A Wrinkle in Time

I received as a Christmas gift the Loeb Classical Library translation of Marcus Aurelius Antoninus. Marcus was a Roman emperor from the second century whose meditations (written in Greek) have survived. As I cracked the spine of this little gem, I anticipated having to strain my grey cells in order to find the parallels and analogies between the writings of a second-century philosopher-general and twenty-first-century America. Then in Book I, part 12 I read this, in the midst of Marcus' list of virtues learned from various persons in his life:

"[I learned] from Alexander the Platonist, not to say to anyone often or without necessity, nor write in a letter, I am too busy, nor in this fashion constantly plead urgent affairs as an excuse for evading the obligations entailed upon us by our relations towards those around us."

This from an emperor of the second century, read now in a time when the most popular response to "How are you?" is "Busy!" and when Veggie-Tales' recasting of the parable of the good Samaritan makes busy-ness the excuse for not helping a stranger. I look no further for relevance, and rest assured that there is no significant gap between the humanity of Marcus Aurelius and that of our world today.

~emrys

Sacred Writing

When we arrived in Pasadena and I stepped into the classrooms of Fuller Theological Seminary, I was reading from a copy of the Jerusalem Bible, a Roman Catholic translation, given to me by a friend some years before. I was told early in my Fuller studies that the faculty encouraged the uniform use of the New Revised Standard Version for coursework. Thus in the spring of 2003 I purchased my first NRSV (with Apocrypha). It went with me everywhere, almost every day, during my three years of study. By the end of seminary, it had been pulled out of and stuffed into my bag so many times that the plastic laminate had peeled off more than a quarter of the cover's surface.

But the tome carries more than scars of overuse. Unlike some whom I have met, who believe that only the printer's ink may shadow the pages of the bible, lest the punishments of Revelation 22:18 come upon them, I write often in my bibles. (I even cross out English words, though never Hebrew or Greek.)

And stuff which I consider worthy of memory finds its way onto the flyleaves of my bibles. Here is the front leaf of this artifact:

The top paragraph reads: "The Bible is not like a bookcase of oils, ointments, and pills, to be drawn on when crisis occurs and in uniform fashion. Rather, it is like a personal trainer and dietician--it shows us what techniques to mix and try, always affording accountability and discipline, in pursuit of a final goal which is higher than we are now."

Below that is a (inaccurate?) quote from the Dave Matthews Band song, A Christmas Song, "Father, with all this hatred, why do you fill me up with love, love, love . . .?"

Then the three locations of the Shema (Deu6.4-10; Num15.37-41; Deu11.13-21).

Then a yellow post-it note with phrases in Armenian, learned from Sara's boss in Pasadena: how to say "Good-bye" (manak parov), "How are you?" (inch bess ess), and "Well" (lavem).

I wrote in the table of contents where each of our canonical books is found in the Hebrew bible (Torah, Neviim, Ketuvim), and my own abbreviations for the books (because for some reason I thought three-letter abbreviations took too long to type?).

As I studied the scriptures in seminary, I marked up my NRSV, always looking for patterns, main ideas, and the nooks and crannies where the Spirit whispered.

Now, five years after graduating seminary, it's time to retire this old faithful. I have been using a new copy of the NRSV that Sara gave me four years ago (perhaps she took the hint from the curling laminate); and when I preach in Nineveh I use the New International Version because that's what's in the pews. Sara's NRSV is already more full of scribblings than this old one, and it would take me longer to figure out what these old notes mean than it would to find again their inspiration.

A Dieu, old friend. Your words have not been lost.

~ emrys

Just Awesome

What do you get when you mix up an unfinished fleece knot-pillow, one pair of 3-D movie glasses, a hip toddler and logistical help from Daddy?

Pure Awesome.

~ emrys (aka "Gaga"), with his Lady

p.s. The pillow has written on it, "For God so loved the world." Hip, yet spiritually relevant. Awesome.

The Next Installment of Adventure

Now, to share the stories and photos of days gone by, we no longer have to have friends over for tea in order to page through scrapbooks or get out the old slide projector.

