Final Summer Project

School starts in six days. I'm working on a web site to help my students and their parents keep up with homework and grades on the Web. I'm desperately trying to get lessons ready for the first three weeks of school.

...And I have one last summer project to complete: Ellie's log hogan.

When we were on the Navajo Reservation in June, we saw hogans everywhere--so much so, that I began to believe that even a person with my limited building skills might have a shot at making one. Here is how it's gone so far.

Step 1: The Site. We chose a place among the pines on our property. I wanted a place with a good view of the East (the door must face East according to Navajo custom) and where the ground was flat. (In the picture below, Ellie and a neighbor boy, Taylor, sit in what will be the doorway of the hogan.)

Step 2: The Logs. I have plenty of wood on my property in the form of thin, strong locust trees. 3/4ths of the logs, I took from fallen trees. Later I thinned out some of the trees in our wedding site to complete the task. All told, I have sixty, seven-foot logs with which to build a hogan I expect will be seven feet high.

Step 3: Build. I invited several friends over for Navajo tacos one Sunday night. Then I drafted them into my work gang. What slowed us down were the screws we used to fasten each of the log ends together. At first, I began drilling through the top log and trying to fasten the screws into the wood of the bottom log. Unfortunately, the screws kept snapping (locust wood is tough, even after it's been rotting for years). Finally, I began drilling holes and hammering these huge, galvanized nails to fasten the logs together.

Last Sunday my cousin, Stephen, came and helped me add two log layers to the project. I'm up to 3 1/2 feet high (one meter for you modern readers), which is the halfway point. I'm now hoping to have the project completed by Labor Day weekend (one month from now). We'll organize a campout for Ellie and her friends up there when all is finished.

Biblical Omissions

This morning I was studying in Mark 11 when my studies hit a little bump.

I read verse 25, "If you hold anything against anyeone, forgive him, so that your Father in heaven may forgive you your sins."

The next thing I saw was the number 27. I looked everywhere, but I could not find Mark 11:26. Where is it? What is being withheld from me!

The version of the Bible that I study is the NIV. What do you think? Tell me what I'm missing.

Friends: It's a Generational Thing

Last night I got a really cool call. "Hey, Jim," said the voice on the other end of the line, "It's been a long time."

Since I have been through a bevy of names in my short life, I can often infer someone's relationship with what they call me.

• The name, "Jim," belongs to my school days--primarily grades one through ten. I knew right away that this person and I went way back.
• If I'm "James," then it's a professional relationship, usually.
• "Jay" is the name from my four seminal years in Arizona.
• I'm "Dittes" to my AZ students and a few Portlanders here.
• And, sadly, if it's "Dits" "Dietz" or "Deits" it's usually a telemarketer. Click.

It turned out to be Eric, my best friend from my days growing up in southeastern Ohio. We hadn't talked for years--it turned out to be eight as we pieced together our last conversation eight years ago (the last chat I ever carried on over Instant Messenger).

Even though I moved from Ohio to Tennessee just before my 13th birthday, Eric and I had been able to keep in touch over the years. We attended each other's high school graduations, and he was a groomsman in my wedding. Our deep bond came from our years as close friends, but it was kept alive by meeting at Cincinnati Reds games once a summer.

When Eric and I were ten, we moved from collecting toy cars to buying packs of baseball cards. He and I both loved the Reds, and we were always pestering our parents for another 35 cents to buy a pack that included 15 cards and a stick of bubble gum.

When we were eleven, our parents drove us three hours to Cincinnati to attend a game between the Reds and the Atlanta Braves. It was one of the shining moments of my childhood, and I carry many images from that game: the Reds' starting pitcher (Bruce Berenyi), the Braves right fielder (Jerry Royster), and the time Johnny Bench came to bat with two outs and the bases loaded (he popped out).

The next year we found the entrance to the locker room, and we waited anxiously for autographs of our favorite players. That was also the year that our families started the tradition of walking to the Spaghetti Factory for a post-game meal.

After I moved to Tennessee, we met for a few more games. I was in England in 1990, the last year the Reds won the World Series, but Eric was a true friend. He made it to a game, and he even sent me a ticket stub to help me share in the glory (I have it framed, along with a picture that I clipped from the London Independent about the Reds' victory).

When he called, I thought, "This must be something big!" I prepared myself to drop everything and head up to the Magical Land for a wedding. Instead Eric told me about his business selling sports tickets on E-bay, and he invited me to attend...yes, a Reds game with him and his girlfriend in September.

Today Ellie was on the phone for a similar reason. Darby, her best friend since age three, had moved away this year, first to Chattanooga and now on to Oklahoma.

"Dad, I need to use three-way calling," she said. I had never used this feature but I dutifully--dadifully--got online and figured it out. Within minutes, we had Darby on one line and Kaitlyn on the other. They were talking girl stuff.

Next, Ellie moved online, directing her friends to some of her favorite web sites. As they looked at them together, they talked about TV stars, clothes, and many other pre-teen inanities. By the time supper had called an end to the conversation, Ellie's sadness for her missing friend had been sated.

As we sat down to eat, I tried to compare Ellie's lost friend with the one I had left behind 22 years ago. In the age before three-way calling and unlimited long distance, it had been a miracle to get the chance to meet at a Reds game once a year. Despite the miles that separated them, Ellie and Darby could confer over a joint love of Disney Channel, not baseball.

Of course this blog goes out to far-flung friends as well, keeping us informed about one another's thoughts and news, so maybe I'm not as "old school" as my daughter's high-tech reunion might have made me feel.

Superman: the 2nd Coming

Today marked the official end of my summer. I attended a three-hour teachers' workshop this morning. In the afternoon I cut my hair (I had the real Surfer Dude look going, and I was constantly having to swipe the hair out of my eyes, if you can believe it).

I also watched a movie I plan to use in my British Literature classes this fall: Superman Returns. It's been eight years since I've taught senior English. I was reviewing my old notes last month, and I noticed that the first half of the class is heavy on ancient heroes like Beowulf and Gawain. I try to get students to make connections between the heroes of old and those of today. The fact is that you can tell a lot about a civilization if you can figure out two things: its hopes and its fears.

For example, when I was a teenager, my heroes were Pete Rose and Al Gore, Jr. That probably says a lot about me--more than I might want to reveal in other ways.

The upcoming unit gave me an excuse to go see Superman Returns. It was a purely literary exercise, I assure you. I may have seen snippets of the eighties Superman films, but I had never been a big fan, nor had I read the comic books. This was a movie I saw based on two reviews, one found in the New York Times and another by my favorite Christian singer, Andrew Peterson. Both reviews pointed out the religious iconography of the film, and Peterson even repeated the rumor that it could be called "The Passion of the Superman."

The movie was right up my alley--which means that it was probably doomed as a blockbuster. I'm a God-stalker, who loves scouring pop culture for inadvertent references to Jesus Christ. This movie was chock full of them. Since Jesus Christ is another hero of mine, that means that Superman is now my hero, too, right? Not quite.

The conflict of the film deals with Superman's return after a five-year absence to search for signs of his doomed planet Krypton. In his absence, Lois Lane has had a baby and moved in with a male colleague. Lex Luthor has gotten out of jail on a technicality and restored his fortune. During Superman's absence, Lois has soothed her broken heart by composing a Pulitzer-prizewinning essay entitled, "Why the World Doesn't Need a Superman."

In my mind, then, the primary conflict is between Superman and Lane. Does she still love him? Does she know how he feels about her (we understand this because of Clark Kent's clumsy efforts at romance, but she is oblivious, only her son has an inkling)?

At the end of the 2nd Act, Superman reveals himself to Lois Lane in the form of an exclusive interview (a la the Transfiguration). Soaring high above Metropolis, Lane insists, "The world doesn't even need a savior anymore."

Superman, the cries of thousands of people below echoing in his ears, replies. "From what I hear, they still do."

Indeed, by the end of the movie, Lois types a question that resounds outside of the movie: "Why Does the World Need Superman?"

Why does the world need a savior? Why did Britain of the Dark Ages need a Beowulf--or an Arthur in the Middle Ages. Why did teenage JD need Pete Rose of all heroes?

The one question the movie doesn't bother to ask is this: 'from what does the world need saving?' Lex Luthor is an anachronism, really, a relic of the 1930s and 40s when fascist madmen dreamed of world domination. His sadistic plan is to create a New Jerusalem-style island off the eastern coast of the United States. There are no terrorists, no nuclear weapons. A cool tsunami is about the only nod to recent catastrophes.

In a religious sense, then, this movie left me feeling a little empty. The line, "I will always be there for you," pops up several times in the movie, aping Christ's "I will never leave you or forsake you." There is some mention of a Son being one with the Father at the end. But in the end, the movie cannot bridge the concept of Superhero with Redeemer. Superman can save a plane from crashing into a crowded baseball stadium, and he can save the world from falling from the top of the Daily Planet building. He can mend Lois's broken heart. But he can only do these things by himself. He can save the citizens of Metropolis from disaster, but he cannot save their souls. He can leave nothing behind that gives them some measure of his power, as Christ did with us.

The limits of Superman are where Christ begins in the believer's life. Like Superman, Christ crashed into earth in a giant blaze of light, where he was raised by an adopted mother who struggled to understand his powers. He performed many whiz-bang-type deeds, yet he struggled with this alien planet, laced with deadly sin (kryptonite). Then he was resurrected, impermeable. (My favorite religious image of the movie mirrors the resurrection, as Superman rises into the heavens, bathed in golden light, until he finds himself in the direct glare of the sun, from which he gains the energy to fight Lex Luthor a final time.)

But when Jesus left us, He left something behind. For one, he left the Gospel of a life well lived and wonderfully sacrificed. For another, he left his Spirit behind, through which the superpowers that he displayed can be made evident in our own experience. He mends broken hearts with more than an embrace and a cruise above the city--he mends them with his own ever-present, boundless love.

