Pain

I had never felt pain like this.

In 1998, while touring the Isle of Skye, I pulled a moped upright from the wrong side, wrenching my back. But I could walk, and in a few days I was back to relative normalcy.

This morning, as I set Gwendolyn down on the kitchen floor, my lower back erupted with searing pain. I cried out and fell down on one hand, but the pain kept surging through my body, and especially down my legs. After seeing it on countless white boards across from hospital beds, I finally knew what the "10" stands for.

The blinding spike squeezed tears from my eyes as I crumpled to the cold tile. It came in waves, with every inch I lowered my body toward the freezing floor, pounding like a hammer on my spine and sending shocks of spasm through my limbs. After several cries, gasps and moans, I was face down, cheek to the tile, spread-eagle, prostrate. Any move I made caused new paralyzing slivers to stab out from my back. So I embraced the frigid stone pressed up against my chin while my confused two-year-old daughter looked on and until my wife came down the stairs.

"Are you all right?"

I can count on one hand the number of times I have been this not all right.

And now I know the difference between what has happened to me periodically over the last thirteen years--straining my back--and the nearly indescribable experience called "throwing out your back."

Ten hours, eight ibuprofen, three cold packs, and one chiropractic visit later, I can barely hobble across the room without stopping to cringe and pant. I'm praying that before a weekend full of scheduled work rolls in, I'll be able at least to stand up fully erect and lift both arms without flinching.

Tonight I sleep on the floor, feet raised, and pray that my spazzing muscles give me a break.

~emrys

Last Rites

I sat this evening in a large common space, joined by fifty or sixty others of various generations, all seated facing the same way. We sat in a building open to the community, but which had been constructed for a singular purpose. We discussed tighter budgets, the need to trim programs, and the possibility of merging with another nearby group of similar convictions, out of fiscal need. Members expressed the spectrum of possible opinions on whether to merge, or how far to do so. Anxiety of potential change and loss hung in the air.

I have been privy to many of these kinds of situations lately. Serving in the position I do within the Church, I witness congregations which have become smaller over the years and are now faced with tough choices driven by finances.

Tonight's conversation, however, took place in a school. It pertained to the merger of sports programs between two schools, and flirted with the possibility of a full merger between schools. With a few transpositions, the conversation could be a script for a congregational meeting in a small rural assembly of believers.

What struck me with the greatest weight was the central anxiety wrought by dwindling budgets and populations. Folks attach their identity, their sense of value, and the life of the community to the building-clad entity--be it a congregation or a school.

When asked about the prospect of the state fully merging this district with another, the superintendent said, "If we lose this school, this building, the town will die."

Really?

Another parent said that the kids needed this school because it was part of their identity. Being a student in this school, this town, defined them.

Really?

I have only a peripheral interest in this district's choices about merging. I'm a volunteer coach for one of the sports, and just an assistant coach at that. I don't live in the district, or in the town. But I have an intense interest in the things that make us--individuals, families, communities, congregations--come to define ourselves by building-clad institutions. As I have seen from Bethlehem Steel, the Nineveh schoolhouse, and countless empty cathedrals in Europe, building-clad institutions eventually run their course and crumble.

If the numbers just get too tight, what will happen to these folks who define themselves by their school? Will they go into communal depression, as a teenager might who cannot find her identity in life? Will they become angry and vengeful--and how does that manifest in a community? Will they seek to define themselves around some other building, like the firehouse or a community center?

Or will they find identity in something more fluid than brick and mortar, which can weather financial ups and downs, thrive in country and city, and last for a lifetime?

~emrys

A Daddy Duet

We have a board book that is the lyrics from The Little Drummer Boy and we got it while I was still pregnant with G. Emrys has been singing this song to her since before she was born. It is a designated Daddy bedtime book, as when I picked it up one night I was told "Gaga pum pum!" and handed a different book. Which I think translated to, "Daddy reads Drummer Boy!"

Tonight, The Little Drummer Boy has advanced to a duet. Emrys' voice carries out the lines of the song and the pause left at the end of each line is followed by a little two year old "PUM! PUM! PUM!"

Big C Adventure

or, Ten Minutes Well Spent.

Gwendolyn and I laid out the bathtime letters on the table to do some alphabet work, only to discover that the "C" was missing. So we spent ten minutes scouring the upstairs looking for the missing yellow C, singing about what we wouldn't be able to do if we didn't have a C.

At last we found it, brought it downstairs with much rejoicing, and made our complete alphabet.

~ emrys

G Turned Two...

