Devotion - Walking Dark Streets at Night

Derek Webb is giving away his latest album, Mockingbird. Get it while it's Hot. This is one of his strongest songwriting efforts yet. He has forsaken his favorite tiresome game of mixing scriptural metaphors and has actually set about saying what he actually thinks in a very unambiguous way and challenging directly the apathy that so clearly disgusts him about Western Christianity. Definately worth a listen (even if he does try a little to hard to sonically reference Sufjan Stevens), and hey he's actually encouraging you to share it with friends in order to download it so you can have that rarest of precious comodities: a conversation about thoughtful and challenging music.

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As for this devotion it is the first of a series I'll be doing all week (that is if I get them done in time).

Walking Dark Streets at Night

[Welcome and greeting]
When you work as a chaplain people often say things to you like: "I could never do your job." "Don't you get depressed?" "I could never deal with that much death, every day." It's hard to know how to respond to these things. Sometimes I try to explain that being present with someone in their pain and suffering, feeling it along with them for a while, isn't the same as experiencing it for yourself, as your own. At best, I get to walk alongside people here on their darkest days, remind them of God's presence. Some days I do that better than others. But at the end of the day, I clock out, I go home, I hug my wife and my baby and I do my best to leave the hospital and its stories here. Because it is not MY pain. But if it is your wife, your child, your mother, you carry that pain with you. It is yours.

Two years ago close to this day, I was carrying a deep pain with me. Halfway around the world, my wife was in the hospital. Our adventures in foriegn lands had landed her with a blood clot, a new diagnosis and a mind full of new questions about what this would mean to us. I was past the point of terror, the crisis when you do everything you can to get them to the hospital. I was to the point where it was all sinking in. I spent my fare share of time in my wife's hospital room, looking nervous and biting my fingernails. From time to time she would insist that I go out and explore the city, Singapore (an Island country the size of Manhattan and about as densly populated). Singapore's streets are remarkably clean and their buried power grid allows them to cultivate and groom a beuatiful arboretum of trees not just in parks but all along their streets, branches arching overhead in carefully orchestrated patterns. I learned to ride the subway to get across town. I walked for miles. My backpack, cd player and headphones let me disappear into the background of the city, I looked like everyone else. But inside I was churning up a storm.

To be sure, there were times I felt cared for by God, times I had to see circumstances working out in our favor as his providential hand. But why couldn't that same hand have prevented her illness in the first place? Questions echoed down busy sidewalks and subway tubes in my mind. One such circumstance was the presence of a dear friend, my college roomate's brother, who just happened to be traveling through Asia that summer and took an all night bus down to see us. He knew the city, but he also knew us. We drank too much coffee in the downstairs coffee shop and he listened to me give voice to my fears and my gratitude, my hope and my pain. But at night, he would retire to his hotel room. It was not ultimately his pain.
One family from a local baptist church (which had actually been started by my friend's grandfather years ago) had provided a room for me to stay in that was within walking distance from my wife's hospital. Singapore has virtually eliminated street crime so it is not uncommon and very safe to walk the streets at night. Often I didn't get out until well after 10PM. I remember one night, close to the end of our time there, I was walking and listening to music but I just wasn't ready to walk up the steps to the dark appartment bedroom. I walked down empty sidewalks, past buildings under construction, past busy late night outdoor food stalls, a warm breeze moved in the equatorial night.

After an hour or two, I finally made it to the appartment building and sat down on the front steps and the weight of all the past weeks' events pushed down hard on me. I still remember the words sung deep into my soul through headphones:

"You're a long, you're a long, you're a long way from home..."

I had been listening to a songwriter named Lori Chaffer, and this song was an articulation of the sort of pain that we all run the risk of carrying when we love; a long catalogue of all the sorts of things that weigh us down, that ache deep inside. The list ends with the recognition that all this suffering does indeed place us a long way from home.

I was reminded of this moment from two years ago, recently by a gentleman I encountered in the hospital. I was on my way out the door, ready to leave the hospital when and a staff member got my attention and asked me to come over. We spoke for a while about his wife whose heart had stopped and was undergoing the extreme measures we call a "code-blue." Anytime he mentioned her strong faith and the possibility she might not make it, his face seized up, lips went taught and he took long gulps of pepsi from a plastic bottle. The physician came and told him that they were still doing all they could but that it was very possible that she would not make it through. He thanked her for her candor and said,
"You know, I knew this, I was praying a few days ago when she had gotten real bad then, and you know, I prayed 'not my will but thine be done.' I guess it shouldn't be... but it's hard to really mean that when it comes down to it."

