I haven't made the time to watch the embedded video, but Ben Witherington's comments in this article track quite well with my own views on the risk of placing much stock in "intellectually coherent" theology.

As I was doing my best to get some grocery shopping done quickly this past weekend, I found it interesting how embedded we can become in the vocabulary of given discourses; not always happily. I was doing my time-and-a-half shuffle, pushing my cart, looking at my shopping list. The last thing left was a few twelve-packs of Coke products, according to the provisions of an advertisement. So, to myself, half out-loud, I said determinedly as I slid around an end-cap, "Okay, all I've gotta do is converge upon an acceptable soda solution…" To which, I immediately thought, "…converge upon an acceptable soda solution? What the heck is that? Who says stuff like that? Why can't I just say, 'All I gotta do is grab some coke?'"

But then again, sometimes embedded vocabulary works out to be quite cool. Back in the day, during freshman physics lab, one of my lab partners was spilling her guts about something to the rest of us around the black-topped tables, talking about how life was difficult and challenging and asking why it couldn't be more predictable. To which, a clever partner replied dryly (and perhaps a bit unsympathetically) after a moment's thought, "Well, life's not linear."

I'm pretty sure I've heard that phrase several times since, maybe because I hang out in professional circles where converging upon an acceptable soda solution would seem normal, but I still like the phrase very much and for some reason it seems more profound and insightful coming from an adolescent in a science lab.

Life is not linear, and it's so far from being so that one wonders why anybody would expect it to be. And, in fact, it's actually a good thing that it's not. If it were, we would never learn the hard—and most important—lessons. We would never be awestruck by beauty. We would never be swept off our feet by romantic gestures. We would never cry, in sorrow or in joy. We would miss most of what it means to be human at the deepest, most meaningful levels.

Today is Thanksgiving, and so I offer my thanks for the nonlinear nature of my life:

I make many mistakes. I am thankful to have learned the value of forgiveness.

I am imperfect. I am thankful to have learned the beauty of Grace.

I am ignorant and unwise. I am thankful for humility.

I have known the pain of sorrow. I am grateful for compassion.

I fear not being loved. I am thankful for wanting to be loved.

Love hurts. I am thankful for something worth far more than pain.

Death comes unexpectedly. I am thankful for today in all its fullness.

I am not the father I would like to be. I am not the spouse I would like to be. I am thankful for wanting to be.

Life is difficult and comes at great costs in many currencies. I am thankful that life is not cheap.

As I sit and think about it, the list could go on and on, but the point is simple enough. All that is great and meaningful in life is purchased at a great price, but life would not be worth living otherwise. I am frail and I am broken. Truth be known, if I were not, I would have no need for the love of others, and no ability to love them in return. And that life, simply, I could not bear. On this Thanksgiving Day, I give thanks for imperfection, and all that heals it.

At the end of New Seeds, Merton closes with a thought I find particularly wise, peaceful, and therefore comforting. It is, at the same time, greatly challenging. This is the first part of it, and I plan to offer the second part (which I find to be quite lovely) next week, with a couple of additional comments.

The presence of God in His world as its Creator depends on no one but Him. His presence in the world as Man depends, in some measure, upon men. Not that we can do anything to change the mystery of the Incarnation in itself: but we are able to decide whether we ourselves, and that portion of the world which is ours, shall become aware of His presence, consecrated by it, and transfigured in its light.

We have the choice of two identities: the external mask which seems to be real and which lives by a shadowy autonomy for the brief moment of earthly existence, and the hidden, inner person who seems to us to be nothing, but who can give himself eternally to the truth in whom he subsists. It is this inner self that is taken up into the mystery of Christ, by His Love, by the Holy Spirit, so that in secret we live "in Christ." — New Seeds, chapter 39

I'm taking a break at the moment, to do some mental garbage collection and a bit of a flush. As an exercise, because I was just reading about Baby Boomers and Millennials, let's take the ideas, tossed about during the recent political campaign, that America isn't what it used to be, that there are "types" of America, that there's a "real" America, and so forth.

Immediately as I type this, I succumb to the imposing theoreticals of deconstructionism. Echoing rather brutally in my mind are questions, allegations and half-formed sentences like, "But really, was America ever America? Isn't America just an ideological model that has persisted but yet never truly existed in the form the model represents…" or, "Which America would we be speaking of? Is it the America of established white male privilege, is it the America of the young neo-capitalist, is it the America of the African-American community circa 1964, or is it …" and things like that. At this point I close my eyes tightly, rub my temples, and sigh heavily.

