Notes on the Second - VII. Horrible, Horrible Thoughts

In the background of our hospital stay, you can think of parenting as a sequence of horrible thoughts. We all have horrible thoughts about the things we care about, like the way my fellow students and I are having exam-time nightmares about impossible questions and train delays. Parents' horrible thoughts are not here for a season, though; they stay background like the colors of your walls. We have (and I think I can speak of "we" here) horrible thoughts, because horrible things happen to people, and when these things happen to babies, to any children, then this new, common, transcendent, and entangling love that I've described elsewhere is ripped out of the chests of parents and communities, irreplaceable.

In my own experience, baby's complete dependence and vulnerability make the horrible thoughts so pressing, because in many cases, I'm the one responsible. What if I slip and fall down the stairs while I'm holding her? What if I nod off on the couch and she slides off my lap? What if she's not swaddled properly and she pulls the blanket over her head? What if the bedroom temperature isn't precisely 18 degrees Celsius, which we read somewhere is the least dangerous temperature for babies to sleep in? What if I touch her after eating peanut butter only to discover an acute peanut allergy? What if I left the coffee machine on because I was in a hurry not to be late for an exam and the house burns down with the three most important people in my life inside it?

Such questions circle my brain like dancing devils, and though anxiety is health-reducing bit devilment, I've surprisingly found these horrible, horrible thoughts to work towards something else entirely. A horrible thought ambushes me when I'm minding my own business, and then I cringe and I say, "Oh, God," not as a swear, but as a prayer. My child is at the mercy of everything from my own powers of concentration to diseases in nature still unrecorded, and so I plead to God for mercy. The babies under my roof have increased my prayers in frequency and intensity, the entangling love for them entangling our very beings into his sovereignty. This is not a get-out-of-trouble card, and I'm under no illusions that these things can't or won't happen to us. Nor is this an excuse for fatalism, and our prayers have the opposite effect, promoting a careful and engaging sort of love between parent and child. Rather, this is a sober kind of hope, not always comforting but always providing a an unanswerable form of joy, that neither death nor life can separate us from the love of God that is in Christ Jesus our Lord.

A few days ago, I was walking home, lost in thoughts about my university exams when I was almost killed. I was crossing the street, legally, when a car made a hasty and illegal turn. Had I not been awakened and jumped out of the way, I would have been hit. The car screeched to a halt a good thirty feet to late then pulled over. The driver didn't get out, but I can assume she was as shocked as I was. This experience is not uncommon - it happened to my wife back in the U.S. But it served as a reminder that however adult and in control we are, our situation is precarious.

This precariousness makes love all the more costly, and this is acted out in family and community as we do things to make each other happy, better, and alive. Drinks with friends, jokes among my co-students, an episode of Dr. Who while feeling my wife's warmth against my thigh, playing Frozen with my daughter - all of these things shine through the precariousness like the sun on a summer morning. It deepens the joy of holding my own baby daughter, ten pounds of helpless, human warmth, in my arms. Horrible thoughts are drowned out by the knowledge that this moment with the Second is an unmatchable gift.

This is the seventh and final chapter of a longer post about getting to know our second child. You can read the post in its entirety here. 

Notes on the Second - VI. The First

When the first came, our new family was an insulated little bubble of three people, one of them new. Sure, we had enormous help from family and friends - especially the heroic grandmothers and fabulous meals from our D.C. church friends. But while they were constantly coming in and out of our little bubble, our little family strengthened like a three-fold cord.

Now, the first is five years old, and because of her, if our bubble isn't porous, it doesn't exist. She's blossomed into the richness of life that five years has to offer, the delights of learning and play and discovering things like characters and stories and science. Then, there are the challenges of discipline, disease, and the normal, everyday hassle of getting her ready for kindergarten.

Her new little sister has been thrust upon all of these things, and there's a strange paradox here. On one hand, she's old enough to be aware of what's going on, to know how to behave around her (gentle! quiet!), while avoiding the jealousies of younger older siblings. On the other hand, she's too young to really adjust her own life and habits for the change. She needs help and attention every morning, she needs and wants to play with her parents, she has moods, gets sick, gets excited, and, for the first time in her life, has become a picky eater. This of course, damages the sense of "mama-and-papa-against-the-world" was there for the first week of the First's life, and the Papa's supporting role is something like....

DoSomethingDoAnythingToDistractOrEntertainHerSoThatHerLittleSisterCanFinallyLearnToBreastfeedProperlyInPeaceExceptNotAnotherEpisodeOfSeanTheSheepBecauseShe'sSomehowInABadMoodAfterWatchingSeanTheSheepEvenThoughSheLovesItAndIKnowIt'sMuchTooColdToGoOutsideSoHelpHerPutOnHerPrincessDressAndColorButPleaseDon'tMakeTooMuchNoise!!!!!

Then, sickness entered the picture. The First came home from kindergarten (that oversized petri dish) with a nasty fever and a stiff neck. It got worse, and on Sunday, we took her to the hospital. By the grace of God, our own paediatrician was on hospital duty there, and the stiff neck signalled meningitis to him. The next day, my oldest daughter and I checked into the hospital, where we would stay for the next few days. My wife and youngest daughter stayed at home, still learning to feed and drink. It was a sad, sad situation - separation, hospital food, nightmares darkening our thoughts. There was, though, a warmth strengthening my bones at the time, and I think it was the knowledge that by simply being there I was where I ought to be and what I ought to be, and this confidence is foreign to me. A father and husband, present, within fear and sickness and suffering, standing against the effects of the Fall like a palm tree in a thunderstorm.

I wasn't alone of course - friendly and competent medical staff, my in-laws were heroes, and my wife was able to visit the hospital, and when we brought home a nasty intestinal disease from the hospital, everyone suffered but the baby, protected beautifully by my wife's milk. The antibiotics worked their magic on my oldest daughter, and we still don't know if it was actually meningitis, even though several doctors worked like Dr. House throughout the week to find out. Now, we're healthy, even if rumours of other diseases here in our neighbourhood tempt us to barricade our house 'til spring, and when we actually stop to think about it (and stopping to think is challenging when you have small kids), we're deeply thankful. My mother-in-law is convinced that our prayers helped my older daughter as much as the antibiotics. One doesn't exclude the other, and we did indeed pray.

There's another thought that helps, one that my wife brought home from the midwife that led her birthing classes. Whatever new amount of stress a little baby brings to her older sister, we've given them both an incredible gift. The love of a sister (or a brother) is not something you can easily replicate. And of course, every little girl's favorite film right now is about sisterly love, and from my daughter's Elsa dress to the way she kisses her little sister (gentle! quiet!), we get some nice reminders. As the midwife said, the sibling relationship is often the longest relationship someone can have.

This is the sixth chapter of a longer post about getting to know our second child. You can read the post in its entirety here. 

Notes on the Second - V. Chunk

Five years ago, after the first was born, I chunked up. A lot of dads do. If you don't believe me, go to Facebook and look at pictures of your new-father friends. Then watch from the day of birth until about three months as the papa's cheeks swell, love handles pour over the side of his skinny jeans, and all his shirts start to develop little mouths between the buttons as if screaming for help. The new mom shrinks, the new baby grows, the new dad expands. I never got really fat, but it's enough chunk for me to get a little queasy-cringy every time someone breaks out the photo album. Moving to Germany and regular exercise, among other thing, has kept me reasonably fit sense, and I want to keep it that way. This time around I'm determined to avoid the chunk.

Papa-chunking is hard to avoid though, and there are two reasons. One is a new kind of tiredness; the other is a vague sense of karma. First the tiredness. During stressful seasons at work or study, I'm tired, but I need exercise. There comes a point when my brain can't take it anymore until I put my running shoes on and burn five kilometers like I'm Lola. New baby tiredness is different. It comes from staying up late with a baby intent on exercising her new lungs just to give'em a spin. When she's finally swaddled and asleep, I'm exhausted. Keep in mind, I've done very little physical activity except catch her every time she does those scary little newborn trust falls from my chest. Additionally, I've paced around and sang to her and watched terrible early-morning television that I'd have been better off not knowing about in the first placed. After she's finally quiet, swaddled, and sleeping, I'm not ready to hit the running trail, the weight machine, the basketball court, or however else we men keep our college boy figures. I'm ready to pass out on the hallway floor or ready to eat, and this is where the vague sense of karma comes in.

The vague sense of karma is the big reason for papa-chunking. After all, holding and comforting a tiny little human being for three and a quarter hours while she cries her little heart out is a GOOD. EFFEN. DEED. And because it's a good deed, I deserve seven cookies, three pieces of that good cheese we were saving for New Years, four spoonfuls of peanut butter (plus a couple of illicit swipes with the index finger), a hunk of that good peppery salami, a Magnum bar, and a bottle of beer to wash it all down. And my vague sense of karma tells me that if there is any sense of sovereign justice in the world, this three-and-a-half minute snack will have zero effect on my waste line.

So this time round, I haven't shunned the jogging trail, even though part of me wishes I could stay on our couch until my funeral. And, even though it's the Christmas season, I like to think I've held the binge-eating in check. Stay away, papa-chunk. You're not welcome here.

(At this point, the blogger takes a break to throw away the wrappers from the three chocolate Santas Clauses he took to write this post)

This is the fifth chapter of a longer post about getting to know our second child. You can read the post in its entirety here. 

