Meaghan Smith and Ethiopia

Meaghan Smith is another of my students (now an alumna) who loves the people of Ethiopia.  Meaghan leaves tomorrow, Tuesday Nov 3, 2009, for a four-year term in Addis Ababa.  She has completed her advanced training in linguistics and will be working with a team from Wycliffe Bible translators.

In addition to her linguistic talents, Meaghan for two years held the important office of Hostess of the annual Tamale Party that Sonja and I provide at our house for our students.

Here is an excerpt from one of her Newsletters:

Amharic

Ethiopia, nearly twice the size of Texas, is home to about 80 million people and 85 languages. My first year in Ethiopia will be spent learning Amharic, the national  language. On weekdays I will be in language school about five hours a day, and outside of the classroom I will have plenty of opportunities to practice as I live in Addis Ababa, Ethiopia’s capital city.

Amharic is spoken by about 17.5 million people and is the primary language used in education throughout Ethiopia. It is also the language I will be using the most at the outset of my work with the translation team in Mizan-Teferi.

Amharic is a Semitic language, which means it is related to Hebrew and Arabic. My studies of Hebrew and Amharic should complement one another, as they have similar grammatical structures and some similar vocabulary.  Amharic uses a syllabary system with 268 characters. Instead of an alphabet with separate consonants and vowels, each symbol represents a combination of a consonant and a vowel.

If you would like to learn more about Meaghan’s upcoming work in Ethiopia, e-mail her and ask to added to her newsletter email list (meaghan_smith@wycliffe.org).  You can learn more about Wycliffe at www.wycliffe.org.

Haley’s Calendar

Two of my students will be helping people and serving the Lord in Ethiopia.  Haley has been in my Hebrew, Greek, and phonetics classes.

Ethiopia Calendar

Here is an excerpt from Haley’s newsletter:

As many of you already know I spent two months in Addis Ababa, Ethiopia in the summer of 2008.  I was able to teach English to boys who work on the streets of Addis as well as work with a group of kids whose parents have been infected with HIV/AIDS. While I was there I formed many friendships with the nationals and quickly grew to love the culture as well.

Ever since my trip, I have not stopped thinking about going back.  It was an incredible journey that has changed my life in many ways and has not ended with me coming back to the states. Last August when I got back, I was able to share stories and pictures with many people, but I want to share more.

CALENDAR PROJECT

I recently created a calendar with pictures from my time there. It gives you a peek into the country and the city of Addis Ababa and also shows you a little bit of what the transportation and food looks like and of course includes some pictures of the many Ethiopians that captured my heart.

Each month has a verse and a prayer focus to serve as a reminder for you to be praying for the nations and specifically for the people of Ethiopia.

The trip I took last summer would not have been possible without the financial and prayer support that I received from so many of you. And I want you all to know how much I appreciate your support and friendship.

In order to complete the requirements for my degree program in Cross-Cultural Ministry I will need to participate in another 10 week internship overseas. So in prayerful hope of going back to Ethiopia next summer I am selling these 2010 calendars as a way to help raise money. I am selling the calendars for $20 each and part of the money will go to the cost of production, but the rest will go to the trip I take in 2010.

*If you would like to purchase a calendar you can email me your name, address, and the number of calendars you would like to purchase: hmurray@mccks.edu

Next Year’s Conference

Next year’s theology conference, the Western Fellowship of Professors and Scholars will be October 8-9, 2010, in Manhattan, Kansas.  We will be issuing a “Call for Papers” in a month or so.

Last Week’s Conference

Last week we hosted the Western Fellowship of Professors and Scholars in Manhattan, Kansas.  We had a great time of fellowship and stimulating presentations and conversation.

Panel

One of the highlights was a breakfast-conversation on suggestions for research in biblical studies, religious history, and history in general.  Alan Bearman and Robert Linder, professors of history at Washburn University and Kansas Statue University suggested that there is an important place for amateur and local historians.

Breakfast

Professor Linder urged:

Write the history of your local church!

