BoldUlysses.com

that sing from my eyes like carillon
ringing only on Sunday on the roof down our street
finally over the river

I wish I could express to you the sense of satisfaction I derived from simple yardwork yesterday. It was very basic, just a thorough mowing of both yards along with the removal of some debris along the side fence, but when I pull into the driveway at night after returning from Diane’s house and the headlights sweep across the freshly cut front yard, it feels great. It feels like a home: neat, well-kept and cozy. She does so much more on the inside of the house (it has undergone quite the metamorphosis), but I take satisfaction from my meager contributions as well.

Had a bit of a scary incident yesterday. Luke and I went to the playground for a little while in late afternoon while Diane cooked dinner (a wonderful stir-fry), and we ran amok over everything–slides, bridges, tunnels, stairs; you name it. I told Diane today that as I become accustomed to “the usual suspects,” i.e. hazards, I become more relaxed, though no less vigilant and dutifully protective. We went on the swings. I put him in one of the bucket-shaped swings, told him to hold on tight, and we swung for a good twenty minutes. He becomes completely entranced with the back-and-forth motion, in spite of my efforts to enliven things. The playground was busy and a mom had put her two children on the swings next to us, older child swings that were essentially hefty rubber straps suspended by chains. Both kids seemed to be around 3 years old. The boy, on the far swing, had the idea and held on tightly to the chains. The girl, however, being an excitable sort, made the mistake of letting go near the bottom of the swing’s travel and sailed out, flipping end over end and doing a complete revolution before belly-flopping onto the spongy rubber ground. All the parents who witnessed the event gasped and her mother rushed to scoop her up. She was fine, albeit very scared (bawling) and with the wind knocked out of her momentarily. But it was an example of just how badly things can go in a split second… The happy coda to the story is that after about fifteen minutes of calming in her mother’s arms, the little girl was back in action, gamboling around the playground happily. But still–incidents like that make me even more protective of the little boy in my charge, even as I guide him as he widens his view of the world.

A truth claim, by its very nature, is exclusive. I wish people could see this. I was listening to the BBC this morning on the way to work and heard much commentary about the Pope’s comments concerning Muhammad and Islam, and the outrage from the Islamic community. I can understand their indignation over such a comment, such as it is, standing opposed to their belief system, but to insist that he apologize for it, in effect retracting his statement and conceding that the two belief systems are not inherently contradictory, is to unacceptably debase his truth claim. And I’m not even Catholic–this could work in any direction. I get so tired of the veneer of postmodernism we live under.

We discussed this very thing last night during our (excellent) Truth Project home group meeting. The themes for the night were philosophy and ethics. The key distinction addressed was the difference between adhering to a worldview that acknowledges only the existence of the world around us, the “cosmic cube” being all there is, and one that believes in the transcendent God, Who is fundamentally different from His creation, exists outside of it, but Who has spoken throughout it and Who is at work in it all the time. Ultimately, without absolute truth, with only man-generated sources for philosophy and ethics, it is impossible to live consistently with one’s worldview. Ravi Zacharias gave a great example: He was invited to an art museum in Texas designed as the first “postmodern” museum. There were staircases that went nowhere, pillars that served no purpose, and so on. As the architect explained, if there is no ultimate truth or purpose in life, then he felt the building should reflect this. Zacharias then posed the question: “Did you design the foundation this way as well?” It was a poignant illustration of the fact that acknowledging that anything other than the existence of ultimate, objective truth in the world is just tantamount to playing a game. We can’t build the foundations of our lives upon the premise that “something is true for me, but something contradictory may be true for you.” If we have the courage and humility to think it through, it doesn’t work.

In other news, the past couple of days have been the most wonderful imaginable: clear skies, light breezes and air perched on the cusp between warm and cool. It is a lovely day for a picnic, a run, tennis or any number of things. Looking forward to an excellent weekend.

It’s the first day-long rain we’ve had in a while, even with the tropical rains that passed over a couple of weeks ago, as they were intermittent. The event, while relatively common, is still rare enough that it associates itself with specific memories.

Driving home in the dark after our evening meeting at the church, I stopped at a light and fixated on the receding reflection of the tail lights ahead of me in the wet pavement, the two red triangles fading into the ground. It reminded me of car rides during our month-long trips home from France around Christmastime. We would invariably have one or two day-long rains, and being shuffled around from store to store as my parents shopped (most goods are much cheaper in the States than they were in France, so they stocked up) gave me a lot of time to observe the world around. I would stare at the halting trickles of water as they ran down the back seat window, and beyond into the shifting grid of traffic around us. The air felt different. I recognized that as a boy, but couldn’t assemble the words to describe it at the time. Still, my mind was unencumbered by cares, such as they are nowadays, and free to drink in the entirety of the world around.

In the car tonight, I thought about the little boy in the car seat behind me. He has been a chatterbox lately, naming everything in sight, most things multiple times. He’s mastered enough of the basic sounds to be quite confident. But he was silent in the back seat, and I flipped down the mirror to watch him looking around, fixating on various things outside the car. I remembered what that felt like. He has been such a copycat lately that I know that everything he experiences is being hard-wired directly into his developing awareness. So I knew his mind was free to ponder, to dwell on indefinitely, the things he saw around him outside.

Every child deserves for their mind to be utterly free from worry, enough to cling to fleeting sights and moments around them, to experience life. It develops at the very least a capacity to think abstractly, to ponder hypotheticals without the everyday details crowding in. And, in a larger sense, the more they are able to open their widening minds to the intricacies of the world, under the auspices of the parents, the more they will be able to hear, see, touch, taste and feel God communicating Himself through His creation; they will have a more deep-rooted knowledge that, “the heavens declare the glory of God; the skies proclaim the work of his hands.”

I was, and am, a daydreamer, and I think this was fueled as much by my natural disposition as it was aided by the rock-solid stability of our home. I can’t recall a single time growing up when I was concerned one of my parents was going to leave; I don’t remember ever feeling unloved. All the exclusively parental discussions and arguments were kept from my brothers and me, and if there was ever worry about the necessities of our day-to-day, it was kept far away enough that we never felt it.

I want this for Luke. He deserves it. I want this for our family. And, LORD willing, we will have it.

I dreamed I was Magellan last night. Or at least the leader of a modern recreation of his expedition, a la Thor Heyerdahl. It wasn’t entirely authentic as the three square-bowed ships skimmed through the water, most likely propelled by outboard motors, and I remembered thinking that if it took us this long to cross the Indian Ocean in our modern capacity, how much longer must it have taken using sails and the wind? We deviated from the explorer’s route and made our way up the Red Sea near the delta of the Nile. I remember our ships seemed to have disappeared and we were running at high speed across the sand, which, despite the pummeling heat, was wet and shimmery. Suddenly we were on the water again, traveling more slowly down what I could only surmise was the Nile, coming up to a fork in the river. One way led through the locks that would enable us to make it past one of the cataracts, the other, through the cataract itself. Two of the boats in my party went through the lock; I chose poorly. Fortunately there was a dock just before the rapids, I secured the boat there and disembarked. The place was much like a resort, and had the feel of a seaside mall. I felt a strong need to rejoin my party, though, and searched for a way to get to the locks… Then I awoke this morning.

Memory as we now know it is a dim foretaste, a mirage even, of a power which the soul, or rather Christ in the soul, will exercise hereafter. It need no longer be intermittent. Above all, it need no longer be private to the soul in which it occurs. I can now communicate to you the fields of my boyhood–they are building-estates today–only imperfectly, by words. Perhaps the day is coming when I can take you for a walk through them.

C.S. Lewis, from Letters to Malcolm: Chiefly on Prayer

* * * * * *
Been listening to George Winston’s interpretation of Pachelbel’s “Variations on the Kanon.” It’s from Winston’s album December that I’ve listened to for ages, since I was a young boy. The song lies dormant for a time and reemerges periodically–I remember hearing it in the most disparate locations: the summer in Charlotte, the semester by myself in Syme when I first acquired the record player, in my room in Chapel Hill a few years ago… The list goes on.

As I related to Diane this afternoon, the song has a profound precision to it. The structure of overlapping and recursive notes is simple, but lay the variations upon the theme and the artistry comes through. There are songs in the jazz realm, among others, that extract emotion from simple combinations of notes, but nothing so seemingly elemental as this. It’s a bare-faced merging of the romantic and the pragmatic. I feel a familiarity, a pull toward both poles of the song–the repose, the safety of structure and the “rules” of the song which are evident, and the passion of the spontaneity combined. I recognize myself.

and then advances with the form
so, honey, back for more
can’t you see that all the stuff’s essential?

