Prodigal brother

And just to keep the Paul status up to date: he's in trouble.

He went into my room (at least twice now, actually) and stole some change off my dresser. In some ways, no big deal. But it really had to be dealt with, so I kicked him out.

OK, I kicked him out for an hour and then let him back in. But the new rule, which won't last long, is that he isn't allowed to be in the house when I'm not here.

This turns out to be very difficult to enforce. For instance, last night when I went to some friends' house to watch the last 3/4 of the football game, Paul was asleep. Was I really going to wake him up and kick him out? (I didn't.) But what about tonight? I'm watching a movie with my students (Fog of War) tonight at 7, and will probably go up to my office first about 6:30. Should I kick him out?

I guess I'm hoping 3 days of being kicked out has taught him his lesson, exhausted him, and prepared him to be in the house without stealing.

And yes, I'm trying to take temptation out of his way.

And one completely other note. Any of you to whom I mentioned that I was locked out of my garage, that's no longer the case, thankfully. But that's another story.

Accidental Ebay

OK, so I know a couple of my loyal readers are Ebay enthusiasts, Ebay experts even. To you, this might sound strange: last night, I accidentally bought a dining room table on Ebay.

OK, accidental is strong. Everything connected with my placing the bid was, strictly speaking (and I am beginning to consider myself something of an expert on this), an intentional action. But I didn't exactly mean to do it.

Here's the thing. I've only actually bought one other thing on Ebay, and that was a heart rate monitor. I tracked several of them for days to see what they were going for. I researched them on and off Ebay, online and in actual stores. And when I knew what I wanted and what it was worth, I started making bids, knew what my max was, and got a more than fair (but not outstanding) price.

I played around a little back then -- this was maybe a year ago -- and put some ridiculously low bids in. Most of the time, other buyers, like me, were informed, and their bids would automatically bump up to the "reasonable" range. And the first bid was never reasonable.

But, you see, that made me less wary than I should have been. Because I THOUGHT I knew what I was doing. I searched some tables, saw one I really liked the look of, and saw that there had only been one bid on it. So I just barely outbid him, convinced that on the heels of my "bid confirmation" email, I would have a "you've been outbid" email.

(All this, by the way, was going on as I was getting incredibly depressed watching the Irish lose horribly in the first quarter against Michigan St. Shopping is such a great distraction. Sigh. The evils of consumerism.)

Anyway, it didn't come. And after about 5 minutes of poking around, I realized that the auction was going to end in half an hour and I was going to own the table.

The good news: I got a decent price, and I really do like the look of the table.

The bad news: the delivery charge is a bit steep (I really should have checked that before bidding). Especially considering that, I'm paying more than I wanted to pay.

The great news: I'm going to have a dining room table that I think I'm going to love in less than a week! And I can stop shopping and start doing the things I need to do.

But I still can't believe I just randomly bid on it and got it.

Mission accomplished

Well, I really accomplished something today. I fixed my toilet.

This was my first major adventure in one of those little things that I would have called in to the landlord if I had one, but I had to take care of it instead. Or suck it up and call either a man I know or a plumber to come and take care of it. I was reluctant to do either of those.

The problem was that the toilet wouldn't flush. I easily removed the top of the tank and looked around and found the problem. What it looked like when I first looked in there: the stopper-thingy got disconnected from well, that, other thingy. The "other thingy" moved when you depressed the lever as if to flush. But since the stopper-thingy was disconnected, it stayed in place and there was no flushing.

After 2 visits to Home Depot, here's what I saw: my flush valve actuator system was disconnected from the actuator disk. Bad news: you need a whole new system. Good news: system costs just under 10 bucks. Great news: I figured out how to install it and did so successfully within about 10 minutes.

Paul and I can flush again, which is a good thing.

But I admit it was sort of tempting to keep making Paul hike to the toilet in the basement. That would be one way to keep things upstairs smelling better.

Anyway, it made me feel like I really accomplished something today, even if it wasn't getting ready for class, writing a dissertation, or grading the papers that got turned in Friday.

