New Book: Passion and Principal

I just finished one of the most fascinating books I've read on the topic of American history: Sally Denton's, Passion and Principal, a biography of THE American power couple in the mid-19th Century: John C. and Jessie Fremont.

I was so inspired, I published a review on Amazon.com, which I will include below. Let me just say that I found a kindred spirit in Fremont: a man probably too adventurous for his own good--and one far too ahead of the curve to succeed as a military man or a politician. Perhaps it's a sign of my age that I find myself spending more time sympathizing with the flaws of the individuals I read about than I spend aspiring to copy their greater attributes.

Does anyone else find themselves reading biographies in this way?

Like Fremont, I also married a powerful woman, albeit one who lived in a culture that was more accepting of brilliance in women. Jessie Fremont excelled as a writer and political strategist long before such occupations were appropriate for her sex.

Anyway, here's the review:

His career wedged between two American titans, Andrew Jackson and Abraham Lincoln, John C. Fremont leaps into the his rightful place in history through this remarkable book.

Fremont's idealism both helped an haunted his career. He was the first American to systematically map the Rocky Mountains and the Great Basin, and he played a remarkable role in the Bear Flag Revolt and the conquest of California. But the "Pathfinder" often found himself too far in front of his contemporaries: his failure to adapt to the changing military change of command led to court martial within a year of his California exploits; his adamant opposition to slavery cost him first his senate seat and later his position as commander of the Union's Western forces in the Civil War (he issued the first Emancipation Proclamation in the state of Missouri in 1861, and Lincoln punished him harshly for this); finally, he invested the huge fortune he had made in the California gold fields in transcontinental railroads, only to fail at every turn and die in poverty.

No better example of both Fremont's strengths and flaws can be found than the San Juan Mountains of southwestern Colorado: a rugged mountain chain he tried twice to traverse, ending in failure each time, the first time in the service of the U.S. Army and the second time in an attempt to survey a pass for the railroads through the mountains.

This is the first biography I have read of Fremont, and I felt that Denton's tone was sometimes overly sympathetic. She seemed to play down obvious indications of both Fremonts' extra-marital affairs and the personality tics that prevented Fremont from succeeding as a politician (despite runs for the presidency both in 1856 and 1864).

All in all, though, Denton does a wonderful job of bringing this power couple to life. From beginning to end, I was fascinated by these two individuals and their contributions during a critical part of American history.

Star Wars

"Dad, what's the name of the the pit that took 1,000 years to eat Boba Fett?"

"Dad, when did Luke find out that Leia was his sister?"

These questions and more have been echoing around my house as Owen develops a true love of Star Wars.

It's funny. I was Owen's age when Star Wars burst onto the scene in the late 1970s. It captured my imagination at the time: a universe far, far away with X-wing fighters, The Force, and Darth Vader, the most terrifying character I had seen in the movies.

Star Wars was the first movie I ever saw in the theater. I begged my mom to take me, almost from day one, but Adventists at the time frowned on visiting movie theaters. During it's second run in the Spring of 1978, she finally consented and took me, along with my best friend, Eric, to the theater in downtown Athens, Ohio. Afterward we went to Dairy Queen, and I had a Peanut Buster Parfait--it's amazing the things you remember thirty years later.

Owen took an indirect route to Star Wars obsession. He is currently fixated on Legos. At his birthday, recently, he received four or five different boxes of Legos. One Lego series is based on Star Wars. More importantly, they have a series of video games called "Lego Star Wars."

Owen is working his way through the movies. It's confusing now, because of course George Lucas released a three-part prequel to Star Wars between 1997 and 2004. Owen says that he likes Episode 1, but by that he means The Phantom Menace, not Episode 4, which was the original Star Wars. He likes to refer to the three movies of my childhood as "the original trilogy."

It is fun, though, seeing the movies through his eyes once again. Star Wars is for kids: the Jedi knights and droids and spaceships are tailor-made for a seven-year-old's imagination. As I grew older, I began to focus on the soap opera quality of the storyline. Watching the movie with Owen again, I realize, "there are worlds out there...all we must do is imagine them; there are monsters and heroes and robots and spaceships...all we must do is create them--and play, most of all."