My A/C “fix” didn’t last long. Although the washers worked well to keep the bushings from pulling through the bracket, the remaining vibration was just enough to kill the bearings in the motor. I could have replaced the motor and blower wheel myself, but in the interest of convenience and expediency I countermanded my natural instincts and called a repairman. Our first weekly Truth Project small group is tonight so I’m hopeful it will be fixed by then. However, the weather being as cool as it is outside, the evening will not be unpleasant if it does not happen.

There are days I wish I could go to seminary. Diane and I consume a prodigious amount of reading and viewing material having to do with theology and apologetics and our immersion spurs my desire to contribute to the discipleship of believers in the same way I am receiving it. Our Sunday school leader in church attended seminary but didn’t pursue full-time Christian ministry, instead opting to work in the church’s finance department, so I am learning that having a degree in theology or some such does not necessarily confine one’s vocational prospects.

Luke and I continue to build our relationship. My skillset with regard to taking care of him (changing diapers, bathtime, meal protocol, etc) is nearly complete, so I hope I am able to relieve Diane of the constant, direct responsibility for him as much as I can, certainly when I go over to her house from work. Luke and I go for walks, run errands, learn words and concepts, build with blocks, play with Play-Doh, draw pictures, run pell-mell around the playground, among many other things. I don’t always (or often) show it as expressively as I could, but I am very proud of him. I will always be proud of him.

Thank you all for the congratulations! It means a lot to Diane and me. Planning hums along at a suitably breakneck pace. Not only is there a lot to do with regard to the wedding itself, there is a lot to do on the house, to prepare it as much as possible before the date. There is a lot to think about, and a lot of (primarily family) relationships to navigate as well, on top of the actual logistics of everything. It can be difficult, but the optimism inherent in the fact that we are moving toward a place that is within His order, that is stable and profoundly right, is encouraging. I’ve been asked what our plans are for the future, and I’ve responded that our plans for at least the first 6 months after getting married are just to be a family. No flying away to the farthest reaches of the world just yet :) While being sensitive to His voice and the opportunities He brings our way, we are going to endeavor to be situationally stable for at least a little while.

I am engaged. Yesterday morning I proposed to Diane and she said yes.

The proposal itself was a long time coming. I purchased the ring before we left for the beach several weeks ago and about drove Diane crazy taking my time to actually ask the question. But I trust that it was special to her. I had gleaned from various conversational tidbits that she wanted to be “claimed” publicly, so I endeavored to include her family as much as I could, especially Luke, who I thought should see the event even if he didn’t know what was happening at the time.

Luke’s incident that morning turned out to be the only snag of the whole ordeal. Diane’s parents took him out to breakfast early, after which I swooped by the house and took her to another breakfast place. The meal was good and remarkably long. I took my time, waiting for Diane’s parents and siblings to finish their breakfast and make their way to Tanglewood, a large local park, also one of the locations visited on our first date. They arrived and set themselves up near the lakeside spot I had chosen. They were up the hill, out of sight but documenting everything as Diane and I arrived. I didn’t wait long; we walked down to a bench by the lake and after a short speech I asked her. She was very happy and said yes. The family burst out of the woods and congratulated us. Luke, however, was less than content, having done a faceplant onto concrete near the restaurant and ending up with a very bloody nose. I was very impressed and appreciative that the family continued and made it in spite of that incident. His nose is still a little crusty today but overall he’s none the worse for wear.

I had been planning the event for about a week and a half, had everything set up, but was still very nervous the day of. I told Diane later that in spite of the fact that we had been talking about our long-term plans for months and were very committed to each other from the get-go, the question still feels very much like that–an open-ended question, no matter how much of a forgone conclusion it may pretentiously feel like beforehand. But she said yes, and I am overjoyed she did. We are betrothed.

Last Friday afternoon, during our trip back to Chapel Hill, Diane and I “checked out” a stack of books and DVDs from my mom’s generous library (no, it really is a library). We checked out a ton of things on critical thinking and the DVDs from the apologetics conference last fall. Among the books was a little gem called The Fallacy Detective, which is an excellent practical introduction to the logical fallacies that run rampant through every social sphere. Very down-to-earth, and the exercises at the end of each chapter allow us to relate the abstract concepts to our everyday conversations. This is key–logical fallacies come in so many guises and forms. Our minds need to be flexible in order to cut through the emotionalism and figure out what the argument really is or whether the question is being addressed. It takes a good deal of mental training to be able to do (I am far from proficient) and it is a humbling experience too, since reassessment of one’s own arguments and positions is inevitable with any study of critical thinking. One thing I know: some form of critical thinking/practical logic will be required reading for my kids. This is a big part of the wisdom and understanding we are commanded to acquire throughout Proverbs, and a fluency in the subject is more and more indispensable nowadays.

Paul passed the oral presentation part of his master’s thesis last Friday. Amid the inevitable politics that exist in a post-graduate program, the advisor that was hesitant about passing him said his powerpoint presentation made a huge difference with regard to the understandability of his thesis. They want him to incorporate more of those elements into his written thesis and resubmit it. It’s more work but he has a clearly defined goal, and he passed a major hurdle. Way to go, P.

The A/C in the house is almost fixed. My first instinct was to summon a repair place, but they wanted to charge me $73 just to come look at it. I balked at that. Bret (my boss) recommended getting the part number of the motor and calling the local HVAC supply place to see if they would sell it to me retail. But upon investigation, it turns out the horrible metallic shrieking and binding that took place last Saturday was caused by the disintegration of the lower of the three motor mounts securing the motor to its shroud. I reconnected everything and it lasted all of two minutes before the mount pulled loose again and the shriek resumed. But the vibration caused by a slightly out-of-round fan assembly isn’t terminal and $2 worth of washers from Lowes should fix the problem permanently. $2 and elbow grease sounds a lot better than $73 just to look.

Got a great phone call from Aaron today. Our obstacles in getting together (mainly generated by me) have reached the comical stage. We haven’t hung out since January. But it was fantastic to hear from him and that he is doing well.

I’ve figured out semi-logically why I am a night person. It has to do with the issue of responsibility and deadlines. I’m not particularly proud of this, by the way. I have two areas of the day in which I can accomplish things on my own: late evening after I return home, or early morning before I go to work. The prudent and sensible thing to do would be just to get up earlier; however, if I do so, not only would I have to rouse myself from a very pleasant state (i.e. sleep) earlier, not in actuality a terribly unpleasant thing to do, my time in which to accomplish my tasks is bookended on the later end by a hard-and-fast time I must be at work. This is a deadline not set by myself but generated by the world around. However, the evening “deadline” (going to bed) is set entirely by myself. This difference is trivial when it comes to actual work I have to accomplish, but in terms of relaxation, having the ability to set the end deadline myself makes all the difference in the world. During the time in the evening, the subconscious awareness of an impeding timeframe does not loom over me–the next activity, sleep, is welcome and I have the power to control its initiation. I have less on my mind, less “responsibility,” as it were, and I am able to relax more fully. As I mentioned earlier, I’m not proud of this subconscious mental rigmarole, and I am endeavoring to change, but there you have it.

The blower motor for the HVAC system here in the house finally died. It was making an awful ruckus earlier this afternoon, and I turned it on when I returned home in hopes of diagnosing things. It made the same metallic racket and then promptly seized. It won’t hardly turn over now, so I think a DIY fix is probably out of the question. Fortunately it hasn’t been as hot lately so the temperature in the evening is bearable. The house tends to stay cooler than outside in the mornings and afternoons and stay warmer later in the evenings, but I will survive. Harsha doesn’t seem to mind, at least.

My brother Paul defended his master’s thesis yesterday afternoon. Diane and I drove back to Raleigh to be there and listen to it. I’m so proud of him. He’s a master’s student in meteorology and wrote his thesis on mesoscale gravity waves or some such. I shared with Diane after it was finished that I am acquainted with esoteric and technical terminology and dialogue, but hardly a sentence of Paul’s presentation wasn’t chock full of specialized meteorological terms. And the amazing thing was that it wasn’t all just white noise to me–I could follow the jist of the thesis presentation without being versed in the field. He did a phenomenal job.

Coffee Theology on Tuesday night was possibly the best we’ve had. There was a change of venue from Starbucks to Barnes & Noble, which helped the noise levels and claustrophobia greatly, and the subject was God’s providence, i.e. the ways in which He involves Himself in His creation. It may sound relatively inconsequential, but the questions addressed by the doctrine range across such topics as, “Is there such a thing as ‘chance’ or ‘luck’ in the world?” and, “If God controls all things, is He responsible for the evil in the world?” as well as, “Do we really have free will?” The issues have a history of having the potential to be very divisive, and the author of the theology book we are going through takes a definite stance on the issues, and rightly so. Each of the questions would require a treatise to address fully; suffice it to say that Truth is found in the Word and we have a responsibility to plumb these depths, as it were, as believers, to the extent that we are able. Since we have believed, we need to now know.

