watching our firstborn start to understand sin

I asked Jesse to write this last night since he was the one who actually experienced the breakthrough/down and had the cool conversation with Judah. It's really crazy cool because we have been lamenting lately the fact that when Judah does something really hurtful or even hateful to us or to Layla, that there is no actual recognition of having done something truly wrong. He does the classic kid thing of just rote repeating our words of apology because he "has" to, but rarely/never seems to actually empathize with or even appreciate the pain he has caused. We've been talking and praying about how to help him practice a heart of repentance that will really feel the depth of the hurt he can cause with his words/actions (and how to stay away from the line that crosses over into shaming him) since this is something crucial to a life with Jesus.

And I'll let Jesse tell you what happened last night.

Right before bedtime tonight Judah and Layla got into one of their classic fights.  Judah had the ipad and Layla was encroaching on his territory wanting to watch what he was watching after we got home from the Library.  But these days its a 50/50 chance whether Judah will be sweet and kind and allow her to cuddle up next to him, or punch her in the face and tell her to leave…

But tonight he just said, “I wish I didn’t have a sister.”

I heard it in the hall, but Keight made him go repeat it to me.  When he told me what he said, I informed him that he’d lost a love token (this system of rewarding jesus-like behavior that we've been using for a little over  year now), and that definitely wasn’t showing love to his sister.  And that seemed like the end of it…

But apparently little man’s wheels were still turning.  That guy is a thinker and a processor for sure.  We went on with the normal bedtime routine, PJs, reading a book, etc, but when it came time to get up into bed, Judah bonked his head on the way up into his nook, so I went up there to check on him.

He was sad because he bonked his head on something, but perhaps that also triggered a thought because he looked at me with tear-filled, innocent/guilty, 4 year old eyes and said, “Daddy, I don’t know why I’m so mean to people sometimes.  I don’t know why I’m so mean to Layla.  I don’t know how to change though, I don’t know why I punch her and hit her.”  And then he proceeded to descend into greater tears.

Now this was a really strange place for me as a dad, because my heart was breaking because of how sad he was, and because I too know how crummy it feels whenever you realize what a mean and hurtful person you can be, but to also feel trapped and unable to change… but at the same time… I was also incredibly proud of him. 

I was proud because what he was feeling seemed to be the beginning of some of the most important feelings that a person can wrestle with in this life. 

And then he said, “And God sees all the times that I’ve been so mean to Layla…” and he began to cry again and said tearfully, “And I don’t know what He’s gonna do!”

And I really had to fight back every instinct that I had at this point to reassure him that everything would be fine, and that God sees all the good things that he does too, and knows that he’s a good boy… because I knew that he was on the verge of realizing one of the most important truths that anyone can learn about themselves in this life… he was about to learn that he was a sinner.

Not because I told him so.  Not because anyone explained sin, or the 10 commandments to him… but because he felt it in his heart.  Because he knew that when God looked at his life… He wouldn’t be happy with what He found.   And it was so so sad.  And I was so sad… but at the same time, I knew that what was happening was so so important.

2 Cor. 7:9-10 says, …”yet now I am happy, not because you were made sorry, but because your sorrow led you to repentance. For you became sorrowful as God intended and so were not harmed in any way by us. Godly sorrow brings repentance that leads to salvation and leaves no regret, but worldly sorrow brings death.”

I’m so glad that God has been taking me back to those verses again and again, because I knew that what came next was the very most important thing.  Being sad about wrong doing is the right starting point… but where you go from there is absolutely crucial.  So much so that Paul says it’s actually a matter of life and death.

So I grabbed his hand and looked into his fearful eyes and asked Judah… “What do you think we should do, buddy?”

And he didn’t know.  I could tell that he was feeling the pressure of being trapped, of wanting and needing a way out… but also not seeing one.  He was hearing the message of the bad news, that wrong is wrong and that it deserves to be punished.  That HE deserved to be punished…

But since he had come to see that… it was also time for the Good News.

So I got to spend the next 5 minutes telling Judah about how we can ask God to forgive us, and know that He does because Jesus took the punishment that we deserve.  That Jesus took his wrong… so that he could be right.  And so that we can pray to God to not just forgive us, but also give us a new heart to love people like He does.

And there were some fun 4 year old moments, like when Judah wondered if Jesus and God were enough to look after all the kids in the world (“there’s like a hundred kids and only two [holds up two fingers] guys!”).  So we got to talk about how big God and Jesus are… not how tall they are… but how big their heart is… how big their love is.  And we got to talk about the Holy Spirit (don’t worry buddy, there are THREE guys!).

I told Judah about how Jesus had to die to make all of this possible.  How he took everyone’s punishment… (“even the desert people, and the jungle people?” he asked.)  And he wrestled with the sadness of Jesus dying for a while too.  And lamented how, with Jesus dying, the world was back down to just two guys to take care of everyone.

But then we got to talk about new life… eternal life… and the hope of a new world, without pain, and without death where we’ll get to do all sorts of fun and cool things like flying and exploring… but I told him I thought the best part will be that we’ll be able to be with our big God and His big love forever and always.

Judah thought the best part would be that we could live in Africa and speak Spanish.

We finished by praying together and Judah from his heart asked God to please forgive him for being so mean and hurtful to his sister.  And then he asked God to help give him a new heart for his sister to be able to love her, like God loves her.

And to that I said a big hearty, happy, and proud AMEN.

Layla Embry's Song

from keight: with a husband who does things like this, it will be a miracle if i am ever NOT pregnant. he is just frippin' amazing. if you never have, make sure you follow the link to judah's song below because it's so cool how the two songs go together just perfectly but are still completely different. okay, little girl, we've got your theme music ready, you can come out now!

by jesse:

Back when Judah was still in Keight's belly, I was trying my hand at songwriting. It all started when I wrote a song in response to some things that I was studying about the resurrection for a message that I was preaching. I really enjoyed the process so then I started a blog to document the process at the beginning of the new year with the intention of writing a song a week.

Well, I churned out a couple that I really liked, and some that were just okay, and some that probably stunk, but the last song that I wrote was about Judah (it was the last because he consequently occupied most of the time that I had dedicated to songwriting). Most of the feedback that I got from Judah's song was that it was by far the best of all of my efforts. And so as I closed up my songwriting experience, I realized then that any good artistic endeavor has to come from a place of deep emotional experience, or else it will end up at best being technically good, or clever, or clean, but not beautiful. Only powerful emotions can produce powerful expressions.

