Home Life

Pray for Kristen

Wayne — Wed, 10 Jun 2009 11:13:14 -0400

Please continue to pray for Kristen for many, unspecified needs.

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10 Big Reasons Not to Send Christian Kids to Public Schools

Katrina — Mon, 11 May 2009 19:46:42 -0400

http://www.crosswalk.com/homeschool/11603305/

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My family-of-origin

Wayne — Mon, 23 Mar 2009 09:50:10 -0400

I've avoided writing too much about my family-of-origin out of misplaced respect for them, granting them unwarranted, special dispensation. I've worked hard, in fact, to avoid offending them—and they are all so easily offended—but I've also long questioned this decision. Events have taken place that render this decision irrelevant. All but one have severed relationships with my family now, so any unilateral attempts from our end to maintain relationships are now moot.

"How did it come to such drastic ends?" you might ask. It's a funny tale. I was raised nominally Christian but was pretty much inoculated against the faith by the perversions taught in church and the hypocrisy lived by my family-of-origin. Some of them claim to be Christian but they all utterly fail Barna's test of even a most basic, Biblical worldview. (The best of my family-of-origin have long subscribed to cafeteria theology.) When I was saved (they hate that word, if that tells you anything), it was when I was in high school and in a context far removed from the Truth of God. I didn't even have the terminology to define the event. I had no spiritual mentors who knew the Word, let alone recognized it as authoritative. I struggled for a few years in my search for truth, but the Lord was present even then. He guided me (as no one else did) to His eternal Word, written and incarnate, and I embraced Biblical Christianity, as opposed to incorporated religion. As a result of leaving the superficially religious and highly hypocritical values of my family-of-origin, I was ostracized as the black sheep of the family. (To be honest, I was somewhat of a "speckled" sheep even before then, for numerous reasons.) This black-sheep status has only grown as my parents and siblings evolved their worldviews further away from the Lord and mine evolved toward Him. As a Bible-believing follower of Christ, I carry the stench of death to unbelievers, and I believe this has long included my family-of-origin. My wife and daughter, of course, exhibit Christ likewise, and so our whole family is a pariah among my family-of-origin.

My father's parents had five children. The first became a Lutheran pastor (ELCA) and thus has rejected the authority of the Word, also preferring cafeteria theology. The second also became a Lutheran pastor, and while married, had an affair with another married member of his congregation, justifying his sin by claiming he was on a "higher spiritual plane" where morals don't apply and sin doesn't exist. The third in my father's family-of-origin rejected mainstream Christianity and embraced Unity, some new-age cr@p that denies the existence of sin. She gave her kids marijuana bongs on their birthdays, if that gives you any idea of her values. The fourth was my father who chose a life of legalism and simpleminded "faith", all the while refusing any submission to the Lord. The fifth child of my father's family-of-origin eventually came to know the Lord and embraced Biblical Christianity just as I did. Presently attending a Baptist church, he is rejected by even other so-called Christians in the extended family as a nutcase. He is the only true believer among them.

My folks were nominally Christian, but as my father was (and is) a legalist, my mother rejected all the rules in rebellion to the tradition in which she was raised. She has reinvented the faith, molding it after her own image, and she uses cafeteria theology to justify it all. My brother has inherited the pseudo-legalistic, cafeteria theology from our parents, and his life seemingly bears none of the fruit of a saving faith (just like the lives of my parents fail to bear fruit). My sister, being raised in a denomination (Lutheran) that taught cheap grace (no works proceed from the faith) and easy forgiveness (pretty much without repentance), she is oddly driven by persistent feelings of unresolved, unrepented guilt, avoiding any hint of perceived judgment by others.

Getting to how we've been shunned...

My sister, feeling condemned by anyone who knows her or gets to know her (regardless of anything others say or do), avoids us like the plague. She knows we're "Jesus freaks", so she assumes we judge everything she does. While we are certainly able to discern right from wrong, we've never said a word to her about her sins. (Why should we? She knows they're wrong, despite her attempts to embrace Unity like her aunt. She just refuses to repent. In fact, she hates the Lord so much, she won't allow a Bible in her home.) Naturally, as a result of her highly flawed worldview, her life is a mess. She's divorcing the sociopath she married. She's failed as a mother in almost every way conceivable, including saying how she doesn't even want to be around her kid, even while within earshot of her preteen daughter when saying this! Needless to say, our successful family (prayerfully modeled after God's design) reminds her of her failures, and so she feels judged. She therefore severed relationship with us years ago.

