foster

Fatherhood Update

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I haven’t written much about the kiddos in a little while, so I’m putting up a brief update on this front.

We’re just past the three months mark with them living with us. I’ve been having a little bit of an existential “crisis” around that benchmark, though it seems I’m pulling out of it now. The series of questions with which that “crisis” was concerned are the most fundamental about kids: Do I really want to be a father? Does it really make sense for me to have kids? What about the opportunity cost with the other things about which I’m passionate–like my writing (I’m getting a lot less time for that to be sure)?

To add to this, Hawkwood’s been having some behavior issues. Nothing too serious, particularly for a toddler who’s just gone through the trauma of a family separation. But it’s given me a constant low level of frustration with him that’s sometimes hard to shake, giving me the unrealistic but still daunting question–is it always going to be like this?

Of course it won’t. Hawkwood will be starting with a play therapist soon, so hopefully that will help. So will time. And me keeping it together, letting go of my frustration with him, and sticking to TBRI. Of course, that’s much easier said than done, and perhaps the reminders that I’m not always as unflappable or possessed of completed self-control as I like to think I am–and the crisis of identity that goes with that–is part of the turbulence.

Since the kids had never been in any kind of school or daycare before, we’re also going through the rounds of all of the commonest communicable diseases–we’ve had bouts of croup, hand/foot/mouth, stomach bugs, and the like. K’s still got her teacher immunities, but even she’s succumbed, at least partially, to one of the waves of pestilence that’s passed through the house. This too shall pass, but assaults on my immune system aren’t helping my calm.

The sweet moments with Hawkwood are there, to be sure, and Marshall, though he’s getting a bit more stubborn and demanding about some things (and on the very verge of walking!) has been relatively easy. It seems to me (though it may be merely a matter of perspective) that Hawkwood’s behavior is somewhat better with K. I’m sure that this in part that K has both formal education and years of experience in working with children, but she tells me that it’s also probably that Hawkwood has especially bonded with me and so feels more comfortable acting out and expressing himself around me. Don’t tell her, but I don’t know her to be often wrong.

We’ve been told that all foster parents go through the “maybe I should quit” phase at about this time, so that knowledge has been somewhat comforting to us–when you have thoughts like this, it’s easy to wonder if you’re just a terrible person or severely broken. Jury’s still out on that, I guess, but nothing good comes from ignoring the way you feel, so we’re confronting everything head on.

At this point, we still don’t know what the kids’ long-term situation will be. CPS has been reticent and we get only snippets of information without any details or explanation from those with more knowledge than us. That’s par for the course, but frustrating nonetheless. All the signs we are getting, however, are pointing to a likelihood that the kiddos will be available for adoption. Whether that’s really the case, and what any timeline on that might be, is beyond us at the moment.

It seems especially that time has been short for anything other than work and the kids lately, so I’m falling behind on my passion projects (which also stresses me out!). I’m still hoping to have my novel fully plotted by the end of the month so that I can get a good start on the first draft for NaNoWriMo. I’m running short sessions of a Shadowrun campaign over a Discord server on Sunday evenings, which so far has been quite enjoyable. On the other hand, I’ve fallen behind on my Frostgrave work and I’ve been really wanting to spend some time further refining and adding to the Avar Narn setting aside from what I need for the novel but, when I can find a few minutes for it, I’m often too tired to focus!

This whole parenting thing is still early, and I know it will continue to get easier (and I’ll therefore be able to turn more attention to writing again).

 

Mushin no shin

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Mushin no shin. It translates literally to “mind without mind, ” but this fails to capture the nuance of it. Mushin, for short, might best be described as a state of being dispassionate, freeing oneself from all mental and emotional attachment so that one may respond rather than react.

Mushin has a happy home in Zen and other meditative practices, which makes perfect sense. I first encountered it in my martial studies, where it comprises part of Bushido, the way of the warrior. There, mushin is a state of detachedness from ego that allows one to act without fear, to focus on the technique of combat rather than the result. “He who seeks to save his own life” and all. Or, as Mad Max would have it, “Fear is the mindkiller.”

