"Okay, boys, here's the deal..."

 Boys, I'm going to refinish the tub. It's going to be a stinky, messy, time-consuming, hard job. The only thing that you need to know is that for the next 48 hours no one is going to be able to take any baths or showers. Not that you guys bathe and shower every day any way, but I just want you to know that for THESE 48 hours no one is going to be able to get in there, okay?

Also, since this was the one 48-hour stretch in which we were not able to wash our children before bringing them out in public, this was the night that the Amerks chose to put some close up video of Felix dancing on the jumbotron at the hockey game. (And then awarded him a beanie, a t-shirt, and $25 of gift cards to a hamburger stand.)

Of COVID, Ceilings, and Harmonicas

 

I love the New Year. It’s a chance to take stock of life, think about big projects, and to re-read all of your favorite books that you already read the previous year but want to read again. When we found out that J had COVID, I thought that this would maybe even be helpful for getting the New Year off on the right foot.

I downloaded an audiobook of Pride and Prejudice and started work on masking up our living room and kitchen. A few years ago I installed recessed lighting in the living room (also during a slow January week) but never got around to repainting the scuffed ceiling after J’s Dad helped up finish up the drywall repairs.

The kitchen has needed a fresh coat of ceiling paint for years. We had a waste line leak repeatedly before Felix was born, and that meant an enormous drywall patch where the ceiling was leaking through the light. When we had COVID two years ago in March the ceiling was damaged further by a plumbing project of mine that went awry. (I tried to clean out the tub drain, broke it, and had to rebuild the whole thing.)

Actually painting over the repaired ceilings would be a final farewell to those long hours of cutting, cleaning, puzzling, driving to Lowe’s, and generally fretting about how to keep water from leaking from our ceilings.

While J convalesced in our room I put in my earbuds (rejoining the Bennet family in Meryton) and masked, scrubbed, sanded, primed, and painted.

I don’t love working on the house or fixing things for their own sake—it usually makes me freshly thankful for my cushy white collar job. But it was nice to see the ceiling cleaned up and shining as I peeled the tape off at the end. A job well done.

Yesterday morning, with J mostly on the mend, I took yet another COVID test. (A daily occurrence since “exposed” in order to be able to go into work.) And lo, there were two lines. I really feel fine—just a tickle in my throat and a slightly runny nose. My first thought was that I’d be able to finish Pride and Prejudice sooner than I thought.

“NOO!” yelled Owen, “my harmonica!!”

Owen has been begging for a harmonica ever since Christmas, and I’ve pulled out every trick in the book to defer him. He told me that he wanted a harmonica for Christmas, and I warned him that harmonicas aren’t something that you read, wear, or need.

Then he wanted to spend his Christmas cash on a harmonica, and I said that we weren’t going to go to the store today. No, I had never seen a harmonica on Amazon either. Maybe he should ask again later.

Maybe he should ask again in two weeks.

I pretended that the Amazon site was broken, then didn’t let him have my phone so that he could see if he could get it to work.

“Dad, I REALLY want a harmonica.”

“Yes, Owen…I know.”

Several years ago I wrote a six word story (modeled on the famous Hemmingway six word story: “For Sale. Baby shoes. Never worn.” My six word tragedy was: “Owen found the deliberately hidden harmonica.”

When I opened up my folder for the next Masterworks concert I saw that on the final page of some (dumb) contemporary piece I’m supposed to switch from trumpet to “Harmonica in C” and blow long chords. (Good thing I spent all that money on a conservatory education.)

“Owen,” I said, “if they give me a harmonica to play at my concert next week, you can have it when I’m done.”

And that’s why he was heartbroken when I got the news that I’d be staying home for another week.

J was far enough in her isolation and well enough yesterday to leave the house masked, and she walked up to the local craft store. As a reward for the boys for tolerating/surviving a week at home with sick parents and half of the house masked off for painting she brought them all some color by numbers and…two harmonicas. Owen and Felix were ecstatic.

“KHREEEK!”

“Thank you so much, Mommy!”

“KHREEEEEEK!”

“Aren’t we supposed to talk about these things before one of us just goes and—”

“KKKKKHREEEEEEEEKKKK!”

 

They camped out in a fort last downstairs last night, so when I came down at 6 to have coffee and read I could already hear the very soft, barely whispered “khreeeeeks” coming out of the tent that they had made while I tried to concentrate on my book.

After breakfast I decided that it might be more restful anywhere else other than the inside the house, so I volunteered to shovel the driveway, reasoning that I wasn’t technically breaking isolation rules if I stayed on my own property. I pulled on snowpants and big boots, then put in my noise cancelling earbuds and hit play on Pride and Prejudice.

I’d only been out for five minutes or so when I looked up and saw J waving from the front step. I paused Pride and Prejudice and took out the earbud.

“There’s water leaking into the kitchen from the ceiling.”

I thought for a moment that she was kidding. The ceiling I’d just finally put the last touch of repair on? The ceiling that leaked the last time that I had COVID?

I came inside, and sure enough:

Drip—drip—drip---drip,

“KHREEEEEK!!”

It wasn’t coming from the spot under the tub. It was coming from light fixture that had also leaked when the waste line had leaked. The waste line that we had FIXED!

I went upstairs through a storm of blasting harmonicas and inspected the supply lines in James’ closet. And then I walked into the bathroom and figured out what had happened. It wasn’t a plumbing issue. It was a James issue.