I can't complete a commentary on the movie without mentioning a few critical things. Brandon Roush was a fair Superman. I like his performance. Kate Bosworth and Kevin Spacey left a lot to be desired. As the Mary Magdalene figure, Bosworth is completely beautiful. In the soft light, her dark hair and eyes remind me of Ingrid Bergmann in "Casablanca." But she isn't persuasive as a mother, and her size 1/2 body is emaciated to the point of ugliness. At one point, I found myself thinking, "Lois Lane has no butt!"

Kevin Spacey has played the same guy in just about every movie I've seen him in since "Se7en." Sure, he's intense, but Lex Luthor was basically the same guy as the alien in "K-Pax" or the heavy in "Se7en." I missed his Oscar-winning turn in "American Beauty," and I missed "The Usual Suspects" and "The Bobby Darin Story" (which also had Bosworth), so maybe he does have some chops I haven't seen over and over and over again. I hope you'll let me know on this one.

Superman Returns is a pleasant, if unfulfilling, way to spend a summer afternoon. The special effects are great, the iconography is thought-provoking. Does the world need to pay $6 to watch Superman? I think it does.

One Man's Lake...

This summer I've tried to keep Owen outside as much as possible. If he could, he' stay on the computer/Gameboy all day and wouldn't ever leave the living room.

Often he asks, "Can I play with the hose?" In his play, he doesn't spray anyone. He just likes to let the water run and track it as it flows downhill to the creek. It's a game all boys play with water--creating dams and finding ingenious ways to divert the flow. Some boys end up using the experience to become civil engineers.

Today Owen's friend, Nicholas, visited, and they played with the hose. When Nicholas left, I noticed all these black rocks covering the driveway. I looked closer and realized that this was blacktop from a patch of the parking area (laid down 30 years ago, probably, so it was cracking).

I next looked at the end of the hose, and I realized that it was dripping into a pretty good-sized lake--a lake made by removing the blacktop from my driveway and creating, well, a humongous pothole.

I have a new saying: "one boy's lake is another man's pothole."

The End is Near

I returned from Georgia today. The trip was twelve hours, including three potty stops, a McDonald's fix, and a three-hour visit with my cousin, Ken Scribner. Despite tearful goodbyes to their cousins Jacob and Joshua Gates, the kids are thrilled to breathe the same air as Jenny again.

I am left, then, to celebrate The End...of Summer. Next week, it will be nose to the grindstone, preparing lessons and ideas for the coming school year. I'm teaching Honors Senior English for the first time in eight years, so there is some rust to rid myself of. There is also a strong chance I'll be teaching German, which will take quite a bit of work to prepare, since I've never taught that class in a high school before.

Today I celebrated The End...of sub-$3 gas prices. Our President's been fiddling, Lebanon is burning, and gas has gone up by a quarter a gallon over the past week.

The situation in Lebanon really galls me. I see a defenseless country being totally destroyed over the kidnapping of two Isreali soldiers, not by the Lebanese Army, but by militants. It isn't war. It's more like a Turkey Shoot.

Why is this happening? Well, a generation has come and gone since Israel practiced genocide and war in Lebanon, leaving that country with a devastating civil war that lasted almost 20 years. (One of the war criminals who came out of that war was Ariel Sharon, who now rests in a coma.)

Of course the American President could do something, but he won't. Two years ago, he couldn't take enough credit for the Cedar Revolution, which cast of the shackles of Syria and brought democratic reforms to Lebanon. Now, that seems like a mistake. Without the protection of Syria (or the United States for that matter), Lebanon is helpless before the brutally vindictive Israeli Defense Force.

So this is what I was thinking when I paid $2.95/gallon in Calhoun, GA, today. Usually Georgia is about 5-cents cheaper than Tennessee, so I figured that it would be my last sub-$3 fill up for awhile. On the way down to Georgia last Sunday, I paid $2.65.

It isn't going to get better. Seventy percent of Americans know that now--based upon approval ratings of President Bush. Sadly, if there was a country that could have used some hope, it was Lebanon. By this time next year, Beirut and Baghdad will be parallel examples of lawlessness and hopelessness--and gas will still be over $3 a gallon.

Greetings from Savannah, GA

I'm sorry these posts have gotten so far apart! I'm not sure what has happened to my summer, but it certainly isn't much. Before school starts in three weeks I want to update you on a number of things:
1. The Navajo-style log hogan I'm building for Ellie
2. Book reviews. It's been a disappointing summer for books so far--at least I've been bored by most of what I've read. I'm hoping I'll soon have something good to write about.
3. Writing progress (alas).

Sunday the kids and I drove down to visit my sister, Julie, in Savannah. We're giving Jenny another week by herself, and we're visiting cousins and having fun. Julie has two boys, ages four and two, and they are buddies with Owen and Jonah. She is also well set up for visitors. We're staying in a guest house behind her own home; she has a nice pool for the kids to play in; and they have a basement devoted to little boy things, where Owen, Jonah and Cousin Jacob build train tracks, play with animals, and run around screaming for no aparent reason whenever they want.

Ellie is modestly detached from the mayhem. She reads books, basks in the pool, and otherwise impresses her Auntie Julie (whom she admires very much). I've seen her cooking food and setting the table--all to reinforce her position as the eldest of the cousins, if not the only girl. She especially enjoys any chance she can get to stay up 30 minutes later than the boys or ride in the front seat of the car with her auntie (a new development since she's turned nine).

What have I done? Today I went to my brother-in-law's clinic to have my unibrow lasered. Julie had insisted on scheduling an appointment to have some of the hairs over my nose zapped by a cosmetic laser they have there. "I haven't really plucked my eyebrows for years," I told her this morning, "I haven't noticed my eyebrows growing together."

"I have," she responded in the curt, direct way of little sisters. "I want you to have it done."

I also got to play in the pool with the kids. Jacob and Joshua had just gotten back from SeaWorld, so Jacob insisted that I was Shamu and he was the trainer. He got me to make huge splashes and leap over outstretched floats in the water. He fed me plastic fish and diving rings. Finally he took a long "noodle" float and wrapped it around me. "That's enough," he told me. "I'm putting you in your cage. Goodbye."

Ah summer! Tomorrow we'll go to the beach at Tybee Island, and Thursday we'll return. This trip pretty much ends the summer for me. Besides the continuing writing projects, I will need to dive into planning for lessons that I'll teach in the coming school year. Fun, fun, fun.

Best Songwriters

OK, so everyone has a "best" list out nowadays. When I heard that some outfit called Paste Magazine had compiled a list of the Top 100 Songwriters, I was intrigued. I have my preferences.

Before I clicked on the link, I thought of the songwriter I would recommend. I have to say Willie Nelson for two reasons: "Crazy" and "You Were Always on My Mind." I mean, this guy has written for Elvis and Patsy Cline, to name a few.

As it turned out, he didn't even crack the Top Ten! Here they are:

10. Prince
9. Joni Mitchell
8. Elvis Costello
7. Brian Wilson (The Beach Boys)
6. Leonard Cohen
5. Paul McCartney (The Beatles, Wings)
4. Tom Waits & Kathleen Brennan
3. Bruce Springsteen
2. Neil Young (Buffalo Sprinfield, Crosby, Stills, Nash & Young)
1. Bob Dylan

For the record, ole Willie was #12, right after Paul Simon.

I'm sorry, but the above list is a reach. I would keep Springsteen, Mitchell, Dylan and McCartney (who could argue with him at #1?)

Prince? Come on, "Purple Rain" had a melody that I played my 2nd week in piano lessons.

Granted, my knowledge of Neil Young came in the years after he lost his ability to actually carry a tune on a record.

Gravelly voiced Tom Waits--I hardly know him.

Leonard Cohen might belong here, I don't know. I'm usually too busy kissing my true love when his music is playing, so I'm not familiar with his use of chord structure or wordplay.

Elvis Costello is a cool singer, but I can name exactly ZERO songs that he has written.

Final Thoughts on Arizona

We've been home for two weeks now. I'm frustrated I left everyone hanging on my trip. I really focused on finishing my Egypt manuscript (again). That project (a month past my personal deadline) overshadowed all of the other things I had planned to do this summer--including wrapping up my blog notes.

Well, it's done. Today I was typing my trip notes into my laptop, looking forward to some future writing assignments. I'm finally able to reflect on Arizona and all that happened.

I'll focus on favorites.

ELLIE'S FAVORITES: Ellie enjoyed White Sands National Monument as the best stop on our entire tour. We only spent about three hours there, arriving just before sunset. The kids barreled out of the van and climbed the nearest dune. They spent the next two hours sliding or rolling down the house-sized sand dunes. Meanwhile, Jenny and I got to enjoy the spectacular (and romantic) site of a White Sands sunset: pastel pinks and blues adorning the white dunes and the purple mountains. At the Navajo Reservation, Ellie picked up a taste for Sno-Cones, and we still talk about how delicious they were there and at the Acoma Reservation.

OWEN'S FAVORITE: This really doesn't have anything to do with the Southwest, but when he finished the "Alien Mothership" level on his Chicken Little Gameboy game, he screamed with joy for five minutes. Owen really enjoyed White Sands, too, and learning about the desert. We still talk about how hot it was.

JONAH'S FAVORITE: He still likes to talk about the "cactuh-eh-eh-es" he saw has we drove to Globe, Arizona--and the cacti at Al & Cinty Tomlinson's house. He loved the sand dunes, although he had the toughest time climbing back up of all the kids.

JENNY'S FAVORITE: Jenny has a special bond with Grand Canyon that dates back to a family trip she took there when she was twelve. We camped on the Rim one night, and it was a special time for us. We put the kids to bed and spent an hour looking up at the brilliant night sky. Jenny had spent the week apart in intense spiritual study, and she was bursting with ideas, hopes, dreams. As we sat close together at our picnic table that night, looking up at the Big Dipper and a million other stars, she asked me, "What is your dream?" My answer was one word: "This."

