WARNING: This could be gross.

As a parent of a one year old, I have come across a rather weird situation. There are often times when I’m alone with my son at home (no big deal), and I got to pee. No matter how well I try to time the day, the need always seems to happen when he’s awake. So I’m stuck with three options: 1) hold it (ya right), 2) lock him out of the bathroom and listen to him scream, or 3) let him into the bathroom with me.

I opt for number 3. I’m not sure what psychological damage I’m doing to my son, but maybe the example will help him potty train. It has to be better than letting my son think his daddy’s locked himself away, right?

Here’s where the gross part comes up. Advert your eyes if you feel it necessary.

My son has that inquisitive nature. You know, the one that means he has to touch everything so he can figure out what it is. Right now, he’s fascinated with the toilet. This has naturally led to a rather awkward balance of one hand taking care of business and the other holding my son away from the toilet.

I was reflecting on this the other day (partly because I’m sure it’s left me with some psychological damage), and it occurred to me that this is often how God ends up treating me. See, my curiosity often gets the better of me, and I go wondering into something I shouldn’t be. God, who is ever so gracious, doesn’t just lock me out. Sadly, I don’t always have the impulse control to keep out of things I shouldn’t be in. I end up forcing God to do a balance of letting me in and holding me back.

It’s amazing how often I look at my son and think to myself that he’s years away from being mature enough to know what isn’t good for him. This begs me to look at my own life and question whether or not I am mature enough. I find more often than not I simply failed to keep myself on the right path and out of trouble.

Yet the amazing thing is this: I, like my son with me, never lose God’s love. No matter what I get myself into, God is always there to guide me out.

So when I’m taking care of business, I reflect on what I’ve gotten myself into that day. When I need help out, I look for the hand of God to hold me back.

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This is not a condemnation of tattoos (I will probably, maybe get one someday) or of my son.

My son came home with a new Las Vegas tattoo on his inner left forearm Sunday evening. I laughed and wanted to cry. I think about tattoos as identity. After all, they become a part of you for life. I find my identity in Jesus and cannot imagine permanently etching anything into my body that does not convey that reality.

Eli also has a D III tattoo. It denotes family. It draws a line of connection between his grandfather, Orville Douglas; his father, Daniel Douglas; and himself, Elijah Douglas. I get that. I am drawn to get a tattoo that supports my son’s and mirrors his commitment to legacy. However, I have not because even that falls short of my standard for identity. But wait, there is more.

I am called to speak out against consumerism. Our materialistic society encourages us to work hard so that we can purchase our identity on the free market. The brands we own, the experiences we buy, and the individual productivity they represent define who we are. Work hard, play hard, live well! Anything else is a sin. The Holy City of consumerism is, of course, Las Vegas (Macau learned it all from us.  Sorry New York and Los Angeles. Try harder). I freaked—quietly, on the inside. I thought, “Is this all my fault?”

I encourage Eli to question my life style and challenge God. “Do not repeat my mistakes. Be better than me as I hope to be better than my father. Tell God you don’t believe and walk away. If God is real like I believe, you’ll find out. Just, please o' please o', avoid sitting safely in the middle. Do not be one of millions of Americans who say they believe in Jesus, plan on going to heaven, and avoid the inconvenience of living a Christian life.” I am confident he will grow into maturity with full possession of his own identity and his own faith. I’m not raising a mini-me. I am, or at least I was, excited to see how Eli’s identify will form . . . A Las Vegas brand for life . . . Oh no!

After I finished flailing about internally and lamenting silently, I asked Eli why he choose to mark himself with a symbol representing a place much of the world refers to as Sin City. It turns out that he thinks of tattoos as narrative. Having spent the majority of his life here, Eli wanted a sign to help him tell that story. Stories and symbols I understand. My aesthetics may not match Eli’s, but I am not in an all-out panic yet.

Please pray for our family, if you are feeling led.

I have had self-image issues my whole life, some of them physical and some of them mental. This week I will address the physical side, and the next time I post it will be on the mental side.

I was the kid whose parents didn’t really monitor what I watched on television; therefore, I also became one of those kids who loves action movies. In all action movies the hero is physically fit and almost always has some well-defined muscle group (like abs, biceps, or chest). I was also was that kid who wanted to learn Karate (I figured it was a stepping stone to greatness). 

The problem was that I liked to sit on my butt and watch these movies on an above regular basis, which lead me to some seriously bad eating habits. I would end up spending most of my youth sitting in front of the television at my grandparents. This worked for them because that meant I was a good, quiet, calm kid.

