Don't Roar At Me!

Last night Emrys was playing with the dog and growling and roaring at her trying to get her to play.  She didn't want to and didn't give him any sort of response.  Then making the comment that he hoped The Kid was more responsive than the dog, he came over and roared playfully at my tummy.  To which The Kid hauled off and boxed me, or kicked, not sure which.  I've been feeling little light movements and kicks and stuff but Emrys must have scared the dickins out of The Kid because that one I felt and had to rub out!!  

Then this morning I read on one of the little pregnancy tracking tickers the baby's saying: "My ears are much more sensitive this week.  Would you keep it down out there!?!"  Wish I would have known that yesterday!

New rule: No roaring at The Kid until it's out and can kick the roar-er!

Judge Not . . .

. . . lest you be judged. These are the words of Jesus, good advice for a world too full of judgment.

And I've spent four days this past week grading exams.

I had to judge the sufficiency of essays written by people planning on entering the ministry in our denomination. Sometimes they take these exams in their second year of seminary. Sometimes they're long out of seminary, after a long first career, and going into the ministry with tons of experience and wisdom. Sometimes they're smart-aleck wet-behind-the-ears freshman-in-life who don't know a baptismal font from a hole in the ground.

And I don't know which one's which.

I just take the exam, record the number (to make sure I don't grade the same one twice), and read their responses to the questions, hoping and praying all the time that they will: 1) answer the question (you'd be surprised how many don't); 2) have good writing skills and good logical flow (after more than a year in a Master's level program); and 3) be able to apply Reformed theology to practical areas of ministry (the really tough one).

The grade I give could be the thing that allows this candidate finally to be declared ready to enter the ministry. Or it could be the thing that makes their preparation committee say, "Well, perhaps the ministry is not for you," after the candidate has invested years and thousands of dollars into education and preparation. The task is, in a word, humbling.

We have to judge and be judged. How else will we assure that those who preach on Sunday mornings and lead the flock every day of the week have actually thought about how scripture connects with everyday life? How else will we guarantee that theology is not done in a vacuum, but with the edification of Christ's people in mind? Yet I am aware that how I think, what I think, and how I interpret the words of these students cannot be the absolute judge of their careers as ministers.

So I am thankful that I am not alone. In order to take these exams, a group of people who knows each student will have given them permission to do so, and will have ushered them along this process to ordination. And I know that at least one other person grades every exam that I grade. If we disagree--I pass, another fails it, or vice versa--then a third will be brought in to settle the matter. It is subjective, as all evaluations are, but not arbitrary.

As I look critically at these answers and weigh them carefully, I am reminded of grace. As one of my colleagues put it: "We evaluate whether a person is ready to begin the ministry, not be a master of it." Point taken. I, too, am a beginner and not yet a master. So with fear and trembling I embraced my task of judging the written words of others who might someday be my colleagues. I pray that the Lord worked through my grading for the encouragement, the protection, and the edification of the whole Church.

Shalom,
emrys

A Morning...

So, Emrys is gone to grade papers for the week.  The dog and I are home and I should be working.  I'm not motivated today to to much.  It started when I woke up and the house was chilly.  The pellet stove and the boiler were both throwing errors.  Grrrr.  

I took on Boiler first.  It had been goofy for a few days - confused about it's jobs and couldn't figure out if it was supposed to be giving us hot water or heat and just gave us heat through the hot water settings.  But it wasn't getting hot enough to actually keep the house warm.  We have a message into a local boiler guy but I figured I'd give it a shot.  I tweaked a couple settings and Boiler finally decided that it could get its act together and give us heat when said thermostats called for heat and hot water then the tank called for hot water.  But it still wasn't heating up very high.  So I checked one more setting.  A great little device designed to save us money on our utility bills -the outdoor thermometer.  This thermometer is tied into Boiler and Boiler decides how hot to make our heating water based on the outdoor temprature reading it gets.  Well, Boiler seemed to be getting some wrong information.  Boiler seemed to think that it was 90 degrees outside when in fact it was a quite chilly 40.  Here was the problem.  So I called our friends at the boiler company, talked to the technician, found out that if the wire to the thermometer is near any electrical load it will throw the reading off.  sure enough - it shares a teeny-tiny hole going to our crawl space with two major electrical lines. So I unhooked the thermometer, added a ToDo to Emrys' list and watched as the temprature climbed.  I'll give up energy efficiency for 4 days in order to have the heat work in my bedroom!