So now I pretty much stick to writing songs about things that really move me, and these days, that's just Jesus and our kids. And I've been trying to write a song for Layla for the past forever, but I wasn't feeling what I'd written 100% and it was a struggle because the emotions were still very far away and hard to access. So last night I got thinking about just how excited I was about her actually coming, and how much I wanted to meet her and to just be able to actually have her; to love on and cuddle, but consequently how her coming would begin the long slow road of her actually learning to be without us, and probably not want to always be around us (can you say middle school?). So it's this crazy conflict of emotions that I feel with Judah all the time of wanting him to just come to me and let me hold him and never let go and be both amazed and enthralled and terrified all at the same time that he's growing up.

So right then and there while sitting on the couch, the whole idea for her song just kinda popped into my head. Which is exactly how it happened with Judah's song too, so I hope this one is of the same breed. It's fun and a little goofy at times, because that's just how we are, and it's still a little rough because I wrote and recorded the whole thing in one day, but stick with it till the end and I think you'll like it.

Hope you enjoy.

Baby Come to Me

Well I caught your momma's eye

from across the room

and she gave a little smile

like she knew a thing or two and said

"I know what you're thinking, the answer's 'no'

it's much too soon for seconds darling. You know its true."

But I said baby come to me

oh don't be coy, yeah I know we're 1-2,-3, but what's one more

when you've got more love for sharing

and you look mighty fine in that t-shirt that you're wearing

so baby come to me

I said, baby come to me

well next thing that you know

we're getting presents wrapped in pink and purple bows

and moving things around to make room for another

and pretty soon you'll make our little man a brother

and I can't wait

So I say baby come to me

oh little girl, you know I just can't wait to see

how you turn our world upside down with all you bring in

and fill our hearts so full that they can't stop from singing

"Oh baby come to me"

We'll sing, "Baby come to me"

Now time is flying by like slipping sand

and on my front porch is a guy with flowers in his hand

"Oh daddy drop the gun you'll scare him"

I say, "That's the point, and don't think that's the dress you're wearing"

but then I'll laugh

And I'll say baby come to me, lemme hold you tight

now before I set you free to go out tonight

and will you make me a promise?

Will you come running back if mom or I start calling

oh baby come to me?

oh baby come on back to me

oh I know as time goes on you're growing

but baby can't you see

that no matter where you may be going

you'll always be, yeah you'll always be, you're always gonna be

my little darling baby

and I'll say baby come to me

oh I'll say baby come to me

Oh but while I've got you here

let me tell you one more thing my little dear

you might as well know that

with guys I've got a preference

and its not Romeo who's waiting with a white dress

in fact your heart of gold is something far too precious

to not be bought unless the cost was something priceless

but one paid that price

for such a beautiful bride

Oh He's the one who set us free

and He's singing, baby come to ME!

what's in a name (again)

Howdy folks, Jesse here. So i guess this is the post you've been waiting for. The name.

If you've been hanging with us from the beginning then you know that we don't really pick names just because we like the way that they sound, or look, or because a family member or friend happens to have that name too. We like to go back pretty far in our Christian heritage and borrow from the ancient Hebrew naming traditions which regard names as a very real part of who a person is and will become. For the ancient Hebrews, "to be called" and "to be" were thought to be synonymous, and a name was held to be one in the same with the person or object itself. An interesting example of this (a NOT interesting example would be the Prayer of Jabez) is how Jews will render G-d's name like so when written, instead of writing it out. Not only is his name holy and not to be used in vain, but it also is Him in a very real way and you would never want him thrown away, discarded, etc.

So anyway, the meaning of a name was hugely important and would become a sort of prophetic vision for the individual's life. This is a cool thing when your name is Jedidiah (friend of God) or Aden (handsome, adorned), but not so cool when you name is Phesse (lame), Heled-Sepho (fat and bald), or Ichabod (my glory has departed [ouch!]).
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So for a little more info about our thoughts on the naming process and for an example of the name/meaning dynamic in action you can check out this old post from right before we decided on Judah's name.

Obviously this isn't our first time on the naming wagon. Before we decided upon Judah's name one of the cool things that God did was lead us to Psalm 112 which talks about the children of the righteous man and we've felt strongly that He wanted us to pull our children's name meanings from that Psalm itself. To check out that whole story and the story of actually deciding on Judah's name, you can go here.

One of the verses from the Psalm that really stuck out to us last time was verse 4.

.4 Even in darkness light dawns for the upright,

for the gracious and compassionate and righteous man.

We both loved the imagery that the verse evokes, and how powerful and necessary the idea was of "light dawning from darkness". We were almost dead set on Judah actually being called Donovan because it meant "dark warrior" and then finding a middle name that had something to do with light, but, alas, names are funny things. It wasn't until we "saw" Judah on the ultrasound and knew for sure that he was a boy that we really felt a peace about his name.


And if you went back and read the old posts, or you just have a good memory, you'll know that another name that we loved and were considering if Judah was a girl was the name Layla, which means "night" or "dark beauty" in Arabic. Keight has actually loved the name Layla since before we even met, it's been her name of choice for a girl since high school. I, on the other hand, had some reservations.

Now, I know its lame, but the name never really sat right with me because it was Arabic. And I don't mean that in a racist or bigoted way at all, call me old (testament) school, but I just like Hebrew names for some reason. I get that names in English aren't really Hebrew either, but whatever, it is what it is. So the name didn't really work for me right off the bat. And I wasn't sure about the Eric Clapton song...

Anyway, the other day I was spending some time with God in the morning and praying for our little girl, and the name Layla just kept coming into my head over and over again. I tried to tell myself that I didn't like it. I tried to ignore it, but to no avail. The same kind of thing actually happened with Judah, I didn't really like it at first when Keight proposed it, and then it totally grew on me and then cemented itself with some serious divine confirmation.

So I did a little research. And I'm going back and looking at the history of the name and on one site I came across several different spellings of Layla and realized that there was actually a Hebrew variety, Lailah which means "night". In fact, its the literal word for night in Hebrew. Interesting.