During my days as a concealed handgun instructor, I advocated for mushin, for a number of reasons. First, as the samurai well knew, it is an effective combat mindset for those who achieve it. Second, in civilian uses of deadly force in self-defense, strict adherence to the law is a necessity. Many infractions of the law occur out of a fear response–the civilian produces his weapon before he is justified in doing so, or she fires it without sufficient objective indication (what the law in Texas would call “reasonableness”) of imminent harm to authorize the application of deadly force.

At the time, though, mushin interested me at least as much for its applicability at conflict de-escalation as during the escalation of hostilities. Most of the conflict de-escalation techniques I have been taught, or have personally taught, require stepping back from one’s ego to manage the situation logically and persuasively instead of as a matter of preserving sense of identity and saving face. Now, I am even more interested in that aspect of mushin.

Especially as a parent. Much of the discipline of children is done from a place of anger or frustration. This is understandable–children can be both anger-inducing and frustrating. But being understandable doesn’t make it acceptable. I’m not casting aspersions; I’m just as guilty, and I’ve tried to be introspective, realistic and candid in my own failings and unnecessary power struggles in that regard.

I’ve harped on TBRI before, and this seems an opportunity to do so again. Without calling it that, TBRI incorporates the same principle as mushin into its approach to parenting–if you can’t center yourself and can’t remove your own emotions from the situation, you can’t effectively parent. You are reacting, not responding. And, yes, sometimes parenting feels like the attack-parry-riposte of the duel.

If you’ve read much of my blog, you know that I have a strong sense of self and identity–and I don’t think that there’s anything wrong with that. In fact, I work on the assumption that the uniqueness of my personality (what we might call the “writer’s voice” if we want to be formal about it) is interesting enough to keep my audience coming back.

But I also know that I’m at my best as a parent when I put all of that aside. When I focus on my child’s needs, both in the short-term meeting of needs and in the long-term development of character, I develop parenting strategies that do more than momentarily relieve my own frustrations–I build trust and relationship just as I am redirecting, correcting, of flat-out dodging certain behaviors. That’s love, both practically- and theologically-speaking.

It’s a strange thing to think that love sometimes happens best when given from a place of detachment and dispassion, but the strangeness of that comes from a society that tells us that love is a feeling, a fleeting emotion whose high we must chase continually. While we can’t–and shouldn’t–deny the emotional aspects of our relationships, we cannot roll them into intent and behavior and pretend that the mess that results is one monolithic thing. Sometimes love is a choice, and we are called to pursue it even when we don’t feel like it. When we choose to be loving to another when it doesn’t come easy is when that love is most powerful, when it is self-sacrificial.

But there’s a trap here as well, and we shouldn’t get it twisted–we humans have emotional needs that must be fulfilled by our relationships for them to be healthy, positive, and functional. For those persons with whom we intend to travel large swathes of our lives, we ought to like them as well as love them. We ought to feel that emotional pull as well as the conscious desire to seek their good first.

But, as I’ve said, children are often infuriating, even as we also feel loving emotions toward them. But to raise them up in the world, our parenting must be about them and their needs, not about our personal weaknesses or psychological quirks and desires.

We must become like samurai, dispassionate and able to see the situation for what it really is, to–as objectively as is humanly possible–look down the skeins of time for the far-reaching consequences of our own behavior. We must be unattached to emotional needs and distant from fear of particular results so that we may employ the techniques we know to be beneficial, healthy and effective.

Because, while parenting may sometimes be a fight, it’s not one comprised of strikes and parries, of throws and joint locks. It’s not even a fight between us and our children (though we often feel that it is). We have met the enemy, and it is us.

Sanity Check!!!!

