Here Kitty Kitty Kitty

When I was growing up my father was a scientist. Specifically he was a radiation toxicologist for Pacific Northwest Labs-Battelle in my home state of Washington. He was very successful and held what seemed like a fascinating career.
His work consisted of injecting radioactive isotopes into the lungs of lab rats and then analyzing them under a microscope for the various mutations and tumor activity that would result from these exposures. His work was published and used in association with determining healthy exposure levels among nuclear power plant employees and those affected by nuclear radiation accidents such as Chernobyl, Three Mile Island and the sort. Heady stuff.

One of the 'perks' of this job, besides the quantities of veterinarian-grade antibiotics that came home with him (hey despite the fact they were probably taken home due to their expiration date-- it was still free health care!) was the rare opportunities to bring up a lab rat or two as a pet.

Not the cuddly long-haired variety mind you. For whatever reason their lab used naked mole rats.
Maybe because the aesthetically unappealing rat is easier to kill. Please---no PETA  response needed. Thank you.

Because somebody somewhere loves this rat

While not a common occurrence, we did have one or two rats come home and live with us in a cage that Dad had brought home. 

One summer, he chose for whatever reason to bring home a family of them. Maybe the Lab had ordered too many. Maybe the breeding program had been too successful and therefore there was a 'fire sale' on mole rats. Regardless, my father brought home a family of them. 

My Mother, needless to say, was less than thrilled. 

But he insisted, and extolled the virtues of watching the mole family grow and learn about the life cycle of rats, praising the educational opportunity brought along to our family.  Fine. 

We had the rats for about a month--maybe even a few weeks.

I remember I was in my bedroom one afternoon and my Mom came in, looking very upset. "Kim", she said "Kim I had to do it. I had to do it. I had no other choice. It was wrong. What he was doing was WRONG." 

I asked her what had happened to make her so upset. She then went on to explain that she was worried the rat family was starting to get too big for their cage and she had gone in to check on them. 

She said that she came in on the Daddy rat raping one of his daughters. She said (not to get too graphic) she said "Kim he was making her bleed. It was awful." 

So she said she grabbed the Daddy rat by the tail, called the cat and led the cat outside into the front yard where she let Mother Nature take its natural course. 

And the cat killed the incestuous mole rat. 

While obviously still upset by what she had 'walked in on', I could tell she appreciated the ease in which she dispensed with the aberration. She was able to turn her heel and walk away from the death sentence. 

In this week's social media explosion about marriage rights and equality it prompted a lot of interesting debate. People who supported gay marriage put up the red 'equal' sign as a show of approval. 

I say interesting debate but truthfully it ended up being quite disturbing. One Facebook friend, who was a student at the high school I attended, posed the question on her Wall, "Does anyone really believe that allowing gay marriage to be legalized will lead to a slippery slope of incest/bestiality/pedophilia?"

So I bit. I said, well, I would be interested to know why incest is illegal but homosexuality is not. Can someone please explain the differences?

Circular reasoning ensued. "It's unnatural!" one crowed. Another one claimed "Look what it did to the British royal family!" (I professed to knowing that yes, I had read The Other Boleyn Girl). Another couple, man and wife, decided to rain down upon me a tirade of almost Biblical proportions, even though they were both agnostic/atheist. I was accused of being intolerant, taunting, and passive-aggressive. I called no names, accused no one of illegality. I simply wanted to know their rationale.

(My friend Fabulosa always says about being called passive-aggressive "Well that got that 'half' right." ;)

 All because I simply asked: "Why cannot I not marry my brother? I really want to marry my brother." 

I said, after many people (there were over 60+ comments on the thread) complained that marriage should not be legalized between siblings because it was unnatural and would create birth defects, that we 'needed to stop placing medical qualifications on a marriage certificate'. With the understanding that the two adults realized that they could not have children and would not have children together. Why was it illegal for two siblings to marry? (I did mention to one worried soul that Yes, I agreed. Incest is an abomination. In case there was every any doubt).  

The original poster then stated a lengthy response that quailed against my supposedly 'Biblical reasoning' 

( I never mentioned a Bible verse nor a Scripture. Didn't mention God, Jesus, Buddha or Muhammad. Didn't mention prayer, chanting, catechism or salaaming. What I did mention time and again? Nature. Because apparently Nature backs up Biblically-backed principles. And vice versa) 

She then went on to say that she didn't think incest was an unnatural act.

 Just like she didn't think homosexuality was an unnatural act. 

I wanted to say that what she just did by equating those two sexual activities was set back the call for marriage equality about fifty years. But I did not. 

I  deleted her as a friend. In four years I have deleted three people, and she was one of them. 

