Maka Funzowd!

A few days ago Gwendolyn and I were on our way out to pick veggies from the garden. Geared up in pink hoodie and bright red ladybug boots, she opened the back door and led me onto the porch. Then she went through the screen door with the gait of a woman who knows what she's about. She had crossed the stone patio when I came through the screen door and eased it shut behind me.

At the far edge of the patio Gwendolyn turned and said, "No, Djadjee! Maka funzowd!"

I try not to pass over toddler-speak that I don't understand. I usually ask Gwendolyn to repeat something I don't get until we can make a connection. Sometimes she becomes visibly irritated at how long it takes me to comprehend.

"Djadjee" is "Daddy." I had no idea what "Maka funzowd" meant. "What was that?" I said.

"Maka funzowd!"

Still uncomprehending, I would have asked again, but she didn't give me time. With determined steps she walked back past me, mounted the top step to the screen door, and swung it wide open. She watched as it opened to its farthest reach, then swung back with a bang against the frame.

Then she looked at me with a broad smile. "Maka funzowd!" And with that, she tramped past me toward the garden.

Translation: "Let the door go, Daddy! It makes a fun sound!"

I laughed out loud and followed my daughter to the tomatoes.

~ emrys

Hurricane Motivation

The outward movement of our east wall (see previous post) produced an unusual trim on our house: the first floor wall comes out about six inches farther than the second floor wall. Thus we have a ledge at the top of the first floor wall. We found out the first time we got a heavy rain--and to a greater extent when Tropical Storm Irene made her way through our woods--that in spite of our contractor's best efforts, water gets in through the ledge. We had water dripping from the inside of our door frame and window. It made our hearts sink: our next dream was to get new flooring in the kitchen. But there's no point in new flooring if it's just going to get wet.

When we started dreaming about moving the wall, we also dreamed about a shed roof that would keep weather off the front door and window, and give visitors a place to stand when arriving on rainy days. With the discovery of water entering the wall, we took the money that would go to the flooring and pushed up the schedule on roof construction to . . . right now.

Last Monday I dug the hole for the corner post, and borrowed a truck (thanks, Bobby!) to pick up the building supplies. Here's the roof, all stacked up in our garage:

On Tuesday, Conner and I sank the first post and got the other two cut:

 On Wednesday I got the header up on the posts and kerfed the siding for the plate. The bear of the job was getting the flashing under the tar paper, so that in the future any water that got in through our old board and batten on the second floor wouldn't slip through to the first floor. It was a blessing and a curse to discover that the guy who built our house didn't put up any plywood on the outside of the exterior studs. The blessing was that it made it easier (though not easy) to get the flashing in; the curse is that we've got one fewer layer of protection and insulation than most houses have.

 On Thursday, Brandon came over and helped me to get the plate up:

 On Friday, Conner and Brandon helped me to secure the plate with lag screws:

 I'm into public service--like putting teenagers to work so they don't have as much energy to get into trouble elsewhere.

 When they weren't arguing about the existence of faeries or whether The Hulk could survive a nuclear winter, these two did a respectable amount of labor--for freshmen.

 While we were at it, we got the rafter stencil cut and the first two rafters in place:

That evening I had a little extra time, so I got the first half of the rafters done; the haze in this photo is from the humidity and coming rain building up in the air:

 On Saturday, I finished the rafters:

On Sunday afternoon I got the first half of the sheathing on:

As of this evening (Monday), I finished the sheathing but for a few nails. The light drizzle in which I had been working turned to real rain, so I had to knock off for the day. At least now there's a physical watershed away from that exterior ledge, so I don't feel under so much pressure to work fast.

I think I'll need a holiday from major house construction after this project's done.

~ emrys

Eastward Expansion

 Three years ago we noted that the concrete slab on which our house sits extends out to form the floor of our front porch. The second floor overhangs it, giving the front door and windows some shelter from the elements, but we decided to try to keep the house warmer in the winter by inserting panels between the porch columns. The result was a set of makeshift walls that could be set up in the winter:

 and then taken down in the summer:

 About a year ago, we began to dream of having enough room for a proper dining table in our kitchen. The current configuration of walls would not allow that. We figured, however, if we pushed the front wall on the first floor out over the porch so that the whole slab was inside, we'd hit two birds with one stone. First, we'd get more kitchen space (the kitchen is the front room on the first floor of the house). Second, we'd have the whole slab covered by heated space, so lose less heat through the floor in the winter. When we got an estimate for the construction to do so, the number came in significantly lower than we'd thought. So in July, Colwell Brothers construction (Windsor, NY) came in and gave us 120 new square feet inside and this look outside:

 They pushed out our retaining wall, making room for garbage and recycling bins as well as keeping groundwater away from the house walls:

 Inside, we got more kitchen floor space and a bigger window in the front (ahem, this is before the window was inserted). We found out, however, that the porch actually was a separate slab. Oh, well.

