Six Flags Trip

We went to Six Flags for Jodi's Birthday. We had a great time.

Grackle Invasion

A flock of grackles descended on our yard this morning. It was way cool. There were thousands of them and they completely encircled our house. We enjoyed it the few minutes it lasted.

Christmas Morning 08

Ghillie Suit

David spent some of his Christmas money on this ghillie suit. And here's what Savannah, the southern girl, does on Christmas Eve.

The True Meaning of Christmas

My daughter and I watched a funny and wholesome TV movie the other day. It was a kids’ show on a kids’ network. Merry Christmas Drake and Josh on Nickelodeon. The plot was basically that one of them was playing Santa in a mall and promised a cute little girl, who was a foster child, the best Christmas ever.
The show was really funny and we enjoyed it, but there was a line that troubled me: one of the boys said, “What is Christmas all about? If I asked a hundred people, I suspect I would get a hundred different answers.”
Really? We can all have our own ideas of what Christmas is all about? Sure enough, the movie presented several wonderful things that we associate with Christmas, like snow and being with family and friends, but never mentioned the birth of Christ. He didn’t ask, “What does Christmas mean to you?” but “what is it all about?” Remember when Charlie Brown pondered the true meaning of Christmas and Linus quoted from the Christmas story found in the Bible? Well, that was 42 years ago. Today, the media seems afraid to offend anyone.
What is Christmas all about? According to the dictionary, Christmas is defined as: noun. 1. The Christian feast commemorating the birth of Jesus. 2. December 25, the day on which this feast is celebrated. From Old English Cristes Maesse, Christ’s Festival.
So Christmas is a celebration of the birth of Jesus. Its meaning is not open to any other interpretation.
Christmas has obviously become too big a deal for just one day. It is a whole season. And, as life would have it, there are several holidays and Holy days near this time. That’s okay. If Drake and Josh’s movie had been called Happy Holidays Drake and Josh, they might have asked about the true meaning of the holidays. A hundred people just might give a hundred different answers like Hanukah, Kwanzaa, lights, shopping, parties, or simply winter break. These are all perfectly wonderful events, but Christmas is about the birth of Christ.
Christmas is the 800-pound gorilla on the calendar. We plan our whole year around it then drop what we are doing and head home to celebrate it. We spend more money than we have to embrace it. In fact, our whole economy is supported by it. Retailers might never make a profit without it, and that trickles into every aspect of the economy. It is a trillion-dollar bail-out each and every year.
And if I may say so, Jesus is the 800-pound gorilla in the pages of History. We acknowledge his birth every time we write the date. His book is the number one best seller of all time and will never be bested. More books have been written about him than any other topic. More human events have been shaped by his words than any other person’s. More money has been given in his name than for any other reason. And more people have lived their lives for him than for any other person.
So what is Christmas all about? If Drake or Josh would ask me, I would tell them that it is a celebration of God Himself, coming to earth as a child, just as it was prophesied, to humbly become of us, to teach us how to treat each other, and to die on our behalf, paying for our sins so we can have peace with God and live eternally in heaven.
That’s what Christmas is all about. Everything else is just window dressing. Happy Holidays and Merry Christmas from my family to yours.

(The picture came from my friend Rick in Las Vegas. That's the palm tree in his front yard during this week's rare snow event.)

Christmas 08

Jodi's Infusion

This is the infusion clinic at Texas Neurology in Dallas. We come up here once per month for her Tysabri infusion. The male nurse working with her is Warren. I always walk across the street to get her a Starbucks coffee while we're here. We've been coming to this building for 18 years now.

Don't Train Your Children to Tune You Out

Are you training your children to tune you out? You can say the right thing at the wrong time and it will fall on deaf ears, not doing anyone any good.

If you walk into the living room while your children are engrossed in what’s on television and begin to explain what you expect of them the next day, don’t count on their hearing any of it. If you tend to repeat instructions to them over and over, they quickly learn this and will tune you out, knowing you will say it again. They will reason that maybe they’ll catch it on the third or tenth time. If you keep nagging them about something they already know, they’ll tune you out. If they learn that you’ll leave nothing unsaid, they’ll tune you out while you’re doing it.

