Swamped

Right now I'm frantically trying to dig out from under the mound of reading I have to complete for my current course before my extension expires - currently Friday, but I've asked for more grace. So far, my favorite quote from the books: "As usual, we must content ourselves with the briefest possible summary."

Does anything about those books look brief to you?

New Look

Ok, so I got a bit creative today and decided to change the look of my site around. Granted, the time would have been better spent trying to catch up on my belated course reading, but there's only so much church history a man can take in one day. I'm still playing around with it - some of the templates still need to be tweaked, so you might see a few changes yet and a few pages like the comment previews are going to look odd for the next day or so. Overall, though, I think it turned out pretty well. Let me know what you think!

The Skinny on Blogging

One of the blogs that I most look forward to reading is Andrew Jones at tallskinnykiwi. Today, Andrew posted a bit about what to do in the end-of-year down time on your blog. Personally, I've had a bit of down time already, so I don't think I'll be taking more, although I keep toying with the thought of redesigning the site. I've had the same look for about a year and a half and would love to swap out for something new, but that's time that takes away from actually writing stuff, so it's never happened. Perhaps next year. ;)

One thing Andrew mentioned is cleaning up your site, including adding tags and fixing broken links. Technorati has a bit of an article discussing tags here. I've never actually used tags in my posts, at least partially because they're a pain in the rear to do manually. But that connects to something else Andrew mentioned - ecto.

Ecto is a nifty blog editor that I decided to treat myself to recently. I tried ecto a while back and initially thought that, while fun, it didn't give me much more than just entering through the MT web interface. However, I got a bit spoiled with the spellcheck (a fine feature, to be sure), so I thought if I came into an extra $18 at some point, I'd give it a go - it's cheap enough that, if I find that I don't use it, I haven't really lost much. Well, I've been playing around with it, and there's a heck of a lot more stuff here than I initially realized. First off, the link generator is excellent. I have a pet peeve about links opening in the same window - frankly, I find them irritating. I hate reading a post, clicking a link, and being taken to a different site. That means I have to navigate back to the previous site in order to finish reading the post, when all that's needed is a simple target attribute in the link itself to cause it to open in a new window. The problem with that is that I end up manually coding all of my links, because Movable Type (and, honestly, most blogging tools) doesn't ask for a target when building a link. Enter ecto - targetted links with a click of a button. Beautiful.

The other thing that I've noticed is that tagging and categorizing your posts in ecto is extremely easy. There's a list of check boxes next to my draft window that I can simply click to identify tags and categories. Fantastic! No more manual entry of tags means that I'll probably try to start using them in the future. If I get ambitious, I may even go back and tag my older stuff.

At any rate, those are my initial thoughts on ecto - well worth the investment, I think. Plus, they're currently offering 20% off, so you can pick it up for under $15 US.

One other thing Andrew mentioned is del.icio.us. Now, I'm no technophobe by any means - I like to believe that I'm pretty current with what all the youngsters are playing around with these days. (Back in my day, we didn't have this fancy-schmancy iner-net. You walked to the post office like everyone else. ;) So I created a del.icio.us account a while back, but then I couldn't figure out what I was supposed to do with it. So, I'm publically confessing that I just don't get it. But I know some of you folks out there that read my humble little blog use it, so a little help here? I'm trying to figure out if this is something I should play around with a bit more.

Well, happy blogging to you all - I'll try not to make too much dust around here over the next week or so.

Technorati Tags: Blog, Blogging, ecto, del.icio.us

Christmas Reflections

I have a confession to make - I love Christmas. More appropriately, I guess, I suppose I should say that I love the holiday season. By this I mean that I love that time from the middle of November to the New Year that's full of celebration and festivity and family and food. There's a certain something in the air, an expectation or excitement or some such that fills the days with a restless energy. I'm one of those people that do their shopping at the last minute. Some people do this because they are slackers. I'll confess that there's a bit of that in me, but mostly I think it's because I love to just walk the mall and drink in the holiday air.

Even so, there's a part of me that hates the whole commercial aspect of the season. I hate feeling less than human because I refuse to run up a huge credit card bill to give my kids more stuff. It's been a busy December for us, and with my wife on leave for a few months, we've had to tighten the belt a few notches, so the tree is a bit more sparse this year. I know in my head that there is more to this whole thing than presents. But something in me, probably something that my male brain connects with vocation and provision, still looks at the somewhat small piles of gifts and, well, notices. That part of the season I despise - the part that says that my worth as a father, husband, and friend is measured in dollars and cents. A person shouldn't have his or her humanity assaulted as part of the celebration of the birth of Christ.

There's some sort of odd tension there, I think. On the one hand, Christmas brings out the best in people, a sense of generosity and selflessness that is somehow rather beautiful. On the other hand, Christmas brings out the worst in people, a sense of greed and gluttony that is ugly and repulsive.