In being a “good” kid my grandparents would let me eat whatever I wanted. Plus they were very tired and sick most of the time, so they would simply let me choose the fast food restaurant I wanted for dinner. Most of the time it was either McDonalds or Burger King that we would eat from. Also, they kept the fridge fully stocked with Pepsi, orange juice, and water (and frozen hot pockets). Guess which one I went for most of the time.

I don’t blame my grandparents or my parents for my bad habits or my weight. I love them deeply, but how do I love myself when I have taken on the image of the villain in those action movies? How do I accept myself when I have incorporated laziness into my core life function? How do I continue on when I look in the mirror and see exactly what I have done to myself?

How frustrating it is when I develop sores just from my skin rubbing against itself. How frustrating it is when my back aches just from sitting. How frustrating it is when I have to continue to purchase pants that are always going up in size and, are always breaking at the seams just from simple activities.

Jesus said that I need to love God with everything, and that I need to love my neighbor as myself. This to me is a very important concept that we all need to pay attention to. I believe the Lord is in some ways saying that we need to love ourselves in a good and upright manner. I say this because I don’t think I should love others the way I have loved myself in the past. I have indeed loved myself selfishly, lazily, and wickedly. I am pretty sure that isn’t love.

So I am still overweight and still have these bad tendencies to seek out ice-cream, pizza, beer, and the sort (just so I can have them). Yet, today I seek to devote my life, my body, my mind, my soul, my actions, my family, my friends, and those I meet to the Lord who washes us clean from sin. I choose to devote myself to the God of new beginnings, the God of redemption, and repentance. Jesus loves me, and died to save me, and defeated death so that I too may live in his image. Because He Loves me.

Last year at this time I could not run a mile, but today I can run over five. Last year I didn’t see much hope in the mirror, but today I can see transformation. I still go to the gym or run down the street feeling vulnerable and naked but I know the Lord is with me and wants me to not only succeed, but he wants me to live this life to the fullest. He doesn’t want me wasting it away in a slow death like fashion.

He wants me to experience his creation and recognize Him in his work. His creation being everything. The thing is, that our bodies are a part of that creation and he wants us to recognize and experience him through ourselves as well. Indeed we must love him with everything and love our neighbors as ourselves.

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A call comes in from the school. She introduces herself as a school official; the teacher of my daughter who is in the 2nd grade.  The caller seems to be nice. The then asks to speak to one of my daughter’s parents. My answer, “I am her dad, can I help you?”

Her next question not only made my skin crawl and quickly heated my last seated nerve (made my a - -  hot if you have ever gotten that mad before). The angering aspect of this call is that I have met this woman the year earlier, when she was the teacher of one of my elder children. And then she keeps speaking into my fire.

“Sir, do you live with them?”

At this point I can say nothing that would be considered as being honorable, professional or nearing a sweet response. I take a deep breath and put the phone on the arm of the sofa. Looking at my wife while the steam flowed from the top of my head, I motioned for her to pick up the telephone.

Has our communities de-evolved so much that they align to the scripted “absent father” as seen in Toy Story?

My personal story with my children has been to make myself constantly visible with school administrators, while they move to link every man in to the box of being absentee or inactive in the lives of their children.  Past conversations with teachers during Parent/Teacher Conferences have been filled with a great deal of tension and uninspired gazes. Some have had the opening question, “is your wife ill, than why you are here?”  A smile and an answer to quickly move into the reasons of the yearly meeting becomes the catalyst for keeping my cool. I know my daughters and feed into them so they can be prepared for life. Why is it the school district and the powers-that-be in television, think it okay to try and limit the role of the dad?

The idea that “Father Knows Best” has been erased and replaced with visions of an absent-minded, bubble-headed fool (who by the way was just lucky enough to marry one of the smartest and most aggressively beautiful woman on the planet) trying to handle a task given to him by the woman who rules and runs all facets of rearing the kids to become great and prosperous adults.

This cannot be the norm.

In recent articles, studies have garnered the grace administered when both parents are deeply involved in the rearing of their children (Two Parents Can Create Intelligent Children) and show the benefits are apparent when these children reach their tween and teenage years. This falls in lines with the dreams that grow during the varying trimesters of pregnancy and the visions of what we want in our children and then flashbacks that we think were failures during our own tutelage from our parent(s).