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The children have gone to church with K. I’m taking a more “authentic” sabbath and keeping a day of rest–and writing (conveniently, the sermon being preached today is entitled “You need the rest,” and concerns the fourth commandment).

There’s so much I want to do in this ephemeral freedom, so many easy distractions with which to sate superficial needs and truly kill time. But I’m exerting some self-discipline and spending the time doing what I love best–and what will truly restore some much-needed energy and sense of value. Writing. This post is the warm-up to returning to some work in writing the finer plot details for my novel as preparation for writing proper. If I hit a block on that, I suspect that there may be further blog posts later this morning.

Two sorry-not-sorry apologies to begin. If you clicked on this post hoping for something gaming-related (and who could blame you), you’re going to be disappointed–this is a post about raising children. If you have no idea what a “sanity check” is or who H.P. Lovecraft is, you may need to open Wikipedia and/or do some independent research for all of this to make sense. If you are a gamer parent, or a gamer who expects to have kids one day, I expect that this post will be especially enjoyable.

It occurred to me that I have some subconscious association between having kids and H.P. Lovecraft. When we had our first placement (three years and one day before this one), I reread all of Lovecraft’s corpus. This time, I find myself drawn to the recently-released Call of Cthulhu and Sinking City games (though I have no time for them at present and thus have not purchased them). A psychologist would have a field day, and we’ll delve into that deeper in a moment, I suppose.

But first, the two boys who are with us need some names for blogging purposes. Our first two were, by sheer randomness, Abe and Bess. This time, I’m having more trouble deciding. There’s Cain and Abel, but that didn’t work out so well. Jacob and Esau, but that too isn’t the best of relationships. Joseph and–nope, that one’s not going to work either. Has anyone else noticed how many dysfunctional family relationships are in the Old Testament? There’s some great theology to be had there, or as my pastor friends would say, “That’ll preach.” Someone remind me to do a post to delve into that, it’s a topic for another time.

That still leaves me with no names, though. How about Hawkwood and Marshal? Two famous English mercenary captains. They’ve been waging a concerted war against me, I’m sure, so it seems to fit in my own mind. We’ll make Hawkwood the older boy, three in October, leaving Marshal for the younger, of course, one in October.

Now that we’ve got some names, some fun ones, I hope (and if you don’t enjoy them as much as I do, that’s too bad–I’m a nerd and I’m the one writing!), let’s get to the point.

Why is it that I’ve got this link between Lovecraft and raising children in my mind? I pride myself on being especially self-aware, particularly able to look at myself in a somewhat objective light and get to the bottom of my psyche without assistance; let’s see if it works this time.

Lovecraft wrote a different kind of horror, not entirely free of historical influences and bindings, of course, being especially mired in the nihilistic thought and existential philosophy that developed over the course of the 19th century. We can associate some of the classic tropes of horror with Lovecraft–body horror, Otherness, fear of mortality, societal and psychological anxieties, etc. But Lovecraft went further with his Cthulhu mythos, which is why we call his genre of horror cosmic. Lovecraft’s deepest form of horror is existential–that the universe has no overarching and benevolent structure or meaning, that suffering is inevitable, constant, and without redeeming value, and that entropy and despair are the ultimate fates of all things. That’s the type of horror that sticks with a person long after the sudden shocks and momentary frights, after the monsters have gone back under the bed or into the closet and the ghosts have been exorcised for a while.

Again, what does this have to do with children? A few things, actually. Sanity being one of them. Not in the broad sense of a person’s mental health, but in the localized sense of those little insanities that sometimes overtake each of us when we lose our cool and the concomitant ability to act rationally. These are my moral and personal failings–but a two-year-old sure has the fast track to bringing them out in me. Just as I had to deal with them with Bess (see Just Give Her the Damn Goldfish!), I’m still letting myself get out of my own head with desires to achieve some modicum of control over situations where control doesn’t matter. Since two-year-olds often say one thing and then do another, or change their mind about what they want or don’t want in milliseconds, opportunities abound.

