My Inheritance

It's official: we have done our legal duty as parents and established our Last Wills and Testaments. If the imponderable happens, there will at least be a legal framework for our children's care and the passing on of our property and finances.

I found it impossible not to wax at least a bit philosophical when considering the choices involved in making a will. Something about weighing the situation after my physical demise--which, make no mistake, will come eventually--makes me consider the value of this life which will then be ended. I think about inheritance, that which I pass along, and wonder about what will remain after me besides my physical stuff. It strikes me as summarily unsatisfactory to have the entirety of my legacy enumerable on balance sheets and tax maps.

We Christians throw around the word testament quite a bit. We have two of them specifically designed for Sunday mornings: the Old Testament and New Testament. In this context we read into those words the meaning "book," but the original intent is closer to what we just signed with a lawyer: that which is legally and enforcibly passed on to the next generation. In Christ we receive the inheritance of God's Spirit, who imbues us with courage and grace in this life and into eternity. Christ is the seal on God's will for us, broken, opened, and disbursed for our blessing. In Christ God passes on the blessings of divinity to us.

What shall I pass on to my children, and to others with whom I might share this journey long enough to leave a good impression? Though I desire that my children, until they can make their own way in this world, are provided for in material ways, I want more passionately to pass on faith, character, and the things that make for peace. I want my children to be wise--I pray for it every day--but I am not sure that wisdom travels one generation to the next by structured means. Perhaps it seeps in more by lived example, like the grace notes in a song only heard after hundreds of listenings. I want to pass on love, but not the kind that satisfies instantaneously or the kind that gives words more weight than action. I want to pass on love that waits and endures, love that produces a wondrous synergy between the melody of speech and the harmony of behavior. I want to pass on a love that is not deceived into believing that what comes first is best, but recognizes that sometimes the last is the richest.

I pray that my children will receive abundance of life as I have known it--and more! In Christ, with the community in which they live, and in themselves. I pray that this inheritance will last long after the final penny of my life insurance is spent. I hope that the expansive principle of the kingdom will make it possible for my inheritance to bless many generations in ways I could not ask or imagine. I shall pray for this, then live tomorrow for eternity.

~ emrys

Screwing Up the Floor

Before we closed on the purchase of our house, the seller agreed to have the joists supporting the downstairs bathroom floor replaced. This room is the only one on the first floor not supported by concrete slab; below the bathroom is the original footprint of the house, which was built to be a spring and pump house in the 1920s. The space is a five-foot deep cellar, into which all the piping and equipment for water filtration and heating has been crammed. It's a maze of copper, PVC, and wire, whose complexity and tightness are only hinted at in this picture:

The gentleman who replaced the flooring in our soon-to-be house may have had some screws loose. Or he may not have had enough experience replacing floor joists in complicated settings. In order to hang sister joists next to the old ones, he discovered that piping and tubing got in the way. To solve this problem, he decided to cut the three center joists of the room right down the middle, like so:

 The problem with cutting through a floor joist is that, no matter how many nails you use to tie the two halves together, the joist is going to sag. This principle holds true especially in a bathroom, which sees a lot of traffic and holds a clothes washer and dryer. Thanks to this repairman's structural decision, the center of our bathroom floor had been descending over the last six years, to the tune of about two inches.

I had several conversations with my DIY heroes at 88-BC, our local building supply joint, and we settled on a plan to raise the floor by jacking it up. One of the guys in my congregation, who has probably put up, torn down, and modified more barns than I've ever stepped into, kindly allowed me to borrow two screw jacks which easily lifted the floor:

 (Thanks, Harold! You saved me a couple of hundred dollars renting or purchasing my own for a single use.)

The screw jacks pressed up on a pair of 4x4s that in turn lifted a single 4x4 set cross-wise under the four joists in the center of the room:

So as to avoid cracking any of the floor, I raised the joists in increments (though I was told by Harold later that my progression was overly cautious). I wrote on the 4x4 the distance from floor to joist after every turn of the screw:

 Then I inserted 2x4s as scabs along the length of the severed joists. The insertion was probably the hardest part, because the piping and electrical work made it impossible just to lift the board into place. It was a headache to weave these boards--all while crouched in a cellar space twelve inches too short for my frame--between tubes and pipes to get them in place. Plus I had a four-and-a-half-year-old helper, whose insistence that she "turn off the light to see if her pencil drawing will glow in the dark" did not speed things up. But I did it with eight boards, then anchored them in place with TimberLOK screws (handed to me by my Big Kid helper, who was genuinely helpful at this point), which my trustworthy sources tell me are as strong as carriage bolts in this application:

With a little prayer, I removed the jacks. Only a few complaints sounded from the floor as it returned to supporting its own weight. I went up stairs to the bathroom. Lo and behold, the floor is still hight and level. I hope that it stays so for a very long time. Should it sink again, I'll have to call in the pros.