Thanks to the wonders of laptop formatting and online publishing, we can print off as many of our travel journals and photos as we can pay for! So if you've been reading our blog and want to have a hard copy of all our witty and touching entries; or if you wonder what the hundreds of photos that we didn't upload to the website look like, you can order the third installment of Our Great Adventure: Europe 2006. It's available here.

Never fear, though, friends--we'll still have you over for tea!

~ emrys

Risk

I recently had an indirect encounter with a church's insurance company. We (one congregation) were told that we could not, under any circumstances, borrow the van belonging to another congregation. We could rent it (an impossibility on our timeline), but not borrow it.

It occurred to me in this encounter that the insurance company was taking the simplest path to its appointed task: to cushion risk, financially, and to reduce risk in order to reduce financial responsibility. Of course, the easiest way to reduce the risk of another congregation wrecking your client's van (and then you having to pay for it) is to prohibit another from borrowing it in the first place.

Every party involved (myself, our congregation, our insurance company, the leadership of the other congregation) was willing to take the risk of lending the vehicle . . . except this insurance company. Too much risk.

And it occurred to me: what if we all ran our lives like insurance companies, minimizing risk?

I would never drive down the hill in front of our house, to reduce the risk of running into the creek.

We would never let our daughter go down the stairs by herself, to reduce the risk of falling headlong.

Most of us would never eat anything with exotic ingredients, to reduce the risk of anaphylaxis.

None of us would ever have children, to reduce the risk of suffering weeks or months on end of insufficient sleep and abundant misery.

None of us would ever get married, to reduce the risk of domestic conflict.

Humanity would quickly decide it is better not to be born, to reduce the risk of death.

And here we spend twelve days celebrating the decision of a god to be born, running the risk of all of the above, in order to deliver us from all of the above.

I praise Yahweh for being quite unlike our insurance companies.

Merry Christmas.

~emrys

Lights of the Season!

I love Christmas decorations, and especially Christmas lights. At a time of the year when it gets dark so early, the added colors and twinkles just make me grin! Last year, this was one of my favorite photos of Gwendolyn discovering Christmas lights:

Here are the 2010 Christmas Light shots - she's turning into quite the big girl!

~sjt

Pi in the Sky

or, The Sword of Damocles.

In 2006 a friend of mine from high school went public with a unique form of art: hand-inked minuscule letters and numbers which, when viewed from afar, take on a larger form. His debut piece is Pi, the first 100,000 digits of the mathematical constant inked in a spiral. Each hand-drawn digit is about 1/8 of an inch high.


To celebrate his arrival on the art scene, Tyler Gregory sold prints of Pi, one of which we bought when we arrived in New York (for the perfect price of $314.15). The piece had appeal for both Sara and me: I enjoy cool art of all kinds; Sara was a math major in college. Late in 2006, Pi arrived on our doorstep, rolled up in a long box, and was promptly stashed in a closet. There it remained for four years. Until this week.


1,000 digits of pi take up a lot of room, no matter how small you print them. Pi is a single piece of paper 44 inches across. And there is only one accessible space in the house where the framed diameter of Pi will fit: over the bathroom door at the top of the stairs.




Having selected the dwelling place of Pi, I set to work on framing it. Two years ago a friend from the congregation at Nineveh made the wooden frame for Pi out of reclaimed barn boards. He did a wonderful job crafting them, but they have set in the corner of the living room for two years. Part of the motivation for framing Pi this week was the guilt of walking by that unassembled frame one too many times. How very sad for Tom's good gift to go unused!




Both rounds of window replacements gained me large plates of glass from picture windows. It just so happened (if you believe in coincidence) that the plate glass was the same size as Pi. Thus between the generosity of a friend and the divine providence of home renovations, a frame which, from a retailer, would likely have cost me in the hundreds of dollars cost me only a thank you and some elbow grease. Here's the assembly of glass and frame in the living room, done in stolen moments when toddler feet were not active:


After four years rolled up on the closet, Pi needed to spend some time getting the bends out. And my biblical commentaries got more use than most of them have seen in months:

A 44-inch square work of art in a wooden frame and a plate of heavy-duty glass together result in an assemblage which is, if nothing else, heavy. Since Pi was to be hung overhead and over a doorway, we procured the heaviest framing wire that the craft store peddled, and I ran double wires across the frame, connected both by eye screws and metal strapping. This baby isn't going anywhere:

After so much labor, Tyler Gregory's debut piece is ready to be hung:

It took two attempts at configuring the ladder and four hands lifting the 45-plus-pound artifact, but a last Pi found its proud place at the top of the stairs, from whence it will greet every visitor to our home:

Since our home is not an art gallery, it's not designed with optimal lighting for artwork. So perhaps the connoisseur had best view Pi from the upstairs living room:

There is a Greek legend about the king Dionysius and one of his courtiers, Damocles. Damocles thought it would be great to be king, so Dionysius gave him the position. But in order to give Damocles the feel of the pressures of royal life, he hung a sword, point down, by a single horse hair over the seat in which Damocles sat.

I couldn't help but think of that parable as we hoisted Pi up over the bathroom door. Yet I'm confident the weight of entering our bathroom will be nothing like the burden of Damocles, since we used steel instead of horse hair to hang it.

~ emrys

KafkAmericana

We just finished watching the last episode of the TV series Lost, which completed its sixth and final season last spring. When we began watching the series on Netflix I was also reading Franz Kafka's The Castle, an early-20th century existentialist novel. Kafka's story revolves around the central character, K. (whose name remains only an initial throughout the novel), who is trying to get to the Castle on the hill in the center of the town. Four-hundred-plus pages are spent on various and sundry permutations of K. trying to navigate the political, social, and legal systems of the village and at every turn experiencing frustration. The novel ends with K. lost in the confusing, self-contradictory tangles of relationships within the town, never even approaching within sight of the Castle nor vindicated in his hope of joining the Castle's employ.

The parallels between Lost and The Castle are stunning. At every turn in the six seasons of narrative, the viewer of Lost discovers that what she thinks are the reasons behind events and choices are not the real reasons. Something previously hidden, and now only partially revealed, comes into play. Part of the allure of Lost for this viewer was the tantalizing possibility--like the one a reader feels for K.--that in the end what cannot possibly make sense will at last sound reasonable. Over six seasons, the layers of plot, setting, and character development reach mystical proportions, building the expectations of viewers to a dizzying pitch.

The Castle and Lost conclude their stories on opposite poles of the same narrative spectrum. K. never gets to the castle; the plot drops off almost mid-sentence. The passengers of Oceanic flight 815 discover that they're all dead (the viewer sort of knows this for at least the last two seasons), which is as good as ending your novel mid-sentence. Despite an attempt to make sense of it all by the only character who is confirmed dead from the beginning (Jack's father, Christian Shepherd--ha!), the attempt does not hold water. There are too many loose ends for the last episode to fulfill its calling as denouement.

The Castle and Lost could not be more different in the tone of their lost-ness. Kafka wrote in one of the most depressing eras of Continental philosophy, and was working out that depression in an almost-biographical novel. The lostness of K. is a reflection of the conclusion that all authority, purpose, and motivation are an impenetrable fog from which human existence cannot emerge. Meaninglessness is disconnectedness, and hope is obscured by a blinding blizzard.

Lost concludes that the nonsensical propositions upon which the plot is based will ultimately leave the characters happy. Like all narratives written by and for American popular culture, this one ends with a warm golden light in which we're all bathing together--all, that is, except those whose contracts with ABC ended before the final season. The last scene is really a thinly veiled replacement for the "farewell" episodes of long-standing sitcoms that finally break down the fourth wall, a time in which the actors celebrate how fun it was to work together. It doesn't matter what happened over the six seasons of Lost; it was just good to be together.

Two ends of the same spectrum may be two sides of the same coin: depending on your assertions about it, meaninglessness can be heaven or hell. An American reader getting through Kafka is existential hell. Not only does the plot never go anywhere, it doesn't end happily, or at all. The same viewer watching Lost might find heaven in the process: meaningless entertainment with a warm fuzzy finish.

Of course these categories only apply for one who accepts the premise of both Kafka and Lost that it's all meaningless. If one takes a philosophical stance for meaning, then Kafka may be worthwhile only for passing a philosophy course and Lost only for passing the time.