After a long silence I said, "I think it was just as hard for Jesus to mean it when he prayed it in the garden."

It's hard when you face it, because in a very real sense you face it alone. I spent some more time with this man and let him know he would be in my thoughts and prayers (and he was, as I don't take those words lightly) but eventually I went home. It was his pain to carry through the dark night.

When Jesus found himself on the eve of his great pain, the night before he would be taken prisoner, beaten and crucified, he begged his disciples to be with him, to stay awake, to help him carry the weight of this night for a while.

We read in Mark 14.32-40:
"They went to a place called Gethsemane; and he said to his disciples, "Sit here while I pray." he took with him Peter and James and John and began to be distressed and agitated. And he said to them, "I am deeply grieved, even to death; rermain here, and keep awake." And going a little farther, he threw himself on the ground and prayed that, if it were possible, the hour might pass from him. He said "Abba, Father, for you all thing are possible; remove this cup from me; yet, not what I want, but what you want." He came and found them sleeping; and he said to Petere, "Simon, are you asleep? Could you not keep awake one hour? Keep awake and pray that you may not come into temptation; the spirit indeed is willing, but the flesh is weak." And again he went away and prayed, saying the same words. And once more he came and found the sleeping for their eyes were very heavy; and they did not know what to say to him."

When he prayed those words, and sweat rolled down like great drops of blood, he was in one very real sense alone. No one knew what to say to him for comfort, there were no words, indeed none of his closest friends could even stay awake. He carried the pain alone.

But oh, there was the one he carried it to. There was the one to whom he addressed those words: Abba, Father. When we are most alone and find ourself being crushed under the weight of darkest night on lonely lamp-lit urban streets, in a "family room" that just as often separates as unites families, or in a dark garden, with those closest to us in the world unable to comprehend the depth of our suffering or just how much is at stake; at these times, I hope you may find comfort in the Father at the edge of the breaking point. And you can sing along with these words from the same song that flowed into my ears and resonated in my soul that lonely night:

"You will always hurt, you will always sting, because you won't let go of everything,
until you're quiet one dark night and you give up the fight you've fought so long--
and find that trust is not a game
that naive stupid people play in youth
and you let it rain
you let it flood
you let it drive out all the pain of love."

[from Lori Chaffer "You will Always Hurt"]

Lets Pray

[Play "You Will Always Hurt"]

The Case of the Missing Diaper

Eleanor has been in Fuzzi Bunz diapers for about ten months now. We have twelve of these super spiffy cloth diapers (and have just ordered 12 more in the next size up). About a week ago, when I was diapering Eleanor, I noticed that there was one insert left without a cover. I have searched high and low and have not been able to find this missing diaper cover. If you have information that could lead to the recovery of this item, please notify me immediately as this baby needs a diaper. Thank you.
We think this small ghost might be the culprit.

We should be getting the new diapers on Tuesday. A good friend called us on Monday to let us know that the price of Fuzzi Bunz was about to increase so we should order her new ones before the end of August. The site that I like to order our cloth diapering supplies from (Cotton Babies) was nice enough to tell its customers that the price was going to go up. My favorite thing about Cotton Babies is that they give diaper grants to missionaries and orphanages and other good causes.

I'll leave you with a fun video. Please ignore the horrid hiccups that I was suffering from.

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Happy 13 months Eleanor!

Another Week, 100 More Pictures

I keep telling people that Eleanor is a pious child. Here is further proof. As I was getting her bath ready one evening, I discovered her reading Mark.
Thursday morning Eleanor woke up with a runny nose. She usually tosses a few Cheerios on the floor for later, but that day she found a more unusual keeping place.






On Saturday, Eleanor and I went to see my parents and Josh and Ayumi (who are moving to California). Eleanor liked playing with the two dogs, cat and donkey. Although her favorite thing to do was climb the stairs.



Matt had the morning off on Tuesday, so we went out for breakfast. It was lovely. When we got home, I called the peditrician's office to ask about the strange rashes Eleanor has. Two weeks ago, Eleanor received her vaccines for about eight things. She is having reactions to the chicken pox and measles vaccines. This means she's fussy, itchy, spotted and there is a slight possibility that she is contagious.