My sister-in-law (a native Parisian) has chosen to shun us lately because of Thanksgiving/Christmas 2007. If you'll recall, our basement had flooded with sewage, the insurance company screwed us to the tune of over $10,000, and it took months to get back to normalcy. At the same time, my wife's back had gone out (two ruptured discs), was in intense and constant pain (and she has a high tolerance for pain), and was in therapy every other day. This all happened just before Thanksgiving and lasted well into the new year. In the midst of all this disaster, our sister-in-law wanted to get together for dinner, an annual bone she threw us each year. We were "Jesus freaks" to my brother's family, and they didn't like our values, so they really only wanted to see us during the holidays or the kids' birthdays. This year, their token of "friendship" came at a very bad time for us, so we asked to postpone until conditions improved. Stress was high, and we suspected our company may not be so good, so we truly were thinking of them and their feelings, too. Our sister-in-law pressed quite rudely, completely ignoring our plight, but we politely insisted that postponement would be preferable. Eventually, we did get together...in January, I believe. However, my sister-in-law has held a grudge since that time and severed relationship with us. Somehow, it seems she took our postponement personally, although I really don't see how it could be perceived that way when we initiated the dinner invitation after the disaster was over.

My brother, the husband of the French girl, has also written us off due to a perceived attack of a personal nature. Some time ago, he and his wife were traveling out of town (as they do so often) but needed their kids picked up from somewhere—the first time they ever asked us to help take care of their kids. Their hired babysitter had apparently flaked on them. We had told him we'd ordinarily love to pick up his kids (we like spending time with our nieces when we can), but that we were on the road out of town ourselves and couldn't get to our nieces for several hours. We asked if he had an alternative he could tap to solve his problem, and he agreed that he did. However, despite his assurances of an alternative, and despite our legitimate inability to help, he chose to see this as some kind of personal attack against him and has held a grudge ever since, at least according to our mother. He too no longer cares to see us anymore. To frame this properly, you should know my brother's values. He and his wife love money and status. They are A-1 yuppies, living well beyond their means, driving themselves into crippling dept. My brother now runs the small company my father started in the late 80s, and he loves to play BMOC, so to speak. All their friends are fellow yuppies. They all look down on us, because we live more simply and our values don't align with theirs. (Mind you, I don't care if people look down on us. I'm not aiming to please them, to be sure.) This is why we've never been terribly welcome in their lives in the first place, and I'm sure it's played a big role in their decisions to shun us completely now.

My father, like my soon-to-be ex-brother-in-law, is a sociopath, although my father can turn it off and on at will. (I honestly don't know which is worse, a full-time sociopath or a willfully part-time one.) A few years ago, my mother planned to travel from NC to GA, so she volunteered to give a ride to our son who was living near them in NC. My mother changed her plans (sick? conflict? don't know), so she asked my father to bring our son to GA. She then asked us if we could meet them halfway (a 4+ hour round trip) to pick up our son. At the time, my wife was very ill, and I had an important conflict. We figured either they could continue with their original plan to bring our son with them (with my father now) or we could simply reschedule, so it wasn't anywhere near a crisis status for us. My father decided to bring our son all the to GA (I never understood why he wanted to go only halfway), but he also chose to call my wife (who couldn't answer because she was sick in bed) on her cellphone and leave a most vitriolic message on her voicemail. It was profane, hateful...well, the kind of stuff you tend to hear out of the demonically possessed. As was his habit, he never exhibited any guilt and certainly no intention of repentance. We did the only thing we could do: we chose to limit our exposure to him (especially for our daughter's sake), the only prescription for handling sociopaths. We did not cut off relationship, but neither did we jump at the chance to be with him. Due to an unrelated event (whereby he embarrassed himself at our home), he's vowed never to come to our home again; and in reaction to our decision to limit our exposure to his frequent sociopathy, he too has preferred to cut all relationship instead.

My mother, a suspected but undiagnosed schizophrenic, also subscribing to cafeteria theology (including rejecting Jesus' divinity and necessity—she's "more spiritual than that"), seemingly tries to be the peacemaker in the family, daily meddling in my siblings' lives and attempting the same in mine. She may mean well, but her tactics are highly manipulative. She prefers to call us "stupid" for our steadfast belief in the Lord's Word, specifically our originalist contextual interpretation that she mischaracterizes as "literal". (Given our IQs and available scientific/historical evidence, this is laughable.) Perhaps she means to bring my family-of-origin together by dragging us (wife, daughter, me) down to their level, intellectually and spiritually, but this really isn't an effective way of making peace. She tries to appear as if she doesn't nurture a grudge against us, but it's evident enough in her behavior (and near-curtailment of relationship).

