My most sincere apologies for those of you who have been faithfully checking in on "The Palmer Perspective" only to find out that it was woefully missing updates. My schedule, both at work and at home, forced me to focus my attentions in other areas. Preaching (and all the other duties that come with it), youth ministry, and baby preparations have kept me up late into the night during the week and awakened me early in the mornings on the weekends. So today I decided to take a much needed break.
Rochelle and I spent the day looking for what I'm sure many soon-to-be-parents have to look for: a high quality digital camera. We had a great 35 mm camera that my brother gave us for Christmas several years ago, but it was dropped and broken. So, alas, we set out to upgrade our camera to digital quality.
When you shop with a pregnant woman, store personnel notice you and read "sucker" written across your forehead. You could feel the salesmen, sharks circling around us the minute Rochelle popped through the electronics room door with her belly shouting, "I'm nine months pregnant and might blow anytime!" They were on us like white on rice. We needed a camera, did not have long to look for one, and we didn't have a whole lot of knowledge about what we wanted. Behold, the perfect prey! First it was Wal-Mart--not enough selection. Next came Best Buy--too expensive (as are most things at Best Buy), then Sam's Club--only ONE camera please (all things aren't meant to be sold in bulk), onward to Conn's--a close relative to Best Buy, and finally Radio Shack!
We came home with a camera, but more importantly for my wife, the assurance that the first days of our daughters' life would be archived and preserved for lifetimes on end. The human hearts loves to make moments into memories. We love to revisit those minutes of mystery when we are reminded that life is about the people that you love and the time that you spend with them.
Cameras are powerful! I'm guessing that the next few holiday weeks will witness their share of families and friends sitting around tables and turkeys looking back over family albums and shoeboxes stuffed to overflowing with pictures from the past. In those moments we will realize again how fast life moves and how much we miss it. We learn again how special people are and tear over the fact that other people think we're special. There is no price that can be put on that. At least, there is no price that we would not pay!
Baseball umpire Durwood Merrill tells of his rookie year calling balls and strikes in the major leagues. In his first game, Nolan Ryan, the great fastballer himself was pitching. The second pitch of the game was so fast, Merrill never saw it. He froze, unable to make the call. Finally, he yelled, "Strike!" At which point the batter backed out of the box and said, "Ump, don't feel bad. I didn't see it either."
I think life is like that sometimes. It moves so fast you might not ever see it. But when you get a chance, when life slows down, if even for just a moment, grab a memory! Snap a picture!
Monday, November 17, 2003
Monday, October 27, 2003
A Perfect World
The baby's room is just about finished now. The paint has been pristinely brushed on the walls, the border aligned perfectly along the baseboards, the dresser stained and polyurethaned and polyurethaned and polyurethaned again. Diapers are stacked, the changing pad is waiting and the smell of joy and baby powder is in the air. You can cut the anticipation with a knife! Even our sweet beagle, Ralph, has perused the room finding the perfect place to sleep while he guards the door and window from unwanted intruders into our child's world.
It's a crazy time. Every minute I am home not doing something baby related seems wasted, every item displaying the least bit of imperfection is frustrating and carries more feelings of failure than I ever imagined possible.
If it were up to Rochelle and me, our daughter would live in a perfect world. She would have a perfect childhood; wonderful and magical. She would never be harmed. She would have no scars; physical or emotional. She would somehow manage to overcome the immense faults of her parents (at least the immense faults of her dad ) that are bound to be passed on. We want her to have a perfect world! That's why we've worked so hard on the part of her world we might be able to manage; her room.
We have no illusions. We know that our faults will hurt her. All parents somehow wound their children. Like extended family passing photos at a holiday gathering, children cannot be handled with love without being fingerprinted by their handlers.
That's why Jesus teaches us to forgive! So that as we look back at the photo album of our lives, we can remember the incredible instances God has given us and love the people whose prints have smudged the pictures.
It's in those moments when life on earth is a snapshot of life in Heaven. Now that's a perfect world.
It's a crazy time. Every minute I am home not doing something baby related seems wasted, every item displaying the least bit of imperfection is frustrating and carries more feelings of failure than I ever imagined possible.
If it were up to Rochelle and me, our daughter would live in a perfect world. She would have a perfect childhood; wonderful and magical. She would never be harmed. She would have no scars; physical or emotional. She would somehow manage to overcome the immense faults of her parents (at least the immense faults of her dad ) that are bound to be passed on. We want her to have a perfect world! That's why we've worked so hard on the part of her world we might be able to manage; her room.
We have no illusions. We know that our faults will hurt her. All parents somehow wound their children. Like extended family passing photos at a holiday gathering, children cannot be handled with love without being fingerprinted by their handlers.
That's why Jesus teaches us to forgive! So that as we look back at the photo album of our lives, we can remember the incredible instances God has given us and love the people whose prints have smudged the pictures.
It's in those moments when life on earth is a snapshot of life in Heaven. Now that's a perfect world.
Friday, October 17, 2003
Baseball Family
My wife, Rochelle, hates the baseball postseason! Not because she loses her husband to late-night, extra-inning games but because she loses herself. It seems that in recent years the baseball playoffs have had heart-pounding, heart-breaking drama.