Thanks to Jared and the crew at 88-BC for their expertise and assistance!

~ emrys

The Green Pan

In about 1995, during my university years, I bought a huge Texas frying pan. (I don't remember whether it was called a "Texas" frying pan in Montreal, but that's what they call it in Yankee country.) It was made out of thin steel with a coating of teflon. Great for cooking up big batches of stir fry to feed hordes of college students. My most enduring memory of using the pan was to make stir fry for a floor event in our residence hall. I discovered at the grocery store that in Montreal they sell horse meat and that it's considerably cheaper than beef. So I made stir fry with horse meat. Everyone loved the dish--and had frequent seconds--until they discovered in conversation what kind of protein was in it. Then a few backed off.

After fourteen years, three or four moves, and too much use of metal spatulas, the pan was pretty beat up. The teflon came off the bottom in occasional flakes, which I've heard is not healthy. At the end of last year, it was time for Old Texas Faithful to go.

 In Walmart and other purveyors of fine goods, I had passed a new invention: ceramic-coated frying pans. I was intrigued, but had not yet made the decision to buy. My brother Chris, who has become a Foodie of Wisdom and Simplicity, heard about my investigations and bought us a Green Pan for Christmas.

 We have used it for six months now, and it is serving us very well. The ceramic coating works as well as teflon for a non-stick surface, and we're no longer consuming tiny black chips of mysterious bonded chemicals as additional spices. Thanks, Chris!

~ emrys

Carrying My Lovely

The morning before I left for my last business trip to Louisville, My Lovely Daughter took me out to the front lawn to pick dandelions. She handed me the bouquet of yellow and told me they were for me to take on my trip. So I wrapped the steps in a wet rag, stuck them in a ziploc bag, and hoped that security wouldn't confiscate them. I took pictures and sent them at each stage, so My Lovely would know she had gone with me. Here they are in the Syracuse airport, waiting to go through security:

 Here they are in DC, waiting for a connecting flight:

 Here they are in Louisville, Kentucky, arrived safely (though a little wilted from a day's travel, like me) in the hotel:

Here are the tired blossoms the next day, on the edge of the Ohio River:

And I thought a fitting send-off would be dispersal into the great Ohio River--who knows how far they've traveled toward the Mississippi delta since I let them go?

~ emrys

Thinking Cosmically

When I was in high school, one of my favorite series of books was Douglas Adams' Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy (a trilogy of four books). It has been at least ten years--maybe fifteen--since I read one of his works. No matter how long the span, however, Adams' words stick in the recesses of my consciousness like mental LDL. So I knew after seeing "DON'T PANIC" on this window in the DC airport that I was in for a treat of reminiscence:

[For those with less-than-optimal resolution, it reads, "It is said that despite its many glaring (and occasionally fatal) inaccuracies, the Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy itself has outsold the Encyclopedia Galactica because it is slightly cheaper, and because it has the words "DON'T PANIC" in large, friendly letters on the cover."]

I am thrilled that someone in the Dulles administration is well-read enough to see the value in printing a Hitchhiker quote for travellers to enjoy. It's especially fitting for someone returning from a glorious Colorado vacation to the duties of pastoral ministry. We need more DON'T PANICs in large friendly letters in our lives.

~ emrys

Cutting for Stone

Physicians who are worth their salt recognize that the practice of medicine is an art rather than a science. The complexity of the human person overflows categories defined by anatomy and physiology; to treat a patient is to treat body, mind, and soul. Neglecting one results in misdiagnosis of the other two.

Authors worth their salt recognize that the individual is a microcosm of the world, and the world reflects the struggle of the individual. To tell the struggles of a single person is to tug on the vast web of relationships that make up families, cultures, and societies. We can tell when a story does not tell the truth about a person, because it does not ring bells across the tangled skein of the cosmos.

Abraham Verghese's 2009 bestselling book, Cutting for Stone, reveals its writer to be a physician and author worth his salt. The premise of the novel--conjoined twins whose struggles of discovery span from Ethiopia to the Bronx--might be enough to attract any avid reader. But the real wonders of Verghese's work lie below the surface of nation and history. Verghese describes human relationships with the skill of a practiced surgeon: far from repeating rote anatomy, he handles human complexity as a veteran familiar with both disease and healing. He lays open before us the conjoined twins of physical pain and heartbreak, of sutures and reconciliation. Within the matrix of brotherhood and family, Verghese deposits wonderful descriptions of the surgeon's art. Though brutally clinical at times, the florid poetry of these descriptions will entrance even the most medically-averse reader.