James, like a true pre-teen, had taken a long shower. And he had done it with the shower curtain and the liner both tucked outside the tub, thus ensuring a minor flood in the bathroom.

I started to take apart the fixture to see how bad the flooding was.

“KHKREEEK! KHREEEK!”

A puddle of urine-smelling brown water that had pooled in the glass of the fixture spilled out all over me, dribbling onto the kitchen floor.

“KHREEEK! KHREEK!”

I hunted through the basement until I found the right circuit and cut the power to the kitchen. Then I found screws in the fixture base and disconnected it from the ceiling, sloshing more of the gritty waste water onto the freshly painted ceiling in the process.

“KHREEEEK! “KHREEEEK!”

After wiping everything dry and ensuring that nothing more was going to leak through, I wrestled with the fixture over my head (“KHREEEEEEK!”) blindly for several minutes before giving up and retrieving a ladder from the garage so that I could feel my way back onto the bracket.

“KHREEEEEEEK!”

I have a new six word story:

For sale.

Two harmonicas.

Harmonicists included.

The Incredible Disappearing Six Year Old

 Felix has a superpower. He can make himself invisible.

It is 5:30 on a Friday, and he's finally just finished his school for the week. (Both of his brothers were done by yesterday.) It's because he went invisible for the last few mornings of school.

I should start by saying that Felix's first grade workload is still pretty light. He can be done with all of his school for the day in thirty or forty minutes if he applies himself. But he is not the sort of child to get the unpleasant part of the day over with.

He is a child who does whatever he wants, whenever he wants.

And most mornings he does not want to do school.

Owen is always our first child to appear. I think he needs someone to talk to, so he makes an appearance as soon as he hears noise downstairs. James, who prefers to do everything with precise regularity, sets an alarm on his watch to wake up at 7:30. It bothers him when he misses the alarm. (This is happening more frequently as he transitions into a teenager.) He then wants to come downstairs and eat exactly what he is expecting to eat for breakfast. (Pancakes and waffles on every other Friday, a bowl of granola on other days.)

Felix may or may not ever appear. It's perfectly normal for him to wait until noon to make an appearance at all. I know that he's hungry up there, but by the time anyone has noticed that he isn't around we are already deep into Logic or Science experiments or correcting math homework, and everyone has a question all the time. Working with even just the older two feels like teaching twenty different kids. I don't know how real teachers do it.

Sometimes, though, Felix IS hungry. He'll come down the stairs slowly and assess the situation by peeking into the living room before making his move. If someone openly acknowledges his presence I think he just sits down on the staircase where no one can see him and waits until we forget that he's there, then slinks back up to his room.

But other mornings he'll come down and ask for some breakfast. I'll make him something while trying to simultaneously give a spelling test or a dictation exercise and then tell him sternly that, "As soon as you finish that granola we're going to get going on your school for the day!"

He'll nod resignedly as if the game is up and he knows he won't be getting away this morning. I'll look over and he'll have a few bites left. Then I'll try to explain that "erat" isn't a form of "erro," and when I look back his place at the table is empty.

It's as if he never even existed.

"Felix? Felix? Where are you?"

No answer.

I'll go upstairs and poke my head in his room. 

"I'll be down in just a minute." 

"I need you to come down now." 

"Okay."

I shouldn't have walked back downstairs without him. It's been another hour already.

"FELIX! COME DOWN AND DO SOME SCHOOL!"

No answer.

Sometimes he's under his bed. (Going up the stairs is a noisy signal for him to hide.) I've found him hiding in James' room or mine as well. He's having a blast, doing whatever it is that he's doing. Playing a football game, drawing, reorganizing stuffed animals, listening to a podcast on his google. Playing foosball against himself, looking through comic books, organizing football cards.

Anything except school.

He's a master at fading away at the very moment that you turn away your attention. And, as neglectful as this all sounds, I remind you that the entire time this has been going on both of the older two have been yelling out questions and asking for help on their school.

Finally, when we start to approach screen time, or when he gets so hungry that he has to come down and eat something, he'll appear. And then he'll do his school. It takes him about a half an hour. 

But he really does make you work for it.

2023 Reading

 January

Terrapin (Wendell Berry)

Daffodil Hill (Jake Keiser)

The Clone Army Attacketh (Ian Doescher)

The Healing Power of the Breath (Richard Brown/Patricia Gerbarg)

The Billionaire's Vinegar (Benjamin Wallace)

Adorning the Dark (Andrew Peterson)

Pride and Prejudice (Jane Austen)

In Vino Duplicitas (Peter Hellman)

Thoughts in Solitude (Thomas Merton)

Metamorphoses book VII (Ovid) in Latin

The Wolf of Wall Street (Jordan Belfort)

Desolation Island (Patrick O'Brian)

Where the Deer and the Antelope Play (Nick Offerman)

Verbatim (Erin McKean)

Sharpe's Rifles (Bernard Cornwell)

The Ink Black Heart (Robert Galbraith)

Sharpe's Havoc (Bernard Cornwell)

The Fortune of War (Patrick O'Brian)

February

My Family and Other Animals (Gerald Durrell)

The Tragedy of the Sith's Revenge (Ian Doescher)

Watership Down (Richard Adams)

The Sorrows of Young Werther (Johann Wolfgang von Goethe)

The Martian (Andy Weir)

Sketches by Boz (Charles Dickens)

Climbing Parnassus (Tracy Lee Simmons)

S. (John Updike)

Jude the Obscure (Thomas Hardy)

