Monday, December 29, 2008

Our New Hobby

Zach and I have picked up a new hobby... professional photography. We received a Nikon DSLR camera for Christmas (Thanks to Zach's grandmother and mom!). For those of you that may not know what this camera is, it is basically a low-end professional camera. Zach has been more intrigued by it than I have (the reason being that I have been sick), and has taken some great shots! So I cannot give myself credit for any of these photographs, but I wanted to share!

Some shots of Ellie with her new toys:

This last one is of Ellie is playing with a toy that is supposed to motivate her to crawl :)

A beautiful Christmas shot of my mom's decorations and tree:


And lastly some shots Zach took of downtown Winston-Salem:

Wednesday, December 24, 2008

Remembering Mary

"Now the birth of Jesus Christ took place in this way. When his mother Mary had been betrothed to Joseph, before they came together she was found to be with child from the Holy Spirit."Matthew 1:18

Have you ever pondered how Mary felt? A virgin, pregnant. What a woman of faith she must have been, of course God knew that... He wouldn't have just chosen anyone to raise His son.

"A Baby Changes Everything":



This baby changed everything...

The Meaning of Christmas

You have read quite a few blog posts from Zach the past few weeks, and none from me... I know you have missed hearing about Ellie! Well the reason why I have been MIA is because Ellie and I have been sick. I'm not quite sure if we have recovered yet... but we both definitely feel better. Zach arrived home on December 11 to both of his girls coming down with a cold. Ellie ended up having 3 doctor visits within 8 days, life has definitely been hectic these past few weeks. The first visit was on Friday (the 12th) to diagnose her with a cold, the second on Tuesday to diagnose her with a double ear infection, and the third on Thursday to ease our concern with her temperature dropping to 96 degrees most nights. We definitely had many nights of worrying and casting those worries to God through prayer, and we are so thankful that it has only been mild illnesses.

I haven't given you much of an update on Ellie. She definitely is the cutest and happiest baby around! Alright, I might be a little biased, but she truly is such a joy in our lives. Everyday we are so amazed by how much love we have for this child, and how blessed we are to have a healthy, happy baby. She still is not crawling, rolling, or walking... but this is nothing we are concerned about. We know most of this immobility is from her not spending much time on her belly since she screams every time we put her on it. She loves to stand and pull up by grabbing onto our fingers, so we do know she is progressing. She actually has been taking steps while holding onto our hands, so she might just skip the whole crawling phase... that won't bother me! I absolutely love how I can still just sit her on the floor and she will be in the same spot when I leave the room and come back. She also has been saying 'da da' a lot the past month. She has been jabbering here and there, I love it though when she talks and we can't keep her quiet!

Thankfully we have been able to get our Christmas shopping done with hardly any stress and are now visiting family in Kernersville and Winston-Salem. This Christmas season, I have reflected a lot about the meaning of Christmas... not so much because I am remembering Christ's birth, but because I am forgetting it. When asked the question, 'What is your first thought when you think about Christmas?', what is your answer? My answer struck me because mine probably would not be Christ's birth. It is so easy to think of Christmas as being a time to give, a time to come together as family, a time to decorate, shop, and bake. Christmas was meant to be 'the holy day' which we know as holiday. It isn't about coming together as family or giving and receiving gifts. How much more Christmas really is... how it symbolizes something that we cannot hardly fathom and something so miraculous. It is a time meant to remember this miracle and the greatest gift we have ever been given. Here is a video that I got from one of my favorite blogs, girltalk, that reminds us and helps me reflect on the true meaning of Christmas:
(it might be a little long, but definitely worth watching... trust me, you should make time for this)

Wednesday, December 17, 2008

Favorite Books of 2008

As the end of the 2008 approaches it appears to be common practice in the blogosphere to write a post of your favorite books from the year so that is what I have done. Below you will find a list (in no particular order) of my favorite books with a very short synopsis.

Too Busy not to Pray - Bill Hybels - This is a phenomenal book written by a great pastor. The book gives some of the most practical advice on prayer I have ever heard. The book goes through some fundamental truths of the Gospel related to prayer including: What kind of God do we pray to?, why pray?, does prayer really work?, what hampers our prayer? and finally He gives us a great model to follow in our prayer life. The goal of the book is help those how struggle to maintained a disciplined prayer life through encouragement and some very practical advice. Its a great read and I highly suggest it.