This is what I didn't have for lunch today. I think it might have turned out better if there had been directions in English or if I had been able to read Japanese.































Since the nurse we spoke with at the peditrician's office told me not to take Eleanor out until all her poxy blisters had scabbed over, we have been looking for new things to do here. Today we tried finger painting (in the nude for half of us). The measles-vaccine-induced rash is quite bad on her bum, so I like to let her go diaper free as much as possible. She really enjoyed finger painting, but lost interest after a few minutes and went on to explore the deck.

Boy, is this Spaceship Comfortable!

Many of you know of my on-again-off-again hobby of diddling with electronic music and computer based recording. I played in a terrible little "christian band" as a teen and had a blast with the Roe Bros. who have now gone on to bigger and better things. Anyone who has ever enjoyed creating music knows that finding a group of people to get together and play music with is about as difficult as finding a group of people to get together and be married with. It's just not easy. Throughout high school I experimented with drum machine software and made painful little tracks sampling Christian Broadcast Y2K doomsayers and microcassette recorded classmate rantings. College sapped me of my time to play with such nonsense. Nevertheless, I still get the itch to sit down and concoct strange sounds (think that epidsode of "Friends" where Ross performs with his sampler keyboard) and computers are really good at simulating in a heartless, lifeless, loop-based sort of way the experience of playing with more than one sound at a time.

A few months back my friend, Alice, heard me playing with what I think was an electronic autoharp I found for a dollar at a yard sale and asked me to make some strange background music for a short film she was putting together. It sounded fun, but I didn't actually get started until about two weeks ago. The result was four tracks you you can hear at my myspace: three composed new, the fourth an old one I had lying around that fit with her theme. Click the track titles to start play. Or you can download the mp3's here: 1, 2, 3, and 4.

It was fun and I found that since I knew it had to be short and change a lot, it got a lot more interesting than my usual droning, repetitive stuff. So far, I've just inflicted this sort of thing on my brothers and a few friends but God knows they're sick of it. And after all, isn't the purpose of a blog to allow you a forum to shamelessly parade things across the web to strangers that would better be left in private?









On a totally unrelated note, my boss noticed that Eleanor's Name makes a splendid Haiku.

Eleanor Lumpkin
Eleanor Katharine Lumpkin
Eleanor Lumpkin



"The three children were so transfixed by the luminous giant before them that they never saw the hit-and-run gleam in the school-bus' eyes..."

And the Winner Is...

Before we announce the winner, I would like you to know what Matt left out of the previous post:















Pictured here is Matt with Eleanor in her new backpack carrier that she got for her birthday.

We had a great pediatrician visit today. Eleanor's favorite part was the crinkly paper on the table. She loved bouncing on it. She didn't mind the shots too much this time. They did four shots today, two in each leg. She didn't even flinch through the first set, then protested through the second set. I think she disliked being held still more than the shots. The doctor said she is doing great. It was a pleasant visit in all.

This morning Eleanor weighed 20 pounds and 4 ounces. That means the winner of the grand prize is one of the Clevelands. The prize will be delivered this weekend.

Beautiful Girl Hair

Today I was called to the bedside of a woman who had just died in one of our intensive care units. Her husband and daughter and several other family members were there, staring at her, grieving. I focused almost immediately on her husband (I did not know his relationship at the time) as he wore a look of utter despair.

I took his empty hand and spoke calmly with him for a few minutes, reassuring him that feeling pain at the loss of someone we love is not selfishness, nor is it wrong to wish they were still here even if that meant more suffering. These feelings are the other side of love.

Their daughter sat down next to us eventually and turned my attention toward her. After establishing that her mother had been sick for some time she told me that she felt numb. She had been crying and grieving for the past three days as they watched their mother fade, but now she felt very little. I reassured her that the emotions of grief often make very little rational sense and that they move in and out like storms, often unexpectedly. She nodded in agreement and said "I'm sure I'll hurt more later on, but I just have to say, you have great hair. I'm sorry, I know this isn't the right time, but I just had to say that."

We both laughed and I assured her that I would have to share that with my wife who encourages me to keep it the way it is.

