Pick Chris's Reading List: The Russian Debutante's Handbook

It’s taken me far too long, but I have finally completed the second book on my user-suggested reading list: The Russian Debutante’s Handbook by Gary Shteyngart. Thanks to Geof for the recommendation.

Geof described Handbook as “Great absurdist immigrant fiction.” He was right. The Russian Debutante’s Handbook is a hilariously absurd story of a Russian immigrant living in New York. It follows the (mis)adventures in his personal and public lives as he deals with family and romantic relationships, jobs, and schemes. If it sounds like I’m grasping for the right words to describe the story, it’s because I am. This book was unlike pretty much anything else I’ve ever read. It was amusing and charmingly absurd. While I wouldn’t necessarily recommend it to all of my readers, if you’re looking for something different, this may just be the thing. Thanks again, Geof!

I’ll have to hit the library again this week to stock up for the trip to North Carolina. I’ll definitely grab a couple more from the list.

The Usual?

“The usual?”

That’s the question that was posed to me this morning. Now, it was just at the local Quik Trip store that’s on the way to work, but still, it made me think a bit.

The details of me having a “usual” are unremarkable. I am in the habit of stopping at that QT every morning on the way to work sometime between 6:30 and 7:00 AM. I have an older 52 oz mug that I fill with Diet Pepsi from the fountain. I usually add a shot of cherry syrup to sweeten it a bit. They upped the price on me several months ago; it now costs $0.93 once the state of Iowa taxes it.

So this morning I didn’t have to say “refill” or “yeah, it’s pop” (apparently some folks refill a 52 oz mug with coffee! Yikes!) - as I walked up to the counter, the guy said “just the usual?” and I said “yep” and handed him a dollar. Actually, I set the dollar on the counter; he was already pulling my seven cents of change out of the cash drawer.

There’s a word I’m heading towards here with this story, and that word is community. Now sure, maybe it’s a stretch to say that the Quik Trip guy knowing what I usually get is community. (Maybe it’d be better for me if I wasn’t drinking 50 oz of Diet Pepsi a day!) But when you start having consistency in an area to the point where you and your habits are known, and people start responding to you as a person they recognize, rather than just some random human they have to deal with today? That’s the start of an opportunity for a relationship; one that builds community and provides opportunities to interact about more meaningful things.

My hope is two-fold. First, that I will be a part of a community long enough that people will know me and what I am about. Second, that what I am about will be more meaningful than large daily doses of liquefied caffeine.

An Update

It’s been far too long since I’ve written much here on the blog; it’s been a busy week or two. While not a full remedy, a brief update will at least catch you up to speed on Chris’s life in December of 2006.

Christmas Shopping: I have finished buying for four people; I have three left to buy for. I know pretty much what I want to buy, just haven’t gotten to the store yet. I’ll try to finish up early this week; that’ll be the earliest I’ve ever finished Christmas shopping, I’m sure.

Book Reviews: For those of you who listed books for my reading list, I haven’t forgotten you. I’m still working through The Russian Debutante’s Handbook as recommended by Geof Morris. I nearly finished it last night, but sleep got the better of me. It’s due back at the library tomorrow, so I better finish it up tonight. It’s been an enjoyable read, definitely a change from my usual reading fare.

Church Stuff: I haven’t led music in a month now, and I finally realized yesterday how nice the break has been. This was the first Sunday that I actually just showed up for church without giving any thought or concern to whether the music team was lined up and prepared. And it went just fine. Next week will break the streak; I will be leading next Sunday.

Travel Plans: We leave a week from Wednesday (the 20th) for North Carolina. We will swing through Nashville to see Becky’s brother and then head to Charlotte to see Becky’s folks and sister/brother-in-law/niece. Should be a fun time, if the 20-hour drive doesn’t kill us. :-) We should be back home by the 30th or 31st.

Christmas break should provide some more time for posting - I’ll try, I promise! :-)

Swearing on the Koran

My mother-in-law asked the other day what I thought about this recent news story. In brief: Newly elected to the House of Representatives, Minnesota Democrat Keith Ellison has declared that when he is sworn in on January 4th, he will take the oath of office with his hand on a Koran instead of a Bible. Ellison is the first Muslim ever elected to Congress.

