December 2009 Archives

It's the start of a new year, the end of a decade, so naturally we may be inclined to sit back and ponder what has happened over the last year or so and what we are hopeful for in the coming year.

It's hard to feel that way, though, with an 8-month-old.  On one hand, it's difficult to be reflective when you are trying to prevent a serious injury for the 438th time that day or when she is happy/laughing/smiling/crying/whining/screaming/etc.  On the other hand, everything seems to be geared to the future.  When will she cross this milestone?  What do we need to change around the house so she doesn't kill herself when she does?  Will she grow out of these clothes today or tomorrow?  What can we do differently to bring faith into our house?  Do we have enough diapers for this evening?

Still, I'm not one to miss a chance at introspection or reflection, so I thought it might be more interesting to see what has happened to me in the "aughts."  Here are some highlights.

2000 -

I graduated from high school and started at Truman State that fall.  If you can believe it, I actually started as a Math and Music double major.  I figured I'd probably pick one after a year or so.

This was the year I met my roommate Austin and his girlfriend Melynne (they are now married with two children).  They were extremely important friends during the next four years, and we try to get together when we can.  (Apparently he's pretty busy, what with becoming a radiologist and all).

2001 -

One thing that stands out to me about this year is that I started sophomore music theory, which means that I was, for the first time, in the same class with my wife.  We were involved with a fugue composition project together.  I asked her out three times.  She didn't really say "no" outright, so it took me a while to get the hint.  I stopped asking and apparently she started to get interested, but more on that later.

September 11 was also significant as I had an Aunt and Uncle in the Pentagon that morning.  Thankfully, both were (and still are) fine.

I also got a digital camera for Christmas, so here's a family portrait.  (Apologies all around.)

2002 -

The great thing about digital photos is that I have a record of different things that happened each year.

Our choir was selected to perform at a big regional conference (SWACDA?), which was held in Houston that year.  Yay for choir trips!

Ok, so my mother thought that since I'm becoming Catholic I ought to be familiar with this song.

A little video to help you understand the true meaning of Christmas.

First, as a point of clarification, let me explain what I mean when I say "returning to Catholicism," as this is both true and untrue.  I was actually baptized as an infant in the Catholic church, though, to my memory, we never attended mass regularly growing up.  So technically speaking, I am returning to the faith into which I was baptized (but never confirmed), but for the most part am seriously coming to Catholicism for the first time.  And yet, despite this, it really does feel to me as though I am returning to Catholicism, even if I was never really there in the first place.

Despite attending a series of non-denominational, pentecostal and charismatic churches growing up, I still had a fair amount of exposure to the Catholic Church through my mother's family who is predominantly Catholic.  (My mom is one of 11 kids, one of whom is now a priest.)  They mostly live on the east coast, but we usually made it out there at least once a year (my dad worked for TWA) and those visits usually involved attending mass at some point.  I can even recall one Christmas Eve or Christmas Day mass where I ended up sitting by my granny, which was a very intimidating experience as I could only kinda get my way through the mass.  I also attended the ordination of my Uncle, which was an amazing service/mass, though in sitting on the front row, the Cardinal came up to me to offer the Eucharist, which I had to awkwardly turn down.

Through the years I also had several conversations with my Uncle Pat, who most people now know as Father Pat.  I even spent a week with him out in San Fransisco after graduating high school.  At the time he was a member of the Jesuit order, working on another masters if I remember correctly.  While there, we got to see a lot of the tourist sights, but at the same time we also talked quite a bit about a lot of more serious matters, and faith certainly was a part of those conversations.  I even remember watching The Mission with him while I was out there.

Moving into college, I was involved with with the Campus Christian Fellowship organization up at Truman State.  It is associated with the Independent Christian Churches movement, though at the time I wasn't aware of any affiliation.  I did know that CCF was a very large and vibrant organization, and the people I got to know there came from a variety of different backgrounds.  My involvement steadily grew, and by the time I was an upperclassman I was leading Bible studies and attending organizational meetings.

