Cincifamily.com

So tomorrow is fathers day.  A bit of a bitter sweet holiday.  Friday is my 32nd birthday.

Two days that always put me in a state of reflection. 

When I was three years old my dad died in a house fire, so I recognize that tomorrow is never guaranteed.  I recognize that not having tomorrow would affect many more people than just me.

Every fathers day I am thankful for the fact that my children know who I am.  If I were to die today, my oldest three would have very specific and fun memories of their dad.  My youngest, not so sure.  I actually do talk to them about this at certain times.  Not to take ‘tomorrow’ for granted and to be grateful for what is a pretty functional, two-parent household.

In many ways I’m thankful for the events that happened in 1981.  It has made me who I am today.  My dad has a mixed legacy.  Some people have great memories of him, others have horrific memories of him.  Many have both… I often wonder who I’d be had my father had a part in raising me.  What would he have taught me?  How would his parenting have influenced mine?  In large part, due to the negative I have heard about, I am thankful that I started my fatherhood with a clean slate.  I had no example on how to be a dad.  I’ve truly been winging it for 13 years.  Looking at my friends and seeing how they behave as dads.  Trying to take what is good and impress that upon my children. 

As I sat here in a period of reflection, Danny Gokey’s music video came on TV.  “My Best Days Are Ahead of Me.”  God willing, my best days are ahead of me.

I’m old enough to look back on life and see what I’ve done right and what I’ve done wrong.  I’m young enough to look forward and dream about another 40+ years of life. As I get to watch my parenting come to fruition as my children move onto adult hood.  Where they will choose a career, a spouse, and hopefully a grounding in the Christian faith.  I know the importance of daddy.  I know that what I do to them will influence the decisions they make then.  I dream about watching my 13 year old father my grandchildren.  My 12 year old loving her husband and nurturing my grandchildren.  My 9 year old… my ball of fire, refining that energy into a laser focus to what he focuses on in life.  My 5 year old growing up with an appreciation for what he has due to a string of events that happened when he was just 5 months old.  I envision celebrating a marriage that has lasted 50+ years at a time when marriage of 10 years are rare, much less 50. I dream about the great victories.  I dream about, through being a foster parent, what children will come through our doors and I will be their daddy, if only for a temporary moment in time. I have a healthy respect and fear for the unknown.  I know that anything can  happen today that changes those dreams dramatically. 

So here’s to dreaming about the future.

Helen Thomas is an 87 year old reporter who also happens to have the special status of being a White House correspondent.  In May she made a comment that has, fairly, been criticized as discriminatory toward the Jewish people.  In essence she said, they should get out of Israel and go to Poland. 

I’m going to be honest and say I don’t get the full issue around the Jews and America.  There are things at play that I just don’t understand.  From the Holocaust to money to political power.  So I guess Poland is their home??  I can only imagine this statement if it were slightly different.  If a reporter had said that all blacks should go back to Africa, or all Hispanics to Mexico.  If THOSE comments had been made with this president there is no doubt that the reporter would have lost access to the White House.  The fact that she has been able to keep that is awful. 

I know liberals, in general, have wanted to be the anti-George Bush administration (no, REALLY… click that link, its a classic) and they felt that GWB was too Israel friendly, but to go this far the other way is an embarrassment.

Helen Thomas should lose her access to the White House and be fired by her employer.  At least her agency has some class.

[Initially Written 6/6/2010 10:39PM]

For long time readers of my blog, you’ll know that I don’t much buy man made global warming.  I believe the human effect on global warming to be very minimal.  That the sun is the common cause of global warming.

Over the past several years the sun has been “very quiet”, in that it hasn’t had many sun flares and the such.  That, however, appears to be changing.

So, get ready for global warming to be ‘proven’ all over again.

I won’t get into the big debate here, but there is one fact that has yet to be answered for me.

Why was it hotter in the middle ages than it is now?

Were the factories polluting more back then?  Were the cars less efficient?  Yes, that is sarcasm.  The middle ages were followed by a mini-ice age.  In fact in the 40’s and 70’s there was the scare of the coming ice age.

It was best put in an article many years ago.  Remove all the cars and factories in the world and the temperature may drop a tiny bit… remove the sun, and we have problems.

Finally, just because I feel that global warming is a farce doesn’t mean I don’t understand the need to be ‘cleaner’.  Of course we should strive for better gas mileage.  Of course we should strive cleaner factories.  However, we don’t need to set civilization back 100 years for a very unproven (and I’d even argue, debunked) theory.