On the other hand, my current school project has me reading a debate involving a Christian fundamentalist (all the way down to six literal days of creation and an earth that is no more than about 8,000 years old), who can't write for very long before slinging some epitaph at "postmodernists" without ever saying what he thinks a "postmodernist" is, and knows only that every single word of the Bible is literal truth and can be interpreted (by the proper faithful person like, well, him) without error. He likes to consider himself and a fairly small group of others as contemporary Noah's, with only a few saved from the flood while everyone else on Earth "bubbles" their way into an Eternity of torment. Again, I close my eyes tightly, rub my temples, and sigh heavily.

In the midst of the usual end-of-semester mini-panic and micro-depression, I find myself thinking critical theory and deconstruction are being pushed to the point of absurdity, and concurrently musing that people who know nothing about them yet complacently condemn them are sad, ignorant little people who… well, whatever. I get irritated all around, standing right in the middle. (And by the way, it's the complacency and smugness, not the ignorance, that bothers me.)

Life is dynamic from day to day, and as sure as the sun n the sky, it is dynamic across decades and millennia. Life is lived by us largely based upon things which have no absolute basis in fact and are, simply, social constructions we accept as Ultimate Reality. I agree with this totally, and yes I am stupefied by those who think otherwise. But, I am frustrated and confused by those who go to extreme lengths of argument to demonstrate this while leaving little as far as pieces to put together into something… human. (And, again, I am plagued by half-formed sentences concerning the meaning of the word "human.")

What presently intrigues me about deconstruction and critical theory is that the latter is based in the former and uses its ideas, ostensibly, to better the lives of the marginalized by changing institutions. The grand question is: why?

This is a grand question for two main reasons: One, the irony that left to run amok, deconstruction itself will remove all possible motives for a why; and two, any motivation for bettering the lives of the marginalized is born of a motivation originating long, long, long ago—it's not like critical theory in terms of feeling compelled to solve institutional ills is postmodern in this sense. It's pre-modern, ancient, actually, and it is at this thought that I'd like to make my point for today. I began this post, inside my head, with a question of whether there are any long-standing, decidedly human, truths that exist across the millennia. Is there something that doesn't change? Is it all dynamic or is there something at the core of us that is relatively static? (AGAIN, I'm fighting half-formed sentences; now about meta-narratives and their seeming but not actual stasis being due to their relative longevity in human history…) So what I'm wondering is this: why do critical theorists not more often come to question the motive behind their work? Why do they not more often deconstruct that? Are there, perchance, any implicit assumptions that to "better" the lives of the marginalized is unquestionably, absolutely, forever and always right and proper? If so, from whence do such assumptions originate?

For now I'm clinging to whatever it is that might form the basis of those assumptions. (And by the way, I find the pure biological model to come up wanting…)

A couple of weeks ago, in "Faith and Respect," I posted about a classmate of mine who is a young Muslim woman. During class one evening a week or two before that post, she appeared very upset, on the verge of tears and possibly ill. She left class briefly, and as I recall another young woman in class followed her, to make sure she was okay. I hadn't thought much of it until this week, when another classmate told me what had happened that evening. The Muslim woman had been walking to class, and a passerby walked up to her and spat on her. Actually, "spat" seems too refined; the passerby spit on her.

I don't know, but I'm pretty sure that in addition to the insult of being spat upon, in addition to the assault, in addition to the concern for disease, there are probably some serious issues of religion and faith involved here. Although certainly I don't know the issues possibly raised by this incident, I can imagine that it was quite possibly deeply serious for this young woman.

As for the person who did this to her? Who knows what provokes such things. Fear. Ignorance. Anger. Vengeance. Hatred. But if religion had anything to do with it, I will answer this: Jesus would never, ever, have spat upon this woman. To the contrary, he would have comforted her and defended her in the face of the one who did.

In my Swiss-cheese, worm-holed mind, this makes me think of the Beatitudes. To my thinking, the assembly of the beatitudes into the order they appear in the book of Matthew is fairly ingenious spiritually:

Blessed are the poor in spirit, blessed are those who mourn, blessed are the meek, blessed are those who hunger and thirst for righteousness, blessed are the merciful, blessed are the peacemakers, blessed are you when you are persecuted for the sake of righteousness, blessed are those who are reviled on account of Jesus.