Aeneid IX (Virgil) in Latin

Agamemnon (Aeschylus) in Greek

An Outcast of the Islands (Joseph Conrad)

Sharpe's Eagle (Bernard Cornwell)

Anna Karenina (Leo Tolstoy)

Birds, Beasts, and Relatives (Gerald Durrell)

The Garden of the Gods (Gerald Durrell)

March

Remarkably Bright Creatures (Shelby Van Pelt)

The Surgeon's Mate (Patrick O'Brian)

Rob Roy (Sir Walter Scott)

How Not to Die Alone (Richard Roeper)

Search (Michelle Hunever)

Sharpe's Gold (Bernard Cornwell)

All Creatures Great and Small (James Herriot)

Inspired (Rachel Held Evans)

The Mind of the Maker (Dorothy Sayers)

The Soloist (Steve Lopez)

Metamorphoses Book VIII (Ovid) in Latin

The Ionian Mission (Patrick O'Brian)

Lessons in Chemistry (Bonnie Garmus)

Richardson's First Case (Basil Thomson)

All Things Wise and Wonderful (James Herriot)

H is for Hawk (Helen Macdonald)

The Winter Soldier (Daniel Mason)

Goodbye, Mr. Chips (James Hilton)

Latin for Gardeners (Lorraine Harrison)

Lost Horizon (James Hilton)

Twelfth Night (William Shakespeare)

A Boy's Will (Robert Frost)

Is He Popenjoy? (Anthony Trollope)

North of Boston (Robert Frost)

Fatal Journey (Peter Mancall)

Sharpe's Escape (Bernard Cornwell)

The Northern Lights (Lucy Jago)

April

Les Jeux Sont Faits (Jean-Paul Sartre) in French

Treason's Harbour (Patrick O'Brian)

Mansfield Park (Jane Austen)

No. 1 Ladies' Detective Agency (Alexander McCall Smith)

Mountain Interval (Robert Frost)

The Road to Samarcand (Patrick O'Brian)

Goodbye to Clocks Ticking (Joseph Monninger)

Tears of the Giraffe (Alexander McCall Smith)

Casino Royale (Ian Fleming)

Vesper Flights (Helen MacDonald)

Morality for Beautiful Girls (Alexander McCall Smith)

All Things Bright and Beautiful (James Herriot)

Sharpe's Fury (Bernard Cornwell)

Kalahari Typing School for Men (Alexander McCall Smith)

The English Patient (Michael Ondaatje)

The Lord God Made Them All (James Herriot)

Leave it to Psmith (P.G. Wodehouse)

Tinker, Tailor, Soldier, Spy (John LeCarre)

The Far Side of the World (Patrick O'Brian)

May

The Latinist (Mark Prins)

Never Panic Early (Fred Haise)

Every Living Thing (James Herriot)

Sharpe's Battle (Bernard Cornwell)

The Shell Collector (Anthony Doerr)

The Full Cupboard of Life (Alexander McCall Smith)

In the Company of Cheerful Ladies (Alexander McCall Smith)

The Looking-Glass War (John LeCarre)

Neptune's Inferno (James D. Hornfischer)

Blue Shoes and Happiness (Alexander McCall Smith)

Kon-Tiki (Thor Heyerdahl)

The Good Husband of Zebra Drive (Alexander McCall Smith)

The Relic Master (Christopher Buckley)

Fallen Astronauts (Colin Burgess)

The Miracle at Speedy Motors (Alexander McCall Smith)

The Honourable Schoolboy (John LeCarre)

Tea Time for the Traditionally Built (Alexander McCall Smith)

The Reverse of the Medal (Patrick O'Brian)

Smiley's People (John LeCarre)

Catch-22 (Joseph Heller)

June

Metamorphoses Book IX (Ovid) in Latin

The Double Comfort Safari Club (Alexander McCall Smith)

Burning Down George Orwell's House (Andrew Erwin)

In the Land of White Death (Valerian Albanov)

Agent M. (Henry Hemming)

The Wind in the Willows (Kenneth Grahame)

The Saturday Big Tent Wedding Party (Alexander McCall Smith)

Sharpe's Company (Bernard Cornwell)

Enter Jeeves (P.D. Wodehouse)

The Edible Exile (Carl Hiaasen)

Theogonia (Hesiod) in Greek

The Pillars of the Earth (Ken Follett)

The Letter of Marque (Patrick O'Brian)

A Walk in the Woods (Bill Bryson)

The Limpopo Academy of Private Detection (Alexander McCall Smith)

The Thirteen Gun Salute (Patrick O'Brian)

The Wet and the Dry (Lawrence Osborne)

Friendship: An Expose (Joseph Epstein)

The Minor Adjustment Beauty Salon (Alexander McCall Smith)

By the Smoke and the Smell (Thad Vogler)

The Cuckoo's Calling (Robert Galbraith)

Metamorphoses Book X (Ovid) in Latin

The Nutmeg of Consolation (Patrick O'Brian)

The Handsome Man's Deluxe Cafe (Alexander McCall Smith)

Sharpe's Sword (Bernard Cornwell)

July

The Silkworm (Robert Galbraith)

Medicus (Ruth Downie)

The Woman Who Walked in Sunshine (Alexander McCall Smith)

Sharpe's Enemy (Bernard Cornwell)

Terra Incognita (Ruth Downie)

The Truelove (Patrick O'Brian)

The Wine-Dark Sea (Patrick O'Brian)