 Opposite the kitchen, where the south end of the porch used to be, we got a mud room and a "pantry," or, more to the truth, a new storage space for all of Sara's candle stuff:

 Now instead of running into the front door as soon as you hit the bottom of the stairs, you have room to breathe, put on your coat, sit down for a snack, or meditate on the complexities of life--not necessarily in that order:

 When LeWayne Colwell was arranging the estimate with me, he asked if I'd be doing the joint work myself. I thought for only a half second before remembering that I despise spackling and sanding. I told him that I'd gladly pay them to have it done. (The work is actually so specialized now that general contractors rarely do it themselves; it's cheaper and faster for them to hire out to someone who does it forty-plus hours per week.)

 Thanks, Colwell Brothers, for a great new space! You do good work. The proof is that my daughter had fun helping to paint the walls of the mud room:

 To match the old part of the kitchen, we got more of the cream and red paint. I'll be taking the old window and door trim and making a chair rail soon. (And really, there is a window there now--made by Madison Vinyl in Bainbridge, who made every other window in our house.)

A few days after the construction was complete, we got a good dose of rain. The dirt patch outside the retaining wall slid pretty well down in front of our door, so I gathered up all the stones I had removed before they did the construction and built a little retaining wall of my own, punctuated with hens-and-chicks harvested from the south side of the house:

Note in the above photo that the electric meter is not hooked up. We found out that until the utility guys hook up the meter again (you can't do it yourself), you get free electricity! Run that dehumidifier with the windows open--Boo-yah!

~ emrys

Blackout Gwendolyisms

We are on day three of no power thanks to the aftermath of Irene (thanks friends for letting me hijack power, internet outlets and your washer!)  Here's a bit of last night's dinner conversation.

G: Mommy, lights broke!
Me: Yes Gwen, the lights are broke.  (We'd gone through this one at least 4 dozen times since the power went out on Sunday.)
G: Mommy, potty broke!
Me: Yes, Gwen, the potty's broke because the power is still out so the water doesn't work.  (She made this connection on Monday when much to her dismay, she couldn't flush the toilet.)
G: Mommy, water's broke!
Me: Yes, the water's broke until the power comes back on.
G: Mommy, HOUSE IS BROKE!
Me: Yup Gwen, the house is broke.

Then in all seriousness, she turns to Emrys:

"Daddy, fix it!"

Just Stand Still!

In the name of all that is sacred: stop "moving forward"!

Stop beginning letters, blogs, and press releases with "Moving forward." Stop diluting the perfectly good verb "will" with this trite participial phrase. Stop overstating our knowledge that we want most things in life not to go backward.

Just stop it.

~ emrys

From the Ground

I grew up in eastern Pennsylvania as it became a suburb of Philadelphia, then New York City. I high-tailed it to the urban grit of Montreal for university--and loved it. I took my first real job in a resort town in the Rockies--and miss it dearly. I went to seminary chewing the subtropical air of Los Angeles County.

How do I survive in the rural reaches of upstate New York, where the nearest cafe is twenty miles away?

I realized how just yesterday, as I rode my bike the ten miles home from soccer practice amidst fields of seven-foot corn stalks and August lushness:

in the country we see more clearly that life always springs up from the ground.

~ emrys

Very Serious Work

Bubbles are very serious work.   First you have to fish the wand out of the bottle.

  

Then, you have to be able to blow through the wand just right...

Once you practice a little it will work: 

And with practice and if you turn your head just right, you can blow big bubbles.

Finally you get to watch them float away!

Book Review: John Knox

In preparation for my Reformation Sunday sermon this year, I read a biography of John Knox (Rosalind K. Marshall, 2000). Before reading Marshall's book, my knowledge of John Knox was limited; I could only recite that he was one of the great reformers of the sixteenth century, a father of Scottish Presbyterianism.

I discovered about three-quarters of the way through the book that it is not quite accurate to attribute to Knox the flowering of Presbyterianism in Scotland. That accolade, according to Marshall, goes to Andrew Melville, who imported "fully-fledged Calvinism" to Scotland after Knox died, in the 1570s. However, Knox and his preaching were indeed powerful in combating Roman Catholicism in Scotland and giving Calvinist (or, maybe better, Swiss?) understanding of the Lord's Supper a foothold there--as opposed to the Lutheran understanding of the Lord's Supper.

Marshall convinced me that John Knox was a complex character who cannot be fairly reduced to this or that contribution to the history books. (This revelation, repeated over and over again in my life, is what keeps me studying history.) His motivations, obscure and muddled at best to those of us looking back, do not submit to simple categories or judgments. Like all of us, John Knox had the full complement of human complexity and changeability. If there was one thread that ran through his adult life, it was his dedication to simple obedience to the will of God revealed in the scriptures.

