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Heaven in a Pool

I tend to think too much. Because my mind is always thinking I am continually finding something to worry about. Unfortunately I have found that this habit causes me to spend my time in the present focusing on the past or future. Changing this tendency has not been easy. However, once in a while time stops and the present suddenly comes into focus.
Yesterday time stopped for a while. Or maybe real time started? We had our first water babies class at Harding High School for Miriam. Becky had signed me up to go into the water with Miri and like most things I complained a bit about doing something that was out of my routine. And I worried...Would I be the only father? Would I have to do something wierd? Where is my swimsuit?
A funny thing happened when we entered the pool with that small group of fellow water babies participants. Some of the kids were a little aprehensive, some clung to their mother's or father's neck, some broke a slight smile. However, Miriam was totally ecstatic. Now she always enjoyed taking a bath but this venture into a swimming pool brought out something different, pure joy. While she grinned from ear to ear she splashed repeatedly while neighboring babies looked over with faces of uncertainty. It was impossible not to get caught up in the joy and look to the side of the pool and share smiles with Becky. Parents who I wouldn't have talked with on the street corner were suddenly part of our community. Miriam was happy, I was happy, and the smiling woman on the side of the pool, who I married a little over three years ago, was happy. We were alive in the present.
I think times like these are the times we get a glimpse of God's time, eternity breaking into the present. The already-not yet of the christian faith. I think back to those playground days in elementary school, those long points in high school and college tennis, the pickup basketball game at the local park, dancing in the living room with Becky and Miriam while Jack Johnson plays on the cd player. Those all too rare of times when we get caught up in play and our focus on external time slips away. Worries slip away, our focus on careers, our security, our death, all the constant mental commentaries drift to the back of our consciousness.
For someone who struggles with living in the present it is good to have these sorts of experiences. In my life of thought I need to remember to play. To know that God is there in those special moments of joy in order to ease those times when life is painful, the days too long and the nights too short. I need to live in expectation that once in a while God may show up and help me live in the present. I just might experience heaven. Maybe even in a pool. Ken

Capote

Last night we picked up our third free movie in the last two months. We hardly rent movies anymore so The Movie Gallery called us for the third time to come in and get yet another free movie, not a bad deal. We rented Capote. The only thing that I knew about Truman Capote was that he wrote "Breakfast at Tiffany's" but I had no idea that the movie would cover his book "In Cold Blood". Anyone who knows me knows that I am very affected by the darkness of the world - images, even fictional ones, can stay with me for weeks. Stories of murder, rape, child molestation, etc can leave me disturbed for days. Now Kenny, on the other hand, likes haunting images to stay with him for days and weeks; he likes the intensity that a heavy movie can bring to life - making one feel deeply, breaking up the mundane and monotony. Anyway, for the most part I am left troubled by many movies that remind me too much of the news.

So we watched Capote - not graphically troubling but conceptually troubling and yet thoughtful. Capote, a bit odd himself, is drawn to this cold blooded murderer and in some ways identifies with him - at least one is left to believe this although Capote's character is somewhat ambiguous at times. After discussing a very difficult upbringing with this murderer and identifying with the murderer's own rough childhood, Capote says while confiding in his friend Nelle "we're not much different, it's like we grew up in the same home yet he went out the back door and I went out the front door." This quote has been stuck in my head. Perhaps it stems from my own 3 month study of suffering, questioning why suffering brings out amazing things in some folks but completely destroys others. A small choice becomes something like the continental divide sending one either of two very opposite directions. It fascinates me and completely leaves me perplexed at the same time.

I told my brother Matt the other day that during my senior year in college I was taking a class called "Christians Within Culture - An Original or a Photo Copy". The title gives it away but for those who may still wonder what we covered in class it was basically about being authentic - not your run of the mill cookie cutter Christian. Well, one day during class a friend of mine said to my professor in front of me "Becky is so nice" and my professor responded very seriously "I'll bet she's not as nice as you think". I was shocked - but at the same time I kind of thought after the initial daze wore off "how does he know!?" It's true - first of all what is niceness but something we label people who are agreeable to the point of sacrificing their own true integrity. It's not the same as kindness which doesn't always look nice. I'm sure in Rwanda their were many nice Christians who lived in harmony for a time until the anger about their different ethnicity's got the best of them and suddenly the "Christians" were axing their neighbors. This brings me back to the above thoughts - what makes us and what breaks us? When we are tested, truly tested in life by horrible events that touch us so deep or threaten us or our families will we then show real kindness, forgiveness, grace or will we show hatred, anger, betrayal. Will we go out the front door or the back? Just some random thoughts to get our blog started. Becky