Happy Anniversary - 10 Years!

10 years ago today Sherry and I held hands running across the finish line at the Honolulu Marathon. Yesterday 10 years ago Sherry and I celebrated her birthday at the Hard Rock Cafe in Lahaina. Today, 10 years ago Sherry and I were married at Papakea Resort just north of Ka'anapali on Maui.

It's amazing how quickly the time goes by, and our lives have changed - yet we remain in love and grateful for the gift of each other's support and commitment as through this life we travel! There seems to be a pattern in marriage, where at some point there is a "tipping" if you will where we acknowledge the passion experienced early now finds it's counterbalance in stability and supportiveness for each other. That's the way we feel - safe, secure and comforted as we continue to learn about each other, even after a decade of being together. I think about our vows, how much they did and how much they still mean. Have I fulfilled all of these? Certainly not! But I continue to let them provide direction and substance to our life together.

1. I promise to give you the best of myself and to ask of you no more than you can give.
2. I promise to respect you as your own person and to realize that your interests, desires and needs are no less important than my own.
3. I promise to share with you my time and attention and to bring joy, strength and imagination to our relationship.
4. I promise to keep myself open to you, to let you see through the window of my world into my innermost fears and feelings, secrets and dreams.
5. I promise to grow along with you - to be willing to face changes in order to keep our friendship alive and exciting.
6. I promise to seek God's will and praise him continually with you as we discover all He has for us.
7. I promise to love you in good times and bad, in sickness and in health, for richer and for poorer, with all I have to give and all I feel inside in the only way I know how - completely and forever.
   

What have I learned in 10 years of marriage? A whole lot! And not enough! I suppose I could ramble on for pages. But one thing that sticks out is how similar and how different we are. We had rented a tandem on Maui, and our plan was to ride it from Lahaina to Kihei, eat lunch and come back. If I recall correctly it was about 20 miles to Kihei. Our tandem was lettered Fred on the front seat tube, and Wilma on the back seat tube. We took off and immediately had problems. I would not communicate with Sherry. She needed to know when I was slowing, stopping, accelerating or shifting. And for shifting she wanted to know if I was upshifting our downshifting. We got into an argument, and then finally developed a good steady pace, augmented by communication.

I should tell you that I was training for a triathlon scheduled the week after we arrived home. In my vision for the day I decided we would ride aggressively and get some good training in. In Sherry's view of the day we would have a leisurely ride as we enjoyed the sights. Naturally, we got into an argument. We managed to get through that and made our way to Kihei. I had thought of a fast food lunch, as people really do go to Maui for the Taco Bell, right? Wrong. At least in Sherry's view. So, we got into an argument. Well, we managed to agree on lunch and then made our way back to Kihei. About three quarters of the way we decided to change positions and let Sherry captain the tandem. We started again, and I still wanted to control the bike. Yes, we got into an argument. Then, we realized how stupid it all was - here we are in one of the most beautiful places on earth, arguing all day and missing the moment entirely. We started (no, not arguing!) laughing until tears were rolling down our cheeks at the absurdity of it all.

Why do I tell you this? The card I picked for Sherry showed a little happy cartoon of a husband and wife on a tandem with the inscription that says Happy Anniversary Sweetheart! On the inside it says "we make a good team". And we do! But not in the way we would ever imagine. You see, we will make it to the finish line. And we will do it as a team. But I've found that I will never be Sherry and she will never be me (duhhhh). Our similarities drew us together, and our differences rather than dividing create the opportunity for the miracle that love is to flourish in our lives. Yes, we will make it to the finish line. Together. With Sherry on her bike, and me on mine!

I love you sweetie.

Bong Hits 4 Jesus

Now that's an evangelistic approach! I suppose the temptations of the cult of the cannabis extend back thousands of years, even to Old Testament era where a pagan king got Daniel high. OK, all bad puns aside the situation is this:

It all started in 2002, when high school senior Joseph Frederick unfurled a 14-foot banner reading "Bong Hits 4 Jesus" during a field trip to watch the Olympic torch pass through Juneau, Alaska. His Principal at the time, Deborah Morse, tore down the sign and suspended him for 10 days.

Now, to the uninitiated I might add that a bong is a device used to smoke marijuana or hashish through a water filled container. I might add that is what we used a bong for in the 1970's, I'm not sure (and this is a good thing!) if bongs are even used today, or if so what for.

Anyway, Frederick sued alleging that his freedom of speech had been violated. Despite failing locally, in March of this year the U.S. 9th Circuit Court of Appeals agreed with him, ruling that school officials may not "punish and censor non-disruptive" speech by students at school-sponsored events simply because they object to the message.

But guess who stood up the 9th Circuit Court? None less than the Whitewater Superstarr Kenneth Starr! He urged the court to re-examine the decision. According to his petition

"this case presents the Court with a much-needed opportunity to resolve a sharp conflict among federal courts (and to eliminate confusion on the part of school boards, administrators, teachers, and students) over whether the First Amendment permits regulation of student speech when such speech is advocating or making light of illegal substances."

But as Emil Steiner asks, is it just about "illegal substances" or could this ruling allow schools to tear down any banners they don't like? What about these scenarios, would the banner be OK?

• Guns 4 Jesus
• Cigarettes 4 Jesus
• Doctor Prescribed Oxycontin 4 Jesus
  

That's a great question Emil! The center of the tumult involves free speech and it's relationship to illegal substances. But what if the banner said something like this:

• High School Seniors 4 Jesus
  

Or what if the subject and object of the phrase were reversed?

• Jesus 4 Bong Hits
  

Unless Jesus was declared to be an illegal substance, those would likely only create a tumult within the catholic (little 'c') church. But wouldn't it be fun to see Starr get wrapped up in that? Replay the famous definition of what the word "is" is and you can see this get to be entertaining real fast!