~emrys

Climbing

I was in the kitchen working on a project when Emrys calls downstairs "Come see what your daughter has learned how to do". I grabbed the camera and went upstairs, noting that in this moment she was my daughter. This was the scene as I topped the stairs:

Leading experts agree that ladder climbing is great for developing gross motor skills for children. Usually they master this skill around three years old, not 22 months. So while she has yet to climb out of her crib, ladders now must be stored flat if there's any chance she's going to find it!

Safety First

Since scratching his cornea with a flying paint chip at Sonlight in 2004, Emrys assiduously dons his safety glasses while working with tools. Recently he broke the faithful pair that had protected his ocular gems for the past three years. And needing to pad his purchase at the local hardware store in order to justify using his credit card today, he picked up a new pair. The spirit then moved him to try them on at the supper table this evening:

Certainly he'll soon be winning awards for most glamorous Tim Allen impression.

Doing new and strange things at the supper table comes with particular liabilities these days, for you see a certain toddler insists that if Mommy or Daddy can do it, so can she. So when Daddy tried on his safety glasses, Gwendolyn insisted that she be included in what must have been great fun:

For some reason, when the manufacturing company lined out the specs for these specs, they did not take into account the petite slope of a 20-month-old nose. Strange, that. In spite of this oversight, however, Gwendolyn still managed to keep the glasses on her face, which she announced with no small measure of glee: "I did it!"

Life with a toddler is dangerous. Be sure to wear safety glasses.

Bedroom Renovation, Month 10

That's right, we're only two months away from the anniversary of the beginning of the renovation of our bedroom. That was supposed to take about two months. I guess good things come to those who wait.

But better things come to those who stop waiting and get it done.

Sara doesn't like the rustic square trim around our existing windows and doors. So for the new closet doorway she elected to go with a rounded trim joined at forty-five degrees. Here's the trim up close:

And stepping back for the big picture:

The trim has been urethaned, but the doors have not yet--notice the spanky sheen on the trim. Someday soon maybe I'll get around to finishing the doors.

Or maybe I'll just wait a little longer.

~emrys

Shifting Space

We are gradually preparing to divide Gwendolyn's room (which now doubles as a guest room, for those guests who can tolerate being awoken in the morning by an early-rising toddler) into two rooms: Gwen's room and a separate guest room. In the grand scheme we have it in mind to punch a new doorway into the guest room side and make a semi-permanent wall between the two rooms. In the on-the-way-to-grand scheme we plan to put up a quasi-permanent wall (read: partition) between the halves of the room with a door that can be locked securely enough to keep Gwendolyn on her side. Toward this end, last week we started moving furniture. First the set of cube shelves had to come out of Gwendolyn's room:

and go into the corner of what has become our "office space":

This initial step left some chaos in the GwenGuest room to be sorted out. Here's the view from the far end of the GwenGuest room after the cube shelves migrated:

The book shelf, wardrobe, and dresser that stood against the wall we moved over, back to back, along the imaginary line that will one day actually divide the GwenGuest room in two:

Here's the new room, from the guest side, with dresser and mirror backed up on that imaginary line:

Sara dreams that in the next couple of months we'll have a partition wall set up along that line, with a folding doorway on the right hand side. I hope I get all my other projects on deck done so that can happen!

~emrys

Shoveling

This morning we woke up to about three inches of snow at our house - just enough to have to shovel the driveway. As we finished up breakfast, Emrys asked if Gwendolyn had snow pants - she did. I mentioned that he could get the purple sand shovel and she could help him shovel. We were cleaning up breakfast and Gwendolyn had disappeared. A few minutes later she came toodlin' down the stairs with a purple shovel in hand. I have no idea where it came from and later realized that the shovel I had in mind that Emrys found was actually green. Since she doesn't miss a trick, she heard "purple shovel" and "go outside" so she was ready to go. So we bundled up the little one until she resembled the Stay-Puff Marshmallow and off she went.

After Stay-Puff had sufficiently frozen herself, she came back in and did not want to take her snow pants off. When a diaper change was necessary before nap time, we finally convinced her the the snow pants needed to take a nap too and she could put them to bed on the guest bed and get them when she gets up. She's not up yet, but if history with this tactic says anything (we often put toys down for a nap in the guest bed that need not be in her bed to sleep), it's that she will be off to wake up her snow pants as soon as she's up!