My family-of-origin, particularly my mother, enjoys gossip, seemingly especially if it involves sharing one another's grudges against me and mine. If we offend one of them, all the rest share in the offense in some twisted, leftist form of empathy. (Ironically, they all claim to be conservatives, but their demonstrated values scream otherwise.) Given each of them has chosen to nurse a grudge against my family (or just against me) plus their love of familial gossip, I believe they've managed to amplify their animosity toward us to the point of curtailing almost all contact. (Come to think of it, this may be a blessing in disguise.)

My extended family of uncles, aunts, and cousins—on my father's side—all of whom have rejected the Lord in one way or another (except for the youngest uncle and his family), are upset with me and my family because we choose not to attend the biannual family reunion. The impetus for this event was my grandfather's death where they decided to meet every two years thereafter. Given my youth and dependence upon my folks at the time, I had no choice, of course, although I knew we had little in common with them. (Even my folks' false faith was grossly at odds with my father's siblings and their families.) Once I was independent, I chose not to continue this tradition of reunion. While my youngest uncle still tries to witness to these lost, I had long since shaken the dust off my feet and moved on. I wish my uncle well in his futile efforts, but I certainly don't see them as necessary after having the Message rejected numerous times. As a result of my family's lack of attendance to these hedonistic gatherings, we've been branded yet again. Ironically, we have said in the past that any of our extended family is welcome to come visit us or stay with us (and actually get to know us, for they have no clue who we are). We would be happy to visit with them on a smaller scale. I'm just very wary about taking my wife and child to a reunion of three dozen (or more) people reveling in evil; that situation would be no better than attending a week-long Satanic ritual.

I just wanted to go on the record, rather than continuing to keep this secret for the sake of my family-of-origin's worship of their own feelings. I wish we could have Godly relationships with my family-of-origin and extended family, but I'm certainly not willing to immerse my loved ones in evil just because they're family. My mother believes we're merely attempting to avoid "eating with sinners", so to speak, but she misses the context. Jesus ate with sinners because He was reaching them. They also tended to seek Him out more than the other way around. These sinners were open to repentance and forgiveness. They were open to changing their ways and submitting to the Lord. None of these factors exists in the case of my family-of-origin. I do find it funny in a sad way that while we are the ones expressing willingness to cultivate relationships with my family-of-origin and extended family, they are the ones cutting us off and claiming otherwise. They get to appear righteous to themselves; they get to cut off the relationships; they get to blame us for it all; and they've even managed to convince themselves it's not because of the Lord in us, using trumped up scenarios as excuses to begrudge us.

Sword Names

Wayne — Mon, 01 Dec 2008 09:45:14 -0500

I'm interested in soliciting ideas for a name for my katana. My favorite front-runner presently is Aletheia ("truth"). Do you have any suggestions you'd like to propose?

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Bad roofer

Dave — Sun, 12 Oct 2008 08:29:52 -0400

A while back I mentioned that we had our roof replaced. While our experience with our homeowner's insurance company was quite good, our experience with the roofing company that we went with, Academy Roofing, was not.

Things started off fine, as they often do in the sales phase of the process. The salesman for Academy met with the inspector from USAA. This is as much for his benefit as ours, but we found it reassuring. (I have since learned that other roofing companies do this, so Academy is not providing a unique service here.) We did not know how much of our settlement to attribute to the presence of Academy's representative, but we appreciated his effort.

Once we inked the agreement, we had to wait a bit for them to deliver the materials. They said that there was a delay in obtaining the shingles we had ordered. Since we had no way of verifying this, we had to take them at their word, but unfortunately, this delay proved to be a foreshadowing of the future when it came to dealing with these guys. As for the actual installation and the roof itself, we are basically satisfied. We have a few quibbles about things that can't be changed, but there were no deal-breakers in the process. Now, that's not to say that there weren't some things that we wanted them to touch up. I have a friend who is a home inspector, and he went up on the roof for me to look it over. He found some minor issues (a nail sticking out, a small number of holes) that Academy needed to address. And thus began the problem, or part of it.