Well, although I would never condone taking a bong hit for Jesus some other things that are done "4 Jesus" have resulted in legal action.

In Crown Point Indiana as the AP reported February 18, 2002 four families sued a a church whose leaders they say forced their children to drink a mix of dog food, salsa, sauerkraut, sardines, potted meat, eggnog and cottage cheese. A youth pastor who organized the New Year's Eve event for teen-agers said the "gross-out" contest was for laughs and no one was forced to ingest the mixture that had been chewed and spit out. Sandra Gomez whose 13-year-old son won $50 for drinking the mixture, said the boy developed diarrhea and stomach cramps and was sick for about a week.

Sounds like a made for TV situation, doesn't it:

FEAR FACTOR 4 JESUS!

Book Review - Everyman

Philip Roth brings us a small (182 page) book with a big meaning. Although Benjamin Franklin is who the following quote is attributed to, a variant was also used by Daniel Defoe prior to Franklin. Franklin's version is the one that we are most familiar with:

"In this world nothing can be said to be certain, except death and taxes."

Well, this book is not about taxes, and the last time I checked the death rate still averaged about one per person. A curious aspect of the book is that the central figure is never named. The book begins at his funeral, then re-starts with the recollections of Everyman's childhood. The transition is accomplished naturally and smoothly, and is an example of Roth's capable skills as a writer. Oddly enough, there are parallels to my own father in this book. The first is that as a young boy Everyman is hospitalized for a hernia, and next to him is another boy who dies in the middle of the night. This same exact experience happened to my father, where in Minneapolis he was admitted to a hospital (I believe for complications due to asthma) where a young boy in the bed next to him passed away. I think these brushes with death remind us all of how frail and quick life can be.

In my own childhood I had a neighbor kid who I hung out with for a brief time. Oddly enough, I don't remember his name! I suppose forty years of time can do that. Following the method set by Roth, I'll call him Everyboy. Either his family or our family moved, creating the natural rift we all experience when our relational circles change. Word came to me that he had been killed riding his bike, as he was crossing a street a car ran him over. It was an odd moment for me, that I would never ride bikes with him again. Even at that young age (I'm guess I was about 8) I was impacted by death.

Well, so was Everyman. During his childhood he views a dead sailor washed up on the shore being removed by the Coast Guard. Roth then takes us in a jump over time, simply stating without any qualification that 22 years had passed. We journey through Everyman's failed marriages, estrangement from his sons, and both love and envy regarding his brother who exhibited superior health. Through various ailments we hear Everyman's facing his mortality with statements like this:

"...but now eluding death seemed to become the central business of his life and bodily decay his entire story".

After his successful career, he takes up a lifelong passion - being an artist. This is the second parallel to my own father. Dad worked at various jobs his whole life, and now is doing what he has always wanted to do - teaching art to children. Everyman offers painting classes to other members in his retirement community, and befriends a woman who bemoans her loss of vitality and is apologetic for the physical needs she has. He tries to comfort her, but 10 days later she commits suicide with an overdose of pain medication. It is an interesting scene, where the one thing that brings relief to her life is also used as the contributor of her death.

As I read through the book, a dawning thought began to take hold of me - the central figure of this book is not Everyman, it is death and its predecessor, the decline of health as age stalks us all. Although Roth does not invest in anthropomorphic comparisions of death, the theme emerges and is always tied to the thoughts, words and actions of the figures in the book.

I suppose that the two great literary themes are love and death. In the book "The Question of God" by Dr. Armand M. Nicholi Jr. postulates a debate between Sigmund Freud and C.S. Lewis. In it Nicholi asks the age old question:

"How do we resolve and come to terms with what Freud called "the painful riddle of death"? Socrates said "the true philosopher is always pursuing death and dying".

Roth's answer is that as Everyman is being prepped for yet another surgery, under the effect of the anasthetic; he dreams about the vitality of his youth, the treasure of a summer day at the seashore, the perfect priceless planet that earth is and his excitement and longing to enjoy every day. Roth describes how

"He went under feeling far from felled, anything but doomed, eager yet again to be fulfilled, but nonetheless, he never woke up. Cardiac arrest. He was no more, freed from being, entering into nowhere without even knowing it. Just as he'd feared from the start"

The question we ask is this: if we came from nothing, and we end in nothing, why do our lives mean something? In not only the Christian worldview but other religions as well, death is NOT the end of existence. But Roths seems to think so.

GRADE:

1. Literary - A+. Roth communicates his ideas fluidly and cohesively. This is an easy reading book where concepts do not need equivocation.
2. Worldview - F. Roth communicates his ideas fluidly and cohesively. Unfortunately, this is not the worldview that I espouse!
   

Name my Band

I have a recurring fantasy where I'm a rock star. With my long mane of hair whipping around as my fingers move so fast on the stratocaster that Eddie Van Halen would be purple with envy I'd fill arenas all across America. There are some hilarious and creative names for rock groups, my favorite being Rick Digger and the Refried Loquats.

It would be kind of hard though to hold on to my modest values and be a superstar at the same time. Therefore, instead of making people pay to come to my concerts, I'll pay them to come to my concerts! My co-workers would probably be in agreement that that's the only way I'll ever get to sing in public anyway.

I was walking Kadie the wonder dog a few days ago and looking at Christmas decorations. I noticed this big inflatable Santa who had apparently sprung a leak and was sprawled across a roof looking like he had imbibed in a little too much holiday cheer. Suddenly a gust of wind caused one of his legs to move in a lifelike fashion, startling me. Then, Santa moved in a manner that suggested death was imminent and gave me inspiration for the name of my band:

Dave Mundt and the Dead Santas

Are you ready to rock? Coming soon to an arena near you!