Perhaps the most intriguing aspect of Cutting for Stone, to me who is on the cusp of a journey to East Africa, is the interweaving of Ethiopian culture and history with the tale of Marion Stone's family. Verghese brings out such fascinating detail about life in twentieth-century Addis Ababa, then sets it alongside a picture of an immigrant physician's life in New York City. This comparative taste of world cultures only sharpens my desire to taste injera for myself in the heady richness of Ethiopia's capital city.

Whether you are an aficionado of medicine, a connoisseur of foreign culture, or a gourmet of the complexities of the flesh, you will be rewarded for picking up Cutting for Stone. I do warn you, however, you may not be able to put it down.

~ emrys

Memorial

I took Gwendolyn today to the graveyard which is under the care of our congregation. We walked among the tomb stones and took note of all the flags--US, firefighters, and one New York State flag for a member of the State Police. I remembered with her the few that I have buried in my six and a half years here pointing to names on glossy head stones. I remembered for her that her Grandpa George is buried in a cemetery in Pennsylvania, and that she won't get to see him in person until we get to glory. In her sensitive four-year-old way, she told me that she "missed him very much," even though she never met him. We remembered in prayer all those who have lost to war, and the Prince of Peace who we hope will arrive soon to put an end to our self-inflicted suffering.

In spite of my own ambiguity toward nationalism and national pride, I want my daughter to remember, among so many other things, those who have departed this world in theaters more strange and dangerous than most Americans will encounter. So today we remembered.

In Memoriam:

George Tyler, MD

1939-2005

Vietnam 1970-1971

Army, 1st Cavalry Division

and

all The Boys he could not save

who lost their lives

out in the boonies

far from home

~ emrys

Spontaneous Creativity

Gather a bunch of high school students together in your home, and fascinating things will happen.

Invite anyone over the age of ten to play with wooden blocks, and they will take offense. Blocks are for little kids, their faces will tell you.

Invite kids over the age of ten to hang out in the vicinity of an open container of blocks, and they will inevitably begin to build things. As long as they have not been asked to do so.

Last month we had some high schoolers over for brunch during their spring break. Here's one of the many constructions that grew out of our living room floor:

Note the four-year-old spectator on the left, dressed in pink fleece. She wasted no time including herself in the engineering work.

Let's hear it for creativity and the most basic of toys.

~ emrys

Anti Monkey Butt

During my chaplaincy internship I was paired with another woman from my seminary. The work of our internship included in-depth examination of how the stresses of chaplaincy revealed our strengths and weaknesses as pastors. These revelations came to us in many and varied ways, but usually within interactions with other people.

At one particularly stressful point in our work together, she and I gave each other nicknames which allowed us not-so-passively to express our consternation with the circumstances. The nicknames stuck long after our internship ended. Since that week, I have called her Freak Show. And she has called me Monkey Butt.

Imagine my glee when, a few months ago, I came across this product in the hardware store:

Here's to you, Freak Show!

~ emrys

Creative Learning

 We purchase an annual membership to a national association of children's museums and science museums. Ever since we encountered the Discovery Center in Binghamton with a toddling Gwendolyn, we have discovered great joy in spending quality time in these paragons of civic effort. During this week's vacation in Durango, Colorado (our home away from home), we found that our membership pass gets us into the newly established Durango Discovery Museum.

Discovery Centers, Science Centers, and Discovery Museums have the twin goals of hands-on education and fun for kids of all ages. I do mean all ages; here is Jill climbing up a stylized tree house, finding her inner contortionist:

 As part of a promo weekend, the Discovery Museum had a set of Imagination Playground blocks--imagine Kinex magnified and fashioned from blue foam--of which Gwendolyn availed herself for about an hour.

 She systematically collected blocks from the scatter created by other kids' work; I did, on occasion, need to remind her that cannibalizing blocks from other children's projects-in-process was not allowed. She was quite determined to include every possible block in her architectural wonder. She required little help except to learn how twisting a foam noodle helps to thread it into another block.

 I took great joy in watching her creative vision play out on the sunlit patio. I also took great sobriety in watching the young children interact and noting that without parental intervention our offspring would have played out a version of Lord of the Flies. There was lots of enforced sharing and rebukes for stealing blocks. But aside from one meltdown among a group of twelve or thirteen kids, the afternoon's activities went off without serious incident. And a foam city brought concrete expression to the heart of my four-year-old daughter.

If you ever have the opportunity to engage the joy and learning of a children's museum . . . engage!

~ emrys