Ah well, I suppose we have to take the successes where we find them.

Five years later

September 11th is clearly going to be a strange day for the rest of our lives.

I've caught a couple of articles and a couple of shows recalling the heroes/victims of that day. And I've found myself in or near tears a couple of times. There's just no shaking the terrible losses of that day.

But now I've also heard what President Bush had to say about it. Apparently, we're against radicalism. Our fathers and grandfathers fought "radicalism" in Europe and in Asia. And now it's up to us to fight it in the Middle East.

Radical--as I learned from Dorothy Day--has to do with getting to the root of things. She was a radical. So was Jesus. I find it hard to be against radicalism.

I liked it better when we were against terrorism. Is it just me or did an already vague enemy just get vaguer?

And why do the losses have to be answered with more violence? I wonder if we could ever see ourselves not necessarily as the solution but as part of the problem?

Embarrassing moment?

So, I think I may have had my first embarrassing moment as a faculty member. I had my biggest class (25) today. I called roll and then grabbed my notes to do the walk around and lecture thing. I looked down and noticed that my second-from-the-top button on my blouse was wide open.

Well, I pretty seemlessly (I think -- but who knows how long it had already been open?) covered my chest with my notes. And I'm thinking ... I can't make it through the whole class like this. Eventually, I may need to look at these notes, and I'll certainly need to open my Bible. So, somehow, I managed to keep talking and just button the thing with one hand while continuing to hold my notes in front of the whole operation.

But of course none of them said anything or indicated in any way that they noticed. It's very strange. You sort of want some acknowledgement -- gee, you handled that gracefully. Or even "oh my gosh, I can believe you just went on talking like that!" Even -- "hey, so was that your bra or another shirt we were seeing?" Because you wonder just how subtle you are, and it would be nice to know, even to know that you weren't. And you also don't know if you should feel embarrassed, or how much.

By the way, it was actually an undershirt. I'm actually not sure why I wore it. I think maybe I had some issues with this shirt before. I think maybe that's what kept me from panicking. I mean, I was still decent.

Of course, one does wonder what they were thinking, especially since one of the texts we spent some time with was Jesus' denunciation of lust in Matthew's gospel. At least my shirt was buttoned before we got there.

Great line, great feeling

I thought I'd pass this on, because I think it's a great thing to say to the new tenure-track faculty member on her (or his, but in this case her) first day of class: "So, how was the first day of the rest of your life?"

The folks here keep giving me the impression they want me to stick around for a while. And that's a great feeling.

Glad to be where I am

I love my colleagues.

It has come to my attention that some people think that many of them are sexist pigs. Actually, I mostly know this because one of them pointed it out to me. He and I have been joking about it a bit now. But he turned to me tonight, and for the second time now, said to me something to the effect of, "Look, we're joking about this, but also I do know that we're painfully inadequate sometimes and we just don't know how to include women well. Please let us know what you need from us or if there's anything we can do better. We're really glad to have you here."

And all this happened at a Labor Day BBQ where people also very graciously included my brother.

I'm really glad to be here.

Labor day?

Can anyone tell me anything about Labor Day that would make me think it's even really a patriotic holiday, let alone one that churches should support?

I bring this up because the closing song at Mass this morning was "America the Beautiful." I always get really nervous about these things. Since I believe that participating in the Mass through singing is important, and also that one should really sing songs like that in Mass, I'm always quite conflicted. I did something today that sort of surprised me. I hit my knees and prayed silently for our country to repent of the wars we're waging, and thus to live up to the beauty the song was acclaiming.

I don't think anyone noticed. But that's okay.

No more tears

I cried twice today. So far.

This has nothing to do with teaching. It has to do with state inspection stickers.

The lovely little state I've moved to requires a "safety and emissions test" once every two years. This is the fifth state I've lived in. Most such inspections are annual, but they take 10 minutes and basically just make sure all your blinkers and windshield wipers work.