The reason these are so ingenious (although it's possible this is merely a modern analysis applied backward in time) goes like this: In a spiritual sense, there is a path a human takes. It begins with being broken in your spirit. This leads to spiritual mourning. This leads to a hunger for righteousness; not just in your own life, but in all of creation. This leads you to become merciful. This leads you to be a peacemaker. Some people will persecute you for trying to make peace. The place to which the path ends up taking you, along the path of Jesus, will make you hated by some.

That's the little hazelnut version, and how does it tie into this woman being spat upon? Lots of ways, but here's the one foremost in my mind. I don't get angry often, and I'm not a physically violent person. I'm not a physical fighter, and I've been blessed to avoid violence in my life. But it wouldn't surprise me if someday I get the living crap beat out of me for defending a kind, humble and marginalized person. Someday I just may be in a crowd, and somebody is going to pick on somebody else, for no other reason than the latter is of a particular religion, or color, or ethnicity, or orientation, or gender, or physical appearance, or whatever. And I'm going to step in, and I'm going to get seriously clocked. But that's not the kicker. The kicker rests in the fact that there will be people, some of them devotedly religious and considered quite moral, who will believe I had no business defending the person I did, and that I got what I deserved.

I'm seriously not wishing for this to happen, but intellectually I recognize it as essentially unavoidable. It is a core part of understanding and accepting the implications of Jesus as the logos. Part of the Message—the Message that was Jesus—is that the path to God is met with violent opposition from those who claim to be God's chosen. This is, plain and simple, the Way things go down. The Jesus Story is fascinating as it unfolds, as Jesus comes to fully grasp the Message of his own Selfhood. Think about it the next time you see a crucifix, and try to imagine the courage it must have taken—the courage to love people without boundaries, without limits, and against all odds.

That's a dangerous title for a post, huh?

Presently, I will likely infuriate both ends of the political spectrum. This post is not really about politics; it's just that the recent election provided such a great example, I can't resist. Some setup is required, but I'll keep it brief, so some assembly is required by the reader.

I've talked a lot about money and wealth in this blog, always making sure I note that I'm preaching to myself as much as anybody else. I think about this have-and-have-not thing quite a lot, so it's no surprise that I was thinking about it when I worked on the Habitat house. That brief experience helped to support my fairly constant view that it's okay (in fact, a good thing) to make money, but the only good reason to make money is to use it to help others.

This eventually risks bringing up the idea that "some" folks "deserve" to have money, because "their" money gets used in the "proper" ways to help "other" people. Lots of quotes there, but this in turn brings up the idea that how a person uses the money he or she has, is a personal ethical/moral choice. In such a view, a person would make as much money as they possibly could, and then spend as much as they possibly could in the ways they choose to help benefit those without so much. And I must admit, with the exception of the first sentence of this paragraph, this is fairly close to the way I believe things should be. I've been given the opportunity in life to make a pretty decent wage. Therefore, I should share that wage. End of setup part 1.

I got an email the other day, and it featured a list of ways the "Democrats," from FDR to present, have worked with respect to Social Security to take money from those who have it. Beside the fact that this email is not terribly factual, what was intriguing to me about it was (1) the list of addressees and (2) its title. The majority of the addressees were self-professing Christians, and the title was, "Who keeps taking my money?" Upon receipt, I was a bit perplexed. Even if the email had been factual, the glaring thing to me is that I'm pretty much left at a loss when people refer to the money that is presently held in their name as being their money. Most especially when the list of addressees is predominately Christian, I would have presumed that the foundational understanding would be there's no such thing as "my" money. I thought it was God's money, and therefore existed for the sake of all of God's children. End of setup part 2.

Putting together parts one and two, I think that if I sat down with most Christians who have money, they would say that technically the money is God's money, and that they should use it to help others. But I also tend to think they would say that how this is done, when, and for whom, is their choice as stewards of the money. And, furthermore, I tend to think this would be their faith-based view of why the government should keep its hands off of "their" money. (The implication being, I tend to think, the first sentence of paragraph three). Having thought about it this way is about as close as I can come to understanding why a faith-based worldview would have such a hard time with the government "redistributing" wealth. And I don't think, actually, that such a faith-based view is that bad. I mean, if you really believe everything you earn should be "yours," that you should have control over it so that you can make the personal moral choice on how to use it best, in your best faith-based estimation, for God's Kingdom, then I can't fault that. I might even go so far as to say you're quite right; that the government has no business trying to legislate the moral issues of my wealth and how it's used. That's why I'm a moral person after all; to take this responsibility and make my choices sincerely, humbly, and with fear and trembling before God. That's my place. Not the government's. Fair enough. Let's go with that, for a moment.