The Shadow-Line (Joseph Conrad)

I'm Sorry...Love, Your Husband (Clint Edwards)

The Commodore (Patrick O'Brian)

Bootstrapped (Alissa Quart)

The Second Worst Restaurant in France (Alexander McCall Smith)

Game of Edges (Bruce Shoenfeld)

Sharpe's Honour (Bernard Cornwell)

Lobscouse and Spotted Dog (Anne Grossman and Lisa Thomas)

Career of Evil (Robert Galbraith)

Precious and Grace (Alexander McCall Smith)

The Yellow Admiral (Patrick O'Brian)

Persona Non Grata (Ruth Downie)

August

Lethal White (Robert Galbraith)

Petite Histoire de France (Jaques Bainville) in French

The Hundred Days (Patrick O'Brian)

The House of Unexpected Sisters (Alexander McCall Smith)

The Man Who Organized Nature (Gunnar Broberg)

Troubled Blood (Robert Galbraith)

The Evangelical Imagination (Karen Swallow Prior)

Losing Our Religion (Russell Moore)

The Nazi Conspiracy (Brad Meltzer and Josh Mensch)

The Liberation of Paris (Jean Edward Smith)

Sharpe's Regiment (Bernard Cornwell)

The Man Who Would Be King (Rudyard Kipling)

Why We Sleep (Matthew Walker)

The Ink Black Heart (Robert Galbraith)

Sharpe's Siege (Bernard Cornwell) 

September

Blue at the Mizzen (Patrick O'Brian)

Master and Commander (Patrick O'Brian)

Sharpe's Revenge (Bernard Cornwell)

Tomorrow and Tomorrow and Tomorrow (Gabrielle Zevin)

Young Jane Young (Gabrielle Zevin)

1984 (George Orwell)

The Color of All the Cattle (Alexander McCall Smith)

The Fellowship of the Ring (J.R.R. Tolkien)

Great Expectations (Charles Dickens)

Dune (Frank Herbert)

Billionaire's Row (Katherine Clarke)

The Two Towers (J.R.R. Tolkien)

The Running Grave (Robert Galbraith)

The Return of the King (J.R.R. Tolkien)

Caveat Emptor (Ruth Downie)

La's Orchestra Saves the World (Alexander McCall Smith)

Beijing Rules (Bethany Allen)

October

La Dame Aux Camelias (Alexandre Dumas)

A Perfect Spy (John LeCarre)

Candide (Voltaire)

How Far to the Promised Land? (Esau McCaulley)

Animal Farm (George Orwell)

To the Land of Long Lost Friends (Alexander McCall Smith)

Semper Fidelis (Ruth Downie)

Swamp Story (Dave Barry)

His Majesty's Airship (S.C. Gwynne)

Tabula Rasa (Ruth Downie)

How to Raise an Elephant (Alexander McCall Smith)

Vita Brevis (Ruth Downie)

November

Eight Hundred Grapes (Laura Dave)

The Firm (John Grisham)

44 Scotland Street (Alexander McCall Smith)

Scarcity Brain (Michael Easter)

The Armor of Light (Ken Follett)

The Joy and Light Bus Company (Alexander McCall Smith)

Life Sentence (Mark Bowden)

Whose Body? (Dorothy Sayers)

Out of My Life and Thoughts (Albert Schweitzer)

The Woman They Could Not Silence (Kate Moore)

New Hampshire (Robert Frost)

Memento Mori (Ruth Downie)

Henry V (William Shakespeare)

Clouds of Witnesses (Dorothy Sayers)

A Song of Comfortable Chairs (Alexander McCall Smith)

December

Sharpe's Waterloo (Bernard Cornwell)

West-Running Brook (Robert Frost)

Prima Fracie (Ruth Downie)

Unnatural Death (Dorothy Sayers)

Sharpe's Devil (Bernard Cornwell)

A Further Range (Robert Frost)

The Mystery Guest (Nita Prose)

Death on the Downbeat (Sebastian Farr)

A Witness Tree (Robert Frost)

Krakatoa (Simon Winchester)

The Sea of Grass (Conrad Richter)

Cry, the Beloved Country (Alan Paton)

Sharpe's Assassin (Bernard Cornwell)

Lord Peter Views the Body (Dorothy Sayers)

The Sicilian (Mario Puzo)

The Steeple Bush (Robert Frost)

The Unpleasantness at the Bellona Club (Dorothy Sayers)

A Wreath for the Enemy (Pamela Frankau)

Espresso Tales (Alexander McCall Smith)

In the Clearing (Robert Frost)

Love Over Scotland (Alexander McCall Smith)

Jeopardy!

 I keep a list of saved eBay purchases (mostly as a way of buying trumpet mouthpieces cheaply) and one of them is for "Rochester Americans jersey." Amerks jerseys are over $200 a pop at the team store, so it's important to snatch one up for the boys when you can get one for $20. I snagged one last week and it arrived this afternoon.

"Who are you going to give it to?" J asked. "Is it a good size for one of them in particular?"

"I know what I'll do! I'll make a quiz tournament based on their school, and whoever wins can win the jersey."

In J's defense, she warned me off. She then warned me off again when James hid in his room upon hearing the news in fear that "he would be a failure" if he didn't end up winning the jersey. 

"No," I reassured him, "it's just going to be a fun way to figure out who gets to unwrap one extra Christmas present!"

It was a modified version of Jeopardy. For one thing, it wasn't strictly questions for answers. There was only one "round" before Final Jeopardy, and everyone had a clue (age and grade appropriate) for each category.