Not here. The test takes an hour and a half. And, after that 90 minutes or so, it turned out my car had failed due to too much wear on the brake pads. They could, of course, replace them for me. Since they had them in stock, it would take an hour. Two, tops. I look at the time: about 10:15. Two hours and 45 minutes until my brother has his evaluation scheduled, the one that will really get the ball rolling on the plan for his long term care and for housing. The one that's been on the books for almost three weeks now. OK, go for it, but I really need to be out of here in 2 hours, tops.

About 11:45, I'm getting really restless and I ask the guy for a progress report. It turned out they didn't have the parts in stock. I explain that I really have to be somewhere by 1:00. He says he's sorry, he'll try to expedite the parts and then, as soon as the parts get here, it will be like 20 minutes.

Now, at this point, I start making phone calls. Annoyingly, I can't call Paul because I don't have a home phone. I call his social worker. Not there. I will call him 8 times in the next hour, but only leave 3 messages. And the main thing I want is for him to let the front desk know that we're running late, because I have two major fears. First, of course, is that it will take us a month to get another psych evaluation scheduled. Second, I'm vaguely recalling all these threats about what will happen to you and your firstborn if you miss an appointment without calling. I'm wondering if Paul will ever be allowed to receive psychiatric services again, in any state.

I try to think of who else to call, but, you see the bind, right? Being new to the area, how many people can you call and say, "Look, I need a big favor. Go to my house, walk right in. Go upstairs. Paul will probably be asleep. He will probably have clothes on. Wake him up, get him dressed if necessary, and get him to this appointment at a place that I can find and can give you an address, but can't really tell you how to get to. Oh, you'll also need to find his meds and his cigarettes and bring them with you." I mean, it's a lot to ask.

At 12:53 they tell me that the car will be ready in 5 minutes. OK. It'll take me about 15 or 20 to get home to grab Paul and then get to the appointment. That's not so late.

And then the guy went into the garage. And didn't come back for 20 minutes. Seriously. I was going crazy. I actually had the thought go through my head "If we miss this appointment, I'm going to check whether I can sue to make them pay for Paul's psychiatric care." Then I remembered that I didn't believe in that sort of crap. But it's hard to remember who you are when you're under this sort of stress.

Then they told me that the computer was broken and they couldn't print my inspection sticker. Everything was ready, but for some reason they couldn't account for or fix, it wouldn't print. And I was stuck, or at least illegal until it did. That's when I called the social worker with message #2 ("looks like we won't be there at all"). Then my car pulled up and they let me pay for the brake job and leave without the sticker, but warned me I was driving illegally and encouraged me to call and check if the machine was fixed and come back to get my sticker.

Well, Paul and I got to the place at 1:45. And he had completely missed the appointment. They wouldn't reschedule. They would let him see a doc to get meds to get him through the weekend, and they set up an appointment with his nurse on Tuesday to evaluate and consider rescheduling the other. My heart just fell. And all of a sudden, you realize how much you've hung your hopes on something. I've been telling myself to hang on until Sept 1, because then he'll get the psych eval and we'll begin to move forward. And then ... no.

So, we sat there waiting to be called for the meds. I went to the bathroom and cried. I was just so frustrated I wanted to kill somebody. Well, hit somebody. Hard. I decided I was focusing too much on my anger (much of which was directed at myself) and I decided to say Hail Mary's. That's one of the great things about being Catholic. When you're too angry to really pray, you can just ask Mary, over and over again, to pray for you. It generally calms me down.

And because God (and Mother Mary!) are good, an incredible thing happened. We were still sitting there waiting to see the doc for meds at 2:25 and the woman at the front desk called me up there. "The 2:15 psych eval hasn't showed yet. If you guys can stay another hour, and that person doesn't come in the next 5 minutes, we can see him." "Absolutely."

About 15 minutes later, they called him back. I still didn't quite dare believe it, so I asked, "I'm sorry, did he get called for the full eval, or just the meds." The full eval. Thank God.

I cried again. I couldn't quite believe it. All the stress, all the hopes, all the frustrations, and he got in.

Of course, it turns out the psych eval isn't magic. He'll file a report and we have a follow-up appointment in 10 days. But we're moving forward.