But here's the tough part about blogging in the middle; there's a flip-side that, to me, is a bit interesting. Sit down, and hold on to your hats while I open a giant can of worms: Isn't this the same type of point that certain folks are trying to make regarding abortion rights? This is a provocative question, sure, but I think it has quite a bit of merit in opening up some interesting ideas.

[I realize that "abortion rights" is a bit of a questionable phrasing, according to some people. I realize that the general populace prefers to place discussions in the "pro-choice" versus "pro-life" framework, and that those who talk about the fundamental right of reproductive choice are talking about more than abortion; but they are talking about abortion in the mix and for me this needs to be addressed. I also realize that the "pro-life" group, who has adopted a name not so cleverly implying that the "other side" is "anti-life (read: pro-death)," largely ignores those other issues involved in reproductive choice, going so far in some cases as to (with a gross failure in internal consistency) oppose birth control. In a politically negative view, what "pro-choice" really means is the right to have an abortion regardless of how and why someone became pregnant, and therefore it is, in part, a call for the "right to terminate a problem" after one has already made a free choice resulting in the problem. In the other politically negative view, what "pro-life" really means is that all people should be legally forced to have only the choices certain other people are willing to afford them. As with most political claims, each of these has some truth and each of them is conveniently incomplete. As I note in the rhrn.net faq, both labels are trouble. I, for one, am both pro-life and pro-choice, unless those terms are seen as cultural labels representing pre-packaged platforms, in which case I am neither. I have digressed…]

Anyway, are the two points, about keeping one's money and keeping one's reproductive rights, the same? Well if they were identical they wouldn't be two points, but they are very similar. Both sides can argue that their cause is a matter not of morality per se, but of freedom and rights, with morality only coming into play if you consider freedom and rights to be moral issues per se. Both sides can argue that their cause is indeed a moral issue, and that morality concerning their particular cause should not be legislated. Both sides can argue that the other side is the more potent biblical issue; the Bible is not too keen on the murder of innocents, and it is no less keen on greed and social injustice (which are, essentially, the murder of innocents). Both sides can argue, on the other hand, that their cause is not explicitly condemned in the Bible. Both sides can argue that their cause honors personal responsibility, and both sides can argue that the other side's cause allows and promotes selfish irresponsibility. Both sides can be either right or wrong on any of these points, depending upon their personal, heartfelt motives.

What astounds me, all things considered, is that the two issues are seen as separately as they are, and how successfully they are separated by those who play politics. Do you believe that the government has the right to tell you what to do with those things you consider most private and personal, most yours, or do you not? If not, then they shouldn't be telling you about reproductive rights, nor should they be sticking their fingers into your wallet. If yes, then let them decide who should have your hard-earned money, and when you should or should not be allowed to have an abortion. Take your pick; but don't let people fool you into thinking the issues are all that different from one another.

I think maybe there is an alternative view, and it goes something like this: Let's give to Caesar what is Caesar's—which in practicality means Caesar is going to do whatever Caesar wants to do anyway—and to God what is God's. Maybe we should stop looking to institutions to solve our problems, and stop looking at them as if they are the cause of our problems. Maybe we should each look instead inside of our self, deeply and profoundly, and choose. Choose to rise above political rhetoric, and cease to be a victim of it and of those who succumb to it. Choose to see that "they" and "it" are not the problem. Choose to see that the selfishness inside of you and me is the problem. Choose to see that ultimately the solution rests gracefully in the Kingdom of God, a Kingdom of and for all people who choose to enter into it, and so each choose not for the sake of our own lives, but for the sake of all of us together; the poor, the sick, the marginalized, and the unborn.

My money? My body? No, they aren't.

To find love I must enter into the sanctuary where it is hidden, which is the mystery of God. And to enter into His sanctity I must become holy as He is holy, perfect as He is perfect.