What I try to do is make sure it is a good time to speak, I have my children’s attention, and then say what I need to. That way, I’m not training them to isolate my voice from the din of noise in their lives and tune me plumb out.

Some things are better left unsaid. In fact, a lot of things are better left unsaid.

My daughter had left from school the other day, without telling us she was with a friend. I sat at the school and waited for her for several minutes. Finally, I caught on and realized she must have ridden with someone else. I didn’t panic, I just went home. Sure enough, she met me at the door looking very sheepish and guilty. She was also truly sorry for what she had done and told me so. I said very little. My wife wanted me to lay into her for doing that but I said, “No, she knows what she did was wrong and she feels bad about it. I don’t think she’ll do it again.” My wife, being a woman and all, wanted me to lecture our daughter. I refused.

Some people enjoy going to a church where the preacher tells them how bad they are every Sunday. They get their toes stepped on and feel bad about it. They don’t change their behavior, they just know where to go to do their penitence. I refuse to give that luxury to my parishioners or my children. I want them to own what they’ve learned.

I read a long time ago that the average parent repeats every command twelve times. As you can imagine, children soon learn this. So, they tune us out the first eleven times. It’s like they have a big mental clock in their heads and know when they better listen up. If the house is on fire, we better talk fast.

When my children so much as raise their voices at each other, my wife wants me to jump into their argument and referee. I refuse. Continual interfering in their lives trains them to tune me out. My idea is to wait until I’m really needed before I get involved. In my wife’s defense, though, I sometimes wait too long, being a guy and all. I may even tune them out. That’s why men and women make good parents – we tend to balance each other.

Just remember, if you continually speak to your children in a nagging tone, they will tune you out. If you repeat yourself over and over, they will tune you out. If you speak to them when they are concentrating on something else, they will tune you out. If you leave nothing unsaid, they will tune you out. The idea is to train our children to listen when we speak. If we’ll do our part, we may just succeed at tuning them in.

New Ad

I saw a post card like this at a convenient store on the interstate coming home from my brother's house on Thanksgiving. We laughed at it and I thought it would make a good ad for my mortgage business. I plan to run it this weekend and we'll see if it works. If you like it, please let me know...

Falling Leaves

The leaves are getting pretty deep in the back yard, falling off of the old red oak tree that shades and dominates our yard.

Did you know that leaves won't fall off of a dead limb? The tree sends out an enzyme that cuts the leaf free. We take it so for granted, but it is another miracle of creation every year. First, the chlorophyll leaves the leaf and runs down the tree into the roots. That exposes the leaf's fall color underneath, giving us the beauty of Autumn. Then, the tree sends out the enzyme to cut the leaf. The leaves form a blanket and provide fertilizer for the tree and ground around it. The tree then goes dormant until spring, when it goes through the cycle again. What a beautiful, incredible design.

