Amazing

Amazing how things change and stay the same…

And lo, I’ve heard the request for more pictures of the boy. I’m working on a function to batch process a bunch of files at once, thus making my life a lot easier when it comes to posting them on the web. Once the function gets written, I’ll post them.

Here’s the scoop:

For those who’ve been praying for a job offer, I got one.

We also got the home equity loan approved, so now we’re 15 years from being debt-free. However, the original loan will expire in 3 years on the house, so we’ll be able to accelerate payments after that.

More later. Life is better.

A response from Steve Henton

A response from Steve Henton

Steve, the pastor who married Laureen and I, was kind enough to respond to my comments on the Disciples Heritage post. He posted his thoughts in a comment, and I wanted to bring them forth and hopefully respond. I have nothing but respect for Steve, so please consider this a dialog more than a debate or fight.
—-snip—-
I have been a part of Disciple Heritage Fellowship for about 15 years. My experience has been that these churches, pastors, and individuals do not have a preoccupation with gays, although they do believe it to be a questionable practice biblically as well as socially. Disagreeing with the homosexual lifestyle is not necessarily judging. As a Christian I’m to let the Bible judge, and if the Bible declares homosexuals to be in a destructive lifestyle, then I must concur. Nevertheless, in the meantime, I will love and pray for them, and have a good relationship with gay friends…some I know are gay, and some I might not know. I treat everyone the same, since God loves us all the same.
As far as the “inerrancy” issue goes…the problem is, is the meaning of the word. It means different things to different people…mostly that it’s a fundamentalist issue, arguing over this sentence or that sentence, and making the King James Bible the one that God wrote.
The way I like to put it, is like this. The Bible is reliable and trustworthy. It was written by truth tellers, not liars and myth makers. For instance, if the disciples say they saw Jesus alive, then I believe them. It couldn’t have been a made up story or they wouldn’t have endured torture and death because they wouldn’t stop preaching it. At some point every person needs to decide, do I believe it or don’t I. If I believe some of it and some of it not, then how do I defend the parts I do and don’t? I mean, which is which? If some of it is true, but the rest is lies, I’m not sure if I believe any of it. I don’t like the conservative/liberal label. When it comes to the Bible, you’re either a believer or not.
Well…
That’s just a few thoughts. Perhaps we can talk in person sometime about all this. I am able to disagree and still like the person I disagree with. I hope you are the same way. Love,
Steve

My thoughts/responses:
1. My comment on the preoccupation with gay/lesbian focus came after reading the disciples heritage website and the material in book form that my mom gave to me about them. Some background is necessary to understand disciples heritage and their place in the whole Stone-Campbell history:

The Disciples of Christ are a very interesting group of Christians. We have local churches, areas, regions, and head offices. However, every single issue that gets debated at a general assembly is ONLY in an advisory capacity. DoC churches retain a large amount of local control, so you’ll have some DoC churches who openly support homosexual people as ministers, etc., and others that won’t. The large majority, like Jesus himself, are silent on the matter. Now, for whatever reason (and it holds across all protestant religions) when you have people attending the general assemblies, they’re usually the ones to take the time and effort to make the trip themselves, and as a result they tend to be “liberal” on social activist issues. Representative of the whole body? Maybe, maybe not. However, they’re the ones that showed up and voted at the assemblies.

In response to this, Disciples Heritage was started as a voice for the more conservative churches, pastors, etc. of the DoC. When it came time for them to have booth space at the general assembly, they inevitably wound up stuck by groups with opposite opinions of theirs (such as GLAAD, or pro-choice positions, etc.) In that aspect, we can point to the DoC leadership making some bad choices, whether intentional or not. Thus, we have conservative groups feeling that their place at the table has been co-opted in a denomination that prides itself on serving “all who come to the table.” And when they can’t get their concerns on issues heard, or they’re overwhelmed by the activist majority at the assemblies, splits occur.

It’s my opinion that lately the leadership of Disciples Heritage has taken more conservative stances on issues. Whether that extends to individual churches or not, I don’t know. Perhaps they follow the DoC system of letting individual churches make their own rules. 🙂

So, there’s the nutshell background. As an example of a typical confusing area assembly, there were three resolutions proposed recently:

1. To allow openly homosexual people to be ordained.
2. To not allow openly homosexual people to be ordained.
3. To not let “1 single issue” be the reason why a person isn’t ordained.

1 failed. 2 and 3 passed, even thought they contradict each other. Such is the joy of a decentralized, advisory denomination.

Giong back to Steve’s comments, he mentions belief in the Bible in terms of inerrancy. There are several issues that I have with this, although I admire it as a simple test. The problem is that the Bible, although inspired by God, was written, edited, translated, paraphrased, etc. by men, each of them with different ideas about God, Jesus, and the world. We have two creation stories in Genesis. Which one am I to believe? We have the issue of when Jesus becomes divine being split among the four gospels: baptism, birth, or His being eternally divine. What am I to believe? Will God smite my enemies who aren’t Christians like He did for the Israelites? What words am I to believe? What about the aprocryphal books?