MY FAVORITE: Superior, Arizona. Our weekend in Globe/Superior was a time of intense emotion for me. We reunited with our church family there, which was totally uplifting. Leaving that place began an eight-year spiritual drought for Jenny and me that only lifted in the past ten months. My Sabbath School was taught by Preston Cox, who had been a student in my teen Sabbath School while I was there. There is nothing that makes me prouder than being taught by one of my students.

Speaking of my students, I did get a chance to meet with members of the Class of 1998 in Superior. What an experience. My four years at Superior High were there four years, and we graduated together, you could say. It was fun to learn about what they are doing eight years on--my Teacher's Pet, Aurora, is still brilliant and (alas) still making me wait to see her show her writing/teaching stuff. At least she's kept up the curiosity about Greece, and I'm looking forward to her sending me a postcard from some gorgeous Greek isle someday. (Pictured at left, beginning with me are [clockwise]: Manny, Monica, Sergio, Kelli, Aurora, Julie, and Ellie.)

The one thing they kept saying was, "You were our age (now) when you were teaching us?" (They are all 26 or 27). The one thing I enjoyed talking about was my trip to Troy in 1999. This group of kids, better than anyone else I know, including my own family, know what that meant to me--they spent hours reading The Iliad in my classroom.

July 4th with the Ditteses

Today was a weird 4th of July for me. I'm a normally a very patriotic person. I've spent 4ths of July at baseball games and fireworks shows--I even dumped tea into the English Channel the year I was at Newbold College (1991). This year, it was just tough to get into the spirit.

I did my patriotic duty by supporting Germany in the World Cup semifinal this afternoon. But that was for naught, as Italy scored two goals in overtime to rout the Deutschen and move on to the World Cup Finals. I'm now rooting for France because their star player, Thierry Henry, plays for my favorite English soccer team, Arsenal.

Our budget for fireworks this year was quite modest, $10. We bought a pack of bottle rockets and another pack of sparklers. Ellie loves sparklers. She waves them back and forth and sings patriotic songs. This year Owen used his allotment of three sparklers to try to set fire to the front yard. Clearly, he's a pyromaniac like his daddy.

Jonah sat out the fireworks tonight. He enjoyed dancing among the smoke bombs this afternoon, but when I set off a pack of firecrackers, it kind of freaked him out. I burned my hand trying to light a sparking tank.

I hope your holiday was great. I'm sorry I haven't posted anything about our return trip. I've been working like crazy, trying to finish a 6th draft of my manuscript, The Sandal on the Obelisk. I'm a month late on when I was hoping to get it out to my agent.

Canyon Views

We made it back to Tennessee 1/2 hour late!

I'm joking, of course. We arrived home around 6:30 on Wednesday. "Highland Drive looks so different!" Owen exclaimed as we turned into our pine-shaded driveway. He was right. It was hard to believe, but we had been gone for 16 days. Amazing.

I'm not sure I've sorted through everything yet. There is much to write and many more thoughts to think before I can get some perspective on the whole matter. I just tell people I've been all over Arizona and New Mexico, and I keep quiet about the things I learned about Ellie, Owen, Jonah-Bear, Jenny and myself. (I'm still trying to figure those things out.)

Anyway, I wanted to post some more pictures from our trip. I'll focus on my friends the Van Eyks, and our trip to Grand Canyon.

On Sunday, John took the kids and me to Canyon de Chelly. This canyon is famous for two things: first, it was where Owen had his meltdown of the trip. It started when we were doing the very stressful activity of having our family picture taken. When Owen didn't smile for the picture, I threatened to take away a promised candy. He screamed, he cried, he even threatened to throw himself over the edge of the canyon. It really ruined the day for me. We left him in the car to see the spectacular view of Spider Rock (left). It's the most spectacular vista in the canyon. I found it interesting, because it doesn't look like a spider at all. Its name comes from its resemblance to the weaver's shuttle used by the Navajo women. The Navajo believe that their people were born in Canyon de Chelly (two cliff dwellings predate the Navajo). It was here that the Spider Goddess gave mankind the shuttle and inaugurated the practice of weaving.

John and Kellie (along with Brooke and Baby Josie) were our hosts on The Rez for five nights. After our last night, we drove to Albuquerque and picked Jenny up at the airport, returning through Gallup, New Mexico, where they got to meet Jenny for dinner, and where we got this picture. My first thought when I see this is--man, there are a lot of kids! How did we handle all of them? I'm not sure why Jonah and Owen look so crazy in this picture. I'll assume it's because of all the grape juice they drank at Kellie's house. I regret that I didn't get a good shot of Baby Josie, although you can see by the picture that Ellie and Brooke had become good buddies. We ate at Earl's, a local Gallup diner which was chock full of Native Americans selling jewelry. There were tables outside where you could browse, and if that weren't enough, Navajo young and old circled among the tables as we ate, offering to sell us rings, necklaces, belts, and all manner of brikabrak.

Our first stop with Jenny aboard was Grand Canyon. We camped at Desert View, where we took in the sunset (right). We liked Desert View because it was a little off the tourist track (the roads from the entrance to Mather Point were really clogged). It also helped that the lower elevation kept us from freezing overnight. It was quite cool when we awoke, and we kept the kids bundled all morning.

Later, after a tip from a ranger, we returned to the Rim Trail and took the kids a short way (about 1/4 mile) down the Bright Angel Trail, which Jenny and I have taken before to the bottom of the canyon. The kids cruised down with little trouble. Jonah gave us heart attacks every time he got close to the edge of the trail. We also saw two bighorn sheep grazing on a ledge just below the trail. The way up, however, was predictibly tough. Jonah only made it about 100 yards before holding up his arms and saying, "Hold me, Mama," a request which Jenny never seems to be able to refuse. Owen made it about 1/2 way back out of the canyon (a pretty steep climb) before he told us: "I am completely out of energy!"

I'm happy to report that we made it out of the canyon safely. We had a great time--although Jenny made the kids and me swear that we would return to backpack to the bottom together. She really hated missing out on the hiking/backpacking experience.

Viewing Cars and Getting Kicks Along Route 66

I’d like to blame my kids, but I’m responsible: I’m a sucker for summer marketing gimmicks. Does McDonald’s have a new Happy Meal toy? Is there a special at Target featuring a summer movie? OK, OK, I’ll buy it!

The hype for Pixar/Disney’s Cars reached a crescendo in the weeks leading up to its opening June 6. By the time we got to see the movie, we already had the Cars movie soundtrack (for my road trip CD), two speaking Cars toys (Mater and Lightning McQueen) and a McDonald’s Happy Meal plastic Lighting—whose name Jonah shortened to “Queem.”

Monday, June 12, was our last day on The Rez. We wanted to finish with a service project. Kellie identified a Navajo woman for whom we could prepare a food basket. We took John & Kellie’s daughter, Brooke, with us, and journeyed into Gallup, New Mexico to buy some food and catch a viewing of Cars.

By now you probably know that Cars is about a me-first racecar who gets sidetracked from I-40 into the Route 66 town of Radiator Springs. The yokels of the town—and a hot-looking Porsche—change the racecar and teach him the new meaning of friendship and racing.

The kids and I identified with the Route 66 experience (much of our trip had taken place along the I-40/Route 66 corridor). This was the main point of interest, as the boys lost interest in the romantic and racing plot lines. If I had one critique of the movie, it would be that it missed the “kid” demographic in pursuit of adult story lines.

The cool thing about our experience was that we watched it at Gallup’s Red Rock 6 Cinemas, which is about 50 yards away from historic Route 66, among canyons and rock outcroppings similar to those created for the movie. In fact the next day, as we drove to Albuquerque to pick Jenny up from the airport, Owen noted how the landscape was similar to the movie we had seen together.

Route 66 (for those who haven’t traveled through the American Southwest) doesn’t really exist anymore. It’s a marketing ploy, not a real road. But it conjures up images of the times when cars had big fenders, lots of chrome, and no air conditioning. Since it was replaced by Interstate 40, it exists only in two ways: the main streets of countless western towns like Gallup, Amarillo, and Tucumkari, today identified as “Business Route 40,” and in remote stretches, where I-40 goes straight while the old Route 66 takes a sauntering loop through deserts, as it does in western Arizona and eastern California.

Gallup’s Route 66 is a fascinating drive through time and place. The most identifiable piece of history is the El Rancho Motel, a place that claims to be the resting place of the stars of Hollywood westerns from the 30s and 40s. The street is lined with diners, fast food restaurants, and Native American jewelry outlets. It also features a number of other unique elements of American iconography.

One significant feature of the American road in the glory days of the automobile was the motel. It was a low-slung, one-story building right next to the road. There was a “vacancy” sign in the window of the office (or on the marquis, if it had one), and there was a parking place in front of every painted, numbered door. The more memorable motels featured rooms shaped like teepees or Airstream trailers.

Among the once-thriving towns of Route 66. these motels are still there, but they are seldom still in business. The motels that are still open advertise “weekly rentals” or “rooms from $16.99/single.” In places like Gallup and Albuquerque, I saw some of these motels still open. However, shuttered old-fashioned motels gave Tucumkari, New Mexico, the looks of a ghost town. There must have been eight motels there along Business Route 40 whose “vacancy” signs had been replace by faded “Property For Sale” signs. I noticed that the old roadside motels had almost completely disappeared from Flagstaff, Arizona, including the Evergreen Inn, where Jenny, my sister, Julie, and I had stayed on our first cross-country drive in 1993.
People just don’t take four days to cross the country anymore, spending nights in places like Oklahoma City, Grants, New Mexico, and Barstow, California. I-40 and 75 mile-per-hour speed limits make it possible to drive from Nashville to Los Angeles in two, 12-hour days.

