Midnight Musings

It's my favorite month of the year, right between Thanksgiving and Christmas. The whole season makes me giddy. I've been aching to put up Christmas decorations for about a month now. I know it's silly to have them out while the air-conditioning is still on, but I love the wonder and enchantment that comes with the season.

Here it is, just after midnight, and I'm sitting by our newly-erected Christmas tree. It's not complete...just the lights and ribbon are on. Joy and I are too nervous to put the ornaments on with the dog (he's been all puppy recently) and thought we'd see what he does with a plain tree for a few days before temping him with all sorts of colors and smells. But other decorations are out, and the enchantment has begun.

But as I sit here, I'm thinking everything at this moment is just what it should be. There is a nip in the air, but it's toasty inside. There are candles scattered about our apartment, and I am sitting next to those always-enticing white lights on the tree. Is there anyone else who can just look at a tree for hours, trying to soak in each moment? Maybe that's what I love about this season. In the business and chaos, it always seems to slow me down, especially on evenings like this. I've done some present-wrapping and reading and am listening to my new CD that will surely have a blog of its own soon. The dog is curled up nearby and Joy is asleep on the sofa across from me. Of course, she's wearing her candy-cane pajamas and is just as cute as cute can be. I'm sipping on a nice Chilean Cabernet while I enjoy some brie and tangerine and I wonder why there can't be a "Pause" button for this moment. I find myself not wanting to go to bed knowing that as morning comes, so has the moment been lost to memory.

I hope you join with me in the enchantment this month. It's a time of reflection and revelry, insanity and intimacy, panic and peace.

Thankful Thoughts

I have so much to be thankful for this year. A wife that I love and who loves me. A dog who I love and who loves me. A God who I love and who loves me. Cool, huh?

As if that wasn't enough, I'm really enjoying my internship this year. Granted, it's not ideal to work 30 hours a week and not get paid, but that's life, and at least I'm at a site that I like. The staff are great to work with, and there's a high level of clinical competency and excellence. Wonderful supervision and good trainings. The agency focuses on family treatment and a lot of the clients come for issues related to substance use. The agency is also a leader in experiential education and wilderness therapy, which is a primary reason I wanted to be here. (Not to mention it's a mile from our apartment!)

In addition to my family and individual sessions, I co-facilitate four groups, all of which are very different. Three are on-site and one's in a local school. Also, last month I was able to take part in a training to be certified as a Wilderness First Responder (WFR). Since my internship site does wilderness therapy trips (and hopefully I'll be able to help lead some this year...), they provide training for trip leaders on best-practices in wilderness medicine when in remote settings. The training was intense, but fantastic. I was reminded of my love for the outdoors and getting away from the rest of society. I've just started reading a book titled "The Last Child in the Woods," and the author talks about Nature Deficit Disorder and the current generation's lack of exposure to anything outside. Interesting indeed.

That's just a little glimpse at my internship right now, and it's definitely something I'm thankful for. What are you thankful for?

Another School Year

It’s always sad when the end of summer comes. But I always get this sense of excitement too. An eagerness for a new year, a movement towards change, a willing surrender to challenge. This feeling of raw energy is more palpable this year as I try to arrange the various commitments I have into one lavish meal where each course enhances the other. The main course for me is my internship, which I just started this week. I’m terribly excited about the agency where I will be for the next nine months. OMNI Youth Services is an excellent training facility and known for their innovative practices with adolescents and families. I plan on experiencing tremendous growth as a clinician, and I’m ready to put theories and tests and lectures into practice.

When it comes to working with people as a clinician, I think it’s important that research inform practice and practice inform research. It makes sense, and I want to participate in both throughout my life. Obviously, if I plan on applying to Ph.D. programs (and I do), research becomes the main course. In order to strengthen this part of my application for schools, I am volunteering on two research teams this year at other universities. One looks at speed-dating to gain information on initial romantic attraction; the other studies the efficacy of Oxford Houses as a possible post-residential option in the addictions field. Completely different areas, completely different research, and I’m completely unprepared for both. That may be an exaggeration, but I definitely feel a little in over my head. Hopefully that’s how I’ll learn, right?