As (I think) I’ve mentioned, Hawkwood is extremely intelligent. His vocabulary is astounding, he bent our Alexa to his will within two days (we’ve listened to Toto’s “Africa 57,432,001 times now. I used to like that song.), he can help with laundry, dishes and cooking. But between two and three is when children begin to learn to consciously manipulate to get what they want. This is developmentally appropriate, it is the early stages of learning important social and relational skills. But since Hawkwood is so intelligent, his attempts at manipulation are especially infuriating. A few examples: Hawkwood asks questions (often random, but always associated with something or someone nearby) whenever he wants to change the subject and avoid something he’s being asked to do; he phrases what he wants as questions: “Do you want milk?”; he parcels out affection when it is calculated to achieve his ends. Don’t get me wrong; he’s a sweet boy and I’ve quickly become quite fond of him. He’s also a little booger.

It’s that the above combines with his inability to rationalize or employ logic (although it’s possible he’s just using non-Euclidean geometries in his logic) that has a tendency to make me lose my head. You can’t bargain with a child who’s not ready to evaluate cost and benefit. You can’t reason with a child for whom cause and effect are not entirely real, such that consequences–particularly those that are minutes or hours down the line–carry any real sense of urgency.

As you know, I am a lawyer in my day-to-day career. There are a few things I’ve learned well in that profession: (1) You cannot make someone do something they don’t want to do without coercive force; this is never a positive experience and always has consequences. (2) For those people (and it’s certainly not everyone), with the ability and desire to act rationally, they must be able to reasonably calculate costs and benefits in order to be persuaded. (3) For those who cannot or will not be subject to reason, you can only achieve compliance by playing into their pre-existing beliefs, weaknesses and expectations (something our current president does all too well).

All of these things remain true of a two-year-old, except that they cannot be expected to act according to reason and do not yet have any pre-existing beliefs and expectations (other than selfishness) to use to advantage. That leaves me–someone who is typically quite persuasive and (I think) very good at working through conflicts–powerless when it comes to Hawkwood. And I hate being powerless.

Add to this sleep-deprivation, a schedule that currently revolves entirely around meeting the needs of the children and helping them to adapt in what is a very difficult situation for them, and putting aside the semblance of frustration (as much as possible) to help them to bond to you, and you quickly lose sight of the idea that this is a phase that will pass. Once the children are in daycare and I’m back to working, the days will be far easier and life will return to something that feels manageable. In the meantime, the horror feels existential. Cue Lovecraft.

But Lovecraft was an atheist, and that left him little respite from his nihilistic despair. I am a man of faith, and one possessing a powerful will at that. So, regardless of the similarities between the terror of children and the cosmic terror of otherworldly beings, the differences are greater, and the ending is not the same. I will not succumb to despair, and my present situation will not acquiesce to tragedy or insanity. We will make meaning out of chaos and thereby dispel the lurkers at threshold.

Maybe that puts us closer to August Derleth’s much-maligned “posthumous collaborations” with Lovecraft, in which Derleth’s own Christian view superseded Lovecraft’s atheistic nihilism in the stories of the Cthulhu mythos the two wrote “together.” Maybe that’s what I should pick up next, to read while Hawkwood is slowly drifting off to sleep at night after I pick him up and rock him, play the classical music on his night-time CD, and sit with him in the bed until slumber takes him.

More to come.

 

Day One

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It’s 6:30 on Wednesday morning; K is trying to put the infant back to sleep as I write this (bless her!). It wasn’t as long a night as we’d expected, but it was a long day yesterday.

Two precious little boys, eight months and about two-and-a-half, arrived in our home yesterday morning. The older boy is talkative, curious, intelligent and very busy. We were told that he was hyperactive, but that doesn’t seem to be the case–he’s just a normal, active two-year-old. The infant is already full of personality–smiling often, but also very stubborn and opinionated! And about as food-motivated as Berwyn (our dog) is!

