Follow the Leader

Walking through a small French ski town I noticed a simple, perfect metaphor for something I’ve been struggling with: leadership in the family context.

There was a father carrying his skis on one shoulder, walking slowly and carefully down the sidewalk. He stopped at a crosswalk, awaited the walk signal, and crossed the road to arrive at the ski lift base. Behind him were two small children, both carrying skis in a similar fashion, following carefully in their fathers’ footsteps. This man could have saved himself a lot of time had he left the congested sidewalk, hopped some snow piles, and walked down the road like many of the other skiers. But he didn’t. He couldn’t. He was leading his family. The children were mimicking his every move, and he had to model what they needed.

Since the beginning of my wedded bliss I’ve always said that the hardest thing about marriage is that I’m no longer thinking and acting for one. Every decision, every action, affects my wife just as it does me. Maybe in a certain situation I’d be happy to sacrifice my own comfort, but I can’t just snap to that decision because I’m not the only one sacrificing. Sometimes I speak too quickly, before I think through every side of a response and how it affects BOTH of us. As it turns out, rippling consequences multiply even more so as my family grows.

Now I have a wife, two kids, and we live far from every comfortable memory and familiar face from the first 25+ years of our lives. More than ever my family needs me to be a leader. So I drive and direct, I do finances, I deal with legal paperwork, I even make hard family decisions. But that’s not leading, at least it’s not all of it. I spend time with my kids, I do chores... all good things, but still not what my family needs of me.

I need to walk the path that I want my kids, my wife, my whole family to walk together.

Diverge for a second... allow me to explain why something so simple is so hard for me. I have this weird complex about hiding the ‘good’ things I do. Not exactly hiding, but sort of shielding. It’s like this strange attempt at running from pride that I’ve ingrained in myself. I nearly always make gifts for my wife surprises, because I don’t want her to have even a hint that I’m doing something nice. If I’m home alone I make that my time to clean the house or wash an extra load of dishes/laundry, all because I don’t want to look like I’m begging for praise... or something. Instead of openly declaring a time to study the Bible, I find times that are blank spots in the day where no one will notice if I disappear for 30 minutes. Yes, I’m strange.

But that which I have always done is the opposite of what my family needs right now. I must sacrifice my own preferences and ticks to walk the walk that my family needs to walk. I need to stop doing worthwhile things in secret, and start doing them in front of and amongst my family. I must do it not for myself, but for the value that will be learned and adopted by those that love and respect me. I need to interpret the needs of my family and do exactly those things.

I should get up early, even though I don’t want to (or think I need to). I ought to organize and streamline in a way that makes sense to someone other than just myself. I have to deal with the discomfort of living my life as an open book, which must include the good things. I have two beautiful children that already imitate everything I do. Lead by example, right? It’s not that hard.

And then there's this:Where does he get these ideas?!

Choosing an Instrument

Our little boy loves music. Whether it's playing his toy guitar, pounding on a friend's piano, singing the 'ABC' song,or sitting at daddy's drumset after a concert or church service, he loves to be involved in music. And that warms my heart more than I can say. But now that he's approaching the formative age of 3, I'm faced with a dilemna. Which instrument do I place in his hands?

Here's the options the way I see them:
-Drums/Percussion -> easy one, we have plenty and I know a decent and cheap teacher; but they're a pain to carry around, hard to practice in a city, and do we really need two drummers in one household?
-Guitar -> readily available, already have one, widely useful for everything from camping to family worship time to big-time song-writing; but everyone plays guitar, I mean everyone. I'm trying to think of someone I know right now that doesn't play guitar, nope, can't do it.
-Piano -> classic, beautiful or jazzy or just about anything, can sing and play or can just play, I love listening to (good) piano playing; but there's so much to decide within, like do we start with classical music-reading, or playing by ear?
-Horns -> next...
-Other string instruments -> an interesting possibility, I love me some cello (even better if you can beatbox with it, though I believe the market on that's already taken), violins are purty or lighting quick and easily portable, a harp is odd yet quite davidic; but what if he likes the bass? We don't have room for one of those in our apartment!
-Woodwinds -> jazz flute, that is all.

Of course I'd like him to learn a little of a lot of stuff, to be a good musician he'd need to. But there's also the struggle that many like me face: we so want to do a little of everything that we never get good/great at one thing. I feel like that's most of my life. To be honest, I'm not sure I'd change it though. So, which one do I start with, suggest, hope he attaches to?

A Provencial Christmas

Christmastime is often a revert to the past, to what's comfortable, familiar, and loving. We gather with family and share warm experiences and thoughts, gifts, hugs, and laughs. Unless of course for the last 6 years you've lived in entirely different cities spanning over 3 continents. As an expat abroad, holidays are fun but also tough times. We get to share new experiences and see how the rest of the world celebrates, but we're away from everything familiar and our family that we love. In recent years, we've made it a point to travel even more, letting the excitement of experiencing yet another new place overpower the loneliness of missing home. This year that didn't work out, and we weren't sure what to expect. God knew what He was doing though, and our Christmas at home in Provence has been a lot of fun already!