* * * * * *

The local NPR station plays the BBC in the mornings now. I enjoy it very much since it feels like an aural version of the International Herald Tribune, the daily newspaper we received in France and one of the best papers out there (primarily for its wider perspective on the world). The first report I heard concerned the American media frenzy surrounding the in-flight scare over the Atlantic yesterday. They played clips from major news sources and yet again, it made me somewhat embarrassed for our media. Not that I need the prodding of an overseas organization to be ashamed of the sensationalism: Last week during the coverage of the London arrests the tagline on on a noted news station read, “Terror in the Skies.” As has been said, you’d initially think a plane blew up or there was some colossal intelligence failure. At this rate journalists (if they aren’t already there) are going to be as vilified as shady lawyers in popular consciousness. Give me solid reporting. Give me even-handedness. Give me a solid daily newspaper and several weekly newsmagazines. It makes me want to swear off any kind of “real time” news reporting (whether it be the television or the internet). I can wait to be informed if the coverage will be more substantial.

* * * * * *

here are a pair of beach pictures

Back in the office after a long week at the beach with Diane and her family. We went to Ocean Isle Beach, north of Myrtle just across the NC border, two Saturdays ago and returned the day before yesterday. It was a welcome hiatus from the routine here and I am very grateful to her parents for having let me come along. We spent a lot of time on the beach, visited the glut of commercialism that is Myrtle Beach one day, went out to eat at nice seafood restaurants and went to a couple of museums: a little planetarium that I had a great deal of affection for and a little oceanography museum with a large room full of life-size “models” of sea creatures, one of which (the leatherback turtle) was particularly imposing in its size.

Luke didn’t take to the beach immediately, and even near the end of the week was still skeptical about the whole affair. He has an ambiguous relationship with messy things–during dinnertime messes seem to be part of the deal, but sand and seaweed are another thing entirely. The condo was within close walking distance of a pier, and he liked that very much, prefering to walk down to the pier next to the water rather than play in the sand and surf. He sat in my lap on a couple of occasions just barely in the waves, but wouldn’t venture any further in on his own. I carried him into waist-deep water, but one hint of water in his eyes and was all over. When I was a little boy it took me a while to warm up to the beach, so I’m sure he’ll come around.

Great weekend at my parents’ house back in Chapel Hill. Diane and Luke came and we had a quiet weekend at home. There is a palpable peace in that home and it feels good to rest. I’ll admit my own perception is colored somewhat by my comfort in the environment, but I really think there is something to it independent of my point of view.

Got the chance to spend some time with Paul on Saturday afternoon. He is finishing up his master’s thesis in meteorology at NCSU and his defense is scheduled for the middle of this month, an event I would like to attend. It was good to see him. We ate at a great little Greek deli near his apartment in Cary and gesticulated and carried on like two old Greek men sitting by the window as we ate our food (I had a fantastic chicken curry). He shared about his recent trip to Alaska, we rehashed inside jokes (our “Frenglish” and Spongebob jokes) and reminisced about the family and talked about how it is changing and developing. I love my brothers.

Later that night Diane and went on our first actual date (where it was just the two of us) in well over a month and had a wonderful time sharing about families and other particularities like apologetics, philosophy and the nature of humor. I love her and see no shadow of parting from her.

* * * * * *

Coffee Theology tonight. We’re finishing up the chapter on Creation and will be going over the biblical and physical evidence concerning the age of the Earth, among other things. Last week we hashed over the fundamental flaws present in evolutionary theory (in any of its iterations). Most, if not all of the folks attending group were well-versed in counter-arguments against the tenets of evolution, but I posed the question, “What evidence do evolutionists really put forth to counter the claims of creationism?” We know the many, many flaws inherent in evolutionary theory; in other words, we “prepare” for what we think they may argue, but what do they really advance? We agreed that, in our experience, most of the time proponents of evolution will target adherents of creationism on primarily philosophical grounds (at least those concerning the philosophy of science itself) rather than bolstering the plausibility of their theory on purely scientific terms. In any case, tonight’s subject should foster a lively and fruitful discussion.

Lately, Diane has been reading an excellent book by Nancy Pearcey called Total Truth. Pearcey studied under Francis Schaeffer in the ’70s and early ’80s (before he died) and takes his ideas about the interface between Christianity and life and culture several steps further. It isn’t that his ideas were confined solely to the realm of theory, but Pearcey develops them further and fleshes out the historical context, dispelling many of the cries of generalization that critics leveled against Schaeffer.

That said, during a quiet Sunday evening reading together (interspersed with good conversation, the balance of which is becoming a hallmark of our relationship), I read a significant portion of the book devoted to the evolution of the male-female relationship with regard to the workplace. Pearcey explained that how before the Industrial Revolution, in America, work and home life were very integrated. Husband and wife combined their talents and resources to sustain themselves out of the home (even if they had a trade in a town, the living quarters were oftentimes connected directly with the workplace) and many activities that have since been separated–child-rearing, cooking, business management, etc–were shared much more evenly between the husband and wife. Husbands took a much more immediate, visible role in child-rearing and the management of the household (most cookbooks, for instance, were directed at men), and wives understood every intricacy of the family business, to the point where most could take over the business completely if the husband should pass away.

It has prompted me to reflect on the cultural changes that have arisen since, and how many things that I thought were good and right may not have been the best direction, for example: the change brought about by the Industrial Revolution of the man going to an external location for work every day and returning home in the evening. This is the traditional role, and without at all minimizing a woman’s right or desire to work, I had always held this activity of a man as the social ideal–going out in the morning, “fighting the good fight,” as it were, for his family by providing for them, and returning home to a place of rest and security in the evening. But after reading the sociological history in the book and reexamining the biblical position, I wonder if this “traditional social norm” is really the ideal way. It certainly doesn’t seem like it goes back as far as I thought it did. Not only that, but if the husband and wife truly are to be “one flesh,” should that not extend, in a real, practical way, to the unity of home and professional life? I am beginning to see that being one–having the same vision–really means that: having the same vision, not me having a vision for our life that corresponds with my personal ambitions and then her being a cheerleader. Taking into account our respective dispositions and talents, whatever we’re involved in, I want to be involved in together.

I’ve been something of a pack rat for as long as I can remember. The tendency manifests itself in the traditional ways–keeping old clothes that I never wear for far too long and hanging on to old schoolbooks and assignments, among other things. But my penchant for keeping things even extends in the area of relationships of any sort. I keep letters, postcards, clippings, e-mails, pictures, anything and everything.

Why do I do it? The things I keep don’t remind me exclusively of good times, so the reason doesn’t hinge solely on some flowery nostalgia. Mixed with the innocent, pleasant memories of moments past are certainly bits and pieces that conjure up less-than-pleasant situations and circumstances. And however tempting it might be to think so, the reason doesn’t revolve around an inability to “let go,” to disassociate myself from communicating with or even thinking about the person or people involved. I’ve kept things from friendships and relationships as far back as high school and before, ties I haven’t pursued or even given a second thought for years and years.

I think the reason I keep these things around is more closely tied to a misconception I’ve held for a long time. To put it concisely, I felt like since experiences and memories shape our personality as much as our natural predispositions, banishing those things would be symbolically “forgetting” part of my personal history that shaped who I am today. I told myself I would be excising a “part of myself.” As much as it conflicts with common sense, this is the underlying reason I held for clinging to these things as long as I had.

But I’ve come to reevaluate that premise. For one, it doesn’t ally with reality in the larger scope of how I process my memories. I think about my relationship with my parents and brothers, for example, and while I have a non-specific sense of their imperfection, I have much more difficulty conjuring up pointed examples of where I was let down than I do positive experiences. The latter come much more readily. I choose to focus on the good. This pattern extends to other experiences as well: my time in Florida, rough spots in college and afterward–if, when they cross my mind, as infrequently as they do without the aid of physical reminders hanging about, I dismiss them so quickly, what does it profit me to have tangible artifacts laying about? Absolutely nothing. I am not being dishonest with myself for dwelling on what is pure and right and good. I am not subversively “rewriting my own history.”