The came Pellet Stove.  Turned it on and got a flashing yellow light.  Having no idea what that meant, I resorted to the internet know-it-all, Google.  I got an online version of the manual and pulled it up, searched yellow and got trouble shooting results.  Heating coil or control box failure. Surprise, surprise.  So I opened up the Stove, pulled out the control box and pulled a Nintendo CPR move".  Those who have classic Nintendo skills in their past know exactly what I mean - blow the dust off the contacts on the cartridge and then blow the dust out of  the game machine and 9 times out of 10, your game works again... well, it works for the control boxes of pellet stoves too - at least it did this time for which I am thankful.  

So, two service calls diverted, I should be working on my candles now but I'm not really motivated!  I'd rather sit in front of the fire with my crochet and a movie.  Decisions, decisions...

~sjt

Why I do the "Time for Children"

Some pastors just don't do "Time for Children."

The "Time for Children"--otherwise known as the "Children's Sermon" or some similar name--is the portion of a worship service when the pastor calls up kids, usually middle-school age and younger, to the front of the sanctuary. With the kids sitting around her, the pastor then relates some message to them in a more familiar, and perhaps more interactive, fashion than she will do in the "adult" sermon. It's an opportunity for kids to get their own word during the worship service; it's an opportunity for them to raise their hands, talk, and learn during a ceremony that otherwise requires their silence and calm.

The Time for Children requires some flexibility on the part of the pastor. After all, kids younger than 13 have not learned the "adult" discipline of guessing what kind of answer the pastor is looking for. Thus, they'll speak their answer to a question--whatever answer fits into the thought-world of a child who's just glad to be here and not worried about whether she conforms.

They tell the truth about what comes up in their minds when the pastor speaks or asks a question. The filters of propriety and fear that purify and rectify the thoughts of adults (which, I suspect, are actually little different than those of elementary-age kids) have not yet developed. Pastors who choose to do Children's Time get a spoonful (or a firehose) of humanity at its brightest, fullest, and messiest. We who invite kids up to have a conversation in front of the microphone sometimes have to put on goggles and rubber boots.

And I love the Time for Children. Here's why I enjoyed it this week.

I held up a print for the kids to examine. It was a painting by He Chi, a Chinese painter using a two-dimensional iconic style. The image was of the risen Jesus Christ sitting at table with two disciples. A fish and a cup of bright red liquid graced the surface of the table. I asked simple enough questions. And here's what the Spirit did (I have changed names to protect the parents).

"What are these people doing? Susie?" "They're eating dinner."

"What are they eating? Michael?" "Fish."

"What else is on the table? Johnny?"

"A Bloody Mary."

I love Time for Children.

~emrys

Let the Fun Begin!

With Baby on the way, my Mom and Sis-in-Law wanted to do a shower.  Then they realized that our family is spread all over the country as well as many of our friends.  Since purchasing plane tickets for a baby shower is kind of absurd, they decided to break the rules of geography and are hosting a Web-Baby Shower.  You still get to guess when the baby will be born, boy or girl, weight and lenghth.  There are still games, prizes and chances for conversation and gift opening.  The related links for the baby shower have been added on the right.  Consider this your invitation to join us in welcoming our new little one :). 

~sjt & emrys

P.S.  Our little family gathering to open gifts, measure The Tummy etc will be on Friday, November 28th - day after Thanksgiving.

Harmony

Note: the photos and text of this entry match only by coincidence in time. The photos show the process of painting the nursery; the text reflects the kind of thing I think about as I work on such home projects. I will not be offended if you choose only one as the focus of your attention here.

