Jogging with Jesus

Trey's latest addiction is walking in the street in front of our house.  He likes to walk in the middle of the street, bark like a dog, and then wander in the direction of anything that answers.  And most times, I'm happy to just be daddy-in-the-background- close enough to keep him from doing anything stupid, but far enough back that he's free to roam.

This afternoon, while Trey was a-roamin', a jogger went past.  Not just any jogger, mind you, but one of those super-fit Adonis-types with no shirt who has a body that makes me instantly aware that I am in my mid-30's and incapable of even the mildest athletic feats.  This jogger went past and caught Trey's eye.  Trey watched him round the corner, then tucked his little head down and took off after him as fast as he could toddle.  I love my little boy's confidence.

When I was reflecting on that story this evening, I realized that I tend to think of Jesus that way- he's our great example, the perfect runner, taking great strides and showing us how it's done.  And I'm the little toddler who runs with all his puny might, with no hope of really catching up, but happy to just be going the right way.

It's sad how much I think of Jesus that way and how seldom I picture him scooping me up and carrying me as he runs...

Pardon My Introspection...

I just finished my first 2 days of seminary classes.  I feel...predictably let down.

Don't get me wrong.  I actually enjoyed the classes, and it's been great reconnecting with old friends, making new friends, etc.  What you need to understand is that I've been looking forward to this day for about 14 years, and seldom do things live up to that kind of anticipation.  I knew I was going to feel this way.

A quote from Kierkegaard that has stuck with me for years is: "Pleasure disappoints, possibility never.  And what wine is so foaming, what so fragrant, what so intoxicating, as possibility!"  What he is saying is that when things are still in the future, still just in the realm of the possible, then we imagine them to be maximally satisfying.  Once we experience them, even though they are pleasant, they inevitably fail to match the joy we imagined.

So I had some great classes- thoroughly enjoyable.  I'm glad I'm here, I'm thankful to be here, and I am genuinely looking forward to my studies themselves, not just as a means to an end.  But at the end of the day I felt like saying "was that it?"  It's a human tendency to put unreasonable expectations on the people and events and experiences of our life- expectations we borrow from an imagined reality.  Expectations fueled by movies and books and other narratives that describe only the Possible, not the Actual.  And so our marriages, our jobs, our friendships, our lives feel so common when measured against the Possible.  We feel let down or even disappointed because they're not as amazing or as perfect as we imagine they could be.  

Imagination is a great gift, but it is also our greatest liability.  And it is the greatest enemy to our contentment.  And without contentment there is no happiness.

So today I think about the promise that there is a Day coming that cannot possibly disappoint.  A Day that is not worth comparing to anything in our present experience.  A Day that far exceeds all that we could ever ask or imagine.

I don't care if the glass is half empty or half full, I want to know who drank my water!

It's one a.m. and I just finished studying for the night.  Specifically, I just finished memorizing the paradigm for present passive indicative contract verbs in koine Greek.  Don't you wish you had my life?

Seriously, though, before I head to bed, I'm doing my part to keep this from becoming a total mommy blog :)  Heading to bed, I'm thinking about the past few weeks, of which our dying car was only one of several dramatic episodes.  And I'm realizing that I'm still struggling with perspective.

Lately, when people ask how I'm doing, all I can think about are the rough patches of the past few weeks and months.  I even told one naive would-be small-talker that I would defer answering his question until next week, when I would hopefully have a happier answer to "how was your weekend?"  And let's face it, the past few months haven't been easy on the emotions or the pocketbook.

But that's not even half the story.

For every trying moment, for every loss, for every stressful day, there are corresponding and conquering blessings.  Our car died, and we've had new friends and classmates loan us their vans until we could get a more permanent ride.  Our housing situation was up in the air for way too long, and in the end we landed in a great house with amazing landlords.  Unpredictable appliances and sick kids cut into (or totally cut off) my study time, and yet I'm still doing well in class.

