or email subscription is linked to the new site. I will no longer publish to this location.

Though our location has moved, we will continue to be as somber and dull as ever. I hope you stay with me.

(See – I told you I had something new to say!)

I’m glad to see that I’m not the only one who does not understand the difference.