The one remaining loose end was that I was a bit worried about driving to Boston to pick up my friend Kyle in my illegal car. I was also worried that all this would make me late to get him. But his flight was delayed and the computer got fixed. My car is legal, and braking better than ever, and should be in Boston in plenty of time to get him.

Sigh. Hopefully, no more tears. Not today.

Legal, moral, mission?

Yesterday, I sat through a 3 hour workshop run by "college counsel" for new faculty called "legal issues." I want to be clear that this was "legal issues," not "moral issues." And let me also admit that the summary below of course loses a lot of the nuance of the three hour session and leaves a couple of the topics completely untouched.

But here's my summary: sure, we're a religiously affiliated school, but legally, you can sleep with anyone you want, as long as you don't have sex with anyone over whom you have direct power nor they over you. But NEVER, I repeat NEVER EVER, violate copyright law or student confidentiality. Perhaps we need to sort out our priorities.

And there's this odd edge, right, one that I've heard about from several theology folks around here, of wanting new faculty not to feel as though the religious commitments of the school are a big deal. And of course, there is a tension here. A colleague of mine told me a story about how, at her new faculty orientation session on the "ministry and mission" of the school, the veteran faculty members leading her group's breakout session basically told them that they should nod and give lip service to the mission-talk when administration or friars asked, but then ignore it for the rest of their professional lives. She just asked the question "But what about those of us who came here because we want to give our lives to that mission?" Apparently, they didn't have much response. They weren't sure she was serious.

Boys' Night Out

The “boys” in my department and the other department which shares our building started going out for “boys night at the movies” several months ago. In an unprecedented bending of gender lines, they decided to invite me along for this week’s feature film, Nacho Libre.

If you know nothing about Nacho Libre, this will get you through: it’s by the directors of Napolean Dynamite and stars Jack Black (of School of Rock and Tenacious D) as a monk at a Mexican orphanage who moonlights as an amateur wrestler. I loved Napolean Dynamite and School of Rock, though I confess that I have very bad associations with Tenacious D (associations that I imagine some of my faithful readers who are former housemates may share). Regardless, I figured 2 out of 3 isn’t bad, plus it’s a good idea to embrace unprecedented opportunities for bonding with the boys.

The movie was horrible, though it was well worth the 2 bucks we each paid for it for the following five reasons.

5. “The brothers don’t think I do, but I totally know a buttload of crap about the gospel.”
4. “I don’t believe in God, I believe in science.”
3. An awesome song done as only Jack Black can, monk-to-nun, involving lyrics along the lines of “If I’m going to break my vows, I want to break them with you.”
2. The pre-wrestling match locker room baptism scene.
1. Street fight: knife vs. corn-on-the-cob. Corn wins.

Plus, it was good to hang out with the boys. I think they either think I’m crazy, or that I really liked the movie, or both. I was in a mood to have fun with it, and I had a lot of training one year learning to enjoy really stupid movies (Bubba Hotep?) for the sake of building relationships, or trying to.

Waiting room romance? No thanks.

A couple quick updates and one story.

My car is up and running again--4 working tires, which turns out to be rather important. Also, Paul had his first appointment for services up here, and we're in business. No housing yet, but he's on the roll for psychiatric and social services up here, which is a real blessing.

So, I'm sitting in the waiting room quietly (re)reading Philip Pullman's The Golden Compass while Paul is being seen. A man and his son come in. We had run into each other before when I had been in the back talking to Paul's social worker (who also happened to be an Episcopal priest!). Anyway, I'm reading and I hear the dad telling the son something to the effect of "If she smiles, she's married, but if she doesn't look up from the book she's single." Actually, though, it was low enough, and accented enough, and I hadn't really been paying attention because I really was reading, that I didn't really hear well enough to get the whole "code." But basically, I ignored it.