Ever since I joined the Thomas Nelson Publishing book review program (where they send me books for free to review), I’ve been reading many more books in life.  This book has been one of the best I’ve been asked to review.

I went into reading this book with low expectations.  The author, Pete Wilson, is the minister for a large contemporary church in Nashville, Tennessee.  Generally churches like that put me off more than they inspire me, so I expected the same from this book.  Thankfully I was very wrong.  This book will shake the core of many readers.  It will challenge who you are due to your circumstances. 

When I read a book I generally do it in a set process.  First I read it strait through with no real deep study of the contents.  If, after that initial reading, I really like it I will go back and read it chapter by chapter.  Generally going through it on my blog.  This will be such a book, there is a future series coming about this book.

One of the items I don’t see pushed enough in this book is the potential to be used for small group and church studies.  This would cause great bonding and growth in both if people got on board with going through it.

Plan B’s happen in life and its not a matter of if you deal with them, but how.  This book helps answer the how.

This book gets one of my highest recommendations.

As a member of the Thomas Nelson Blogging team I get the occasional free book to review.  When The Language of Love and Respect by Dr. Emerson Eggerichs came up as available I jumped all over it.

Many months later I am done.  I really struggled with reading this book because I have been reading and following Dr. Eggerichs’s teachings since he first aired on Focus on the Family many years ago.  I bought the CD of the Focus on the Family broadcast, bought and read the book, and went on a two day retreat around this teaching. 

The unfortunate side effect of this, is that there was little new in this book.  It was rehashing a lot of what I heard during the two day retreat focused on the book.  However, as I finally fought through the book I found the meat that made this book worthwhile.  Chapter 14 and on was very refreshing to read.  Several practical points with the Love and Respect teaching.  I’ll be going back over those chapters and making sure I pick up more of the pointers in them.

While my reading of this book was a bit saturated with past knowledge, if you haven’t been exposed to the Love and Respect teaching I would highly recommend this book.  This will change any marriage when applied.  Even if it doesn’t, when this book in particular is applied your perspective of your marriage will change.  It makes a difficult marriage something a person can work through personally.

So, I am going to leave open the fact that I am missing something here.  That I should, as I normally do, totally disagree with Barack Obama.  However, I am having a hard time finding that with this decision.

What decision?  Student loans.  With the ‘health care’ bill, there was a large section that dealt with student loans.  The situation before the current law was very odd to me.  A commercial institution would 'loan money to me, but they had NO RISK.  If I defaulted, the federal government would back up that loan.  Ultimately being held responsible for my debt.  This is why student loan debt is ‘for life’.  You can’t file bankruptcy on it, you either pay it or they will take it from you.  Either by garnishment from your wages, tax return, or ultimately your social security benefits.  However if I paid, the profit made off the loan went to the bank.

I’ve never understood this. 

So what is the situation now?  The federal government is squeezing out the private lenders.  They can no longer make loans backed by the federal government.  Those loans can only come from the federal government. 

I’ve done some searching to figure out why this is bad and I found a few reason brought up:

1. The customer service of the government workers is poor.
• From personal experience, is the customer service of the government worker poorer than the private worker?  Yes.  Is it poorer than Dell’s technical support?  No.  It is adequate, and the truth is… if you pay your bill, you never have to talk to them.
2. Loans in default will skyrocket. 
• I am sure it will go up.  However, student loans are a debt that you cannot get rid of.  So even if they go in default, in the end.. the debt will be collected.  So the fix for this?  Regulate how hard and how defaulted loans are collected.  This is not a showstopper.

If these banks want a piece of this pie, there is NOTHING stopping them from offering student loans that are not backed by the federal government.  Nothing. 

This is one issue, even after reading a bit, I think I have no issues with the federal government taking over. 

Health insurance on the other hand….

You’ve been on my mind a lot lately.  We should be celebrating or finalizing your adoption right now.  Heard some news about you today, and I’m conflicted on my feelings.  I pray it turns out to be something very special for you.  I pray history isn’t repeated for you. 

I look forward to the day our paths cross again.  I hope the story I hear is one of redemption and greatness and not one of pain and desperation. 

I fight great anger toward the people that took you from us.  I hope you know how much you are loved and missed.  I doubt you do, but you are loved and missed. 

Don’t have much more to say today.  More at a loss for words, I just know that I’m thinking of you.

Your dad (if even for only 5 months),
Clarence

P.S. I don’t know when or how you will find this, but this is the seventh post directed toward you.  It will not be the last.  There will be days when I am thinking of you and I will send a shout out to you.  I’m so sad for me, but it is nothing in comparison to what I feel for you.

