Against Nothingness

We have all heard it before. Something like: your not going to reach the end of your life and wish you had spent more time at work. Or: what really matters is giving to the people you love.  Yes, such sayings abound, and with good reason. Yet it is somehow easy to forget the deep truths behind those words. And then something happens to remind us. I had such a reminder recently.  I was with a group of youth and young adults and I asked them a question: If you could share a meal with any living person in the world, who would you share a meal with? I was thinking that it would be interesting to see who people admired and wanted to get to know. I thought the question would reveal people's heroes, or people they want to learn from, or people who have accomplished something that we are curious about. Instead, the majority of answers were family members: Grandparents we never knew well, siblings who live far away, and also those near to us who, in my mind, ought nev...

Todd Cartmell.  Project Dad: The Complete Do-It-Yourself Guide for Becoming a Great Father . Revell, 2011. 221 pgs.  Every father wants to be a great dad. We want to do what is best for our children, and be the kind of father they need so that they can flourish in life. But how do you do that? In this book Todd Cartmell, a father and child psychologist, offers his advice on how to be a great father. The subtitle, 'do-it-yourself' and all that, is designed to appeal to the part of a father that wants to build things and do it themselves. In order to do this, Cartmell urges fathers to pay attention to five areas of interaction with our children: our eyes (how we look at our children), our mouths (how we talk to our children), our hearts (how we connect with our children), our hands (how we act towards our children), and our feet (how we lead our children). He reminds us that a great father is a father who helps his children to develop their God-given gifts and pote...

Greg Wright . Daddy Dates: Four Daughters, One Clueless Dad, and His Quest to Win Their Hearts . Thomas Nelson, 2011, 224 pgs.  Greg Wright is the father of four daughters. Faced with a house full of women he loved, Greg knew he needed to do some work to live out that love in a way his family would appreciate. So he took a retreat, did some thinking, and came up with the idea of spending time one-on-one with the women of his home. That time had to be focused on them, he had to listen, he had to put thought and effort and creativity into it, and he had to make it special. In other words, he would date all five women, not just his wife.  Now, you might read that and say 'duh.' But, for some reason, there is a disconnect for many fathers in exactly this area. We understand, or understood, the necessity of these actions when courting our wives (or faked understanding well enough to get by) but then we get married and forget it all. So, while the advice Wright offers is simple,...

She is at peace, restful, sleeping. Her world secure, time is sweet, and all is right with the world. Laying in her cage with padded bars. True, those bars constrain, but they also comfort and welcome. Huddled close and warm; what more could she want? Crises, catastrophe, panic. Source unknown, the world is wrong. Tremors like giant hiccups shudder through her entire body, ringing gasping cries from unwilling lungs, forcing awareness on a mind not present. From head to toe she shakes. Now, now this panic has a source. Giant arms reach down through the non-existent ceiling of her cage, each longer than her entire body. Panic intensifies and shudders turn to writhing. It is true, those arms bring comfort and welcome, but they also constrain. To unwelcome awareness and sound is added unsettling movement. But, slowly, everything changes. Awareness gradually narrows to a nearby heartbeat not her own: steady, firm, secure. Soothing whispers break through the gasping cries. And ...