Notes on the Second - IV. She's So Friendly

Part of the purpose of this post is to "treasure these things in our hearts", which sleeplessness, stress, and an unfortunate bout of disease have made difficult this week.* The sleeplessness, at least, serves a purpose. The times when I am awake with her are little treasures in and of themselves, the first father-daughter moments where I have her all to myself. Whenever I first look into her wakeful eyes, the first word that comes to mind is "friendly." I never thought an infant could have any sort of friendly disposition, but she does. It's as if she says, "I'm content to let you be who you are, and I want to get to know that part of you better." The sentiment reveals itself not only in the way she looks up at me, but also in the way she coos and grunts when she's hungry. She cries a lot as a colicky little thing, but crying for her seems to be a last resort. She's a friendly person who would rather communicate through less intrusive means. I'll play the little baby games; I stick my tongue out, and she mimics me. I experiment with different voices to see how she reacts. I show her different patterns. And of course, I sing.

Babies aren't carry ons or blocks of wood. They're little people with little personalities, and it's the privilege of a parent to treasure these things so early.

This is the fourth chapter of a longer post about getting to know our second child. You can read the post in its entirety here. 

*This sentence was written in mid-December. Chapter 6 has the details.

Notes on the Second - III. Woman

Awe is the appropriate response a thoughtful man has to the woman he married. Awe usually requires a certain thoughtfulness. Being thoughtful means using your thoughts to poke through the stress and distractions and day-to-day muddle that makes everything too urgent for awe. When we can't do this, events come along to bring it out. My sense of awe, neglected like I neglect this blog, focused and compounded upon itself while watching my wife give birth. Most dads would agree with me here.

The cocktail worked so quickly that we had no time for drugs or anything else. The birth was going to be all natural, with the help from a midwife, a doctor, and a hot tub. It's hard for a man not to feel so unessential to the process, even as I brought her water and gave her a shoulder to lean on. We walked back and forth, we tried different positions and "labor massages," and in the end, pretty much anything we planned didn't really work, other than to say: "full steam ahead!" The midwife was a hero, making a little moan every time my wife yelled in agony, which apparently helped, and spoke words of comfort through the torturous fear between labor pains.

The screams came from every part of her body and soul. They contained fear, pain, determination, and love, somehow shameless and proud at the same time. In labor, there's a sense of irrational urgency, and yet a wise, determined patience. In all of these paradoxes, the culmination of the 9-month process of giving life, the woman in labor is more animal, more angel, and more human than a man could ever be.

During the final pushes, she grabbed my shoulder as the doctor and midwife directed traffic. "Grabbed" - no. She crushed my shoulder between her fingers. It hurt for a week, though that'll elicit no sympathy from a birthing woman.

At the end of it all, my daughter emerged from my wife. They let me cut the cord, and they sat her on my wife's broken body for her first meal. There were tears and greetings and pictures and weighings. We had a new person to get to know, but my wife was nine months ahead of me.

This is the third chapter of a longer post about getting to know our second child. You can read the post in its entirety here. 

Notes on the Second - II. The Cocktail

We have friends who lovingly refer to one of their sons as their "margarita baby." You laugh, because you know. Your decision to get pregnant may have been lubricated by a cocktail (or three). Well, in Germany (and perhaps other back-to-nature oriented northern European countries), there's a cocktail for the end of the pregnancy. No, it's not Mommy's little Jägermeister to ease the her into a stupor so she can forget the experience. It's the labor-inducing cocktail, and it works. (In fact, don't go googling it and making it for yourself at home, which may be tempting with 9-months and nothing moving. We've heard of mothers going for the home cocktail, resulting in some unwanted, unsafe, home births.)

It works, but it's not delicious, according my wife. The back story: My wife's water broke the morning of my daughter's birth, so we packed what was still left to pack, sent our first daughter with her grandmother, and moseyed on over to the hospital, hoping the labor pains would come soon. Well, the pains were there, but they were too wimpy to take on woman. By the afternoon, the midwife, for no extra tip, poured the cocktail. My wife sipped it down over the next hour - it's mostly nut oils, which isn't exactly "great taste, less filling." But I repeat: it works. Not only does it work, but from what I understand, the labor pains it induces are less painful than those from the medical procedure we were familiar with from having our first daughter in the States. But Labor pains they were, and my wife suddenly became capable of balling up steel beams with her fingers.

This is the second chapter of a longer post about getting to know our second child. You can read the post in its entirety here. 

Notes on the Second

I. The Waiting

Our second child was late. Ok, late is a stupid term. Every doctor, nurse, and midwife we talked to reminded us that the "due date" was really just the middle of a range, and real earliness or lateness can involve a lot of unpleasantness. She came eight days after the due date, which isn't late. It's right on time, like a wizard.

But it felt late, especially when the doctor told my wife, eight days before the due date that "THE BABY IS LOW! GET READY! IT'LL COME AT ANY MOMENT!!!" We spent the following to weeks like Olympic sprinters waiting for the gun, head down, bottoms up, cleats sharp. This stressed us, especially as we invited everyone around us to get in sprint position - my in-laws, who were to pitch in with our first child during the labor adventures, my co-students, who were ready to pitch in with my projects and take copious notes should I suddenly get called to the hospital.

From then on, every conversation began with a look of expectation. "Is the baby there?" My daughter's kindergarten, university, church, street. Texts and Facebook, Email (remember Email?). It could get tedious. "No, not yet. My wife is uncomfortable, but she and the child are healthy. She's due the 13th, but it could be up to ten days after it." Every time. Tedious, but part of me loved it and not just the part of me that craves your approval. I loved it, because it's much better than the alternative. Those around us saw my family - my unborn child, my wife, my daughter, me - as something worth caring about. That old question, "how are you doing?" honestly asked, means something.

II. The Cocktail

We have friends who lovingly refer to one of their sons as their "margarita baby." You laugh, because you know. Your decision to get pregnant may have been lubricated by a cocktail (or three). Well, in Germany (and perhaps other back-to-nature oriented northern European countries), there's a cocktail for the end of the pregnancy. No, it's not Mommy's little Jägermeister to ease the her into a stupor so she can forget the experience. It's the labor-inducing cocktail, and it works. (In fact, don't go googling it and making it for yourself at home, which may be tempting with 9-months and nothing moving. We've heard of mothers going for the home cocktail, resulting in some unwanted, and unsafe, home births.)

It works, but it's not delicious, according my wife. The back story: My wife's water broke the morning of my daughter's birth, so we packed what was still left to pack, sent our first daughter with her grandmother, and moseyed on over to the hospital, hoping the labor pains would come soon. Well, the pains were there, but they were too wimpy to take on woman. By the afternoon, the midwife, for no extra tip, poured the cocktail. My wife sipped it down over the next hour - it's mostly nut oils, which isn't exactly "great taste, less filling." But I repeat: it works. Not only does it work, but from what I understand, the labor pains it induces are less painful than those from the medical procedure we were familiar with from having our first daughter in the States. But Labor pains they were, and my wife suddenly became capable of balling up steel beams with her fingers.

III. Woman

Awe is the appropriate response a thoughtful man has to the woman he married. Awe usually requires a certain thoughtfulness. Being thoughtful means using your thoughts to poke through the stress and distractions and day-to-day muddle that makes everything too urgent for awe. When we can't do this,  events come along to bring it out. My sense of awe, neglected like I neglect this blog, focused and compounded upon itself while watching my wife give birth. Most dads would agree with me here.

The cocktail worked so quickly that we had no time for drugs or anything else. The birth was going to be all natural, with the help from a midwife, a doctor, and a hot tub. It's hard for a man not to feel so unessential to the process, even as I brought her water and gave her a shoulder to lean on. We walked back and forth, we tried different positions and "labor massages," and in the end, pretty much anything we planned didn't really work, other than to say: "full steam ahead!" The midwife was a hero, making a little moan every time my wife yelled in agony, which apparently helped, and spoke words of comfort through the torturous fear between labor pains.

The screams came from every part of her body and soul. They contained fear, pain, determination, and love, somehow shameless and proud at the same time. In labor, there's a sense of irrational urgency, and yet a wise, determined patience. In all of these paradoxes, the culmination of the 9-month process of giving life, the woman in labor is more animal, more angel, and more human than a man could ever be.

During the final pushes, she grabbed my shoulder as the doctor and midwife directed traffic. "Grabbed" - no. She crushed my shoulder between her fingers. It hurt for a week, though that'll elicit no sympathy from a birthing woman.

At the end of it all, my daughter emerged from my wife. They let me cut the cord, and they sat her on my wife's broken body for her first meal. There were tears and greetings and pictures and weighings. We had a new person to get to know, but my wife was nine months ahead of me.

IV. She's so Friendly

Part of the purpose of this post is to "treasure these things in our hearts", which sleeplessness, stress, and an unfortunate bout of disease have made difficult this week. The sleeplessness, at least, serves a purpose. The times when I am awake with her are little treasures in and of themselves, the first father-daughter moments where I have her all to myself. Whenever I first look into her wakeful eyes, the first word that comes to mind is "friendly." I never thought an infant could have any sort of friendly disposition, but she does. It's as if she says, "I'm content to let you be who you are, and I want to get to know that part of you better." The sentiment reveals itself in the way she looks, even in the way she coos and grunts when she's hungry. She cries a lot as a colicky little thing, but crying for her seems to be a last resort. She's a friendly person who would rather communicate through less intrusive means. I'll play the little baby games; I stick my tongue out, and she mimics me. I experiment with different voices to see how she reacts. I show her different patterns. And of course, I sing.