The boy was probably 10. They were Hispanic, so he had this beautiful brown skin but then also striking green eyes (I thought: Harry Potter meets A-rod). He did something a little loud and then suddenly the dad says "You see, it's because you're bad like that that women ignore me. They want to go out with me but then they see you do things like that and then they won't even talk to me, just keep reading their books, because why would they want to go out with a man with such a bad son?" Then, to me: "Excuse me, if you weren't married, would you go out with a man with such a bad son?"

Well, now I had to respond: "I'm sure he's a good boy."

"But you're married, right?"

And I'm thinking: just tell the lie. It's easy. Make something up. Tell a story. "No, actually I'm not." (Do you sense the "almost virtuous" theme here again? Virtuous enough to tell the truth, but not virtuous enough to refuse to consider the lie. Vicious enough to sit there through the rest of the conversation thinking that I could be reading instead if I'd just told that little lie.)

"Do you have a boyfriend?"
"No."
"Weren't you with a man before?"
"That was my brother."
"Why don't you have a boyfriend?"

Ugh. We got through vague references to my being too busy for a social life before we moved on to his own story of disability (having been hit by a bullet intended for someone else, though in what particular situation, he didn't mention and I didn't ask), his health having been made worse by ill-treatment from "state doctors," as his inability to sleep since the whole ordeal began.

Then I was saved by Paul's return with the nurse.

I had been so afraid that he would actually ask me out. Never say never, but, unless something rather extraordinary happens, I don't foresee myself going out with anyone I meet in the waiting room at a county mental health center. In a way that sounds obnoxious, because of course I was someone in such a place myself yesterday, and can think of at least 2 occasions in the next 2 weeks when I will find myself there again. But there it is.

Sexist Pepboys

I had a flat tire today. Such things are odd stoppages in the blur of life. Although the ten thousand things you should be doing just get worse, they also somehow fade to the background. Now you must do one thing: get the car fixed and moving again. It's a strange twist on Kierkegaard. I don't think it's what he had in mind, though, when he said that purity of heart is to will one thing.

I'm now safe at home, though my car isn't yet. But I want to continue my exploration of my life as Paul's sister.

One of the moments in today's adventure, which of course involved Paul, had the two of us in a Pepboys store looking for an Allen wrench, aka a "hex key," that would get my special extra-cool hubcabs off so that we could change the tire. So I walk up to a Pepboy guy, probably 20 years old, and Paul is trailing 5 feet behind me listening to my iPod. I speak in complete sentences, something to the effect of "Hello, can you direct me to the Allen wrenches? I can't find the hex-key that came with my hubcaps and I need to change a tire." Pep-guy looks at me and says something like "Uhh... I don't know if we...." Then Paul pipes up, shouting because he is listening to an iPod at a higher volume than any human should, "Allen wrench! Hubcap!" Then Pep-guy looks right past me to Paul and says to him, "Oh, okay, aisle 11. Do you know what size? Blah blah blah."

So, part of me was irate. Are you seriously going to talk to the guy under any circumstances? You sexist pig! But part of me was sort of happy. Maybe Paul doesn't seem as off to strangers as he does to me. But mostly I was irritated with the sexist peppy pig....

Virtuous as a cucumber?

My friend Cyberian Tygre posted his "rules of cool" in response to an encounter he had with a not-so-cool SEXYDIVA driving a cool car. His thoughts on coolness inspired some of my own, which I posted on his blog, but thought I'd post here as well.

Cyberian Tygre's idea that one either is or is not cool reminded me of Yoda telling Luke "Do or do not. There is no try." That made me wonder whether trying to be cool necessarily rules out actual coolness. And I think it does.

Now this is intriguing ground for someone who spends as much time as I do thinking (though not necessarily writing) about intention, action, and virtue. Aristotle and Thomas both argue that, to be fully virtuous, the virtuous action must be done for the sake of the virtue. My current thinking--and I'm open to correction here--is that coolness (though in a certain way a virtue) functions precisely opposite of virtue in terms of this relation. You can perform a cool action (or purchase a cool car), but insofar as you do so for the sake of the coolness, it is in fact no longer cool. The intention to be cool nullifies the coolness. One is not truly cool if one is trying to be cool.