Then as I'm looking further down, in the comments section, some random lady had commented on how their child was named Lailah and told a story about the angel Lailah warring with Abraham and 318 trained men against the kings following Kedorlaomer after they had captured his nephew Lot in their rout of Sodom and Gomorrah. Now, I fancy myself a pretty decent student of both the Old and New Testament, and I was pretty sure that was not how the story went in Genesis 14. At least I was sure there was no mention of an angel named Lailah.

And I was right, but I found out through some more study that the story of Lailah the angel she was referring to was actually from the Talmud which is a Jewish rabbinical commentary on the Torah and Jewish Law from around 200 AD (stick with me, now). It's actually a case of the name-equals-the-identity idea I was talking about earlier. The text from the Talmud (in Tractate Sanhedrin, Folio 96a. if you feel like looking it up, Mazel Tov!) reads: And he fought against them, he and his servants, by night [lailah] and smote them. R. Johanan said: The angel who was appointed to [aid] Abraham was named lailah [Night].

Nothing like a good smiting in my opinion.

So its totally a case of that "to be called/to be" dynamic going on. The name Lailah takes on this characteristic of the night, and at the same time represents this actual character, the angel of the night Lailah who wars beside Abraham in the dark. It always did seem pretty odd that 4 big kings and all their thugs, who had just conquered two of the more powerful cities of the day, could get their butts kicked by just old Abe and 318 guys. [super]Naturally, they had to have some help.

Now the name was taking on a whole different meaning, and I was definitely liking where it was going, but didn't really want the full image of her name to be one of darkness and night, or a Batgirl type character going all vigilante in the wee hours of night against Gotham's criminal underbelly. So the stage was set for the perfect the middle name to round out the picture.

Another name we both liked a lot was Embry. We just clicked with its uniqueness and the way it looked and sounded. But more importantly we loved the meaning and what the meaning added to her full name. As you might guess it means, like an ember; a smoldering fire. I think I found this name because the picture that goes along with the Psalm 112:4 is the sun breaking forth from the horizon and literally burning through pitch black darkness. So I went on a search for names that meant, fire, burning, light, etc. And we both just fell in love with Embry. (here's hoping she doesn't marry a guy whose last name starts with O because then she'd be lalya embryO).

All of a sudden you have dark beauty, smoldering fire, bad-a angelic warrior who isn't afraid to go into the dark places and bring the light. That's my kinda girl.

You might say, be careful what you wish for, it sounds like she'll be a spitfire, but I honestly couldn't ask for anything else. My prayer is that this little girl lives up wholly to her name, because what this world needs today is a generation who will burn with a deep love for God, and who is willing to take that love, that fire, into the dark places that are most in need of the light with the beautiful fire of his spirit inside them.

Layla Embry. The beautiful burning one who wars in the darkness.

And her initials?

L.E.D. even more light.

Can't wait to meet you , darling.

On Parenting and Birth Part 3 - THE END!!

So today is a pretty special day. A year ago today, Keight and I were at Fayette Piedmont Hospital and we didn't have any children. Then around 3pm we met the most precious little boy in the world.

And he changed our lives forever.

If you're haven't read parts 1 and 2 of the birth story, please feel free to go back and check them out. But today we celebrate, and you get to hear the end of the story.

___________________

So when you left us last, Keight had just been hooked up to the IV drip of Pitocin and was being given the smallest dose. She was 6 cm and 70ish% effaced and had been for a while. We had stalled out.

To recap, we didn't want to take pitocin, at all. But Keight's bag of waters had burst... um, a little while ago (like 25 hours ago), and we were getting to a point where the risks were getting higher than "we let you do whatever you want". So despite our goal and desire to have as few interventions as possible and let the birth process play itself out as naturally as possible, this was a compromise we had to make because we were having the baby in the hospital and not at a birthing center or at home. But we knew the potential tradeoffs from the get go, so it wasn't a big deal by any means.

Well, the choice wasn't a big deal. Apparently, pitocin is a big deal.

The effect was felt immediately.

Throughout this entire day, Keight has been unstoppable. I don't know how much you know about childbirth, but as you progress through the process, everything intensifies. It all comes to a head if you will (insert Fozzie Bear laugh here). The contractions (your body basically pulling the opening of a balloon large enough to send a watermelon through) get stronger, harder, and closer together which basically equals more pain, for a longer period time, with less break in between.

She is also going on like 30 hours without sleep, and I'm guessing there are some hormones and emotions flying at this point too. But even through all of that, Keight has been in control, focus, relaxing and responding through the contractions and basically kicking the shitocin out of labor.

But that all changed.

The first pitocin contraction was immediately different. Whereas a normal contraction would come on gradually, and raise up like a mountain on the monitor, this one spiked early. To ride the wave of the contraction, Keight would normally take full controlled breaths. But as this contraction hit, she was gulping for air as the pain descended on her. She squeezed my hand, HARD and writhed on the bed as the contraction continued on for 30 seconds and then a minute. And then it was finally over.

This would be the point when things got very difficult. She immediately had to get out of the bed because the pain and the position were just too bad. And throughout this time I'm still trying to encourage Keight and stick to the script that we learned. Breath, focus, relax, you're in control, each contraction brings us closer to meeting Judah, listen to your body.

Well, as Mike Tyson so eloquently misquoted Joe Louis, "Everyone has a plan until they get punched in the mouth."

Lukas used to tell a hilarious story about an assistant JV soccer coach that he had at Sandy Creek High School. This guy was a history teach and one of assistant coaches on the football team and would go around making Bullwinkle noises as he walked through the halls. Well, apparently he just had some extra time on his hands, so he decided to help with the JV soccer team.

So one fateful afternoon, the "real" JV soccer coach couldn't be there, which left the assistant JV "coach" in charge. His experience probably consisted of watching a few videos on soccer and maybe playing a couple games of FIFA 99 on his Nintendo 64.

So before the game, he takes the boys into the locker room for a "pep talk" and produced what could be the greatest pregame speech EVER.

He looked around at the 9th and 10th grade weenies and said, "I don't know a lot about this game you call soccer..."

"But I know what it takes to win... GO!! FIGHT!! WIN BOYS!!"

And with that, sent them into battle.

Why do I tell you that story?

Because sadly, I had roughly the same qualifications at this point. I had never (and will never) gone through labor. I had never even seen a live birth. I had watched some videos, read some books, and done some research. And I had a card.