Babies aren't carry ons or blocks of wood. They're little people with little personalities, and it's the privilege of a parent to treasure these things so early.

V. Chunk

Five years ago, after the first was born, I chunked up. A lot of dads do. If you don't believe me, go to Facebook and look at pictures of your new-father friends. Then watch from the day of birth until about three months as the papa's cheeks swell, love handles pour over the side of his skinny jeans, and all his shirts start to develop little mouths between the buttons as if screaming for help. The new mom shrinks, the new baby grows, the new dad expands. I never got really fat, but it's enough chunk for me to get a little queasy-cringy every time someone breaks out the photo album. Moving to Germany and regular exercise, among other thing, has kept me reasonably fit sense, and I want to keep it that way. This time around I'm determined to avoid the chunk.

Papa-chunking is hard to avoid though, and there are two reasons. One is a new kind of tiredness; the other is a vague sense of karma. First the tiredness. During stressful seasons at work or study, I'm tired, but I need exercise. There comes a point when my brain can't take it anymore until I put my running shoes on and burn five kilometers like I'm Lola. New baby tiredness is different. It comes from staying up late with a baby intent on exercising her new lungs just to give'em a spin. When she's finally swaddled and asleep, I'm exhausted. Keep in mind, I've done very little physical activity except catch her every time she does those scary little newborn trust falls from my chest. Additionally, I've paced around and sang to her and watched terrible early-morning television that I'd have been better off not knowing about in the first placed. After she's finally quiet, swaddled, and sleeping, I'm not ready to hit the running trail, the weight machine, the basketball court, or however else we men keep our college boy figures. I'm ready to pass out on the hallway floor or ready to eat, and this is where the vague sense of karma comes in.

The vague sense of karma is the big reason for papa-chunking. After all, holding and comforting a tiny little human being for three and a quarter hours while she cries her little heart out is a GOOD. EFFEN. DEED. And because it's a good deed, I deserve seven cookies, three pieces of that good cheese we were saving for New Years, four spoonfuls of peanut butter (plus a couple of illicit swipes with the index finger), a hunk of that good peppery salami, a Magnum bar, and a bottle of beer to wash it all down. And my vague sense of karma tells me that if there is any sense of sovereign justice in the world, this three-and-a-half minute snack will have zero effect on my waste line.

So this time round, I haven't shunned the jogging trail, even though part of me wishes I could stay on our couch until my funeral. And, even though it's the Christmas season, I like to think I've held the binge-eating in check. Stay away, papa-chunk. You're not welcome here.

(At this point, the blogger takes a break to throw away the wrappers from the three chocolate Santas Clauses he took to write this post)

VI. The First

When the first came, our new family was an insulated little bubble of three people, one of them new. Sure, we had enormous help from family and friends - especially the heroic grandmothers and fabulous meals from our D.C. church friends. But while they were constantly coming in and out of our little bubble, our little family strengthened like a three-fold cord.

Now, the first is five years old, and because of her, if our bubble isn't porous, it doesn't exist. She's blossomed into the richness of life that five years has to offer, the delights of learning and play and discovering things like characters and stories and science. Then, there are the challenges of discipline, disease, and the normal, everyday hassle of getting her ready for kindergarten.

Her new little sister has been thrust upon all of these things, and there's a strange paradox here. On one hand, she's old enough to be aware of what's going on, to know how to behave around her (gentle! quiet!), while avoiding the jealousies of younger older siblings. On the other hand, she's too young to really adjust her own life and habits for the change. She needs help and attention every morning, she needs and wants to play with her parents, she has moods, gets sick, gets excited, and, for the first time in her life, has become a picky eater. This of course, damages the sense of "mama-and-papa-against-the-world" was there for the first week of the First's life, and the Papa's supporting role is something like....

DoSomethingDoAnythingToDistractOrEntertainHerSoThatHerLittleSisterCanFinallyLearnToBreastfeedProperlyInPeaceExceptNotAnotherEpisodeOfSeanTheSheepBecauseShe'sSomehowInABadMoodAfterWatchingSeanTheSheepEvenThoughSheLovesItAndIKnowIt'sMuchTooColdToGoOutsideSoHelpHerPutOnHerPrincessDressAndColorButPleaseDon'tMakeTooMuchNoise!!!!!

Then, sickness entered the picture. The First came home from kindergarten (that oversized petri dish) with a nasty fever and a stiff neck. It got worse, and on Sunday, we took her to the hospital. By the grace of God, our own paediatrician was on hospital duty there, and the stiff neck signalled meningitis to him. The next day, my oldest daughter and I checked into the hospital, where we would stay for the next few days. My wife and youngest daughter stayed at home, still learning to feed and drink. It was a sad, sad situation - separation, hospital food, nightmares darkening our thoughts. There was, though, a warmth strengthening my bones at the time, and I think it was the knowledge that by simply being there I was where I ought to be and what I ought to be, and this confidence is foreign to me. A father and husband, present, within fear and sickness and suffering, standing against the effects of the Fall like a palm tree in a thunderstorm.

I wasn't alone of course - friendly and competent medical staff, my in-laws were heroes, and my wife was able to visit the hospital, and when we brought home a nasty intestinal disease from the hospital, everyone suffered but the baby, protected beautifully by my wife's milk. The antibiotics worked their magic on my oldest daughter, and we still don't know if it was actually meningitis, even though several doctors worked like Dr. House throughout the week to find out. Now, we're healthy, even if rumours of other diseases here in our neighbourhood tempt us to barricade our house 'til spring, and when we actually stop to think about it (and stopping to think is challenging when you have small kids), we're deeply thankful. My mother-in-law is convinced that our prayers helped my older daughter as much as the antibiotics. One doesn't exclude the other, and we did indeed pray.

There's another thought that helps, one that my wife brought home from the midwife that led her birthing classes. Whatever new amount of stress a little baby brings to her older sister, we've given them both an incredible gift. The love of a sister (or a brother) is not something you can easily replicate. And of course, every little girl's favorite film right now is about sisterly love, and from my daughter's Elsa dress to the way she kisses her little sister (gentle! quiet!), we get some nice reminders. As the midwife said, the sibling relationship is often the longest relationship someone can have.

VII. Horrible, Horrible Thoughts

In the background of our hospital stay, you can think of parenting as a sequence of horrible thoughts. We all have horrible thoughts about the things we care about, like the way my fellow students and I are having exam-time nightmares about impossible questions and train delays. Parents' horrible thoughts are not here for a season, though; they stay background like the colors of your walls. We have (and I think I can speak of "we" here) horrible thoughts, because horrible things happen to people, and when these things happen to babies, to any children, then this new, common, transcendent, and entangling love that I've described elsewhere is ripped out of the chests of parents and communities, irreplaceable.

In my own experience, baby's complete dependence and vulnerability make the horrible thoughts so pressing, because in many cases, I'm the one responsible. What if I slip and fall down the stairs while I'm holding her? What if I nod off on the couch and she slides off my lap? What if she's not swaddled properly and she pulls the blanket over her head? What if the bedroom temperature isn't precisely 18 degrees Celsius, which we read somewhere is the least dangerous temperature for babies to sleep in? What if I touch her after eating peanut butter only to discover an acute peanut allergy? What if I left the coffee machine on because I was in a hurry not to be late for an exam and the house burns down with the three most important people in my life inside it?

Such questions circle my brain like dancing devils, and though anxiety is health-reducing bit devilment, I've surprisingly found these horrible, horrible thoughts to work towards something else entirely. A horrible thought ambushes me when I'm minding my own business, and then I cringe and I say, "Oh, God," not as a swear, but as a prayer. My child is at the mercy of everything from my own powers of concentration to diseases in nature still unrecorded, and so I plead to God for mercy. The babies under my roof have increased my prayers in frequency and intensity, the entangling love for them entangling our very beings into his sovereignty. This is not a get-out-of-trouble card, and I'm under no illusions that these things can't or won't happen to us. Nor is this an excuse for fatalism, and our prayers have the opposite effect, promoting a careful and engaging sort of love between parent and child. Rather, this is a sober kind of hope, not always comforting but always providing a an unanswerable form of joy, that neither death nor life can separate us from the love of God that is in Christ Jesus our Lord.

A few days ago, I was walking home, lost in thoughts about my university exams when I was almost killed. I was crossing the street, legally, when a car made a hasty and illegal turn. Had I not been awakened and jumped out of the way, I would have been hit. The car screeched to a halt a good thirty feet to late then pulled over. The driver didn't get out, but I can assume she was as shocked as I was. This experience is not uncommon - it happened to my wife back in the U.S. But it served as a reminder that however adult and in control we are, our situation is precarious.

This precariousness makes love all the more costly, and this is acted out in family and community as we do things to make each other happy, better, and alive. Drinks with friends, jokes among my co-students, an episode of Dr. Who while feeling my wife's warmth against my thigh, playing Frozen with my daughter - all of these things shine through the precariousness like the sun on a summer morning. It deepens the joy of holding my own baby daughter, ten pounds of helpless, human warmth, in my arms. Horrible thoughts are drowned out by the knowledge that this moment with the Second is an unmatchable gift.

Naming and Being Named

Call me Jon. Or Jonathan. I try to be uncomplicated about my name, and, as both Jon (or John) and Jonathan are common names, I'm happy to go with whichever name is left available in our particular social setting. If there's someone called Jo(h)n, I'll be Jonathan, which still sounds attractive, though three syllables is a mouthful for lazy, friendly banter.