(OK, OK, I took four days to get from Tennessee to Arizona, but that was crazy, remember?)

The other mark of Route 66 is the hype—the abundant American desire to sell—and buy—nostalgia, even of the country’s recent past. Signs along the interstate proclaim “Historic Route 66” at almost every other exit. Erick, Oklahoma, announces “Home of the National Route 66 Museum.” The road sign is plastered across post cards and businesses in every town between Oklahoma City and San Bernardino, California. The traveler can even gamble away money at the Route 66 Casino about 30 miles west of Albuquerque.

I even spotted a sign in Santa Fe, New Mexico (about 50 miles north of where Route 66 ran through Albuquerque), which proclaimed, “Part of pre-1937 Route 66.” Now if the nonexistent Route 66 is historic, would that make Santa Fe’s street prehistoric?

Route 66 may be gone, but the ethic of the open road, the romance of the road trip is alive and well in the Southwest and throughout the 50 States. In fact, if the autographs of Spanish friars, conquistadors, and American pioneers on El Morro National Monument’s Inscription Rock are any indication, this romance predates the 50 States by many hundreds of years. It is what led me west with three kids in tow. It’s what sparks the imagination of those of you reading this blog. It is what enables the American spirit to get its kicks—whether that be on Interstate 40 or Route 66.

The Way Back

I'm in the Satellite Inn in Almogordo, New Mexico, as I'm sending this. It's nice how many motels now have free, high-speed Internet services. This hotel definitely fits the "roadside" moniker described in the post above.

We left Globe yesterday morning, and made it to White Sands National Monument by sundown. The kids had a great time there, making sand angels and sliding down the steep slopes of the dunes.

Our plan for our return trip is as follows
Sunday: Globe to Almogordo, New Mexico (check)
Monday: Almogordo, New Mexico to Red Rock State Park, Oklahoma
Tuesday: Red Rock State Park to Lake Conway, Arkansas
Wednesday: Conway, Arkansas to Portland, Tennessee

New Pictures

I had some more pictures developed, and I wanted to share them with you. I'm still using a 35mm dinosaur--er, I mean camera--so I had to get a CD along with developing so I could share these with you as soon as I could.


Here are the kids and me in Santa Fe, New Mexico. You can see the pueblo architecture around us that makes this such a charming city.




This is Ellie with two Navajo friends, Alexis and Ashley, after church on Saturday. The girl on the far right is Brooke, the daughter of our friends, John and Kellie Van Eyk.

Trip Pictures

I got some pictures developed today, and I wanted to share some with you. Enjoy.


The kids in front of the Five Civilized Nations in Muskogee, OK.


Here's Ellie in front of the historic buildings at Seay Mansion/Chisholm Trail Museum. You can see the schoolhouse to the left of Ellie. The entrance to the bank is over her left shoulder. To the right, you will notice Jonah letting himself into the town jail--his favorite site in the city.


Ellie examines the cowboy chuck wagon at the Seay Mansion/Chisholm Trail Museum in Kingfisher, OK.

Window Rock and the Navajo Reservation

The Navajo Reservation is awash in contradictions: it is a Navajo state stretched across three states (Arizona, New Mexico, and Colorado); there are nearly as many churches/missions per capita (maybe more) in the Bible Belt capital of Hendersonville, Tennessee, yet alcoholism, drug abuse and gang graffiti are everywhere; the Navajo are proud members of Navajo Nation, yet they are some of the most patriotic Americans I have ever met.

How can I explain this? I might better ask, what business do I have explaining a complex and ancient culture based upon three days on the Reservation (despite the scores of reservations in the American West, when you say, "The Rez," out here, it can only refer to the monstrous Navajo Reservation the size of West Virginia or England).

Within an hour of our arrival, John had taken the kids and me out on his pastoral rounds, visiting two far-flung members (each lived about 45 minutes away from each other). The first compound was about15 miles from the highway on a wide road of red dirt. On Tuesday a terrible forest fire had ripped through this area (which is in the middle of a three-year drought) and burned everything. When we arrived, we found the houses safe but their inhabitants were not yet returned from the mandatory evacuation.

Navajo compounds are interesting. There is always a small, prefabricated 600-square-foot house (I would estimate that over 70% of the homes on the Rez are trailers or prefabricated houses). Next to some houses is a hogan (pronounced ho-gahn) of either six or eight sides, depending upon whether it was built by the son or daughter respectively.

Traditionally, Navajo property is matrilineal. A young man will move in with his wife's family at marriage--or he will build a hogan on their property.

I would guess that the average distance between homes/hogans once you get off road on The Rez is about eight miles. These people support themselves with sheep farming and subsistance agriculture. There is no electricity, no running water. One could call it abject poverty. One could also proudly call it an ancient way of life that has has been proudly preserved. I will suspend judgment. John says that 90% of the roads on The Rez are dirt roads. John has a 4X4 Surburban that certainly comes in handy with visits and picking up parishoners for church.

Window Rock is the capital of the Navajo Nation. It's a town of no more than 12,000, set at the base of a number of spectacular red rock pillars. A natural arch north of town gives Window Rock its name.

Our first stop in Window Rock Friday was the Navajo Zoo. It's a small zoo, and all of the animals were native to the Southwest. The kids really enjoyed the bear and the bobcat. A male turkey took a particular liking to Ellie and Brooke (John's daughter) displaying its tailfeathers and gobbling loudly. We spied a poor porcupine who was beset by wild prairie dogs--who snuck under the fence into his cage and raided his food. As we arrived, they retreated to the safety of the desert, and the porcupine desperately tried to finish his meal without having another bite stolen. There are two hogans at the zoo--one made of mud and another of logs--and the kids climbed in and around each one.

Our second stop was the Window Rock Flea Market. This is a colorful experience with all kinds of wares on display, from used clothes and books to Navajo blankets, jewelry, and native medicines. The kids all got snow cones, and Ellie really emerged into her element, carefully perusing the booths and finally selecting a beautiful eagle-feather necklace. I also bought some gifts, but the fun part was just looking around, trying pinion nuts for the first time, shepherding the kids through the crowds, and watching Navajo being Navajo (including the guy who hit me up for a "donation" as I was leaving).

Today we worshipped at the Window Rock Seventh-day Adventist Church. I sang special music, and Ellie found herself up front leading out in the song service with some other kids. One of the songs she sang was "Jesus Loves Me" in Navajo, and it was really neat to see her getting her own taste of this fascinating culture. The director of Native Ministries from the North American Division spoke for church, and many church members had come in native costumes (which they quickly shed for T-shirts and jeans before potluck).

I have three more days on The Rez before continuing on our trip. Jenny arrives Tuesday, and we will set off Wednesday for some more AZ adventures. Keep checking in!

Trip Recap

We arrived.

(That sentence was so satisfying to write, I want to give it its own paragraph. Let me pause while I contemplate it further…)

Ellie, Jo-Jo, Owen and I arrived at the Van Eyk residence in Fort Defiance, Arizona, Thursday evening at 5 p.m., 1,663 miles, three days and ten hours after our departure from Portland. Everyone is safe—if a little grump from too many hours on the road. We are a little sunburned from a two-hour scramble atop the cliffs at El Morro National Monument. Alas, we are also trying to dry out from the fact that it rained and poured—mostly when we were ensconced in our accursed tent.

How can I describe the trip in one blog entry? It has been an epic journey in many ways: long, full of passion, intrigue, despair, hope, and heartbreak. Unfortunately, I haven’t seen any Iliad-length blog entries, so I’ll have to get started with this.

I had planned to travel about 450 miles a day with the kids, stopping at a number of attractions along the way to break up the monotony. For the most part, things went according to schedule.

On Monday we drove to Memphis and visited the zoo. It’s a wonderful place with some of the most fascinating zoo exhibits I’ve seen anywhere. They do a good job there incorporating architecture and statuary with the exhibits. We had planned to visit the pandas, but we were distracted by other fascinating sites including penguins, hippos, and komodo dragons. We met a polar bear named Cranberry who was the same age as Jo-Bear, but outweighed him by more than 300 pounds.

We continued into Arkansas and left I-40 to climb into the Ozark town of Ozone to camp for the night. I hadn’t visited the Ozarks before, so it was virgin territory. Sadly, the skies opened up after we arrived and rained on our shoddy efforts to put up the tent. Moreover, three exhausted kids also felt very homesick for their incredible mama, adding tears to the raindrops. The next morning I awoke to the sounds of thunder, so we hurriedly packed and zipped on down the road to Oklahoma.

Our Tuesday drive through Oklahoma featured visits to two museums. In Muskogee, we visited the Five Civilized Nations Museum, which traces the paths of the Cherokee, Creek, Chippawa, Choctaw, and Seminole nations in their exoduses from the southeastern states to Oklahoma in the 1830s and 40s. The exhibits were spare, but the art gallery on the 2nd floor was amazing, providing unique insights into the spirit and the imagination of Native America.

We drove from Indians to cowboys. The second museum in Kingfisher was the highlight of the drive for me. The Seay Mansion and Chisholm Trail Museum was the ultimate hands-on exposure to the cowboy experience along the Chisholm Trail. There were a number of restored buildings that were open to explore, so the kids got to look around two cabins, a frontier bank, an old schoolhouse, and even a jail! Ellie took orders at the chuck wagon and dipped water for us to drink. It was just an awesome, awesome place.

Wednesday we zipped through Texas and entered New Mexico, eating lunch at a Chinese restaurant in Tucamcari and getting Route 66 souvenirs at a teepee-shaped curio shop. Then we left I-40 to take state highway 104 from Tucumcari to Las Vegas (New Mexico, it’s a cow town on the foothills of the Rockies, not the gambling mecca in Nevada). We drove over 100 miles, and I probably passed six other cars on the highway the whole way. It was amazing how, when we zipped over the edge of a mountain range, we could see miles and miles of highway. It reminded me of the classic Pete Seeger song,

“As I was walking that ribbon of highway,
I saw above me that endless skyway,
I saw below me the golden valley,
This land was made for you and me.”