I'm not talking about mere silver linings in the midst of our frustrations and losses.  These are the signs of God's abundant blessings in our lives.  And yet I always think first of the dark spots. I wonder if we've become so caught up in the entertainment value of drama in film and on TV that we seek to highlight the drama in our lives.  Life has drama, to be sure, and some lives have more of it than others.  But if all we focus on is the tension, the unfulfillment, the disappointment, then we aren't being true to the whole story.

I want to tell the whole story of my week- not in all the details, both mundane and extraordinary- but the story with all its contours.  I don't want to talk about the low points just for the sake of dwelling in them, but only insofar as they take me back up to the high points of God's redemptive work.

I'm not there yet.  Thankfulness takes discipline.  In the meantime, I may need to stop deferring answers and simply affirm to the people around me that God has been good to me.  Better than I deserve, better than I understand, and better than I'm willing to admit.

Reading this Post Will Be a Waste of Your Time, I Promise.

Seriously, I'm warning you.  The only benefit I gained from writing it was that it may have been a bit cathartic.  You will gain no benefit from reading it.  A father should never spend so much time thinking about his kids' TV shows...

Once your kids start watching TV, you soon realize that their standards of a good show aren’t like yours or mine.  I look for an engaging plot with either humorous or suspenseful surprises.  I want believable characters, realistic dialogue, consistent narrative flow.

My daughter wants to watch Donald and the Beanstalk 10 times a day.

If not that, she wants to watch the episode where Goofy gets turned into a baby.

My son just wants to get up and do his adorable baby dance when the "Hot Dog Dance" music begins.

I’m speaking, of course, about Mickey Mouse Clubhouse- an educational, entertaining, computer-animated cartoon aimed at kids my daughter’s age.  In each episode, Mickey and friends must solve a problem using various “tools” supplied by the freakishly prescient “Mousekedooer” and brought to them by the subservient, ill-used, and (we later learn) emotionally-stunted machine named “Toodles.” 

The problem is, being more deprived of grown-up conversation than before I had kids, my mind starts to pay too much attention to the cartoons.  Way too much attention.  And I start to apply some of the skills I picked up studying philosophy to evaluate what’s going on in the Mickey Mouse Clubhouse Universe.  There are about 100 episodes, I’ve seen about 80 of them (not counting repeat viewings of the same episode).  I've seen so much of this show that I tried to correct an error on its Wikipedia article (someone went back an undid my correction, but they're wrong.  So very wrong).  Suffice to say, I have thought way too much about this show.

For example, I find myself concerned at how the character Pete the Cat is portrayed.  In early episodes Pete is often made out to be that “slightly bad guy” (more on that concept later).  He is greedy- often charging admission into various locations that Mickey and friends find themselves.  It is interesting to note that no one questions Pete’s right to charge admission to the public park, the lake, the Ferris wheel, etc.  It seems that his authority is legitimate, or else his size answers for him (he’s the biggest anthropomorphic character, and aside from Willie the Giant, the biggest character on the show).  Though it is never stated explicitly, one gets the sense that Pete is ‘trouble’- he’s in the way, he’s “that sneaky Pete.”  But in reality, Pete is one of the only characters in the Mickey Mouse Clubhouse universe who actually works for a living!  He’s industrial, entrepreneurial.  Without Pete, there’s no way to buy stamps, ride a boat, buy a hat and tie, etc.  No one else on the show ever seems to work for a living (aside from Clarabelle cow, the special events emcee and the proprietress of the “Moo Mart”- which, I assume, uses her own milk- gross!).  For Mickey and friends, the world is a playground, life is a frolic, and anyone who tries to make a buck is just getting in your way.  That seems to be the message we get.  While Mickey and friends are having “friendship day,” “do your favorite thing day,” or “art day,” Pete is hard at work, keeping society running smoothly.