When I was younger I played a video-game called "Sam N Max: Hit the Road," which I credit with shaping my sense of humor. In the game you controlled a cartoon dog and rabbit, trying to solve the mystery of missing sideshow attractions. You could controll the dialogue by selecting from four choices of types of responses. You could push the "?" and they would ask a question, the "!" and they would say something intense, or you could push the image of a rubber duck and they would say something non-sequiter. From time to time in my life, especially in the hospital, I get the feeling someone is enjoying pushing the duck button.

Marsupial Baby

At lunch today Eleanor and I were having pear and ravioli. I had cut up some pear for her and left it on her tray while I went to heat up the ravioli and cut up the rest of the pear. When I came back, I saw that all the pear was gone and though, "Oh, she must have been hungry." Then I saw a pile of pear on the floor. Grr.

Then we had this misadventure with the ravoli. At one point I fished about six pieces of food out of her "pocket." Silly girl.


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In other news, Eleanor's one year check up is on Friday. She weighed 18 pounds and 2 ounces at her nine month appointment. How much do you think she will weigh on Friday? The person who comes closest wins a special prize.

* I just watched the video again, and for some reason when I posted it the audio and video got out of sync. Just thought I would let you know.*

A Week In Review

Our week began rather simply. We spent last Sunday afternoon reading. I throughly enjoyed a John Steinbeck book, while Matt actually read.

Eleanor and Silas worked on a duet, but they kept disagreeing about who would play which part. I guess that's how it is with musicians (and babies).

Friday evening there was a lovely thunderstorm. This is what met me as I took the trash out. Across the street, in the lawn of the blind school, someone was playing with their dog. Cars were driving by making that swish sound that tires make on wet asphalt. It was a surreal moment.

Matt spent most of today (Saturday) in the bathroom. No, he's not sick (although his time in the bathroom did result in a headache). Using materials donated by a kind aunt, Matt set up a dark room in our bathroom. I wasn't fond of the idea at first, but it's growing on me. He has set it up in such a way that the use of the bathroom is not hindered (much) and it can be fairly easily taken down and stored after the weekend. The only problem (so far) is ventilation (or lack thereof), thus the headache. Here are a couple of pictures of Matt developing pictures.

It's a Party!

Hazel's shoes

Lion cupcakes

I'm supposed to do what?

Opening presents

The birthday girl

Happy Birthday Eleanor!

We've made it though a year.
And mostly in one piece.

iPod Rehabilitation Unit

So, in case you haven't noticed by the two posts in one week, I'm off work on "vacation" this week. Since we have no big plans other than Eleanor's birthday, I've been spending my time watching illegally downloaded video content, diddling with electronic music (when Eleanor's not sleeping or needing attention, which amounts to about ten contiguous minutes in any given day), going to the DMV, going to the mechanic, and trying to remember what I used to do with several days without work. Why take vacation time you ask? Because the last time I looked up from the hospital grindstone I realized I hadn't had more than a few days off since this time last year when we were, you guessed it, birthing Eleanor.

One activity I have had a love/hate relationship is monkeying with my old iPod to get it to work. It has had a tough life. It took a bad fall and has never been the same since. I've performed major and minor surgeries, several software restores (so many in fact I had lost count, last time I remember, I had renamed it "iPod Lazarus IV" for its fourth resurrection) but had given up on the last and relegated it to a junk drawer. In doing all this I've gained far too much knowledge about these little white ubiquitous devices and their various maladies (they are a sickly bunch). It's the hard drives.

Recently, some friends from church have been having trouble with their 3rd Generation iPod (pictured on the far left). They had bought a new battery (often the first thing to go out) and needed it installed, but had found the task a bit daunting. I volunteered with all my time off to do it and further diagnose and cure any other problems that might arise. Yesterday afternoon I was kicking myself, about two hours into it. However, their iPod is now in perfectly functioning order and quietly waiting to be loaded with more than the single Led Zeppelin track (Communication Breakdown) I had loaded to test it.

Tonight, I decided to plug my old 4th Gen iPod and see if it would spin up. Melody noticed it was "clicking" from across the room, an old symptom I recalled from the first time my battery had died. Bored with Law and Order SVU (aka Law and Order: plotline-full-of-sexual-misconduct-so-awful-it-horrifies-hardened-Thai-brothel-owners), I decided to put my friend's old battery in and see what happened. So far, tonight my old iPod is functioning well and doing its job with no major screw ups! What fun.

Melody's new 5th Generation iPod Video (pictured on the far right), a birthday gift from my family, is still working fine. However, Melody has informed me that it's been calling the other two older iPods "fat." Little does it know that in a few short months it will be succumbing to the same fatigue that comes from low batt. But for today, all three iPods in this household are working fine.