Giving Thanks to God

I'll try to get caught up on my blogging this holiday weekend. Things have been tres busy here, and I need to recover!

If you're looking for something to be thankful for, look up. God has been great to my family this year. I'll enclose this new song from my favorite praise artist, David Crowder: "You Make Everything Glorious." Enjoy.

Political Endorsement

Heart Warranty

I'm the chairman of the men's group at my church. We call ourselves the Men of Bethpage, a.k.a. "the MoB."

One of the cool things that I get to do as men's group leader is ask people to have the devotional at our monthly meetings. I always make it a point to pray before I seek, and God has led me to some inspiring people. Today I had asked Mike J., the harmonicist for our church band and a man who has come back from valve-replacement surgery, which he had back in June.

"I've been praying for a new heart every week for years," I said. "Now Mike is going to tell us what it's like."

Mike S. piped up from the audience. He's an engineer, so he's all about the technology. "That's a refurb' you've got there," he said. "A refurbished heart." He paused to arrange the punchline: "Did you get a warranty with that?"

Mike J. didn't miss a beat as he walked up and took his place at the podium. He looked back and winked at Mike S. "A lifetime warranty," he said.

"When You Mix Religion and Politics..."

Fascinating story in the New York Times's Week in Review this weekend on the demise on the evangelical love affair with the Republican Party.

'The Evangelical Crackup" focuses on Wichita, Kansas, and the changing of the guard in the religious establishment there. Many of the ministers who led Kansas' backward political battles (closing a local abortion clinic and leading a statewide campaign against gay marriage) have either retired or been sacked by their congregations.

Those taking their place are younger, more moderate pastors who preach a holistic Christianity that focuses more on good deeds toward one's community and environment than on bad ideas. Consider this quote from Todd Walker, 42, who pastors the 7,000 member Westlink Christian Church:

“I don’t believe the problem of abortion will be solved by overturning Roe v. Wade. It won’t. To me, it is a Gospel issue.”

Walker's predecessor, Gene Carlson, who was a leader in the Rightist anti-abortion protests of the 80s and 90s, summed it up best, I thought: "When you mix religion and politics, all you get is politics."

I especially loved one nugget that David D. Kirkpatrick found. Considering how Wichita was ruled by right-wing Christian ministers for over a decade, the leader of the recent anti-lottery campaign turned out to be none other than the liberal minister of the First United Methodist Church! Well, the shoe is on the other foot, then, isn't it?

Clearly the blame for the popping of the Fundamentalist Bubble is the quasi-Fundamentalist Empty Suit elected to the White House in 2000 and 2004. Despite years of pandering, Bush's approval rating among evangelicals has fallen to 45% from 90% at the time of the 2004 election. (For the rest of the country, his approval rating is half of that.)

Questions remain, though. Will this affect the 2008 election with more-moderate evangelicals turning to Democrats? Is this "crack-up" due to the true demise of an unwieldy religio-political alliance or to the disheartening lack of quality among Republican candidates?

I remember one thing the late Molly Ivins said at a lecture I attended: "I've learned to never bet on politics." Of course after she said this, she went on to tell how unlikely it was that her close friend and Texas Governor would ever lose an election to a slavering incompetent like George W. Bush!

Thoughts on James

A few months ago I blogged about the trouble I was having with a belief in Satan. (Who speaks Latin here? Would that be an adiablist?)

I found some backing for this view as I was reading the Book of James. This is James 1.13-15:

Don't let anyone under pressure to give in to evil say, "God is trying to trip me up." God is impervious to evil, and puts evil in no one's way. The temptation to give in to evil comes from us and only us. We have no one to blame but the leering, seducing flare-up of our own lust. Lust gets pregnant and has a baby: sin! Sin grows up to adulthood and becomes a real killer. (The Message translation)

As I said in my earlier post, I consider myself to be the root of evil in my life. I have a natural bent toward a number of sins. When I am tempted to lust or tell a lie, that comes from inside me, not from Satan. When I take Jesus' body and blood at Communion, I pray that He will conquer the sin inside me--not the Satan somewhere, wherever he is.