The Abolition of Man - C.S. Lewis - This is a very short book by C.S. Lewis but in terms of theological and philosophical truth its weight must be measured in tons. The purpose of the book is to form an argument against the subjective nature of the intellectual culture of his time. What's so great about this book is that it is message is timeless and has never been more applicable than it is today. Lewis makes a convincing argument that the death of objective law and morality will ultimately result in the abolition of man because the man with the most temporal power have the ability to impose his own subjective law on "weaker" individual thus rendering them powerless. One of the most influential books related to apologetics and absolute truth.


East of Eden - John Steinbeck - This is probably my favorite literary work of all time. Its a bit on the long side (600 pages) but its impossible to put down after you read the first 50 pages. East of Eden is a complex and layered retelling of the story of Cain and Able found in Genesis. Though the book has an engaging and well formed plot, I think Steinbeck deserves the most praise for his character development. Throughout the book you notice that he is gradually developing each one of the characters to reveal their true heart. There are no archetypes, each character is thoroughly "normal" and Steinbeck shows each of their motives throughout the story.

Tuesday, December 16, 2008

AWESOME GIVEAWAY

Check out Trevin Wax's blog. He is giving away his 10 favorite books of the year PLUS an awesome ESV Study Bible...that $260 worth of GREAT books. If you love books like I do, click here!

Friday, December 12, 2008

The Uncomfortable Christmas

As the Christmas season is already upon us and Christmas day is soon approaching I am particularly concerned about one issue...Santa. As a family, Laura and I are trying to decide whether or not to tell Ellie about Santa (Laura is in favor and I am opposed). There are reasons for and there are reasons against but none of them seem to sway me to make a definitive statement contrary to my current opinion. Because of this I am thoroughly uncomfortable this Christmas in respect to how we celebrate it with Ellie, to that end I am also extremely thankful that she will only be about 9 months old and probably won't remember it so I have another year to stall in case we don't make up our minds.

I am well aware that regardless of decision, culture, school, family, and friends will all tell Ellie about Santa and I am OK with that but I (just me, not Laura) am not comfortable making it a part of our immediate families tradition for a couple of reasons. Lets take a look at what message Santa conveys to children...

1) Santa is omnipresent - Maybe not omnipresent but at least he possesses special abilities so that he can go to every single house in the entire world in a single night.

2) Santa is omniscient - He knows every good or bad deed you have done all year.

3) He judges children on their works - The quality and quantity or presents (rewards) each child gets is based on how good he/she was this year.

4) He answers petitions - Children may ask Santa for anything they want and he uses his discretion to determine if the child is worthy.

Perhaps I'm being pedantic but Santa sounds a lot like a god figure, he even has some characteristics of God and this is troubling. What are the potential consequences of telling a little kid about Santa you may be asking. The problem isn't when the child is 2 or 3 but when they turn 8 or 9. An 8 year old is absolutely capable of understanding the gospel to a point where they can trust Christ as their savior but may not have a complete theological grasp of the character of God. Now, to that child the characteristics of Santa seem very similar to the characteristics of God and they may not be able to make the distinction between God-attributes and Santa-attributes. Suddenly the child thinks God judges us and blesses us based on our performance rather than out of the grace we have through the glorification of Christ through his death and resurrection.

But Zach, Santa is good for kid's imaginative development you may say. I agree that Santa-like figures may have the ability to make a child's imagination run wild with fantastic ideas and adventures. This is great. My question to you would be, what's wrong with my kids imagination the rest of the year? We don't talk about Santa any time during the year except December. If you are the exception to that statement then you are probably using Santa as a bargaining tool to get your kids to behave and that is just wrong. All year long children play with imaginary friends and dream up awesome adventures, they don't loose this ability because its Christmas.

But Zach, Santa represents love you say again with growing disdain for this blog. Perhaps this is true if that's what you have taught your children but couldn't we simply explain that God is love and he became flesh to prove it and that we give gifts to show others how much we love them and to reflect that same love? Don't tell me explaining how a fat guy with reindeer can go to every house in the world in a single day is easier than telling your kids simply God loves us and this is one way we celebrate.

Don't be mistaken, I don't think anyone is a bad parent for telling their kids about Santa and I certainly don't think you should avoid Santa but perhaps Santa should be more of a festive figure like pumpkins are for Halloween. I just think our official Christmas celebration should be more Christ centered. Every child will probably believe Santa to some extent because he is so popular in our culture, there is no need for us to reinforce or encourage that belief in our home.

