Brandon Woosley

The Power of an Unplanned Visit

So, I woke up late. And Christy woke up late. And Zach didn’t want to wake up at all. Bless him, Josh was on the move.

Our mornings at this point call for getting the boys ready for school in time to take Christy to work, and then get back to put the boys in the taxi that takes them to school. So, we get everyone to the car, but several minutes later than we would prefer, and as we back out of the driveway, we see the taxi pull up, about 10 minutes early, in front of the house (instead of the side of the house, where we have a sidewalk to the street – this will be important momentarily).

As I swing the van around the front of the house, Christy opens the window and tells the driver, ‘We’re just taking me to work, and he’ll be back with the boys within 10 minutes, okay?” But even as she’s saying it, I can see the look of confusion and irritation clouding over taxi-driver’s face. “You want to take the kids now? You’re going to get to school too early” (and Christy’s going to get to work too late, I”m thinking). Of course he does. So, I swing the van in front of the taxi, and tell Josh to run in the house to get his and Zach’s backpacks. I run up to the house with him, to unlock the door, and grab Zach’s pack from him to carry it to the car; as I hit the first step of grass (remember that sidewalk that the taxi didn’t pull up to?) WOW I’M FLYING/HORIZONTAL AND DOWN on my side in the snow and slush. In the clothes I planned to wear to the office today.

Now I’m mad at the taxi driver. I’m mad at unusually warm January weather melting this snow. I’m mad.

Boys in the taxi, Christy back in the van, race her to work, almost 10 minutes late, then head back for home, trying to figure out what to wear today.

As I get out of the van in the driveway, one of our churchgoers pulls up and says, “Good morning! Have you got a few minutes?” Well no, I sure don’t, because I’m wet and irritated. “Sure, let’s go inside.”

And we proceed to have a great 45 minutes of getting to know each other better, some useful insights on a task I’m going to do later this week, and encouragement about what I do as a preacher. By 9:00, the entire kerfuffle – yes, I said it: kerfuffle – that was 7:55-8:15 is gone.

Community is a blessing. And God, the Author of Community, is good.

Genre Studies

I’m currently flying through Miss Peregrine’s Home for Peculiar Children. I started reading a couple weeks ago when I was hanging out with Zach in the Meijer toy department at 2 a.m.*, and it grabbed my interest enough that I bought a copy, even though I’ve got several more important books I’m supposed to be reading at the moment.

*When Zach has an occasional sleepless night, which is one of the side benefits of autism, I’ve found that he enjoys going to the local Meijer and sorting the shelves in their toy department. It soothes him, and keeps him from waking up everyone else in the house. And, all of Meijer’s Elmo toys get the orderly sorting they deserve. Everyone wins.

It wasn’t until this past weekend, when I’m almost done with the book, that I realized that it is considered by some to be Young Adult Lit. This always makes me a bit uncomfortable, as though I’m wasting my time or “slumming it” literarily. In fact, Daniel Radcliffe pointed straight at my feelings on this during his Saturday Night Live monologue this week: “To all of the adults who bought the Harry Potter books and devoured them I just want to say: those books were for children. You were reading children’s books.” However, I’m ready to reject the label on Miss Peregrine and continue to read without embarassment.

I think we’ve become too specialized in this regard. Is the book YA because the narrator is a 16 year old? Is it because the author has given his narrator an authentic 16-year-old’s tone? I consider this a good thing (preferable, for example, to 29 year olds playing high school students). It is not beneath adults to read an engaging and thoughtful story just because the story isn’t told by their own peers. In fact, isn’t that part of the power of literature, to tell us stories that aren’t our own?

Savoring

My dear wife is now in love with Pinterest. I am still trying to spell it without having to look it up. But, there was a neat idea there that she ran across this week: take a jar, and every time something happens that seems memorable, write it down and put it in the jar. Then, at the end of the year, pour out the jar and savor all the stories on those scraps of paper. I love this idea because I suspect that many of the things that we think at the time will be memorable will, in fact, normally get lost over time. Writing them like that will preserve them, and they will bring fresh joy when you take time to reclaim them at the end of the year.

Like this story from yesterday: Zach loves Baby Einstein things – he loves the music, he loves playing with the hand puppets, he loves to carry around as many board books as he can so he can sit and read them when he wants. But sometimes, he gets his facts a little messed up. Last night we were all riding in the car, and suddenly, in his sing-songy voice, Zach says “Baby Einstein: Who loves in the pond”. We vaguely recognized this from one of the videos, but were also fairly sure that they actually say “who lives in the pond.” So, I said, “Hey Zach, it’s who lives in the pond.” “Baby Einstein: Who loves in the pond,” came back the reply, which caused Josh to break out into giggles. Josh then tried the correction next, but Zach was still insistent that it is “who loves in the pond.” These attempts to get Zach to change his tune went on and on, and each time, Zach responded with a steady, peaceful “Baby Einstein: Who loves in the pond.” Eventually we quit trying, mainly because everyone was laughing too hard to talk.

Zach: 1, Everyone else: 0.

Getting Back Behind the Wheel

I have only had two accidents with cars in my life. The first one completely totaled my beautiful 1965 Mustang; it was not driveable after that, and got sold for scrap. The second one was actually a minor car versus deer situation: a deer came up out of a field, side-swiped my Dodge Neon, and then sprung back into the corn. The car was driveable, and in fact only had minor damage – a hoof print in the back door and a battered rear-view mirror. But after that accident, the car didn’t feel right to me for a long time. I felt like it drove different, but not in a way that I could identify or get checked out. It went for several more years (until I sold it to a young friend who, if I understand correctly, did significantly more damage to it – Hi, Ben Jordan!), so it was clearly fine. But it felt tainted.

I’m having that same feeling at this very moment. Sitting at my laptop keyboard. My system froze up in a mysterious and unresolvable way last weekend, and eventually the Geeks told me that there was nothing left to do but collect my data in Safe Mode and do a complete restore – wipe the drive and start fresh. Which is all well and good…the system started up again, which was an improvement, and everything seems to be re-loading without incident. But what is with the check-boxes next to all the file folders and files when I go looking for something? That wasn’t part of my Windows 7 experience before, and I don’t want it to be now, but there it is. Everything’s fine, I guess; it just feels…different.

Shepherds and Angels

Today is the third day of Christmas.

And in the same region there were shepherds out in the field, keeping watch over their flock by night.
9 And an angel of the Lord appeared to them, and the glory of the Lord shone around them, and they were filled with fear.
(Luke 2:8-9 ESV)

I am a small-church kind of guy; not that I am against large churches, but rather that small expressions of Christian community are especially compelling to me: personal-sized groups of Christians strengthening each other, building each other up, sharing life together. So, the verses above are the sort that catch my attention. God comes to the world in a humble way, born human to a modest family, announced to a group of insignificant shepherds – all of it God breaking into the world in a small way. That’s what I tend to notice most.

But then, I was reminded this morning of what comes next:

And suddenly there was with the angel a multitude of the heavenly host praising God and saying,
14 “Glory to God in the highest, and on earth peace among those with whom he is pleased!” (Luke 2:13-14 ESV)

God breaks into the world in a small way, but also comes with a multitude of angels, a heavenly army singing his praises. A large number, a massive chorus of praise.

God comes in a small way and in a large way at the same time. Small expressions of praise and faith and joy, and massive ones, side by side. It occurs to me that this is another way of seeing God’s immanence and transcendence: God is personally present with his people, and more vast than the entire physical world. God is both small and big, a baby in a manger and a King who holds everything in his hand. And our praise of him is appropriately expressed in ways small and personal and humble, and in ways as big and vast and grand as we can possibly muster.