More Presence Than Presents

It has begun. I heard for a second time on the news today a story about someone trampled by a stampede of shoppers. We used to sing about Grandma getting run over by a reindeer; the truth, as they say, is stranger than fiction.

Which brings to mind for me what started all this hullabaloo: God declared, "I'm tired of being separate from these humans whom I created and love. So I will come and be with them." Thus Jesus Christ was born. God brought the divine presence to a humanity that desperately needs it.

The risky arrival of a newborn into the world is Yahweh's "I love you" to humanity. How different from the gift that says, "I love you enough to trample strangers on the threshold of Target so that you could have this X-Box." As a long-time receiver of Christmas gifts, I think it is time for me to put my theological money where my mouth is and say, I don't need presents. I need presence.

I want to see you, talk to you, eat with you, drink with you, laugh with you, enjoy the silent and still night with you this Christmas. Do not give me a present; give me your presence. By the Holy Spirit, the Spirit of Christ will be in you, for me, on that day. So let us be together and relish the Presence who is the greatest gift. Let us not obscure the Immutable with the plastic. Let us not hide the glorious with the glittering. Let's do the real gift-giving of Christmas, by giving presence rather than presents.

But you will object, won't you? It's tradition, and gift-giving can be as much a blessing to the giver as to the recipient. Should I deprive you of that pleasure? Perhaps not. Therefore let me offer suggestions--a compromise, if you will--for finding the presence in the presents.

Give me an I.O.U. for supper out at some dive where they'll let us stay and talk over cold coffee all evening. Bring me a bottle of wine with two, three, or four glasses, a corkscrew, and the introduction, "It's five o'clock somewhere!" Enjoy the company of my daughter for an evening while my wife and I get away for a date. Set a date to reconnect over the phone. Send a restaurant gift certificate with enough value that I need to bring someone else, or more. Send a card that tells me you've donated money in my honor for clean water in Burkina Faso, with a prayer for me to read aloud. Or just come over, if it's been too long. If you really must get me something, then please make it yourself--from scratch. Let it carry, in the very fiber of its being, your presence instead of a peeled-off price tag. I love you, and I'd rather just have you than any other thing in the world.

I have so much stuff that I can't keep it clean or in its place most days. More often than not I succumb to the temptation to sacrifice life for stuff, much like the Life offered at the first Christmas was trampled for the sake of riches. I don't need more of that. I need fewer presents and more presence.

May your Christmas be full of the same.

~emrys

Go Ahead:

you fix the budget!

http://www.nytimes.com/interactive/2010/11/13/weekinreview/deficits-graphic.html

51% of my plan resulted from spending cuts, 49% from tax increases.

~emrys

Really? An Aircraft Carrier?

CNN reported today that the Splendor, a Carnival cruise ship, lost power off the coast of Mexico due to an engine room fire. In order to bring supplies to the ship, the USS Ronald Reagan was "diverted . . . from training maneuvers."

Really? An aircraft carrier?

113,600 tons of military vessel with 5,600 souls aboard (in other words, consuming a big hunk of tax money) were redirected in order to help a commercial vessel (in other words, fully insured, paid for by investors and clients) survive for fewer than three days less than 150 miles from mainland?

Oy.

And according to Gerry Cahill, CEO of Carnival, "this was an extremely trying situation for our guests." Yes, it's rough being deprived of shuffleboard after 8:00pm (because you're only on auxiliary power). Can you imagine the game of hide-and-seek-in-the-dark you can have on thirteen decks?

Man, give me a week on a luxury cruise ship only on auxiliary power, with a "next cruise free" ticket in hand. Now that's a vacation. These are the most blessed 4,000 alive this week.

Why did they need the DOD to chip in again?

~emrys

Security Measures

When I think of a "shed," I think of a ramshackle building with no frills, used for housing items that don't care about comfort or convenience. I think of a building that freezes in the winter, becomes a hot-box in the summer, and never breathes until you open the door.