There are two life changing moments in my life.  Once, when my wife and I were baptized.  But before that, was when our son was born.

We were two young children, having a child.  Life was forever different, exactly 13 years ago from the date of this post.

Our little baby, that has grown up with his parents, is now officially a teenager. 

Life was so uncertain, there was no telling where this young family would go.  There was no real reason to believe we’d last.  That this little baby would have any real hope for a future. 

Yet, here we are.  Some children in our position use their age as an excuse.  They would do stupid things and in the end, the loser is everybody.  Yet, but the grace of God we survived.  We moved forward and onward.  We were blessed along the way.  We made good choices along the way.  We got lucky along the way.  We messed up along the way.  Yet, here we are.

This baby is now the heart of our family.  He is an amazing son, whom I am proud to be his dad.  Its been a fun 13 years, and I am looking forward to the adventure that will be the next 13.

Happy Birthday Son!

This post is a bit belated, as I generally like to post this a few days before the end of the year. 

To wrap 2009 up in a few words, “IT SUCKED!”

The year started off with great hope, as we were getting ready to work for our next daughter.  We were ready for the adventure that would await.  We ended up getting our daughter and it was tough.  It was very hard, but we were committed to the long haul and making her life the best it could be.  But all of that abruptly ended in November.  The time with her will forever paint 2009 for our family.  Dear Jasmine, we still miss you.

Sprinkled throughout the year were a lot of other bad moments.  Two were thrown upon us in 2 hours time.

We had gotten a call to go to a family members house for an important discussion, we knew that this was likely a serious illness.  Likely cancer.  As we were getting ready to go to this family members house I answered the phone, it was a long time ‘friend’ Howard’s daughter.  Telling me that Howard had died.  Howard was a 74 year old man that I talked to every 4 to 6 weeks to touch base with him.  I always saw him as a grandfather figure, my wife and his wife describe it as a father/son relationship.  He had a month long fight with cancer, and in all their rush to battle the cancer they couldn’t find my number to let me know.  So I never got to have that final conversation with my dear friend.  Then we went to the family members house and found out that this family member had breast cancer.

That family member is OK as far as I have been told, but I still miss my friend Howard.  I think about him often.

This year also had a few spats with the local law.  I got a $170 ticket that was the most bogus ticket I’ve ever gotten.  I will never respect the law enforcement agencies again.  I wait for my call to jury duty, as I will be very honest and let them know that I will make anybody I have to judge… innocent.  So I doubt they’ll let me serve. Then we got some citations for not having our dog’s properly registered.  Didn’t even know we had to register them.  A warning would have been sufficient, but in a year where budgets are hurting the government does what the government does best… fine you.

We had yet another church fail.  This one was particularly hard to swallow.  Overall, really a good church fit for my family.  But their Elder said something whole fully inaccurate to my wife, and when I confronted him on it (Matthew 18), he basically called her a liar.  I have a low tolerance for leaders like that.  I can deal with regular members, but when the leadership is that screwed up it is time to leave.

And one of the worst things of all, Barack Obama was elected.  That may seem extreme, but his policies and the way he has done business has the great potential of destroying America.  We can’t spend like he is spending.  We couldn’t spend like Bush was spending, and he is making Bush look like an child.

Now, there were some good things in the year.  I did take a new job.  I had a memorable trip with my oldest son.  We went to Disney as a family.  It is never all bad, but this year certainly wasn’t fun.

It has again been a few weeks since I’ve written.  Again, remember it is not because we aren’t thinking of you.  We think of you daily, and really hourly.  I just can’t put it all out here on the blog, so I limit when I give you a public shout out.

Val wrapped up your Christmas presents.  Since you got pulled so close to the holidays, we want to make sure you are taken care of.  I am sure you will love your gifts and I hope it brings a smile to your face.  I hope some of it is kept for the years so you have it as a keep sake for the family you weren’t allowed to have. 

We have recently found out that you are going to get another foster home.  The one you are at now is getting out of foster care, and you lose because of it.  I think the system has given up on finding you a family and is just looking for you to have a home.  There is a differences.  Understand that you do have a family.  We are here for you.  I don’t know what that means in the future, but I know it will mean something.

As a family we are forced to move forward, and I really hope things get easier as the days go on.  We still have some pretty rough days.  You are loved and missed.

Your dad (if even for only 5 months),
Clarence

P.S. I don’t know when or how you will find this, but this is the sixth post directed toward you.  It will not be the last.  There will be days when I am thinking of you and I will send a shout out to you.  I’m so sad for me, but it is nothing in comparison to what I feel for you.