Interestingly enough, I think coolness functions like goodness does for Thomas. For Thomas, for an act to be good, it must be good in every respect, but a single defect is enough to mar its goodness. In the same way, coolness is a package deal. For something to be truly cool, it has to be totally cool. A single defect ruins the whole.

SEXYDIVA stands as evidence of this.

By the way, I humbly admit and appreciate that citing Aristotle and Aquinas on the subject of coolness also, in most circles, rules it out entirely. Alas, the best I ever did really was being "pretty cool for a smart kid."

I think I've ruled out my own coolness and virtuousness in about 24 hours in this blog.

Perhaps this is why Christians have begun to aspire to that much vaguer and therefore easier virtue of "niceness." Perhaps I'll aim at that.

Roommate issues and the life of virtue

If you know me, you know that for the past 5 years I lived in an intentional Christian community in North Carolina. Much of my life was about roommate issues, and well it should be, since charity, which is the form of all the virtues, begins at home. What better way, then, to be schooled in the virtues, than to live with other people whom it is sometimes hard to love.

For me, life at Iredell was a constant confrontation with my own limitations in virtue, my own inability to be thoroughly called out of my individual life in order to be attentive to the needs of my brothers and sisters. Oh, I did well enough at times, but often the interior questions and resentments piled up. One friend and one-time housemate used to kid me about the "notebook" -- my mental list (book!) of resentments tallied.

So, of course, I've been looking forward to a little time in my own space, to cook whatever I want, to watch whatever movies I want, to clean up after myself and not wonder what the score is on how many times which housemate has emptied the dish drainer.

But alas, that's not how it turned out. Clearly, God decided that I needed to be more deeply schooled in charity. It has become clear that my brother will be living here at least until Sept 1, unless some hefty miracle intervenes. (Feel free to pray for such.) Meanwhile, having him for a housemate is interesting schooling indeed.

Now, let me be clear that my brother has a debilitating illness. St. Augustine was brought to tears by the mere thought of what it means to have one's intellect so thoroughly shattered. I've been brought to tears by it myself many a time, believe me.

I'm listing my top 3 complaints, just to put them out there.

3. Frankly, I resent the fact that he has more extensive conversations with the voices than with me.
2. He is a very sloppy eater. He gets more food inside him than anywhere else, but the #2 spot is a toss up between the floor, the table, and the edge of his plate.
1. He is either unable or unwilling to care whose toothbrush is whose. My new one lives in my travel bag.

Actually, this is going better than I would have imagined possible. But it does wear on one to always be the one who cooks and cleans, and always the one who nags the other to do even the barest minimum of cleanup to contribute. And the toothbrush thing really grossed me out. Ugh.

I have the sense, as I often have before, that I bear the curse of being an almost-virtuous person. It seems to me that, if I were a truly virtuous person, I would find perfect joy in serving my brother in his affliction. If I were a completely vicious person, I wouldn't bother at all. It seems to me that I am in the somewhat difficult position of knowing what the right thing to do is, and even being willing to do it, but because I lack complete virtue, I still carry a certain amount of resentment over the whole thing.

I suppose I should be thanking God for this wonderful opportunity to learn to be more charitable. Sigh.

Suicide hotline

It just came to my attention that the best number to call for a suicide hotline is 1-800-273-TALK. I wanted to post that here because of a previous post I made that involved a suicide hotline. That post is also updated to include this number.

On the Rhode

I promised that I would go back and say a bit about the trip up to Rhode Island.

My friend John, who was moving from Durham to Boston, was my designated moving buddy. But my brother ended up being released from the hospital just in time to make the journey too. So we were three in the big yellow truck.

Paul was supposed to be released at 8am, so after a stop at the divinity school to say an early morning goodbye, I arrived at the hospital about then. Breakfast had just been served, and there were morning meds to be given out, but by about 8:45, we were back at my house and ready to roll. Almost. We also had to get 5 prescriptions filled (the kid's on some serious stuff). So we rolled out about 10:30am, 3 little adventurers in a big yellow truck dragging a little green car behind us.

