My Faith as a Motion Activated Paper Towel Dispenser

Ever get caught in the bathroom waving your hands frantically in front of the paper towel dispenser in the presence of several people only to discover that the thing is crank operated?  That whole scenario speaks volumes to my faith issues.  So often I feel as if my appeals to a higher power amount to nothing more than callous posturing, or perhaps a gluttonous appetite for pathologically good fortune.  Who am I to assume that a mere frenzied waving of my hands would produce a torrent of hot air, much less an unmitigated stream of good tidings?

But the faith thing works.  Pick your flavor – in my case it was Lutheran (ELCA) – but establish a dialog with that higher being.  Don’t let making an idiot out of yourself shake your faith. Hand waving is excused, maybe even encouraged – heck, gyrate your hips if you feel the need.  Being morbidly egocentric is generally allowed.  Results can happen.    I’d share my story with you, but it’s so gruesomely personal that I’ll probably post it on that other blog.

Thomas Merton wrote that he suffered what sounded very much like panic attacks as a result of the crushing weight of his own emptiness.  Panic attacks are a bad deal, trust me.  We’re not in this alone.  Go for the spiritual IV.  Get hooked up in some way, shape or form.

Guess I felt like preaching today… stranger things have happened.  Sorry!

Being disassembled by a baby

Okay, so we have this seven month old, Abby. She has a couple of things going on that are making me progressively uncomfortable.

First, she doesn’t treat my face with respect. I.e., all my facial parts, to her, are disposable items attached to my head with velcro. The fact that they haven’t come off yet she attributes to her own lack of strength. Mind you, that doesn’t keep her from trying. She figures with a few good yanks on my nose every day, it will eventually come off either from structural fatigue or an eventual increase in strength on her part. My nose isn’t really a good example because I can handle that without crying. Eyelids and mustaches are another matter.

Ever wonder why babies hands are so chunky? It’s because they have a brain in them. Abby has the ability to be totally engrossed in, say, what her big sister is doing while her hands are on autonomous missions of their own. The are generally engaged in the afore mentioned facial disfigurement experiments, but can at times be assigned the task of seizing tiny objects for the immediate ingestion of the mother ship. Sometimes that’s an M&M that’s been on the floor for 2 weeks, other times that’s a dried up dog fece that happened to blend well with our living room rug. Not an optimum situation no matter how you cut it. Her little hands are capable, independently, of patiently assessing and countering any obstacle to mission completion. I.e., the nose hair is going to get yanked – maybe not now, maybe not in 5 minutes, but at some point after you either lose heart in your defensive measures or become complacent.

Unfortunately counterpunching is one of those things that will land you at odds with your wife, if not in jail. So preserving my dignity becomes an exercise in learning how not to cry in the throws of Guantanamo like pain. It would really help if someone would just tell me that it’s okay to cry like a little girl sometimes.

Friendship 7 to Branson, Part II

Sorry I implied there was going to be a part II to the Branson story – I lied. Suffice it to say that we made it home in one piece with the help of several medications, none of which were forced on our small children.