But none of that really prepared me for my wife sitting before me so visibly in pain.

And as the pain and stress mounted, my help and suggestions became increasingly annoying. I felt helpless and useless, a little husband-fly buzzing around saying, "Beeeeeeee positive!"

And so I had nothing to give as the contractions kept coming, beyond saying, "What can I do? I love you and I'm here for you."

But sadly I felt Keight slipping away from me. We had done this as a team up until this point, and I felt her retreating in on herself knowing that she was going under.

And so I just started praying... "God, obviously I can't do this, but I'm not even sure that we can do this. I know you are here with us, and I know that Keight can do this, but she needs help. Help us. Help us Lord, don't leave us now."

And He did :)

At around 2:15 Adrienne came back in and found us sitting by the bed with Keight on a stepping stool groaning and crying, and saying "I can't do this, I can't do another contraction." She had just recently vomited because of the pain and was, as she describes herself at this point, "a rabid wookie". (If you've been keeping up, this was also the point when we reached the third emotional signpost which is self-doubt, also known as Transition. It's a very difficult time during labor without pitocin, so to hit that stage and as fast as she did, perhaps you can see why she was a little down.)

But Adrienne came over on our side of the bed and grabbed Keight's hand and looked her in the eye and said, "Yes you can! Girl, I know you can do this. I know that you're hurting, but you are in control! You are in charge of your body and I know this hurts, but you're so close to the end. We're gonna get through these last contractions and then you're going to have your baby."

And it was amazing because I could literally see the life going back into Keight with every word that Adrienne said. And it was soooo amazing because here was another woman, who had gone through the same process, who had labored through the same excruciating pain, and had come through on the other side. And she was literally, fanning the flame of faith and belief back into Keight.

And it was at this moment that I just had to stand back and watch for a moment. I had to witness the beauty and miracle that the birth process is. This magical sisterhood that Keight was entering in to which stood on the edge of undoing, but fought back and found the god given strength within herself to fight through to the end.

To be perfectly honest, I felt a little intrusive at that moment. And while you will not ever be able to keep me out of the delivery room for any of our family's births, I must say that there is something VERY special about women who have learned how to bring forth life from their bodies passing on that knowledge and strength to other women in the process. I would dare say its something holy.

I think God in his wisdom knew that with sin in the world our entire lives were going to be a fight, and that moms especially were going to have to fight for their children. And perhaps that's why He made the birth process what it is.

And I know that that who idea might rub you the wrong way if you tend to view the world from a strictly scientific point of view. But I hope you'll take that for what its worth.

So we turned a corner. I saw a new Keight emerge who was still in great pain and scared and emotional, but she was in control. She had mastered her fear and was set to finish what we had started so long ago.

At around 2:20 Adrienne in her kindness also gave Keight a small does of fentanyl, to "take the edge off" which apparently was like going at a fire with a water pistol, but it was at least good for the mind. They also checked K8 just to see if things had progressed.

9 cm!

So we were getting VERY close, they put in a call to Dr. Beckford telling her to come on over because it wasn't going to be much longer now. It was fun watching them transform the room from a labor room, to a delivery room. It was like hospital transformers as they brought in tons of machines and instruments, they even started morphing the bed to accommodate the pushing that was to come. Pretty soon after Adrienne decided to check Keight again.

Fully dialated. Fully effaced. From 6 to 10 cm in about 35 minutes. The first 60% took 30 hours, the last 40% took 1/60th of that. Go ahead and do the math yourself on the pain, thanks again Pitocin, see ya again never.

SO, its time to have a baby!!

They called Dr. Beckford backand told her that it was literally going to be any minute now. Apparently she thought she still had more time before because she had stopped to make some coffee and was just now leaving. There was some vague talk at this point about her being "on the way" with no specifics about her time of arrival. So we didn't know if that meant she's in the lobby or she's on 285 South.

Just then, Keight started having really bad pain in her back and stomach and decided that she wanted to try and get back in the bed to hopefully find a position of comfort. When she got there, she looked at Adrienne and said, "I think I have to poop. BAD."

To which Adrienne looked at the other nurse worriedly, and then back at Keight and said, "Um... honey, I think that means it time to push. You're going to have to wait just a minute though because Dr. Beckford isn't here yet, but she's on the way."

Well, Keight wasn't having any of that. She let them know that she was ready to have the baby NOW. So that started some frantic scurrying of nurses and more calls were made and more equipment brought in stat! And I notice Adrienne and the other nurse kind of talking quietly, and I pick up that they are deciding which one of them is actually going to deliver the baby. To which I hear Adrienne adamantly say, "No, I've definitely got this!"

So Keight has been kind of trying to hold back the pushing urge this whole time (kind of impossible) but has not been actively pushing. So Adrienne checks her again, and sure enough, there's the little guys head. So she says to Keight, "Ok mom, nows the time, you can start pushing he's right here."

To which Keight says, "What do you mean right here? Like in 30 minutes?" Both of us were prepared for pushing to take at least that long, and it can often times last much much longer.

"Um, no I mean his head is right here, I can touch it."

Naturally, I had to see this. And sure enough, there was our son. I can't imagine what that experience must have been like from his perspective, but the entire time, his heart rate stayed perfectly steady, so it couldn't have been too traumatic.

So Keight pushed.

Three times.

And we had our son.

She was magnificent and he was magnificent, and I was crying simply because it was over, and honestly I was quite scared. I was afraid because Keight was in so much pain and she was in such shock that it was over the first thing she said was, "I'm not pregnant anymore!"

But we brought him up to Keight so that she could hold her amazing creation and just hearing him cry was the most beautiful sound in the world. He latched on and fed some but he was so pathetic and helpless, but some completely ours. It was 2:54 pm on May 25th, 2009. And I knew that life would never ever be the same. And it hasn't been.

Here's a little video of him right after he was born. He was so peaceful and precious from birth, I knew that he was going to be a special kid. Thanks for sharing a year with us.

The Dukes.

Keight will give you her take on the whole story here in a few days, and I left some details out for her to tell, but I hope you've enjoyed the story and the best part is, that the story has really only just begun.

