As of January 12, we have a new nephew. His name is John Paul Adams, and he was born to his folks Jeff and Karen in Uganda, where they’re doing mission work. Here’s my favorite passage from the announcement Jeff sent out:

Our many friends here have shown us many great kindnesses; we can’t thank
them enough. And our Ugandan friends, in particular, are very pleased that
we decided to have our baby here, among them. I told the news to a student
this morning and he, like most Ugandans, assumed that Karen had gone home to
have the baby, like most mzungu [white people -ed.]. He very surprised and pleased that we had
chosen to have our baby here.

One of the sweetest exchanges came at the petrol station, of all places.
Most of the attendants are women and girls, and they have gotten to know us
over the last months. (A white family in a big white Land Rover is pretty
conspicuous.) One said to Karen, “still here?” By which she meant: haven’t
you gone back to wherever you come from to have the baby? When Karen told
her she had given birth that very night in Kampala, and pointed to John Paul
in his car seat, she shrieked for joy. She gathered all the other
attendants together so they could admire the “white Ugandan”. Again, there
was a bond created by the fact that we were willing to be with them, even in
the giving birth of our child.

Between the photos from Uganda Jeff keeps sending, and his nefarious nephew-having scheme, I’m more and more convinced that I need to get over there for a visit someday.

Kathy found a recipe for beer bread a while back that has rapidly become a family favorite. It’s easy to make, and always gets rave reviews. Here it is, for your dining pleasure:

3 Cups Self-Rising Flour
2 Tbsp Sugar
1 Shiner Bock (or your beer of choice — experimenting is fun!)

Bake at 350° for 30 minutes
Drizzle 1/2 stick melted butter over the top
Bake 10-15 minutes additional
Enjoy while hot!

Several years back, my Dad wrote what has become one of the definitive books on hostage negotiation and crisis management. He and Wayman Mullins, his co-author, have been sponsoring an annual hostage negotiation conference and competition for several years now, which has been hosted at the University at which Wayman teaches and where I now work.

Yesterday, I had the singularly enjoyable opportunity to sit in on one of my Dad’s sessions, where he was teaching on specific issues a negotiator faces when dealing with adolescents, the elderly, gang members, and policemen. He did a great job making the subject accessible and interesting, even to someone like me who is not trained in that field. Further, it was a treat for me to be able to be involved in and supportive of the work that he’s spent so much of the last several decades doing and to see what kind of respect he has earned in that community. I consider the visit a small measure of payback for all the times he has come to see me play music!

Further, Dad retired from the police department at the end of last year. We were all glad to see that chapter come to a close; though he’s been able to do a lot of good work there, it has often been only by doing continuous battle with various frustrating political factions. Now he’s starting in earnest on pursuing some independent work, and has a number of very interesting leads, among them a five-day contract monitoring the stability of contestants on a reality television show in the northeast. He’s under nondisclosure on this, so details are few right now, but I think it’s safe to say that his career is going to make even better cocktail party conversation a year from now.

A few amusing little passages from an email I received today on a teambuilding workshop:

“This workshop has been a positive experience for individuals, offices, work groups, or teams.”

But they’re not telling us which one.

“Learn to identify and manage dysfunctional group behavior
in order to discover the synergistic results of collaboration.”

Wow! The synergistic results of collaboration! I presume we’ll further be leveraging our capabilities by empowering goal-oriented out-of-the-box thinking and further improving our Total Quality as well.

Come to think of it, I may just go to this workshop and play Buzzword Bingo.

An interesting quote from The Cloister Walk:

The liturgical scholar Gail Ramshaw makes a valuable distinction between theology and liturgy: theology is prose, she says, but liturgy is poetry. “If faith is about facts,” she writes, “then we line up the children and make them memorize questions and answers…But if we are dealing with poetry instead of prose…then we do not teach answers to questions. We memorize not answers but the chants of the ordinary; we explain liturgical action…we immerse people in worship so that they, too, become part of the metaphoric exchange.”

Interesting thoughts. The evangelical tradition of Christianity in which I’ve spent the majority of my life seems to revolve first around believing certain tenets, and second around convincing other people to do the same. There’s often little room for beauty, gentleness, and patient loving and understanding left there, though those virtues are espoused in the Bible quite strongly. Balancing this prose of belief with the poetry of practice in the form of liturgy, participation in what Lewis calls “The Great Dance”, seems a much richer and more complete approach to faith.

I’m back to work today after a week and a half of idling, partying, helping, and wrestling with kids. Kathy and I both got some reading in, caught up with a number of friends with whom we hadn’t spent enough time lately, and generally enjoyed the luxury of ignoring our to-do lists.

One interesting experiment we’ve tried recently is this: when we have family dinners, nobody serves herself, but must instead rely on those around her to fulfill her needs. The idea occurred to me while reading about Benedictine communities in Kathleen Norris’ The Cloister Walk, and has gone over pretty well. (Emily was a bit concerned that Liam would be dishing out her food the first night, as he evidently had a big booger hanging out of his nose at the start of dinner.) It has been an interesting and humbling exercise to have to rely on each other in that way, and a treat for us to see the children willingly meeting each other’s needs instead of thinking only about themselves and what they want.

For the first time in several years, I’ve managed to get it together to write up a Christmas letter. Of course, it was finished mere moments ago, so you, gentle reader, will be among the first to see it — our technologically backward friends will have to wait for us to come to terms with our printer and the postal service. Please enjoy our Christmastide Letter 2004.

Jason links to a fascinating article on the modern tendency to make a religion of work and business and heresy of idleness. The essay ties into a lot of themes in things I’ve been reading and watching, and quite piqued my interest.

Ironically, I’m too busy at the moment to write up my thoughts properly, but hope to come back to this in more detail soon.

Liam has been complaining for a while that he didn’t find Kindergarten very challenging. These complaints culminated in a meltdown the other day before class, shouting to Kathy he didn’t want to go, and that it was too boring, and he didn’t like it there. His teacher eventually came outside where he was bawling, and talked with him and Kathy, and decided to have him tested out for accelerated reading and math programs.

Today he took those tests, and we found out that he’s reading comfortably at a third grade level, and his math skills are nearly as far along. Poor little guy; it’s no wonder he’s been bored silly! The teachers are setting him up for self-paced work now, which I think will keep him much more engaged.

A few minutes after putting Liam to bed the other night, a plaintive wail escaped his room:

“Daddy? DADDY! My Elvis doesn’t feel good.”

“Your what, Liam?”

“My Elvis! It hurts!”

“What’s your Elvis?”

“You know, my Elvis bone.”

“You mean this down here?”

“Yes, my Elvis!”

“Liam, I think you misunderstood the word. That’s your pelvis. Well, let’s wait a few minutes and see if it feels better.”

Five minutes later

“Liam, how’s your Elvis feeling?”

“DADDY! It’s my pelvis. And it’s feeling better”