There have been varying reactions to Ellison’s decision. The loudest has been Dennis Prager on townhall.com, who declares that Ellison “…should not be allowed to do so – not because of any American hostility to the Koran, but because the act undermines American civilization.” A little more:

Forgive me, but America should not give a hoot what Keith Ellison’s favorite book is. Insofar as a member of Congress taking an oath to serve America and uphold its values is concerned, America is interested in only one book, the Bible. If you are incapable of taking an oath on that book, don’t serve in Congress. In your personal life, we will fight for your right to prefer any other book. We will even fight for your right to publish cartoons mocking our Bible. But, Mr. Ellison, America, not you, decides on what book its public servants take their oath.

Yesterday I was forwarded an email from the American Family Association that quoted the Prager column and then asked all the readers to

1. Send an email asking your U.S. Representative and Senators to pass a law making the Bible the book used in the swearing-in ceremony of Representatives and Senators.

2. Forward this email to your friends and family today!

So what is my reaction to all this?

Let’s deal with the easy one first. The AFA’s suggestion is clearly ridiculous. Any law passed by Congress requiring the oath to be taken on a Bible would be summarily rejected by the Supreme Court as an unconstitutional establishment of religion, and rightly so. Let’s just reverse the situation for a moment. Suppose a congressional majority of Muslims arose. Would I think it were then OK for them to mandate that all oaths be taken with a hand on the Koran? Of course not. Hence our protection of religious freedoms in the Constitution.

So then to the next question: what opinion do I have about Mr. Ellison’s intention? Let’s back up and look at the history of oath-taking in the USA. I’m sure I could go back further, but it’s easy to note that George Washington took the presidential oath of office on a Bible. Each President since then has taken the oath in similar fashion. The Bible is today used for oaths in a multitude of other circumstances, local and state offices, courtrooms.

In the initial case, President Washington used the Bible because he viewed it as a sacred book, and placing his hand on the Bible further solemnized the oath. Given the United States’ Christian heritage, this understandably became a tradition that continues to this day. My fear, though, is that somewhere through the years the solemnity imbued by the sacred text has faded into a tradition that carries little of its original weight. Let’s be certain of this: I’m all for politicians keeping their word. Too many these days seem to lose their care for ethics and the truth once they reach Washington; if any action can reinforce to them the need to keep their oath, so much the better. But it seems to me that if the Bible is being used simply as a traditional prop by those who don’t reverence it, it is more dishonoring than honoring to the Book. As one who believes the Bible to be the Word of God, that bothers me.

So where does that leave us? I have come to the conclusion that I don’t really care. I want Rep. Ellison and each of his fellow congressmen to honor the oaths that they take. If Rep. Ellison believes that the Koran will further solemnize his oath, I don’t have a problem with it. If a Christian congressman wants to use the Bible to solemnize his oath, he should use it. Personally, I’d prefer that if a person doesn’t respect or revere the Bible, they not use it at all. Let’s not turn the Holy Book into a prop.

An AP Concert Weekend

Last Friday Becky and I headed out to Omaha, NE to see Andrew Peterson’s Behold the Lamb of God tour. (OK, so it was officially in Elkorn, NE, but that’s just suburban Omaha these days.) My mom graciously agreed to come down and stay with the girls for a couple of days, so we got up Friday morning and headed west. A four-hour drive later we arrived in Omaha, checked into our hotel, ate some lunch, wandered around a mall, etc. Then we headed over to the church for the concert.

This is the second consecutive year that AP and company have played at Bethany Lutheran there in Elkhorn. It’s a beautiful church, a good venue for a concert like this. They were all decorated for Christmas, and their sanctuary, which seats by my estimate around 600 people, was nearly full. So, a good start.