Yes, James is writing to those who claim "God made me do it" instead of The Devil--perhaps a nascent group of predestinites/Calvinists. But I think the logic holds up.

Check out my school web site

I've been taking a learn-as-you-go course on Dreamweaver (a web design software). I'm lucky to have a number of web sites to try the stuff out on. My favorite is my teaching web site.

I'm really proud of this thing. If you cruise on over, you'll see movie-style banners on the home page and the English 1 Honors page. On the German I page, you'll see links to photos of our recent history project: "Crusading mit Barbarossa."

I worked especially hard this week on a 'paperless' research project for my English 1 Honors class. Students had to research social classes in the 19th century. I set up an HTML form for them to enter their answers. Then I installed a 'SEND' button. When they were done with the research, they clicked the button, and their research was immediately sent to my Inbox.

Now that's cool! Hopefully those of you who knew my teaching abilities way back in the 20th Century, will be impressed by the modern changes.

I'd Like to Thank the Nobel Committee

Since I won't ever get a Nobel Prize (unless they start a category called "Teaching Homer to High Schoolers"), I have to focus my excitement to the prize awarded today to a fellow Tennessean I have long admired: Al Gore.

Therefore, I would like to thank the Nobel Committee for choosing an American. For good and for evil, my country is a leading force in the world today, and I am grateful when Americans can be recognized for the good generated on behalf of other around the world. Gore joins political leaders like Theodore Roosevelt, Woodrow Wilson, Martin Luther King, Jr., and Jimmy Carter, along with cabinet members like Cordell Hull and George C. Marshall as recipients of this most esteemed of awards.

It is also as a Tennessean that I thank the committee. Gore is the 2nd Tennessean to win this prize--considering that my state is not among the most populated, I think that's pretty good. Cordell Hull, who made his home in Clay County, not 40 miles away from Gore's home in Carthage, won the Peace Prize in 1945 for his efforts in the founding of the United Nations.

Despite the common sense and clear science behind Gore's campaign to educate the world about mankind's impact climate change, he has certainly overcome great obstacles to do so. His own country has been misled into an abyss where contempt for fact and analysis is considered a political advantage. While no scientific studies have contradicted Gore's claims, he has weathered (pardon the pun) a string of personal attacks and hyperbole, designed to divert his American audience from his central message.

Frankly, if it had been easy, I guess he wouldn't have won the Nobel Prize. So maybe that's a good thing after all.

A Worship Tip

One of the priorities a Christian faces is how to make worship more meaningful. I wanted to pass along one that is meaningful to me.

I've been singing hymns and praise songs for so long, I don't think there are many that I don't know by heart. I've started singing everything by memory. It's better that way, and it seems like more of an expression of worship than if I'm reading off a screen or from a hymnbook.

(My church has a modern early service and a traditional second service. On days when I sing with the choir, I go to both services, so I get to sing both praise songs and hymns.)

As I sing the songs, I often find myself looking down, rather than up at the screen where the words are. I find that when I'm looking down and to the left--in the lower left quadrant of my vision, the words mean so much more to me. I feel much more worshipful.

Is there anything to this? I've read in the past that you can often figure out what someone is thinking by the direction their eyes look when they look away from you. I'm not sure if I've ever found a connection between worship and where one looks with their eyes.

Living Biblically for a Year

I have long enjoyed A.J. Jacobs work in Esquire magazine, as well as his book, The Know It All, about the year he read the entire Encyclopedia Britannica.

His latest book is called The Year of Living Biblically. Here's the plot: Jacobs spent one year following every single rule found in the Bible. He consulted with a Hasidic Jew, an Amish, and a Jehovah's Witness to make sure that he had all his bases covered.

How did it go? Jacobs grew out his beard (see picture right). He cut out the cursing and the coveting. He built a hut in the middle of his New York apartment and tried to wear white, as recommended in Ecclesiastes. He celebrated the Sabbath. And when he met a man who admitted that he had committed adultery, Jacobs politely asked to stone him.

