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Not (yet) on Oprah’s Book List

The ShackI guess I’m probably the last person to read
“The Shack” by William Young. If I’m NOT the last, and you haven’t read it either, it’s the fictional story about a man (Mack) who loses a daughter in a horrible twist of fate, and as a result, blames God…blah blah blah. The story details how Mack receives a personal invitation from God to return to the scene of his daughter’s disappearance where, over the course of the weekend, he meets with God and eventually reconciles his relationship with him. The location isn’t as plain as it would seem, and neither is his meeting with God. I won’t spoil it with more details.

CareerMom bought this book for me over Easter and as I pulled it out of my basket, she said, “I got it at Sweet Spirit. It was on the Best Seller’s list, so I just got it. I don’t know if it’s good or not.”

Normally, I might believe her lackadaisical attitude about why she purchased the book, but the back cover of the book explains… well…you read it:

shack excerpt

It’s a not-discussed non-secret between CareerMom and I that my personal beliefs about God, while still strong, don’t run towards the “gotta go to church every Sunday” direction and that my frustrations with God generally stem from a seeming lack of interaction (or interest) on his part. Given the facts, I’m pretty sure her wish was that this book would hopefully give me some answers, while guiding me back towards a closer relationship with him. Having read a number of these “Where’s God” books, I didn’t hold out much hope.

Surprisingly, it may actually work out that this book provides some insight, if not actual answers, but not in the way she thinks. This book, a piece of fiction containing “real conversations” according to the author, won’t come as a shock to the millions of us who have grown up and cast aside the traditional religion we grew up with and who, have instead, embraced a more personal God, according to his or her own views of spirituality. It will, and has, cause a visceral reaction among those (like my mother) who believe God is up there diddling his finger around in everyone’s business and who also believe he has a plan for absolutely everything that happens.

The shack doesn’t portray God in a manner that fulfills any one religion’s perfect ideal, and some of the theology taught by “God” in the book would probably give even the youngest Pope a heart attack. What it does do, is tend to bolster the agnostics’ belief that we’ve gotten religion all wrong (and I’m talking about Eastern and some Western religions) and that there are many paths to God and not everyone will get there the same way. The shack portrays God as more a relationship oriented being, rather than a rules oriented being.

There’s a part of me–the part that went to a Bible thumping, fire and  brimstone church when I was a kid–who wants to scream “HERETIC!”, but then there’s another part of me that wants to believe what is written here. But despite all this, what I haven’t found in the book, is a concrete answer about what a person needs to do to gets on God’s eternal good side. Is there a prayer I need to say to ensure I go to heaven? Do I need to get sprinkled with water again, turn around three times and do ten pushups? What?

I’m not quite finished with the book yet and these answers may still reveal themselves. Either way, I have gotten one thing from the book and it came in a very offhanded passage where I don’t think the author was actually trying to make a point; which actually lends authenticity to some of the book’s tenets.

From my own church background, I know that the Bible tells us to model our prayers after the Lords prayer:

  1. start by praising him (“…hallowed be thy name…”)
  2. next comes our submission to him (“…thy kingdom come, thy will be done…”)
  3. then we ask him for things (“…give us this day our daily bread…”)
  4. ask for forgiveness (“…and forgive us our trespasses…”)
  5. ask for guidance (“…lead us not into temptation…”)
  6. Conclusion

In following this, I always find myself thanking God over and over for the same things. In fact, I’d bet most of us use the same prayer playbook–generally speaking–and honestly, I get bored with it and I figure he does too. But, in The Shack, it details how Mack is sitting around the table eating dinner with God and he’s telling God all about his friends and then he says, (I’m paraphrasing) “Hey wait a minute…what am I telling you all this for. Don’t you already know everything about them?” And God answers (again…paraphrasing) “Of course we know, but in this moment, we are turning off that part of us that knows all about them, so that we can enjoy listening to you tell us in your own words.”

I must say that was a bit of a revelation to me. What if that’s REALLY how it works for God? What if each time he hears our cries and our praise, it’s as if he’s hearing it for the first time? Sort of brought back a renewed interest in prayer for me.

So as I finish the book, we’ll see. If I’ve gotten you interested in more, then great. Hope I didn’t turn anyone off though. If you’ve read it, I’d love to hear your thoughts.

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Dad Blogs Family Fatherhood

If it weren’t so funny, I might be concerned

We’ve all seen those heart-rending videos of starving children in third-world countries right? With Sally Strothers doing her best Tammy Faye impersonation all the while imploring us wealthy Americans to donate our money so that the warlords can hijack the relief trucks before they can get to the needy people. My personal favorite is the elderly gentleman with the graying beard, who keeps saying, “Ma-ria” (pronounced: Mah-rrrddd-ah) with an emphasis on the “Ma” syllable.

Anyway, due to my back problems of late, CareerMom has been doing all of the things with the kids that requires bending over, such as putting MLE in his crib and bathing the boys at night. Well last night, I didn’t feel like cleaning up the mess I made from the Mexican dinner I prepared, so I volunteered for bath duty.

