ben's blog

Punk-rawk mohawk

My 5th-grade son convinced Deb and I to cut his hair into a mohawk. He's pretty stoked. He's also riding his bike to school and becoming a lot more independent and responsible (mostly). Ack! I'm not sure I'm ready for this.

You rock, Ethan!

Ella and Sydney: little theologians

The other day I was driving my two youngest daughters Ella (4) and Sydney (3) to the zoo. Ella brought up the fact that Adam and Eve died and "that's not good!"

She paused for a beat and then brought up her Grandpa (my Dad), who died a few years ago. "I wonder what his new body will look like!" she said.

Sydney thought it about it for a bit and said, "Maybe pink."

It was a rather funny little episode with my daughters in the car, and didn't take more than 10 seconds, but I thought about how two things they had gotten right in that short time, that many people don't get right.

Death is an enemy.
It is "not good" as Ella said. I heard something on NPR the other day where a reporter was interviewing a Burmese monk living near LA about the Buddhist perspective on the recent cyclone that has killed tens of thousands of people. His response was basically (in typical Buddhist fashion): we just have to accept it. These things happen, they aren't necessarily evil or bad. Might be the result of bad karma, but who really knows? These things happen. Basically the response was "death is no big deal, just like everything else."

But Ella (and Christian theology) disagrees about death, and thus about the cyclone: "That's not good!"

The answer is resurrection.
God's answer to humanity's biggest enemy (death) is the resurrection from the dead, seen first in Jesus and eventually coming to everyone who is in Christ. The answer to the "not-good-ness" of death is that because of Jesus, God will raise us from death with new bodies to inhabit a renewed world.

Many Christians think God's answer is an unphysical "life after death", but this is just another way of saying the Buddhist answer: it's a euphemism for getting used to being dead. God intends not for us to get used to death, but to finally defeat it, to bring us back to life after the sleep of death into a fully physically embodied existence on a real earth. Jesus' resurrection body had interesting properties that give us hints that our resurrection bodies will be different from the ones we have now, so wondering what Grandpa's new body would look like is a natural question to follow from that.

I'm not sure how orthodox Sydney's conjecture was ("Maybe pink!"), but it's fun to see them pondering these things.

Theological statements of the goodness of creation

Our two youngest daughters (4 and 2) were in the bathtub today. The conversation went like this

Ella: "Eww! Stop! Mom, Syd's showing her butt at me!"
Sydney (pausing to look at her butt): "I like my butt."

Deb is pleased that Sydney seems to have a healthy self-image. I am pleased that she has a firm grasp of the goodness of creation ;)

Aaron vs Wild

Yes, folks. This is my brother Aaron. He used to keep us in stitches growing up. This is a little parody of Man Vs Wild:

Good advice for a happy marriage

Here's some great advice I found on how to have a happy, un-stressed marriage. It's a humorous article titled:

Put Your Dang Kids To Bed

Read and laugh and think, "This might just work..."

Thankful for...

1. My gorgeous, faithful wife Deb. One of the most humble, sincere, devoted people I know.
2. My son Ethan (9): scary smart, inventive, strong, passionate.
3. My daughter Raina (6): endlessly creative, dancer, writer, bookworm.
4. My daughter Ella (3): hilarious, big blue eyes, joyful, carefree.
5. My daughter Sydney (1): precocious, expressive, loves to cuddle, attached to Daddy (yes!)
6. My vocation & colleagues: I love what I do, I love who I work with. I live an ideal life, pretty much.
7. Old Crown: I love coffee more than I ever have, and freshly-roasted makes all the difference.
8. My MacBook Pro: Why didn't anyone tell me these computers were so good? (Er, wait, maybe you did).

Happy Thanksgiving, everyone!

1,563.1 miles later

As most of you know, I traveled with my family to Minnesota to participate in my grandmother's funeral. So 1,563.1 miles later, here's what I know:

1. Our kids are total rock stars. Over 1500 miles. Only Four days. Four kids. One minivan. And we heard very little complaining, even from Sydney (the 18-month old). Of course, portable DVD players help with this statistic. Still, they're rock stars. That's a lot of time sitting for rambunctious youngsters.
2. I am not a "self-made" man. It was extremely humbling to realize how the faithfulness of my grandparents and parents made my life so much of what it is. If there is any grace on my life, I am more convinced after this funeral that I had very little to do with it. Those who have gone before me have carried me on their shoulders. I feel an increased sense of responsibility now to walk into everything God wants for me, because to whom much is given, much is required, and my parents and grandparents have given me more than I realized.
3. My grandmother had nine children and 30 grandchildren, and not one of them can recall ever hearing her complain about anything. Both her parents died when she was an infant, she had nine children (!), she had polio, lived on very little money for most of her life, raised 6 of her kids by herself after her husband died, and had to bury a son. But no one ever heard her complain once. That staggers me.
4. Subway sandwiches were not designed for clean and efficient consumption within a motor vehicle, but we have to get through Chicago before rush hour, so there's no time to stop.
5. The Incredibles is too scary for Ella and Sydney, Pooh's Heffalump Movie is too "little-kiddish" for Ethan and Raina, but Because of Winn-Dixie is just right for everybody. We could use more movies like that. Just a note for all the Hollywood producers out there who read my blog for ideas.
6. I actually felt comfortable wearing a suit. Don't tell anyone. (Update: check out Andrew Jones article on what it looks like to dress like a pagan. It's scary that I felt comfortable wearing my pagan suit.)
7. My grandmother's visitation was loud, boisterous, and joyful, complete with children running and screaming delightedly. And that's the way she would have wanted it, even though the funeral director looked like he didn't quite know what to make of it.
8. I am still allergic to cats. Quite.
9. Ben Folds writes good music to travel to. As does Bruce Springsteen, Over the Rhine, Sarah McLachlan, Mute Math, Mark Knopfler and Emmylou Harris, Rend the Heavens, and Wesley Gaines.
10. They are still working on I-80 through Chicago, and it's a mess. Not that I'm complaining ;)
11. They make pretty good Indian food in Minnesota. It really hits the spot after a long day of funeraling and traveling.
12. It's good to be home.

Blog news

I may not be able to blog much over the next few days, as my grandmother passed away last night. I'll be busy with visitation and funeral stuff through Wednesday.

I'm working on a post on the next Face of innovation: the Set Designer. I'll finish it up if I have time, otherwise it may need to wait until the end of the week. If you haven't checked out the previous entries in the series and need something to read, check out the Faces of Innovation series.

Peanut butter mayhem!

For those of you who don't regularly read my wife's blog, here's a snapshot of what our two youngest get into when no one's looking:

Click the picture (or here) to read the hilarious tale of woe.

New photos / random roundup

For those interested, I've posted a few photos from our recent vacation to Virginia Beach on my photo page.

We spend a week vacationing with my extended family every year, which is always a lot of fun.

And now just a few random thoughts about what's going on, and what I am thinking about blogging this fall, just to get the blog rolling again:

Music:

• I am listening to Imogen Heap on headphones right now, and I am very impressed. If you get the album, check out "Goodnight & Go", "Hide and Seek", and "Daylight Robbery".
• I've also heard that Leeland's new album is ridiculously good.

Books:

• I am reading Stephen Ambrose's history of the building of America's trans-continental railroad (Nothing Like it In the World). Interesting stuff.
• I'm still plowing through Jesus and the Victory of God (N.T. Wright). It's a masterful book, and challenges a lot of preconceptions about what Jesus was up to. Very rewarding reading.
• I just started Sacred Rhythms, by Ruth Haley Barton. I've heard good things about her stuff on spiritual formation.
• I also just started Emerging Churches, by Gibbs and Bolger. Many say it's the best book on the emerging church so far, so that's a good reason to read it. I also like to see what other church leaders around the world are up to and how it's working out.

Movies I'd love to see but will probably not see until they come out on DVD:

• Talladega Nights - Will Ferrell plays a Nascar driver named Ricky Bobby, who named his two sons Walker and Texas Ranger. Sounds hilarious.
• Snakes on a Plane - The title is a spoiler. You have to love a movie like that. I've heard the beginning and end are hilarious, and the middle languishes a bit. But I mean, seriously, an entire movie about snakes that are... on a plane? How could it not languish in the middle, unless the snakes do some line dancing or something?

Stuff I'm thinking about that will probably end up in this blog:

• The fundamental dynamics of spiritual growth (or spiritual formation, or character growth, or whatever you'd like to call it). It's still a massively misunderstood topic, from the old question of "Why bother, because aren't we saved by grace apart from works?" to the more practical question of "How in the world can I actually change?"
• Church and culture. This has been a big theme so far anyway, but I want to continue to explore the question of how a rapidly changing culture affects the way we function as the church, the way we lead, the way we teach and disciple and preach the good news.
• Web/Church 2.0 - How does the church create environments that are truly interactive, without losing her soul? How can what we see happening in the world of technology or music or film or design or fashion or architecture or  _________ prompt us toward a more healthy ministry model?
• I'm hoping to start a Master's program this fall - I'm sure many posts will be prompted by my reading for that course.

So those are the happenings in my world as of late. I hope to continue conversing with y'all soon!