From O-town

Hello all, Daddy Dukes is dialing this one in from The Exponential Conference in Orlando, FL. Exponential is a network of church planters and the conference is all about planting churches. I'm currently having lunch with the rarely seen but greatly loved Rob Hartley who is a fellow blog husband like me. His wife Danielle has a lovely blog called Lancaster Living, which chronicles their journey which has included micro-financing in Rwanda, contemplating Amishnish, and now exploring church planting. You should definitely check it out. It's smooth like American Honey.

Anyway, in honor of Rob's endevor and this conference, I'll give you what church would look like if I planted one:

1. Learning to become like Jesus

YAWN, you probably read that and think boooring. Doesn't every church already do that? Well maybe they have that idea somewhere in there, but practically the goal of most churches is to get people to attend church and try to teach them, albeit terribly. Imagine a school that taught like church. Classes once or twice a week, for an hour, or less. No tests, no measurable goals, several sentences of required reading, optional homework and no grading system. Sounds like Clayton County schools. This is because for most churches there is no end in sight, no real goal or measure of success beyond staying open. Self preservation. The big problem with that is the guy we claim to follow sucked at self preservation. Jesus was always making terrible career decisions, killing momentum and bucking conventional wisdom. But the crazy part is when things died around him, they came back to life. So I want to see what a church looks like that takes serious the commission to actually become like Jesus and puts in the time and effort to measure if it's actually happening, rather than just if people are attending.

So that's #1 and I'll keep posting as the day goes on, but what about you guys, anyone tired of church as is?


-- Post From My iPhone

On parenting and birth... Part 2

About 7 months ago I told the first part our natural childbirth experience and I ended by saying, "Check in soon for part 2!" Umm... yeah, sorry about that. I've been keeping a standard of "promptness" if you choose to think about it in galactic terms. Hillary Hull said that one of her friends was thinking about doing natural childbirth but was waiting to hear the finale before deciding. Mmm... sorry about that too. It's taken me some time to find a rhythm to life that allows me to get back to the blog so I hope I can jump back in every now and again. But before I do anything else, let me finish what I started...

So when you left us last we had just checked into Fayette Piedmont at about 5:00 am on memorial day. I was pretty well rested and excited, K8 was excited, but in lots of pain every 2 to 3 minutes, and had been awake since 9 or 10am the previous day.

If you haven't done it before, it can be a bit of an interesting experience wandering into the hospital with a laboring woman. The parking lot was almost abandoned and the entrance that we normally went in wasn't open so we came in right by the ER. I don't know why, but I expected everyone to kind of drop what they were doing when we walked in and rush to help us.

"OMG! She's having a BABY! CODE 9!! Delta Team MOVE!"

I imagined them wheeling in a gurney and strapping Keight down and us running down the halls to get her to a doctor STAT! So I was a little disappointed when we burst on the scene and there were no balloons or sprinting nurses. In fact, I had no idea where to go. So I hurried over to the ER desk and said, "My wife is having a baby, what do we need to do?" To which the woman behind the desk sleepily replied, "Maternity. 3rd floor." And pointed off to her right, all without looking up from her computer.

Right. So with significantly less fanfare than I imagined, we waddled to an elevator and eventually made our way to the Maternity ward and got checked in.

I can't remember if we mentioned this way back when, but our OB office had 4 doctors that rotated being on call and a conversation that Keight and I had been having throughout the pregnancy was, "Who do we want to deliver the baby?" and "Who do we think is going to deliver the baby?" Our choices were between Dr. Cook (head guy, super down to earth and likable), Dr. Ralsten (goofy but funny, did his undergrad at Tech), Dr. Turner (straightforward but also warm, she delivered a set of twins naturally), and Dr. Beckford (spacey and looks like she's 24, but funny and nice). We went back and forth between men and women, but eventually we decided either of the guys because they seemed the most willing to let us do our thing naturally as long as Keight and Judah were okay, and then finally that we'd love to have Dr. Ralsten if we had to pick a #1, but we figured that we would get one of the women with our luck and we were the most squeamish about Dr. Beckford. Simply because we literally were not sure she was old enough to have a medical degree (she looks YOUNG!) and she seemed likely to be quick to "intervene" medically rather than let the birth process play out as naturally as possible. Plus every time we had seen her for our prenatal appointments she tried to talk us into an epidural even though we were pretty clear.

At this point I would have liked to show you all 4 of their pictures but their stupid website is in Flash, and one of the doctors (Turner) left shortly after our birth (unrelated...maybe). So in their place here is a picture of Justice Ruth Bader Ginsberg from one of the exam rooms in the OB office. You can imagine that she is the composite image of all four (actually not that far off).

SO, when we decided it was time to go I called ahead to the hospital and told them we were coming in and found out that currently Dr. Turner was on call. So maybe not ideal, but we were happy about that because we knew that she would likely be very willing to allow us to stick to our birth plan provided there were no serious complications.

Upon arriving to the Maternity ward on the 3rd Floor we were greeted very warmly by the nurses and Keight got settled in nicely. After extensive amounts of paperwork that basically amounted to promising not to sue the hospital that they made Keight fill out while contracting even though we had preregistered, we were finally able to be alone together for a little while and get back to the business of having a baby. One of the things they asked us at check in was when her water broke. Since we knew the hospital's policy of 18 hours of broken water before IV antibiotics were required, we kind of just said "um, one" since it was 5 am the nurses assumed we meant 1 am (because who waits all day at home after water breaks?!? we do!). actually it was 1 pm the day before. we didn't lie, but we were pumped to get 12 extra hours without being wired up to anything. Throughout all of this Keight has been a complete champion. She's getting retrofitted with fetal monitors and a Hep-Lock IV port, and getting poked and prodded every second it seems, but about every 2 or 3 minutes, she would ask them to hold on and she would relax her whole body and allow the contraction that had come along to do its amazingly beautiful and painful work.

About 30 minutes after all the paper work was done and we'd been settled in, Dr. Turner finally came in to check where Keight was and talk to us for the first time. We quickly found out that Keight was at 3-4cm and 70% effaced (for you no pregos, that means her cervix was open 3 to 4cm [at 10cm you're pushing a baby out] and effacement is basically a measure of much your cervix has thinned [think of pulling a thick turtleneck sweater over your head, how the material thins as you pull it tight]). This was good news because it meant that something had been happening during all those contractions, but it also meant we still had a ways to go. The BAD news, was that her shift was ending at 7am and so right as we were getting settled in with nurses and doctors it was all about to change.