I want my shed to stay pretty minimal, but I also wanted my shed to breathe. So I cut two holes in the walls, to let a little air in and out:

But I also don't want my shed to be a haven for birds, squirrels, and insects. Not that I have anything against these woodland critters, but I figure that's why we have woodlands. (One caveat: I do have something against red squirrels. But I'm cool with most of the others.) Thus if I want the shed to breathe, I also need something to keep the critters out. To this end, I installed screening and trim. It worked for our attic; I hope it works for my shed.

Just a little frill for my little shed.

~emrys

Honeysuckle Bloom

Sara decided to go with a third color for our bedroom: an off-white tint that will accent the green and beige of Venice, called Honeysuckle Bloom. The new shelves in the corner bear this color, and Sara wanted the baseboard registers, formerly a sickly grey hue, to do the same. So I primed them,

put on two coats of honeysuckle, and popped the metal panels back on. Here are the three colors together in the bedroom:

Only a few more details to finish, and we can call the bedroom done! I hope we can do that before we hit the one year anniversary of beginning renovation.

~emrys

Raising the Roof

With four walls up, the shed was ready for rafters, exterior sheeting, and a roof. With the help of Sharon and Jay (whose brawn went equally to moving wood, hammering nails, and running interference with Gwendolyn), that all went up in a day and a half.

Next up: windows and a door!

~emrys

An Angel with a Hammer

By the end of my first week of vacation this August, the floor of the garden shed was complete. The next step was to frame the walls and put up rafters for the roof. That Friday morning, at about eleven o'clock, Sara and I pulled out my sawhorses and circular saw, then hauled out a load of 2x4s (true, actually 2" by 4", milled by yours truly) into the back yard. As I searched for my safety glasses, a car pulled up to the side of the road next to our yard. Out came a man and his wife, who introduced themselves as Gus and Ann-Marie.

Last year the property across the road sold to a group of four brothers, all born in Greece but now all living in the Five Boroughs with children and grand-children. They bought the house across from us to use as a family getaway; every time another brother came up from the City for the first time, he would see one of us in the yard and come over and introduce himself. Gus and Ann-Marie were in-laws of the four brothers, but were just as enthusiastic about introducing themselves to us.

Early in the conversation, Gus pointed to the lumber and sawhorses. "What are you building?"

I motioned proudly to my garden shed foundation. "Today we're going to start framing my new garden shed."

Gus smiled. "Do you want some help? I'd be glad to help."

My internal monologue listed several reasons why I should decline his generous offer. First, I was on vacation, which means cherishing alone time or family time. Energy spent getting to know someone new--not high on the priority list. Second, Gus was clearly past middle age. I recognize that it's prejudiced, but my assumption was that his good-natured offer would produce more delay than help. Third, Gus had mentioned that this was their first visit to the new house; how could I take him away from his wife on their getaway weekend? What actually came out was, "No, thank you. Not today. But if you're around for a couple of days, maybe I could use you Saturday or Monday?"

Gus seemed genuinely disappointed. But our conversation moved on. Later, as Ann-Marie and Sara played with Gwendolyn in the swing, I asked Gus what he did for a living.

"I'm a framer. I've been framing houses in New York City for thirty-five years." Then he offered again to help.

I almost laughed out loud at the irony, and certainly appreciated his offer, but the last thing I wanted Gus to do was work on his weekend getaway. I declined again. We chatted some more, then Ann-Marie came back, they got in the car, and Gus offered his help again. I thanked him again, did my best to decline politely, and waved good-bye as they drove up their driveway. Sara and I walked into the house to get Gwendolyn a snack.

"He seemed really eager to help," said Sara. "You know, if he helps you I could get work done in the house while Gwendolyn naps. Maybe you should take him up on his offer."

I took that as two signs that I should repent. So I turned around and walked up to Gus' house. He was on the porch. "I've changed my mind. I could use your help today after all."

You'd think he was a kid just given a blank check in a candy store. He jogged into the garage to get a hammer (with a signature complaint, "it's not as heavy as I want, but . . .") and walked down to our yard. I realized in short order that when I asked Gus to "help" frame the garden shed, I had actually relinquished control of the project.