Here was our board:

• LANGUAGE

         200 Felix: A person, place, thing, or idea

                Owen: Takes the place of a noun

                James: Expresses a complete thought, starts with a capital letter, ends with a punctuation                         mark

        400  Felix: A special person, place, thing, or idea, that always starts with a capital letter

                Owen: A, an, the

                James: Proposition, converse, inverse, and this

        600  Felix: Does an action

                Owen: The exact words a person says are enclosed in these marks

                James: The meaning of a pyramid made of three dots in logical notation

        800  Felix: Our home address

                Owen: The four types of sentences

                James: The meaning of P, right facing arrow, Q in logical notation

        1000 Felix: Dad's phone number

                Owen: In direct quotation that starts a sentence, periods are replaced by these marks

                James: And, but, and or

• LATIN/SIGHT WORDS

        200  Felix: "the"

                Owen: amo

                James: How the future perfect is formed

        400  Felix: "and"

                Owen: laudo

                James: res

        600  Felix: "but"

                Owen: pax

                James: clamo

        800  Felix: "cape"

                Owen: war (in Latin)

                James: translation of "in umbra, igitur, pugnabimus"

        1000 Felix: "bare"

                Owen: ablative singular ending, 2nd declension masculine

                James: city (in Latin)

• SCIENCE

        200  Felix: Blood type (warm or cold) of cats

                Owen: Atoms are made up of protons, electrons, and this particle

                James: The eight planets of our solar system in order

        400  Felix: A mammal that lives in the ocean

                Owen: Elements are arranged on this type of chart

                James: Spiral and elliptical are types of these

        600  Felix: A carnivore eats this type of food

                Owen: A reason why you wouldn't want to keep uranium in your bedroom

                James: The hottest planet in the solar system

        800  Felix: Amphibians live in what type of environment?

                Owen: These non-reactive gases aren't royal, but they are in the upper right hand corner of                     the periodic table

                James: Aquarius, Capricorn, and Sagittarius are all members of this group of constellations

        1000 Felix: Vertebrates have this type of bone

                Owen: (Daily Double) Iron turns into rust by this process

                James: More meteorites strike Mars than Earth because Mars lacks this feature

• HISTORY

          200 Felix: This pharaoh was discovered intact by Howard Carter

                 Owen: This president saved the Union during the American Civil War

                 James: Peter the Great modernized this cold country in his reign from 1613-1725

            400 Felix: This African folk hero was a spider

                    Owen: Under Otto von Bismarck Prussia, parts of Austria, and Alsace-Lorraine became                         this new country

                    James: English protestants ruled Catholics in this unwilling neighboring country...

            600  Felix: This Egyptian god was tricked into a coffin that he thought was a box

                    Owen: This ailing empire was called "The Sick Man of Europe"

                    James: The time of Locke, Leibnitz, and Descartes was known as the Age of this

            800  Felix: This biblical patriarch had a baby when he was 100 years old...

                    Owen: Japan was opened up to the West when this showed up in its harbor...

                    James: The shining Louis XIV of France was known as this king

            1000 Felix: (Daily Double) This Egyptian woman wore a false beard and pretended to be a                                 man in her reign as pharaoh

                    Owen: By this type of transportation thousands of people moved to California and                                     Oregon in the nineteenth century

                    James: (Daily Double) The names of all fifty states and their capitals

            

• MATH

        200  Felix: Half of thirty

                Owen: 306-202

                James: The perimeter in millimeters of a square that has a side measuring 2.3 centimeters

        400  Felix: 12-7

                Owen: The number of days in September

                James: The meaning of the Roman numeral XLV

        600  Felix: 20 plus 21

                Owen: 6 times 8

                James: Products are the answers to these sorts of problems

        800  Felix: The hand tells the hour on an analog clock

                Owen: The area of a square whose sides measure 4 inches

                James: A dividend has this function in a division sentence

        1000 Felix: 12 split into 3 equal parts

                Owen: 2 squared plus 2 cubed

                James: The value of 8w if 8w is equal to 64

• SPELLING

        200  Felix: hat

                Owen: adventure

                James: scientist

        400  Felix: jump

                Owen: sweater

                James: slightest

        600  Felix: clap

                Owen: bought

                James: counselor

        800  Felix: ball

                Owen: antelope    

                James: chocolate

        1000 Felix: Quincy

                Owen: chestnut

                James: serious

The game was close enough by the time that we came to the end that everyone was still in play for the Final Jeopardy clue, which was:

FINAL JEOPARDY: What is an adverb?

The kids had a great time playing and were all deeply supportive of Felix, who ended up winning the jersey.

Just kidding, of course. James was in tears at the beginning of the game after missing his first question, and Owen went and hid in his room after he realized that he wasn't going to be able to win with his Final Jeopardy answer (which, to his credit, he got correct...) and both of them told me that this was a terrible idea and that we should never, ever do it again.

"Why would you do this to us?" they asked, sobbing into their dinner.

"Because I was trying to do something nice for my kids?"

"I think it was nice!" said Felix, dancing in his new jersey

"PROMISE us that we will never do this again!"

I promise.

Preached at GPC July 23rd

 Matthew 13:24-30, 36-43

13:24 He put before them another parable: "The kingdom of heaven may be compared to someone who sowed good seed in his field;

13:25 but while everybody was asleep, an enemy came and sowed weeds among the wheat, and then went away.