He also compared the work of a historian to that of a detective and a prosecuting attorney.  Linder and Bearman also agreed that historians need to write readable prose.

Hmm . . .

Witherington said NT studies is a multi-disciplinary field.  He recommended learning methods of sociology and social science research, along with history, ancient rhetoric, linguistics, and ancient languages–Hebrew, Greek, Aramaic, and Syriac for starters.

Witherington also gave a powerful address on worship at the plenary session Friday night.

There were several great presentations (list here).  Some of the papers have already been posted on the conference web page–others will follow.

I was especially delighted that my former teacher, Dr. Lynn Gardner, was able to attend.

He spoke on Postmodernism, the roots of which he traces back to Kant.

To any of you who are troubled–either emotionally or intellectually–by the problem of suffering, I would recommend Dr. Gardner’s book on the subject.  It’s hard to praise a book on such a difficult subject without sounding flippant–but What the Bible Says about Suffering is a very thoughtful and helpful book.

Circle Oct 8-9 2010 on your calendar for next year’s conference; and Oct 7-8 for 2011.

(Another participants review here)

Dirty Little Secret

I take it that when Paul says, “Those who do such things deserve death,” he is thinking of the punishment appointed to Adam and Eve in Genesis.  Paul is not calling for vigilante justice or state-sponsored execution of those guilty of hate speech, arrogance, and greed.  He is pointing to the fact that we all are under the sentence of death; none of us deserves to live forever.  His point is not that some deserve to die more than others, but that we are all in the same boat.

But I still want to come back to the idea that Paul expects his readers to agree that all those guilty of the vices he catalogs deserve to die.  Paul is not teaching morality here: he is not trying to persuade anyone of the evil of “murder, envy, rivalry, deception, malice” and so forth.  He assumes they all agree, they will all say Amen!

By overhearing Paul, I might learn that hate speech, slander, character assassination, whether whispered or shouted, is seriously evil.  But Paul isn’t teaching, he is appealing to common beliefs in his reader.  The list is organized for rhetorical effect; the words are organized according to alliteration or assonance, words that rhyme or begin with the same letter are linked together.  For example:

adikia poneria pleonexia kakia . . . phthonou, phonou . . .

asynetous, asynthetous, astorgous, aneleemonas

But here’s a puzzle:  If you read any classical literature (from Gilgamesh to the Greek and Roman poets and philosophers) you find that same-sex love was highly praised in the ancient world.  Against this background, Paul’s rejection of same-sex behavior is almost an anomaly.  Is it the influence of his Jewish upbringing?

Well yes.  It is pretty clear that Paul understands marriage to be a life-long commitment between one man and one woman: a partnership in serving the Lord together and in bringing up children dedicated to the Lord.  Any other expression of sexuality he considers a serious aberration.

But is there more than that here?  After all, Paul had a live and let live attitude toward the promiscuous behavior of unbelievers (1 Cor 5:10).

Most of Paul’s readers were either slaves, former slaves, or slave owners.  The dirty little secret that cultured Greeks and Romans never talked about directly–they did wink and hint at it–and the dirty little secret the New Testament writers must have been aware of but never mention directly is the sexual exploitation of slaves.

Slaves had no dignity, honor, or virtue to maintain.  Masters owned the bodies of their slaves and used them as they pleased.  Both male and female slaves were at the disposal of their masters and mistresses.

I know several women who have been raped.  My gut reaction to the perpetrators–Christian discipline tells me I have to overcome it–but my gut reaction is to regard the violators as subhuman monsters who deserve to die.

Many of Paul’s readers, male and female, had experienced subjugation and the repeated violation of their bodies by those with the power to get away with it.  They would have also experienced various forms of belittling and humiliating hate speech.  They might have agreed with Paul that “those who do such things are worthy of death.”

(Some of these thoughts were inspired by Robert Jewett’s Hermeneia commentary on Romans and Carolyn Osiek’s A Woman’s Place).