Most importantly, it’s a biblical principle:

“Not that I have already obtained all this, or have already been made perfect, but I press on to take hold of that for which Christ Jesus took hold of me. Brothers, I do not consider myself yet to have taken hold of it. But one thing I do: Forgetting what is behind and straining toward what is ahead, I press on toward the goal to win the prize for which God has called me heavenward in Christ Jesus.” — Phil. 3:12-14

“Everyone has heard about your obedience, so I am full of joy over you; but I want you to be wise about what is good, and innocent about what is evil.” — Romans 16:19

I want this principle to permate my life. The occasional memories I have are more than enough without the physical reminder of things long gone. I will keep things that remind me of wholly good times, but otherwise, from here my life will be very much uncluttered. It’s ironic that as zealous as I was to keep my life streamlined before, only the external trappings and day-to-day benefited: the unnecessary bonds I held with my past were still numerous. Time to change.

Bret’s computer is playing “I’m Ready” by Tracy Chapman. It seems to fit the early afternoon well.

As men we have an innate understanding of our attraction to women. It feels completely natural for us to desire women, and I would venture to hazard that most of us can name a dozen things about women that pull us to them intensely. By the same token, it’s a safe bet that women feel the same about their attraction to us. If prompted, they could probably readily name qualities about us that are appealing to them in that profound way.

However, understanding each others’ motivations is considerably more difficult, if not impossible. I will speak for myself and say that as hard as I try, I cannot understand women’s attraction to men. It’s not false humility–I know we do have some redeeming qualities–but I just can’t get my mind around the attraction that produces the desire in them for us. When I say, “I can’t understand how a woman could love a man,” it’s not that I don’t recognize that many of us do have admirable traits to be worked for and desired, it’s just I have no concept of how an appreciation of those traits could undergird the kind of passionate attraction I witness. I have a hunch it’s the same in our direction: Most women recognize that they are beautiful and tender and intelligent and gentle and have a loveliness of spirit, but a deep understanding of how a knowledge of those qualities could produce love in men that would sacrifice life and limb to keep them safe is probably harder to come by. Our minds and emotions are just set up differently. There’s order and purpose there–the way it was created to be and the way it should be.

The interesting thing to me, and I was discussing this with Diane a few days ago, is the selfless acceptance of the affection from the other party in spite of our total lack of experiential understanding of how it is produced. In other words, when she expresses love toward me, I am not completely shocked and taken aback that someone could desire me in that way but it is not a selfish thing. It is not that I have an inflated view of myself in that I feel I have qualities that make me deserve affection–no one deserves love, in the truest sense of the concept–but that in spite of my lack of understanding of how she could love me, there is a deeper understanding of the order of things. There is something in me, down at the bedrock of who I am, that speaks and says, “This is right.” Of course that unselfish acceptance of the charity of another has as much potential as anything else to be distorted and turned into a spirit that feels we are owed that which we receive, but prudently kept out of that realm, it is a magnificent thing, something that speaks purpose and order louder than almost anything else (think of the magnitude of the emotions and the importance of the relationships with which it is associated), and reflects back on the Creator of our identities as men and women. Male and female He created them.

1. They’ve cut back my hours at work a bit, seeing as how they’re spending far too much on a trade show in Atlanta in August and they’re looking for any way to economize. But I am still working enough, although, truth be told, I am looking for a little extra work to supplement the main job.

2. Diane and Luke and I are very well. There has not been a day in the past couple of months in which we have not seen each other. We had a lovely weekend at my parents house in Chapel Hill a couple of weekends ago and profited greatly from the mini-vacation. We had dinner with Bekah and Donald at Breadmen’s on Rosemary St. the night we arrived. I was freshly reminded why they are two of my favorite people, and we had a splendid time.

3. Flying continues, albeit at a slower pace. I flew a couple of Fridays ago with Larry and we had a good time practicing landings and sequencing ourselves vis-a-vis traffic down at Lexington. I would like to fly this Saturday morning with Diane again.

4. I spent Independence Day with her family in Lewisville, watching a surprisingly sophisticated fireworks show in the main square, populated by the majority of the townsfolk. Very enjoyable.

5. Haven’t felt particularly creative lately, at least in the direction of my journal here. As I told Diane, she (appropriately) gets all the “good stuff.” Heh.

Leur temps se construit simplement autour d’eux, avec pour seule repère le gout du moment qu’ils vivent.

It was the summer of ’89 and the glaciers were melting. We drove west from Oslo through acres of desolate permafrost, a thin strip of asphalt ahead of us cutting through the mist. There were no trees, only a grey plateau covered with mosses and lichens, fed by the moisture suspended in the clammy air. It was a ghostly scene, patches of gravel on either side of the road flanked by thin crusts of snow.

Our car had heated seats, a luxury I had never heard of before but unfortunately reserved for the front seats, my brothers and I making do in the back with the standard accommadations. I alternately watched the kilometers click by outside, playing tricks with my eyes and the mass of greyness that swam in front of them, or I occupied myself with a novel or something inside the car.

I don’t remember how it happened, but almost all at once we descended into the lushness of a fjord. Traveling west, toward the coast, meant that we encountered the inland points first, which widened out closer to the ocean. The winter months are long that close to the arctic circle, and even as late as August the snowcaps were melting. Every tapering finger of the valleys and fjords held a waterfall, sometimes cascading hundreds of feet down its slope, ultimately emptying into the lake we drove around. Evergreens surrounded us and the water was crystal clear.

(more to come)

I drove home tonight under the starry sky. I eschewed the highway for the local roads that would take me home. I drove with the sunroof open to the night air, silhouettes of trees passing over constellations for the split seconds that I dared to look upward. Still, my peripheral vision caught the spirit of the drive, and I felt free. I felt clear. I felt Yes as I thought about her and the good day we had today, and how very true for me are the verses, “The boundary lines have fallen for me in pleasant places,” (Ps. 16:6a) and, “I am still confident of this: I will see the goodness of the LORD in the land of the living.” (Ps. 27:13) Oh, how I have already seen His goodness…

The warehouse is a sauna today. The sun beats down incessantly on the pavement outside, but at least there is enough of a breeze to carry away some of the heat. The warehouse, though, being enclosed, is cooking, and the industrial fans are overmatched trying to pump out the block of air that sits thickly between the racks and pallets. I do not envy those not in one of the two air-conditioned offices at either end of the building.

Coffee Theology hums along with a consistent two or three every week besides Diane and myself. This week we finished up the first chapter dealing with the “communicable attributes of God,” or those attributes (as opposed to His eternity or omnipresence or omnipotence) that God shares with us to a greater degree. We read about what the Word has to say concerning His love, His wisdom, His truthfulness, faithfulness, grace and justice, among others. As God is the creator and ultimate standard of these attributes, studying His model of them is to study the very definitions of the attributes themselves, a very worthy pursuit when one seeks to exhibit them to a greater degree in one’s own life. There were many points of application.

I am very eager to co-lead the Truth Project home study with Diane. I have such a passion for teaching this material, especially when I am well-prepared, which we will be.

Question of the day: Do men have an innate need to provide, as in, to better the condition of someone else’s life through the selfless apportioning of their resources? Or is this just the result of some kind of social conditioning? Either way, do you think it is beneficial or detrimental? Or, if you prefer, would you, as a man, be content in a state of relative idleness while your wife/girlfriend worked, even if she welcomed this and was happy to do it? Or, put yet another way, if you won the lottery, would you still work?

1. Took my coin jar to the Coinstar machine in the grocery store. I liberated around $135 in usable currency from my living room. And yes, the amount they skim off the top is a bit exorbitant, but consider the fact that the pennies alone added up to that amount, and pennies by themselves happen to be quite useless, so I do not consider that I have sacrificed much for the convenience of several new bills in my wallet.

2. Diane and I went to Noble’s on Saturday night for our three monthiversary. Fantastic dinner, of course not hindered by the company of far and away the most beautiful (indeed, the only) woman in the restaurant. They had given us a semi-secluded, romantically-situated table at which conversation was quite easy. I had salmon and she ordered a New York strip, both consumed alongside an excellent bottle of St. Émilion. I loved that she was there, sharing a romantic evening with me.

3. Father’s Day was spent in Boone with her extended family. The mountains are a relatively short drive from Winston-Salem and Luke did very well in the car. We went through letter, shape and color flashcards for a good deal of the trip home, and he is already recognizing many letters. He’s still reluctant with speaking, however, and at this rate it may very well be that he learns to read before he can speak. Heh. But the trip was much fun, and her extended family is very welcoming, kind and warm.

Larry and I went for our second flight yesterday evening. The atmosphere was much like the first time, albeit a bit warmer. But the same long shadows stretched from the trees over the fields below as we took off and turned toward the south. We flew down to Rowan County Airport in Salisbury, about 20 miles away, so I got a little cross-country practice. Every flight since getting my license in April had been little local hops, with a couple of landings at Twin Lakes, which doesn’t really count since it’s only 5 miles away and a bit run-down. Rowan County is a “real” airport.