In the last few months, the Lord has made me especially sensitive to the problem of human reconciliation. This problem is, by definition, the quandary that arises when two parties once at peace with one another find themselves in conflict, and desire (or don't desire) to return to a place of peace. To "re-conciliate" is to return peace where presently conflict abides. And I have found, of late, the matter of returning to peace sticking in my side.

When I hear the word peacemaking, someone is usually associating it with some grand social or political problem such as the Israeli-Palestinian conflict, or Muslim-Christian relations, or the negotiation of a massive strike in the automotive industry. To attempt reconciliation in these situations one must step into a wide quagmire or details and relationships while the bullets of rage and vengeance scream overhead. But I have discovered that the bullets fly no less speedily over the field of family or individual conflict.

Conflict pierces at the human soul. We were designed for what the Hebrew scriptures call "shalom," or peace in self and relationships. Offence, real or imagined, striking at us from within one of these relationships, threatens the peace in which we want to live. As physiologists have taught for decades, threats to self and self-interest produce a fight-or-flight response, born in the autonomous nervous system. We separate ourselves from places of conflict, or we attempt to defeat--directly or indirectly--that which threatens us. In the case of human conflict, we therefore cut ourselves off from other people, or make an effort to subjugate them with logic, influence, raw emotion, or gossip.

But even as we respond to conflict in that knee-jerk, animalistic way we know that doing so will not bring peace. Fight-or-flight brings a momentary safety, but it does not bring back the shalom in which we lived before. To remain in flight means forever having to avoid someone else--not so easy with a co-worker or family member. To remain in a fight means expending energy damaging another person at every encounter--an activity which while sating the blood-thirst of vengeance for a split second fills the mouth with bitterness that does not fade so quickly. Living life on the run along an endless track, or in the ring with no bell, presents a person with a horrid future. The Spirit, crying out in the depths of our souls, wants peace back. And this desire resonates with something deeper than our autonomous nervous system.

Humanity is fated to live within time; we cannot go back and change the past. Thus our actions have become set in stone. Re-conciliation cannot happen by erasing the past. The stained tapestry cannot be un-woven. We cannot make peace by pretending the offence never happened. Thus peace-making entails trudging back through the muddy wastes of the conflict, unearthing mines of impressions, thoughts, words, and grief placed by both sides of the war. To reconcile is to redeem; and land cannot be redeemed unless it is re-possessed; and land that no one's foot has touched is not possessed. So peacemaking means stepping into a minefield of anger and sorrow, stepping lightly but always wondering if the next footfall will unleash a world of hurt and fury.

I think it rare that in any conflict only one side bears all guilt. Wrongdoing seems to beget wrongdoing faster than possums populate New Zealand; with the haste of a spreading fire guilt consumes both sides of a conflict. Thus to enter the minefield means unearthing guilt and shame for things done and left undone by both sides. So pride whispers to those in conflict: "Do not enter there, for your sin will be exposed." And on the heels of pride comes fear, the most persuasive and ever-errant counselor of humanity, encouraging us to let bygones be bygones (as if any of us can separate from our pasts) and risk not the bald accusation of our own actions. Even as the peacemaker prepares with trepidation to bear the heat of conflict, the opposing parties look with dread upon the prospect of facing their own complicity in the war.

It seems to me that the first--and perhaps most difficult--task of the peacemaker is to instill trust in the conflicted parties. So she must hold out hope: hope that the conflict will not be perpetual; hope that each party will not be irreparably destroyed by the mines that have been laid; hope that the difficult work of reclaiming a war-torn field will actually produce peace. I have found this task to be daunting. Deep conflict engenders deep separation and anxiety, piled atop anger, vengeance and pride. Though I have a rich imagination and trust in the power of the Spirit, holding out hope--thinking it, speaking it, repeating it--taxes my reserves.

How I wish that clearing the minefield could be done by the third party, the peacemaker, the individual UN Task Force, while the opposing sides looked on! But alas, only those who have laid the mines--only those who have loaded the past with anger, guilt, and shame--can defuse these weapons of relational destruction. The peacemaker can say, "Look, isn't that a mine? Isn't that where anger bubbles up? Isn't it right there that a great grief lies?" But the technology of hatred and conflict is proprietary; knowledge of how the trigger works and which wire to cut rest solely with the one who made the mine. It is not work that another can do for them; it is work that the adversaries must do themselves--and perhaps together.