Yet for all his hard work, Pete is the closest thing the show has to an antagonist.  If the plot requires someone to cause problems, Pete’s your guy.  But what I’ve noticed is that Pete seldom (if ever) is portrayed as intentionally malicious.  Even when he’s at his worst (trying to steal a recipe, dog-napping Clarabelle’s dog, etc.), in the end we see that he’s just craving some attention, he’s going about things the wrong way, or he just got carried away.  When caught causing trouble in the episode “Minnie Red Riding Hood,” Pete explains before dashing off, “Sorry, I can’t help it.”  Pete is the victim of his own misbehavior!  In most cases, you are supposed to feel sympathy towards Pete.  The same could be said for Willie the Giant, who in earlier episodes is sometimes an antagonist (until Mickey gets to know him, then they become friends).  In the episode “Donald and the Beanstalk” (which supports a disturbing view of right and wrong that I shall address at another time), it turns out that the big scary giant really just wants (spoiler alert!) something to hug.  The overall message seems to be that there really aren’t bad people.  If you think someone is bad, they’re probably just misunderstood.  In most cases, the only real antagonist is our circumstances, which we overcome through teamwork and creative use of resources.

 Well, that's a few initial observations.  Some possible topics for future entries:

Magic, Technology, and Professor Ludwig von Drake

Minnie, Daisy, and Clarabelle as Female Archetypes (or Why Minnie is Good for Me but I’m Hopelessly Drawn to Daisy)
The Theft of Boo-boo Chicken and Other Acts of Questionable Morality
The Suspension of Physics within the Clubhouse Universe

Character Size and Intelligence- Inversely Proportional?

The Portrayal of Non-Anthropomorphic Animals as a Servant Class

Toodles- The Emotionally Needy Machine

Boy Characters Don't Touch Girl Characters (or "We Plan to Market this in a Very Different, Very Conservative Nation, Which Also Explain Why You Never See Any Words or Letters on the Show")

Comparisons and the Insecure Daddy

It's hard for me to watch people's reactions to Cosi. She's developmentally delayed- physically, mentally and emotionally. So when I see other parents reacting to her misbehavior, or when I see the concerned looks when she is obviously not acting like a 'normal' 4 year-old, I feel defensive.

April, too, feels defensive, but she feels defensive of Cosi, which is a lot better than what I tend to feel. I feel defensive of myself as a parent. Especially in East Asia, where I need to be the primary communicator for our family, I end up being quick to explain to everyone that Cosi is adopted, that she was in an orphanage for 3 years, that she has been in our home for only 9 months, and that she is really doing very well, considering all that she has going against her.

I want people to know that I really am a good parent and that when my daughter hits a child who gets too close to her, it's not because she's mean but because she's scared. She doesn't understand or answer most of the questions people ask her in English (let alone in East Asian) and that doesn't mean she's rude or stupid or that I'm slacking in teaching her. She's only been learning these languages for a few months! And usually she's just so happy to be around people that she can't focus on what they're saying. So I overexplain and try to justify my child, lest someone think less of me because of her.

And it is hard to watch other 4 year-olds (and even 3 year-olds) and notice the ways in which Cosi is delayed. Sometimes, though, the comparisons are helpful. I tend to blame all her problems on her history, but sometimes she's just being a normal 4 year-old! Four year-olds grab toys, disobey, refuse to eat, make messes, and act...well...childish. As April sometimes jokingly reminds me when I'm disciplining Cosi for something petty, "You're right Rob, how DARE she act like a little kid!"

*Sigh*

So it looks like I'm projecting my perfectionist tendencies onto my daughter. It looks like my struggles with grace and the gospel will continue to affect those I love. It looks like Cosi will suffer for my insecurities.

She really is doing well. Every day I need to pray again that God would enlarge my heart to accept and love her as she is, even if this is as far as her development goes. And day by day I'm encouraged by the growth we see, but afraid that this is as far as it will go. So the next step is to learn how to stop giving a hoot about what other people think of my daughter (and of me as a parent) and remember to show grace to my daughter...and to myself.

kiddie rides and giving...