13:26 So when the plants came up and bore grain, then the weeds appeared as well.

13:27 And the slaves of the householder came and said to him, 'Master, did you not sow good seed in your field? Where, then, did these weeds come from?'

13:28 He answered, 'An enemy has done this.' The slaves said to him, 'Then do you want us to go and gather them?'

13:29 But he replied, 'No; for in gathering the weeds you would uproot the wheat along with them.

13:30 Let both of them grow together until the harvest; and at harvest time I will tell the reapers, Collect the weeds first and bind them in bundles to be burned, but gather the wheat into my barn.'"

13:36 Then he left the crowds and went into the house. And his disciples approached him, saying, "Explain to us the parable of the weeds of the field."

13:37 He answered, "The one who sows the good seed is the Son of Man;

13:38 the field is the world, and the good seed are the children of the kingdom; the weeds are the children of the evil one,

13:39 and the enemy who sowed them is the devil; the harvest is the end of the age, and the reapers are angels.

13:40 Just as the weeds are collected and burned up with fire, so will it be at the end of the age.

13:41 The Son of Man will send his angels, and they will collect out of his kingdom all causes of sin and all evildoers,

13:42 and they will throw them into the furnace of fire, where there will be weeping and gnashing of teeth.

13:43 Then the righteous will shine like the sun in the kingdom of their Father. Let anyone with ears listen!

In the summer of 2009 my brother Lucas and my sister Martha were Vacation Bible School volunteers at Albion Free Methodist Church, the church I grew up in. They were assigned to the Kindergarten class, running the little ones around in camp games and distributing the dixie cups of fruit punch and the Keebler elf cookies. They sang the camp songs, practiced the camp dances, and ran the kids in laps around the (unairconditioned) sanctuary. Near the end of the afternoon, with the horde of sugared children wound up to their highest pitch, the team leader lined up the Kindergartners in front of the altar rail and asked them in her most excited voice about some of the details of the bible stories they had learned that day. And then, summing up another great day of VBS, she asked expectantly, “And who is it that made you and named you and loves you so much? His name starts with a ‘G’!”

To which the whole line of kindergartners eagerly shouted out, “GEE-sus!”

I remember participating in those muggy VBS weeks and sitting up at that same altar rail for children’s sermons, and the correct answer always was “Jesus” or “God.” And you couldn’t go wrong with “Love” either. Because Jesus was always the right answer to any question in any children’s moment, something peculiar happened: the fact that Jesus of Nazareth was a real man who really lived in an actual place at a particular moment in history escaped me for many years. I knew his name was the right answer, but I forgot that the name belonged to a real person, until that truth landed on me with a startling bump.

The name “Jesus” for me, and for (I imagine) many others who grow up in the school of flannelgraphs, had collapsed into an impersonal term of unspecific beneficence. “Jesus” was the failsafe correct answer when your youth pastor suddenly asked you a question when you weren’t paying attention. “Jesus” was the magic word that transformed an otherwise secular pop song into Christian contemporary music (and therefore safe for consumption) when inserted in lyrics that were otherwise indistinguishable from hormonal teenage longing. “What Would Jesus Do?” was the question (without having first asked any other important questions about who on earth Jesus was) that became the simplified form of the Categorical Imperative in moral philosophy. Whatever was the best thing to do is was Jesus would do, of course…because Jesus was to us more an idea than a person. He was a theistic principle, not a middle eastern looking man with actual earwax. Asking what Jesus would do without putting any conscious thought into who Jesus actually was led to buttering up pious grownups by calling them Christlike. What a compliment, to say that someone is like Jesus!

But like Jesus how? In their being single? In their cagey secrecy about their actual identity? In their open defiance of societal norms? In their violent public outbursts and even more violent death? Their manufacture of high quality wine?

So the name “Jesus” was then to me little more than what it was to those VBS Kindergartners. A good answer to any complex question I couldn’t be bothered to weigh properly. Starts with a G, I think. And even scarier than the ignorance involved in such thinking was the subtle way in which I was beginning to draw the outline of a man named Jesus who looked nothing like the Jesus who appeared in the Bible. A white Jesus who reminded me of my favorite grownups and who would fit comfortably at the center of my life’s religious experience so far.

Now, two quick disclaimers. If there is a way to teach faith to children without something like this happening, I don’t know how to do it. All human beings make god in their own image to some extent, and the best we can hope for is to be aware that we will be tempted to do so and then to have the humility and humor to name it as it happens. Also, thank goodness for those brave enough to attempt religious instruction of the young in our own congregation—Carrie Dykes, you do an amazing job. If my kids think that that you spell with Jesus with a G, or if they blankly volunteer his name when you ask them a question they aren’t expecting, that isn’t on you.

The man Jesus, who really had earwax and blisters and facial hair and fingernails, told over 40 parables in the gospels. Some of them, like the Good Samaritan, are marvelous moral lessons. As an answer to the question “Who is my neighbor?”, how could you possibly tell a better story? Other parables, like the dishonest manager who reduces all the accounts in arrears to his master so that he won’t have to dig ditches, are more obscure. Let’s get into today’s parable. What I love about today’s parable, the parable of the sower, is that we don’t just get the story. We get the story in verses 24-30, and then in verses 36-43 we get Jesus’ explanation of the story. And in explaining what he meant by the story, we get a window through which we can look at Jesus himself. Jesus the man. Jesus the man whose voice had a real timbre, Jesus the human being who would have had a preference between green olives and black olives.