Peace in an Age of Brutality

That’s the theme of St. Paul’s Epistle to the Romans, as I see it: peace in an age of  brutality.  Of course, for Paul, it was most important that we have “peace with God through Jesus Christ our Lord.”  We ‘ll come back to that later.   Paul also believed that those who find peace with God find peace with each other.  I’ll have more to say on that later too.  Right now, I want to make one point: Paul lived in an age of brutality.

Paul was born in the early days of the Roman Empire; the empire that began with the reign of Augustus, and was followed by the reigns of Tiberius, Claudius, Caligula, and Nero.  It was a time of relative stability and absence of wars, but the Pax Romana was enforced by the use and threat of brutal force.  If you saw the HBO special “Rome” you saw plenty examples of that. As Tacitus put it, “the Romans make a desolation and call it peace.”

But in case you are not convinced, I’ll offer two facts in support of the thesis that the first century was an age of brutality.  The first fact is the popularity of gladiator contests.  Gladiator shows were fights to the death, and no public festival was complete without one.   One historian recently undertook a serious study of this problem:  what did they do with all those bodies?  His conclusion was that they threw them in the Tiber.

The second fact is a statement of Paul’s in Romans chapter one.  It is so subtle that it is easy to miss.  Paul presents a list of sins and vices, and then says those who do the nasty things in the list agree that “those who do such things are worthy of death.”  The vices in the list includes, among others “disobedience to parents” and “slander.”

In our day, we may not like it when children are disobedient or when senators shout out to the president, “You lie!”–but we aren’t in favor of killing the offenders.  And yet, Paul evidently expected none of his readers to blink when he said, “those who do such things deserve to die.”

Was life so cheap in the Roman empire that everyone agreed name callers and rebellious children deserved to die?

Or is that what Paul really means?

Blogging as a Spiritual Discipline?

The title is not original with me–I saw it somewhere else; in fact I think I didn’t get around to reading the post, but it got me thinking.

Many people keep journals as a spiritual discipline.  The ancient genre of the “Confessions” is a form of this.  I am about to begin reading St. Patrick’s “Confessions.”  According to Thomas Cahill, author of How the Irish Saved Civilization, Patrick is more cheerful than the more famous confessor, St. Augustine.  I’ll see if that comes through.

So, I’m not exactly going to begin confessing all my sins here; but I am going to begin writing a series of meditations on St. Paul’s epistle to the Romans.  It won’t be a commentary–Romans is already the most commented upon book in the world.  It will be reflections on passages that strike me.

I may intersperse some comments on Genesis as well; since I am also studying some of the themes in that book as well.  The fact is, I think Romans in many ways represents Paul’s meditations on Genesis, so may that will work out alright.

Meditation one comes tomorrow.

Was Jesus a Feminist?

Ben Witherington III will present a lecture on the topic, “Was Jesus the First Feminist?” Thursday evening, 7:30, at Kansas State University in the Alumni Center.

He will also be speaking on the topic, “An Eschatological Vision of Worship” Friday at 7:30 PM in Jollife Hall on the campus of Manhattan Christian College as part of the Western Fellowship of Professors and Scholars.

Both events are open to the public.

End of an Era in Sheffield?

Last year when I was in Buckie, Scotland, I wrote a couple of posts about F.F. Bruce, who grew up in nearby Elgin (here and here).   I noted that he helped establish the department of Biblical Studies at the University of Sheffield and that he adopted a historical, non-sectarian, and “secular” approach to the Bible.  Bruce himself was a devout believer, but he believed he could approach the Bible in the University as a historian and work with other historians apart on a neutral playing field.

Evidently there is a plan underway by the administration of the University to end the undergraduate program in Biblical Studies.  Mark Goodacre at Duke University  and Jim West from Volunteer country are urging concerned colleagues to make their voice known.

One of my colleagues, by the way, Dr. Don Leach, took a course under professor Bruce several years ago.  He presented the professor with a copy of J.W. McGarvey’s commentary on the book of Acts.  McGarvey wrote his famous commentary during the American civil war, and F.F. Bruce tells how he relieved many hours of war time tedium working on his commentary on Acts during the second world war.