I'll look forward to reading the book, although I'll probably wait to borrow it from my local library. When asked by MSNBC if the book changed him, Jacobs admitted that he changed from "an agnostic to a reverent agnostic."

Having grown up in Seventh-day Adventist communities, I know my fair share about living biblically: what food to eat, what I can (and can not) do on the Sabbath, what not to wear, etc. It's easy for me to eat & dress like a fundamentalist, but like St. Paul, I felt that "living biblically" was an imperfect route to the Father; furthermore, when I 'lived biblically' it empowered people around me to criticize my actions and motivations. Now that I live for Christ, I don't have to put up with that stuff anymore.

Jacobs, however, felt empowered by the experience:

The experience changed me in big ways and small ways. There’s a lot about gratefulness in the Bible, and I would say I’m more thankful. I focus on the hundred little things that go right in a day, instead of the three or four things that go wrong. And I love the Sabbath. There’s something I really like about a forced day of rest.... One thing I learned is that the outside affects the inside, your behavior shapes your thoughts. I also really liked what one of my spiritual advisers said, which was that you can view life as a series of rights and entitlements, or a series of responsibilities. I like seeing my life as a series of responsibilities. It’s sort of, "Ask not what God can do for you, ask what you can do for God."

The book comes out next week. Jacobs also has a feature story in the latest issue of Esquire about his one-year efforts.

A Collision Billions of Years in the Making

I found the following items in this week's TIME magazine:

New Look at Dinosaurs' Demise

A recent study pinpointed the interstellar collision that eventually led to the dinosaurs' extinction. The event was so deep in space that the meteorite it created didn't slam into Earth and kill off the dinosaurs until nearly 100 million years later. While the findings, if true, would "link the biological history of the earth to events far from earth," according to William Bottke, who led the study, they would also alter what we know about the history of dinosaurs:

(The pictures at right are of the Yucatan Peninsula, site of the Chicxulub meteorite site. In the top picture, a faint green line shows the extremity of the huge crater. The bottom picture has a white dot, which identifies the impact point.)

This brief was hard for me to really "get." My mind simply cannot conceive of the idea of one million years. I've tried. I couldn't. I guess my mind is just too small.

The article is based on science, however, so I try to understand. The timeline looks like this: 250 million years ago, dinosaurs become the dominant land animals.

Ninety million years later, on the other side of the Universe, two asteroids, one 106 miles in diameter, the other 37 miles, slam into each other and explode, creating a field of interstellar meteorites, The Baptistinas.

One of these meteorites, a six-mile behemoth, travels for 95 million years through desolate space. At the appointed time--the time mathematically destined since the collision that created it--it slams into earth, just off the shore of Mexico's Yucatan Peninsula. Clouds of dust arise and blot out the sun for months, years. The dinosaurs go extinct.

Now, I said before that I can't comprehend one million years in time, much less the distances of time and space, the mathematical precision, and the tens of millions of years between explosion and impact that this study explains. Anything that vast, I tend to ascribe to the Mind of God.

I mean, think about it. According to this scenario, life on earth developed, existed, thrived under a death sentences. Tens of millions of years earlier, an explosion far across the universe doomed life on this planet. My bounded imagination cannot explain this without God.

But what would an event like this tell one about God? Here's what I think:

I think these adjectives need to be forever banned from discussions of God: impetuous, arbitrary, and capricious.

In fact, His will is so vast as to understand causes and effects when they are separated by the tens of millions of years, miles, units of energy, etc. Mankind cannot understand this, and we deceive ourselves if we claim to do so. When God creates, He does so in a way that is timeless and mind-blowing. When God destroys, that too is an event set in motion eons and light-years away from those ultimately affected.

With a God who spans tens of millions of ages, then, 'what is Man that [God] is mindful of him?' (Psalm 8). We are probably a lot smaller than we think! We are too willing to exalt ourselves, considering the actions that God set in motion before our lives that may or may not come to fruition during our days on earth.