How can I even dare to entertain such a thought? Is it not madness? It is certainly madness if I think I know what the holiness and perfection of God really are in themselves and if I think that there is some way in which I can apply myself to imitating them. I must begin, then, by realizing that the holiness of God is something that is to me, and to all men, utterly mysterious, inscrutable, beyond the highest notion of any kind of perfection, beyond any relevant human statement whatever.

If I am to be "holy" I must therefore be something that I do not understand… — New Seeds, chapter 9

I'm considering this to be cathartic:

Aircraft flown this month, starting with the least pleasant:

Airbus 319. This series makes me nervous because of initial flight control problems (to name one, pilot says to plane, "take off," and plane says to pilot, "No, sorry, landing...") I'm sure they've fixed them by now, but I know way too much about software systems to feel super-comfy on one of these. And the one I flew rattled and shuddered pretty badly. I'd prefer not to fly one again.

Boeing 737-300. I flew three of these, of various ages. The newer ones are much more spiffy than the older ones. Typically I don't worry too much about a 737 now that they got that horribly terrifying jackscrew thing worked out. Well, *cough* I presume they did...

Bombardier CRJ700. A coworker traveling with me joked that the way this plane was designed was that they took a "real" jet in AutoCAD, set the scale to 7/8, and were done. The one we flew was pretty new and tight. It was a nice ride. I'm learning that an axiom in my paranoid mind is that smaller planes are safer than bigger ones. I'm sure there's a lower limit, but...

Bombardier Dash 8. I'm not sure which variant I flew, but, I think it was the -100 series. I have to say, it was almost (almost, okay?) fun. I was in the very last row, in the only middle seat on the plane, and I probably stood a good chance of being able to hit the cockpit door with a spitball. I couldn't escape the feeling that at some point during the flight we were all supposed to function-check our weapons and wait for the green "go" light to indicate our jump zone. The thing I liked about this plane was that it felt like half of it could fall off and the rest would still fly. I was charmed enough that I had to post a pic. Here's one I grabbed from the web, copyright included:

Well, I have four more airplane flights behind me and I'm presently doing my best to relax now that I'm home again. My notebook that I purchased early this year supports Dolby five channel surround, and I finally got around to digging out my speakers and trying it out tonight. Me like.

So the testing out of the sound involved playing a whole bunch of stuff, which included a favorite pair of videos. I've probably mentioned this before on this blog, but these two covers of U2's "One" are a not-so-subtle example of how words are truly the smaller portion of meaning in a text. It's a story about a man and a woman… no… wait… it's a song about a race relations in America…

The effect works best if you watch them in the order I list them.

I don't like flying, and I don't like water. Well, a glass of water is fine. Bottled water is fine. Taking a shower is fine. Deep water is a problem. I was not created as a creature of the air, nor one of the sea. I have hands and I have feet. I have no wings, and I have no flippers nor fins.

Flying out of LA, you always get to depart over the pacific. That's just great. Perfect.

I'll be glad to be home. In my house. It's on land.

Ben Stein is an interesting fellow. Speech writer for Nixon. Hilarious teacher of Ferris Bueller. I re-received an email recently and just got around to reading it; one which originated back in December of 2005 shortly after Mr. Stein offered a commentary on… what was it… CBS Sunday Morning. There are a few versions of the email, but I think the original commentary was pretty close to this:

Herewith at this happy time of year, a few confessions from my beating heart:

I have no freaking clue who Nick and Jessica are. I see them on the cover of People and Us constantly when I am buying my dog biscuits and kitty litter. I often ask the checkers at the grocery stores. They never know who Nick and Jessica are either. Who are they? Will it change my life if I know who they are and why they have broken up? Why are they so important? I don't know who Lindsay Lohan is, either, and I do not care at all about Tom Cruise's wife.

Am I going to be called before a Senate committee and asked if I am a subversive? Maybe, but I just have no clue who Nick and Jessica are. Is this what it means to be no longer young. It's not so bad.

Next confession: I am a Jew, and every single one of my ancestors was Jewish. And it does not bother me even a little bit when people call those beautiful lit up, bejeweled trees Christmas trees. I don't feel threatened. I don't feel discriminated against. That's what they are: Christmas trees. It doesn't bother me a bit when people say, "Merry Christmas" to me. I don't think they are slighting me or getting ready to put me in a ghetto. In fact, I kind of like it. It shows that we are all brothers and sisters celebrating this happy time of year. It doesn't bother me at all that there is a manger scene on display at a key intersection near my beach house in Malibu. If people want a creche, it's just as fine with me as is the Menorah a few hundred yards away.