The other day, while we were exploring our neighborhood, we passed a convenience store with 2 of those kiddie rides out front. You know what I'm talking about, right? Those large rides shaped like cartoon characters that will jerkily move your child back and forth while playing a poorly recorded kids song, all for the bargain price of less than a quarter. Well, Cosi just loves those rides and begs Daddy for a coin whenever she sees one. And she wants to ride them again and again until Daddy runs out of either coins or patience.
So the other day, when she ran over to the rides and asked for a coin, it was no surprise. While she was riding, a local 2 year old boy came over and climbed onto the ride next to Cosi. Neither he nor his grandmother had any coins on them, but no problem- most kids here are content to just sit on the ride, even if it doesn't move.
Cosi, on the other hand, started asking for another coin before her ride ended. It seemed like she was making a preemptive request to keep her ride going. But much to our surprise, Cosi took the second coin and reached over to the boy on the other ride, giving it to him to use for his ride. We were awestruck- where did she learn that? We were so proud of our little girl and her kind heart.
In the interest of full disclosure, we should mention that in that same week, we bought some fruit to give to local beggars on the street, and Cosi refused to surrender her bag of fruit once we got to the beggars. She had to be "helped" to share that time. I guess that's just a picture of us all- growing in grace, but still inconsistent. Don't judge us by our worst moments, but neither should you judge us by our best. In the end, though, the beggars got fruit, the boy got a coin, and Cosi (we hope) grew a little bit more into a generous, caring young lady

Remembering...

We took the kids to the grave site for the first time. I'm sure it'll be the first of many times. This was a quick visit, but in the future we hope to be able to tell our kids all about their grandpa Bob and grandma Patty. Oh, how excited Bob & Patty would have been to meet their grandchildren! We're pretty sure they would have loved seeing Cosi run around to the different graves and try to pull up the flowers...

They would have loved Cosi's vibrant personality and how she shares the same skin color as her grandma. They would have been thrilled to welcome Trey and see him carry on the Edenfield name. Cosi was asking if she could cook today- we're sure Patty would have loved to teach her some Lebanese dishes. And we can only hope that Bob's fix-it ability (which seemed to run strong in the Edenfield line until it got to Rob) has skipped only one generation and will show up in Trey, so he can help his Mom and Dad around the house.

We could have told them about how Trey found his tongue this week. It makes us laugh so much. Or maybe we would have told them about how Cosi keeps saying "umm....ummm..." just like mommy and daddy unknowingly say it multiple times a day. It's really hard not to have them around. Rob wishes he could ask them for advice as he's learning to be a parent. I wish they were here to love our kids. It still feels like there's a void in our lives. I imagine it will always feel that way.

Acting Like It's Real

Rob here- up late, trying to bring our computer back to a shadow of what it was a few weeks ago (long unrelated story involving several reformats, 2 frustrated IT guys, and a lot of backed-up data finally being transferred back where it belongs now), and April is asleep on the hotel bed. We're out of town for a week so I can take a seminary class. It's late, and I'm trying to decide if I should just stay up until 4am and watch the play-by-play updates of the Steelers-Ravens game...

In the meantime, I'm meditating on a thought that occurred to me a few weeks ago. All of the paperwork that we can provide is now turned in. And hopefully it will be enough to satisfy the Ukrainian courts so that they will give us our little girl. As I was thinking about that, I realized how similar this adoption is to my faith. Not in the obvious, "we are adopted by God" sense- although that is true and very, very beautiful. I'm talking about something else.

She is my daughter. I know it in my heart. We pray for her, talk about her, plan for her, cry for her, and have even named her. But so far, all we have is a mountain of paperwork (a picture of which will go in her "baby book") and the promises of people we have to trust. My arms ache to hold her, and my imagination craves a real face to replace the ones I've fashioned for now. Some days (like some of the ones I've written about before) it's so hard to believe this will actually happen- that it's not just a fantasy, too good to be true. Other days, we get downright giddy making plans and talking about things to do with our little girl next year. Always moving towards the day when the faith will (hopefully) become sight.

Such is my life as a Christian. Some days, faith is easy. But many (most?) days, it's the feeling of, "this is too good to be true. it's got to be just a nice dream only true on paper." We push on because we believe that eventually the faith shall be sight. But until then we cling to faith while craving sight. I just act like it's real on the days when nothing makes it seem real.

Not a lesson I thought God was going to teach me through this. But then, he seldom goes with my lesson plans. Oh God, you and you sovereignty get me every time! Haste the day!