I'm reminded of this exchange, found in the book of Job (40.2-4):

The Lord said to Job, "Will the one who contends with the Almighty correct him? Let him who accuses God answer him!"

Then Job answered the Lord: "I am unworthy--how can I reply to you? I put my hand over my mouth."

My mind is still trying to take it all in. Maybe your minds can help me with this.

Speaking for the Dead

Her name is La Doncella. She has been asleep for over 500 years. Look at her. See the way her legs are crossed, her arms are wrapped around her tummy to ward off the cold. She looks as if she could awaken at any time, but she won't.

La Doncella was 15 when she went to sleep in a cave high in the Andes Mountains, along with a boy, 7, and a little girl, 6. They were willing, human sacrifices.

The best we can tell, the Incas needed guardians for their villages. Children, often the children of nobility, made great candidates. They were innocent, pure, almost godlike. They would be buried alive on a 22,000-foot peak overlooking the city of Salta, Argentina. They would join their ancestors, and their spirits would watch over their surviving kin.

The children were well dressed. They carried with them many artifacts to take into the afterlife. Their mummified remains show no signs of struggle. They squatted as the cave was sealed up, wrapped their cloaks tightly around themselves, and closed their eyes, never to awaken again.

What fascinates me about La Doncella and her tiny friends isn't the perfection with which they have been preserved at 22,000 feet: it's the unseen part of her--the spirit that allowed her to willingly offer up her life to be a guardian of her people, the spirit that cannot be found among the artifacts of her burial.

I know a little about the spirits and personalities of 15-year-old girls, and I wish that hers could be coupled once again with her body--to wake up, and see the world through Incan eyes. In some ways I hope her spirit can't see her remains, moved to a museum in Salta, and kept at 0 degrees Fahrenheit in a glass cylinder. From what I know, I doubt she would care anyway.

Our spirit is the only part of us that is eternal: it was created in the Mind of God before we were formed in our mothers' wombs. It is the only thing that will remain after our remains have rotted away--unless we can arrange ourselves a burial on one of those Andean peaks!

Of Daddies and Daughters

You're never too old to learn, never too old to realize how the world really works. I've spent the summer having a lesson seared into my mind--one which contradicts one of the greatest goals of my life:

The ideal that my daughter would grow to cherish me.

It was much harder for me to write the sentence above than it could have been surprising for you (especially if you're a father) to read it. I've found it to be one of the coldest and hardest facts of life to come to terms with, yet I ask you...

Can you think of a grown daughter who actually cherishes her father?

I think it's a myth--one that I fell for hard the minute Ellie was born on a bright Arizona day in May of 1997. We have all these niceties in our culture--the expression, "Daddy's girl," is a prime example--that deceive fathers like me into believing a Lie.

When Ellie was nursing, I spent every night reading The Odyssey to her and Jenny. We took her everywhere--to Grand Canyon, Calfornia, Vienna, Budapest, and Albania--and both Jenny and I dreamed of raising a girl who would share our adventurous view of the world.

When Ellie was three, I read a series of books about world history to her. She showed a wonderful aptitude for history--any story, for that matter. "Daddy, tell me a story!" was her favorite expression, and I grew as a storyteller and a writer--my first manuscript, still unpublished, sadly, is a book-length version of one of her most favorite stories from that time: Nitokris's Sandal.

We returned from Albania when Ellie was two, and for the next four years of her life, I stayed home with her for all but one of them--a year I flailed away working for Catholic Charities. I coached her soccer team for four seasons. I went to incredible lengths to be a part of her life and to lead and adore as a father should.

And now it seems that it was really a waste of time. Ellie turned ten last May. Contempt followed soon after. "I don't think you really love me," she wrote me in a note at that time. It was a slap in the face, but I played along, trying to point out some of the things I've done for her, showing affection when I could. But to be honest, it was like telling me, in the middle of an epic road trip, "I don't think you've started the car yet."