Wednesday night we cruised the historic district of Santa Fe, window shopping at high-end jewelry and pottery stores. The boys played in the square outside the Palace of the Governors, running laps around an obelisk that honors soldiers killed in the Indian wars. It was amazing to be in an American city that is almost 500 years old.

Thursday, after camping in an RV park outside of Albuquerque, we crossed the Continental Divide at high noon and visited El Morro National Monument. This place has always been a favorite for Jenny and me. At the base of the cliffs is Inscription Rock, a sandstone face that features 1000-year-old Native American petroglyphs as well as the autographs of 17th-century Spanish explorers and 19th-century American pioneers, soldiers, and railroad men. At the top of the cliffs is cliff dwelling known as Atsinna, abandoned 600 years ago by the waning Pueblo culture.

That’s the trip in a nutshell. All I’ve listed above are points of interest. I haven’t mentioned the fascinating things I’ve learned about Ellie, Owen, and Jonah. I haven’t talked about the challenges I’ve faced as a father and a family manager. I haven’t even begun to describe the interesting people and offbeat sites I encountered along the way.

That’s where the Epic part of this journey comes in. That’s what will take many, many further pages of writing to figure out for myself.

We will be in Fort Defiance until Wednesday. I’ll blog further about the Navajo Reservation in upcoming days. My friend, John, is a lay pastor here, and he’s taken us out on his pastoral rounds, introducing us to the fascinating people, customs and traditions that make up Navajo culture.

Summer Soundtrack

I'm getting ready for my epic road trip with the kids next week. I'll try to keep everyone posted via the blog.

The plan is to leave early Monday morning. We will take four days to get to our destination: Fort Defiance, Arizona (near the New Mexico border and close to the capital of the Navajo Reservation).

• Monday. Leave Portland, stop at the Memphis Zoo, camp in the foothills of the Ozark Mountains in Arkansas
• Tuesday. Leave Arkansas, stop at museums in Muskogee (five Indian nations) and Enid (Chisholm Trail), Oklahoma. Get through the Texas Panhandle and camp in eastern New Mexico.
• Wednesday. Las Vegas, Santa Fe, and Albuquerque, New Mexico. Camp at El Morro National Monument.
• Thursday. Leave El Morro. Get to the Van Eyk residence.

Anyway, I have been working on our summer soundtrack. My church gutted the Vacation Bible School program because the songs were too upbeat for its holy sanctuary, so I won't have any praise songs this year. I'm replacing them with cowboy songs.

Let me know what you think about this list. I haven't burned it to CD yet. I think I have plenty of cowboy songs, but my Indian songs are a little tacky to say the least.

1. "Get'cha Head In the Game," Troy (from Disney's High School Musical, a huge hit among the teenybopper set this summer).
2. "A Dream Is A Wish Your Heart Makes," Disney Channel Stars (teenybopper version of the Cinderella classic).
3. "One Little Slip," Barenaked Ladies, from the movie Chicken Little, Owen's favorite at the moment
4. "Real Wild Child," Everlife, when I was in high school this was on the Pretty Woman soundtrack, now it's been updated for the cartoon, The Wild
5. "Everybody's Changing," Keane, a band I discovered this year, and I love 'em
6. "Route 66," Nat King Cole, "If you've got plans to motor West, take the highway that's the best"
7. "On the Road Again," Willie Nelson
8. "Happy Trails," Roy Rogers and Dale Evans
9. "King of the Road," Roger Miller
10. "This Land Is Your Land," Pete Seeger
11. "Indian Outlaw," Tim McGraw
12. "Just Around The Riverbend," Alan Menken & Stephen Schwartz
13. "God Bless America," Celine Dion
14. "America The Beautiful," Frank Sinatra
15. "Whoopee Ti-Yi-Yo," Various Artists
16. "The Cattle Call," Eddy Arnold
17. "The Old Chisholm Trail," Michael Martin Murphy
18. "Carry Me Back to the Lone Prairie," Johnny Bond
19. "Mammas, Don't Let Your Babies Grow Up to be Cowboys," Willie Nelson and Waylon Jennings
20. "(Ghost) Riders in the Sky," Riders in the Sky
21. "Back in the Saddle Again," Gene Autry
22. "El Paso," Marty Robbins
23. "God Bless The USA," Lee Greenwood

If you have some suggestions for songs I could add to this list, let me know!

May 29: A Special Day

I love May 29. It gives me a chance to do the following things:

1) Go out on a real date with my Bride,
2) Recycle old jokes like "we've decided to stick it out another year" or "it sure feels like 23 years, are you sure it has only been twelve?" or "we've been married X bitter years" (12 to be exact).
3) Celebrate a wonderful marriage with the most perfect woman God could have possibly given me.

At lunch last Sabbath, Jenny was recounting one of the Newbold myths: about how her interest in me was unrequited. The kids all looked at me like "were you stupid or something?" (Ellie in particular gives me that look five times a day--as regularly as Muslim prayers.)

What could I do? I just took my palm and smacked it against my forehead three times.

Happy Anniversary, Jenny George!

Water and Wine: Thoughts on John 2

Summer is almost here, but I must admit that Easter still has me in thrall. Bear with me, then, while I reflect a little longer....

A dark night, an upper room. The Son of Man slips into an anteroom before the meal arrives, carrying a wooden bucket and a ladle. He finds a tall, 30-gallon jar of water reserved especially for the ceremonial washing of the guests. He puts the bucket down, picks up the ladle. As his free hand touches the rim of the water jar, he pauses--thoughts invade his mind.

It was another anteroom, full of cleansing jars. It was a wedding, and he had been a guest. For weeks, he had been praying, pleading with God to lay out his mission before him. He had gained followers. He had felt the Spirit draw close to him, so close it was ready to pour out at any moment!

Yet this wedding--this party--seemed the wrong place to start such a mission. "They have no more wine," were words that didn't sound like marching orders. The words came from his mother after all--not God. He wasn't here to perform mere party tricks, couldn't she see that?

"My time has not yet come." They were his words--they are the words God hears almost every time he calls me, too.

Yet he followed, and his mother led him to an anteroom full of empty cleansing jars--jars that had been emptied in the cleansing of the hands and feet of the wedding guests. Suddenly, the Spirit struck: Jesus straightened, shook His head, opened his mouth and spoke the first words of Miracle: "Fill the jars with water."

A dark night, again, the flashback is finished. He fills the bucket with water and returns to the banquet room to wash his disciples' feet. He kneels before them, pouring water over their feet--water that washes away the dust of Jerusalem.

Next comes the miracle with the wine. He blesses it. "This is my blood," he tells his astonished audience, "Poured out for you for the remission of sins." His work has come full circle; His mission is nearly complete.

We cannot understand the Last Supper without a clear picture of the Wedding of Cana and those empty cleansing jars. They bookend the Gospel of John, perfectly explaining Christ's mission. For even as every observant Jew cleansed his hands and feet with water before eating, every observant Christian would cleanse his soul with wine after this night. Water cleanses the body; wine cleanses the soul. The wine is the miracle--Christ's first and his last.

Like the master of the banquet, I am amazed by this miracle--stunned, almost drunk. "You have saved the best till now," I whisper as I drink the cleansing blood, and I feel my spirit break free.

Ellie's Birthday

I'm still recovering from Ellie's birthday party this past Sunday. She wanted a Red Carpet birthday theme, so we had our invitees dress up like starlets, and we even spent $8 at WalMart to cover four yards of the sidewalk with red.

I hosted the red carpet walk--at least my alter ego, Tres Gay Jay, hosted the event (2nd picture).

After we cut cake, we filmed a movie called Scheme for Hollywood. The girls pretended a Hollywood director was looking for talent in their town, so they all pretended to do silly things like cry, die, and perform a romantic scene with Owen's oversized Bob the Builder doll.

In the end, the part went to Shoeless Jo (Jonah). I worked the next two nights editing the movie--and a bonus music video--which we gave to the invitees. Now I'm ready for bed!

Family Crest Update

I've gotten a little more done on our Dittes family crest. I'd like to hear some feedback on this one, so let me know what you think.

I added two points that have real significance for Jenny and me. In the background on the right is Pennard Castle, a ruin on Wales's Gower Peninsula that Jenny and I discovered on the Most Awesome Hitchhiking Trip of our Lives in April 1991. We were camping along the beach there, and we hiked up to the top of some bluffs, where we found this beautiful castle overlooking the Bristol Channel. It's ours now.

On the top left is Picket Post Mountain, which watched over our first home in Superior, Arizona. We climbed it a number of times (Ellie climbed it once in utero), and it brings back some fond memories of our early married years.

In the foreground is a pine tree from our house in Tennessee. A trail connects the foreground to the background (my obsession is finding and building trails).

All that's left is some color. I also plan to add some dogwood branches to the lower right corner--again from our home here in Tennessee. I wasn't originally planning to have a 3-D effect in the crest, but I think it's really cool. It's as if we're looking through the trees at our home, back on the great events and places that brought us together as a family.

Let me know what you think!

Book Review: A New Way to Look at Someone You've Always Known

I don't remember exactly what my pastor and I were discussing that Sabbath four weeks ago in his office. I do remember looking over at his bookshelf and jumping up with a start: "You have Chilton's Rabbi Jesus!" I blurted. "Can I read it?"