As a child, I insisted on Jonathan. My mother told me I was named for the biblical Jonathan - David's best friend who willingly gave up the throne that was his birthright to make way for God's anointed - and the name means "gift from God," and my parents considered me a gift. So, it was clear, even in my little ears, that there was depth, love, and meaning to this choice. Besides, it somehow sounded more special. The monosyllable is so common in popular literature and culture, and I was blissfully unaware that my name was part of a naming trend in the 70s and 80s - the fact is, there were always several Jonathans in my classes. (Think how many GenX and Millennial writers share my name)

My family moved to Florida when I was 13, and I was ready to shed my awkward, middle school baggage, and calling myself Jon felt like a clean break. This initiated my present naming situation: to my family, at least the family I grew up with, I was and am Jonathan, to most of my friends, Jon, and at the workplace, a confusing mix of the two. This worked well from school to young single life, but marriage and other circumstances have mixed the two the two names in ways that feel strange. My wife, in her transition from friend to family, still calls me Jon, and I think this is good and right. To my daughter, I am first "Papa," and she knows that I am "Jon," but I'm not sure if she is aware of my full name. My parents and sisters still call me "Jonathan," and whenever they refer to me as Jon, usually whenever they intermix with my friends, it's almost as if they're referring to someone else. Likewise, I knew my sister's husband before their marriage, and to him I was Jon, but now he's adapted to call me "Jonathan," with the same results: it always takes me a couple seconds to realize he's talking about (or even to) me. Identity is relative. I try to be uncomplicated about my name, but I'm not.

I'm satisfied with my name, nonetheless, and the sacrificial love displayed by the biblical Jonathan is a source of aspiration, and my parents probably had this in mind. These reflections about my own name accompanied the deep sense of sadness I felt when my daughter told me she wished she had a different one.

Her name is Joy, and I admit this was a hazardous choice. It's not especially common, which is a blessing for trend-resistant parents and a curse for sensitive children who want to fit in. It's less common here in Germany, and though the word is known and pronounceable here (this was important to us, of course), it's not unchallenging either. The word is overused in flippant speech, cartoons, and advertising, and to boot, her birthday is dangerously close to Christmas. The name is a target for songs and puns, and anyone who knows me well will know that in this regard, her father is a the chief of sinners.

"Joy" was on our shortlist almost five years ago when we arrived at the hospital, but we wanted to get a good look at her before we came to a final decision. She spent the first 24 hours outside the womb nameless, but the decision had been made in my heart from the moment we made eye-contact, and I don't think I could have been convinced otherwise.

Here's why. When it comes to love, I am in a position of privilege. I grew up loving my parents, loving my sisters, loving my friends, and loving God and experience love from each of them. Since then, I've added the love for my wife and the love of her family, and I'm well aware that none of these are a given. I knew I would love my children, but I didn't think it would add much to what I already had. I was wrong. Holding my daughter in my arms added a completely new dimension to my love for which I could have never been prepared. This love multiplied the anxiety that I could lose something so precious. She could be driven away later in life; tragedy could end it sooner. New parents are aware of the horrifying thought of sudden infant death syndrome, and the idea that my child could be robbed of her breath for no apparent reason made, for me, the sound of a snoring baby the most beautiful sound under heaven. Every day, every hour, every second of her existence became a gift of great price, and thankfulness compounded upon thankfulness enriched my life in ways that never would have occurred to me otherwise.

This deep thankfulness for life and for love is called joy. It's something that marketing campaigns and Christmas ornaments can only hint at, but it's something that all of us who get to properly love another human can experience. This reflects an even greater joy, the joy of the Lord, the joy of his unadulterated love, a joy we see through the glass darkly, but which the Bible insists is our strength, dour and self-conscious as I am. It was the only word that could come to my lips on that day as I looked in her dark eyes, doctors and nurses scurrying around me to repair my wife's broken body. A day later we gave her the name Joy, and whatever silliness our culture adds to this word, it has never been inappropriate.

I'm told it's a small administrative hassle, getting your named changed. I can imagine a future so individualistic that we change our names with our fashions, and that no one need, after a few drinks, to grimace and admit that they hate their name - they can just get it removed and replaced and inform their friends via text message. My daughter, sick of puns and Christmas songs, could do this one day. I hope she doesn't. I hope that her dissatisfaction with her name is just the short-lived fancy of a four-year-old and nothing deeper. I hope that she'll understand the meaning of her name, how much joy and love she gave her parents, how it reflects her intrinsic worth, how it reminds us of the joy of the Lord, our strength. There's an old-fashioned comfort here. In these times, where the question, "How can I add value to the organization?" is so much more pressing than, "What is the chief end of man?" the idea that value can be not just achieved but also imparted by those who gave us life is a cry of blessing. In naming, we can participate in this, and in being named, we can remember.

To Fall a Tree

I helped fall a tree last Friday. On the hill-garden that separates our house from my in-law's house, there stood two tall, proud pine trees. Now there stands only one. One springtime home for red squirrels and grey hawks. One piece of creation that dwarfed our houses and stretched to heaven as if unconscious it could never complete its journey.

I helped fall it, which really means I didn't do much of the dirty work, but I stood holding jackets with approval. Ok, I did a little more than that. When it comes to handwork, well, I insist I'm available to help, but really, you might regret the decision to have me along. My father-in-law, brave, trusty, and sure of hand with a rope and a chainsaw, did the hard work. I stood with our neighbor and observed. I made sure no neighbors or children stood where pieces of wood might fall. Twice I helped pull the rope to bring down its great trunk in different parts, ensuring that this mighty pine would never stand again.

The first tug was easy. We were in a residential area, so we could simply chop at the bottom and yell "timber"like on the cartoons without crushing a house or damaging the neighbor's flowers. So, my father-in-law took his rope, climbed the tree halfway up, and made some neat cuts into the upper trunk. Then he climbed, leaving the rope where we could pull it off, and we tugged it down. The top half fell with little resistance. The tree then stood there like a headless mannequin - comical and spooky - while my father-in-law made some choice cuts at the bottom of the trunk.

The bottom did not give way easily. The lower branches clung persistently to a neighboring bush, while the trunk simply defied our direction - as if to say, "if I'm going down, I'm taking one of your houses with me!" It took my father-in-law's crankshaft and five people to finally bring it down. Half a mighty tree tottered towards us, finally crashing with a groan a couple meters in front of our feet.

I had mixed feelings. In a small way, I felt like I was on a team of conquerers, one more victory for civilization and survival, like our ancestors finding fire and making shelter and spearing bison. There was relief that the job was done, that we could look uninhibited across our town and see the mountain dotted with ancient castles (one of the perks of living in Germany). Now, there is sunlight and natural warmth for the house, plus any danger this falling tree could pose in a freak storm was eliminated. There were good reasons to bring the tree down, and I'm gratified by the small way I participated, but there's a strange sadness, like longing, now that it's gone.

The tree lies slain; I can see it from my window. It's a sad sight, perhaps because these great life forms live so long, that to see one lying on the ground is a reminder of our own mortality. My affection for this tree, however, is rooted deeper in human history. Trees have always been a source of food, shelter, refuge, and warmth. I'm thankful that I live in Germany, where civilization and nature are never too far from one another, and I can have my runs through wooded area. To go a week without being surrounded by trees is to give a piece of your soul. Trees show up everywhere in Scripture. Trees holding life and forbidden knowledge. Trees planted by water, and trees withering. A cross of wood, holding One who took our place.

I suspect my father-in-law will saw up the tree and use it for firewood. In the not-too-distant future, I'll join my family for Sunday lunch at the in-law's house. It will be a cold day, and I'll be grateful to be sitting close to the hearth, warmed by burning pieces of the tree, which I helped fall. I'll sit on wooden chairs and eat on a wooden table and eat fruit, all from other trees, trees I've never known. This is not to mention the plants and animals that go into my meal. We live on life. Our bodies are fortified, warmed, and sheltered by sacrifice. We already know this of course, eating and drinking life that we may live. In the mundane things of shelter and food, we are reminded of sacrifice. A cross of wood, holding One who took our place.

Surviving the German Winter Part IV: Temptation

This is part IV of an award-winning*, four-part series on surviving the German winter. You can read part I here, part II here, and part III here. 

Remember your New Years resolutions? New Year, new you and the rest of it? Remember how through the harmonious combination of diet and exercise, you were going to sculpt your body into something that, come summer, will cause traffic accidents outside your house as you flex in your living room with the window open? If you've managed to keep them until now, then let me say this: respect. So many of your comrades have fallen victim to Jack Frost. It's a sick irony that New Years' resolutions are made in the dead of winter. Winter is no season to avoid chocolate. Winter is no season to ride your bike three times a week. You'd be lucky if you can brave the cold enough to get from your office to a fitness studio.

Now don't get me wrong. I've managed to work out during the winter. For a few moments when I step out into sub-zero temperatures to go jogging, I feel like a superhero. I don't feel like a superhero, because I move with superhero strength (nope). I feel like a superhero because winter running tights are the closest I get to wearing a superhero costume in public. If I could find them in patriotic blue with red briefs, I'd be even closer. Mercifully, they're black. The idea is that while running, no one has to see me in them for more than a few moments. Besides, all the Germans wear exercise tights while exercising. Anything less form fitting would be unnatürlich.