As we were waiting in line for the doors to be opened, one of the organizers came by with little tour fliers and informed us that the artists would be doing a meet-and-greet in the church gym after the doors opened. So, we could go in, stake out a seat, then go “get an autograph”. Since I have 2 autographed posters from last year’s concert stop in Cedar Rapids, once more with a Sharpie didn’t interest me that much; but I was looking forward to greeting some of them who I haven’t seen since last year’s concert. Fortunately for me, there were few attendees for the meet-and-greet, which allowed me some time to talk to Andrew Peterson, Andy & Jill (Phillips) Gullahorn, Cason Cooley, Ben Shive, and to meet Eric Peters for the first time. I found Eric to be a very personable guy and had a good time chatting with him. I had two different fans come up to me and ask which band member I was. :-) As the meet-and-greet was wrapping up, Cason dug a basketball out of a closet and he and Eric and I shot hoops for a few minutes. Those guys have some game, but I could spank ’em if it came to it - they’re so short! (Props to Andy G for being the token tall guy on the tour, he’s my height; come to think of it, I guess AP is fairly tall as well. But Derek, Sandra, Cason, Eric, Jill? Short. All of em. :-) )

The concert itself was phenomenal as expected. The first half was the usual “rounds” of songs from each individual. Each time one of them finished a song, I was thinking “wow, that’s gonna be hard to top…”. And then the next person would come up and be just as good, if not better. The second half, as usual, was the Behold the Lamb of God album, played straight through. I will confess to missing Andy Osenga, who is back home in Nashville with his due-any-day wife, but Andy G filled in admirably on the electric guitar. Good stuff, all the way through. (If you’re not familiar with this album, you can stream it live from Andy’s website: www.andrew-peterson.com.)

After the concert I spent too much money at the merch table buying Christmas presents and a few albums to fill out my collection. They had a Square Peg Alliance t-shirt, but it came in only one color: Powder Blue. This guy doesn’t look good in Powder Blue. Maybe you can do a more neutral color next time, folks?

I’ve yet to download the pics from the camera to see if any of them turned out; if they did I’ll put them up on Flickr and link them here.

Something to think about...

“I’ve noticed that when God wants me to follow Him in a particular direction, He usually doesn’t get me to do it by sending people to scream at me, argue with me, threaten me or poke me with sticks. He does it by heading off in that direction and relying on my new heart’s desire to be with Him. Maybe we should try to be more like God when it comes to getting people to follow us.” – Jim Nicholson

[HT: BHT]

Pick Chris's Reading List: And Then There Were None

I’ve completed the first book off of my user-suggested reading list: And Then There Were None by Agatha Christie. Thanks to Heather for the recommendation!

This was my first time reading anything by Agatha Christie. My only previous exposure to her work was when I watched the movie adaption of Murder on the Orient Express. That seems to have been a good preparation; much of the style in the plot development seems similar between the two. The formula: introduce the characters, put them in a tightly-defined scenario. Provide a character to narrate and work the reader through the logical options in the whodunit. Get to the end of the story with no good answer. Then provide an epilogue that reveals the twist that makes it all clear. Formulaic or not, it works - it kept me up a ways past my bedtime to finish it last night.

And Then There Were None (originally titled Ten Little Indians) sets ten diverse characters on an isolated island. Their supposed “host” is nowhere to be found. One by one, the ten guests are killed… but who is killing them? This is the mystery, and it’s a good one.

A quick IMDB search shows that And Then There Were None has also been adapted into a movie at least three times; once in 1945, starring, most notably, Walter Huston. It was updated in 1965 and moved out of its original time period. Then it was remade once again in 1974, with a cast that included Sir Richard Attenborough. I haven’t seen any of these versions, but I will take a look next time I go to the video store. Might be interesting.

My next stop on the reading list: Gary Shteyngart’s The Russian Debutante’s Handbook, as recommended by Geof Morris.

Early in the Morning

The past two mornings Laura has decided there was a need to wake up about ten minutes to five; both times she had lost her pacifier and couldn’t get back to sleep. (We need to find the little attachment device for it again.) Both days this has been about 20 minutes before my alarm was set to go off anyway. Amazingly I’m not too tired yet from the lack of sleep.

What has been nice is that it’s had me up and ready to go hit the mini-MAC in the mornings. The MAC is our local athletic club, and while they chintz on their website (it’s hosted for free on… wait for it… Tripod! What is this, 1996?), their club locations are nothing to sneeze at. They just opened an “express” MAC about a mile from our house. You get a key card and 24/7 access. There are 8 or so each of treadmills, ellipticals, and bikes, and then a full Nautilus weight set. Each of the aerobic machines has a 13-inch LCD TV attached so you can plug in your headphones and choose your own channel. So far it’s worked pretty well to start the morning with a quick trip over to the MAC and a half hour on some machine. I did the elliptical this morning and I’m starting to feel it.