Thinking With the Upper Brain

Are you helping your children develop their upper brain functions? Did you know that it is difficult for them to learn anything new unless they feel safe and loved?
This was the discussion of a session at a parenting conference I attended last week. The class was about the three mental areas of the brain: the stem, the limbic system, and the cortex.
The brain stem is the area of the brain that controls our basic functions. We don’t have to think about breathing or keeping our heart pumping. The brain stem handles these automatic functions of the body. It also springs into action when we feel threatened. It causes a fight-or-flight, knee-jerk reaction. No social skills or empathy for others here, just survival. The brain stem asks the question, “Am I safe?”
The next level of brain function is in the limbic system. This is the part of the brain above the brain stem. The hypothalamus, pituitary gland, and hippocampus are part of this system. Researchers say this part of the brain controls our emotions, long-term memories, motivation, appetites and sleep cycles. Our sense of smell is also here, which is why memories are so closely associated with fragrances. Cinnamon and pine usually bring a flood of Christmas memories.
But here is what is so interesting to me: Religion is found in the limbic system. I had assumed our feelings toward faith would be in the higher areas of the brain, where philosophy and wisdom reside, but not so. The reason is because the limbic system handles our need to connect. We are hard-wired to connect with each other. We are hard-wired to be loved. We are hard-wired to believe in something. This is how gangs thrive: because we all have a strong need to be a part of a community. If the family doesn’t provide this, the children will seek it elsewhere. If the church fails, gangs are glad to take up the slack.
The limbic system asks the question, “Am I loved?” It is difficult for higher learning, sympathy and wisdom to have a chance if we are stuck on this question.
We can survive with these two areas of the brain, but we can’t excel or thrive. To do that, we must use our higher brain, or frontal lobes of the cortex. Here, we make choices, control the impulses of the lower brain, anticipate consequences, learn from experience, organize our thoughts, plan, set goals, and practice critical thinking. The cortex asks “What can I learn from this?”
Discipline then, is the process of guiding our children from the lower centers of the brain to the higher centers so they can learn. Some researchers say our frontal lobes are not completely developed until we are 24 years old. Think how many important decision we make before that age. It’s kind of scary.
One way to promote higher thinking, then, is making sure the lower needs are met. If our children feel safe, they can move to the next level. When they feel connected to the community that is their family; when they feel loved, appreciated, and accepted, then they can begin to blossom in higher thinking.
This is why some children have difficulty paying attention; they are stuck in the lower levels of brain function because they either do not feel safe or accepted. This is not the only reason children have trouble learning, but it is an all too common one.
As parents, we want to give our children every chance to dwell in the cortex. Smother them with love and acceptance and watch them thrive.

More Football Pictures

These are from October 16th and October 9th. We were in Athens on the 16th and at home on the 9th. They tied in Athens. David ran for 4 yards on the 9th, and for 2 and 8 yards on the 16th.

Political Frustration

Would you indulge me and allow me to join in the cacophony of complaints? We are all frustrated with the economy. Many reading this have lost huge sums of retirement money – or have lost wages or insurance coverage, and hearing about executives going on half-million-dollar junkets while we are bailing them out doesn’t sit too well.
And we’ll elect a new president in a couple of weeks. Both say they represent change from this, but I don’t think either one is going to be able to accomplish what they are promising. Every presidential candidate since Richard Nixon has promised to bring about alternative fuel sources. The only one being widely used is corn for ethanol, and it turns out that is not such a good idea after all.
I thought the one person who said something useful during Tuesday night’s debate was Moderator Tom Brokaw when he asked if either candidate was interested in putting together a team of scientists, like we did with the Manhattan Project, to figure out an alternative fuel source.
Think about it, in the early 40s we put a team of the world’s best minds, sent them to New Mexico and said, “Don’t come back until you figure out how to make an atom bomb to end this war.” And they did it! This was in the mid-forties, before television, computers, the internet, cell phones, plastic, antibiotics, and for half of America – indoor plumbing. Country people didn’t even have a telephone or electricity. But in less than a year we figured out how to split an atom and create a nuclear bomb.
Are you telling me we couldn’t put a team together today to create a hydrogen fuel cell? Take the top minds in the field, set the budget at one trillion dollars (Why not? we’re spending that to bail out Wall Street Fat Cats), send them to the desert and tell them to stay until they figure out how to safely and cheaply run cars on hydrogen fuel cells. That would end our dependence on countries that are using our money against us. It would change the whole world order. It would end carbon emissions, and could cost much less than gasoline, which is a commodity, changing prices and ruining budgets every day.
And when they accomplish this, make them heroes, rewrite the history books, then send another team to conquer cancer, then diabetes, right down the line. Come on, we’re Americans, we can do this!
Instead, the candidates are talking about issues that they cannot even change. They can’t reform health care without complete backing from Congress. Good luck with that. They can’t bring our soldiers home. They can’t offer tax breaks without Congress. They can’t do any of the things they are talking about without majority votes in Congress. That’s why we hear the same promises year after year and they are never fulfilled.
Who we elect is very important, don’t get me wrong, but his powers are limited, and they should be. That’s the idea. But he will appoint judges, so we need to elect a person with our worldview. And we need to consider with whom he will surround himself.
Fresh ideas are good, but I want to hear some that they can actually enact.