The voices were nearly constant. Not that I could hear them. But it was like sitting next to someone on a cell phone the whole way: hearing half of a conversation. I'd try to point things out ("Look, Paul, we're in Virginia." "Hey, the Washington Monument!"), but the only thing that got much of a response from him was Philadephia. All of a sudden, he was fully alert, totally attentive, and totally responsive: "This is awesome; it's so big and bright and alive...." He was so pumped. He barely seemed to notice NYC.

Note to weary travelers. If you are driving up 95 to New England and thinking, as we were, "we'll just get past the city, and then we'll find a place," BEWARE. You know the convenient signs that tell you what lodging is available at a particular exit on just about EVERY interstate you've ever been on? The state of Connecticut apparently has something against them. We drove and drove and drove, and then finally just tried our luck at an exit or two, without any at all. Well, perhaps some, but it was all bad. We found a couple of places that would have been possible, if they had had parking for a truck and trailer. One such place may find very slight evidence of our passing on its fence and/or in its landscaping. (Sorry!)

Another note to travelers, in case you haven't already thought of this. If you have a cell phone, and if you can find a friend who is connected to the internet, you basically have access to the internet, even when you're flying down the interstate in a big yellow Penske truck. So, I called my friend Kyle, who eventually got to a computer and called me back. Of course, by this time we were to the part of the state that has billboards and other helpful road signage. But Kyle gave us the number for an upcoming motel and we called and confirmed that they had a vacancy and that they had truck parking. And we slept.

The next day, the plan was to swing by Boston to drop John's stuff off. When I first made this plan, it hadn't occurred to me that we would go right through Providence on our way. I did realize Boston was north of Providence and not precisely on our way. I just wasn't thinking we would actually go through Providence. This was no problem really, except for the fact that it confused Paul a lot. About 20 minutes after I'd pointed out "Hey, look Paul, Providence," he suddenly turned to me and said, "Why aren't we stopping? I thought we made it to Providence." I explained (again) about dropping John's stuff off. Paul conceded that perhaps John was worth a little extra time in the Penske.

By the way, I should note here that for me, John's worth was immeasurable. Not only did he drive the truck the whole way and oversee all the loading and unloading, but he was also good and patient company on a journey that would have been stressful enough without Paul. John was great with Paul as well. It was a real gift and blessing to have him along for the ride.

Once in Boston, John's unloading went smoothly, thanks to the help of some of his future BC colleagues. We hung out with the Coolclan a bit that night, then went halfway back to Providence and found another hotel. Walk-through and closing went smoothly, and Paul and John were able to unload while I signed my name a thousand times.

We took the truck back with about an hour to spare, though we got slightly lost on the way. There are apparently multiple combinations of "North" "Main St" and "Providence" possible around here. I think we were looking for North Main St in Providence, and I somehow got us to Main St in North Providence. Oh well, I'll learn. It all worked out eventually.

And that, more or less, is the story of the road trip to Rhode Island.

Home, Sweet Home

The papers are signed, and I'm sitting in my new house. Strange to be a homeowner after so much renting. Strange, too, to have shared so much of householding for the last 5 years with the other 5 or 6 members of the intentional Christian community that I used to live in. Strange to think I used to live there, I used to have housemates.

The house is lovely. The seller had promised to paint the interior and have the hardwood floors refinished. It turned out great. I really am quite pleased.

I'm also exhausted, and will perhaps post a bit about the trip up soon.

Thinking of my dad

I've been working on some changes to some life insurance policies I inherited when my dad died. My dad took out insurance policies on all of us kids when we were less than a year old. They aren't huge, but they're whole life, and they keep gaining value. And the other interesting thing about these policies is that they come with "guaranteed purchase options." This means that you have the option to purchase additional insurance, without having to prove that you're actually "insurable."

Well, I've inherited two sets of policies, the set that insures me, and the set that insures my brother Paul. It's occurred to me lately that not having to prove insurability is the only way that Paul will qualify for life insurance (a smoker with severe persistent mental illness?!!). So when I got a notice a few weeks ago that he had a "guaranteed purchase option" coming up, I decided to set up an appointment and exercise the option.