It’s now approaching 7:30 and the office is finally starting to wake up. I love getting in at 6:45 and having some quiet time to work in the mornings. I also love the fact that it facilitates my leaving work around 3:15 in the afternoon. :-) Having two girls under 3 years old has pretty much prevented any sleeping in these days, but I’m learning that it’s an OK thing - a morning is a terrible thing to waste.

Building Up Endurance

So how was your Thanksgiving? We spent the weekend in Wisconsin with my family at my parents’ place. It was the first time we’ve had everybody together in about a year. We ate far too much, shopped a little, played lots of Speed Scrabble, and I did some reading. We made it home last night about 5 PM, in time to get unpacked and get the girls to bed. It was a great time, wonderful to see everybody again.

Becky says we’re building up endurance for road trips over the next month or so. The trip to Wisconsin is only about a three-hour drive. Not too bad. Now this Friday we’re headed for Omaha (to see the Andrew Peterson Christmas concert!), which is just over four hours away. But those drives will all be wimpy in comparison to the road trip we’ll be taking in three weeks, a mere 20 hours to the great state of North Carolina. Fortunately, we’ll split it up over 3 days on the way down there, two 10-hour days plus a day in Nashville in between driving. By the time we get home on New Years’ we’ll be ready to stay home for a while, methinks.

I should note that I am not opposed to road trips - I have taken long ones in the past. But it’ll be a whole different experience with a 2-and-a-half-year-old and a nine-month-old occupying the two back seats in the van. We will get some mileage out of the portable DVD player for sure.

The road goes ever on and on…

A Time for Giving Thanks

With Thanksgiving being tomorrow, I thought I’d list a few things I’m thankful for. I encourage you to think about it and make your own list!

Family. I have had more opportunity this year to spend time with my brothers, sister, and parents than I have in several years. What a blessing to have a family that loves each other, loves God, enjoys making music together and living life together, and has so much fun doing all of it. Closer to home, nay, at home, we are one more in number than we were last Thanksgiving; it’s hard to believe little Addie Grace is over 8 months old now. What a blessing to have a loving wife and precious daughters.

Skilled Doctors. This one hit home a couple of weeks ago when I had to take Becky to the ER. It was one in the morning, she was very sick, I was very concerned and tired. What a blessing to have a wonderful nurse and doctor who were skilled and kind. That someone would pay for years of education just to get a job where they have to work overnights all so they can care for hurting people? Blessings on them.

God’s Provision. The leadership at Noelridge planned and encouraged a special Thanksgiving offering this year. We were all encouraged to seek God’s guidance in what He would have us give and then to trust Him to supply it. Our goal was $12,000, which is more than 3x what we receive on a normal Sunday, over and above regular giving. We took the offering last Sunday and the Lord provided over $15,000 in the special offering, on top of the regular offering. Praise Him!

Old Friends. Lydia and I were friends back in Jr High. When our family moved to Texas it pretty much put the damper on that and we drifted apart. I last saw her in 1994, and hadn’t heard from her in several years. But she tracked me down a couple of years ago and we have corresponded from time to time. Finally, last Sunday, she and her sister Candace made the three-hour trek from Illinois to Iowa to visit for a day. It was fun to meet Candace, to introduce Lydia to Becky and the girls, and to spend an afternoon catching up.

Good Music. Did you really think I could write a blog post without mentioning music of some sort? I will ridicule all the radio stations playing wall-to-wall Christmas music already, but I must confess I have had Christmas music of a sort playing repeatedly over the past few weeks. The sort in question isn’t your traditional Christmas stuff, but rather is Andrew Peterson’s wonderful Behold the Lamb of God. (You can stream the whole album from his website. Go listen to it.) The truth of the Christmas story told in an original way. Becky and I are headed to Omaha on December 1st to see Andrew and his huge cast of friends perform it. I can’t wait.

This is only the beginning of what could be a really long list. Lord, remind me to be thankful every day, not just once a year.