Being Proud Verses Having Pride

I walked into the living room the other morning and heard someone speaking on the news. I don't even remember who it was or what he was talking about, but I found him to be obnoxiously arrogant. “That guy is full of pride,” I said. “And pride comes before a fall.”

“What's wrong with being proud?” my son asked. “Aren't we supposed to have pride?”

Now a good question was on the table. He's right; we are supposed to be proud of ourselves. We are supposed to be proud of our work — and take pride in our accomplishments. We are supposed to be proud of our family name and our American heritage. We're proud to be Texans. We're proud of our educations. We take pride in our school work and accomplishments on the sports teams.We have taught our children all their lives to take pride in what they are doing and in who they are, so I could understand his confusion. I guess the problem is with our English language.

We are supposed to take pride, but not be full of pride.

“Well,” I said, “I'm talking about the kind of pride that says, 'I don't need anyone else and I don't need God. I have it all together.' It's good to be proud of yourself and take pride in what you do, but it's not good to think you are better than everyone else.”He nodded in understanding. Our challenge as parents, then, is to instill pride into our children, but not arrogance. To teach them to be independent thinkers, but not to the point of believing they have all the answers. It's not healthy to believe they are always right and everyone else is always wrong. That leads to a crash.

The scripture that says this is Proverbs 16:18, which says, “Pride goes before destruction, a haughty spirit before a fall.” When he says “haughty spirit”, Solomon tells us what kind of pride he is writing about. It is not a healthy pride, but the kind that elevates us in our minds above where we should be. In the New Testament, Peter writes, “God opposes the proud but gives grace to the humble.” (Peter is quoting Proverbs 3:34). Again, the type of pride referred to here is the kind that says, 'I don't need God. I can handle everything myself.” In context, Peter talked about being humble in our dealings with each other and with God.

There is an American ideal that says we should be able to pull ourselves up by “our bootstraps”. We should be an independent man or woman. A hero despite it all. There have been plenty of movie characters who fit this description. John Wayne and Clint Eastwood have played this archetype a time or two. But God opposes the proud for the simple reason he wants us to depend on someone: him.

The balance we need to teach our children, then, is to be independent thinkers, true to good character no matter what, and proud of who they are, but realizing they need others to succeed. We need to teach them they need God, and he uses other people to bless and help them.It may seem like a contradiction, but I am an absolute charity case, completely dependent on God's mercy to feed myself and my family, but I'm also very proud of who I am and what I have accomplished. Working hard makes me proud, but knowing how dependent I am on God keeps me humble.

Life is about balance. We want our children to be proud — just not too proud.

David's First Home Game

A few pictures from David's first home game with his football team. Savannah was in the band. I'm really proud of both of them.

Work Day

It surprised me how many limbs were down in the yard due to Hurricane Ike. We loaded the wagon twice, but still didn't get them all.

First Football Game

David played in his first game Thursday night in Frankston. His team had never played together before, but they were up against a seasoned A team. The opponents were some big, corn-fed boys and I was really proud of how well David's team handled them. There were so few on David's team, he played offense (wide receiver), defense (line backer) and special teams.

Birthday Boy

There are two things here hard for me to believe. One is that my son is a football player; the other is that I have a 14 year old son! Here he is (number 32) on his birthday.

Hurricane Ike

This is the first time I've ever been in an actual hurricane. After all, we live 200 miles from the coast! Rita was a tropical storm before she got here three years ago, but they say Ike will still be a Cat 1 Hurricane when it moves over us in a couple of hours. I'll believe it when I see it. I'll post updated pictures. Right now (9:00am) it's just rainy and windy. Now, (2:30pm) the eye is directly over us and it's pretty dull. The winds were pretty spectacular for a while and our power went out for a couple of hours, but it seems to be all over now. We've seen on TV that some trees are down in Palestine, but all of our trees are still standing. The radar shows just "green" rain for the next several hours, so it I think the storm has passed. I was wondering about the birds during the height of the storm and they kept coming to the feeder! The pictures are not very exciting - it's hard to capture high winds and rain.