Letters to my children

Dearest Daughters,

I am sending you this note to let you know how much I love you. More than that, I want to let you know that I believe in your limitless potential. I know that you are growing up in a world that will, at times, try to push you down and prevent you from being who you are called to be. I promise I will do everything I possibly can to uplift and empower you with the understanding that this alone won't be enough to open all of the doors the world wants to close. I promise I will praise your intellect as often as I praise your beauty; your strength as often as your grace. I will encourage your independence when all I want to do is hold you close and protect you from the evil in our world. Most of all, I will never let a day go by without showing you how much I love you and letting you know how thankful I am that God blessed my life with your presence.

To My Son,

Your road will be so much different than the one your sisters will travel on. I want you to know that I love you with all my heart and soul. You were the unexpected light that sparked in a darkened room and gave new life to my soul. I know that you too are growing up in a world that will test the very limits of your abilities and try to make you into someone much less than the person God created you to be. I believe in you; forever and always. I promise I will do everything I possibly can to uplift and empower you with the understanding that this alone won't be enough to open all of the doors the world wants to close. I promise I will never shy away from telling you how beautiful you are; I will praise your grace, artistry, and empathy as often as your strength, speed, and intellect. I will shelter and protect you even when the world calls for you to strike out on your own and be fiercely independent. Most of all, I will never let a day go by without showing you how much I love you and letting you know how thankful I am that God blessed my life with your presence.

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Sub-Irrigated Garden

Well, when we moved to Avondale I had to leave behind my beloved garden beds. I had worked for years to develop rich soil in the gardens on the north and south sides of the house and had some really well developed fruit trees going in back yard. So many plans turned to dust. We're in a rental house now, so I have to be a bit more careful about my approach to permaculture but I can't stand the thought of not growing some of our own food. The kids love it, and there is nothing like going out into the backyard to pick a salad or gather some broccoli for dinner. So I decided to get ambitious and build a large sub-irrigated bed in the back yard to take care of our gardening needs. If you're not familiar with the concept, check out one of my favorite urban gardening sites at http://www.insideurbangreen.org/diy-sub-irrigation/ for a dizzying array of examples and pictures. The basic idea is that you provide a way to water your garden from the bottom up which prevents evaporation and promotes deep root penetration. I think it's an ideal solution for desert gardening. We have a large open area covered in rocks on the west side of the house which I have decided will become the "farm" side of the house. The long term plan is to have two raised sub-irrigated beds as well as our composter and the chicken coops on this side of the house with a little picket-fence to keep out the dogs and toddlers (I'm not sure yet which is more destructive to the garden). Here are a few snapshots, hopefully there will be more as the growing season hits full stride.

This first picture is just after we finished construction. Notice the black fill-pipe in the back corner. This is where we water the garden. Sorry I had to cut my model out of the picture...

This next picture is about a month later after things had really started taking off. The tall plants in the middle are the tomatoes, squash on the left side of the picture and cauliflower on the right side. The foreground is different varieties of peppers and sown in the bare spots are carrots, beets, and spinach.

And a view from the other side (cracked bonsai pots courtesy of the twins). Two large basil plans next to the tomatoes, some cabbage on the left side, eggplant and zucchini on the right side. Next to the basil you see leeks and swiss chard, with various onions, garlic, and scallions filling in the rest. There is quite a bit of loose-leaf lettuce sown in the bare spots and the bonsai-pot-corner now contains a flowering strawberry plant (not-pictured).

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Posted in: gardening,hobbies,home improvement,interests

Privilege and children

So I am reaching the end of the quarter and can't get one nagging n out of my mind. I can consciously make every effort to reject my privilege when it comes to decisions about my own life (with somewhat varying degrees of success); how do I reject the privilege that allows my children opportunities to excel to their maximum potential? Is it fair to them to make decisions that don't take full advantage of our privilege? I want to say it's NOT fair to them to systematically oppress others so that they may have opportunities unavailable to many other children but the daddy instinct fights back hard. Thoughts?

Sent from my iPhone

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Confessions

One of the most common things I hear about Christians is that they are judgemental. I struggled for years to be as non-judgmental and accepting as I could in order to be able to says with pride that I am a Christian who loves and accepts everyone for who they are. The longer I spend in seminary (I suppose this is one of the dangers of spending half a decade in graduate school) the more I feel compelled to admit that I am becoming more judgmental and less accepting of others. Before you throw stones my way, let me qualify that by saying that my finger doesn't wag towards gay men or women, transgender individuals, people who have made the decision to end a pregnancy, people with tattoos, people with drug habits, or any of the other "traditional" finger-wagging judgments that Christians are famous for making. Instead, I find myself less and less able to accept people who believe that some people are more worthy of God's love than others. I find myself unwilling to take a "live and let live" attitude towards those who claim homosexuality is a disease or that the Church is closed to those who don't live their lives in quite the "right" way. I find myself recoiling in disgust when I hear a joke that is made at the expense of someone who has been marginalized and is oppressed in our society. I decided some time ago that I couldn't allow myself to reprsent a Christian Church that didn't participate in a fully open communion and didn't truly throw open the doors to the least and the lost. "Open Doors, Open Minds, Open Doors" is a pretty slogan but until everyone is welcomed for exactly who they are I believe it is vacuous at best.

I spent the last two days in the company of Sister Helen Prejean and met a man today who is a death-row survivor. Shit. The death penalty becomes another thread of intolerance in my psyche; I can't accept that any viewpoint that justifies the murder of a defenseless human being. Let me be clear, I recognize this prejudice as sin. I am a broken man and I pray constantly that I can find a way to love everyone I meet with the open acceptance that God demands of me. But I'm not there and I feel like I'm going to get farther and farther away from who I want to be before I begin to turn around. Part of me wonders if this is the kind of intolerance that the world needs; what kind of change can we create in the world if we don't sacrifice ourselves for what we believe is right even at the expense of personal sin. I can only ask for grace when I let you down.

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Posted in: church,Iliff,school

Sarah putting on a show

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IMG_1294.MOV (3818 KB)

Sent from my iPhone

Posted via email from Chris and his posterous

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Dinner time

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IMG_1134.MOV (3656 KB)

Complete with a little twin-fighting

Posted via email from Chris and his posterous

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Saturday forthouse

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