Overcoming fear with trust is the labour of the peacemaker. Only in doing so can people entrenched in conflict be brought to talk, learn, negotiate, and reconcile. "How can I ever forgive . . . ?" are words spoken by someone who does not hope. "I can't say I'm sorry," are words spoken by someone who does not trust. The peacemaker cannot command these words of sorrow or forgiveness, but the peacemaker can encourage trust and hope.

Trust and hope are intangibles, however. They do not have a concrete value like shares in the stock market; they cannot be proferred from a wallet in a moment of need. They come with time and words--lots of words. Like the rising trust that citizens acquire for a presidential candidate by hearing him speak again and again, trust in people and hope in their dreams come by much encouragement and many words. So the work of the peacemaker includes some grand tedium: think of how many times we've been told that international figures are having talks with Israelis and Palestinians--again. Why can't they all just get along--right now? Because trust takes time; hope requires ages to instill and even longer to bring action. The peacemaker must stand firm in hope through all that time.

People can be reconciled with each other. There is hope for all those in conflict. I shall not make the mistake of thinking that hope makes things simple. But hope engenders trust, and trust makes reconciliation possible. Thus hope makes things possible. The fracture of shalom, and the peace of our relationships, can be healed if we will have the courage to return to the Normandys of our conflicts and clear the beaches of barbed wire. We must meet on the Flanders Fields of our pride and put enmity to rest. We must unemploy the counselor of fear and bear the guilt in order that it might be released at last. And we must help each other to do so, for facing dark and painful pasts is not something to be done alone. Then again, how much richer the joy when we find ourselves at peace and have someone else with whom to celebrate it!

"Blessed are the peacemakers, for they will be called children of God," from the gospel according to Matthew, 5:9.

Shalom,

emrys

Dinner With Dad

So I'm in NH spending time with a friend from college and my dad and kidnapping my mom to bring her home with me to work on projects and hang out.  

So it's Saturday night, mom's off at a conference and Emrys is home in NY working away.  Dad & I went to see Prince Caspian -which was really good!  Dad got mom a food processor for their anniversary.  Which means dad got a new kitchen toy and mom gets out of cooking.  So tonight we're making pita bread, tabouli, hummus and chicken.  So far we're munching on the hummus and it's fabulous!  Make sure that you read through the tips on the hummus - especially the ones about not draining the garbanzo beans all the way. . . 

I'm stuffed.  Dinner was great and it's going to be time to call it a night soon!

~sjt

Procrastination...

Procrastination takes on many forms for me.  Sometimes it takes the completely lazy approach: naps or TV instead of say, cleaning up my work room.  Some times it takes on shuffling non-important tasks, like weeding and re-arranging my pantry before the ones that really need to get done (like cleaning my work room).  Other days takes the form of kitchen productivity, like this afternoon I cranked out 6 dozen ready-to-bake cookies to the freezer and a gallon of fresh, homemade applesauce (with the coolest toy ever! another blog to follow), when I should have been... well you get the picture.  Now, here I sit, jotting this blog, when I should be cleaning up the kitchen. 

~sjt

Tyler Cabin Adventure VII

As I think I mentioned before, the Tyler family has a strong pack-ratting gene. Things that "may come in handy someday," things that are of unique interest (to the pack-rat, that is), and things whose origin we can't remember but we know there's a reason we kept it; all of these are potential items for the collection.

In cleaning out the log house, we discovered such a collection of napkins. One of the Tylers, somewhere, sometime, thought that for themselves or posterity these would be important to have. For this generation, they are story-seeds, leaving us to guess the story behind the fragile pieces of paper.

The napkin above is from the "Hotel du Lion d'Or," or Golden Lion Hotel. Is it from Paris, perhaps--a favourite city of the two past generations of Tylers? Could it be from my grandmother's first trip there as a college student, placed under her first glass of French wine?