Larry had a lot of fun. He has 50 years of experience as a pilot (no joke–the 50th anniversary of his first solo flight in 1956 is coming up this October) and it had been 23 years, by his reckoning, since he had been at the controls of an airplane as small as the 172 I was flying, but I let him take the helm for a couple of landings while I worked the radio. It certainly wasn’t a casual thing–as the PIC (pilot in command) I kept my hands on the controls the whole time–and it was fascinating and inspiring to see someone with thousands of hours of experience performing next to me in the cockpit.

He has such a feel for the airplane. He hadn’t been at the controls of an airplane of any size in at least 5 years, and he landed it perfectly. I did two landings first, then let him fly once we were on the downwind leg of the third time around. He asked me what the approach speed was; I told him 60 knots. Without having to give him any more numbers, he finessed the yoke, throttle, trim and flaps to get us on the approach speed and keep us there more consistently than I’ve ever been able to, and set us down quite gently. It’s certainly something to aspire to. My own flying seems very rigid, mechanical and by-the-numbers in comparison.

Diane cleaned my house yesterday, from top to bottom except for my room, the tornado-aftermathishness she graciously declined to touch, and instead will let me deal with. She placed candles around the house in key places and rearranged the furniture a bit to create a much more open and Luke-safe environment. I had no strong ties to the way everything was arranged and I’m very grateful that she takes an active interest in things. It’s a task she gladly took on herself and is never something I would insist she remain in, but I will say it is quite restful to come home to a clean and sweet-smelling house after an arduous day at work.

It’s odd, though, how even a totally positive change like the one effected can take some getting used to. Like, any deviation from the norm is an adjustment, even a wholly positive one. How can we be so resistant to change, even change that makes things better, with no downsides? We are such creatures of habit and it’s so easy to find our own equilibrium in our relative squalor. Why are we so easily “satisfied?” Is it a fear of the unknown and all the variables that accompany that change? Is it a fear that the change will open up new choices and decisions, and that we will have to take responsibility for those choices? There’s always something “unsafe” about change, no matter how positive it is. But with a bedrock foundation in the overarching Reality of His Word, we can navigate absolutely anything.

Rainy evening. Luke and I ventured out to the store around 6 for some sushi for dinner and got poured on upon our return to the car. But we had a good time. He loves the rain and helped me pick out some flowers for Diane. The rain falls harder now, into the wee hours of the morning before I slide over the two feet to my right and into bed. Driving home from her house, the storms clustered ’round, and the low clouds and ambient mist carried the brightness of the heat lightning, eerily illuminating the whole sky with each flash. I welcome the sense of safety offered by the house, a closed door and blankets at night, as the drops cascade down the eaves onto the ground all around.

Good weekend. She went flying with me yesterday morning. She wasn’t scared at all, but loved it. It was just a short hop over to Lewisville, finding her house (which I had several times before), a short visit to Twin Lakes and then back to Sugar Valley. The landing at Twin Lakes was a little clunky, but certainly not unsafe, and the landing at Sugar Valley was a greaser, efficient and smooth. I was glad I was able to give her at least one. She took copious numbers of pictures on her cell phone and posted many here. Some are from last weekend when Luke came out to the airport.

She has now been privy to just about every area of interest and current experience: Flying, working on cars, stargazing, worldview/apologetics/theology gatherings, art museums, concerts, movies and various and sundry other outings. It means the world to me that she would join me in all these things. She is beautiful, I am overjoyed to be with her and completely in love.

Browsed back by the UNC Design Services webpage. I was looking for a UNC e-mail address (a student there wants to buy my motorcycle helmet) and I stopped by the Design Services page just for kicks. Lots of changes there. Mihali seems to be gone, and I think Georgia has permanently stepped down from her position as interim director. It’s hard to imagine that just a short year ago I was working there, in a different office, in a different town with a completely different set of responsibilities, at work and in life. It seems ages ago I was calling printers, frustrated about the quality of this or that proof, hashing over copy editing at the Gazette every two weeks with Susan, Gary and Lee and getting lunch at least once a week from Carrburritos. In retrospect, it seems so…static. I was happy enough there, but there were mountains I wanted to climb, places I wanted to go with Him. I was chomping at the bit. And I’ve come so far. I don’t want to forget this: He has met me literally every step of the way with grace, resources and provision, good relationships and other blessings. Even the circumstantially bad events He has worked together for my good and His praise. That’s knowledge to build a life upon.

* * * * * *

[learning about American trancendentalism, Thoreau, Walden, in high school English class goes here]

Interesting article with respect to the comment conversation a few entries down about Islam and how the moderates really are the exception and not the rule. The viewpoints from the commentators presented are authentic and balanced, I think.

I have to say I am disappointed. After a 14-year hiatus since the second edition, I ordered the third edition of my favorite airplane book online, eager to find all the latest aircraft lovingly sketched and described. But I opened it to find numerous typos, some aircraft conspicuously absent (homebuilts, anyone?), the drawing of the 787 showing the old configuration, some drawings not updated (the winglets on the A340, for one), and just a general lack of finesse as was the norm with the old drawings, whose proportions were carefully drafted and whose line weights were appealing. Oh well. I’m not out that much and it’s a good book, overall.

Had a lovely evening with Luke and Diane. We had sushi, went shoe shopping then returned to her house for Luke’s bedtime. Afterward Diane and I stayed up talking and listened to a lecture series on relationships built around principles outlined in the Song of Solomon. It’s quite good. That framework, into which are placed different events and activities, is becoming a very welcome routine of most weeknights. It’s inexpressible how wonderful it is to have a woman in my life who shares my values, assumptions and worldview and who runs alongside me, as it were, at the same speed toward a greater knowledge of Him and His Word.

It is looking increasingly likely that I will not be attending Piedmont Baptist College this fall. I have been hired permanently at my job and given a substantial raise, praise God, which obviates the need to take out loans to support my schooling (the major reason for my half-time status at the school was to allow me to receive Stafford Loans). I am very happy for this, since I have an almost physical reaction to the concept of going into debt.

I can take flight courses at the airport through MAI at the very slightly more expensive non-curricular rate, which actually ends up saving a considerable amount of money in the long run since the two credit hours of tuition for each flight course are not included. I ran some numbers on it Monday night and it looks very doable. Options abound, though, among them receiving instruction at Smith Reynolds airport in downtown Winston-Salem instead, taking flight courses at Piedmont-Triad International in Greensboro, or just going in with another flight student and buying my own small airplane outright, an avenue which has the potential to prove the most economical of all. Prayers very much appreciated.

Today was D-Day in 1944. Remember the courage and sacrifice of those involved in that pivotal event.

* * * * * *

When will it stop being called a “peaceful religion?” Seriously. Between the foiled plots in Canada and the violence and repression overseas (even in “stable” Islamic countries), when are we going to realize that this is the mainstream? This is the norm for those who adhere to that belief system. Those among them who speak of Islam as a “peaceful religion” are the quasi-apostate fringe, and could be likened to the liberal (I use this in the theological sense) enclave of Christianity, who adopt so much of the prevailing humanist worldview as to be well-nigh unrecognizably Christian. Mainstream Islam is anything but a peaceful religion, if blatantly obvious, sadly everyday world events are any indication.

One more thing: Iran should just drop the pretense of their nuclear program being for solely peaceful purposes. How high on the priority list should peaceful nuclear energy be when the country needs development in other, more basic areas? It smacks a bit of North Korea’s line when developing their own program: Famine was rampant, most of the population was (and is) barely scraping by and the government redirects resources toward nuclear energy? Iran is much more developed than North Korea is, but still… I’m sure they can find more worthy causes to which to direct their constituents’ resources than an ostensibly peaceful nuclear program. I don’t buy it, and I don’t think most politicians and diplomats do either, thankfully.

* * * * * *

Fantastic weekend. Diane and Luke (and her sister Maralyn and her boyfriend Josh) came to the airport with me on Saturday afternoon! The wind was moderate out of the north (more or less straight down the runway, which is good), so I decided to take the airplane up for a bit to assess the stability of the air. After a couple of bumpy laps around in the traffic pattern and a pair of landings during which I had to really finesse the airplane back onto the ground, I decided that conditions weren’t quite ideal for a first flight for Diane and parked the plane. She appreciated it and was overjoyed to see me fly. I think Luke liked it too. At least he recognizes airplanes now–he and I were outside in my front yard last night while Diane cooked a wonderful chicken caesar salad dinner for us, and he pointed to a little prop plane as it flew overhead on its way to the Winston-Salem airport. That made me happy.