***
A brief aside on exercise fashion. When we were back in the States for Christmas, I couldn't help notice how many women wore exercise tights for non-exercise purposes. In the grocery store or around town, the uniform was as follows: exercise tights and tennis shoes (both perfectly clean with no trace of sweat) with a stylish, semi-professional shirt and perfectly placed hair and make up. It was puzzling for these ever-europeanizing eyes. The look suggested, 10K on the bottom, business casual in the middle, job-interview on the top.

***
Ok, winter exercise. Things were going well until one frosty day, I sought to prove I wasn't a Warmdüscher and went running on one of the few forrest paths that wasn't salted. There was only one minor fall, but the awkward running on hard, hard ice was enough to give me a slight tear in the achilles and a week's limp. The doctor gave me some of that magical Chinese tape that all the soccer players are wearing, but the incident was still demotivating. Superheroes don't get small tears thanks to ice and bad form.

I am back to running - carefully - but temptation is much harder to avoid.

This is how it goes: I squeeze my body into my exercise tights and head for the front door when I hear something in the kitchen. It's a voice singing "Baby It's Cold Outside" the way Nora Jones sings it. What is it? Oh, don't play the curiosity card. I know dagum well what it is. It's that Swiss chocolate bar that I was supposedly saving for the moment my ambitions were realized. It's supposed to be my, my reward, for crying out loud! Well... some things deserve a reward. Something like thinking about going running in the sleet. (Big eyes. Pouty face) Just one. little. chocolaty. square. Where's the harm in one tiny little square? Besides, I'm an American! A free person, using my agency to maximize my utility! Why do I need to conform to puritan notions of nutrition? I can have a little taste - just a taste - if I want. Who's going to judge me? If I eat, say one row of squares, I mean, I could devour the whole chocolate bar, but what's the harm in one, harmless row of squares? I mean, baby it's cold outside, and I, frankly, could use a little comfort in trying times (like January or February). I deserve to be comforted, and I don't see why you should judge me!

But what's this? No... Some how, my chocolate bar has found a boy chocolate bar and multiplied. There's a good dozen Swiss chocolate bars that inexplicably found their way into the secret corners of our kitchen. Dark. Milk. White. Hazelnut. Minty. Oh, and Marzipan! No prejudice, just the entire variety of chocolate experience in one snack drawer. I mean, I have no choice but to try them all. It's my duty as a connoisseur to know, to understand all of the tastes! I could write a blog about it, too, and wasn't that another one of my New Year Resolutions? It won't be more than two or (in extreme circumstances) three squares each, and, yes, I know that will all add up to more than one chocolate bar, there will still be plenty left to share with my wife and daughter, provided they come home soon. Speaking of my daughter, I know the packet of gummy bears is her reward for successful potty training, but... she won't notice if a few are missing. You can't accuse me of taking candy from a baby - she's over three! Baby was so a year and a half ago. Oh, and what is that smell? Why, did the oven just give birth to cinnamon rolls? Two or three, while they're fresh. I shouldn't eat too much. After all, I intend to pop open a hard earned Hefeweizen at the end of the day, so I need to save room.

...yeah...

The worst thing you can do for your New Years Resolution is lock yourself in from the blizzard surrounded by candy and beer. Just don't do it. Instead, pack your winter stocks with tomato juice, herbal tea, mandarin oranges, walnuts and whole-grain bread. Also, don't go running when your belly is full of chocolate. And, don't run on the one path in Germany that isn't salted. Take it from me.

*I gave myself the award for best series published on the blog in February. 

Surviving the German Winter Part III: Don't Get Sick

This is part III of a four-part series on surviving the German winter. You can read part I here and part II here. 

The most important thing about the winter? Don't get sick. Ban disease from your presence. Avoid it like.... ok, I won't finish that sentence. Winter sickness is spawned in the floors and desks of kindergartens and elementary schools all over the world, where it's then carried to bus drivers, parents, grocery store workers, office drones and government employees. If you have kids, then, or if you know someone who has kids, or, if you're vaguely aware of the presence of children within a fifty-mile radius of your front stoop, then you need to take the appropriate defense measures.

First, flu shot. It's just a pinch, folks! Then, the teas. Here in Germany, flu shots are under-girded by liters upon liters of Gesundheitstee. Gesundheitstee comes from the German words, Gesundheit, which, you probably know from sneezing, means "health", and Tee, which is how I spelled the word "tea" in first grade (someone should probably point this out to the Germans and get back to them once they corrected their documents). Most of them taste like hot, piping vegetable liquid, which is to say they're delicious. Also, innovate Germans like my wife make tea using real ingredients. You know those tea bags full of ginger and honey flavoring you can get at the grocery store? Well, here's a breakthrough - for roughly the same time, cost and effort, you can make ginger-honey tea using... wait for it... actual ginger and honey, which is a heck of a lot healthier than whatever it is they put in those other teas. Ahh... warm hot tea is just what you need after a day of your daughter using your sleeves as a hankie. Put in a spoon full of honey and open a Charles Dickens book if you're really feeling wild. You can also bathe in the stuff, or try to breathe it to relieve your throbbing sinuses. Just remember, don't drink the tea you bathe in.

Then, vitamins. Vitamins, vitamins, vitamins. Germans have many vitamin-enhanced products, often things you fizz up in water or pills or vitamin-enhanced tea, with various combination for every situation or stage in life. Then, Der Spiegel told us that the Pharma industry was lying to us (the title of the piece translates: "The Vitamin Lie," but they should have taken a page from Dawkins to call it "The Vitamin Delusion," which would have been snappier) and that we could get all the vitamins we need from food. So now, I'm eating less vitamins, except the vitamins that I'm getting from food, which I'm told is plentiful.The way to do this is buy those tennis ball crates they use for practice and fill them with oranges. An orange a day keeps the sickness at bay. At least, until you get sick. I don't recommend using the tennis ball shooter though, at least if you want to use the oranges.

Then, of course, there's prayer. I can't say if prayer gives me some sort of psychological advantage in the face of disease, but that's not the point. I wish prayer worked like a magical incantation, where I get to use supernatural forces to bend the world to my whims. Otherwise, I would have waived my wand to straighten my teeth like Hermione Granger did instead of suffering through five years of braces. It works like this. I pray for my health, which could affect my family's health, or finances and much more, and I find myself trusting God with these issues. This introduces peace into my life. Then, I pray for the health of my wife and my daughter. My wife has been sick this winter, and my daughter could easily get sick and get us sick. But I trust God with this. Some more peace, usually, but even better, praying them leads to think of them more, realize my thankfulness for them, think of them more than I think of myself, and love them in ways even deeper then before. This happens as well when I pray for those in our community, especially for those who've gotten sick.

The problem starts when the prayers turn into actions. I had a roommate who hated prayer. He was from Mexico, and he believed the church there just prayed about problems instead of taking steps to solve them. That hasn't been my experience. The best pray-ers I've known, the ones who've really done it and stuck with it, have been the ones who were quickest to put love into actions. That's why a friend of mine got sick. While another friend and her husband suffered through the flu, my friend took care of their daughter and caught whatever bug they had. I think she's near recovered, but as I write this, my wife is watching her daughter while she's at the doctors office. With such actions, my wife's liable to find herself sick this winter. Which is no fun. I pray she doesn't get sick she's been fighting a cold already. But giving your body for love has a president in Christian history.

Surviving the German Winter Part II: Play in the Snow

This is part II of a four-part series on surviving the German winter. You can read part I here. 

Once the snow comes, the kids naturally want to play in it. My daughter has seen enough Christmas specials to know that as soon as the ground is white, all the neighborhood kids burst out the front doors, armed with sleds and cherry-red mittens. They make enormous snowmen with pipes and coal for eyes (I have never seen a three year old walking around with a pipe and and two lumps of coal, though I guess that's what they all did in the 50s when the Christmas specials were filmed) and toboggan down enormous hills. These are my memories as well. What I don't remember is the battle Armageddon my mother must have went though just to get three kids dressed for the winter. I'm struggling with just one.

It takes about seven and a half hours to dress your average three year for snow. Five of those is just getting her little fingers into those friggin mittens, but the rest consists of several pairs of tights, wooly socks over thins socks, hats not truly designed for children, water-resistant snow pants with zippers to bleed your fingers and the most incomprehensible pair of snow boots in the world (they look so simple, then you try to put her feet in them). Once my daughter is wearing enough layers that I could safely roll her down a mountain with a sled (don't worry, haven't tried it, no plans to), she removes her scarf from her lips and announces that she has to go potty.

With this news in mind, I teach my daughter three choice curse words, and frantically unbutton and unzip enough for her to do her business at the proper way in the proper place. By the time everything's ready to go, of course she's already soiled herself. I can now only sigh and check which of her many layers are salvageable and which need to go directly to laundry. My daughter, then, sees her shadow in the bathroom light and declares six more weeks of potty training. Or, I could just remember to let her empty herself before we hit the sleds.

Of course, we've managed to go out in the snow a couple times this winter. It's fun - watching a little girl discover how snow crunches under her little boot is a reminder of all that is good about life. But it only takes a couple of snowfalls to crush a few of your idyllic snow scenes, and this has much to do with the nature of snow itself. You really can't have it all. Snow that is powdery and good for sledding is rubbish for snowmen, and wet, heavy snow ain't up to snuff when it comes for sledding. The snow is the great decider of your activities, even as your daughter is screaming "I WANNA BUILD A SNOWMAAANNNNNN!!!" Nope! We're going sledding, darlin'! This is after we built a snowman that looked more like a six-inch dollop of whipped cream. Just like in the commercials.