And on the subject of biblical authority regarding homosexuality (and other issues), this link goes into better detail about the issue than I can.

Anyway, those are my thoughts. I’ve rambled a bit.

The kinda stuff that’s been on my mind

What’s been on my mind lately

Well, it’s money. Pure and simply put, Laureen and I are deeply in debt, much deeper than I’ve ever been before, and I hate it.

I’ve often wondered why I worry about money so much. Laureen has a much different view about money, and she seems to be OK for the most part about things. Me? Yikes.

A large part of our money woes result from two things: one a choice, the other not a choice.
1. My being a contractor. (The “not a choice,” in case you were wondering.)
2. Laureen’s not working.

The combination of these two events leads to the following:
1. Catastrophic coverage for health insurance. That in turn leads to
2. Paying full price for doctor’s visits, medicines, etc.
3. Regular visits to dentists, etc., are more and more expensive.

Apparently, credit card companies know that approximately every 3 months or so, you’re going to have an event occur in your life that will require a larger than normal outlay of money. This could be a car repair or accident, or a sick child, or Christmas, or goodness knows what. The effect of it is that even if you establish a budget and begin to dig out of that hole you’re in, here comes the emergency, and there you go, back dependent on a credit card.

Right now, I’m shuffling debts between four credit cards with “low” or “no” interest. Our long-term solution is a home-equity loan to consolidate the debt. Again, that leaves a really bad taste in my craw, but what else am I going to do?

The other side of the coin, the one where Laureen and I have to work a lot harder, is the budgeting aspect. And again, I’m stymied. I think I make a decent amount of money, certainly more than my parents make (and that’s a crying shame, because they’re both smart, intelligent, and talented people), but when I look at any proposed budget for us, I can’t help but hate it, because it means that I’ll have to change some part of my lifestyle, and frankly, I don’t want to do that. I like my cable modem and my satellite dish recorder. But there are cheaper options, especially on the broadband internet side.

I just want to know if this discipline and sacrifice is going to be worth it. If it lowers my stress level, if it keeps me from panicking in the night, if it keeps me from the constant, dull ache of worry that I feel, then it’ll be worth it. It’ll just take a lot of getting used to.

A few things that have been on my mind

A few things that have been on my mind

One of these days, Credant will hire me.

One of these days, we’ll get the home equity loan.

Everything seems to be “one of these days” for me right now. I feel so frustrated trying to start anything because I’m never sure if it’s going to stick. So I do a little every day.

My mom and dad now go to a Disciples Heritage church, a group that has ostensibly broken away from the Disciples of Christ denomination to which I belong. I was reading some of the literature describing the reasons for breaking away from the disciples, and basically, it boils down to:

1. Homosexuality is bad.
2. Certain DoC congregations permit homosexuals.

This is all wrapped up in the codewords “liberal theology” and “biblical inerrancy,” and it drives me nuts. In Luke 6, Jesus stated pretty plainly: ?Do not judge, and you will not be judged. Do not condemn, and you will not be condemned. Forgive, and you will be forgiven. Give, and it will be given to you. A good measure, pressed down, shaken together and running over, will be poured into your lap. For with the measure you use, it will be measured to you.?

So where’s the outrageous love that shocks the world? Where’s the eating with tax collectors? Where’s the healing the sick and poor? More people are turned off by Christians who judge others in any context, from Focus on the Family to Fred Phelps to goodness knows who else. We have entire subcultures of media devoted to preventing people from touching and encountering the real world, the one that looks at organized religion in any form and laughs at how farcical it’s become.

Sigh. I just had to write while it was on my mind.

No, I haven’t fallen off the face of the earth

No, I haven’t fallen off the face of the earth

Just awfully tired these days.

I’m chairman of FCC Richardson this year. This normally wouldn’t mean much, but this year is tough. There’s so much to do, and not enough time to do everything. This morning I went over to fix the church secretary’s PC, since it wasn’t able to send email out. Got that fixed. There were two profiles set up on the system, and it kept defaulting to the one that didn’t work.

I’m still at work right now, waiting for a build to finish. That takes two hours, and then I have to go into defect verification mode.

Jacob is feeling better. We had our nine months pictures at Sears. He’s too cute for his own good.

How do I wish I could just go home right now….
But there’s bills to pay, and therefore there’s work to do.

New Year’s Eve Party

As many of you know, tomorrow is the 31st of December. This day is a day for remembrance, for celebration of the year’s accomplishments, and for quiet comtemplation about what will happen next year….

Ah, forget that. If it’s New Year’s Eve, that means there’s chili at the Joneses!

This year is going to be slightly different from years past. Instead of waiting until midnight to celebrate New Year’s, we’re magically transporting the Jones house to the capital of Greenland, Nuuk.

Ah, yes, Greenland! The country where 85% of the land is covered in ice! Where almost the entire population (except for the foreign geologists) works within 10 miles of the coast! And more importantly, the capital is 4 hours ahead of us.

Thus, our New Year’s Eve will be at 8 p.m.