I'm a big fan of Bruce Chilton, an Anglican priest and college professor. A few years ago I bought his book, Rabbi Paul, and that book has been real food (both intellectual and spiritual)--I've read it twice, and now I'm going back through it, cross-referencing the texts that he cited. It let me into Paul's writings in a number of dramatic ways: (1) providing a convincing narrative that connected his travels and his writings; (2) providing a well-researched context for the communitites in which he worked (pharisees, school of Gamaliel, Tarsus, etc.); and (3) giving unique analysis to Paul's writings.

I come from a literalistic theological background which has traditionally focused solely on scripture without getting bogged down on scholarly criticism or the social/philosophical context of the writings of the Bible. For the most part, this is a good thing. I haven't spent time wondering if the Resurrection was physical or metaphorical; I haven't tried to disprove the clear message of the Bible based on some scholar's hypotheses.

But my fascination for scholarly, Bible-related works has grown over the years. Much of what is out there, thanks to people like Crossan, Pagels, and Ehrman, is recycled 2nd-century heresies, repackaged to show "oppressed, alternate strains" of Christianity and supposedly trump the testimony of the New Testament (written within 70 years of Christ's death--and the single-most vetted book in the history of literature).

Chilton could easily be lumped together with the afore-mentioned writers. I would not call him orthodox by any means, yet his arguments are usually well-supported and enlightening. His books are worth the read, particularly if you're up to a challenge. I'll review the book based on the three points I mentioned above.

The Teaching/Travel Narrative. Traditional readings of the gospels have the birth story, the temple scene and then a big gap between Jesus at age 12 and the beginning of his ministry around his 30th year (John mentions four trips to Jerusalem, while the other three gospels mention only the final, climactic visit). Chilton gets rid of most of the gaps, starting in Jesus' adolescence, theorizing that Jesus (a mamzer rejected by the community because of his questionable parentage) went to Jerusalem around age 14, along with his devout, legitimate brother, James. He dropped away from his family in the busy streets of Jerusalem and spent the next six to eight years as a disciple of John the Baptist. Chilton shows Jesus leaving John's side just a few months prior to John's arrest and picking up disciples of his own in Galilee--per the Gospel of John.

He also stretches the traditional three years of Christ's ministry out to ten or more, including a number of years spent back at home, working as a handyman in Nazareth, and more years in Capernaum. He then sends Jesus wandering as Herod Antipas grows wary of this "new John" and pursues him throughout Galilee/Syria. The fear of arrest, the need to differentiate his mission from that of John, the great desire to see fulfilled the prophecies of Ezekiel and Zechariach--these are used to explain Jesus' motives for his travels as well as his teachings.

I find some of it persuasive--the close connection with John, the fear of Herod, the final mission to Jerusalem--but some leaps are too far for my orthodoxy. For example, he mentions the temptations of Christ as coinciding with the aftermath of the Feeding of the 5,000, rather than earlier in Christ's ministry. Also, Chilton as a secular-oriented scholar explains things like Christ's walking on water, the Transfiguration, the Resurrection, as "shared visionary experiences" rather than literal ones. I'm not bound by book sales or scholarly criticism to affirm my faith in each of these.

One fascinating divergence Chilton takes is incorporating the story of Barnabas. Using tradition and some mid 2nd-century sources, he writes that Barnabus (whose family was from Cyprus) had a home in Jerusalem where Jesus might have stayed--and he may have even been the host for the Last Supper. The Bible does show that Barnabus was one of the first apostles, and that he later sold his lands and donated the proceeds to the Jesus Movement.

Context for 1st-Century Communities. Chilton's description of the temple as it appeared in Jesus' day is vivid and breathtaking in its scope. I also appreciated his explanation of Ezekiel's fiery chariot visions and how they informed both the worldview of John and Jesus. Most interesting was the dichotomy between John's practice of watery baptism and Jesus' meal-oriented sacraments--although Jesus directed his disciples to baptize, I had never before wondered why he, himself, never baptized anyone until I read this book.

Chilton is an astute observer of the political dynamics of 1st-century Galilee and Judeah, tracing Pilate's vacillations back to a Roman political scandal involving his mentor, Sejanus, and explaining how the forces of Pilate, Caiaphas, and Herod united against Christ after his cleansing of the temple. He spends six pages reflecting on the duties of a 1st-century handyman. My orthodox sensibilities were offended, however, by his repeated use of the term "illiterate peasant" to describe my Savior. Personally, I see it as a derogatory term--I think there are ample mentions of Christ reading or quoting scripture in the gospels--but he may have intended it more to reflect historical/class details than prejudice.

Finally, Chilton is able to give unique analysis to Christ's teachings. The most fascinating was in the dichotomy with John's message. Jesus believed that the Spirit of God was available to everyone at any time--not necessarily through baptism but through remembrance and thanks, best typified by the way Christ remembered his heavenly Father at meal times. (Chilton focuses a lot on Christ and food--even speculating that at the end of his stay in Capernaum, just before Herod's pursuit, Jesus had developed a paunch.) To me, this was the revolutionary idea of Christ's work. The Kingdom of God was a community of believers--one very effectively set up by Christ.

I also appreciated the discussion of the Ezekiel and Zechariah texts--two books that I haven't studied sufficiently before. Ezekiel speaks of envisioning a flaming chariot (the throne of God), and Chilton writes that this vision was ever before Jesus, fueling his mission. Jesus' gift to his disciples, then, was the incorporation of this vision within them--along with others, as I have mentioned above.

Finally, the Zechariah prophecies that showed a cleansed temple at which the world would worship helped to explain the impetus for Jesus' final trip to Jerusalem, his dramatic demonstration in the temple, and his combative demeanor with the pharisees he debated there.

There are really two kinds of narratives for the life of Jesus: those where he walks among men, and those where his feet barely touch the ground because of his godliness. Rabbi Jesus belongs among the former type: every idea may not please the orthodox among us, but the view will give us a compelling portrait of the man we know as the Son of God.

Da Vinci Code: Ignore the Hype and Enjoy

I'm trying to get a book published. Last week, I got a very constructive "no thanks" letter back from an editor at Penguin Books, and I've decided to rewrite key sections of The Sandal on the Obelisk to ramp up the action and make the conflict clearer.

Of course, if I wanted to be published that badly, I would put Da Vinci or Opus Dei in the title. Then it would get plenty of attention! It's amazing to me how easily our country's polarized Culture of Outrage can be perverted to sell books and movie tickets. There is much money to be made--hey folks, how about cutting this aspiring author in on the racket?

I read The Da Vinci Code about a year ago. I loved it. It was a thriller that I just couldn't put down from Chapter Two onward. It begins with a spectacular murder in the Louvre. Three sets of people focus on the crime: the granddaughter of the murdered man, who, with the help of an American scholar, races through France and Britain to unravel the secrets of her lineage; the French police, who believe the aforementioned pair are responsible for the murder; and a reclusive English baron who is on his own search for the Holy Grail.

There are so many clues, so many excellent plot twists, your head is spinning and spinning until the end. I must say that I thought the end was disappointing. Brown fumbles the romantic element of the story and the discovery of the Holy Grail...well, it can't live up to the hype.

Speaking of hype, the Culture of Outrage" has really bought into the hype, driving sales of the book to 30 million (most of any novel, ever). Why the hype? Well, one of the plot elements is that Sophie (the granddaughter) is a descendant of Jesus and Mary Magdalene (whose womb, according to Brown, is the real Holy Grail--can you understand the letdown, now?).

To me, these are plot twists, just like other thrillers I've read revealed the location of Hitler's secret child, the passcode to the secret Enigma machine, or evidence of a conspiracy by the FBI to assassinate JFK.

I am a devout Christian, but I don't believe in the holiness of a Grail or in the survival of any clay cup used at the Last Supper. I am mildly offended by allusions to a sexual relationship between Jesus and Mary, but Christ's virginity isn't exactly a cornerstone of my theology. What is the big deal? If a thriller about the Holy Grail is enough to make a Christian lose their faith in Christ's holiness, then by the same logic, a ghost story would be enough to make them lose belief in the Resurrection.

No, it's the usual suspects at work again in our Culture of Outrage. Just like Mel Gibson tweaked the usual suspects (Jews and secularists) to drive movie sales of The Passion of the Christ to over $300 million; Brown and movie director Ron Howard are tweaking the usual suspects (Christian fundamentalists) to drive controversy and sell books & movie tickets.

Will I see the film? Probably not. As a rule, I ignore overhyped movies. The only movies I see nowadays are kid flicks anyway. I've read the book--and I enjoyed it--and that's why I shared this with you.

Luke 5

Bible study this morning: Jesus get into Peter's boat and teaches crowds from around Capernaum. When he is finished speaking, he turns to Peter and says, "Put out into deep water and let down the nets for a catch."

Peter answers, "Master, we've woirked hard all night and haven't caught anything. But because you say so, I will let down the nets" (Luke 5.4-5). Peter goes out to deep water, and the catch is so great that it almost sinks his boat. He calls for help and James & John come to help.

It's a wonderful story--and a wonderful allegory for this season between Easter and Pentecost. Jesus' message had been proclaimed and sealed with His blood. It was at Pentecost that Peter finally overcame his fears and went out into the "deep water," far outside his comfort zone in Galilee. It was at Pentecost that Peter became a "fisher of men."

And the catch! Thousands upon thousands upon thousands! It took help from the SS John, the SS James, the SS Paul, and it continues to pour in through the efforts of believers today.

Modern War or Ancient?

This is a short post. I spent the morning grading papers. One of the questions about Kipling's ballad, "Danny Deever," asked about the time period in which the title character lived.

One answer: "The Evolutionary War."

I-65 Live with Owen Mike

The older my kids get the more I see them passing developmental milestones that I remember passing. Ellie’s first day on crutches last month took me back to the two weeks I flailed around on crutches after a particularly nasty bike wreck.

Owen’s reading has caught up with some of my memories, too. Of course, the first book I remember reading was a book about Jairus’ daughter, while Owen’s choice of books tends more towards encyclopedias. He’s got me there, definitely.