It would turn out that the change would be VERY significant to the outcome of this story. We quickly learned that Dr. Beckford was the doctor with the next shift. Which definitely was a mixed bag of emotions for us, simply because we really did like her a lot. She's funny and kind of spacey, but very approachable and warm. The only hesitation that we had was that she would probably be the hardest of all the doctors to convince to let us proceed without any interventions.

But before we even had much time to even think about all of that, we were introduced to our new nurse who was going to take care of Keight. Our previous morning nurse was very sweet and encouraging southern girl who had a great knack for when to help us out and when to give us some space, so we were kind of bummed to lose her. In her place walks in our new nurse, and she is spunky. She's what we here in the south would call, "Northern" (she's from Ohio). She immediately gets down to business, "So I hear you guys want to go au naturale? Well that's great, you can totally do it. I had both of my children naturally, so I know what you're going through. But its going to take a lot of work from both of you." Then she proceeds to explain to me how birth coaching works. Ha, little did she know I had a coaching card already.

Still keep it in my wallet, in case we ever happen upon a woman in labor

So after Nurse Adrienne left, Dr. Beckford came in and did her own check, which just confirmed what Dr. Turner said. 3-4cm, 70% effaced. So she said that basically she was cool with us doing the whole natural thing, but if time passed and it looked like things were stalling out then we needed to consider using pitocin to speed up the labor if things weren't progressing "normally". We both reasserted that we weren't ready to consider that yet, and so we decided that unless something big came up, Keight would get checked again at 9:30am and then again at 12pm and we would go from there.

After the doctor left, Keight and I began an awesome time of being able to go through the birth process in peace for the most part. The thing that I loved about our chosen method was that it truly brought us so close together. Every contraction was an opportunity to see Keight doing what only she could for our family and to help her in ways that only I could. The wave of a contraction would come up and Keight would gracefully navigate its waters. She would relax her body fully, close her eyes, and breathe deeply all the while tuning into the amazing process that her body was leading her through.

team dukes!

My main job was simply to try to do whatever it took to make Keight comfortable and encourage her along her journey. I like to imagine it was like Keight being led down a path in the woods to a place that she had never been before. Her eyes are closed and she's being led by her body, who by the grace of God and the mystery of time and genetics, has already learned the way. I'm following along not doing much of anything, but just encouraging Keight when she doubts herself and making it as easy as possible for her body to take us where we all want to go.

Sometimes that was massaging the small of her back, sometimes that was rubbing her temples, sometimes that was letting her hang on my neck, sometimes that was encouraging and cheering her on, sometimes that was shutting up.

I remember sitting by the fetal monitor and watching the contractions build on the little graph and massaging Keight's hands as the pain would build. I remember moving from the birthing ball, to standing up and hanging on me, to standing up against the wall while I pressed hard on Keight's back to counteract Judah pushing on the other side. I remember how kind all of the nurses were and how thankful I was that they were there, but letting us do our own thing. It probably didn't hurt that we brought them gift baskets full of candy and goodies (thanks Tiff and Jorge!!).

But most of all I remember time slipping away. During labor, the contractions just keep coming and coming and coming. There are no time outs. There is no way to tap out and let someone else do the work. They just roll on and on every 3 or 5 or sometimes 8 minutes. 10 or 12 go by and there goes an hour. At some point I looked at the clock and it was 11:50. That meant Keight was about the get checked again, and hopefully she would have made enough progress to end the whole pitocin discussion for good.

So Dr. Beckford and Adrienne came back in for the exam as promised and sadly it was not good news. She had been 4-5cm, 70% effaced at 9:30 and now she was 5-6cm. That means we'd gotten 2cm closer in 4.5 hours. Come on uterus!! Are you kidding me?!? I watched the life drain out of Keight's face as they told us that, because we both knew that was not going to make things easy, and it was kind of a slap in face for all of the pain and anguish that she'd been going through since this started. At this point she had been up for more than 24 hours straight and was pretty exhausted. She would get almost to the point of sleep and then another contraction would come like a cruel uterine Chinese water torture.

Dr. B reminded us of our options and then left to go check on some other patients. It then that Adrienne sat down on the bed with us and we had a heart to heart. She was still very encouraging about us sticking to our birth plan and being able to deliver naturally, however then she told us that we would probably have to be willing to make some compromises simply because of our situation, with Keight's water having been broken for several hours (so they thought, we were getting close to 24 hours, since we had let them believe that "one oclock meant 1 am and not the 1 pm that was the truth).

She told us that if we got close to the 18 hour mark from when the water broke, we would be forced to go on IV antibiotics, which would mean staying in bed and no more walking around during the labor as we had been (because that's the hospital's policy to prevent infection since the womb is not longer a "sterile environment" after the water breaks, actually you can go up to 2 weeks with broken water and be totally fine). So to prevent that, we had to be willing to be flexible about some of the items on our birth plan. Specifically the use of Pitocin.

Now you may ask, "What's so bad about Pitocin? Isn't that meant to speed things up? Isn't that a good thing?" Well, you see we have this crazy idea that since women have been having babies for a LONG time, that maybe their bodies have a good idea how to do it on their ownsome and on their own timetable. Sometimes this is fast, sometimes this takes 2 or even 3 days. I understand that to our efficiency crazed, schedulemaniac culture, this could be hard to understand, but sometimes faster is not better at all.

The devil-juice!

The fact is, pushing out a baby is work. I'm guessing that's why its called labor. Put another way, it's an athletic endeavor. In our birth classes I learned that a uterus is covered with a very large muscle and contractions are simply (sic) that muscle contracting to pull open the cervix and allow the child to pass through the birth canal. Pitocin is the synthetic reproduction of the hormone oxytocin in your body that tells your uterus to contract. A woman in labor already has this hormone in her system. What pitocin does is force it into overdrive, stronger, longer and more frequent contractions come when propelled by this chemical. This can take a process that would take say 6 hours and convince your body to do it in 1/3 of that time. Which seemed to mean for example that the pain that would have been spread out over the 6 hours, now gets crammed into two. Which is three times worse if it works mathematically. And since childbirth is not exactly a comfort-filled activity to begin with, this presents a problem.