The party starts at 5 p.m. Chili in three types will be served: red, white, and green, all ready by 6:00 p.m.

Kids are more than welcome. We’re not hiring babysitters this year, so it’ll be a free for all.

IF YOU WANT TO COME: great! bring whatever!
IF YOU DON’T WANT TO COME: great! don’t bring whatever!

The traditional singing of bad songs will commence at 8:01 p.m. The traditional popper battle will commence some time after that.

And we can guarantee that anyone who shows up will get to hold Jacob or play with him.

Please note: all are welcome to stay as long as they want, even to midnight, but there’s no guarantee the hosts will be awake.

Our Christmas

Our Christmas

Well, it’s been not exactly fun at the Jones’ household over Christmas this year. Several factors contributed to it, but here’s the brief rundown:

1. Lack of Christmas traditions. Laureen and I discovered that pretty much every Christmas had been spent somewhere else. We barely have the tree up, and the ornaments that would normally go on it are probably hidden in the attic. Now that Jacob’s here, we’re having to redefine our traditions in the sense of “What the heck do we do at this time of year?” I’d appreciate any ideas.

2. Jacob’s health. As some of you knew or didn’t know (wait, everyone in the world falls into one category or the other), Jacob started having a series of health issues around Dec. 22. Laureen got him into the doctor, and it turned out he had thrush. For those of you unfamiliar with childhood diseases (or have conveniently blanked them out of your mind since your kids are beyond them), thrush is a yeast infection. Pretty nasty. We got medicine for that.
December 23: Jacob gets a 102 degree fever, but doesn’t seem like he’s hurting or anything.
December 24 morning: Jacob becomes a bit listless. Fever’s still there. We call the emergency line, they advise acetominophen and ibuprofen alternatingly taken.
December 24 afternoon: We go to see the doctor. We pay $100 to be told, “There’s nothing visibly wrong.”
December 25 early morning: Jacob’s temperature spikes to 104 degrees before coming down.
December 25 day: we give him medicine and worry.
December 26 early morning: Jacob’s temperature spikes to 105 from 102 in the course of 20 minutes.
December 26 afternoon: we go to the referred care center at Children’s Hospital and spend 5 hours in an examination room. The doctor tells us “There’s nothing physically obvious.” So they do tests: blood tests (for which they stuck both of his arms (sniff), urine tests (for which he was catheterized (all men must now lower their hands to their waist and cringe for a moment)), and mouth and nose swabs. We’re told that the blood and urine aren’t showing anything, but we should consider giving him a shot of antibiotics just in case. We agree, then we wait another hour for the shot to be ordered and done. We then have to wait 20 more minutes in case there are any reactions….

There is nothing that hurts more than to see your child sick. There is nothing as painful as knowing that you have to poke and prod your child with needles, wake them up from naps, etc., to get them to feel better.
December 27 afternoon: return to the regular doctor (actually, the on-call regular doctor). The swabs came back: he has a cold.

That’s it. A common cold.

Did we do the right thing? Yes. We couldn’t have lived with another night of high fever, and we’re entitled to moments of panic as first-time parents.

3. My having to work through the holidays: this is the first year that I’ve had to work the week between Christmas and New Years’. Either it was a holiday, or I took vacation time, or I was out of work. None of those are really viable options this year.

Anyway, that’s the catch-up.

updates

updates

I’ve been working a lot on the OEDILF lately.

Jacob’s getting big. Wow.

Life’s pretty good.

Right now, I’m just really busy and don’t have time to do more of an in-depth explanation of things.

Short version:
We’re applying for a home equity loan. Joy.
I’m becoming chairman of the church next year. Joy.
The vehicles keep on breaking ever so slightly. A hundred here, a hundred there…. Joy.
Jacob has two teeth now. He likes avocados but doesn’t like green beans.

Random musings

Random musings

Wonderful article : How Not To Dress For Work

Jacob: cut both teeth, finally. He likes hopping. A lot.

We’re going to Varekai tonight. Whee!

Life’s pretty good.

Thanksgiving: while I love my family, having 22 people in the same house can be cramping. Maybe I’ll feel different about it later, but I much preferred Friday and Saturday, when we went back over to my Mom and Dad’s to play cards and games with my brother Jim, his wife Pam, and my Mom and Dad. Jacob was a lot more agreeable Friday night as well (of the three of us, he’s the only one who slept through the night).

Mom, you really need a new bed in the master bedroom. How about one like this?

Sunday, I played Joseph at church, giving the first advent message. It’s interesting reading about Joseph, since for such an important man, he has no recorded words in the Bible. However, his actions speak much louder than mere words do. When faced with an embarrassing situation, he listened to God and followed instead of taking a more convenient way out.

If you’re looking for Christmas ideas, try here.

Smooches to the pooches,
Kevin

Some updates

Some updates

Jacob: doing fine. Got his flu booster shot. Big boy.

Laureen: doing fine. Starting to work out on a more regular basis.

Computer: Larry came, hooked his multimeter up to it, said, “It works,” and put it back together in working order. Sigh.

Picture flood coming soon once I figure out a few more things.