I slipped out to the Christmas Eve service at our church tonight. It was really quite beautiful - a meditative and reflective evening with traditional music and scripture readings. I sat in the service and sang the old songs about little towns and sleeping babes and thought of my own newborn and my feelings as a father during this time of year. And one thing that I realized is that the people who say that there is no room for mystery in the Christian faith, that all things have been revealed to us through the Bible, these people have never reflected on the "stuff" of the story, the plot that I've been discussing here of late. The story tells us that we are both wonderful and terrible, that what we see rise to the surface at times like Christmas is what lies underneath at all other times. What father in his right mind would send his only son to be adopted and raised among people like you and like me? How does one pack all the power and knowledge of the Creator of the universe into a being that is completely vulnerable and helpless, surrounded by these wonderful, terrible people? To place myself in that position and attempt to understand the way in which God's mind must work for that to seem like a good idea is simply beyond me. It's mysterious, and more beautiful for being so.

A wonderful and blessed Christmas to you and yours. May the Christ that we remember be present for you this day.

Favorite Posts of 2005

I've seen a number of folks putting up links to their favorite posts of the past year. I thought it would be an interesting exercise. I discovered that I like more of what I wrote earlier this year rather than later - I feel like I've lost something of my creative spirit, that I've been more academic of late. Ah, well - to all things a season, I suppose. At any rate, here are my five favorite posts of 2005:

This Thing We Do - I think this one set the tone for the year for me
One Step - a venture into something a bit more imaginative
Make Believe and Fairy Tales - honest reflections on scripture
Brand Name Jesus™ - this one is probably my favorite post ever
Dynamics of Power - not so much creative as provocative, but nothing wrong with that ;)

I don't know if I've said anything memorable enough for anyone to have a favorite, but if you do, I'd love to hear it. Also, if you blog, what are your most memorable posts of this past year?

Getting Back to Normal

Joy and Ryan came home from the hospital on Sunday. Things are starting to come back down to earth - now we're getting into the more mundane parts of existence, like feeding and changing and trying to sleep. But everyone is healthy and Joy is recovering quite well, so on the whole I have little to complain about and much to be thankful for.

Thanks to everyone who left comments or sent emails - there are way too many to respond to each one personally (given the hectic state of my current existence), but I'm grateful for every one. And, on top of that, no spam for the five days or so I've been out of the loop - that's a beautiful thing. ;)

Things should start to get back to normal in the next few days, back to regular posting and all. I owe some folks emails or responses on a few things - they're on the way as well. Thanks again for all your thoughts and prayers.

(By the way, I updated the pics over the weekend, so there might be a few new ones in the link below.)

Ryan Matthew

Mom did great, Dad did not do so well, and the camera did craptacular. I nearly passed out twice (!!!) in the delivery room. I'm blaming it on low blood sugar (at that point, I'd eaten a bowl of oatmeal and a bowl of pasta in about 36 hours) and lack of sleep. And I'm sticking to that!

At any rate, Ryan Matthew Berkhimer was born at 8:03am this morning. He weighed 7lbs 1oz and he eats like a champ, so I don't expect that to last long. Everything went about as smoothly as could be, and Joy and Ryan were resting well when I left the hospital.

I'll have better pictures tomorrow - almost every single picture was either blurry or over/underexposed, so in a fit of anger I sprung for a new camera. At least I was able to salvage a few! Thanks all for your prayers and thoughts!

Tomorrow...

In the words of Red Leader, "Almost there...almost there..."

(I can't believe I just wrote that. Bonus points if you know what I'm talking about.)

Tomorrow morning at 7:30 am EST, we'll be on our way to surgery. If you happen to think of it, please offer a brief prayer for us, that the c-section would go smoothly and that mother and baby would both be well.

A winter storm is, of course, bearing down on Philadelphia and should arrive late tomorrow afternoon. On the upside, I probably won't be at the hospital tomorrow night, so I should get some pics posted.

I also have a few comments that I plan to respond to, but they'll probably have to wait for a day or two. ;)

Elements of Story: Redemption (p. 3)

This is a challenging reflection to write. I've come to that part of the story where the tale comes crashing in on itself, where redemption seems farthest off, when the days of Abraham and Moses seem like ancient history that will never come again. I'm speaking of the failure of the people of God to keep the covenant, and the curses that the covenant itself brings upon them. Moses presents the terms to the people in Deuteronomy 28. Take a moment to read it; read it again, and let the awful weight of the words sink into your soul. You can hear over and over the themes of the curse revisited on the people, should they turn away from God.