Melody reminds me that this time off affords me more time to spend with my loving daughter. Though I thoroughly believe she has an ulterior motive for this reminder, it's true all the same. We've been having more bathtime than usual...

A Plug For Kevin Sites

Hey, a couple of comments from two new commenters (not to mention one from Ben whose constant comments keep us going)! Thanks for tolerating the stark juxtaposition of the conflict in Lebanon with the usual baby fare, but perhaps it can be a reminder to all of us that these people whose homes are being bombed, especially the kids, are someone's babies, loved and doted upon just as much as we do to Eleanor. I read back over the post and see it's a bit dark, and I'll admit I wrote it late one pensive night, face illumined by a screen showing horrible things.

I'm glad some of you read and found the articles helpful. The internet can be a crystal ball showing us so many things, next door and a half a world away, some of which we should look at and others we shouldn't. But one good thing it does is give voice to people like Dr. Accad.

Another voice I've found compelling is that of Kevin Sites. I had previously dismissed his "solo journalism" news site "Kevin Sites in the Hot Zone" on Yahoo! as sensational. Aside from the romantic, adventurous notion of backpacking through remote, war-torn destinations to bring the stories of the people there to the West, his work, I think is quite well done. It preserves the rawness of the expereinces he's having without much time to ovely edit and produce "slick" stories. They feel more true. The video and images he has taken from Tyre particularly are very powerful, and particularly helpful in understanding just what is going on there and how it is shaping the emotional landscape in the Arab world.

Forgive me for another non-eleanor post. She is 1/3 of this Pumpkin with an L, after all.

Terror

New York City,
USA 9-11-01













Tyre,
Lebanon 7-26-06



Context determines meaning.



As many of us wrangle with what to do with this carnage and especially how it fits into our religious worldview, I would like to offer a voice I have found exceedingly disturbing, tenacious and helpful. Martin Accad is the academic dean at the Arab Baptist Theological Seminary in Beirut, Lebanon. You can read his reflections on the ongoing conflict here one American reader's reaction and his response here.

I think this dialogue offers us deeper insight into the complex realities of this conflict and help us resist our deep seated desire to apply reductionistic theologies that let us off the hook for accepting the destruction of buildings with airplanes as justified.

(and yes I'm aware of the irony of this sort of thing being written by the son of a fighter-pilot)

Same or Boring?

Eleanor and I went to the baby story time at the library this morning. I was really excited to find such a program, as I had checked a few months ago and found nothing. The best part is the scheduling--it's not during nap time! We met with nine other parent/baby couples and sang songs, finger plays, and even read a book or too. Eleanor clapped my hands, as she prefers holding my hands and making them clap as to clapping her own hands. (Right now she is playing with a straw, a small piece of tissue paper, and a plastic hanger.) We enjoyed meeting other babies and parents. As we were parking, I noticed another mom getting out of a car that had an OBU sticker on it. She saw me and said, "Did you go to OBU?" She recognized me, get this, not from classes or being around campus, but from a photography show that Matt did our last semester. There were several pictures with me in them...so, does that make me a famous model?

When we got home from the library, I was quite excited to see a package in our (very small) mailbox. It was a very cute (and very big) Chinese outfit that Becca and Luke had sent from Chinatown. Apparently there had been a misunderstanding with the Chinese lady who sold it to them and the sizing got mixed up (imagine that, a misunderstanding in cross cultural communication...). Anyway, it's still really pretty and Eleanor will be able to wear it within the next three years, I'm sure. I put the shirt on Eleanor this afternoon for a few pictures. (Now she's playing with the same straw and a wooden ice cream stick.)

I added a couple other pictures just for fun. Enjoy (and comment, you lurkers!!).

Shadow Play

The other morning I heard Eleanor in the kitchen. She tends to race in there if I ever leave the door open. When I went to get her, this is how I found her, enthralled by her own shadow.

And a Barn Full of Memories

Friday when I went shopping, I found Gerber baby foods on sale for 13 cents per jar. I don't think I'll have to buy any more. Especially since Eleanor is much more interested in feeding herself than being fed (aren't we all?).

Here is a veiw from one of our windows.

Does this bring back memories for anyone else? I found this barn complete with several animals and people at a rummage sale.