Recently, Owen has taken to reading street signs whenever we drive somewhere. “Speed Limit 45, Dad,” he chirps from his place in the middle section of the minivan. “Are you going 45?” Now he has figured out how to read the speedometer, so it often sounds more like this: “Dad, you’re going too fast. The speed limit is 35. Slow down!”

The first weekend in March our family shook off some winter weariness by taking a road trip. The road trip is an essential and unique aspect of American culture—a time when the family gathers together, shares experiences, and has some bonding time. In other countries families do this at meal times, but here in the States, we strap on the seat belts and burn a few gallons of Saudi Arabia’s finest.

The whole togetherness thing didn’t happen right away. Ellie buried her nose in a book in the back seat, and Jonah perched the portable DVD player on his lap and watched “Jay-Jay the Jet Plane.” Owen began a play-by-play, sign-by-sign routine that would last the whole two-hour trip.

As we approached the on-ramp, Owen noted, “Interstate 65 that-a-way.” He paused. “Yield,” he intoned deeply.

Our minivan bounced through the hills of southern Kentucky. “Road construction 1500 feet,” he announced as we passed an orange sign. He took a quick breath and added, “Road construction 1000 feet, [another quick breath] Road construction 500 feet.”

Exit signs showed what a good reader Owen has become. “Mumfordville,” “Bonnieville,” and “Lietchfield” rolled out of his mouth without a hitch. Mile markers became chances to practice his knowledge of numbers. Owen, who can read his numbers up to 99, got the chance to practice the higher numbers. “Mile one-one-seven,” he said.

“One hundred seventeen,” I corrected him. Owen refused to take the bait. He looked at me for a second. “That’s right,” he grinned. Quickly he turned his face away and announced, “Mile one-one-eight!”

He even found ways to read signs that didn’t say anything. Again and again he would say, “Bumble-bee sign!” I couldn’t tell what he was talking about until we passed a bridge. At the sight of the diagonal yellow-and-black striped sign, he said it again: “Large Bumblebee Sign!”

“Narrow road,” I instructed. “It means the road narrows.”

Owen didn’t think much of my reading ability. “It’s a Bumblebee Sign, Dad,” he said with a tone of disparagement in his voice.

We were driving through a construction zone just north of Bowling Green, Kentucky, when the whole speed limit thing came up again. “Speed limit 55,” he proclaimed. I admit I wasn’t paying much attention—I was trying to listen to a book Jenny was reading to me.

A few minutes later, he said it a little louder, “Speed limit 55!” I looked in the rearview mirror. I could see him looking past my shoulder at the speedometer. “Dad!” he said, “You’re going too fast!”

“It’s OK,” I tried to reassure him. “You can drive a little faster than the speed limit here.”

“You’re going 65 and the speed limit says 55!”

“OK, fine.” I let my foot off the gas pedal as we reached the crest of a hill. I looked back at Owen. He was still scrutinizing the speedometer, but he was silent. As the van careened down the other side of the hill at exactly 55 miles per hour, I spotted the front end of a police car peering around a corner. I was safe, and I had a five-year-old to thank for it.

The Bible's Least Romantic Verse

"Enjoy life with your wife whom you love, all the days of this meaningless life that God has given you under the sun--for all your meaningless days." --Eclesiastes 9.9

Ecclesiastes Made Easy

I had this message in my Inbox yesterday:

"Could you and would you have time to do an introduction to Ecclesiastes? This is an unusual and fascinating book and you could do it justice. Please confirm that you receive. I hate to call you on Sat... Johnny"

I'm a teacher through and through, but there are some times when I don't mind being the student. That tends to happen when the lesson is on something that I don't understand very well--such as the book of Ecclesiastes. All week I'd been studying my Sunday School lesson, thinking, "I'm sure glad I don't have to teach this." Of course, all week, Johnny had been down in Nashville working as a lobbyist in the state legislature, too busy to prepare a full lesson. (Watching Tennessee's legislature takes as much energy and fortitude as watching teenagers, I believe.)

Even Johnny's flattery, "You could do it justice," couldn't break through the hopelessness of my goal. Then again, hopelessness is the theme of the book. I thought I'd share some of the insights with you.

First some context for the study. Prior to Easter, our class was studying the book of Job--man suffers injustice, keeps his faith in God, gets rewarded in the end. It closed with Christ's suffering, first in Gethsemane and then on the cross, and we made parallels between Job and Christ.

This week we began Ecclesiastes, and closed with a study of some of the Resurrection appearances of Jesus. The book of Ecclesiastes reads like an "inside-out" version of the Book of Job. Rather than being a testament of suffering, it is a chronicle of excess--reflections of a man who gained the whole world, only to find the meaninglessness of a life without God's leading.

At the end of Job, the main character has been vindicated by God. By the 2nd chapter of Ecclesiastes, the writer has almost eviscerated all the hope, all the love, all the grace that a believer might expect from God.

Most people believe that Ecclesiastes come from Solomon--and it is fascinating to consider them in light of Solomon's own life story. His kingdom had an auspicious beginning: God appeared to him in a dream and promise to grant any one wish he could make. Solomon asked for wisdom--a wish granted by God, along with wealth, splendor and empire (1 Kings 3.1-15; 4.29-34). Only a few stories of Solomon's wisdom survive in the Bible: his judicious judgment of two women arguing over a surviving child, and his epic encounter with the Queen of Sheba.

The high point of Solomon's career was the dedication of the temple. His prayer of dedication is one of the greatest speeches found in the Bible (1 Kings 8), yet a critical study of the speech shows the seeds of the fall that will soon come. By 1 Kings 11, we learn that Solomon's excesses--his enslavement of his own people, his 700 wives, his 300 concubines have attracted God's wrath. "The Lord became angry with Solomon because his heart had turned away from the Lord," (1 Kings 11.9).

God raises two opponents to harass Solomon in his final years. The mysterious King Hadad of Edom (a survivor of the genocide through which Joab wiped out the nation of Edom in 2nd Samuel 8) gains the sponsorship of Shishak, Pharaoh of Egypt, and tries to invade.

Closer to home, the prophet Ahijah promises Jeroboam ten of the twelve tribes of Israel. When Solomon learns of Jeroboam's goals, he tries to murder him, but Jeroboam escapes to Egypt to await Solomon's demise and the rule of his inferior, vain, and incompetent son, Rehoboam.

This, then, is the context for the book Ecclesiastes. Solomon is hedged in by enemies, and Egypt is on the rise, ready to seize any opportunity to invade and take away everything Solomon has built. Such excess would seem meaningless in this context, wouldn't it?

Wise as he was, Solomon knew the game was up--that his glorious building projects and his wide-ranging empire were "a chasing after the wind." Hindsight shows that within five years of his death, ten tribes would split away under the rule of Jeroboam, leaving the rump nation of Judah to stumble forward another 250 years. Within 15 years, Pharaoh Shishak would sack Jerusalem and carry away many of the treasures so lovingly stored in the temple (including the Ark of the Covenant so celebrated by Solomon's father, David).

Eight chapters in the first book of Kings tells the story of Solomon--only eleven chapters. He appears to me to be a man whose life was squandered with excess and shallowness. Ecclesiastes bears this theme out, leaving us with wisdom, yes, but also a health share of regret for all that Solomon wasted.

Easter Thoughts

There is a reason why I worship from church pews rather than from the pulpit: my ideas tend to come a little late, usually while my mind and my spirit are interacting with the message of the sermon. Although these Easter thoughts are technically a day late, they were inspired yesterday, and I hope they will inspire you, too.

In the year 63 BC, Jerusalem welcomed the greatest general to ever set foot in that ancient city. For all the warcraft of Nebuchadnezzar or David or Sheshak (the pharaoh who looted the Ark of the Covenant from Reheboam), Pompey the Great was a general at the height of his glory, welcoming comparisons to Alexander the Great (who had bypassed Jerusalem in his conquests).

In full glory--his armor was coated with gold for his triumphs--Pompey strode through the city, advancing to the steps of the Temple, the very temple rebuilt by Nehemiah about 400 years earlier. Pompey, the Roman governor responsible for the eastern provinces, had joined the Hasmonians in a bitter civil war that had divided the ancestors of Judas Maccabees, who had gained independence from the Hellenistic Seleucid Empire. As power broker, he would usher in Roman suzerainty that would dominate the region for another 400 years.

His bodyguard shoved aside a group of Jewish protesters and held wide the temple doors for Pompey to enter. The general climbed the steps and entered as a Hasmonian guide described the significance of the altar and the Holy Place. At the far end of the hall hung a great curtain. Much to the horror of his hosts, Pompey advanced, reached out, and slipped through the curtain into the Holy of Holies, a room entered only by the High Priest once every year on the Day of Atonement.

He looked up into the square chamber, gazing at its four walls and smooth cobblestones. He looked back at his aides and grinned quizzically. "It is empty," he observed.

He turned, strode hurriedly through the temple to the exit, and left Jerusalem for more conquests and an eventual showdown (13 years later) with the only man in the world who could surpass his military genius: Julius Caesar.

No doubt the Most Holy Place became a punchline in the stories that Pompey told thereafter: such reverance and adoration given to a room that was completely empty!

The same observation was made by two women, who had hurried to a room carved out from the base of Golgotha, "Skull Hill," early on a Sunday morning nearly 100 years later. They had gone to adorn the body of a fallen Teacher, yet they had found that room empty: an empty cave that would become every bit as holy to believing Christians as the Most Holy Place had been to the Jews.

What would Pompey have thought? What's the big deal about an empty room?

After all, is religion just the worship of empty chambers? The ancient Minoans worshipped caves, I read, viewing them as portals, dwelling places of the gods. I don't know enough about Islam or Buddhism, but I would expect that there are empty rooms there, too. Perhaps empty rooms are the most obvious sign that faith is empty, the objects of believers' adoration are simply nonexistent.