More than a Peck

I think I picked quite a bit more than a peck of peppers to pickle and freeze.  Our chili pepper patch was pretty prolific this summer.  They are still coming on strong, but we just missed a hard freeze last night and may have one tonight, so I went out today in the chilly wind to pick chili peppers.  I picked more than three bags full, leaving just a few small ones in case it doesn’t freeze and we have a few more days of warm weather.

It’s satisfying to enjoy the year’s final harvest, but  sad too.  This marks the official end of summer for me.

I would have posted a picture, but Sonja has my camera in Arkansas.

By the way, I’m still buying Iwig milk.  If you live in NE Kansas and drink milk, look for it.  It’s worth it and the dairy needs the help.

Separated by Circumstances

Sonja has gone to take care of her mother in Arkansas.  She took a leave of absence from job here; she is working part time, two days a week, there.  She is also enjoying spending time with our niece and nephew, Kayla and Justin.  Sonja and I are separated by circumstances, not separate in our affection for each other.

I keep thinking of the Ray Charles song–it has nothing to do with our family; this is not our story–but still the words come back:

Tell your mama, Tell your pa,

Gonna send you back to Arkansas,

Hey, Hey, tell me what I say . . .

I am going to see her, and my mother-in-law and other relatives, this weekend.  I have a day off Monday.  Tuesday I have only one class and I will conduct it online this week.

I haven’t posted in a while because I have been otherwise occupied.

I have been listening to the debate about health care–well, I would like to call it a debate; a conversation would be better–but really it has been mostly name calling and finger pointing.  But that’s a different story.  The issues that should be being discussed are not just abstract issues for us.  We are confronted with them every day.  We are making real-life health care decisions based on medical, economic, and family realities.

Support Your Local Cow

After reaching records highs a year ago, wholesale milk prices–the prices paid to farmers–have plummeted to a 40-year low.  As a result, many dairy farms are facing bankruptcy.  Two or three large agribusiness concerns control most of the milk industry.  Most farmers have no choice but to sell to them, even at a loss.  You probably haven’t notice much difference in the price at the store.  The “middleman” is making a killing.

There are a couple of area dairies that are bucking the trend.  We buy either Iwig or Emerich milk  (See “Mum in Bloom” for photos.)  Both are small scale, locally owned operations.  Both dairies treat their cows humanely and avoid injecting artificial hormones or routine antibiotics. They sell their milk, butter, and ice cream at local grocery stores, and at the Alma Creamery.

When my grandson is visiting we enjoy taking the short walk to the Alma Creamery to buy some cheese and a half-gallon of milk in an old-fashioned glass bottle.   In the past year, I have broken three bottles, through my own negligence–on the other hand I haven’t been putting plastic bottles in the local landfill, so I’ve learned not to cry over spilled milk.

I recently learned that at least one of these dairies is having a tough time financially.  To all of my friends in NE Kansas–do yourself a favor.  See how much better naturally and humanely produced milk tastes.  Support Iwig or Emerich.  If your grocery story doesn’t sell it, ask them.  In Manhattan, Kansas, you can find it at People’s Grocery or Eastside and Westside markets.  In Lawrence, try the Merc.  Here in Alma both the local grocery story and the Alma Creamery sell it.

If you know of other places that sell local dairy products, let me know.

By the way, the ice cream, chocolate milk, and eggnog (available around Christmas) are fabulous.  (More)

Joe’s Finds

Joe sends two finds this week: An ancient wall discovered in Jerusalem, and a new fragment of Codex Sinaiticus).  I wrote a bit more about Codex Sinaiticus at Biblical Research.

Haskel’s Passing

My father-in-law Haskel passed away last night around midnight–the same night Senator Ted Kennedy succumbed to his illness.  I will be traveling to Arkansas for the service this weekend.

Haskel was Sonja’s step-father.  Actually Maxine and Haskel started dating about the same time Sonja and I did.  They were married a few months before we were.