Surviving the German Winter Part I: Salt it. Salt it Good.

I came back suntanned and smiling from my Christmas vacation only to find Germany suffering under a plague of fog and gray. This happens every year, but I tried not to think about it when I was cycling around the big lake near my parents' Orlando residence. A few weeks later, we're adjusting, and as a brave, experienced winter warrior (with icicles hanging from my beard as my huskies struggle to pull textbooks over the Swabian Alb), I feel it my duty to offer the following survival advice for sun-stroked southerners. This is the first in a four part series on surviving the German winter.

When the winter comes, the Germans salt it, and salt it good. I used to live in the Washington  DC area,  and no one bothers salting anything until at least two blissful snow days pass and everything from the local schools to the national government shuts down. This annoyed the hearty northerners, who see snow as an invitation to the office, but for the rest of us, well, hello snowball fight! In this part of the world, there's no difference between work day and snow day. I awoke one morning after it had snowed through the night only to see streets and bike lanes so clear, you'd think the Red Baron had flown over Plochingen in a salt-shooting crop duster. Well, no, that's not how it really happens (unfortunately). As soon as potential snow is reported, salt truck swat teams are deployed all over the nation. They are the salt of the earth, and if the earth loses its saltiness, all the Daimlers slide into the Neckar River causing world-wide economic inefficiency, which is the worst possible thing that could happen. Also, since the cyclists here aren't the kind of Warmduschers who use sub-zero temperatures as an excuse to sit by the heater, the city is kind enough to salt most of the bike lanes as well. Warmduscher literally means "warm showerer" but really means wussypants. In Germany, you're a wussypants if you waste valuable energy resources by heating water to wash yourself.

However, the state doesn't salt most of the sidewalks. That it leaves to the power of collective legal coercion. Back home in the USA, you can spill hot coffee on yourself and and sue McDonald's for millions. In Germany, the quickest way to get rich is to slip on the ice in front of some irresponsible person's (likely, a foreigner) house who failed to salt and shovel before sunrise. Thus, every snow day at 6 AM, Germans of all ages can be seen working like ants to de-ice the sidewalk in front of their house with the harried look we all get when thinking about potential lawsuits.

Even as this excess of salt turns the average snow-on-the-street into a grayish sludge, the snow on the roofs and mountains remains exquisite.  In my sunny Christmas post, I joked about preferring a sunny Christmas to a white one, but a good blanket of snow is better than pretty much any other winter weather north of the Mediterranean. You see, for this southern expat, the worst part of winter has nothing to do cold or ice or frost, but everything to do with the darkness. The sun barely bothers to rise this far north and usually wears gray clouds like a dull fur coat. The lack of light turns the world pale and bleak and lonely. This is worst when combined with that weather we now call "wintry mix." The clouds spew this horrid precipitation that's somewhere between rain and snow and sleet and spit. Temperature and water particles combine as if the heavens are mocking the lack of commitment so pervasive in my generation.

Snow, though on colder days, gives winter a surprising warmth. The mountains and the rooftops are frosted white, and each snowflake works together to catch whatever light their is and reflect heavenward, reminding every pilgrim that in the darkness the sun still exists, and spring will be here soon enough. Let it snow.

Chocolate Eggs

The moment finally came, the spring equinox, the part of the year where the light begins to overwhelm the darkness in the Northern Hemisphere and all the birds start singing love songs. There was a day a few weeks ago where the cafes first opened their doors and put chairs and tables onto Plochingen's cobblestone market street and every child between the river and the top of the mountain went down to the local park (mine included). I saw new friends, sympathized with fellow parents and found out someone had waxed the slide when my brave daughter landed on her bottom three feet (one meter for all you continental Europeans, one metre if you're the writer of the technical English book I use) in front of it. The sun stayed up later, giving everyone color and smiles. (It's not all fun, of course - right now the trees are taking their revenge on my using them for fuel and shelter and lesson plans by warring against my sinuses)

Next week is Easter, and I intend to bite into a big fat chocolate egg (and finally check my Facebook account - what's new?). Here in Germany, they're usually filled with egg liqueur (the taste makes this American think of the Christmas nog), though I hope to get some good Cadbury egg in the mail. You know, the tasty treats that rot your teeth on contact and taste like love mixed with sugar. In any case, I waive my palm in glad anticipation.

These are the feelings of new life: taste, smell, sound, sight, touch. It's appropriate that Christians confiscated pagan fertility symbols for our Easter parties. We eat the eggs and hug the bunnies and then, still shaking from sugar highs and feasting, we go to church and shout, "The Lord is risen! He is risen indeed!" Life renewed. Resurrection. New birth.

This is good news. No, this is wonderful news. Wonderful in the literal since, and I find it especially grand here in Western Europe where people have told me they love the feeling of wonder but refuse to believe in wonder itself. After all, how could anyone rise from the dead, the way Jesus did, the way his closest followers risked their lives to say he did.

It means that things like death, suffering, injustice and evil, results of the fall, however they got here, don't have the final say. These things, present as they are to our senses and our newspapers, as real as they are to our lives, especially those who face the worst of it, do not lord over us. This is wonderful news.

It also means that, however messed up we are (and make no mistake, we are) that there's something about us, in our flesh, in our spirit, in our soul and all we are, that God loves and wants to preserve. God sees it, made in his image. He loves us enough to send his Son to die for us, to take the penalty for our sin, and to raise us with him. Jesus' rising means that we will also rise. God wants to renew us and preserve us, for his love, for his unending pleasure.

This holy week, it's worth stepping into a church to observe the worshippers, the smell of spring and new life in their nostrils, celebrate the wild coronation of Palm Sunday, break bread on Maundy Thursday, mourn death on Good Friday and revel in Resurrection on Easter Sunday. If you find you can't believe in wonder, it's a good week to give it a shot. The awakening flowers, the jubilant birds and the chocolate eggs invite us to do so.

The Train to Stuttgart

One of the best parts of my weekly routine adventure is Wednesdays, when I take the train from Plochingen to Stuttgart. It starts with a brisk, 10-minute run to the train station (hey - I'm a parent and I happen to enjoy breakfast) where I'm usually just in time to catch the Regional Express. The Regional Express only stops three times along the Neckar river before we hit the Swabian metropolis. Sometimes I hit the Jackpot and land an Interregional Express, which is a nonstop trip to the mighty Hauptbahnhof (main train station).

I love speeding through past the Neckar hills as they wake up to the gentle glow of the Eastern sun. The hills and the buildings and the trees get thicker as we approach Stuttgart, a testament to Germany's lively effort to weave nature and civilization. I love that I'm not driving so I can watch them. I love that I can read the enormous book that I got at the library and that I'll regret bringing later as I lug my backpack down Koenigstrasse (hmmm... Kindle?..nahhh). I love that I can go through my prayer cards, which help me better love all of those who I think about and who are not on the train. I love that I can see the people.

People on the train are the best. Students buried in their iPods. Hippie punks with dread locks, patches and tattoos. Businessmen with ties and glasses and important newspapers. A bouncy Japanese woman with bouncy hair who bounces her son on her lap while singing a bouncy Japanese song. It's a strange thing about public transportation. During the commute everyone is equal, united in a sense of purpose and destination. Everyone is close. Sure, we try to be far away, choosing the seat furthest from any possible contact with strangers, especially if we have strategies for when we arrive and which car we take. But eventually, the train fills up and people from every tongue, tribe and nation are packed together like a game of human Tetris. It's awkward, funny, uncomfortable and humanizing. And it sure as heck beats vehicle Tetris on your local highway.

Of course, the camaraderie ends at the train station. That's the moment we stop, well, ok, many moments before, we race to the door like it's a fire drill, everyone aware of the trouble each day has and how everyone else should learn patience.

But before that, there's the serene moment of speeding with a book, a prayer and so many flavors of human to look at. The train speeds ahead like a mechanical wild horse. We run parallel with another train, this one carrying cargo cargo instead of human cargo. It's hard to tell which train is faster, but they both seem to be enjoying the chase. I imagine that they greet one another with a sunrise smile, glowing that they're doing what they were created to do.

Sacred Gummy Bears

My first thought was: "there goes the nap." If you're a parent, you understand. A child's nap is a parents' oasis, the proverbial eye of the storm, the cigarette break on the construction site, a moment where peace reigns once more and you can find yourself finally cleaning the house or doing that extra work or simply ignoring the pile of dirty serial bowls to indulge in reading, music, TV or blogging. To skip the nap is worse than skipping breakfast. To skip the nap is worse than watching your favorite team lose to the last-place team in the division. Not only do you have a cranky kid to contend with, but your chance to ease your day with something soul soothing and life giving has been banished to the bottom of the diaper pale.

Speaking of which, nap killer #1 is what we Americans euphemistically call #2. If a child stinks her diaper after you laid her in the crib, well, forget it. She ain't going back to sleep, and if you don't act fast, you're going to have to send a load of laundry on an emergency wash (followed, perhaps, by an emergency bath, emergency floor scrubbing and an emergency shower).

Nap killer #2 is sugar. It could be fallen nature, it could be genetic disposition or maybe she's just a quick study of her father, but my little girl sucks down sweets faster than a puppies devour a stolen bratwursts. After which, she buzzes around our apartment like a trapped wasp, leaving stuffed animals, crayons and my wife's makeup supplies in her wake. To lay her in the crib after sugar is to risk her kicking through the bars while singing her own medley of "the ABC's" and "The Wheels on the Bus." She ain't gonna sleep. That's why this morning, as my pastor gave each church child a packet of gummy bears (to my daughter's shrieking delight), my first thought was: "there goes the nap."