He took the saw, pencil, tape, and my framing hammer ("ah, this is a much better hammer") and went to work, consulting me only about measurements. When his hands picked up a 2x4 ("no one has used true 2x4s since 1940"), he was in the zone. Before I knew what happened, we (I use the term loosely) already had one wall up:

As he bent over the beginnings of the second wall, bending over to hammer nails below his feet without a grunt, I realized that I had not hit a single nail yet. Middle age had not impaired this guy in the least. If there was anyone who was holding up this project now, it was me. Humbled by the realization, I grabbed a hammer and nails and followed Gus' lead.

I had planned three days for the framing of the shed. Gus (with me in tow) started at noon. By two o'clock we had all four walls up and were putting in the cripples for the windows:

I learned a new trick for every step of the process: how to mark where the studs go on the plates; how to keep a finished wall level; how to frame a doorway. Every five minutes, I thought to myself, "Man, I would have screwed that up," and realized it would have taken me an extra hour to correct each mistake. I became quite thankful that Gus had stopped by.

Most wonderful of all was the joy that Gus took in his work. Far from confirming my fear that Gus would chaff at having to do work while on vacation, his zeal for the task of framing came out. I can only imagine that he is an excellent framer, because he takes such pleasure from the labor.

Of course, having an expert framer on site did not daunt Gwendolyn from her self-appointed supervisory role:

At three o'clock I told Gus we had to stop. He wanted to keep going, to put up the rafters and roof ("they won't take long"); but Sara and I had an evening engagement for which I needed to look respectable. So Gus trundled off home, back to his wife (whom he said was napping, and he could never nap anyway), and I was left with the peculiar sensation that God had sent me a strange and worldly blessing: an angel with a hammer to teach, to lead, and to save me three days' work.

Many thanks to Gus, and to the Lord of Framing Angels!

~emrys

Good Things Come on Rubber Scrapers

G knows that when the mixer turns on, usually good stuff's coming. I've caught her going after the paddle when I've left it in her reach. Now she's come to recognize that good things also come on rubber spatulas. She has been caught licking off a spatula that was in the silverware tray of the dishwasher. This one she swiped off the counter while I was making cookies: snagged it from behind my back. At least she kept it in the kitchen.

She's been working on her Karate Kid moves. Just wait until that cast comes off (3 more days!) and she'll be faster than the speed of - well faster than the focus on my camera. (And yes, she managed to wiggle her leg out with the tray in place and her other leg firmly stuck.)

She's also enjoyed playing in a backpack that we're borrowing from a friend. Again, that pesky cast keeps getting in the way!

~sjt

Postponing Adulthood

Don't get me wrong. I'm on board with the ideal that in a nation as wealthy as the United States, everyone should have access to adequate health care. That's not my concern. But, perhaps inspired by the folks at Freakonomics Radio, I'm looking at unintended consequences.

The most recent iteration of health care law made it necessary for insurance companies to allow parents to carry their children on a family plan until the child reaches age 26. In theory, therefore--and I posit that it will be quite likely in practice--a significant chunk of us won't be seeing the real cost of our own health care until age 27.

Just before I had the coordination to operate a stick shift, my home state raised the age for an unrestricted driver's license to 18. Sometime before I knew how to say "beer" in Australian, most states raised their drinking ages to 21. I don't know when Atlantic City will allow you onto the floor, but the Dow Jones and NASDAQ won't let you gamble on their screens until 21. And in university my friends and I, as we planned a road trip, discovered that certain rental car companies wouldn't give us a vehicle until we were 25.

Risk, along with the necessary opportunity and responsibility, is being pushed out of our hands until a later and later age.

In the 1930s and '40s a new phase of human development was discovered in Europe and North America: adolescence. Folks who paid attention to this kind of thing noticed that, socially and behaviorally, individuals did not develop stability, responsibility, and maturity as early as once expected. Children took until age 17, 18, or even later to become "adults." This was a shift from the generations that told of having to take on a job at age 13. My own experience of working with college students at the turn of the millennium shows that children were not becoming responsible adults--capable of weighing risk and enduring negative outcomes from conscious choices--until age 21 or 22. As college staff, we had frequent discussions about how to "teach responsibility" or "encourage accountability," precisely because the students under our care didn't have those adult attributes.