The first Bible study I led was on the book of James, for while I had not attended mainline Protestant churches growing up, I had a strong sense of the doctrines of sola fide and sola gratia (faith alone and grace alone).  To me then, the book of James, and particularly 2:14-26, seemed to almost stand in direct contrast with some of the writings of Paul, and I wanted to tackle that issue head on.

Now, I am by far not a Bible scholar, but I also believed in sola scriptura (scripture alone) and being a person of reasonable intelligence I was confident that I could tackle this thorny issue on my own.  (I did consult a number of commentaries in the process, though.)  Through that study it seemed awfully clear to me, then, that faith manifested itself in works, and that mere belief did not seem like the answer.  My thinking at the time went something like, "If I believed that my friend was in trouble, I'd probably do something about it."  As Staples would say, "That was easy."

That was perhaps my first questioning of Protestant ideas, though I didn't recognize it at the time (or even until the last month or so).  There were other little things as well.  I remember looking at 2 Timothy 3:16, which reads, "All Scripture is God-breathed and is useful for teaching, rebuking, correcting and training in righteousness," (NIV).  (Funny how the next verse, which concludes that sentence, is often omitted from quotations.  "so that the man of God may be thoroughly equipped for every good work.")  This of course is often used in defense of sola scriptura, but I didn't really see where it had the word "only" in there.  A fleeting thought, though...

Anyway, I should also add that in my college years I dated a Catholic girl.  Now, this was something I was greatly concerned about even before I asked her out.  I knew that I didn't want to raise my kids in the Catholic Church, so dating someone who was Catholic could potentially cause a lot of problems.  I prayed about it a lot, consulted my friends, and ended up dating her for several months.  To my best recollection, I tried to be up front about how I felt about the Church and its teachings (I didn't like most of them at all), and how I didn't want my children growing up in the Catholic Church.  She might have a different opinion about how that all went.

In the end, we parted ways over this issue as she wanted to raise her kids Catholic and I didn't, though the whole thing did cause me to begin to examine the Church a little more closely.

In my senior year, then, I started dating Carrie, who herself was raised Catholic but had started attending Protestant churches in college.  We got married a year and a half later, and it was not a Catholic wedding, largely at my insistence.  And that, I think, is where I will have to leave things for now.  Stay tuned for the next installment in this series.

Sometimes I don't blog because I feel I'm too busy, sometimes I don't blog because I don't feel like I have anything of interest to say, and then sometimes I don't blog because I feel like I have way, way, way too many things to write down.  The problem is that by not blogging all those things I want to write right away, I end up thinking about more things to write about, making the potential post even longer, etc.

So, um, perhaps I'll try to get a few new posts in relatively soon, but in case I don't, let me tell you want I want to post about, so you at the very least know what's going on (I do update my twitter a bit more frequently than this blog, thankfully).

Post #1 - Travels.  We just got back from Illinois and will be heading to Houston to visit my parents soon.  Rachel's first Christmas season has already proven lots of fun, and I can't wait to see what her other set of Grandparents have in store.

Post #2 - Technology.  Oh but I do enjoy technology, though I do try to keep in mind that in the end it is all just 'stuff.'  We've gotten TiVo to replace our cable service, upgraded to Blu-Ray, stream Netflix, and got a GPS navigation system for the car for Christmas.  So much fun.  And I haven't even begun to play with the new(ish) Mac OS.

Post #3 - More baby videos.  Family can't get enough, and we have some gems waiting in the wings.

Post #4 - Catholicism.  I can hear the collective, "huh?"  We're in the process of joining the Catholic Church for a wide range of reasons and this has already been a much longer journey than the suddenness of this little paragraph implies.  This is the big post that I've hesitated to write, both because there is much to say and because there were various people we wanted to talk with before posting it to the web.  So that post will be coming... in time... probably in installments.

With that, then, I'll leave you with an obligatory picture of Rachel.  I hope everyone has a very Merry Christmas!