Today was our special family church service. We met in the morning instead of the evening, and we brought a potluck dinner. The sermon was something applicable for children, and the "children's church" pre-sermon warm up involved a competition for gummy bears. Naturally, all the children, including the adorable two-year olds along for the ride, got their own packet.

I wrote earlier of soul soothing, and I wonder if those gummy bears were good for my daughter's soul. For her, gummy bears are a sweet, joyous occasion, a special treat and a beautiful indulgence. And today, this was associated with church. Church can be an oppressive place for children. A place of uncomfortable shoes, strange chairs and the coercion to sit quietly while an old stranger talks. There is, of course, a place for children to learn to sit quietly and listen - patience is worth learning for any part of life, but there's only so much a little girl can take. Today, I was grateful that my little girl got gummy bears.

In a weird way, these gummy bears reminded me of a deeper, spiritual truth. All sermons, prayers, songs, stand up, sit down, how are you, please be quiets and peace be with you point to something wonderfully sweet. The Gospel, the Good News of Jesus Christ is a wonderful thing, the kind of thing that would cause someone to sell all his possessions so he could have it, the kind of thing that would cause a woman of ill-repute to smash an alabaster glass of perfume at Jesus' feet and perform a bizarre and sensual and public act of worship.

Many (though not all) of those close to Jesus thought he was wonderful. Wonderful enough to leave much behind, wonderful enough to perform these bizarre acts of worship, wonderful enough to run to him the way a two year old runs down the aisle for a packet of gummy bears, uninhibited, unashamed and free. It feels strange for me, two thousand years later to imagine, indeed appreciate this sort of devotion. But devotion to Jesus offers something sweeter than any of the wondrous things present to our senses (though when used properly, these wondrous things point to it). The pastor went on to say that Jesus compared himself and his Kingdom to a mustard tree that gives livelihood and shelter to the birds - he offers us his livelihood and shelter, and he teaches us to give livelihood and shelter to others. He offers forgiveness and reconciliation to our Creator, to him we've sought when we thought we were looking for other things. He offers change in us, that we can learn love each other without ambition, agenda or manipulation, that we can learn love God with all that we are. It's worth running after, reveling in, talking about, thinking about. It's worth tasting.

An update. My daughter ran off her sugar high by following the bigger kids around the church. She went right to sleep at nap time, only to have the moment cut short by nap killer #1.

Notes on a Funeral

1. The Deceased

On December 30th at the age of 90, Oma Lore died. My wife's grandmother was the last remaining on either side of the family. Here is what I wrote about her in an email informing my parents' of this significant event.

I wanted to let you know that [my wife's] grandmother (and [my daughter']s Uroma) went to be with the Lord last night. She passed away in the apartment below us while we were fast asleep after our weary travels. She leaves a big hole in all of our lives - she always reminded me of our Granny, sweet and devout, someone who allowed Christianity to work in her heart her entire life so that she truly loved and treated people well, even as she didn't now who they were. This morning, her nurse (who, not knowing the news, came for her usual visit) told [my father-in-law] that she was one of her favorite patients - a breath of fresh air after treating so many people who spend their last moments bitter and resentful. I'll especially remember her for the pure delight with which she received [my daughter]. The two of them were good friends (and sometimes partners in crime when it came to sneaking chips and sweets). She rarely remembered me, but she always remembered [my daughter], and [my daughter] was always happy to see her. At breakfast this morning, I told her that Uroma is "away" and is now with Jesus. I'm not sure how much she understands, but between the emotion that fogged the room and the all the jetlag, she's been both clingy and especially sweet. 

There's sadness, but there's relief and joy in her parting. She was in a lot of pain, and she had often said that she wanted to go home. We had a sense that she was simply waiting for it to end. [My father-in-law] and his sister gave her so much love at the end of her life, taking turns caring for her that she never needed to be sent to a home and making good use of the flexibility both of them have. That being said, I'm also happy for them that this work is complete. She was, of course, a quiet housemate (and she was old enough that she couldn't hear our music or baby crying or whatever), but we would hear her praying every night.  While age had broken down most of her faculties, she never lost the ability to pray. Every night, she would sit in her bed and talk to Jesus, blissfully unashamed that her neighbors could hear her. Now, just like Mary, the sister of Martha, she's sitting at his feet.

She is on the tail-end of the war generation. The scars of the Third Reich and World War II can still be seen and felt in Germany, but those who have lived through it are becoming fewer in number. One of those scars was on her husbands' eyes. He was just twenty when he was called to defend Germany in 1945, and combat with the Allies cost him his eyesight, bringing him into the community of the Kriegsblinde, war blind. Oma Lore was the nurse who would escort him home from the center where he learned to function. He loved her, and was delighted to learn that they were from the same town. His first marriage proposal was rejected, because she was not sure if he was strong enough in his Christian faith. When my family talks about him, he reminds me of GK Chesterton's thankfulness and wonder. Blindness from a war that wasn't his idea to begin with (and killed some family members) could have embittered him, and everyone would have understood. But he remained thankful for life, working as a masseur, growing his garden, reading Tolstoy and searching for wonder (my wife said he was always great for conversation). He's a model to me, the blogwriter who can dwell on failures, bad decisions and bitter pills. Perhaps that's what convinced Oma Lore to become a blind man's wife. Now both of them stand before the Lord in a place with no war or blindness. Their bodies healed.

2. The Organ

I don't get to traditional churches that often - you know, the ones in the middle of most European towns and in American towns in Norman Rockwell paintings with huge, beautiful towers (we go to a more modern church), but the organ and organist at St. Blasius's in Plochingen are lovely. C.S. Lewis, who cut his teeth on Wagner and classical Greek poetry,  had a bias against organ music and hymns, but my tastes are simple enough to delight in the beautiful sounds which played Oma Lore's favorite hymns to bring comfort to my family. In fact, as someone who plays a mere guitar for church, I was a bit envious that one man could make so many sounds and combine them so beautifully. With almost every other instrument, you need the support of others to reach those deep basses and soaring trebles of competing volumes. One organist, his arms, legs, feet and fingers dancing effortlessly across the great machine, filled the church with the sounds of an entire orchestra.

3. The Sermon

The pastor told Oma Lore's story from her perspective (think what I wrote in the email, but as if he were channeling her to tell it in sort of a spoken-word poetry). It wasn't a theological treatise (though I enjoy those on any occasion) nor was it an old time religion alter call (here I'm less of a fan), but her life was a Gospel message. The pastor knew that by simply echoing her years, he was casting seeds at the hearts of all of us in the pews, shivering in the January cold between pieces of art. I hope we listen.

4. The Cemetery

The Cemetery at St. Blasius's is a beautiful record of history of this town. So many names marked, memorials to the war dead to a classmate of my wife's who lost her life to a car accident a long time ago. Oma Lore's family grave is on the front row, right next to the path. But in one of her later acts of charity, she asked that she and her husband be buried a few rows back. Why? Well, the Germans are very good at tending their graves, and there's a special pressure to keep the tombs on the front row spic and span. She felt that pressure herself with the family grave and didn't want to extend it to her descendents. Of course, given her love for everyone and their love for her, not to mention her husband, I trust that this site will remain well-visited and well-flowered.

We lined up in the rain a few rows back. There was a funny moment when the wind turned my large, red umbrella inside out. Everyone else stood in line and waited to scoop dirt into the grave while I hopped around like Charlie Chaplin trying set things right. Though if I made a scene, no one behind me was in the mood to comment on it. I was in the front of the line, because I married into it. There were plenty of people behind me who knew Oma Lore better than I did. One of the mysteries of marriage is that it's a mystic bond, not just to one person, but to her family as well. My umbrella, properly scolded, was now in place and I leaned against my wife as she, with a beautiful expression (this was a sort of sadness that shown through as beauty) dropped her flower into the hole in the ground.

5. Coffee and Cake

After the ceremony and burial, the family and the guests met at a local restaurant for traditional coffee and cake. This included delicious buttered pretzels and yeast buns with raisins. My 2-year-old daughter, who took her nap during the ceremony, rejoined us. After devouring rolls and pretzels (please, please don't give her coffee!!! I don't think anyone did...) she ran around the restaurant. I followed her, watchfully. Once again, I told her that Uroma was with Jesus. It's still hard to tell if she notices the loss of her good friend, the one who would sneak her potato chips while her health-conscience parents weren't looking, the one who she last saw being carried out of the house by medics. She ran around the restaurant like she would run Oma Lore's apartment, delighting in good food and the attention from older relatives. Having already been through a huge move and a couple of long family visits, she is indeed aware that large parts of her life (like the American side of the family) are not here, but they are elsewhere and can be seen in pictures and skype conversations. At the restaurant, she tested the different steps and doors and tried to sneak into the kitchen. How does a two-year-old feel the absence caused by another kind of distance? The mood at the restaurant was light, all things considered. This was not the funeral of a life cut short, but of a life well lived and loved.

6. Should we mourn?

Sometimes, we Christians become concerned when we find ourselves doing something natural. Often, it's in our pleasure - can we enjoy good food and drink, for example? (Yes, if we do so well) But there's also the question if we should mourn at a funeral. There was a charismatic guy at our high school who would lead prayer meetings at the flagpole. He once said he wanted his funeral to be a big, wild party (and presumably, no frowns). Then he would go on to prophecy about his future children. Less flamboyantly, Oma Lore herself once told my wife not to cry at her funeral. She would be in a better place, and I believe that she is. I wonder if, on her last day, Oma Lore saw a vision of Jesus, scars and all, telling her, "today you will be with me in paradise." 