Don't get me wrong, in many ways I've seen Ellie grow up this summer. She's taller. She takes a lot more responsibility at home, and her grades have improved. But I've also seen her grow apart. I'm the only person in the family who has a stronger personality than Ellie, which leads to far too many conflicts. She gets her way with just about everyone else.

The more I think of it, though. This is the way with little girls. They grow away from their daddies, pausing only for a brief, nostalgic display on their wedding day, before continuing life without them. I looked at the little girls that had grown up around me: Jenny, my sister, my close friends. I just don't see that any of them really love their fathers in the way that I wish my daughter would love me--the ideal that I mentioned earlier.

I talked with Jenny about this. She talks with her dad once or twice a year. He visited last summer for the first time in four years, and she's fine with that. She blames him for a lot of that--and, I agree that he made some major blunders with both her and her mother. But I asked her if she hadn't already started moving away before that. She figured that she probably had.

That is my major revelation of the week. It isn't a very positive one, but it is an important one, both for me and for Ellie. Since I came to this realization, I have treated Ellie with affection, but I haven't made a big deal about the insulting things she says or does. For example, when she planned a whole summer trip to go to EPCOT Center for just her and Jenny, I said, "Then I'm going to take the boys to Niagara Falls so we can be as far away from you as possible."

The 'Old Daddy' would have said, "Don't you remember all the road trips I've taken you on? Do you remember the places we've talked about visiting together?" The 'New Daddy' just volleyed the insult and went on with life, lower expectations and all.

Because that's the real way it is with daughters, and with daddies, and with life.

Say Hello to my Blogging Friends

I've added a few new buddies to my blog list over the last few months, and I wanted to introduce them to all of you.

I think all of you know this, but The Sexiest Woman Alive is none other than my own, beautiful Bride, Jenny George. She's trying to use her blog to slow life down and take pictures of the only men in the world she loves more than me: her sons, Owen and Jo-Jo, and her boyfriend, Bart.... Wait a minute, she informs me that there is no Bart in her life. Whew!

Pastor Mike's Thoughts come from On High, even though he's pretty smart in his own right. Mike Potts is a close friend and a theological sojourner--he's helping me with my "working man's MA in Theology" by providing me and Jenny with dozens of books. He was the pastor at Bethpage UMC when Jenny and I first started going there, and while we don't see him on Sundays anymore, we still keep in touch.

My newest blog buddy is also one of my oldest friends. Gavin knew Jenny and me at Newbold (I know of one banquet at which Jenny was his date). He spoke at our wedding, and he has been our close friend for over 15 years. He is currently youth director of the Icelandic Conference of Seventh-day Adventists. His blog, "Reflecting Jesus," demonstrates the deep spirituality I've come to respect him for.

Finally, Andreas Dittes is a long-lost relative of mine who lives in Karlsruhe, Germany. He is a technology nut, and most of his posts are about new software and hardware he's picked up. He is trying to build an online database of our far-flung Dittes family, and I'm trying to help him track down the "prodigal" American branches that emigrated away from our cozy Heimestadt of Diedelsheim-Bretten, Germany, between 1850 and 1905. There are many Ditteses still living near Karlsruhe, although Portland, Tennessee, may not be too far behind! (You need to be able to read German to really understand Andreas's blog.)

Book Review: Angels & Demons

About a year ago, my mom gave me a book on CD: Dan Brown's Angels & Demons. Because my drive to work is so short, I failed to begin listening until the long drive back from Norman's wedding. It was a long drive--from 4 p.m. to 11:30--just long enough to get me completely hooked.

Like the rest of humanity, I read The Da Vinci Code, finding it a first-class thriller. I held back from A&D primarily because I'm not a big reader of thrillers. I can probably count on one hand the number of thrillers I've read in my life--my all-time favorite being Ken Follet's Die Nadel.

To be honest, I enjoyed A&D a little more than DVC. Yes, it has religion at its core: a plot by the secret group, The Illuminati, to destroy the Vatican with a superweapon. It isn't as enthusiastically heterodoxical as DVC, however. I felt Brown did a pretty good job of balancing believers with skeptics--even as he was killing off a pope, four cardinals and bringing St. Peter's Cathedral to the edge of destruction.