I’m particularly interested in what Jesus’ explanation of his parable tells us about his worldview. A quick word on what that word means—several of my friends and acquaintances were sent to Christian worldview camps in their youth, which, from what I understand, were attempts to teach a systematic Christian theology that could be used to critique modern American secularism. No comment on whether or not that’s a good idea, but that use of the word “worldview”—a system of philosophical beliefs--is not what we’re interested in here.

What we are interested in are the symbols, praxis, stories, and questions that taken together would allow a system of beliefs (or a system of unbelief) to cohere. Worldviews, in other words, are not what we “look at” intellectually when we think about the world. They are the eyeglasses through which we “look at” or “think at” our problems, neighbors, enemies, work, celebrations, crises, etc. The questions that form a worldview are “Who are we?” “Where are we?” “What is wrong?” “What is the solution?” and “What time is it?”

Right away in Jesus’ explanation of his parable there is a critical word in what he calls the children of the “kingdom”—basileia. Basileus means “king” in Greek (the feminine-queen-is Basile), so it makes sense to translate basileia as “kingdom,” just like king and kingdom are cognate words in English. The children of the basileia are the children of the kingdom. But in the Jewish context of Jesus’ day (and in the prayer that he taught us to pray—may your basieleian come on Earth as it is in heaven) the idea of God’s kingdom is neither a purely political nor purely religious idea. It is the completion of a story, the story of God reigning on earth (enthroned in the temple in Jerusalem) instead of the Romans, instead of the false King Herod—putting to right all of the injustices since the Babylonian exile, and fulfilling the promises that he made. Israel’s god becoming king in this way is a vindication of all the suffering of the Jewish people at the hands of every pagan polytheist who ever oppressed them.

When Jesus tells us to pray “may your kingdom come on earth as it is in heaven,” the idea is more like the true king coming to sit on the throne of Gondor (from Lord of the Rings) than of hoping for something good and vaguely religious to happen. This is a promised real-world political shift that will put right all the “What is the problem?” questions in Jesus’ worldview—the problem is establishing God’s basileia. Jesus goes to great pains in his parables to explain what this reign will be like—like a pearl, like a woman with ten coins, like a lost sheep, like ten virgins with lamps, like a treasure hidden in a field, like a mustard seed, like seed scattered on the ground. And Jesus’ story of about the being children of the basileia tells us where we are too—God is supposed to be king here in this land, and of these people, but something has gone wrong.

Against the children of the basilean are the children of evil, or possibly the children of the evil one. The one who sows them is the devil. Some religious traditions talk a lot about spiritual warfare, but in our church the only time that we consistently mention that name is at baptism, where we answer that, yes, we do reject the devil and his works. That bit of language feels like something we’ve outgrown, a childhood terror that we’ve realized we don’t need to take seriously—who is still scared of the cape and the horns and cloven feet?

But in Jesus’ worldview the devil is a real player, and his threat is credible. Jesus believes and consistently references a malignant dark power actively and intelligently working against God’s purposes of establishing God’s reign. In last weeks’ story, the parable of the four types of seeds, Jesus suggests that the devil actually murders some of those who hear the word. In today’s parable Jesus says that the devil has pulled off a trick—by planting a weed known as darnel, or the cockle, or tares. Lolium temulentum is difficult to distinguish from wheat until fully ripened. (Wheat will ripen into the golden-brown color we all know, darnel ripens black.) Darnel is mildly poisonous, causing symptoms of intoxication if ingested. “What is the problem?” in Jesus worldview? It’s hard to tell the difference between the children of the kingdom and the children of the devil. There is not only moral confusion, but outright sabotage. An English king in the 11^th century (probably drawing from this parable) used this analogy of darnel among the wheat as an excuse to massacre Danish nationals living in Oxford and suspected of being foreign spies—indistinguishable from the other students but politically poisonous. (It was 1002, the St. Brice’s Day massacre, and the king was Aethelred the Unready—we may have improved dentistry and nutrition and infant mortality since the 11^th century, but they were better at nicknaming politicians.)

Our worldview, the glasses through which we see our world, has passed through the deism of the Enlightenment. We are all familiar with the idea (whether we believe it or not) of God as a clockmaker who wound the universe up from far away, and who has set it up to run under the power of its own mechanism of mathematically accessible physical principles. If that worldview has little room for a devil, it has even less room for angels, except as decorations at Christmastime. Again, however, they feature prominently in Jesus’ worldview, not only as messengers, but as active participants in the climactic events that Jesus regards as imminent. “What time is it?” Jesus speaks repeatedly throughout the gospels of some climactic time being near, a harvest needing to be gathered, and he calls out direful warnings to pregnant women and nursing mothers. Jesus says it is the time for multiple heavenly forces to intervene supernaturally in human affairs to bring about God’s kingdom.