We've learned about the traditions of our current home (Marseille, France) and have truly enjoyed becoming more a part of this city and region. Perhaps the most famous tradition that Provence is known for around the world are the handcrafted and extremely popular Santons made here. Beginning in December, our Christmas markets fill up with thousands upon thousands of little people. Santons are, at their core, a nativity scene. You start with Mary, Joseph, baby Jesus......then you can add some shepherds, wise men, animals, angels. And then the part that makes it original: You build an entire old French Provence town around the manger. There's fisherman, teachers, olive pickers, lavender farmers, bakers, old men playing pétanque, and the options go on and on and on. Yeah, it may not all be in the Bible, but it is all in the hearts of everyone from Provence. It's also displayed on a table of just about every home in Provence through the month of December. We haven't started our collection yet: these things aren't cheap! We will get it going next year, piece by piece until our house is overrun by clay French lilliputians.

Another tradition about which we've been learning is "la bûche" cake. This is the #1 traditional dessert in France for Christmas. We've now sampled at least one at every recent party and dinner we've hosted or attended. They can come in many different flavors and consistencies, but the thing that remains the same is the shape and look. They are designed to look like logs, ready for the fireplace, or consumption with a fork in this case.

In order to feel a little more normal at Christmas, we've made some efforts to get out and see lights. Living in a major city makes houses all decked out with lights and lawn ornaments and the like hard to find, but the urban centers do light up for festivity. Here's a few shots of our streets at night in December: Seems like a pretty high and traffic congested place to put a disc golf hole. Joyeux Noël tout le monde!

Potties and Fear

We’re in the midst of potty training. Right smack dab in the middle of the glory days.

Today we went to church. Sawyer was running around afterwards as he usually does, then disappeared. JJ went looking, no sign of him. Other parents joined in. Nothing. Worry began to mount, then the bathroom door popped open and there he stood, naked from the waist down but grinning ear to ear. “I used the little potty!” he said with pride. Our church has a little kid-sized potty, he likes that. He had thrown away his pull-up diaper, and we didn’t have another, so he went without for awhile.

One morning last week my son and I were in Vieux-Port picking up a few things. He started to do the pee pee dance. I took him to the bathroom in Starbucks. With his pants to his ankles, I lifted him on the toilet. But before he spread his legs the stream began, straight up into the air. I jumped back, holding him by the shoulders and narrowly avoiding a shower. His sudden incessant spitting told me he wasn’t so lucky. He managed to stop and I pulled him off the toilet, stood him up, and pulled his pants, shoes, and socks off. But then he started up again, standing on the floor next to the toilet. I picked him up like an out-of-control fire hose and somehow ended up holding him horizontally over the toilet, doing my best to aim him straight down. We made a total mess. Naturally, a middle-aged woman was waiting to use the bathroom when we exited. Sorry.

A few weeks ago we really seemed to be making progress with the whole potty thing. He would go when he had to, tell us, and beam with a sense of accomplishment when he did it. Then everything stopped. We never knew why. He lost all interest and preferred diapers instead. When he finally did agree to try again, it was only the little plastic bucket potty on the floor, no longer our regular toilet with his kiddy ring seat insert. It all seemed odd, why had he reverted?

Fast forward to last night. It was midnight, both kids were asleep, the house was quiet and cleaned, and I was watching a basketball game while munching on a baguette. Then my pajama’d 2-year-old came shuffling into the living room rubbing his eyes. I could see in his face he’d been awoken by a nightmare. He climbed up in my lap and buried his face in my chest. “What’s wrong?” I asked. “Fall off big potty,” he began repeating over and over. He’d apparently had a nightmare about falling off of the toilet. Which makes me wonder whether an experience (say a few weeks ago?) led to the fear, or the fear simply grew itself. Either way, it’s a fairly legitimate fear for him.

Which got me thinking about my own fears. What am I afraid of? I think a lot of people have never truly thought that through. Answers like snakes, spiders, and sharks aren’t all that legitimate, in my opinion. I’d be willing to bet that the percentage of people who have actually been attacked by a snake and consider that one of their top fears is pretty miniscule. Kids tend to be much more honest and perhaps even more self-aware at times. My son is afraid of falling from the toilet. Could happen. He’ll probably survive it though.

So what am I afraid of? My stock answer for that one is usually “being successful in things that don’t matter” (thanks to Mike Brady, Bob Warren, and whomever else that may have come from). It’s true, but to be honest, it’s not the fear that keeps me up at night. So what am I afraid of? Here’s a few that come to mind right off:

-teaching my kids that communication and technology are more important to me than they are
-waking up one day and realizing I’ve missed my kids’ childhoods because I was too busy with other stuff
-sickness and health loss, and years off of my active life because I don’t take enough care of my body
-a friend passing on and wondering why I never told him/her about Jesus and the life-changing salvation I have in Him
-loss of loved ones and the loneliness, guilt, and other emotions that would follow (thinking specifically of my wife and kids, I don’t think I’d cope well)
-pain (pain and I don’t mix too well)

Knowing these fears of mine helps motivate me to do worthwhile things, like put my phone down and raise my kids, work out, and share my faith.

What are you afraid of, really?