I talked to a couple of different people at Academy (the sales guy, somebody at their main office) and told them about the punch work. I was assured both times that they would talk to the person in charge of scheduling repairs, and he would contact me about getting on their schedule. Days went by, and it never happened. I got the direct line of this person and talked to him. He said he would contact me about getting on their schedule. Days went by, and it never happened. I talked to the sales guy again (about something else -- see below), and he made noises about them being understaffed. (Sorry to hear that, Mr. Sales Guy, but that's your problem, not mine.) He assured me that I would get a call about the repairs. We didn't.

To be fair, we did eventually get a call about scheduling the repair. Unfortunately, the call occurred on Rosh Hashanah, a sabbath day, during which I never bothered to turn on my cell phone. Furthermore, they were giving us less than a day's notice -- we were supposed to call their tech that same day to schedule a time when he could come over. I contacted them the next day and scheduled an appointment for a few days later. No one showed up. I wound up talking to the sales guy, who told me that we was surprised when our repair had been rescheduled (meaning from the date I had set after the sabbath). Apparently, they were a no-show because they had rescheduled our appointment without bothering to tell us. I told the sales guy rather sharply that he had better inform us when the new appointment was. For once, he came through, and they finally completed the repairs -- about five weeks after we first asked them.

The other issue that we had with them was with price. Not long after the roof went up, we got an invoice from the company. However, the price they were charging was higher than what we had agreed to pay. The agreement was for the amount of the insurance settlement plus a specific amount for some upgrades we had ordered. The invoice included a note saying that it reflected a price increase that went into effect at the beginning of August. Now, our roof went up on August 4th, but the materials had been delivered the previous week, in July, so a price increase couldn't have been applicable. Regardless, we weren't going to pay more than the price on our written agreement, so we withheld the money until we could get a correct invoice.

I eventually got a call from the sales guy to talk about the money. I told him about the price issue. He asked to see the insurance paperwork, which I faxed to him. He told me that my calculations were not correct because I had not included sales tax (which was included in our settlement, just on a separate page in the report), and I of course agreed that the sales tax should be reflected on the invoice. However, even with that inclusion, the invoice was about $65 higher than the agreed-upon price. The sales guy assured me that he would alert the central office of the change, and that he would fax me an updated copy of the invoice that same day. He did neither.

Over a week later, I got a call from someone at the central office concerning our unpaid balance. When I called her back, she still had the old, incorrect balance. I explained the situation to her and told her that the sales guy had copies of our settlement agreement. I gave her the corrected figure, and she said she would talk to the correct person in the office (apparently, she was the "billing" person, but she needed to get the information to the "invoice" person), and that we should expect a corrected invoice. A few days later, we did receive another invoice -- for the old, incorrect amount. Another call to the sales guy resulted in more promises and assurances, all broken. Eventually, the same week that the repairs took place, I was able to secure a corrected invoice from the sales guy.

During this entire episode, our position -- stated quite clearly to all Academy -- was that we had the money and were ready to pay, if only they could take care of these two things. The fact that they stalled for weeks and then took care of both issues within a day of each other leads me to suspect that this whole thing was an orchestrated effort on their part to try to get out of the repair, and to squeeze a few extra bucks out of us. Of course, I can't prove this, and frankly, I would rather not believe that, but under the circumstances, it is plausible.

Needless to say, we will not be talking to Academy the next time we need a roof, and I recommend that no one else does, either.

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Monkey see....

Charla — Fri, 08 Aug 2008 15:44:19 -0400

We were at the park today making friends with another mom and her kids. Our kids were playing together when it became evident that my son was in trouble. He was playing in a tree. He was getting down out of the tree and slid down and got his knee wedged in between two trunk limbs of the tree, maybe 18-24 inches off the ground. He got so stuck we women couldn't get him out, so I had to call 911. It took 5 firemen to get him out by prying the limbs apart as much as they could. One guy actually hung like a monkey from one of the limbs and used his weight to push the limbs apart while the other used pry bars down below.

It only took five minutes and my son isn't hurt at all, but it was just such a sight to see. The firemen were friendly and I think rather happy it was an easy exercise for them.

When I first called 911, I received the county's automatic answering recording and had to wait, but didn't have to wait long. I made sure to tell the dispatcher exactly where we were and she asked good questions. It wasn't a life or death situation so we weren't panicked, although my son was in pain being stuck in the tree. We waited patiently and the first ambulance showed up 5 minutes later and then a firetruck showed up a minute after that, both without sirens blaring. Good thing, because they needed the pry bars out of the truck.