To counteract this, most women opt for an epidural shortly after getting the pitocin, simply to escape the rapidly intenifying pain as soon as they feel it starting. The only problem is that many times the epidural causes labor to slow down and the contractions subside. to overcome this they sometimes give you MORE pitocin. this can then make it painful again so they give you MORE epidural. and this cycle can create stress on the baby since the contractions are coming really hard and fast (even though mom doesn't feel it thanks to the epidural) and this distress can lead to emergency c-sections to "save" a labor that may not have even been in danger to begin with if there hadn't been interventions. also, once the pitocin gets them to 10 cm and its time to push the moms often can't feel enough of the process to know when/how to push, but the uterus is still pushing like crazy and this action on the baby can cause the heart rate to drop because of the added stress, which means an emergency c-section is necessary to get the baby out safely in this case too.

Now, please take this moment to realize that this is by no means always the case, or certain to happen. But the process I just described is known as "pit to distress" and if you care or have the time, throw that in the ol' goog and see what comes up.

When it comes to your own child that you've prayed for, hoped for, sacrificed sleep/money/time/your girlish figure for, you really don't want to do anything that is likely to end up causing it "distress". And from my perspective, I had Keight to be worried about as well. I didn't want her to have to get a c-section and I didn't want her to have ANY unnecessary pain. She had enough necessary pain to deal with.

But we were running out of options at this point. So after some serious soul searching and praying we made a deal with Adrienne that if Keight didn't make any more progress by 2:00, then we'd go ahead and go on pitocin.

God, you know the exact time that Judah is supposed to be born.

In fact, you already know how many hairs he has on that precious head of his.

We don't want to do anything necessary that would harm this boy that you're giving us. So we just ask that you help us make the right decisions and protect him through whatever happens.

We love you.

Amen.

2:00 pm came and went. No change.

They hooked Keight up the IV and administered the smallest dose possible, and we would see what happened from there.

this would be the last smile for a while...

Drip drip, no turning back now.

God help us.

the conclusion of the story is here

A Day in the Life of Dad

Parenthood, in my opinion, is a celebration of absurdity.

Case in point: My morning.
Maybe you haven't noticed, but Atlanta and Moscow somehow have managed to be on the same latitude lately. Which by itself, doesn't bother me in the slightest. I'm a fan of the cold weather... bundling up with sweaters, snuggling by the fire, laughing through the snow... you get the idea.

The part that I'm not such a fan of, is the fact that my two big, strong, smelly, somewhat homoerotic dogs Clifford and Chopper become gigantic furry babies when the temperature drops below 35 degrees. And lets just say, I'm not exactly eager to run outside in my PJs and move the whiners into their kennel in the garage just because its a little nippy. Sure sure, I wouldn't want to be outside sleeping in the cold either. BUT I don't smell like moldy yogurt, chew any and all surfaces, or have a built in fur coat (well, not exactly).

charming... right?

Well, whatever the dogs may be, they clearly aren't stupid. One night, the temperature dropped significantly after I went to bed, so the boys were out in the elements and decided to take matters into their own paws. Later, I was woken from my slumber by someone knocking on our door at 2:30 am. So I groggily stumble to the door, thinking to myself, "I thought Judah was too young to sneak out and get arrested for streaking."


Right department, wrong family member.


"Sir, we've had several complaints from your neighbors about your dogs causing a disturbance in the night. I'm going to have to ask you to get them to be quiet or I'll have to issue you a citation."


Checkmate.


I had to give it to them, that was pretty crafty. So NOW, they've tied my hands, and whenever it gets cold they decide to bark it up like its 2012, and I inevitably have to scoot out into the night and move them to the garage.


Just to add to the fun, Clifford gnawed his collar off lately, so I have to loop his leash around his neck like a lasso to corral him.


Anyway, back to this morning. So in our neck of the woods, its was freezing last night, so the dogs were in the garage in the morning. In other news, Judah is currently dealing with double ear infections and a hacking cough, so he has been getting terrible sleep lately, and he's pretty much perpetually cranky. On top of that I left his door cracked when I closed it after the 11 pm bottle, so Danger (the good cat) snuck in to his room for some late night snuggle time.


Apart from the problem of the cat potentially stealing his breath in the night, Danger has this weird thing where he MUST be let out at 5:30 in the morning. So that means this morning he woke Judah up in his attempt to escape the nursery.


Oh yeah, normally its Keight's responsibility to wake up with Judah on M-W-F, but to add to the fun, she's been getting sick as well.


Cue Daddy.


So my morning started with a cranky boy at 5:37. We get up, have some fun for about 30 minutes, and then Judah decides that there is no more fun to be had. He actually decides that coughs and whimpering are the soundtrack of choice for the day. So just when he reaches the point of no happiness, I remembered that the dogs were in the garage.


Since there was no putting him down, the only option that I had was to throw the little guy in our ever helpful Kelty Kids backpack and try to make it happen as a team.

overjoyed

So please try to picture me, with Judah on my back (snotty), trying to herd both of our 70 pounds dogs (one lassoed) back into their pen at 6:10 in the freezing cold.

I think it was about the time that the dogs were tying my legs with their leashes as I tried to unclip Chopper and Judah was crying because I was bending over when I looked down and noticed that my shirt was inside out because I got dressed in the dark.

And I just had to laugh. It was a deep belly laugh, and I'm sure if the neighbors saw me at that point they would have thought I'd finally cracked, but I was overcome by the absurdity of it all.

Here we are, me and this boy that I'm raising, navigating through life. My responsibility is to teach him to be a man, but this is all that I know about manhood: Fumbling with dogs in the cold with your shirt on inside out as your son pools snot on your shoulder in the backpack behind you.

I have no secrets. I have few bits of precious wisdom. All I know about being a man is that you do whatever you can to take care of those in your life, starting with your family and then reaching out as far as you can. I know that there is strength in weakness and great reward in looking out for the weak. Be that little boys, sick and sleepy wives or annoying lovable mutts.

I went about the rest of the morning with a new sense of purpose though. Judah was still cranky, I was still tired, and I remembered that it was Wednesday, and therefore Trash Day, so I had to stumble through the house with the bug still strapped in. But it was good.

This is my offering to him, showing him that being dad isn't about playing catch, killing spiders, and programing remotes; as it is simply doing whatever it takes to take care of the ones you love.