Yesterday was a typical first day, filling out paperwork, learning as much as we can, trying to get back into parenting routines. All of this brings with it a lot of stress and exhaustion, but only the situation itself was the cause–the kids themselves are fairly easy-going.

As expected, everything came to a head at bed-time, at least for the two-year-old. That’s when the realization that this isn’t a fun daytrip sets in. I’m extremely thankful for having attended the Empowered-to-Connect conference stream a few months back (see my TBRI post); it was fascinating to watch our little boy as he went into “survival mode” and exhibited exactly the sorts of behaviors expected of him. This understanding allowed me to remain calm and centered rather than becoming frustrated–I could easily remind myself that this was not a matter of willful disobedience or obstinance, but simply a child experiencing very understandable trauma trying to regulate himself. And, from that place of understanding, however limited and abstract it may be, I could respond with compassion, using the same techniques I’ve learned through TBRI trainings and the ETC conference in particular.

In this case, this meant picking up the toddler and holding him until he was able to regulate himself and calm down some. This took about an hour, and I began to doubt my ability–my physical ability to stand up and rock a thirty-pound child after a day already filled with a lot of physical exertion–but we made it through. After that hour, I was able to lay him in the bed, awake but much calmer, and we gradually dimmed the lights and moved him toward sleep.

It didn’t take long after the kids went down that I went to sleep myself–I know that when they’re asleep is my only chance to get some rest! I slept soundly, though K informs me that she had a rough night doubting that the baby monitor was working. It was, as it proudly (and loudly) informed us at 5:45 this morning.

So here I sit with my computer and my coffee in the calm before day two. As promised, this part of the blog will come alive as I share my experiences, joys and frustrations of parenting–and “co-parenting with the state” as they say.

I’ll be turning now to continue working on my novel for as long as I can before the kiddos wake again. More to come soon!

Going a Little Crazy

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As of today, K and I have been on the active list for our second foster placement for two weeks. The suspense is killing us.

The first time we became an active foster family, we had a placement within three days of going active. That being our only experience of the process, we’re chomping at the bit for something to happen.

We could get the call at any time, so all of our plans must currently be held in “tentative” status and every decision has a “what will we do if we get a placement call” component to it.

But we’ve only had one call for a potential placement, and that was the very day we became active again. It was a potential placement that just wasn’t a good fit for us, so we did the hard thing all of our clinicians, foster trainers and the rest of our support group has recommended to us–we passed and waited for something that will be a good fit for us. I can see how that becomes more and more difficult as time goes on and the desire to have kids in the home now continues to crescendo.

It’s a feeling of constantly being on edge–a strange combination of the night before Christmas and the night before that test you really should have studied for–but didn’t. It’s not that I don’t feel well-prepared, though, it’s quite the opposite. The source of tension is that the kids I imagine being in my home soon, falling in love with, are an amorphous blur in my imagination. We have, at present, no way of knowing what the specific challenges will be, what little miracles will greet us each day, what sorts of things will start me pulling out my hair. As is most often the case, it’s the not knowing that’s tough.

All of that is to say two things, I suppose: (1) as I hinted at back in July, there’s soon to be much more to say on this part of the blog, and (2) if I’ve been less active, or more distracted lately, at least now you have some explanation if nothing else.

On the other hand, maybe I should be trying to write more to stay sane–that usually helps. If only I could get my thoughts to stand still!

Soon

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Since K has graduated from seminary (I’m so proud!), we’ve been working on opening our home again for a foster placement. We’ve redone our necessary training, updated our homestudy, and we’re in the process of jumping through the last few hoops to become active again and ready for a placement.

It’s strange to think that it’s been nearly two years (almost to the day) since our first placement. To go from no children to two to none again in a matter of months and then to go for so long without any kids in the house is somewhat surreal. I keep having to remind myself what it’s like to have children to care for–I keep thinking about returning to some old hobbies that I know I’ll have no time for in the near future.