Even though I’ve changed MLE’s diapers and such, it’s all been with him lying down. So, I haven’t seen him naked and standing up in about a week. Last night when I took all his clothes off and put him in the bath, he promptly stood up, stuck both hands under his gi-normous belly and started lifting it up and down like some kinda laughing Santa Claus, all the while dancing in the bathwater and cackling like the Joker. I swear, it was the funniest thing I’ve seen in a long time.

Once the hilarity died down, I got to looking at his belly and wondered if there was something wrong with him, because it honestly looks like one of those distended-bellied kids who haven’t had a square meal in years; however, I know that’s not the case, and the kid is happy as a lark now that we’ve gotten antibiotics for his latest dual-ear infection. So I guess he’s OK.

I think the boy just eats a ton. There’s one lady at daycare whose mom runs a greasy spoon joints in town and she brings MLE a yummy biscuit a couple of times a week. Between that and the fact that we switched him to whole milk recently, I guess he’s just putting on the weight. But I feel bad for the little guy cuz he’s built like me and that gut is where I carry my weight too.

Sorry lil’ fella, it doesn’t get any easier! I’m just glad you can laugh about it.

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Dad Blogs Family Fatherhood

Tell me again how smart your child is…

About a week ago, all of us proud parents were exposed to the story about the 17-month old girl who can talk and read. The talking thing is no big deal I don’t believe, but the reading thing is and the coverage she garnered was just a hair shy of annoyingly show-offish to be honest with you (jealous much?). Her parents are both some kind of language experts, so it’s no surprise the kid shows talent in that area. Hmm, since CareerMom and I are both in marketing, does that mean our boys will be great shoppers? Points to ponder.

But this got me to wondering what they do differently at home and what kinds of things are we, and our daycare teaching our own kids. I know that in MLE’s class, they are teaching the toddlers some sign language. The only sign that I see MLE really going to town on, is the sign for “more” and it’s usually in relation to food, “Give me MORE!”

Yesterday, when the kids got home, I checked out their daily activity sheet and MLE’s sheet said, “Today we learned the sign for ‘shoes’.”

Shoes?

Really? How does knowing the sign for shoes help my child? I’d rather he learn how to tell me when he’s about to puke all over my clean work shirt, or when he needs to go poopy rather than filling up his diaper and having it leak out and onto whatever surface he happens to be scooching across at the moment. THOSE are useful signing words to me. Not shoes!

But maybe this is the norm. I pulled the image at the top of my blog off the Internet and as you can see, they teach youngsters all kinds of seemingly useless signs, like “cookie” and “telephone” and “frog.” What can a toddler do with that?

Using this list of signs, I suppose a toddler could sign to someone:

“Mommy, the milk you gave me was too hot, so I want to eat a frog instead.”

OR

“I asked for a cookie and you brought me the telephone, and I said no touch, no touch.”

(you have to be an “Office Space” fan to even remotely get that one).

I don’t know, maybe my expectations for my kids are just really low, but I don’t expect them to be able to wax poetic before the age of two. And quite frankly, I’d rather they fit in with their friends rather than being “that freaky kid” who understands quantum theory at the age of five.

Call me crazy…

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Dad Blogs Family Fatherhood

Beans Beans…Great for Your Heart!

I think we can all agree that no matter how old we get, or how mature we like to pretend ourselves to be, farts are funny! Come on, you want to tell me that if you’re sitting there in a crowded room, and it goes all quiet, if someone ripped one, you wouldn’t snort a big guffaw?

Well, maybe you’ll understand my predicament then. MLI is getting old enough now that when a toot comes out (of anyone), he doesn’t just accept that it’s a toot and move on without any reaction; no, he’s old enough now to rationalize that tooting in public isn’t normally done, which only makes it funny! Right? I mean, if it’s commonplace, then who cares?

Other than sex, is there anything as normal, yet so remarkably un-discussed as passing gas? And why not I wonder? Because it’s so gross? Probably.

A quick Internet search found that there are some people talking about it though. In fact, MythBusters did a show on the myth of “Do Girls Pass Gas?” (by the way, they DO) and there’s a pretty funny MySpace site called, “Coalition for Public Farting (CPF)” where they advocate making public flatulence more acceptable. So, it’s out there, but maybe still not mainstream.

Sometimes I hear married couples talk about it just as normally as might a couple of teenage boys, but I just can’t see myself ever being that comfortable around CareerMom. However, when she’s out of town, and it’s just us guys around the house, well, all’s fair in love and gas!

But, where then do you draw the line with a four year old? He’s old enough to know it’s funny, but is he old enough to quickly decide whether it’s ok to do right before he does it? I don’t think so. He also had constipation for the first few years of his life and we finally got it under control thanks to Miralax, but during that time, we read him books like “Everyone Poops”

and “The Gas We Pass”   , to try and get him to thiink about it as a normal function. Wouldn’t getting all uppity about it now be a little hypocritical of us?

Maybe this is one of those things (like discussing a woman’s age) that a person just has to learn for himself the hard way.  In fact, it’s probably a lot less embarrassing than asking a women if she’s pregnant, and finding out she’s not. Yeah, I made that mistake once.

Given that different cultures approach this topic differently, I’m curious how you folks handle this in your marriage/household. Do tell!