Despite the contentious tone of this post, the verdict is still out I am open to hear any argument. for or against

Wednesday, December 10, 2008

Yummy Suckers

Ellie tried her first sucker... don't worry it's her one and only as of right now :)


Thursday, December 4, 2008

You Don't Care About This

If you read Slate today you may have noticed a piece entitled, Bringing Brutal Back. The piece is about the architect Paul Rudolph. The long and short of the article is that Rudolph's architectural style could be making a comeback...at least at Yale. About a third of the way down there is the following quote:
Yet by the time of his death in 1997, Rudolph was all but forgotten. What happened? In a word, taste—changing taste. By the 1970s, Postmodernism had introduced wit and irony to architecture, neither of which interested the serious Rudolph, whose brand of heroic monumentalism now struck many people—and many potential clients—as bombastic.
Suffice it to say that the irony postmodernism brought to style was surly not witty. Postmodernistic style is completely indifferent to questions of consistency, context, or continuity. It self conscientiously splices genres, attitudes and styles without reason. Wit expresses a certain intellect. Therefore, as stated above, postmodernistic style may be ironic in the sense that it produces something with traits that you wouldn't expect but there is nothing witty about those ironic characteristics. Though there are examples of postmodernistic architecture that are extremely impressive, as a general rule they are random, out of context, and simply overbearing. The problem with the quote about Rudolph''s architecture is that it makes no sense.

Tuesday, December 2, 2008

The Souls of Black Folks

Let me begin by saying that I hesitate to publish this post and I reserve the right to remove it at any time. My fear is that if I may come off as a dilettante. These are personal thoughts and carry no more weight than what you give them.

In an effort to broaden my literary horizons I have devoted several of the next few books I plan to read to the categories of classical literature and history. Currently I am reading The Souls of Black Folks by W.E.B Du Bois. In a, I believe, providential turn of events I am also working through a series of American history podcasts. While reading Du Bois I am also learning about the period of reconstruction in those podcasts. What can I really learn from a book published 105 years ago or what can I learn from some history lectures I heard in 11th grade? These were the questions in my mind when I started this recent endeavor and I am so glad I have been patient through the process.

Almost 1 month ago to the day many of us sat in our homes watching what was one of the most amazing events in American history, the election of next President, Barack Obama. We saw images of thousands gathered in Grant Park in Chicago, we saw one of the foremost leaders of the civil rights movement (Jesse Jackson) crying, and we heard two amazing speeches, one from each candidate.

What was the big deal? Would people be crying if John Mcain won? I doubt it, maybe, but I doubt it. So, what was the big deal? If you move past the anger the right has for the left and the disrespect the left has for the right then there is a bigger issue. We elected an African American to be the President of the United States. Many are saddened by who that African-American was but all the same, we elected an African-American.

We were told that this is a historic event but most of us (white middle class, me) didn't get it. I knew its was good thing to show we could elect a non-white President but it wasn't that big of a deal ro me because I'm not racist, I just liked the other guy. I'll vote for a African-American, a Chinese-American, or any other race if they show me they are committed to my values and my issues.

Though this may be the view that a lot of Americans hold, it isn't what many others experience. Growing up in white suburbia I knew that if I wanted to do better than my parents I had to be more educated than my parents. I had to learn from the mistakes they made. My family isn't dumb but I am the first person in my immediate family to go to college right after high school, thats a progressive step in our families history. To many Americans, especially many African-Americans that step isn't possible, or at least it feels impossible. We know slavery in its historical form is dead but to many Americans, most of them African-Americans, a form of slavery still exists. In the poorest most poverty stricken and crime infested neighborhoods in American there are thousands of African-Americans who feel enslaved to a system that showed no signs of weakness until November 4, 2008.

A two parent home where both parents work 10 hour days, 6 days a week at minimum wage makes about $36k a year after taxes. At that rate there is barley any money left to save for college, buy the kids a car, make discretionary purchases like BOOKS or new clothes. Now imagine that the schools in those neighborhoods are below average (like many are) and that in an effort to help the family out the oldest kid gets an after school job. Here is a situation where a child is subject to same life his parents had to live because his school wasn't all that great and all he knew was the family needs some extra cash. The school isn't that good because most good teachers don't want to work there, I don't blame them. The after school job left very little time for studying which makes scholarships almost out of the question and the kid has probably never been encouraged to go to college because he has never known anyone to go to college so he doesn't apply because the $100 application fee is actually next months groceries. He can't pull himself up by his own book straps because he doesn't own any boots or if he does the straps are broken. He grows up, gets married, and is living the same life his parents lived. He never did anything bad, never broke the law, never made any huge mistakes, he just lived the life he had and now his kids are doing it again. The difference this time is minimum wage hasn't kept up with the cost of living in the neighborhood and the price of oil is up around $140 a barrel and that means almost $4/gal gas which is 2.5 times higher than last year and his wife got sick so now he doesn't have good insurance and is strapped with rising costs and hospital bills so his kids pitch in to keep the family in shape. The cycle starts again.