But that’s an easy trade–we’re both so looking forward to being parents again! There just is nothing like it.

With a little luck, we’ll be open for a placement before the end of the month. Once that occurs, anything could happen. We’re sticking with our original placement parameters (licensed for up to three children, but we’ll probably only take two to begin with, ages 0-9 and hopefully a sibling group to keep them from being separated). We’re still open for emergency placement and “legal risk” foster placements, so we could go through several rounds before we get children we are able to adopt.

We’ve made peace with that; our resolve to help children and their families regardless of the outcome for us has only strengthened.

Hopefully, this will not mean that I post to the blog less–after all, I’ll have more to write about. Stay tuned, exciting developments are around the corner!

Fiction & Fatherhood Update and Roadmap

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Most of what I’ve posted about lately has been theological in nature, so I thought it might be good to give some of my readers more interested in other aspects of the blog an update and information about what to expect in the future. Here we go:

Fiction

I’m currently working on the following for my fiction:

Avar Narn Novel

By the end of NaNoWriMo last November, I’d put on paper what I estimate to be about 40% or so of the novel. I’ve been editing and slowly rewriting scenes and plot lines for this portion of the book and have the intention of attempting to finish the first draft during NaNoWriMo this year. I may be looking for early readers of drafts, so contact me if that’s something you’re interested in.

Short Stories

I’d like to put some more short stories on the blog to give readers a better feel for my writing. I’ve got one currently under way set in the world of the Worldbuilding Example Series. Not currently sure whether most of what I work on in the near future will fall into that setting or into Avar Narn; we’ll just have to see. I’m also not sure whether I’ll try to submit the short stories anywhere before posting them here–that may depend on how good I feel they are. Again, if anyone out there is interested in critiquing and helping to edit some of these, shoot me a message.

Dark Inheritance

I’m a pretty big fan of the Warhammer 40K universe. While the logic of the setting is highly questionable at times, it’s a science fantasy setting I spent a lot of time in while I was younger, I respect the depth of accreted material over the years since, and it’s just plain fun. Also, there’s a new 40K roleplaying game (Wrath & Glory) due out about August, and I’m excited about that.

Dark Inheritance will be an expansive campaign for Wrath & Glory. It will be posted here in PDF format for any gamemaster who wants to run it for their players. I’m excited about this project as a different form of writing (for public consumption) than I’m used to, and I’ve come to the conclusion that I need to be writing full story arcs for the RPGs I run rather than building stories on the fly in the last minutes before it’s time to game.

Since the ruleset won’t be out until August or so, the campaign won’t be published until after that. But I’m working now on the story arcs, flow of the campaign and locales and dramatis personae, so it hopefully won’t take me long to add the rules-based information after I have it in my grubby hands.

Cortex Prime Shadowrun Ruleset

As I’ve mentioned in other posts, I’m a big fan of the Shadowrun setting. Not so much the rules. I am, however, a big fan of the Cortex Plus system and its soon-to-be-released successor, Cortex Prime. So, I’m working on a ruleset for Shadowun using the toolkit that Cortex provides.

This has been done before by others, but I’ve never seen a conversion done that I really liked, so I’m doing my own. Cortex Prime has also not been fully released yet, but I expect that it has enough in common with Cortex Plus that only minor tweaks will be required after I have the new rules.

The Cortex Prime kickstarter said to expect a first draft of the rules in the next week or two nearly three weeks ago, so I assume I’ll be able to wrap this project up sooner rather than later.

Yes, that’s a lot of projects. Yes, if I focused on one at a time I’d get at least something to you faster. But that’s not how my creative side works, so it is what it is.

Fatherhood

Tonight, K and I begin several days of refreshing our training as foster parents. We are currently scheduled to renew our home study on July 5th. If all goes according to plan, we should be fully licensed for a new placement shortly after that.

We’re not yet decided on the timing of a new placement, but I would expect that we will take one sometime between late July and early September.