But mourning has precedent. We know it does, and we ache with the loss of people we know and even some of those we don't know. In the Bible, Paul writes to the Philippians that had his friend Epaphroditus not survived his horrible illness, he would have experienced "sorrow upon sorrow." Jesus himself wept at the funeral of a man he would call back to life only moments later. (C.S. Lewis beautifully pictures this at the end of The Silver Chair in the Narnia series, with the lion/Christ-figure Aslan crying over the death of King Caspian. I wanted to quote it, but it seems my copy of the book is on a different continent.) Death is a final reminder what the fall hath wrought, that this world, full of sin and separation from God, is not as it should be. Death reminds us that it took a death to be reconciled to God, and though death is defeated, though Paul mocks it by asking, "where, o death is your sting?" we cannot help but be sad. There is nothing contradictory in a crying Christian, but our tears lead us to our Comforter. A Christian funeral is a bitter drink of mourning and hope, of sorrow and joy, of cross and Resurrection. We cry, yes, we mourn deeply (it's ok to!), but we are comforted.

Under Familiar Trees

How do you take time to enjoy the familiar?

A general difference between America and Germany is the immediacy of nature. Both countries have excellent forests, mountains, rivers and trails, and a lot of people who like to enjoy them. However, nature seems more immediate over here. In American, (at least in the cities and suburbs) in order to enjoy nature, I had to drive somewhere, but when I got there, I was a good many miles away from civilization. Here, I can get out of my house and walk five minutes and to be surrounded by trees. This was true in bigger cities, not just the small towns. The trade-off, of course, is that when a country the size of Montana has 80 million citizens, civilization is never far off. I prefer the German way, though, for the simple fact that I hike a lot more.

I am getting to know the Hills of Plochingen. They aren't as vast or as awesome (think the King James Bible sense of the word, not the Ninja Turtle) as what we climbed in Austria, but they have a patient beauty. I say patient, because it's the type of beauty that speaks against the Internet age. Now, let me be clear that I like the Internet age. I get to communicate with friends all over the world. Heck, I get to have friends all over the world. I get access to content, pictures and sports scores like like they grow on trees and it's always harvest. And I get to write on the Internet, here in my own little corner of the information super highway! It's like Jimbo Fischer putting me in at tight end for a few plays. It's like Juergen Klinsmann letting me play attacking midfielder at the 80 minute mark during a friendly. Thanks, coach, I'll put myself in! Rudddyyyy! But the temptation is to value novelty over stability, to constantly engage in a frantic search for the next thing.

That temptation sneaked up on me during an unexpected hike. My wife and I drove our daughter to the top of the mountain for a little family time. There's a trail fit for strollers and a few playgrounds up there (plus a track, tennis courts and a biergarten, but we didn't use those). After some family R&R, my wife suggested I walk home, through the woods and down the mountain past all the little houses with apple trees. That day displayed all the virtues of September: summers glory was fading into gold, no longer white hot, now nurturing. The air was cleansed by yesterdays rain. An hour's walk in such conditions was a piece of Eden. But along the way, that Eden was attacked, sabotaged by my own impatience. I wanted to change sites to other trees. I wanted to switch tabs to bigger mountains or click on a link to open up a vibrant cityscape with an edgy soundtrack. And hey, I wanted information. I have big decisions to make, and I didn't feel it happening in all the stillness, rustling leaves and decaying apples. I wanted to read what people were saying: blogs, forums, respected newspapers - these would either inform my decisions or provide a balm from their pressure.

I'm thankful to God that I saw this. He showed it to me. It was then that I could say a firm "no" to my desire to control the scenery. However familiar, his creation is there to love, to appreciate, to enjoy. These dwarf mountains, as innocent as ancient children, these apples trees, bursting with hope and life and taste. Every leaf - a work of art as much as a work of biology. A friend reminded me the other day that it's God who makes us lie down in green pastures, even when we'd easily run off to whatever is next.

Walk a familiar path. Look at a tree or a flower, the one you've seen a thousand times and, with patience (and not without effort), watch the poetry. Feel the tenderness, like a reflection of what an aged lover feels when he sees is wife of fifty years, a reflection of Him who sees us and knows us - every part, every moment - and loves us. This may be a good step in the direction of loving Him back.

Bowmore Islay Single Malt Scotch Whisky “Surf”

The Swiss side of the border. Boasting some of the Alps highest mountains, and presumably some of the best skiing, it also has entire villages that act as airport gift shops. It’d duty free shopping, between Swiss hotels and bubbling mountain streams, you can buy kitschy or profane T-shirts, liquor, jewelry and perfume without being hassled by the taxman. Other than gasoline, which was a good 30 cents per Liter cheaper than what we get in Deutschland, the prices weren’t so outrageously good that we were tempted to max out our credit cards (though other tourists, it seemed, did not share our opinion), but I did take advantage of the to buy some single malt whisky and a small cigar from a certain island country that my home country doesn’t get along with.

Yesterday, the afternoon rains had temporarily cleansed the land of the goopy yellow pollen that had been devouring my body from within. A clear evening beckoned. I took the cigar, the scotch and a my bag of books to the Ferienwohnung’s backyard. Therein, among the impeccable grass and beautiful flowers stands a wonderful building. It’s a combination shed (filled with the necessary equipment for backyard games like badminton) and a kitchen. A lovely stone porch nestles two sides of the building, and I sat down on the side that faced the mountains.

The cigar was mild and modest, a small Romeo and Julia, but delicious nonetheless. The whisky fit perfectly. I developed a taste for Scotch when we lived in a Scottish-American household, but I’m still a novice. My decision at the store was based on no research whatsoever, but was more of that special combination of price and marketing, which influences most of my purchasing decisions. I went with a Bowmore Islay Single Malt Scotch Whisky called “Surf.” Surf is the cheapest Bowmore whisky available on the Austrian-Swiss border. Surf offers your palate “warm smoke, oak and honey, balanced with a hint of zesty lime.” Maybe it was the cigar, but I missed the zest lime, but the rest was true. The smoke flavor was strong and came tantalizingly close to the border of overwhelming, but that’s what made it interesting and, let me say, delicious. It also made it go well with the cigar. With smoke in my mouth, I looked to the mountains. The sun weakened, the Alsp turned purple, to the peace and praise of our Creator. Be thankful for his bounty: evening, mountains, cigars and scotch.

The Mountains Declare

If you ever hike the Alps, don’t be surprised if you see, perched between hay fields and pine forests, small alters to the Crucified Savior. There seems to be one for every grassy field that creeps around the feet of these mountains. They’re like large bird houses, except the front is open and has a small painted statue of Jesus on the cross. Sometimes he is alone; sometimes he’s flanked by Mary and John. At his feet are pieces of grain, flowers or candles, small offerings and prayers.

It’s as kitschy as a Hallmark Card and probably stained by superstition, but in some ways, you can’t blame them. In central Europe, religion is for two people, children and country folk. Children, to get a little culture and values training before they have to take on the real world, and country folk, because, bless them, what do they know about reality?

But, really, you can’t blame them. I know I can’t, because today I hiked the Alps. I hiked, with my wife beside me and my daughter strapped to my back, little creatures on a country path surrounded by a congregation of mountains. The Alps are a congregation, that’s the best way to describe them. These ancient giants stand in a position of wizened and lively worship, and they beckon all who crawl on them, however lost and diminished, to join in.

Worship. Worship beckoned me, hiking the Alps. The Alps are glorious, jagged in a way that comes across as both random and purposeful. They stand as proud equals to the clouds, some bald, some defying July to wear patches of glistening snow. Unending pine trees grow bravely upwards until the point that the mountains are too high and they can no longer grow. They form an evergreen skirt around each mighty hill, a quilt of needle and bark to measure the years. The congregation sings, joys and sorrow, celebrating the summer sun until evening winds cool the daylight passions into meditations of wisdom.

Worship beckoned me. “Heaven is a place that everybody here believes in. Why we have every reason,” wrote American folk singer Pierce Pettis about a town of country folk in Alabama. Hiking the Alps, I could relate to the country folks. I wanted to build an alter or at least find two decent sticks to make a pine cross. I wanted to lift my hands and sing the words of an anointed shepherd. I recognized the handiwork of a Creator, and I knew enough about myself that I knew I needed the Creator to be a Redeemer. I knew that the woman walking next to me, the girl strapped to my back and the passing strangers in hiking boots were his handiwork too, and in the presence of the mountains, my loves for them deepened in their various paths, like the streams of melting snow that carves the wrinkly face of an ancient hill.

Has busyness, disenchantment, noise, pollution or just plain pride left you disconnected from God? Are you hurting from hope, weary of faith and unable to love? Are you doing just fine, convinced that you’ve mastered your life with no pressing need to look up. Hike the Alps. Or the Appalachians. Or the Rockies. Catch a ride to the closest mountain range. Find a path that graciously allows you to climb something much larger than you, something that has been around much longer than you or your family or your city. Hike with your eyes open. How, then, could you not join the congregation? How could you ignore beckoning worship? How could you not relate to the country folk? How could you not become a psalmist, singing, “The heavens declare the glory of the Lord,” “What is man, that you are mindful of him” and “O Lord, our Lord, how majestic is your name above the Earth!”