In the 22nd chapter of the book of Proverbs, we are instructed to feed into our children so they can make the best decisions during their later years. But then we run into school districts that try and tell us that it should be the mother involved in the rearing of our young girls and boys.  It takes BOTH parents to construct a good child and great adults.

A mother can:

• teach her daughter how to become a respectful and strong woman
• teach her daughter how to be a good support system for the man who will love her
• teach her son to be confident when silly girls will dump him for not looking like other boys
• teach her son how to return love to a woman who loves him
• teach her son how to aid his family in trusting one another

A father can:

• teach his daughter what not to accept and what standards she should set for those who will replace him for her years of life without him
• teach his daughter to believe in herself no matter what stupid boys will say about her
• teach his son to treat the women in his life as a gift 
• teach his son to be prepare for the storms that will come upon his family

My frustration comes when visits to doctor and dentist offices are filled with the similar questions asking if the father has permission to sign medical releases and be in the room with his child. Legal issues or just unwarranted summations and questions offered by professionals who are so stuck in their jobs they want to see how limited the father is in their roles of rearing their children?  I can be a little over the top, but enough is truly enough.

It is considerably possible for the father to make some mistakes in the raising of their children. But out of mistakes, both the child and the father can learn from the active portions of their relationship. They learn what fellowship truly is. It is the active movement in growing into one another through trust and love. Yeah, some dads can become overbearing in the relationship with their sons and daughters and seem to be like “Paul Bunyan” in their attempts to teach their children to knock down the giants of life earlier and a little more often, or like “Heathcliff Huxtable” and have all the answers and deliver them with laughter and unscripted humility and love.  But in both areas, these types of fathers make the journey into adulthood stronger in each step their children are taking.

Recently, I met a good friend for breakfast and he rehearsed his frustrations about a visit to school (not in the same school district as my child) to pick up his sick son’s homework.  In his retelling the story, tears of anger fell from his eyes as his anger was being kindled by the memory of being disrespected for being a caring parent. This opened up the realization of the question which was given me in the telephone call I received from my child’s teacher. If am called on my home phone, which has my name listed on it, asking questions about the child that is carrying my last name and after I have identified myself with the name that corresponds on all the records available, why the debasing questions?

My answer to my friend was to have a discussion with faculty about their approach toward young fathers and make request of the school district to rephrase their stance against active dads. But discussion with one school district may not be enough. It will take the movement of a great deal of parents, who want the best for their children; in and out of the home.  Frustrated parents tend not to support the schools that continually aggravate them.

The man answering my phone……

…… is the active father of seven daughters and one son who he intends on creating so many active paths for their success in later life, they will not think of not following in his footsteps of being an active parent.

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Today, I have the honor of writing the first post of the new year. We all know that the first of January is the signal that we need to take a new look at our resolution list. If you're anything like me, you quit last year's list earlier than you meant to do. You know—like January 2nd.

See, it seems like we always make resolutions that we can't actually keep, things like losing weight, or fixing the gutters, or doing better on our marriage. While those are all great, they seem to get lost… in other things.

Well let me start of the next year talking about one of my favorite people from history. Most of us know the Christmas story and the basic characters. There's Jesus (of course), Mary, Herod, an angel or two, some wise men, and some sheep. Oh, I left out a guy: Joseph. You know, it's amazing how often this father is forgotten.

In his post last week, Dan contemplated what it was like for Jesus to have "emptied himself." What do you think that was like? If he was truly human, he probably screamed when hungry, didn't sleep well at night, demanded from his parents, and probably raised a little hell just to prove his independence. Well, that's what my one year old is doing now. I'm going to be honest, it's not an easy ride. Then again, I wouldn't change it for the world.

See, Joseph gave up everything for his son. In order to protect his new wife and unborn child, he sent his wife to go visit her cousin. I realize customs were different back then, but I couldn't imagine spending the first few month of marriage without my wife. Still, that is a sacrifice Joseph was willing to make. Weeks before the baby was born, Joseph took his family to his ancestral hometown. One the baby was born, they were forced to flee for their lives.

I wonder at times if I am the kind of father that would pack up everything for my son. It's easy to say that I'd be willing to sacrifice for him, but it's a lot harder to actually do it. My son didn't sleep through the night until he was ten months old. That was definitely a rough time. Now he's a year old, walking, and pretty much rearranging our house (with everything somehow ending up on the floor).

This year, as I write my new year's resolutions, I'm not as concerned with getting everything right. If I take Joseph's example as my guide, I realize that at the top of my list is this first resolution:

1) Love my son as Joseph loved his.

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