The much belied slow pace of the regular season becomes palpable moments of pregnant expectation in the playoffs. Each moment hangs like a curveball without enough zip. Cameras pan the pained faces of the crowd as pitch after pitch carries the blessing or the curse of winning or losing. It's agonizing. It's wonderful.
You can't do that in football...it's too fast. It won't happen in basketball...the shot clock is ticking. Don't expect it in golf...it's too quite. Forget soccer...I think we already have!
Only baseball has that magic drama of team against team, and one-on-one.
Rochelle is drawn in, like a moth to a flame to the tense drama only baseball can provide. She sits and watches, rises and falls with every late inning pitch--hoping to death that the Yankees will lose. They hardly ever do.
It is in those moments that I am most aware of family unity. I grew up in a baseball family. I'm an Atlanta Braves fan because my mom was. Rochelle grew up in a football family. Rochelle is a Dallas Cowboy's fan because her dad was. Parents shape us in more ways than we know. Adults pass along their love for sports and sports teams as easily as they pass the bread around the kitchen table.
Working with parents in a church setting, I'm often approached about how to pass down the faith from one generation to the next. We all want to know the magic formula for faithful children. I'm not sure if there is one. There are a thousand theories and none of them are fool-proof. But I think the answer may be more simple that I ever realized: love the thing you love and let your children know you love it!
That's what we do with sports. We might be on to something.
The much belied slow pace of the regular season becomes palpable moments of pregnant expectation in the playoffs. Each moment hangs like a curveball without enough zip. Cameras pan the pained faces of the crowd as pitch after pitch carries the blessing or the curse of winning or losing. It's agonizing. It's wonderful.
You can't do that in football...it's too fast. It won't happen in basketball...the shot clock is ticking. Don't expect it in golf...it's too quite. Forget soccer...I think we already have!
Only baseball has that magic drama of team against team, and one-on-one.
Rochelle is drawn in, like a moth to a flame to the tense drama only baseball can provide. She sits and watches, rises and falls with every late inning pitch--hoping to death that the Yankees will lose. They hardly ever do.
It is in those moments that I am most aware of family unity. I grew up in a baseball family. I'm an Atlanta Braves fan because my mom was. Rochelle grew up in a football family. Rochelle is a Dallas Cowboy's fan because her dad was. Parents shape us in more ways than we know. Adults pass along their love for sports and sports teams as easily as they pass the bread around the kitchen table.
Working with parents in a church setting, I'm often approached about how to pass down the faith from one generation to the next. We all want to know the magic formula for faithful children. I'm not sure if there is one. There are a thousand theories and none of them are fool-proof. But I think the answer may be more simple that I ever realized: love the thing you love and let your children know you love it!
That's what we do with sports. We might be on to something.
Thursday, October 16, 2003
Hungry? Why Wait?
G.K. Chesterton once said, "Every man who knocks on the door of a brothel is looking for God." It seems that all of us seek transcendence through tangible means. It's people, or possessions, or power. But we never find the taste that will satisfy our hunger. We are people of indulgence because we are seekers at heart. We want to find the one thing that will bring us wholeness.
Recently I have been reading through the Sermon on the Mount and something has jumped off the page. Jesus says, "blessed (a word meaning 'happy') are those who hunger and thirst after righteousness."
Most of us spend our time chasing phantom dreams of power and influence, far fewer of us hunger for righteousness. I wonder if we would find the scratch that would finally cure the itch if we took Jesus seriously?
It's more than apparent that pursuing the other lovers of life will not and cannot make us happy: a drinker keeps drinking, a eater keeps eating, the greedy never stop cheating and the unfaithful spouse keep being unfaithful. Our endless courtship with undesirable lovers often leaves us believing that the desirous one would not want us. Nothing could be farther from the truth. God pursues us with a relentless, ferocious longing to win our hearts.
It seems that if we were at all astute, we would chose the God who has already chosen us. As Oswald Chambers has written, "There is only One Being who can satisfy the last aching abyss of the human heart, and that is the Lord Jesus Christ."
Recently I have been reading through the Sermon on the Mount and something has jumped off the page. Jesus says, "blessed (a word meaning 'happy') are those who hunger and thirst after righteousness."
Most of us spend our time chasing phantom dreams of power and influence, far fewer of us hunger for righteousness. I wonder if we would find the scratch that would finally cure the itch if we took Jesus seriously?
It's more than apparent that pursuing the other lovers of life will not and cannot make us happy: a drinker keeps drinking, a eater keeps eating, the greedy never stop cheating and the unfaithful spouse keep being unfaithful. Our endless courtship with undesirable lovers often leaves us believing that the desirous one would not want us. Nothing could be farther from the truth. God pursues us with a relentless, ferocious longing to win our hearts.
It seems that if we were at all astute, we would chose the God who has already chosen us. As Oswald Chambers has written, "There is only One Being who can satisfy the last aching abyss of the human heart, and that is the Lord Jesus Christ."
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