Voyage

"oh Mover of me, may I always submit unto Thee
oh Mover of me, may I always depend on Thee
You don't move men like stones but endue them with life
that they may be free to be moved by Thee."
-Christine Dente, Voyage, "The Mover"

That's right, everybody. There's a new Christine Dente album. Go to their website right now. Plunk down your hard earned $15. Yes, it's a preorder. Yes, I've heard exactly one snippet of one song (you can hear it on her webpage). Yes, Sharon and I are going a little crazy. Go there now! Buy the album!

Abandon

"I'm like Thomas doubting
fingers routing the scars in Your wrists and side
touching flesh will make my mind believe
I want to be like David
throwing clothes to the wind
to dance a jig in my skin
and be remade by Your cleansing again
I give you myself
it's all that I have
broken and frail
I'm clay in Your hands
and I'm spinning unconcealed
dizzy on this wheel
for You, my love" -Sixpence None the Richer, Dizzy

My mom and dad have been here visiting - I just took dad back to the airport this morning, but mom is with us until next Tuesday. This is both blessing and curse; I love having them here, but Asher gets lots of attention from his grandparents. When they leave we have to go through a detox where he gets used to reasonable amounts of attention again, instead of 24/7 all the time happy fun whatever you want.

Dad and I talked a lot on the way to PIT (his flight was at 7:10 AM) so I've been extra introspective today. I'm hoping to get some time this week to process some of the stuff we talked about, and maybe I'll have something fun to say later on.

Go buy Divine Discontent if you don't own it already. Also, if anybody wants to make some music suggestions, I'm all ears. I'm noticing that most of the music I quote on this blog is 7-15 years old, so pony up, people!

Want Not

"digging deep I guess I say
is more pridefulness of that day
in truth I know that it is clear
I was distant, God is near"
-Poor Old Lu, Digging Deep

I've heard other people say it dozens of times, but you really can learn so much from children. Asher (most of the time) is still just honest and open, even when he's disobeying or in trouble.

Consider the following exchange:

(Asher is at the bottom of the stairs holding a Pringles can. I'm in one of the upstairs bedrooms talking to Sharon.)

Asher: Daddy, can I have a chip?
me: Sure, Asher. But I only want you eat one. We have supper soon.
Asher: Okay.

(A few minutes pass, and then I come out and start downstairs. Asher has a chip in each hand, so many in his mouth he can't swallow, and chip pieces all around him on the stairs.)

me: Asher, how many chips did you eat?
Asher: I don't know daddy. I wasn't counting.
me: Asher, daddy told you that you could have one.
Asher: Oooooh. I ate MANY more than one!

Recently I was a chaperone for Asher's preschool trip to a local orchard. We didn't get to go apple picking like we used to over near Chicago: Asher got to pick exactly one apple and he didn't even get to eat it. But it was fun to watch him interact with the other kids, and get to spy on him learning about becoming friends.

Some pictures:

Here are the other pictures, since I know most of you are really here for little bit (the first one is self labeled in the picture, in case you didn't know what you were looking at):

More pictures are available (as always, I don't post every one here) at our PicasaWeb page.

I know the original meaning of the song I quoted at the start is about sharing the Gospel, but I'm mostly reflecting on the goodness of my life and my happiness with my family - wife and sons. Being redeemed makes everything else so very sweet, and it seemed nice to be happy with all I've been given. I'll leave it as an exercise to the reader to work out why these two blog posts go together.

But, I confess a slight retraction from the idea: one reason we haven't posted pictures for a while is I haven't taken very many - because my 5 year old Nikon D70 (I bought one of the first) is broken. The card reader is giving me the dreaded CHA error (pronounce it "sha", picture yourself in the 80s, and have fun with my camera dissing me.) Since I don't have a place close by to have it looked at (and some Nikon repairs shops can't seem to fix it) I'm gonna try to follow Stephan Mantler's directions to try to fix it. So, technically, although I feel content, I do still want - a least a little.

UPDATE: I just finished reassembling the D70, and it works great. None of the pins were bent or damaged, so I think the ribbon cable on the bottom of the camera must have come loose, and I fixed that while reassembling. Bring me the finest muffins and bagels in all the land!