Happy Trash Day.

yep, that's the diaper genie bag

the hot 27...from jesse

as a belated birthday gift, i asked jesse to answer these 27 questions about our lives together, how he loves me, what he sees in me, etc. this was a purely self-centered request, and he delivered. his answers had me crying from laughing so hard. it amazing how well you know someone and never think to ask them fun and direct questions like this.

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1. please list 27 things/traits/facts you love about me on this my 27th bday. I love that you are a wicked hot, super-genius, jesus-loving, judah-making, athletic, no BS, kind hearted, georgia tech loving, fantasy football playing, volleyball star. I love the fact that you can flick a frisbee (and could on the first try), that you like to cook, that you are so good at taboo you have to shout out the answers when it isn't your turn, that you like to travel, that you are so damn responsible, that you are an excel and budgeting master, that you love harry potter and the wheel of time (dork!), that you are pretty sure you could use the Force if you tried hard enough, and that you have a masterful handle on the use of swear words. I love that you are absolutely hilarious, that you are an amazing blogger (@podcast.edu), that you have a fabulous vocabulary, that you are full of life and passion, that you want to change the world, that you dream big and want our lives to be magical, and that you for some reason thought it would be a good idea to marry me.

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at the Harry Potter 6 Release Party 7/16/2005. 3 years earlier, before meeting jesse, i went alone and still wore the glasses

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2. what is the best meal i have ever cooked us? tough call...you've made some stellar ones lately. I'd have to say, the first time you made the sesame peanut salmon and orange rice with the asian salad.<-- Ballin' (runners up: meat lasagna and bison burgers)

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3. the worst? the recreation of the longhorn sesame crusted ahi tuna; not terrible, but I'll take the original

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4. what is your first memory of me? probably thinking you had a nice butt playing volleyball, but the first vivid memory was you sleeping facedown on our couch in ULC 217 and thinking you were a boy

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yikes. cant imagine why he though i was a boy. perhaps only my triceps were showing

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5. when was the first time you knew you liked me? when you came down and visited me in F-town when I impaled my foot on the fence and played poker with my family

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6. ...loved me? when we had spent pretty much every day together for a month and I was in no way at all tired of you

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halloween 2004. you will never know how badly i wanted to stay in the car all night
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7. ...were going to marry me? when we were in Spain with my parents over easter and we stayed up and talked in the hotel lobby. (after dating 8 months)

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couldnt find the pics from the easter trip, so this is from when i went back to visit a few months later

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8. what would you change about me if you could? I would give you more patience and I would make you give yourself the same grace that God has given you.

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9. what are your top 5 favorite things to do with me? be out together with our friends, travel, um... yeah, hang out with judah, play sports

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puebla, mexico

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key west, fl

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san sebastian, spain
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10. if you had to describe the way you feel about me using one song what would it be? "the power of love" by Huey Lewis

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The power of love is a curious thing;

Make a one man weep, make another man sing
Change a hawk to a little white dove;

More than a feeling thats the power of love

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Tougher than diamonds, rich like cream;

Stronger and harder than a bad girls dream
Make a bad one good make a wrong one right;

Power of love that keeps you home at night
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You dont need money, dont take fame;

Dont need no credit card to ride this train
Its strong and its sudden and its cruel sometimes;

But it might just save your life
Thats the power of love
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First time you feel it, it might make you sad;

Next time you feel it it might make you mad
But youll be glad baby when youve found;

Thats the power makes the world go round

And it dont take money, dont take fame;

Dont need no credit card to ride this train
Its strong and its sudden it can be cruel sometimes;

But it might just save your life
Thats the power of love

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They say that all in love is fair

Yeah, but you dont care
But you know what to do,

When it gets hold of you

And with a little help from above;

You feel the power of love
You feel the power of love,

Can you feel it ?

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11. what's the hardest you can remember laughing with me? probably after we got in a huge fight our first year of marriage and you hid my keys so i couldn't leave to go to a Presidential Scholar Alumni function at tech. and i looked everywhere but they were under the cushion of the couch you were sitting on and how ridiculous that was of a thing to do. we always have big laughs AFTER the fights about the stupid ass things we do and say IN them.
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12. if you had to marry one of my friends who would it be? (if everyone was single) Hmm, Natalie? I honestly don't know.

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i mean seriously , i'd pretty much marry her too. MILF!
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13. if you had to let me marry one of your friends, who would you pick? (if everyone was single) Neal

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thats Neal on the far left. we love him. he's in our family plan (in more ways than one evidently)
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14. best way you think we've grown since knowing each other. Learning to fight fair

hmmm, seems fair to me
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15. thing we still need to work on the most. learning how to give up to avoid the fight all together

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16. what are my best "mommying" skills? soft heart, creativity, tough love, rejection of the status quo, and the desire for our kids to be different, in a good way;)

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desire to be different: letting the 4 month old take the car for a spin
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17. best date we've ever been on? the Ted's date when we were just friends that wasn't a date, no wait our first time at the Hil in Serenbe

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at the Hil (not the first visit, but the first after judah). salivating just thinking of it
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18. best gift i've ever given you? judah

you're very welcome. technically you gave him to me first
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19. what do i do that makes you laugh the hardest? when you use baby talk to describe things that no baby should ever talk about and when you do ridiculous things to get over a fight like steal the covers, mutter threats under your breath, or kick me repeatedly, then jump on me.

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20. what do i do that makes you the maddest? escalate conflicts

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.21. what do you think i'm the best in the world at? picture captions and scattergories

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22. ...the worst in the world? receiving compliments

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23. most surprising thing you've learned about me? that you've read every star wars book multiple times.

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are we surprised that this 2nd grader grew up to own over 100 star wars books? (cool points redemption: i won "most athletic" 2nd grader this day. that cargo net bent to my will regularly). that perm lasted about 4 hours longer until i jumped in a pool at an end of the year party.

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24. name 3 things i've made you try/love that you never would have on your own. sushi, volleyball, The Dark Tower series by Stephen King

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getting sushi with the bug (totally posed with the chopsticks. i was proud that we were out with such a youngin')

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25. name your top 4 of my physical characteristics. face, boobs, hair, hands and feet
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26. name something i'll never be better than you at and something you'll never be better than me at. you'll never be better than me at fantasy football but I'll never be better than you at math or word games
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27. would you do it all over again? duh, in a heartbeat!

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mwah! thanks hubface!