He had been advised of his choices for care in his final days, and he received good care.

Sonja and her sisters are with Maxine now.  I will be traveling with our two daughters to the memorial service.  Our youngest daughter Heidi was able to see Haskel this past weekend.  She had made the trip with Sonja, and they returned back in the wee hours of the morning Monday.

The Face of Socialism

Jan Palach

This is the face that wanted to be the “human face of socialism.”  Jan Palach was the student who chose set himself ablaze 40 years ago to protest the brutal communist oppression of the Prague Spring.  In 1968 students and others had called for diversity and freedom of expression within the communist system.  The Soviets responded by sending in tanks.

I’m not a fan of self-immolation or any form of suicide–I do think it is better than suicide-murder; but Jan felt it was better to die standing than to kneel.

A kilometer or so further downhill from Wenceslas Square where Jan set himself on fire, in the old square is a monument to Jan Hus, another Czech martyr who five hundred years earlier had been burned alive by the enemies of freedom.

Jan Hus

The two Jans are heroes of freedom to the Czechs.  The burned face of Jan Palach is the face of Soviet Socialism.

You can like or dislike President Obama’s health care proposals, including an option to buy into the public insurance plan that all politicians enjoy–but it has nothing to do with the horrors of Communist socialism.

I remember about a year ago when the republican presidential candidate suspended his campaign to rush to Washington and vote for the bank bailouts.  I remember the presidents of the auto companies flying their private jets to the Washington to ask the then republican-controlled congress for a bailout.

I don’t really know anyone who is not disgusted by the bailouts.  I don’t know whether they made the recession worse, or whether they saved the economy from total collapse.  It was a desperate response to what both political parties considered a dire emergency.  But it was not socialism.

End of Life Choices

My mother-in-law and father-in-law both have chronic lung disease.  They smoked during all those years when the big tobacco companies were able to produce scientists who denied any link between smoking and lung disease.  My mother-in-law doesn’t always get her medical terminology right (my parents don’t either–they are from a generation that left those things up to the experts).

Recently she told my wife, her daughter, “I’m in the hostage program.”

Sonja corrected her, “You’re in the hospice program, Mom.”

When I saw Maxine last month she told me,

“The doctor gave me two years.  But the good Lord will take me when he’s ready.”  I agreed with her on that.

Maybe my wife is being optimistic, maybe she’s in denial, maybe it’s her experience working in medical records and her familiarity with how medicare works–but she doesn’t take the two years too literally.  She says that prognosis is routinely given for patients needing hospice care, because it is required by medicare.

I still agree that it is in the Lord’s hands.  Maxine’s condition is serious.  She is on oxygen and breathing treatments, and she will never regain the lungs of her youth.  The home health visits, treatments, and meals provided in the hostage–I mean hospice program–are a real blessing.

At some point my in laws were counseled about their options.  A nursing home was one option; the home health care provided by the hospice visits was a better one for them.  They might have wishes for later about what type of resuscitation measures would be used when the time comes.  They will need council and advice from a health professional they can trust.

One of the many proposals that was being considered by congress in the current health care reform legislation was a provision to reimburse doctors for providing this type of counseling.  Opponents of the president interpreted this to mean that he was advocating euthanasia.

I think we do have to be vigilant and consider unintended consequences and possible misuses of any new legislation.  But there is a difference between vigilance and paranoia.  President Obama has not proposed euthanasia as a cost saving measure.  It is not part of his program of health care reforms.  (More from the NY Times.)

Nevertheless, we won’t have to worry about it.  The few senators who had suggested reimbursing professionals for end of life counseling have dropped the provision from their proposed bill.

Hermeneutics for the Crazy

Hermeneutics is the art and science of interpretation; specifically hermeneutics is often used in reference to the interpretation of the Bible.  When I teach the subject, the first rule I teach is one not found in most hermeneutics text books, but familiar to medical students:

Primum non nocere; First do no harm.

James, who grew up in the same house with Jesus, taught that religious teachers will be subject to stricter judgment.