When there are kiddos back in the house, I’m sure I’ll have a lot more to write about in the currently-on-hiatus “Fatherhood” section of the blog.

Protecting the Religious Right (to Discriminate)

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Yesterday, the Texas Senate passed a bill that allows religious-based organizations involved in foster care to discriminate in the provision of services based on “sincerely-held religious beliefs.” It previously passed the House and there is no reason to suspect that Governor Abbott will not sign House Bill 3859 into law.

As an attorney, (but not a constitutional law attorney, mind you), I have a strong suspicion that this bill violates the Constitution’s protections of religion, right to privacy and, as only recently affirmed by SCOTUS, protection from discrimination based on sexual orientation. We shall see.

But this is not a post about the law. This is a post about my views on the matter as a Christian and a foster parent. I’m appalled, but unfortunately not surprised.

There has been a growing movement among conservative Christians–especially in Texas, I think, though my lens is distorted since that’s where I am–to protect the right to refuse people services based on religious belief. This is both theologically untenable and ridiculously counterproductive from the standpoint of evangelism and discipleship.

House Bill 3859 allows faith-based organizations to refuse to: (1) place children with certain families because of the family’s differing religious views; (2) place children with persons or families whose homosexuality–as the Methodist Church would put it–is incompatible with Christian teaching; and (3) provide certain services (abortions or vaccines, for instance) to children in their care. There is no question that this legislation is motivated by conservative Christian lobby groups.

I hear about this bill and what the Christian churches involved in lobbying for the bill say through the legislation is: “My right to force my values on other people is more important than helping children without homes. I want to help children without homes, but only if I can do it my way without any risk of repercussions.”

That is not a witness to the Christ who tells us, “whatever you do for the least of these, you do for me.” Nota bene that the statement does not read, “whatever you do for the least of these who believe in me just like you do….”

The Texas foster care system has been judged by a court to be illegally deficient in the protection and services provided to foster children. There is a shortage of foster parents and a surplus of children who need homes.  Is this really the time to move for the right to exclude foster parents who are otherwise qualified and vetted to take in and care for children from “the system?”

As you’ve likely guessed, I’m pretty passionate about my own interpretations of the Christian faith. But I’m also not so egotistical and prideful as to have surety of my religious understanding so as to completely discredit, disregard and disrespect those of other beliefs–Christian or otherwise. Nevertheless, there comes a point where I feel that the hypocrisy is so blatant that I cannot help but take offense and I am filled with a righteous-seeming anger that the actions of other people acting under the banner of Christianity are besmirching my faith and sabotaging my own ability to evangelize and disciple to the world. It’s an uphill battle when you have to start a conversation about your faith with, “No, that’s not really what Christianity is about. I promise.”

Just last night I was in a church meeting where the perennial question, “How do we get more millennials to come to church?” came up. The best answer: stop doing stuff like this! Stop putting self-affirmation in front of helping people and making the world a better place? Millennials smell hypocrisy like a bloodhound tracking a scent, not that they need to be able to when judgment is thrown before mercy in such blatant manner! People are leaving the church (or never giving it a thought in the first place) not because of outdated furniture, color schemes or worship styles but because some make of it an instrument of oppression and transgression rather than one of confession and profession.

As a foster parent, how dare the government spend time trying to exclude some of my willing helpmates rather than actually fixing a deplorably broken system for the benefit of the children? It makes my life tougher even as I’m trying to help. That’s not good for an already-overburdened system.

There. That’s enough said about being appalled. Why am I not surprised? Because this is just one more milestone on the current trajectory of many Christians. We see this in the demand for people to say “Merry Christmas” instead of “Happy Holidays” and talk about the “war on Christmas” or the “war on Christians.” A little secret: no one needs to make war on Christianity for the relevance and the effectiveness of the church to dwindle into nothing–we’re doing a great job of that ourselves.