 I wasn't even claiming to prevent the legalization of gay marriage. All I simply did was answer a question to the best of my abilities that would cause one to think. Natural progression might tend in some people, I include myself in this, to take a modest claim or a simple query to its ultimate conclusion. 

That might be the scientist gene in me. That might the research chromosome. The 'Why' Chromosome. 

Yet despite her seemingly good heart, and her calm demeanor, and her openness to new ideas and discussions, all I could think of when I saw her is that rat cage. Her response  is what ultimately divides us on the equality spectrum. 

On one side is this woman.  

While she is probably not applauding the two rats caught en flagrante, she is probably nodding and then moving on. Extolling the 'virtues' of 'self-actualization' and 'appreciating the differences that makes us all who we are'....

Meanwhile 

I am calling the cat. 

  

More than just a piece of paper...

Thinking out loud here:

The ones who protest and the ones who support this ruling both have something in common:

Both have been married three times.

So regardless of your political affiliation or your religious views about marriage,

what we all have in common is Divorce.
Each of us have been personally impacted by Divorce.

So if you want to have equal rights to cheat on your spouse, gain and give a venereal disease, shatter your childrens' lives, disrupt your bank account and marry again and again and again, as an American, you should have that right.

Because that is what marriage is in the United States.

It's divorce.

Homosexuals want to have the same rights as heterosexuals.

So of course they should expect to have the same rights to divorce.

Good Luck with that.

Character is who you are when no one is watching

www.thegospelcoalition.org


Oh so VERY good....

“The Competition for Coolness Never Stops” – How Facebook and Twitter Affect Teens

James K. A. Smith, in an extended analysis of how our habits shape our orientation to the world, reflects on the impact of Facebook and Twitter on teenagers:

I do not envy our four teenagers in the least: far from carefree, their adolescence is a tangled web of angst that is, I think, qualitatively different from that of past generations. The difference, I suggest, stems from a unique constellation of cultural habits that has exacerbated their self-consciousness to an almost-paralyzing degree.

Granted, self-consciousness is part of the rite of passage that is adolescence. The hormonal effects on teenaged bodies make them realize they are bodies in ways that surprise them. They inhabit their bodies as foreign guests, constantly imagining that all eyes are upon them as they go to sharpen their pencil or climb the stairs at a football game. Such self-consciousness has always bred its own warped ontology in which the teenager is the center of the universe, praying both that no one will notice and that everyone would.

The advent of social media has amplified this exponentially. In the past, there would have been spaces where adolescents could escape from these games, most notably in the home. Whatever teenagers might have thought of their parents, they certainly didn’t have to put on a show for them. The home was a space to let down your guard, freed from the perpetual gaze of your peers. You could almost forget yourself. You could at least forget how gawky and pimpled and weird you were, freed from the competition that characterizes teenagedom.

No longer. The space of the home has been punctured by the intrusion of social media such that the competitive world of self-display and self-consciousness is always with us. The universe of social media is a ubiquitous panopticon.

The teenager at home does not escape the game of self-consciousness; instead, she is constantly aware of being on display – and she is regularly aware of the exhibitions of others. Her Twitter feed incessantly updates her about all of the exciting, hip things she is not doing with the “popular” girls; her Facebook pings nonstop with photos that highlight how boring her homebound existence is. And so she is compelled to constantly be “on,” to be “updating” and “checking in.” The competition for coolness never stops. She is constantly aware of herself – and thus unable to lose herself in the pleasures of solitude: burrowing into a novel, pouring herself out in a journal, playing with fanciful forms in a sketch pad. More pointedly, she loses any orientation to a project. Self-consciousness is the end of teleology…

With the expansion of social media, every space is a space of “mutual self-display.” As a result, every space is a kind of visual echo chamber. We are no longer seen doing something; we’re doing something to be seen.

- from Imagining the Kingdom: How Worship Works (Cultural Liturgies), 145-6.

Weight of Darkness

The Cross was a instrument of torture. The person hanging on the cross was suspended by his arms, with usually only a nail in each wrist suspending his upper body from the pull of gravity. The gravitational pull was stalled out by the arrival of a third nail into the feet, which would staub out the eventual collapse of the body as it constantly fought against the force of nature. The nails were embedded in between the small bones of the wrist, kind of as a trap for them.Otherwise, of course the flesh would not withhold the iron and it would rip through the flesh as it drifted downward slave to gravity. He would not have stayed.

The imagery of the Christ being suspended on that rough wooden cross and experiencing the torture of dying is powerful and humbling.  The reality that Christ was truly alone, that there was NO one there to help him, no one who could relieve Him from his misery, is a reality that all Christians must face.