So now we have my internship as the main course and I’ll put the research projects as the two sides. Now we need an appetizer and dessert. For the appetizer, I have my comprehensive exams coming up in October as well as the GRE. If I don’t pass the comprehensives, I don’t graduate in May, and then the whole idea of more school is pretty much out of the question. For those of you who don’t know me, dessert is my least favorite part of the meal. Joy hates it, but it’s true. When we go out to eat, if there’s an option of either an appetizer or dessert, I will always pick the appetizer. I like dessert once I actually start eating it, but it never actually sounds all that great (unless of course it’s sorbet or fresh fruit, but Joy says those don’t even count as desserts). So I’m going to put Ph.D. applications as my dessert. It’s a huge undertaking, and I have about 10 schools I’m applying to. And honestly, I’m scared. I’m scared of not getting in anywhere, and I think I’m also scared of getting in, because then it means a whole lot of work and probably six years of feeling in-over-my-head.

The year is off and running. I am ready to go, ready to take it on. I hope I feel the same way in a month or two. I’ll let you know.

Splendid Suns & Surrendering

Summer is drawing to a close, and I’m pleased to announce that I’ve already completed 12 books this summer, and have 4 that are almost done. I’ve done a lot of reading. I just finished reading Khaled Hosseini's captivating A Thousand Splendid Suns, which was heart-wrenching. Such sad fiction, and the sadness is made ever more aching when the fiction is based on fact. This world is messed up, and practical answers seen elusive, even impossible. The story takes place in contemporary Afghanistan, where instability is the norm and horrors are expected. Refugees, children without parents, businesses destroyed, cultures destroyed, all for what? More freedom, less freedom? Does anyone even know? In the story, you see horrible marriages, and I have to think that these horrible marriages may have cultural aspects unique to the story, but I doubt the overall misery is any different from the soulless marriages occupying many homes in America. At times, I wonder if marriage is just a euphemism for slavery and love an esoteric luxury, a commodity to be discarded because human life simply isn’t worth that much.

I also recently finished another book which is focused solely on marriage. Iris Krasnow writes in Surrendering to Marriage about real marriages—ugly, beautiful, worn and redeemed. As a journalist, she interviews dozens of partners, trying to get some handle on marriage in America, and, to no one’s surprise, much of it isn’t pretty. But Krasnow remains dedicated and optimistic, pulling out threads of what it means to make a marriage work, believing that the threads that are worn and tired can make the most beautiful tapestry. The tapestry of her book includes stories of adultery and divorce, resentment and loss, but hope is woven throughout.

These two books are so completely different. One has hope for marriage in America, one depicts a challenging portrait of marriage in Afghanistan. And in both, there’s a desire for love, a desire for honest-to-goodness intimacy. Whether it is found in friendship, parenting, or marriage, it permeates our lives and our longings.

My Dog

I’m in love. With my dog. I can’t help it; it just is. My dog has so many problems, and Joy and I may not even be able to keep him because he’s so troubled, but I just love him. I love him so much that, recently, I’ve begun to sleep on the floor next to the bed just so I can lay next to him as he sleeps. Of course, my wife doesn’t appreciate this, but I do always invite her to come to the floor with us. Can I help it if she always declines? Of course, the funny thing is that I usually am on the floor for all of twenty seconds before the dog gets up and goes to rest somewhere else, leaving me alone wondering why on earth I’m laying on the floor. Joy laughs as I come crawling back into bed, and I thank her for her generosity in taking me back.