More broadly, it’s an indication of current trends in American culture–let’s blame others so that we can discriminate against them rather than truly trying to solve the suffering of the world.

When our priorities are correct, the revelation of our faith in Jesus comes naturally and is inevitable. When we make our goal protectionism over all else, I’m afraid that Jesus turns away from us in shame. Can you blame him?

A Season of Rest (Or Perhaps Activity)

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I haven’t posted in a long while about our foster situation, and those who follow the blog to keep up with that aspect of life for K and I deserve to hear the news that there is.

There’s not much. We’ve decided that it’s best for us to refrain from taking a new placement on until K has finished seminary. Since she’s working full-time and going to school (and will have to commute to Dallas a few days each week starting next Fall!), it’s best for us that we wait until she’s got less stress and activity going on and we’re both a bit more settled. I don’t understand how she does it as it is except for the fact that she’s an amazing woman.

We will provide respite care for other foster families on occasion–essentially taking a child or set for a weekend or a few days when their foster family needs a break or has to travel. This allows us to stay as an “active” family and not have to start the entire application process over again when we’re ready for our next placement.

In the meantime, we’ll continue to enjoy the time that’s just the two of us (and our Corgi Berwyn, who may be the neediest child ever). We’ve been enjoying the opportunity to be “adulting”, which for us does not mean the burden of living up to all of life’s responsibilities and adult demands but doing the things you don’t have permission to do when you’re a kid–like staying up late to watch TV and eating candy for dinner. It’s a word we’re taking back. I’ll let you know if we have any success with that.

It’s a year-and-a-half of a last hurrah before we transition again to the chaos and joy of raising children.

So, if you don’t see much on this site about children for a while, that’s why. Of course, you don’t have to have kids in your own home to be learning about them, and if I have any interesting experiences I’ll be sure to share them here…

First Day of School

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Maybe “school” isn’t the right word for it; at five months (Abe) and almost two-and-a-half (Bess), there’s not going to be a lot of hardcore academics. There will, I’m sure, be the learning of things  just as important–how to make friends, how to deal with the unexpected, how to adapt to unfamiliar places (already a competency for them).

Yesterday afternoon we got the call that the children had (finally) been approved to attend the Montessori School where we’d wanted to put them. Some background:

One of my partners at the law firm has her son there in the nursery; her daughter just graduated into kindergarten from the school. On top of that, this partner’s husband is a Montessori-certified teacher himself, so if it gets the stamp of approval from him, that speaks volumes. We toured the facility some months back before taking our placement and were well-satisfied.

Here’s the rub: private school is expensive. The school was solidly out of the price range for a church-worker and a young attorney with a start-up law firm. But, foster children are sometimes eligible for pre-public school education to be paid for, and the Montessori School just happened to be one of the two places approved by CPS for such funding.

When we first got our placement, the original CPS worker had told us that she’d filed the NCI (the funding program) paperwork for us, but that it could be 30 to 45 days before we’d get approved. “No problem,” we said and set about using vacation time to each each work half days in the office and half days at home.

This week K was bound for Dallas to attend internship orientation for her seminary program. We knew this in advance and hoped that the NCI would clear before then.

Thus, it came as a shock when we found out mid-week last week that the NCI paperwork had in fact not been submitted. Fortunately, we now have a good team behind us–our DePelchin clinician has been excellent all the way through and we now have a solid long-term CPS worker who knows the ropes.

Our CPS worker faxed K the paperwork we needed to fill out the same day it was discovered that the first worker had not submitted anything, and we were assured that things would be expedite as much as possible.

That left me taking off three days of work this week to manage the kids. I had great help from our parents (with whom it was nice to get to spend the time), but it was still exhausting. So, when we got word yesterday that they could start today, we were both relieved. I’m finally back to the office full-time, where spare moments can be devoted to writing instead of chasing little ones. At the same time, it does feel strange to spend so much time apart from them today.

I’m excited to find out how the first day went (and excited to have another full day in the office tomorrow)!