Heat lightning flashed all around as I drove home, and the rains began again just as I walked in the door. Larry and I were going to go flying on Thursday evening but quick-moving thunderstorms prevented it. The rain hadn’t yet begun but we stood in the grass by the runway and felt the cooler breeze begin to feed the storm’s appetite for air. I love the imminence of storms sometimes.

Larry loves that little airport, as do I. He said he’d love to fly from coast to coast only stopping at small, municipal airports and rural strips. I would love to do that too, perhaps as part of a photo-journalism piece for a magazine. Something about Sugar Valley in particular entices me. I think it’s the contradiction inherent in the atmosphere there–specifically, how the airport itself is tantamount to a farm out in the middle of the countryside. Roosters crow over the trees in the early morning. The grasses blow gently and ripples form on the surface of the lake. It has all the trappings of rural North Carolina: familiar, serene, peaceful. But what occurs there is far removed from the realm of immediate experience of such a large percentage of the population. Talk about flying small airplanes to a passerby and you almost might as well be discussing alligator wrestling or bungee jumping. There’s a certain exotic-ness to it. Those two qualities are consciously at odds more some days than others, but they’re always there to some degree. I like that tension.

There is a man in a golf cart by the side of the road. He is there nearly every time I drive to lunch. He is large and unkempt, with a substantial beard and ragged hair, and a labrador retriever sits quietly next to him on the cart. They sit alone by the side of the fallow fields in the middle of the industrial park in which I work. Rumor has it that he is the owner of the fields, good land, and that he has, for years, stalwartly refused to cede the land for development. Today, for the first time, I saw a sign posted by the road in one of the fields, which read something to the effect of “Town Meeting to Discuss Rezoning” with the date and time. So the town may attempt to appropriate it anyway. The man, though, just sits placidly on the cart and waves at the cars that pass. I wave back and he nods. A feeling of solidarity passes between us. I feel like through the act of waving I am joining him in a common cause, even through every single thing I have heard about him and the land is hearsay and could be untrue. But, if nothing else, in a time of increasing isolation and secluded individualism, it is an acknowledgment, and there is worth in that.

* * * * * *

After Coffee Theology last night, Diane and I segued over to Barnes & Noble for a bit. We are still waiting for the arrival in the mail of the “pure” version of Trivial Pursuit, which I had to order online, and we discussed the irony of it possibly being at the store after it had just shipped the day before (it wasn’t). We looked for Crunchy Cons, a book describing a subculture of conservatism that has been growing by leaps and bounds recently.

We enlisted the aid of one of the booksellers in our search, first to find the “politics” section and then, after a few minutes of browsing, again to find the book itself. He helped us, but the finding of the book turned out to be almost incidental, as the conversation that erupted between him and Diane and myself made the evening.

He was a recent Penn State grad who studied political science, if not as his major, at least as a minor or concentration. I was unsure as of his ties to North Carolina, but mentioned that he planned on staying in the area until at least October, when he planned to move to Sweden, of all places, where he has family. This was surprising given the conversation that initiated our encounter and led up to that declaration, namely that he was a stalwart libertarian with a thoughtful, comprehensive knowledge of American political history and the cross-influence of various fields of human inquiry (i.e. politics, philosophy, economics) on political and social movements. The conversation was uniformly fantastic and we all made recommendations about authors to read. His escapes me at the moment, but we made sure to plug Richard Maybury and Francis Schaeffer.

The initial stages of our encounter were a picture-perfect example of stereotyping, in both directions. Based on our request for assistance, he had us pegged as dyed-in-the-wool, lockstep Republicans. For our part, we sized him up as a liberal, brainwashed to an equal degree as he thought we were, who accepted the tenets of his subculture unquestioningly. I think we both made the happy discovery that just a few words further into a conversation can make all the difference in the world. We certainly hope to talk with him again.

I was already shy enough.

My father drove from work every day, a 45-minute round trip, to have lunch with me. We ate a Breton restaurant down the street and around the corner from the school. It had sidewalk seating, as most restaurants do in that part of the world, but as it was December we ate inside, a room accessible only by descending a few steps and ducking under a low doorpost. It felt odd to be in some place so relatively dark in the middle of the day. The half-timber framework was exposed, huge beams undergirding the stories above. I had crèpes, which I didn’t care for then and to this day still don’t like much. I remember asking him what “oui” meant–I heard the French children around me saying it all the time. He responded with a degree of surprise that it meant “yes.” His encouragement was sparse; during that time in our relationship he was still coming to terms with his role with respect to me, but just having his company for an hour a day made the transition easier.

When I returned to school after lunch I would repeat the routine that accompanied me for that first week: marveling at the diminutive size of my French classmates (they had mistakenly placed me in first grade instead of second), tracing the worn wood of the desks in the classroom (which still had holes for ink pots), absorbing the language as best I could, impressing my classmates when P.E. rolled around (I could actually dribble a basketball) and clinging to one of the iron pillars supporting the overhang for the entire duration of every recess. I would watch them as they swirled around me, making a token effort to befriend me every once in a while, but mostly ignoring the nonresponsive American. Many of the boys played a makeshift game of soccer on the smooth tiles under the overhang. For a ball, they used an action figure with several limbs missing. I could only watch for a very short time, as I was of the nature that felt sympathy for abused toys, especially those resembling people. I worked my feet around the ledge at the bottom of the post, seeing if I could circle it with only four steps, then three, then two, wrapping almost my whole leg around the post in the attempt. The recess bell would ring and we would line up by twos in order to shuffle back inside for the afternoon lessons.

Luke is becoming very two. He looks less like a baby and more like a little boy every time I see him, which is almost every day. There’s a cherry tree in the backyard of Diane’s family’s house with a low-hanging branch and many underripe cherries, not that he minds their state of ripeness. There’s a low concrete protrusion from the septic tank in the backyard that I sat on while he ran the 20 feet to the cherry tree, came back again to me, sat down next to me, ate his cherry, then ran back. This happened many times. He loves to explore and really all that’s required in terms of attention is just a hovering presence. He will walk and run and climb and investigate endlessly.

Diane and Luke and I had lunch with my parents on Saturday. They were driving through on their way to stay at my grandmother’s house in Hayesville, NC. Conversation was easy and light and everyone got along wonderfully (not that I would have expected otherwise). My dad particularly enjoyed sitting next to Luke. My mom brought us some goodies: a train lunchbox tin full of cookie cutters, a copy of the Newsweek I’d been wanting to read and share with Diane for several weeks, and a DVD of Francis Schaeffer’s excellent 10-part video series How Shall We Then Live? It was very thoughtful and much appreciated. I had watched the video series on VHS in high school and it had a profound impact on the way I viewed the world, setting the stage for the knowledge that I could come to a holistic, unified view of society and culture and government and everything else. Schaeffer was one of the first to put forth this idea from a biblical perspective, at least in recent times. We returned home and of course I had to watch at least some of the series. Diane graciously let me do so while she puttered around the room, listening. I have to say I conked out and slept through the Reformation part of the series, but later watched the Revolutionary Age and enjoyed it very much.

Have I mentioned lately how wonderful she is? She is thoughtful and mature and a fantastic mother to little Luke. I feel more blessed every day.

I downloaded Firefox here at work for the occasional browsing I do. I’ve become a bit leery of the lack of internet security, specifically on Windows machines running IE. I don’t buy an extraordinary number of things online, but I’ve talked with enough people that have been victims of viruses or identity theft in some way that I’ve decided to do at least a little bit.

At home, having a Macintosh helps a great deal. I owned my old PowerMac G3, running Mac OS 9, for over 6 years, and rung every last bit of utility out of it. In that time, I had not a single virus or piece of spyware infect the computer, and I had no virus protection software whatsoever. The computer’s performance didn’t decrease over time, either, as ill-maintained Windows machines are wont to do when bogged down with extraneous programs and peripheral junk. I have little reason to suspect less from my new Mac, given that it has an even more robust operating system in OS X.

A well-maintained and organized computer of any ilk will do wonders; it’s true. I’d venture to guess that 90% of computer hassles could be nipped in the bud with proper housekeeping and organization of a computer’s files. That said, I prefer to hedge my bets against electronic intrusion and slowdown by using a Mac and browsing with Firefox. I know one can never be completely immune, but the combination at least affords me a bit more peace of mind, especially when making online purchases.

What operating system/browser combination do you use? Have you had issues with identity theft or viruses? Do you have to defragment or wipe your computer’s hard drive frequently? Do you make an effort to know where your stored files and programs are kept?