Of course, they drove after midnight for the first time just before they came to college. They weren't allowed to drink before they showed up on campus--and we know how that works out! They'd never handled significant amounts of money on their own, or been responsible for paying bills. All the things that teach us about risk, responsibility, great failure and great success had been pushed off for them.

It's been postponed for a good cause: education. A child who must work full time at 13 can't get a full-time education. The collegiate expectations in our nation prohibit starting a career until the Bachelor's (or even Master's) is complete. But there has been a trade-off. And our nation has just instituted another trade-off: access to health care for un- or under-employed youth (under age 26) in a job market that's weak at best. Health care is good. Let's pay attention to the unintended consequences.

Now our "children" may not see the true weight of their financial responsibility for health care until after 26. I predict that this move will push development of financial responsibility and fiscal adulthood further into the future. The next generation will become adults not between 13 and 16, not between 18 and 21, not even between 23 and 25, but between 27 and 30. They won't think as wisely about their saving habits, about health care decisions, or about voting for their leaders until their fourth decade of life. Unless . . .

If we are parents who are blessed enough to have the wherewithal to provide health insurance for our adult (I use the term hopefully) children, we ought to make our children pay for it. Show them the bill, have them pay their share of the premiums (let alone the co-pays!), and let them understand that living with the perks of a developed nation comes with responsibility.

They'll be getting health care on the cheap, it's true; paying for one's own plan rather than being a member of a family plan is significantly more expensive. But just because their names are under ours on the benefits card, let's not deprive them of the chance to learn how to live on their own. After all, they're going to be the parents of our grand-children some day. Before that happens, I want them to be responsible adults.

~emrys

Finally

I just watched a CNN web video clip from an interview with Chris Coons, the Delaware senatorial candidate who will run against Christine O'Donnell (posted September 21st).

Jessica Yellin, the CNN person leading the interview, for three minutes baited Mr. Coons, trying to get him to cast negative judgments on Ms. O'Donnell or her abilities to serve as senator.

Mr. Coons never took the bait.

With graceful effort that was visible on his face, he redirected every response so that instead of defaming his opponent, he stood in his own position and beliefs about the senatorial task and his fit for it. The closest he came to assessing his opponent was to say that the Delaware voters would decide who was more fit for the job.

It was a very poor showing for CNN, and an excellent showing for Mr. Coons. If all of our senators could gracefully refrain from pointing fingers at their colleagues (even when prompted by the media) and stand firmly in their own positions, we'd be better off. For that alone I'd vote for Mr. Coons.

But I'm not from Delaware.

~ emrys

Good Foundations

With much of my August vacation I worked on the garden shed. In an earlier entry I described the first steps of the shed's construction. With the first corner post in, the other three holes could be dug. Of course, no workman goes to his job site without an expert supervisor. Gwendolyn volunteered for that job, checking to make sure all was well, even before the second post had been fully tamped in:

I think that red Crocs and yellow fishing hats are now standard issue for construction supervisors.

Here's the super again, checking all the string lines for the third and fourth posts (note she's still in her jammies--a good supervisor gets up early in the morning):

Even with all that measuring, the posts turned out to be one-half inch off square. Sigh. I hope the shed doesn't collapse as a result.

You need more than good supervision--you need good help to put together a garden shed. So David, an ever-present source of help in our village, volunteered to help set the 2x4 beams under the floor. These, by the way, are the true (and rough-cut) 2x4s that I milled last summer from our own hemlock trees.

We went with an 8x8 footprint because we think it will be enough for our needs, and will be cheaper than the pre-packaged 8x12 sheds we were thinking of buying. (Lowe's sells sheds whose components are all pre-cut and wrapped in a pallet that their truck drops in your yard. No sawing, measuring, or cursing when you've cut something too short. Just drill, hammer, and snap, and voila: garden shed. But they cost about $1,000; we're projecting the final cost of this shed to be under $800.)

When it came time to put the floor sheeting on, our supervisor succumbed to the temptation common to all humanity: the power tool. She watched for about ten minutes as Sara and I drove screws through the chipboard, then she had to get in on the action herself. (Supers wear red Crocs and workers purple Crocs, I guess.)

The floor was on, feeling stable, ready to accept four walls and a roof. But the Framing of the Shed turned out to be a whole other story in itself . . .

~ emrys