What I loved about the book was the tour of Rome he provides the reader. The art of Bernini, the Piazza Nuovono, the Pantheon, and the Sistine Chapel provide settings in the book. I thought the clues that Robert Langon (also the hero of DVC) had to decipher were a little more clever than those he solved in DVC as he raced from Paris to London to Scotland. The love story--this time involving a beautiful Italian nuclear physicist--is better told than the awkward relationship with Sophie in DVC.

Best of all, though, has to be Brown's pacing. Just when I was about to get to a key point, the reader would break and then say, "Chapter 34." One of the problems with listening to thrillers on tape instead of reading them is that you can't scan ahead. You have to wait!!!

All told, I give the book four of five stars. If you're interested in listening. I have the CDs here!

Of Ghosts and Grandfathers

Taylor and Brandon are my neighbors, ages 10 and 11. They spent most of the past summer here at my house, playing with Owen and Jonah, and doing the kinds of 'boy things' (good and bad) that make summers memorable.

Yesterday they helped us to celebrate Jonah's 4th birthday. Jo-Jo had gotten lots of cool birthday presents, and they lost track of time. By the time they were ready to go home, it was dark outside.

"Can you walk us back home or drive your car?" Taylor asked. I tried to ignore him. They live two doors down from me, and while you have to go a ways in the dark, it isn't that far--or that spooky.

"Just follow the driveway," I said. "You'll go straight there."

They disappeared for a moment. Then they returned, asking with more urgency, "Can you walk us home?"

Just then Tascha pulled into the driveway, delivering her niece, Tristan, for a sleepover Ellie was having. Brandon was on a bike. "Just follow the car up the driveway. Once you hit the street, you're almost home."

A few minutes later, they were back. Taylor was gasping for breath. He was scared to death. "We lost the car," he huffed. "We need you to take us home."

I finally gave in. God gave me a mission this summer--a mission for the kids in my own neighborhood. I have been challenged daily of the sheer inconvenience of caring for kids who aren't mine, picking up after them, and overlooking silly little things. I walked out the door and headed up the driveway.

As a Dittes, I am programmed to do one specific thing every time I go out my front door at night: I look up at the stars. My grandpa used to do this when it was his house. He would walk us out as we left, and he would look up and point out a constellation. I find that it is a reflex now: go out, look up; walk down the sidewalk, look up. I don't think there has been a single time in 36 years of walking out that door that I haven't looked up!

As we walked down the driveway, I told them about Grandpa. "I love to walk out here in the dark," I said as we walked up the hill. "My Grandpa used to walk out here with me and tell me stories about the stars."

"Can I tell you why I'm scared?" Taylor asked.

"Sure."

One night both Brandon and Taylor had been awakened by their grandfather. He had shaken them in their beds, trying to get their attention. When they told their mother about the incident the next morning, she reminded them that he had been dead for almost three months.

They had seen a ghost--they insisted on this fact. Both had been awakened that night at the same time. They said their mother had consulted a fortune-teller who had told them not to worry: the ghost had been looking for mother, not them. (I don't think it had worked. They were still worried, obviously.)

I dropped them off at home. They thanked me several times.

But as I walked home through the gloomy pines on my way back home, I couldn't stop thinking about ghosts. It was quiet. The white gravel glowed in the starlight.

I thought about how much I missed Grandpa--how nice it would be to see him again and share one more walk under the stars. For a moment, I let myself wish that I might see his ghost--but I couldn't figure out if he would look like the robust doctor of my childhood or the hobbling old man of the years before he died last March 13.

There are a number of reasons why I don't believe in ghosts--and that imagination thing has to be one of them.

As I passed through the tall pines, gliding across the glowing gravel drive, I looked up at the stars. I remember how Grandpa would recite the number of light years for each of them. "The light you're seeing was created 30,000 years ago," he would say. "It is just reaching us tonight. That star could go out, and we wouldn't know it for another 30,000 years."

