Rock and Roll and Jesus

During a long late night drive last night, my 7 year old started pondering life, the universe and everything. We talked about meteors, stars, and black holes before the conversation turned to God, creation and the Bible. This isn't your typical father daughter talk, but she clearly has an interest in history, science and other things that most seven year olds would never think about. She's daddy's girl in those regards at least.

Enter my dilemma. Smart as she is, Drew is still very impressionable. I don't want to push any of my kids to make decisions based on what I want, or what I believe. I'm a firm believer that my role here is to steer their minds in the right directions and allow them to come to decisions on their own, based on what they've learned or how they feel. I don't force them to church; they go because they want to learn and because I can't give them all the answers they need. I don't force them to listen to my music, but I do expose them to the different sounds and rhythms so that they can find what they like in the huge mix of crap circulating on the airwaves today.

So more to my point. I'm not atheist, but I'm not what you call a religious man either. I believe in the existence of something greater than myself; not because I feel it or that I've seen it, but because when I look around at the things I've seen in this world, I cannot accept that all of this happened by some accident or huge cosmic H-bomb. There was some kind of design or intervention there someplace. In addition to that, I'm not the person I am because I fear a hell in the afterlife, but rather, I believe that it's right to do good by others. To treat your fellow man, environment, and animals with the same respect just comes naturally to me and may be a result of my upbringing.

I decided to tell Drew the truth and explain to her that it in no way means that I don't believe in God or Jesus or any of the things that she's learning in Sunday school. Rather, it means I have questions that so far, no one has been able to answer. Things like; where are the missing 25+ years of Jesus' life? How was it possible for one man to build a boat that could hold pairs of the world's species? Where are the dinosaurs in the Bible? There's more, but they all come back to the same thing; no one knows. Surprisingly, Drew said she had questions too and many of them were the same as my own. One in particular; who created God? My only response to her now was that we need to just continue asking. Sometimes we may never get the answer we're looking for, but we keep asking until we do.

I take some comfort in knowing that I'm not the only one that feels this way. I spent a nice afternoon a week ago, with Bill Maher as he went around asking the same questions to the people I wouldn't have had the balls to ask. While I don't agree with everything, the film was entertaining and lighthearted, but still left me (and Bill apparently) with the same questions.

In the meantime, I'll still be here listening to my rock and roll and asking questions about Jesus.

Out of hiatus

Hello blog, old friend. I've been away for awhile. Not really sure why, probably just life getting in the way. The family and I have been through a lot the past couple of years so the writing came to a stand still, but I can't stay away any longer. I need to get my thoughts out there again so here we go.

Today is St. Patrick's Day to most of the world. I've never been a partier, so this is one holiday I can easily overlook since the enjoyment of going out to drink green beer and my loathing of corned beef and cabbage really kills it all for me. As for the wearing of the green, most people can't tell you why green is associated with St. Patrick's Day so here's your history lesson for the week. St. Patrick, who may or may not have chased all the snakes out of Ireland, used the shamrock to explain the Holy Trinity to non-Christian Irish. "Wearing of the green" was indicating a shamrock worn on your person to show Irish Nationalism or loyalty to the Roman Catholic Church. Since around the 1700's, the shamrock or shamrock like designs have become a ubiquitous feature of the Saint's holiday.

Before the 1700's, however, St. Patrick's Day was celebrated in blue. The Saint was most depicted wearing blue and is the color of the Irish coat of arms, Presidents Standard, and many other flags of Ireland are Blue and Gold. But I digress…

The real reason for my writing today was because of a little story about my daughter Drew. We all know that the absence of green on this particular day leads to pinching from our fellow friends and others we'd like to knock the living crap out of because they see fit to pinch us, friends or not. So, without hesitation, my wife instructed me to dress our daughter in green today and I set out to find the appropriate attire. When I woke Drew up this morning, she immediately looked at the chosen outfit and announced, "I'm not wearing green". I started to explain the reason for the choice and she promptly stated, "Dad, I WANT to be pinched".

After picking my mouth up off the floor, I stammered around trying to make sure I clearly heard what she said. As if to answer my dumbfound look, she quickly added, "Maki, David and…well, they are all pretty cute so they can pinch me and I don't mind. So, no green today, OK?"

No, it's not OK; who are you and where is my 7 year old daughter? We fought over this subject most of the morning. I won of course, because I'm dad and no one is pinching my girls until 25, maybe 30 if they push it. If looks could kill, I wouldn't be writing this now. I'm sure my wife will get an earful tonight when she picks her up from school, but that's OK. It was her decision to do green today anyway.

Anyway, happy St. Patrick's day everyone.

May you have the hindsight to know where you've been,
The foresight to know where you are going,
And the insight to know when you have gone too far.