I don't like getting pushed around for being a Jew and I don't think Christians like getting pushed around for being Christians. I think people who believe in God are sick and tired of getting pushed around, period. I have no idea where the concept came from that America is an explicitly atheist country. I can't find it in the Constitution and I don't like it being shoved down my throat.

Or maybe I can put it another way: where did the idea come from that we should worship Nick and Jessica and we aren't allowed to worship God as we understand Him?

I guess that's a sign that I'm getting old, too. But there are a lot of us who are wondering where Nick and Jessica came from and where the America we knew went to.

I was reading this and thinking about a couple of people I've met this semester. In class is a Muslim woman from Jordan. Upon meeting her I made the reckless (reckless, because if I had really thought about it I might have realized this) mistake of holding out my hand to shake. She introduced herself and added, "…but I don't shake hands." This week I was in meetings with a guy from back east who is (I presume) an orthodox Jew. He wore his kippah and drank his kosher fruit juice in the midst of all the rest of us, and left early for his fly-back so he wouldn't be travelling on the Sabbath. My simple point is that in watching both of these individuals, I've felt a deep level of respect for the way they shape and conform their lives to their faith. I have no problem at all feeling that the three of us are connected through a committed devotion to God. I guess I simply liked reading Mr. Stein's words this evening. I am a Christian, and I am not at all offended by head coverings, kippahs, Ramadan, or being kosher. Quite to the contrary, I am drawn to simple, humble submission to our Creator—in its various forms.

And while I'm at it, here's another of my favorites. For those who are a little younger than me, yes, that's Steve Winwood. And for those younger still, who know not who Steve Winwood is, well... You might find Wikipedia's article on John Barleycorn to be rather interesting. Or, not...

I'm going to purposefully, blatantly sound like a fuddy-duddy, but this is a good excuse to revisit my occasional compelling need to post a music video. Remember when pop stars were pop stars because they could. just. sing?

Well, I try really hard to avoid talking about politics, but I don't see how anyone can say nothing about this year's presidential race; especially now.

The most important thing I can say about Obama's victory, for myself, is that I realize it is deeply meaningful in profound ways, ways that many of us cannot possibly fully appreciate. Watching news coverage of people weeping, screaming, running and dancing in the streets and—I could be imaging it, but—the general excitement and pride I believe I've encountered in LA this week, is precious. I am very, very, very happy for this meaning in Obama's victory. I am grateful to be able to say that I've been a witness to it. And for those who smirk at the idea of this being the "most important" thing I can say, well, my response is that in my opinion you truly underestimate its meaning.

Other than that, during the campaigns I found myself more frustrated and saddened than ever; largely because I paid more attention to this campaign than any other, partly because I'm getting older, and partly because I pay more attention to rhetorical strategies nowadays. All of the candidates bent the truth (I'm being kind) with impunity, both potential presidents made promises they cannot possibly keep, and both said they will do things they cannot possibly do. My biggest frustration and sadness in this campaign was simply the further maturing realization that as a consumer of political propaganda, punditry and "analysis," I am assumed to be a gross moron fueled by fear, raw emotion and selfish motives. To whatever level, in actuality, that I rise above that, I have been deeply offended by the whole mess of it all. I almost, very closely, refused to vote. But as I've noted previously in this blog, I hold, in faith, to the importance of voting. So I voted. For the dude I knew was going to lose anyway. I cast a vote not for a person, nor for a party's ideology, but for my own ideology, and in a manner that would not be a part of anyone being put into the white house. My vote was one of supporting an idea while rejecting its methodologies; of supporting the process in principal while not being a part of it in effect.

And this may well mean, after all, that I am a gross moron fueled only by fear, raw emotion and selfish motives. The strange loops of being human are seemingly unavoidable.

To my girls. I know you're too young to be reading this blog, but I'll miss you this week. I'll think about you constantly. Remember what I've said all of the time, all of your life?

 

I love you.

I Love you very day.

I love you all the way to the moon and back.

And I'll never stop.

 

You bring my life joy, girls. Thank you.

I love you,

Daddy

we all become doors and windows through which God shines back into His own house. — New Seeds, chapter 9