This worldview is apocalyptic—not in the sense that was popularized in bad Christian fiction by bending the book of Revelation into uncomfortable shapes, but in the sense that it presupposed an apokalypsis—a climactic revealing event--was at hand. Jesus was not the only first century Jew to read his times in this way. Judas of Galilee, Simon bar Kokhba, Simon of Peraea, and Athrongaius all claimed that they were anointed by God to bring about God’s basileia, to cleanse the temple and throw off the Romans, and they announced God’s vindication of his suffering faithful was imminent. We probably don’t talk enough about how different Jesus was from these other apocalyptic Messiahs—about his warnings that the fanaticism of the zealots of Pharisees would bring the full military force of Rome down on the Holy Land and the temple with catastrophic consequences. Jesus’ message of peace was different—but he was very much like these other messianic figures in that he believed his ministry was taking place at the crucial hour, and that he himself would have the central role in the drama that was to unfold

At that revealing—the great harvest, or judgement—or, separating of sheep and goats, or rendering of accounts as he calls it in other parables—Jesus says all skandala (causes to sin) will be removed and those practicing lawlessness (or, anomia) will be judged. The idea of lawlessness doesn’t mean to Jesus that there will be judgment on those from the wild west. This is language about those without torah—the torah being the Jewish law. Jesus is dipping into the language that the violent revolutionaries around him would have been using to call to arms against Herodians, against the Romans, against the pagans who don’t observe torah. Elsewhere is Jesus’ ministry we hear how it is the meek, the sick, the poor, and the unexpected outsiders who are actually keeping torah, but naming God’s judgment against those who don’t keep torah--this is unexpectedly divisive language from someone who in our tradition we take as our model of radical welcome.

Although it is, in the present moment, hard to tell the difference between the good wheat and the potentially poisonous counterfeit, all will be made clear when it is burned in fire—burned by a purifying fire. The children of the evil one are thrown in the fire. (Again, this is not the kind Jesus we would have made in our own image.) And finally, after all this startling sabotage and fire and violence, what is the telos, the end of Jesus’ worldview? What is the answer to the question, where are we going? That the children of the basileia will shine forth like the sun in their father’s kingdom.

This brown man, this man with earwax and fingernails and blisters…his worldview does not fit as a pat answer to the question “what is the best possible set of beliefs to have about the world?” Engaging with what Jesus actually thought about the world, completely apart from the question of whether there is a devil sowing darnel among us, or whether there is imminent hellfire—is a bit like our Old Testament reading from this morning. We are wrestling with a stranger in the dark. We can smell his breath and feel the strength of his body, and it’s uncomfortable for us. But it’s good for us. It’s real.

There is one question that we can give the answer “Jesus” to with assurance. How DOES God establish himself as king, reigning on earth as in heaven? The answer is this man that we see dimly, with difficulty, working out with prayer over centuries what exactly his story meant. When this man, convinced that a disastrous end is coming to his people, worked by a diabolical power, assisted by angels, against those that don’t keep torah, is faithful to the task God has called him to and to the renewed torah God has given him to preach….when he is obedient to death, then new creation starts, and not only the devil but death and Hell are beaten. May Jesus, our Lord and our God, but also our man, continue to reveal who he was and is to each of us. Amen.

Quotable Kids

 "Hey, what's in this bag?"

"It's a bag of money for your fish banks, but don't touch it. It's just in a ziploc, and there are probably five pounds of coins in there, so if you take it out then they are going to spill everywhere."

"This is our to KEEP? We're rich!"

"No you aren't. That money is to put in your fish banks so that you can give it back at the church fundraiser."

"Well, we don't have to give away all of it, right? Can we keep most of it for buying LEGOS?"

"We're going to give away all of it."

"Owen isn't letting me have a turn holding the bag of treasure!"

"Stop grabbing it, Felix! Besides, we're only going to get to keep some of it!"

"You aren't going to get to keep any of it. And put it back in the grocery bag, please, or it's going to spill all over."

"But why did you get us a bag of this treasure if we couldn't keep most of it?"

"I didn't. But Ms. Christy from church thought it would be a good idea for you to have some coins to put in your fishbanks for needy kids."

"I need LEGOS..can some of the money be for me?"

"Owen stole the treasure back from me! My turn wasn't very long!"

"Neither of you should be touching it. Please put it back in the grocery bag."

"Hey, we're home! I'll bring it in the treasure and keep it in my room, Dad!"

<Ziploc bag, which he is holding upside down, bursts and scatters coins all over the garage as soon as he steps out of the van.>

........................

"Dad, can I write this letter in cursive?"

"You could, Felix, but I don't think that you know how to write in cursive."

"Right, but I don't want to write the letter in regular writing, because that isn't fancy enough. So I'll fix it into cursive once you write it for me in regular."

........................

"Dad, look, I made all of my numbers clockwise in my math!"

"Okay, Felix...does that mean that you are starting to make all of your numbers by starting at the top and going down, like we've talked about?"

"No, it means that I wrote them clockwise!"

"I'm not sure that you can make all of the numbers clockwise and still write them correctly."

"Well, I did!"

<Holds up a sheet of paper in which he has printed all of his math answers using only even-length horizontal and vertical strokes...just like the digits that appear on the digital clock in his room.>

...................

"Wait, so the Mandalorian never takes off his helmet? But what about when he needs to take naps? How does he suck his fingers?"

.....................

ME: "Boys, tonight is a special treat. Mom and I were going to have a date and eat a very fancy meal called Beef Wellington. You were going to have a frozen pizza and be sent to bed early, but then Mom got a stomach bug. I didn't want to waste this cut of really expensive beef, so I'm inviting YOU three to share this fancy meal with me. I put out candles like Mom and I usually have, and we are using real napkins and our best gold spoons, forks, and knives. I expect you to act like gentlemen, and we're going to have a fancy meal...beef wellington with a horseradish cream sauce, and blanched asparagus. Are you boys read to have a nice, grown-up meal?"

JAMES: "Hey, here's a challenge! Do you think I can blow out one of those candles using only my nose?"