I wonder, how responsible teachers and preachers are for the way the mentally disturbed take their words.  The LA Fitness murderer is quoted as saying that at the church he once attended the pastor taught that even a mass murderer can go to heaven.  The pastor never said that, but George Sodini said it was implied by the church’s teaching that sinners may be forgiven by grace through faith apart from any works needed to earn their salvation.

Of course, Sodini dropped out of church three years ago–so you can’t say his attempt at mass murder was inspired by last Sunday’s sermon.  His internet comment was part of a bitter rant against religion.

But what about the traditional protestant doctrine of justification by faith?  Does it in fact encourage cheap grace?  Is salvation a legal fiction, or does it involve God’s work of transforming our lives to make us responsible, compassionate adults?

Does a teacher of Scripture or the way of faith have a responsibility to think about ways teachings could be misconstrued.? Yes.  Maybe you can’t predict all possible ways a deranged mind could get it wrong–but at least teachers have to think about possible implications and misunderstandings.

When teaching on the book of Proverbs I have often done an informal survey.  I ask,

What percentage of men have an anger control problem?

The first time I asked this question I naively thought the answer would be about 5%.  Instead I consistently get figures of 50 to 75 %.  I was prepared to go with the low number.  My followup question was to be this:

Suppose there are 5 men present who have anger control problems, and they hear a message on the text, “If you beat your son, he won’t die”–what will they do with it?

My point is, that a man who can’t control his anger has no business using corporal punishment (if anyone does) as a way of teaching children.  A responsible teaching on the theme of “the rod of correction” in Proverbs would have to deal with the poetic imagery of the rod, the historical and social realities of Iron-Age Israel, and the potential of disturbed individuals to put a crazy twist on something.

Evidently the murderer of George Tiller took the comparisons of the abortion doctor to Hitler with deadly seriousness.  According to Dr Warren Hern, The Last Abortion Doctor, the murder of Dr. Tiller was “the logical consequence of thirty-five years of hate speech.”   Can one be pro-life without encouraging murder?

There are passages in the New Testament that refer to an evil figure called “The Man of Lawlessness,” the “Beast” or the “Antichrist.”  I believe these passages refer to one or more violent messianic pretenders or perhaps one of the more deranged Roman Emperors–in other words a historical figure from the first century.  Nevertheless, many people think these passages refer to someone yet to come.

The world has certainly seen its share of evil leaders, of anti-messianic tyrants, and it is always good to be on our guard.  I think a good theme song is “We don’t get fooled again.”

But a perverse twist on the Scriptures that warn against violent deceivers is using them to feed conspiracy theories.    Snopes has been a reliable source of debunking urban legends, modern myths, and fantastic conspiracy theories.  It has effectively debunked some of the myths and lies about president Obama.  But now–it should have been predictable–the conspiracy mongers are saying that Snopes is part of the conspiracy.

I heard once of a psychiatric patient who was convinced he was dead.  His psychiatrist thought of a novel approach.  He got the patient to agree that dead men don’t bleed.  Then he poked the patient with a needle and drew blood.  The man’s eyes got wide and he said,

Well, what do you know, dead men do bleed.!

Christianity and Healthcare

One key to the growth of the early Christian movement was that it provided a free health care system available to all.  Hector Avalos, in Health Care and the Rise of Christianity (review) noted that other ancient health care systems were exclusive and expensive.  Rodney Stark is another scholar who notes the importance of health care in The Rise of Christianity (review).  During the plagues of the second and third centuries pagan physicians, politicians, and leaders fled the cities while Christians stayed behind to care for their own sick and for their neighbors.

Stark estimates that basic nursing care, providing food, water, and clean bedding, would have increased the survival rate during the plagues from near zero to about fifty percent.  This resulted in a naturally higher survival rate in cities with a substantial Christian presence.  It also brought more pagans into the sphere of Christian influence.