Anyway, I just wanted to contrast this simple little 5-minute rescue with the tragedy that happened in Fulton County earlier this week. http://www.11alive.com/news/local/story.aspx?... I find it hard to believe that a dispatcher, with 10 years of dispatching under her belt, could not use her common sense to realize that the cell tower that the call was coming from was not anywhere near downtown, and maybe she had typed in the address wrong. It was Wales Drive, not Wells Drive. Partly because of her mistake, the lady died.

I believe Johns Creek (where this lady lived) is looking into getting their own 911 system, as well they should. There's no reason whatsoever that Alpharetta or any suburbs should be on the same system as downtown Atlanta.

And no, I know 911 isn't perfect, but here in Gwinnett, they seem to be doing ok for us (my family) so far. So I just wanted to give credit where it was due.

I pray for that dispatcher. She'll have to live with her mistake the rest of her life.

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Backyard execution

Dave — Wed, 30 Jul 2008 14:23:29 -0400

I ran across this blog post a while back (Vox linked to it), and I wanted to pass it along. Too funny.

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The "threat" of home schooling

Dave — Mon, 07 Jul 2008 13:57:36 -0400

I believe that this article does an excellent job of summing up society's attitude toward homeschoolers, and why it is under attack.

Vox' comments on this article include an interesting suggestion, which I plan to use if the opportunity arises. If someone challenges you on your decision to homeschool, just ask him why he cares. After all, your child is not causing anyone any trouble at school, and keeping him out of the classroom means that they are smaller. Viewed in those terms, homeschooling benefits those going to public school. So, what's the problem?

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Good homeowner's insurance

Dave — Tue, 01 Jul 2008 09:21:16 -0400

Anybody remember the series of storms we had back in March? There were a couple of tornado warnings in the northern Atlanta suburbs. At my house, we had an intense, thrilling hail storm, the likes of which I have never seen.

Well, I didn't realize it at first, but it turns out that the hail did some damage to our roof and other parts of the house. A couple of weeks ago, I called our homeowner's insurance company, which is USAA, to file a claim. Last week, they sent an adjuster out to inspect the damage. Yesterday, we got a check in the mail.

Now, the repair process isn't finished, so I don't know whether the settlement is actually fair in all areas. I do know that the estimate for replacing the roof is within $50 of the roofer's estimate, so I am hoping that the remaining items will be close as well.

I should also mention what happened with the representative from the roofing company we are using. He asked me who I had my homeowner's insurance with, and when I said, "USAA," his immediate response was, "Oh, you'll be fine. They'll take care of you." Bear in mind that this guy deals with insurance companies -- according to him, that's about half his job -- so he has experience with a lot of them. When he wrote out the roofing estimate, there was no dollar amount other than the upgrades that we are adding to the roof (i.e., that weren't covered by the repair-and-replacement settlement). The estimate was for whatever USAA determined was the replacement cost. He wrote the estimate the same day that the adjuster came to the house and agreed to do the job for USAA's price, sight unseen. Of course, as I mentioned, USAA's price was almost exactly what he said (verbally) the estimate was, so his trust was obviously well-founded.

Furthermore, USAA waived the usual "depreciation" deduction from the initial check. This means that they withhold a portion of the actual estimate until the repairs are actually done. They do this mainly for protection against the repairs costing less than the estimate. In our case, though, they just cut a check for the full amount. (I have no idea if they will want anything back if the repair comes in below the estimate. They're welcome to it if they do.)

I know that not everyone is eligible to do business with USAA. However, if you are, and you haven't looked into it, I suggest that you do. I have been with them in varying capacities for more than twenty years, and my experience has been uniformly good. This last episode just strengthens my opinion that they are a good company and worthy of my business.

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My Sister and her service to America

Juliana — Wed, 04 Jun 2008 15:09:43 -0400

My sister is in the Air Force. She is currently in Iraq searching people who visit the prisoners with a metal detector. I haven't seen her in about two and a half years.

Her husband is in the Air Force, too. I forget what he does, but he made sure my sister got a safe job. They both help keep America safe. Sometimes, my sister sends me things. It's really cool to see it.

But that's not the point. The point is this. When the Fourth of July comes, do something for America. Try to remember what our people did in order to get independence, and what they're doing today so we can keep it. As for me, I'll just say this. Support our troops, and support America!

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