This next piece is a serviette from British Caledonian airways, founded in 1970 and ceasing operations in 1988. Did Grandma and Grampa fly to Britain to visit Betsy on this airline? In a strange little napkin-twist, one of British Caledonian's subsidiary companies from 1970-1982 was "Golden Lion Tours." Coincidence?
Ahhh . . . The Hog Penny Pub. Where everybody knows your name. One of Grandpa and Grandma's favoured travel destinations was Bermuda. (I remember visiting their home and seeing the map of Bermuda composed of seashells, hanging on their bathroom wall.) Founded in 1957, The Hog Penny still serves clientele who like good beef and good beer. And they claim to be "the inspiration for the "Cheers" pub in Boston.
Now, I don't think that badgers in general make good bunk-mates. But apparently there is (or was) a chain of hotels in England called Badger Inns. Maybe badgers are kinder in England.
Japanese food in Paris! An oddity, perhaps, when my grandparents were galavanting around there. Now, I'm sure, there is plenty of food from every nation there.
Here is a napkin from a tourist shopping district of Aix-en-Provence, in the south of France, just north of Marseille. From the fonts used in the lettering, I'd say it's late '60s to mid '70s vintage.
And last but not least: from the Grand Hotel de France ("France's Great Hotel"). It's right near the Lyons train station in central Paris, close to the river. At present, it's only rated at 2-stars; so whoever snagged this napkin must have been travelling budget-style. (Then again, that's also the Tyler way. Is there a connection between travelling on a budget and pack-ratting?)
That's the last of my photos from the Tyler cabin adventure . . . until next year, anyway.

~emrys

Back to School? and Other Updates

While all the kids around us are headed back to school, it seems that the pace of our life has doubled or tripled from a month ago and we don't even have kids headed for school yet! Unless Emrys counts.

Yup, that's right - Emrys is taking a Philosophy of Coaching Class. Upon volunteering to help with the local soccer team, he found out that due to NY State red tape, he has to work towards a NY Non-teachers Coaching certificate if he wants to continue working with the high school soccer program beyond this year. Which he does, and so he finds himself jumping through the necessary hoops. So as the weather turns cool his days are filled with work, soccer practices and games and class. I get to see him every once in a while... usually to eat! and I have mandated a one-night-a-week-at-home rule for this crazy fall. So far it's worked but we're only 2 weeks in.

I've managed to keep the house clean for 10 days now and have kept up with my cleaning maintenance lists- I'm proud of me! This week I spent two half days pouring candles and cranked out almost 30 lbs of candles to get ready for Greene Applefest at the end of the month and to get a couple of my retailers set up for fall.

I've also been managing the buckets of produce coming in from the garden. Right now its mostly zucchini and squash finishing up, basil & cilantro still growing like weeds and tomatos. I have LOTS of green tomatos that are slowly ripening up. From this week's pickin's the 4 lbs of tomatos are currently in the crock-pot to make this amazing looking tomato soup. There's heavy cream involved so Emrys was all about trying it! Since Hanna and Gustav have both sent rain our way for today it's wonderfully cool so I also made up a bunch of this yummy zucchini bread. I think since it is cool out and I'm more in the mood to bake today than to deal with the mess that is my candle work room I may also make this focaccia bread to go with the soup for dinner. We'll see how far my energy lasts!

Next weekend I'm headed for Manchester, NH to visit a friend from college, and YOU if you're in town, let me know! In addition to visiting friends and family, the ulterior motive for the trip is to raid this friend's closet for maternity clothes! While The Tummy isn't quite ready for the full on maternity stuff yet, it's getting there and some bigger tops will be nice!

Speaking of The Tummy and Baby Tyler, we had our 19 week ultrasound last week which means today I'm at 20 weeks and half way there!! Baby is perfectly healthy and, well, big! For 20 weeks anyway. Baby measured at about 6 inches long and 10 oz in size. I continue to fight The Kid for my appetite but manage to eat pretty healthily when it gives me the chance. I don't feel ill or morning sick or anything - just no appetite. In my world this means I have to remember to eat, which I'm not very good at. Especially if I'm home alone.