But like I said, my dog has problems. I guess you never know quite what you’re getting when you get a dog from a shelter. For the first month, we thought we’d found the Perfect Pup. It was pure bliss, just like the beginning of any love relationship. Then the real colors begin to show, all sorts of ugly shades of gray and black and vomit-is-covering-the-floors cream. You wonder where the vomit comes from? Oh yes, that comes from the day the dog found a 20-pound bag of rice and helped himself to copious amounts before his stomach distended and he began to throw up (and have diarrhea for extra fun) all over our apartment. This was the night before Joy’s first day of teaching this year. It was 1 a.m., and Joy was trying to sleep on the couch, drinking Sprite because her stomach was so upset (it was pretty gross) while I walked the dog until about 3 in the morning and then slept next to the kitchen to make sure the dog didn’t leave the linoleum for the carpet in case another incident were to ensue.

There are other problems. The dog managed to pull a Houdini and break out of his metal crate, somehow destroying a hinge in the escape. He’s a powerful dog and it must have been something out of Shawshank Redemption, but instead of redemption, the dog found a box of chocolates. Joy freaked; I tried to make the dog throw up. And yet the biggest problem is this: our dog tries to bite people. It’s true. I feel bad even typing it—what kind of parent am I to have a biting dog? But it’s true, and I can’t deny it or a friend or unsuspecting stranger may lose a finger or two. We really think the dog simply wants to protect Joy and me and doesn’t know what to do when others are around except keep them away. It’s something we’re desperately working on, and we wonder how long before we simply stop trying. Can’t he be one of those dogs that other people ignore and simply chews on his bone in the corner?

You may be thinking that I should just take him to the shelter and be done with it all. But as I told you earlier, I’m in love with this dog. Just the other day I told Joy that I didn’t think we should have kids because I doubted it possible I could ever love a child as much as I love my Colby. A little sick, yes. A little true, unfortunately. How can I return a dog whose problem is that he loves too much? We’re not quite sure what we’re going to do, but we’re giving it a few months. We want to fight for this dog, because I think in the end he’s worth fighting for. Now all we need is for him to stop thinking that Joy and me are worth fighting for and we’ll be all set. Until then, feel free to stop on by, but you may want to consider ignoring the dog. Or wear gloves. Yes, it’s true that this dog has my heart, but I figure it’s better he have my heart than your hand.

Shelby Flood

Shelby, Ohio is where I went to high school. I (not so proudly) graduated from there in 2000 (with honors!) I was excited to get out, off to the even smaller town of Upland, Indiana. Well, my parents still live in Shelby and unfortunately live close to the river that runs through town. In 2004, there was one flood, and it's been useful for many jokes in the family. Well, there's been flooding again, and it's much worse this time. I thought I would post some pictures for you to see. Bob and Vickers (my parents) were in Nebraska/Colorado visiting my brother and sister-in-law when the flooding happened and flew home yesterday (Wednesday) to a dog that almost drowned, a car that could barely be seen in the water, and a piano and fridge floating in the church basement next door.

Bell: Repainting?

Rob Bell is a popular contemporary figure in the Christian arena. I’ve managed to get around to his first book, “Velvet Elvis: Repainting the Christian Faith” and must admit I found myself disappointed. I’m just not sure he did much painting, and as for repainting, well, I just don’t see it. It’s an enjoyable read, but I felt like I’d already read the book in other places. I think I’d feel differently if I read this book about five years ago, but it wasn’t even published until 2005. In this new era of Christian writers seeking to be relevant/postmodern/generous in orthodoxy, this one just blends in with others who I personally think are either A) better writers or B) people who actually make me think.

I recognize that this review has started off harshly, and I should note that there are moments I appreciate (especially Bell’s approach to the torah Old Testament as it relates to what Jesus did in the New Testament) and I would readily recommend this book to a friend wanting to know more about Christianity and what it might look like to be a follower of Christ.

And can there possibly be a book that has any more paragraph breaks?

They’re all over the book.

One sentence.

And another paragraph.

And the same thing.

Over and over.