It was only the second time I’d seen it through the telescope. But there it was, clear and distinct, with the black of the void peeking out from between its “handles” and the orb itself, just to remind us of its identity.

After Coffee Theology earlier, Diane and I drove down the airport, stood on the runway with the telescope and stargazed for a little while. It was the first time she’d been to the airport and spying not only Saturn, as referenced above, but also Jupiter with three of the four Galilean moons in evidence, was a treat. The night was chilly and I should’ve worn an undershirt, and the floodlight from the main hangar hampered our eyes’ adjustment to the dark, but I loved that she was there with me. She let me explain about the plane of the ecliptic and the Jovian rotational cycle and didn’t seem fazed at all, but rather seemed to enjoy it. Have I mentioned it meant the world that she was there?

For all my talk of losing the wonder with the acquisition of knowledge and familiarity, little of that came to bear on the night’s activity. If anything, seeing the planets “up close,” tracing the Lion and finding Arcturus magnified the sense of awe and wonder at God’s creation. He created those bodies, whipped ’round our sun in the cold void, and sustains the universe continually with His power.

I think I am in awe of His creativity most of all. That quality’s been a strong emphasis in my life for as long as I can remember, being a creative individual and then being involved for as many years as I was with Odyssey of the Mind, an organization whose central focus is creativity. I can’t get my mind around the magnitude of God’s creativity. If we define the attribute as the ability to create something new, we must allow that in order to create something truly new, one either has to experience a tremendous stroke of chance in that no one has ever created before what we have, or that we are aware of everything single thing that has come before us and thus know that what we are creating owes nothing to the old. In short, in this world, for us, it is effectively impossible to create something truly new. Outside influences will always impinge on our process of creation. We are never as purely creative as we would like to think we are. But consider God, to have created the universe entire ex nihilo (from nothing) with no prior reference–the quasi-infinite creativity demonstrated in Him. Phenomenal.

There was a fantastic (imagine that) report on NPR this morning about a just-recently retired schoolteacher in her late 80s who has taught high school for almost 70 years, and has taught in the same room at her school since the early 1950s. In many instances she’s taught 3 successive generations of students. Amazing legacy.

The bit where she related her observations of the changes in her students over the years was especially poignant. It makes me long for a society in which students are interested in acquiring a “body of knowledge” and not just passing the test or working the system. One thing I can guarantee–my children will be taught, as soon as they’re old enough to understand, that there is right and wrong, that our standards for them come from God, and that they can come to a unified, holistic view of the world and acquire a “body of knowledge.” I will do everything I can to make them eager to learn those things.

* * * * * *

Does anyone play Trivial Pursuit anymore? Like, just the regular version? Diane and I visited two stores yesterday in search of the basic edition and all we could find were “themed” variations. Ah well… The internet to the rescue, yet again.

There seems to be an unspoken rule in office that a meeting must continue for a set period of time in order to acquire validity. Even if the matter to be discussed can be resolved within a span of 30 seconds, to justify the interruption in everyone’s schedule, the meeting must be stretched to at least 10 minutes or so. It’s frustrating when I have lots to do, but…so it goes.

Spent a lovely day with Diane and Luke. They came over, had lunch, played around then went for a walk. Diane very graciously and generously cleaned the kitchen while I mowed the lawn. I think the kitchen is (quite literally) the cleanest it’s ever been.

I flew this morning around 9 a.m. The cloud bases were at pattern altitude (1500ft) and the coverage was somewhere between scattered and broken (I can fly VFR in scattered, but not broken). I took off from Sugar Valley and was overjoyed to find myself flying through wisps of clouds the sun was rapidly burning off. It’s always enjoyable to fly through scattered clouds because I get a sense of just how fast I’m traveling, shooting in and out of them at around 100 mph in the climb. It’s thrilling and I was grinning from ear to ear–until I got up to around 2500 ft, above the cloud tops. There I discovered that the clearing in the clouds above the airport was one of the few and if I flew anywhere else it would be unlikely that I would be able to find my way back to the airport. I circled around for a few minutes, keeping the Sugar Valley in sight, then decided to make a run to the nearby airport of Twin Lakes. I dove down through the clearing and skirted the cloud bellies until I found the airport and landed. I took off from there and returned to Sugar Valley. The flight alternately exhilarated me and produced within me a healthy respect for the weather conditions. I was certainly more keyed-up, more aware of my location and the landmarks and certainly exhibited more than usual of that healthy vigilance pilots need to avoid traffic. Educational flight.

Beautiful day for flying. Beautiful day period. But I particularly wish I was up there. With someone, looking down at green fields and treetops, tracing Stratford Road as it winds through Clemmons or the sinuous Yadkin River, too curvy to be used as a landmark from the air since you never know which bend in the river is which.

Meeting Jethro for dinner tomorrow evening after he gets off work at 6:30. I’ve gone flying with him a couple of times. He’s an MAI “graduate” (went through a couple of years of the program, got his mechanic’s certification and left) with several hundred hours of flying time under his belt. He’s got his commercial, instrument and multi-engine licenses and is getting his flight instructor ticket next week. He’s a genial guy and we always have a good time. I’m going pick his brain for advice about the next few stages of my training. My job situation has improved a good deal, to the point where I will be able to afford flight training in the fall (or whenever I decide to start) without having to take out student loans, which is a huge, huge answer to prayer. It frees me up in so many ways and keeps me debt-free, a primary goal. More to come on this subject. I don’t want to jump the gun in terms of reporting things before they actually come to pass, but I will share some speculations when I have some more elements firmed up (as much as they can be, at least).

I pilfered some more unwanted magazines from the restroom shelf at the airport. One of them is an issue of Executive Controller, a sort of glossy classified periodical with business jets and turboprops for sale. I wrote a while ago about sexy aircraft and gave a few examples. After thumbing through the magazine, I believe I have another plane to add to the pantheon: The Gulfstream G550. There’s a beautiful purity to its lines that I enjoy. Talk about a sleek executive jet-engined “sports car,” this is it. Yours for the low, low price of only $46 million.

Working on a plastic tray SolidWorks 3D model file here at work, I went looking for a solid model of a recycling symbol I could add to the underside of the tray. The program has a function called “Toolbox,” full of ready-made parts, components and items for placement into a part or assembly. Within Toolbox is a link to a network of other SolidWorks users, for the mutual sharing of premade parts. Thumbing through the directories, the bulk of the parts are of course standard engineering and manufacturing pieces. But among everything, there are a few folders where people have modeled fun things like tanks, sci-fi spaceships (the Enterprise), dinosaurs and airplanes. Looking through the airplane folder, I found an assembly model of a Grumman F-14 Tomcat that I had to download. It’s all free, so that’s a boon.

Just looking at it, there are some discrepancies between the solid model and the actual aircraft. The radome is too bulbous (almost Russian-looking), the canopy is squashed, the wings on the real F-14 have no anhedral and the intakes should be canted out at the bottom. But the level of detail, especially with the Phoenix and Sidewinder missiles and the nose gear bay, is impressive. It’s cool to look at and geek about.

This morning I went with Luke, Diane and her father to the pediatrician for Luke’s two-year-old checkup. He is an amazingly patient boy, especially for being two. It helped that the doctor was quite helpful, personable, chatty and looked a lot like Diane’s dad (similar build, mustache, glasses), someone with whom Luke is very close. Diane left the room for a minute and her father and I stayed with Luke as he got his shot for the day. It was over quickly; he had three big cries and that was it. We went to Chik-fil-a afterward and all was well. It was a good morning, and an encouraging morning. The doctor was full of good advice about Luke’s developmental progress and for Diane as a parent and me as a possibly prospective parent. Of course we depend on God for everything–our continued health, the future, all blessings and sustenance–but others certainly encourage us when they speak genuinely out of their knowledge, as the pediatrician did.

The theme of Coffee Theology last night was the knowability of God. We addressed the fact we know of Him through the universe He created (“general revelation”), but that the Bible (“special revelation”) is necessary to come to a specific knowledge of His character, attributes, ourselves and His plan for us and the world. The juxtaposition of the facts that He is the Creator of everything that we see and experience and so much more than we know, and that He is a personal God Who we can know and have close fellowship with–it just…astounds me.

We touched on the difference between the concepts of absolute truth and complete knowledge. When we reference absolutes and absolute truth as believers, it in no way means that we presume to have complete “truth” or complete knowledge. There are many absolutes in the Bible, unequivocal statements and principles (no matter your translation or interpretation), and we can certainly come to a knowledge of truth through the Word, but even having complete knowledge of just one attribute of God is impossible for our finite minds. That said, in the Bible we have all necessary knowledge for life and after life, everything that God purposed for us to know and that we need to know (it is “complete” in that sense), but it is far from comprehensive.