Grandpa's ghost is gone. Every physical and substantial part of him is buried, awaiting resurrection.

His spirit lives on, however, just like the light of the stars. It will burn--in me, my children, and my grandchildren--for many years more before anyone will be able to notice that it had burnt out long ago.

Dangerous Toys

We were watching the Nightly News the other night and learned about the Mattel/China toy recall.

Checking on Mattel's web site, it turned out we had one of the dangerous toys: a lead-paint-spattered "Sarge" character toy from Jo-Jo's favorite movie, Cars.

I logged on and entered some information. They have sent me a mailing label to print out and sent with the package. They will also send me a $7 gift certificate.

The scary thing is that Jo-Jo's birthday is this Saturday (the 18th). I had already bought him three more Cars toys and a race track (all made in China, of course). Who knows if those toys are the next ones to be recalled (there have been three recalls of Chinese-made toys in the last two months)?

I honestly try to look at labels when I buy toys. It's to the point now, where it's almost impossible to find things NOT manufactured in China. What's a dad to do?

Cousins in Chicago

Owen, Jonah and I have one thing in common: we love our cousins.

My cousin Norman's wedding (see below) was an opportunity for me to get back together with family, including my cousin, Donnie. When Owen & Jonah heard that my sister would be there with her kids, they signed up immediately. Ellie & Jenny stayed home.

I left early Saturday morning (5:15) and drove straight to Chicago. I desperately wanted to show the boys the Field Museum and take in the natural history and dinosaur exhibits there. The trip took us a total of seven hours, giving us 2 1/2 hours to explore. It was so much fun: we viewed artifacts of Ancient Egypt, all the stuffed and posed animals (including passenger pigeons, which I had never seen before). The museum staff practically had to drag us away from there.

The highlight came that night when we saw my nephews, Jacob and Joshie. Jo-Jo and Joshie's birthdays are just a few weeks away, so we had a birthday party with lots of gifts. The boys swam in the hotel pool and later played in our hotel room until midnight. It was a party!!

We stayed in South Bend, Indiana. The next day we drove up to Berrien Springs, Michigan, to see my cousin Norman get married. We got back home near midnight Sunday--the night before the first day of school! (Yes, it may have seemed foolish, but there are three men in my family who think it was worthwhile, just for the chance to hang out with cousins that we love!)

Of course, I was very happy to see my own cousin, Donnie. He lives just three hours away, but we only get to see each other every other year or so, so it's always good to see him. I'll include a picture of him and my sister as well.

Honoring an Awesome Cousin--an Awesome Man/Husband

It's been way too long since I've posted on this blog. I hope I still have readers. I'm back from my cousin Norman McNulty's wedding at Andrews University in Michigan. I need to post at least one picture of the handsome groom, and his lovely bride, Joelle.

Norman is six years younger than me (I was thirteen years ahead of him in the marriage department). He's the first of my cousins that I can honestly remember growing up from cradle onward.

Norman & I bonded when he was in kindergarten and elementary school. My cousins and I loved sports, and Norman and I were always on the same team, whether it be football, baseball (in Grandma's garden), or basketball. I, the oldest, and Norman, the youngest of the first four boys, played against Donnie and Stephen.

It would take a book to relate all the Norman Stories of those years. He didn't act like the littlest. He was hyper-competitive. He cared more about winning than the rest of us, and he ended up hitting his first home run over Grandma's ivy-covered wall at the age of six. Like me, he loved Pete Rose--although he later abandoned the Reds for the Chicago Cubs. This, I believe, was the beginning of Norman's long fall from grace--into a top academy and college student, a passionate and well-spoken Christian leader, and, sadly, an MD. (He is currently in residency for neurology.)

Norm, if you'd stayed a Reds fan, you could have been somebody!

Last weekend, Norman married the love of his life, the former Joelle Darmsteegt. What can I say about Joelle? She's beautiful, thoughtful, and she has made my beloved cousin tremendously happy. Other than that.... There is no other than that at this point. I am really happy for them both.

Congratulations, Norman & Joelle!!