Author Archives: Justin

Learning to Crawl on Parquet

Posted on by
3

Maisie is starting to learn to crawl. She slides herself around the parquet floor with more and more ease everyday. The parquet is helpful for her sliding, but as a parent it kind of freaks me out. Parquet is not soft. It is not forgiving when Maisie rolls over, loses strength in her neck and bangs her little head. I am always watching as she teeters on her hip, entering the danger zone of head bonking.

Today I was watching (as I am at this moment) and I was ready to jump and put my hand under her head as she rolled over. Sure enough…she rolled over…and my hand was there. But her little head never hit my hand. She had learned…”keep my head up when I roll over and I won’t bump my head” I guess the falls that she did have helped her learn an important lesson in crawling on parquet…

When we go through life I’m sure that God sits by wanting to stop us from banging out heads, yet He knows that experience is the best way to learn…not by him always hovering over us…

Yet we pray for safety.
We seek safety as a premium.
We seek safety as proof of God’s blessing.

I think the greatest blessing that God gives us is maturity…the Bible, and Church history, reveal that it is through the hard experiences (aka suffering) that we grow and have our faith developed…which, in turn, God uses to produce eternal results…

While it is painful to see my little ‘Maisers’ bump her head, it is a true joy (and my real job as a parent) to help her grow up to be a mature person…learning over and over from her experiences.

Oh yeah…

Posted on by
Reply

And by the way…we’re back from Barcelona and had an amazing time. I put up an album of pictures if you didn’t see that. We loved spending time on the beach, eating tapas, and wandering around the city. Barcelona may have crept into the top spot for favorite cities in Europe!…it’s at least up there w/ Amsterdam and Paris.

The Radiant Metro

Posted on by
2

Today, like most days, I rode the metro. But today was a special day for me because my eyes saw things in a new light.

If you go one direction from Jen and I’s place you would end up in the more ‘middle-class’ French part of town. If you go the other direction you get to experience a whole different world from ‘normal Paris’…These places don’t make their way onto postcards. Not because they are bad, but because they aren’t the typical Paris scene of a fancy monument or some trendy looking person sipping on an espresso in a little cafe window. But I love these off the beatin’ path neighborhoods.

After riding the metro a few stops I noticed something…my pastyish white skin was the minority color compared to the beautiful chocolate, coffee, and creamy colors of skin that covered the souls of my traveling companions…I was looking around at the beautiful faces of the world on my metro and I was hit with a deep sense of being human, of solidarity in the cause of being alive. I won’t describe it well…but I distinctly felt my smallness in the scope of humanity…yet at the same time I realized how each one of us have a history and a story that uniquely matters to God…Africans, Asians, Arabs, Europeans…even the tourists that got on the metro at the Sacré Coeur stop…are unique and each one is looked over with love by our Maker. I distinctly felt the love God has for me, but even bigger, the love he has for the creation that He made in His image…I began to well up with emotion just seeing the beauty of people. I am so grateful to live in a place with such rich diversity.

Sure the metro got packed…and hot…and stinky…but all I could see was the beauty radiating from the faces of the people on the metro. I wish that my eyes could see this all the time in the city.

Off to Barcelona

Posted on by
3

Jen and I (and Maisie) are heading off on vacation today! The last time we’ve gone on vacation, just the 2 (now 3) of us was for our 2nd anniversary…we’ll be married 6 years this summer! If you do the math, we’ve been due for some time away together!

We have heard over and over how great a city Barcelona is, so we are really looking forward to seeing for ourselves. I was in Spain a few weeks ago for a research trip to Seville and really loved the culture there…even though people in Barcelona consider themselves Catalonians, not Spanish. We’re especially looking forward to hanging out on the beach (even though we are pasty northern Europeans now!), going to the huge aquarium, exploring a new city, and just relaxing together!

We’ll both be away from blogging and email for a while, so ‘talk’ to you in a few days! Justin

The Sad State of Professional Sports

Posted on by
1

Star quarterback indicted by the FBI for dog fighting…
Leader of the Tour de France kicked off of tour under suspicion of doping…
Baseball star getting ready to break all-time home record under cloud of controversy about steroid use…
NBA referee a part of betting scandal on games that he officiated…

What is up? How long will this go on before professional sports becomes too unbearable for me, or anyone, to enjoy? At least in ‘professional wrestling’ we know it’s more about entertainment than actual competition…I’d hate to see the steroid test results for those guys…and girls!

There has to be some kind of lesson for the ‘normal guy’ in all of this. Maybe it’s as simple as learning to have integrity in the little things before you’re in the spotlight? Maybe it’s that we need to learn that no matter how we try, we won’t be able to hide our secrets? Maybe it’s that we should see the cost of when others reveal our secrets and not when we pursue authenticity for ourselves? Maybe this is an opportunity to question what lengths we’d go to in order to win? Maybe it’s all of these and more?

Good luck professional sports. You’re at a critical time…and better develop a renewed passion for integrity and justice.

New Pictures

Posted on by
3

You can probably tell by the title that there are new pictures up…They are of Maisie of course. My mom and dad talked some trash when they were here visiting about me not putting up more pictures…so here you go!