Indeed, as an object that exists in finite time and space, in the midst of His creation, it by definition cannot explain Him, an infinite Being, fully. That in itself amazes me. As Brett mentioned last night, every time I read the Word there is something new, a new insight about a passage or a verse that the Holy Spirit reveals to me, even if I’ve read that passage fifty times before. Rock-solid believers and Biblical scholars immerse themselves in the Word their whole lives and still discover new things every day. If something so “incomplete” and finite in its ability to describe God is so surpassingly rich, how many more orders of magnitude must He Himself be?

It felt like the aftermath of my first race. It was only a 5K and I remember afterward with Aaron, rehashing every detail of my physical and motivational state at each stage of the race. He had been (and still is) involved in athletic competition on a nearly continuous basis ever since he was little, and the race to him was small potatoes, but to me it was new and exciting. I wanted to talk about it, process it, connect with my friend through it. It was significant.

Yesterday morning was like that. Diane and I (on Mother’s Day, of all days) had nursery duty during the second service at church, having in our care six rambunctious two-year-olds, one of them Luke. I hadn’t ever watched a group of kids close to that age, or even babysat. I have to say, in spite of the fact that Luke got a bit jealous that I had to divert attention away from him alone, to the other boy in the group and also the girls, it was a lot of fun. But afterward, I talked about much of what I had learned through the new experience, while Diane (from what I could tell) had a more seasoned response.

This is not a bad thing by any means. It fits well into my burgeoning experience with kids. The things I think are a big deal (like watching kids for an hour), more often than not aren’t, and the things that seem trivial in my mind (getting Luke in and out of the car, etc) are more significant than I think they are to those around me: The pleasant collision between expectations and reality. Theory and conjecture become experience and life.

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Took my parents for plane rides on Saturday afternoon. My dad went up with me first, followed by my mom. I have to say I was surprised my mom enjoyed the experience more thoroughly than my dad did. I could have picked a better day–there was a lot of convection, leading to a somewhat bumpy ride, and the wind was around 15 mph blowing down the runway by the time I landed. But both landings were right on the money, smooth and soft in spite of the wind, and we had a good time of sightseeing while in the air. They are so supportive and encouraging. I’m blessed in that regard, among others.

Welcome end to a crazy week. I will visit the blankets shortly but for now it just feels good to sit here. My parents are rolling into town tomorrow to bring a recliner, possibly see Luke and Diane and get a plane ride, weather permitting.

The president of the company I work for saw me working out in the gym yesterday morning. I didn’t recognize him at all. Later that day during his birthday festivities in the office, after we had sung and divvied up the cake, he made a beeline for me and struck up a conversation. It turns out he plays racquetball there too some mornings, so I did the impertinent and suggested myself as a potential player, something he was very willing to accommodate. So I’m stuck now with the age-old question: Do I beat my boss, and if so, how badly?

As a side note, the Beatles’ “Maxwell’s Silver Hammer” was playing in the weight room at one point, and it’s been lilting through my head ever since.

The office is, of course, abuzz with American Idol talk, and I have to admit that although I’ve never actually watched the show on television, I do find myself getting sucked a bit into the speculation. And yes, I’ve dialed up a few clips on youtube.com just to see what the contestants sound like.

I have to say, though, after hearing this morning that Chris Daughtry was eliminated, it reminded me of one of the few performances of his that I’ve seen, where he sang “Have You Ever Really Loved a Woman” (and did a good job of it too, I thought). Bret doesn’t have the music on in the office at the moment so the song’s been bouncing around in my head, and I can’t help but remember how the premise of the song has always irked me a little bit. Specifically, how the song goes on and on asking if the man in question has ever told his woman a laundry list of things. I don’t presume by any means to have the market cornered on knowing what a woman needs, but the emphasis in the song on telling rather than showing has always rubbed me the wrong way. I mean, telling the woman she’s loved is all fine and good, and I’m sure it’s needed or at least very much wanted, but wouldn’t it be better to show her she’s loved? Through actions? Talk is cheap, right? Not that I do this (demonstrate to Diane she’s loved) as often as I should, but it’s where my values lie.

Just flitting thoughts. Carry on.

Got back up in the air yesterday, just to maintain currency. In order to carry passengers I have to have 3 takeoffs and landings in the past 90 days (as per the FAA regulations), but at Sugar Valley the local regulations are more tight on account of the tiny runway and obstructions: 3 takeoffs and landings in the past 30 days. I flew over to Diane’s house again, did a few laps, flew back and did a couple of takeoffs and landings, to meet the requirement. It was cloudy almost all day, the ceiling was very low, but around when I got in the air things had cleared up somewhat, although there was still a slight layer of haze around 2000 ft that hadn’t yet burned off.

While performing the first takeoff of the evening I was freshly struck with the novelty of being able to move along all three axes. For the first thousand feet or so, the takeoff run is just like being in a quickly-accelerating car. But after that point, when my “car” is moving around 55-60 mph, I can pull back on the “steering wheel” and have the “car” move upward, against gravity’s pull, watching the ground fall away and seeing the tops of the trees. It was a fresh realization of that, and I loved it. Diane and I discussed it later–the pressure being gone, the wonder is returning, but accompanied with the God-given skill and knowledge to do things as they should be done. It’s a wonderful place to be. As I pulled back on the yoke yesterday evening and rose above the treetops, I felt a hint of the companionship of the myriad nightly dreams of flight I’ve had. The experience is unique.

Fantastic weekend. The conference was phenomenal. Diane and I attended with the sponsorship of our church, with the expectation that we’ll lead a small group using the curriculum, something we’re certainly very keen on doing. My mom came as well, on her own initiative. She’s been interested in worldview studies for years and years (indeed, she introduced me to the area of study in high school), so it was wonderful to have her there and to be able to share ideas and responses among the three of us.

The conference equips believers to lead a small group based around the Truth Project curriculum, a curriculum that stresses the need for an overarching biblical worldview. It touches on every area of human experience either directly or indirectly and demonstrates a biblical approach to and mindset for each area. Given the fact that, based on a recent study, only 4% of professing Christians in this country have a biblical worldview, and that more often than not we are indistinguishable from the culture around us, this wake-up call is sorely needed. The sea of false assumptions and counterfeit truth claims around us is vast and deep. Some key verses from the weekend:

“‘You are a king, then!’ said Pilate. Jesus answered, ‘You are right in saying I am a king. In fact, for this reason I was born, and for this I came into the world, to testify to the truth. Everyone on the side of truth listens to me.'” — John 18:37

“See to it that no one takes you captive through hollow and deceptive philosophy, which depends on human tradition and the basic principles of this world rather than on Christ.” — Colossians 2:8

“But in your hearts set apart Christ as Lord. Always be prepared to give an answer to everyone who asks you to give the reason for the hope that you have. But do this with gentleness and respect…” — 1 Peter 3:15

“And the Lord’s servant must not quarrel; instead, he must be kind to everyone, able to teach, not resentful. Those who oppose him he must gently instruct, in the hope that God will grant them repentance leading them to a knowledge of the truth…” — 2 Timothy 2:24-25

Good stuff. I can’t express how encouraged, refreshed, affirmed and grounded in my faith I feel. There will be times of hardship, to be sure, but I am equipped with an increasing knowledge of the Word, which is Truth (John 17:17), and thus our final authority when it comes to our interface with the world, indeed our very perspective on reality itself. Soli Deo gloria.

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In other news, here’s

I love the scent of warm earth with the light sheen of tentative rain. The grey, hesitant daylight overhead releases a smattering of droplets every few minutes, just enough to darken the asphalt and cause the windshield wipers to streak as I drive home. All the elements outside are in balance–the light, the rain and the wind–all three circle, hands linked, around my senses (like the Matisse painting), not one of them overpowering any other.

Leaving for Charlotte in a few hours with Diane for the Truth Project conference, something we’ve been planning for several months and that I’m very much looking forward to. I haven’t spent much time with Luke this week and I feel it. I would spend tomorrow afternoon with him, after the conference, but my brother is holding his birthday festivities that evening back in Chapel Hill. He’s leaving for Washington state to intern with Boeing for a few months, embarking on an all-expenses-paid cross-country road trip next Wednesday, so his party, normally held nearer his actual birthday on the 13th, has been bumped up to this weekend. We’ll see. Perhaps I can still work something out.

I really, really want to see this film. The man’s songwriting influence on artists of quality has been peerless.