Even this thread, however, is dyed with different colors than we recognize today. I recently listened to a preacher declare (quoting someone else) that "Where goes the family, there goes the Church; where goes the Church, there goes the nation; where goes the nation, there goes the world." John Knox's world saw the structure of human society differently. Knox and his contemporaries, if I might dare to put words in their mouths, would have expressed it thus: "Where goes the King, there goes the kingdom; where goes the kingdom, there goes the Church; where goes the Church, there go the masses." Knox's age differed radically from ours in how the world worked, therefore how God worked, and therefore how the gospel should be preached.

Of his thirty-year career as preacher (at the end of which he died), Knox spent ten of those preaching directly against the female monarchs of Scotland and England ("Bloody" Mary I, and Mary Queen of Scots). He wrestled, in conversation and correspondence with the likes of John Calvin and Theodore Beza, with the question of what Christians ought to do if their monarchs disobey God. Knox formulated an interpretation of scripture by which Christians were allowed to rebel against kings and queens, an idea which was beginning to take hold in the philosophical corners of society but was still repugnant to most Church thinkers. The constant fear of those who heard Knox--both friends and enemies--was that giving authority to The People would mean descent into chaos.

Knox also lived and preached in a time when everyone was Christian. Or, perhaps more accurately, it would not occur to anyone (except Jews) in sixteenth-century Europe to declare faith in anything or anyone else than the Christian God. To be alive was to be Christian. Battles were fought and heretics were burned over differences in Christian faith; but atheism, Buddhism, genuine agnosticism, or others were never on the table.

On the other hand, as a parish pastor, some of Knox's work and tribulations sound stunningly familiar. While in Frankfurt, he endured great pains for a congregation in conflict over what form of worship service to use (Genevan book of prayer versus the English Book of Common Prayer). The fractures and debates have deep echoes with present-day debates over traditional versus contemporary forms of worship and music. After four hundred years, we have not come very far.

I will try to capture something of the spirit of Knox for my October sermon. To do this I think I will imagine what contemporary characteristic of the Church would inflame Knox the most. He behaved like a prophet, outraged at disobedience to scripture and "never fearing nor flattering any flesh." If transported in a time machine to 2011, to what reformation would John Knox call the Church? And then, what would he say? Time to find some of his sermons to read.

~ emrys

Reading Material

A modification made by the online publisher Lulu has given me the excuse to remind you that we've got a couple of cool things in print (or downloadable in .pdf format). Check them out by clicking here.

~ emrys

The U2 Experience

On 20 July Sara and I went to the long-awaited fulfillment of my 2009 Christmas gift: the U2 360 concert at the Meadowlands. The show, billed to start at 7:00, opened at 7:45 with a mediocre heavy rock/metal band called "Interpol." Then the two-thirds-full arena entertained itself for half an hour while, we presume, the star act made itself ready. Finally, at 9:15, the Irish four took the stage to open with some of the classics from Achtung Baby.

Since the Zoo Station tour of the late '90s, U2 has combined good showmanship with technology and videography at their concerts. Perhaps emboldened by the fact that in an 80,000-person stadium the nosebleed seats can't see a lead singer, U2 has put cameras and oversized screens to good use. They amplify both sound and light to make a larger-than-life impact on the masses. The performance was as stunning as I'd hoped; what surprised and intrigued me was less the band and more the audience.

We used public transit to get to the stadium, which involved standing on the train platform for about an hour waiting for rerouted trains to get in order. As the platform filled up with fans ready for U2 action, I watched the restless throngs. I saw middle-aged couples with wedding bands; I saw college frat boys; I saw Baby Boomers who looked to be enjoying the first fruits of retirement, preppy high school kids, washed-up hippies, and dapper dressed professionals. I even saw a six-year-old girl with black ug-boots, tutu, jacket, and purple streaks in her blonde hair; she could have been a fast-forward version of my own daughter. The U2 age demographic would make most Church congregations jealous. Only skin color was uniform; my rough estimation, from observations made until the lights went down for the main event, is that the crowd was ninety-five percent white, two percent Asian, two percent Latino, and one percent (or less) African-American.

The repertoire for the concert revealed what I saw at the Pop Mart concert in 1998: as a whole, U2 fans connect more with the old classic songs than the new ones. The songs from the early '90s elicited more clapping, dancing, and singing along than those from the last four albums. When the band played I Still Haven't Found What I'm Looking For, all eighty thousand fans were on their feet, singing, clapping, and swaying. All around us were closed eyes, raised hands, and straining voices, anticipating every line and echoing every refrain. Under the night sky, immersed in the amplified beat and soaked in The Edge's aching string-work, I sang along with Bono, lifted my palms to the sky, and wept. Like the ancient clans brought to tears by Gaelic bards, I succumbed to the power of music. And it felt like . . . worship.

Now I know why folks follow bands like U2 across the country for entire tours. They want to feel part of something bigger than themselves. They want to feel larger than life, ecstatic with sound and light so bright they can only come from heaven. They want to be carried out of themselves, if only for a moment, and into something powerful and orchestrated and harmonious and . . . more than human. They want to worship. And the opportunity comes only once very four years at the cost of one hundred dollars a pop.

~ emrys