While we all can say now, "We would have been there!" I would have climbed up there with a saw or clippers to release those iron stays!" those are all statements made from the safety of history.

The story of Easter is not about our unwillingness to help Him, but about His willingness to STAY there. Christ's complete surrender to the will of His loving-but at that point absent-Father to die for us is one that I as a mortal human cannot comprehend nor fully appreciate.

But as a believer of Scripture, I know this much to be true: The Easter Story is real. It is historically accurate, and the story of Jesus Christ is one that has travelled throughout the nations. It is what gives us our reason for Hope. It is our reason for Faith.

At the Cross, Jesus was alone. While the stories and movies share of his mother and Mary Magdalene among others present at the Crucifixion, Christ died alone. Just like I tried to emphasize in my Huffington Post comment, in death we are alone. No one can explain to us what those last few hours of suffering or despair were like for Him.

Not because we have not experienced our own versions of despair or depression or loneliness, but as a Christian the truth is: We are never alone. Because of what Christ did on the Cross God has allowed us to enter into relationship with Him and rely on His guidance and His mercy to maintain and sustain us through life's challenges.

 ’ēlî ’ēlî lāmâ ‘ăzabtānî

The translation from Matthew 27:46-"My God, my God...why have you forsaken me?!"

Jesus screamed those words. Imagine that. Jesus, the Son of God, screaming.

Why did I always just assume that He moaned our cried out? Of course the abject suffering He surrendered to would weaken one to such a place, never mind his inability to breathe due to his lungs filling with blood as he slowly asphyxiated. I just assumed it was a cry out, a final good-bye, a Death moan. No, Pastor describes this as a scream.

In the sixth hour darkness came over the land. Darkness. He describes Hell as many theologians do-not as a place of fire and brimstone, but of Darkness. What Jesus experienced for the next three hours was Hell on earth.

What happens when you are enveloped in darkness? How does your body physiologically respond? Because we are so fearfully and wonderfully made, God created in us senses that work together to help us. In times of blindness, the sense of hearing is piqued. It's part of the beautiful and the complex machine that God created perfect in each of us.

Vision more than anything is what protects us. It is the last bastion of defense for us to determine what is real and what is imagined. In times of modern-day torture (Yes I do reference Zero Dark Thirty in this) the prisoner is placed in a dark tight box with no light. Only noise. And if not noise then the voices inside your head.

From the sixth hour to the ninth hour darkness fell over the land. 

Imagine the fear Christ felt. He is alone and now, there is nothing to see. He gets no confirmation of what He deems to be real or what the Emperor of Darkness has decided is true. He is being told that God has forgotten about Him, that He is suffering the sins of all mankind, of all creation, from Adam and Eve onward, and that He is paying the price for all of those willful wrong hurtful hateful acts. He is beaten, He is being judged, He is eating the poisonous sins of those who went on before, and those who denied His deity. He loves you enough to do it anyway.

He cannot cry out to His Father. God has turned His back. He is alone. He has no one to call on. His cries are not known, there is no mention of Him begging for His life or asking God to cause His suffering to cease, not without a final "Not my will but thine" acceptance. Even when He begs for redemption, He acquiesces to the reality of "Not my will but thine".

His final cry is not a call for help or an SOS, but a relinquishment of His life. "Why HAVE you forsaken me?" It's already happened. He is experiencing it. He stopped asking for help. Now He just wants to know..."Why?"

The messages and voices are telling Him one thing. The blanket of darkness has fallen. His is a life readying for death. He is suffocating under the heavy garment of judgment God placed on His shoulders. It is killing Him.

And then the Tetelestai: "It is finished".

 Jesus says that in the Scriptures. John 19:30. What a powerful sentence. The most powerful sentence in all of Scripture.

He did it.
We can have Joy out of what Jesus Did.
If you obey God out of fear, out of some need to continue the work that Jesus Christ did on this earth: Stop. Stop. Only fear can come out of that sort of faith. Stop.

Jesus said it Himself. "It is finished". 

Not even "I did this."  Just---"It is finished". 

And the 60 foot tall curtain the width of your hand that separated the synagogue from the Holy of Holies. The thick curtain that separated the light of God's Holiness from us.

The curtain that kept us in the dark of God's grace and God's forgiveness.
The curtain that kept us in the outer darkness...not just for three hours but for eternity.
 The outer darkness that made our vision useless and made our realities as vague and lost as a coin lost in a dark well...
The curtain that kept us separated from the reality of God's wisdom and the truth that God offers us as believers.