I paint a bleak picture here and in most cases it isn't that bad but this happens everyday. Sometimes people are to blame for their own circumstances but sometimes their situation is a product of the environment they grew up in. The question you should be asking is why? and How did it become this way? This is where W.E.B Du Bois and my American history podcasts come in. Reading The Souls of Black Folks and listening to these lectures made me think about how far African-Americans have come in 150 years but then I thought back to the election night and the faces I saw were not faces of people who thought this was just another election, they were the faces of people who knew this was a big deal. They knew what that cycle felt like and they were, unfortunately I have to say it, given hope by Barack Obama. Many of them probably lived on the South side of Chicago, which I have been to and can attest that it isn't a good place to grow up. Some of them probably lived in Cabrini-Green which I have also been to and can tell you it isn't the place I would want to raise my children. The issue here isn't how to address poverty and present education opportunities, though they are important and we should do those things. The purpose of this blog is explain some of the historical factors that have been the burden on the African-American race and have created some of the situations we see today. As a disclaimer, I am neither a historian nor a civil rights activist but I think understanding is the foundation to all progress. I believe the cycle I described above is in some part, a major part I believe, the residual affects of the racism we all remember from the 1950's and 1960's. Below are a few historical events that I think significantly contributed to that racism and thus brought us to where we are today.

1) The Assassination of Abraham Lincoln in 1865 - Everyone knows this was a set back to ending slavery but few know why. I believe the historical effect of Lincoln's death was two fold. The first effect, a symbol of freedom was gone. We all know who debilitating it can be to loose the leader of a cause you believe in. The second effect was that the Vice President, Andrew Johnson (D), became President. Lincoln, a republican, had chosen Johnson in an effort to build consensus about his administration but unfortunately Johnson was an absolutely awful President. As part of reconstruction he began appointing legislators and politicians to run the seceded southern states. Unfortunately most every Johnson appointee favored "Black Codes" which were the precursors to the Jim Crow laws of the 20th century and Johnson felt that a national civil rights law would infringe upon the rights of the states. He was amazingly forgiving to leaders of the seceded states, probably because Johnson didn't appose slavery. He opposed secession but not slavery.

2) The fall of the "Freedman's Bank" in 1874 - The "Freedman's Bank" was an institution dedicated to the building of wealth for and improving the economic status of newly freed slaves. Around 1870 the Freedman's Bank, under total mismanagement, began making poor decisions investing in risky business propositions and Real Estate (sound familiar?). Eventually the bank fell in 1874 and the majority of an entire peoples accumulated wealth was lost. This instilled a great amount of distrust and skepticism in both financial and governmental institutions which contributed to the long term lack of economic status improvement for former slaves.

3) The Compromise of 1877 - The was an informal agreement between Rutherford B. Hayes and Samuel Tilden. The Election of 1876 was extremely close (Al Gore v. George Bush close) and in return for Tilden conceding the election, Hayes would remove all Union (Northern) troops from the former Confederate (Southern) states. As a result of this, the southern legislatures began passing more and more stringent "Black Codes" and there was no force to quail the social indignation former slave owners and confederate soldiers had toward former slaves.

4) Plessy v. Ferguson in 1896 - This is the Supreme Court decision we all know as "Separate but Equal". This needs very little explanation. Segregation was now legal. This meant that the legislature could formally impose restrictions on African-Americans given they were afforded "equal" alternatives. This idea wasn't wholly rejected. Booker T. Washington firmly embraced this idea in the Atlanta Compromise as a stepping stone for black people to slowly be assimilated into white culture while building economic independence...it didn't work very well. Separate but Equal was the de jure standard for the treatment of African-Americans until 1954.

5) Jim Crow Laws 1876-1965 - Despite the Emancipation Proclamation, the 13th, 14th, and 15th amendments Jim Crow laws were extremely suppressive to African-Americans until the Civil Rights Act of 1964 and the Voting Rights Act of 1965. Even after these major events racism was prevalent in America until the 1970's.

I believe these major events in history occurred at the right times to where we are still seeing the plight of African-Americans and racism more than 150 years after the Emancipation Proclamation. These events were devastating blows not only to former slaves but also generations of former slave's children's fight for equality.

Im not sure if I said anything worth reading but I feel that if we better understand some of the historical causes which made the election of an African-American such a big deal then we are taking steps in the right direction to making it not a big deal.