Why do so many hospitals have the name of Saint somebody?  The whole idea of the hospital is a Christian invention, inspired by the parable of the Good Samaritan.  You remember the hero in that story took the bleeding victim to an inn and paid the inn keeper–remember, hospitals had not yet been invented–to care for the victim.

The health care Christians provided was pretty simple: it consisted mainly of offering prayer, a bed, food and water (or wine), dressings for wounds, and simple nursing care.  Where physicians and surgeons were members of Christian communities, they also offered their services.  Simple, basic care is still the most critical need around the world.  For example, two million children die each year from lack of clean water.

It is puzzling to me that some Christian leaders are speaking out against the idea of universal health care.  If they don’t think the government should assist the needy in this area, then they should be organizing Christian charities to build clinics and free hospitals.  St. Jude’s Hospital in Memphis, and the 22 Shriner’s hospitals in North America do a wonderful work in providing free care for children.  We will have to build many more such facilities if we are to meet the needs of the millions of Americans who lack access to health services.

A Supply Side Solution for Healthcare

I doubt I will persuade any politicians, but here is my solution to healthcare: increase the supply.  Specifically, each state could build one new medical school and maybe four or five new nursing schools.

There is already a network of community colleges in place.  Low cost clinics could be set up for basic preventive and screening care and for treatment of conditions not requiring hospitalization.  Newly graduated physicians could do their residencies in these clinics in exchange for student loan forgiveness and a livable salary.

In 1997 the federal government decided to limit the number of residency programs.  In the 1980s some bureaucrats decided that the way to reduce the cost of healthcare was to decrease the number of students admitted to medical school.  They believed that HMOs would make medicine more effecient thus decreasing the need for doctors.

Getting into medical school now is like winning the lottery.  Every year thousands of qualified applicants are rejected because there are not enough slots.  Premed undergraduate courses such as organic chemistry weed out the unqualified.  Of course we want the best and the brightest taking care of our health–but too many of them are being turned away.

Increasing the supply of healthcare workers and facilities would address part of our healthcare problem–and the new construction projects would provide a stimulus to the economy in our current recession.

Watching Trains

Well, we didn’t exactly pitch a wang dang doodle (lyrics to the song here), but we did have a pleasant family gathering at my house yesterday to celebrate Father’s Day and our daughter-in-law Sarah’s birthday.  Of course part of the celebration meant playing with our grandchildren.  We took them to the swimming pool, and the play ground, and we let them ride their little electric car and tractor.

But one of the kids most enjoyable pleasures is watching trains.

If you go east about three blocks from my house, the road will dead end before the railrood tracks.  Or, if you look south from my front yard through a clearing in the trees you can see the same track about the same distance as it bends around.

Elijah is three now and Ari is one.  For about a year when Elijah has been at our house every time he hears the train whistle, he will come get me and we will run out to the front porch to watch the train.  Or sometimes, if my pickup truck is parked in the right spot, we can sit on the tailgate and see both spots on the track.

I remember last summer when Elijah screamed, like it was an emergency, “Grandpa!”  and I came running from the other room to take him out to watch the trains.  He is a little more subdued now, but he still likes to watch every one.  A couple weeks ago when he was with us for the weekend, just before time to go home we heard one more whistle.  He looked at me, then thought for a moment and said, “We can just sit here in the living room and listen.”  Then he thought for a second or two more and took my hand and led me back out to the porch to watch.

Now Ari is watching the trains with us too.  If I don’t pick her up and carry her out, it will break her heart.  I can’t hear the trains whistles now without thinking of the kids.

Of course train whistles are famous in country music for having a sad lonesome sound–and sometimes I get a melancholy feeling, wondering if the day will come when the kids will lose their innocence and enthusiasm.  It’s hard to imagine a sullen thirteen-year-old getting excited about a railroad train.  But not all teenagers are sullen all the time; I’ve met a few cheerful confident adolescents.  And most of the others grow out of it.

Then I think of the day in the future, when Elijah and Ari will have children of their own.  Maybe they will come visit me; maybe I’ll be in a wheelchair, but they will push me outside to watch the trains when they hear the whistle.