This is a strange experience on so many levels. It is very strange to buy life insurance for someone else. Let's be clear: there's still not enough money involved to cover a funeral for Paul. It's not like I'm going to make a profit off the thing. But it's really weird to sit there and think, "so, if I buy this, how much do I get when he dies?" It's even weirder to ask that question. But you have to ask it. Maybe this is morbid, but at this point, I've buried two parents, and I know this isn't enough to cover a funeral. Luckily, Paul will have six more "guaranteed purchase options" between now and when he turns 40. God, I hope he turns 40.

Another level of strangeness: it turns out my policy will be up for a guaranteed purchase option in a couple of months, but the agent got the okay to do the paperwork early. I thought about it a little and decided to go for it. It didn't feel quite as weird to buy insurance on myself. It felt all responsible. Whoever buries me will have a little less to worry about. But you also think about that: who will bury me? Who will sort through my finances when I'm gone? Weird.

Last level of strangeness. Did I mention that all this insurance is Knights of Columbus insurance? So this is this Catholic fraternal organization that my dad was a part of. The agent talked about "brother knights" and all this stuff. We're 1500 miles away from my hometown, but this guy is talking about taking care of me and my brother and our life insurance needs like taking care of the needs of his brother's kids. It was really sweet. And he could have been one of the guys that always said hello to my dad at Mass and were always doing the parish barbeques and raffle tickets, and who showed up in droves for his funeral. And it really made me miss my dad. It also really made me appreciate my dad and how far-sighted he was about certain things: life insurance and wills and pre-planning his own funeral expenses. It's funny how many forms love can take.

Most of the time, my mom is my model for how I should try to love my brother Paul. But this week, I followed my dad.

Baptizing David Thomas

Although I’m not generally a fan of liturgical innovations, my parish has made one of the best innovations to a liturgical rite that I’ve ever seen. The rite of Baptism of an infant has the priest sign the child with the cross and invite parents and godparents to do the same. Then, the congregation, together with parents and godparents, recites the Creed or renews their baptismal promises. But here’s what this church has done. After the parents and godparents sign the child, the priest invites all the children forward to sign the child with the cross as the community “teaches him the faith that we share.”

For five years I’ve been a part of this parish and I’ve thought “good way to get kids involved, that’s nice.” But this Sunday (July 23), I got to watch it up close, because my godson DT was baptized there. His dad squatted down with him and held him there, as his mom, his godfather, the priest and I looked on from right there above the swarm of children with their reaching hands, and the congregation watched from afar, reciting the faith that unites us.

Many of the children carefully, reverently traced a cross on his forehead. Or, rather, they would have had DT not been squirming so much. If he got any actual crosses, they were made of rather squiggly lines. Some of the kids didn’t really seem to try; they basically patted him on the head. One even seemed to more or less swat him in the face, though thankfully not very hard. Several—partly due to their having, understandably, the fine motor skills of toddlers, and partly again due to his movement—pretty much poked him in the eye, or seemed like they were coming close.

Up close, I decided, the swarm is a little scary. I really thought he might lose an eye. I thought his dad might start blocking a few of the shots, or that maybe his mom would intervene. But they didn’t. They surrendered their son to the swarm, as they would moments later surrender him to the waters of baptism, and to Christ and his church. Not a bad metaphor, as it turns out. Because baptism isn’t just about being claimed as Christ’s own, it’s also about becoming part of the Church, the people of God with all of their warbles and imperfections. Even the ones who seem to be trying to poke you in the eye.

Baptism is an amazing thing. “Once you were not a people, but now you are the people of God; once you had not received mercy, but now you have received mercy” (1 Pet 2:10). What a wondrous thing that the Christian community, through God’s grace, has the power to claim someone as a disciple of Christ with nothing but water and the name of the Triune God, the Father, Son, and Holy Spirit.

Once it did not, but now the people of God includes DT. DT, Christ and his church have claimed you as their own. You are ours, and we are yours. Welcome to the family.