And, of course, we know the story. Even if you've never read it, the tale is as predictable as a sunset and as inexorable as taxes. The people fail to keep the covenant. As a professor of mine is fond of saying, the point of the Old Testament narrative is that the fall of Jerusalem was inevitable.

Exile is the word that we commonly use to describe the situation in which the people of God find themselves at the end of this plot thread. The narrative has come full circle. The end of Genesis 3 found the man and woman cast from the garden. The end of 2 Kings 25 finds the nation of Israel cast from the land. Exile is the condition in which the curse has triumphed. It is the result of being cut off from the blessing of God. It is the strongest metaphor that the biblical narrative uses - metaphor in the sense that the physical circumstances of the people are only a manifestation of what has already been present spiritually, as any cursory reading of the prophets will reveal.

Exile is a metaphor that we should learn to inhabit. The nation of Israel never recovered. NT Wright, among others, argues that, even after returning from Babylon, the people still considered themselves exiles. They would spend the rest of their days as a nation attempting to navigate an existence in exile, never truly succeeding. And, in some sense, their struggle is the same as ours. We, too, are in exile, far from home and suffering under the weight of the curse.

But, fortunately, exile is not the final word. If you turn your head just so, if you listen very closely and carefully, you can begin to make out another word, a note, a melody, a line of poetry, a whispered prayer that encapsulates our hope and our need.

O come, O come, Emmanuel,
and ransom captive Israel,
that mourns in lonely exile here
until the Son of God appear...

One Week

Next week at this time, if all goes well, I will be a father for the third time. This time around life has been moving forward at full speed, so I somewhat feel as though we only just found out. I also feel like I haven't really had time to process this whole thing, so now the anxiety is starting to set in. We still have things to buy, important things like bottles and such. We've picked a name, but there's still a bit of uncertainty about it - a good name is like a good pair of shoes, something you should feel at home in and that you don't notice that you're wearing. And then there's this sense of starting over. Diapers and 3am feedings and learning to walk and talk and think and dream. Beautiful things, scary things - things moving too quickly.

And yet, before I know it, these things will all be past, and I'll be wishing for those days when he could ride on my shoulders or take a nap in my arms. At some point, fortunately, it occurred to me that I had a limited window of opportunity here, and so I had better make the most of it. In other words, when my boys want my time, I had better have a damn good reason to say, "Later." And most of the time, I think I keep to that fairly well. I have no regrets thus far - just a lot of fond memories and sentimental notions, and for that I am grateful.

In one week, I welcome another cub into the den.

I hope he's ready for us.

Elements of Story: Redemption (p. 2)

I have to be honest - I thought I had written myself into a corner here. I wasn't sure I could carry through this reflection building on the theme of negating the curse. I wanted to head towards Moses next, and there I got stuck. How does Moses fit into this picture? Torah seemed an obvious place, but although the themes of land and children certainly play out in the Law, it would be difficult and, I'd argue, somewhat manipulative to construct a view of Torah with those themes in mind. Torah deals with those topics in the context of the covenant community - handling them properly is a consequence of being the people of God, but I'd find it difficult to argue that there's something foundational about those things in the Law. I was stumped.

But then I remembered that I was thinking of Torah too narrowly. Torah includes the written codes, most certainly, but it also contains lots of narrative. And that's when it clicked - the themes are present, and strongly so, in the narrative of Moses itself. More correctly, the next defining act of redemption that we find is truly archetypal - the Exodus story. I turned to Exodus 1, and the themes of curse and redemption exploded off the page.

Now Joseph and all his brothers and all that generation died, but the Israelites were fruitful and multiplied greatly and became exceedingly numerous, so that the land was filled with them...So they put slave masters over them to oppress them with forced labor, and they built Pithom and Rameses as store cities for Pharaoh. But the more they were oppressed, the more they multiplied and spread; so the Egyptians came to dread the Israelites and worked them ruthlessly. They made their lives bitter with hard labor in brick and mortar and with all kinds of work in the fields; in all their hard labor the Egyptians used them ruthlessly.

God's blessing of Abraham had begun to bear fruit - so much fruit, in fact, that the ruler of Egypt began to get somewhat nervous. Soon, he decided to take matters into his own hands by killing the children. And, of course, we know the story - Pharaoh as an agent of the curse cannot defeat the blessing of God. A boy that escapes the soldiers of Pharaoh comes instead to live in Pharaoh's household. Eventually, he brings the judgment of God and the deliverance of Israel.

Here we have the elements of the curse conspiring to destroy the people of God - forced labor (recalling Adam), death of the children (recalling Eve), in a land not their own (recalling expulsion from the Garden). Here we also have the blessing of God acting to redeem His people - an increase in numbers, freedom from toil and slavery, and the journey to a land of their own. And, in the end, the promise of another prophet yet to come, one who, like Moses, would free his people from the curse...