Another question came this weekend at men's Bible study: what does it mean to be "poor in spirit" (Matthew 5:3)? My Bible commentary showed that this was "in contrast to the spiritually proud and self-sufficient."

One who is "poor in spirit," then, is someone with an empty room deep within themselves. Spiritual hunger, spiritual thirst, the longing for reunion with Christ--all come from the Empty Room of the heart. And Christ promised to bless these rooms with the "kingdom of heaven."

We worship empty rooms because there is a spiritual longing within each person that the God of Empty Rooms can only fill. Had the Holy of Holies been packed to the ceiling like a pharaoh's tomb, it could not have honored God before Pompey any more than it did. (As it was, the Holy of Holies became the first holy place Pompey couldn't loot.)

On Easter Sunday this year, I peered into the tomb with Mary and with Peter and with John. It was empty. Christ was risen. I broke bread and drank juice. On my knees in the silence thereafter, I hear echoes in the Empty Room within me. I begged to be filled.

A Funny Story Set in Sweden

My favorite Christian music singer, Andrew Peterson, just got back from a trip to Sweden. We've been discussing Sweden on a message board on his web site (he actually responded to one of my posts), and I just had to post the story on my own blog.

I hope you enjoy this.

I understood AP's story about the Swedish meatballs, but I would love to
hear any other examples of culture shock that he went through. Do Swedes still
drive on the left-hand side of the road? Did he find anything over there he
wished that we had here in the States? Were the churches and methods of worship
similar to ours here? That's what I would love to hear about.

I'll tell one more story, which will hopefully be funnier than the lame
joke I posted above. I spent a week near Gothenburg, Sweden, celebrating
Midsummer's Day in 1991. (Two close friends are Danish, hence the joke above. My
grandmother was actually full-blooded Norwegian.)

Anyway, Midsummer's Day is a big celebration there, especially considering
the length of the year's longest day in those high lattitudes. I remember that
the sun went down at 11 p.m. and rose again around 2:30 a.m., and the
"nighttime" was more of a dull, gray dusk.

My hosts held a bonfire and set off fireworks to celebrate the holiday.
Then they took me to a Swedish sauna that was set right next to a beautiful
lake. "You're going to love the sauna," they told me.

Well, since I had been hitchhiking, I didn't exactly have a bathing suit,
so I borrowed one from a Swede. The Swedes translate the American word, "bathing
suit," as "embarassingly tiny, near-immodest, loin purse" or, more familiarly,
"Speedo."

We went to the sauna, talked, laughed, and roasted until somebody said,
"Let's jump in the lake!" Before I knew what had happened, I had leaped from the
120-degree sauna into 60-degree lakewater. We returned to the sauna, and
repeated this every 20 minutes for about two hours.

I remember two things about the experience. First, it felt really good.
When I went to bed that night, my skin felt really soft and healthy. I'll always
remember that first great sauna, even if I haven't sauna-ed since.

Secondly, I'll never forget the embarassment I felt when I got out of the
lake the second time and looked down at my, er, bathing suit. I won't go into
gory details describing the effects of cold on the male anatomy, but ...

Those are the kinds of stories I love about Sweden--a most excellent
country, I must say. Let's hear more!

Beautiful Creatures

I developed my first rolls (yes, I'm still doing the old 35mm thing) of film this week in about six months! I wanted to share some with you. We spent a Sabbath in March visiting Jenny's patients and adventuring at Barren River Dam, which led to the picture you see above.

Here's a test: stare at the above left photo for ten seconds, and just try to keep from grinning back. Come on! It's not working!

Jenny and Ellie attended a "tea party" fundraiser for the American Cancer Society. Ellie won a prize for best-dressed doll. I think she should have also won the prize for Most Gorgeous Mama.

I bought a laptop computer last month. Rather than finally getting a computer of my own, it was quickly seized by the kids. The picture above is almost a Norman-Rockwell-style portrait of a 21st-Century American family. Big Sister was playing a game, but she got to a rough part and had to get help from 5-year-old Brother. Meanwhile, Baby Brother uses the distraction to pull people's hair!

No School Tomorrow

I'll be home tomorrow, and the weather will be perfect.

Sadly, most people and businesses in my school's district will spend their day recovering from the single most devastating weather attack I have witnessed in my area in my lifetime.

Last Friday, around 2:15 p.m. Two tornadoes ripped through southern Sumner County. One passed within about 200 yards of my high school, while another ripped through the administration building at Volunteer State Community College and made the car dealerships on the other side of highway 31E look like my sons' bedroom floor.

I was away from school when it struck, supervising students at a Youth in Government conference in Nashville. I did get to visit my school on Saturday morning, and I captured some photos from the video I took.


This is one of the electrical poles behind the school. Along with this light pole, one of the light towers on the baseball field also was knocked down.

The storm also tore down the goalposts in the end zone of our football field. Of course, our team was 1-8 this year, so it would take a tornado for that to happen! To the front right of the goalpost, you will see the scoreboard. The building behind the field was the baseball/softball scorehouse, concession stand.

Apparently the roof was ripped off the top of the gym. Some windows were also broken. Hopefully we'll be back in school on Tuesday.

Family Goals, Family Crest

Jenny and I are going through a lot of changes right now, developing some new relationships and refocusing our attention on the relationships that matter most: our time with our kids.

One of the things we have developed is a set of goals for our family. We have chosen two German words, "Abenteuer, Dienst," as our family motto. They mean "Adventure, Service."

Now we're working on a new family coat of arms. It is a fun project that involves choosing colors, flags, and symbols that represent our goals for our family. It is clearly a work in progress. Here it is to date:

We need to add a number of family symbols. I will put a river through the middle. It's a symbol that comes from the ancient Dittes family coat of arms (from Germany). The creek that flows through our familienstadt of Diedelsheim, Germany, is called the Saarbruecke. Beyond the Saarbruecke, there are other rivers that Jenny and I love: the Wye in Wales, is a place where Jenny hiked to find her ancestors. I tell people, "The Ohio is my mother, and the Danube is my father."

Otherwise, we're considering other symbols: something to do with Christianity, the pines along our driveway, Penard Castle (another special place in Wales), a glove with an extended thumb (for hitchhiking). Those are just some of the ideas.

If you can think of any, I would welcome your comment.

New Internet Fun

According to my students, I'm one of the last to pick up on this, but I've had fun experimenting with Pandora over the past two days.

If you're not familiar with it, Pandora is an online music cache that will stream a unique radio station through your computer. You simply fill in a number of artists you like, and it selects music for you based on those tastes. Furthermore, you can set up separate accounts. I have three accounts. Girls Rock Radio was set up by Ellie to sample teenybopper songs from Hilary Duff and Aly & A.J. and others. I listen to JD Pop during the day and evenings. It features BritPop along with some Bruce Hornsby, U2, and Five for Fighting for a pretty crazy mix. In the morning I listen to an Inspirational/Bluegrass mix to get my day started right.

The cool thing is I don't have to choose the music. Pandora acts as my brain!

I Want 'Owen" Things--a 2-year-old's guide to Covetousness

I never had a little brother. A little sister, yes, but I never had the "Clone Wars" experience that happens between younger and elder brothers.

My sister and I spent most of our growing up years abhorring the "girl ways" and "boy ways" of each other. It wasn't until high school that she began stealing from me regularly--my green polo shirts were an obsession for her.

On the other hand, I watch Jonah mimic every move of his elder brother, Owen. Goslings cannot imprint any stronger on their mother than Jonah has fixated on his elder brother. Toys, baths, even books: where one is, I'm sure to find the other. And Owen's influence on Jonah is so complete, that if I so much as see Jonah doing something illicit--blowing bubbles in his juice or spitting water around the kitchen--I know that the only way to end the behavior is to stop Owen's example first. (I should add that these brothers share EVERYTHING with each other, so Jonah's mimicry seldom instigates sibling battles.)

Last month, Jonah began using his brother's name in a context that had never occurred to me before. We were at supper. Jonah pointed across the table and said, "I want Owen corn."

I thought he was pointing to his brother's plate. "You can't have that," I said. "Owen is going to eat it."

Jonah fussed a bit. Then he pointed again and said, "I want Owen corn!"

I looked at his plate and noticed that it was clean, so I spooned another serving of corn out of the bowl and gave it to him. He smiled broadly and said, "Thankooo."

'Owen corn' hadn't referred to Owen's corn. It had been used in a context that could mean "more" or "another." Jonah had wanted what Owen had on his place--he always wants the things he sees around his brother.

Since then, I have heard Jonah ask for "owen candy" or an "owen piece of bread," even when his brother isn't even around. His passion to have everything like his brother's has added a new adjective to the growing Dittes Family Vocabulary.

Instead of 'keeping up with the Joneses,' we say, "I want owen this and that."

I spend many of my own energies trying to imitate others around me, failing to be satisfied with the incredible blessings I have been given. So long as these desires are in the abstract, they are palatable--even honorable. I want a laptop computer, a Mini Cooper, new windows in my home, money for travel and leisure.

There's nothing wrong with that, is there? Well...there is.

I smile about a two-year-old who imitates every jot and tittle of his big brother's life. Does God smile at me in the same way?

I spend my energies wanting a Lee computer, a Jon car, some Smith windows, and a Meggan trip. I don't put it this way, because I've been tricked into believing that I'm "thinking for myself" in these areas.

In the end, the person I am called to imitate isn't Lee or Jon or Meggan but Jesus. My life must be devoted to the One who acts as my perfect "Big Brother" and beckons me to follow Him.

Could I ask for a Jesus laptop, a Christ car, some Messiah windows or a Savior trip? I could, but it sure would seem funny, since He never had any of those. No, once I have given up the ones I emulate in favor of the One who calls me, I will lose the desire for those worldly things as well.