The curtain that made us fear God and that gave the power of our forgiveness to the High Priests and to sacrificial works.

The curtain was torn away. And we can fellowship with God and we can worship Him and trust in Him in our daily existence. We can come to Him with our requests and our prayers, and not through a confessor or a priest. It is just between us. Between Him and us.

Because God sent His son who lived in complete darkness and suffered utter agony for us to enter in.

And so, today I can serve God not out of fear of experiencing darkness. Not out of fear of abandonment or being left alone. Of being shunned or rejected for your mistakes.

We can serve out of Joy for what Christ did for us.
And while we deserved what He received,
 even the nails could not have kept Him up there.

Cancer sucks and it doesn't teach you anything

After reading this following tripe on Huffington Post:

http://www.huffingtonpost.com/stacey-kramer/finding-a-gift-in_b_2877772.html

I felt like I had to write this in defense of my brother...


A brain tumor diagnosis is not a gift if you die but a brain tumor is so awful you will consider dying a gift. 
My brother suffered grand mal seizures and gagged on tumor-induced effusion in his lungs all the while going blind before he died---hell for him and a paler version for us as we watched him suffer.
What is to be gained? Only the abject desire for one to carry the burden of illness for another. 
But that is not how cancer works. In Life, you are born alone and you suffer alone and you die alone. No matter how many people surround your bed. Your experience is yours alone and you do not speak for anyone-- sole yourself. 
I won't speak for my dead brother but he was an extraordinarily brave and courageous man. Towards the end we prayed for the gift of dying to come to my brother. He suffered tremendously through an inoperable brain tumor for 18 months. It was an insult to his bravery and the goodness in his heart that cancer stole his Life. 
A brain tumor killed a handsome, brilliant, funny and kind 18-year old man. He was my older brother. Absolutely nothing good came out of his death. 
Except it taught us that sometimes Death is a release. 
In other words unless you have died and faced the afterlife and can speak of its wonders and mystery, please remind us all that you only speak for yourself.

Doe Scores :)

Spring Forward

After this weekend's enthralling snowstorm (all of 1.5 inches---be afraid) we were blessed with a glorious Sunday afternoon. Each spring I step out on the first sunny day in March and shiver with fear at the sight of all of my perennials shooting up in anticipation of the warm weather. Such bravery.

And each year, without fail, those perennials face the wrath of an unforgiving Zone 5 climate. They strain and push and thrust themselves into the open light and air. Each year without fail the burgeoning rhizomes and their beautiful flowers of tulips and daffodils and hollyhocks get battered and bruised and bent by the snow.

But this morning I was still taken by the cant of the sun, the promise of new life and the colors of a new spring season.

(No these were not taken today. They were taken from last year :)

It's been a hectic week. I had Bump's birthday on Tues, CASA stuff both Weds and Thurs, and then hosted a birthday party on Friday night for and five of her friends. Bump's grandmother was in a hospital 1100 miles away having major surgery and so it a stressful evening as well. Then Saturday Tank's two basketball games got postponed because of the (*gasp*) 'Colorado Snowpacolypse'--- that never happened. Those two games were played Sat night to a jacked-up crowd of fans who seemed relieved to get out of their homes and into another loud sweaty noisy gym to watch some hoops. 

Tank did awesome. He was achingly nervous prior to the game and I cajoled him with money. I told him I'd pay him two dollars for every basket he scored. (Ah to be 11 and still think that $2 is an enormous amount of cash!). After his first basket Tank ran back onto defense and as he turned around to post he sought me out in the stands and thrust up two fingers in the air in celebration.

 I didn't have the right to tell him that in the UK some consider that an insult. 

Because frankly the entire stand erupted in laughter as he gestured up at us. And not ten minutes later he added two more fingers to that and thrust four of them up at us. His lips were clenched together and his eyes were wide and he threw up his arm, four fingers extended on his hand, and I knew this was quite possibly the happiest moment of his life. 

(BTW--That's Tai Wesley from Utah State. Not Tank. Not that Tank couldn't play for Utah State sometime in the future. )

So it is this great anticipation that we wait for Monday night's game. It's for their middle school grade championship and it's against a rather threatening-looking cross-town team. This team, FYI, has red and black uniforms. They wear their hair in mohawks and I swear, hand-to-heart, that some of these crunks already have tats festooning their pubescent biceps. And I am sure that if they throw up four fingers, the two middle ones would be crossed. It's that kind of gang. OOoOops---I mean team.

Thanks for your support and reading my non-sequiturs and pretty much incomprehensible at times ramblings. What started as a theme of spring awakening and new growth ended with a harangue and people throwing up gang signs.

Peace out.