...about two weeks ago - I'm a little slow on the blog stuff lately! She is a healthy, tall (35.75 inches) little girl who is talking more every day. She exhibits the independent streak of her mother a normal two year old. She's quite the little helper and mostly, a lot of fun! Here are a few pictures from her birthday celebration. We were visiting my brother and his family. Gwendolyn's cousin Reese and Aunt Lara made the present cake for her and after build your own pizzas and cake, punching balloons brought great entertainment for everyone!

Really?

Just got an email from a friend decrying the makers of the following t-shirt (Old Glory):
My first thought was, "Really? There are people who would make this t-shirt today? Wait--there are people who would buy this t-shirt today?"

My second thought was (and often is), "Ah, this is why I believe in Total Depravity."

The email mentioned something about "First Amendment rights." The imposition of this topic occasioned my third thought, which is that excusing the content of one's words using the First Amendment is a tactic especially reserved for idiots.

Vive les idiots!

~ emrys

Dangerous

is getting even less cool.

When we bought our house, the staircase to the second floor was open on one side. On your way up, you might put your hand on the railing against the left wall, but on your right side was a sheer drop to the kitchen floor. This is all well and good for those of us taller than five feet; by the time we're high enough on the steps to fall off and hurt ourselves, we're high enough to catch ourselves on the overhanging ceiling. No problem.

Except for a toddler. As she learned how to crawl, then toddle up the stairs, Gwendolyn could easily have pitched off the fourth-to-top stair and fallen to her death on the kitchen tile below. So in July of last year, we did something to change that.

With the help of my father-in-law and the hemlock from our property (yes, we're still using this wood), we constructed a railing and spindles in order to make it just a little harder for our daughter to hurt herself.

I failed to take photos of the project in its early stages, so here are the images of the last few steps. In July we had the unfinished railing and spindles in place:

Since that day, of course, its muster has been tested over and over again by the most important user.

It turns out that spindles make good hand-holds for someone shorter than four feet tall.

Instead of the usual polyurethane, which chokes the user indoors and requires thinner to clean, I tried out "polycrylic," a water-based acrylic sealer and protectant. It went on smooth, dried fast, cleaned up easily, and did not yellow the wood as polyurethane does. Awesome.

And since I had more than enough for the railing, I decided to put a protective layer on the table top I made two years ago for GBaby's room.

Now at the top of the stairs, the only way to get to the kitchen floor is down a forty-five degree slope, rather than a vertical drop. (She's taken the forty-five degree route as fast as possible twice now, and come away with nothing broken except her sense of security.)

And four inches between spindles leaves enough room to grab, poke, and tickle but not enough for head or shoulders. Perfect.

Thanks, David, for the help, Sara for the support, Gwendolyn for the inspiration, Yahweh for the wood, and Bobby for the shop!

~ emrys

Die!

Our daughter learns most things by imitating her parents. Sometimes those things we intentionally try to teach her, like brushing her teeth or how to say "blueberry" ("blbzhry"). More often, however, she is learning things without our encouragement. But never without our example.

For instance, Gwendolyn is gradually learning how to discipline our dog Sadie. Mind you, she can't yet say Sadie's name--our dog, and all dogs, are named "Gah" for now--but she can order the mutt around. At the supper table two of the most frequent commands the adults use are "Bed!" (to get her away from the table) and "Stay!"

Gwendolyn, ever interested in efficiency, currently skips the first command and goes right to the second. But her skills of enunciation have not yet developed to the point that she can say "stay" the way the rest of us do. She points a directive finger at the dog and shouts, "Die!"

You must imagine the glee of the adults when, at the supper table with her aunt and cousins, Gwendolyn spotted Sadie across the room, raised a disciplining finger and with all the confident presence of a two-year-old yelled, "Die!"

We're grateful that Sadie didn't obey.

~emrys

The Incognito Stay-Puff

Gwendolyn had one of her first sledding adventures today. It's good that Emrys is a big kid because I'm not the biggest fan of cold or climbing up hills. G is already heeding advice regarding eye protection and snow after Emrys' experience with sunburned eyeballs. Those stylin' shades didn't come off the whole time we were out, or for the ride home in the dark either.

Family Gift

Two years ago my brother- and sister-in-law gave us a gift of two frames with leaves designed to hold the names of four generations of family members. In the last month I finally finished them, reattached leaves that didn't stick properly, and hung them in our living room:


On the right side is the tree of Tylers, starting with my brother and I at the bottom:

On the left are the Wheats, with Sara and her brothers at the bottom:

What a great way to take all my family research and make it an attractive addition to our home. Thanks, Adam and Lara!

~ emrys