Paul finds the door to fairyland

We welcomed Paul Vincent Lester into the world and our family at 3:26AM on Thursday.

As Paul was on the threshold of birth, in a moment of calm between the violence of contractions, our midwife said “I always wonder what they are thinking at this point.” I’m not sure what he was thinking right then, but I think in the days leading up to birth babies begin to “get it”. They begin to think, “this is all very lovely, but there must be something more.” Perhaps Paul was thinking along these lines:

By the Babe Unborn

By G. K. Chesterton

If trees were tall and grasses short,

As in some crazy tale,

If here and there a sea were blue

Beyond the breaking pale,

If a fixed fire hung in the air

To warm me one day through,

If deep green hair grew on great hills,

I know what I should do.

In dark I lie: dreaming that there

Are great eyes cold or kind,

And twisted streets and silent doors,

And living men behind.

Let storm-clouds come: Better an hour,

And leave to weep and fight,

Then all the ages I have ruled

The empires of the night.

I think that if they give me leave

Within the world to stand,

I would be good through all the day

I spent in fairyland.

They should not hear a word from me

Of selfishness and scorn,

If only I could find the door,

If only I were born!

Welcome Paul, my son. You found the door. I’m your dad, and my job is to let you know, as big and wonderful as this new world seems, there’s one more Door to go through! Just like your heart began to long for more than the dark of the womb, you’ll begin to notice that the fixed fire in the air and deep green hair growing on great hills point to one more Place, your final destination. Let’s find that door together Paul, and be born once again.

Chastity, Obedience, and Broadband Access

"Even the patience of our brothers was being tested by our slow internet."

--Fr. Daniel Van Santvoort O.Cist., quoted in this week's Time Magazine, explaining his Welsh monastery's decision to get broadband access.

Indeed. Job put up with a lot. But slow internet? Heaven forbid. I'll go out on a limb and predict that this monastery has fewer than five novices over the next ten years. Look, the Lord giveth broadband access, and the Lord taketh away the heart of Monastic life. I'm struck by that word "even" in the quote. The assumption is that the monks, by nature of their vocation, are very patient people. So if the internet makes them impatient, it must be an authentic trial and beyond what they should be expected to sacrifice. An alternative vision, if I may, Fr. Daniel – if your patience is being tested by your dial up connection, you’re doing a bad job of being a monk. You’ve created a life where every minor annoyance is a distraction from your Beloved, when the very vocation you’ve chosen is supposed to keep you turned towards Him. The horse left the barn pretty far back in your list of compromises.

I'm harping on this even though it violates an important spiritual suggestion I heard recently from a friend: "when it comes to following the Lord, keep your eyes on your own dang paper!" I'll justify it on account of what I'll call "trickle down gospel living", or the "universal call to mediocrity".

In “The Restoration of Christian Culture” John Senior advocates that the universal practice of Christian laity ought to be a “tithe of time for prayer”; about two and a half hours per day. After recognizing what the reader is thinking – “how is that possible?” he first blames lax contemplative religious for not keeping their vigils and praying less than eight hours a day, and then active religious and secular priests for not being faithful to the breviary and praying less than four hours a day. The lack of commitment of prayer from those whose vocations are designed to be more focused on prayer than work, leads those whose vocation are focused more on work than prayer to throw their hands up and strive for what is only a pittance. Of course, Senior also recognizes a whole slew of economic, cultural and technological realities that prevent the typical Christian from praying two plus hours, but he asserts that had we been committed to prayer we never would have let them become an issue in the first place.

The monks with broadband are the same thing. They proclaim in Time magazine that simple living is just dang hard, and the message the world hears is why should we try at all? Of course, a factual commitment to simplicity and poverty is positively essential for a committed prayer life. And the more the message of materialism is heard and taken to heart, the less it will even occur to us that we ought to be praying.

St. Anthony of Egypt, Ora Pro Nobis

St. Benedict, Ora Pro Nobis

St. Bernard of Clairvaux, Ora Pro Nobis

The weekend's haul

You know you're a nerd when ....

You have a spreadsheet to track your garden production, and can compare it to other worksheets from 05, 06 and 07. AND you are thinking that simply tallying the numbers of vegetables picked really isn't enough ... that next year you need to go to weighing everything, which will also allow for accounting of herbs and leafy vegetables not included in the current data.

This is what my poor wife has to live with.

The coolest eggplant ever and other garden progress

Rosey loves Eggplant. I've expanded my palate significantly over the past few years, but haven't completely come around on it yet. So our garden features just a single eggplant plant (do you need to repeat the plant, or is the plant an eggplant and the fruit also an eggplant?). I didn't think it was going to do well. I planted it right next to one of our mutant sprawling tomato plants and it kept getting covered up and shaded by the tomato plants mighty vines. After some makeshift trellising the eggplant got some regular sun and has started bearing fruit. This is the first one picked:


Isn't that the coolest? Twin eggplants? I think it looks like a Hippopotamus.

Zucchini is also making its way to the table.

Our early planted plum tomatos are going from green to orange. The others, including several volunteer plants from the compost, are bearing fruit nicely a few weeks behind.

The beans and spinach are long gone, but the lettuce has been very heat resistant. I've finally let it go to seed, but the remaining leaves still look appetizing.

Thrift and Waste; Stewardship and Stupidity

So on NPR a few weeks ago there was a story of how gas prices have "trapped" an Ohio family with their Ford Excursion and Ford Expedition. For the uninitiated, these vehicles make a Ford Explorer look like a Yugo. With lots of coasting and gentle acceleration, you may be able to squeeze 12-15 mpg out of these things. Krusty the Clown would be envious.

The gentleman has five children and explained that he needed the big SUVs so he and his wife could take the kids to soccer games, etc. But now the they are spending about $200 a WEEK to fill the vehicles. Oh my. So they began looking into selling or trading in the Excursion for something smaller. You see, it turns out he was mostly just driving the Excursion around by himself for his home inspection business, so maybe they didn't need it after all. And here is where we all break out our tiny violins. Because the highest offer they could get after taking it around to several dealers was $11,500, while Kelly Blue Book said it was worth 24k. And they had paid 50k when they bought it new three years ago.

My Word. Fifty thousand dollars?? On what planet does this make any sense? Much hullabaloo is made of gas prices. But if gas prices remained at the roughly $2/gal when he bought the Excursion, he's still capital S Stupid to have sunk fifty grand into a depreciating asset. (and he probably borrowed heavily for the privilege!). Losing 60% of the value in three years and $100/week on gas is fine by him, while losing 80% of the value and $200/week on gas needs a news story? The poor schlub needs to sell the Excursion for 11k, the Expedition for 8k, buy a used minivan for the kids and a compact pick up if he needs it for the business. Done. Quit your whining.

Main takeaway from this post -- when you put everything into cents per mile, depreciation will still be a bigger cost for most vehicles then gasoline. Gas will need to be around $7/gallon before operating costs start routinely exceeding capital costs. So drive the car you have a little longer, and let someone else fall for the new car smell.

In related news, the Institute for American Values has launched For a New Thrift: Confronting the Debt Culture. Be sure to take the Thrift Quiz! And remember what our patron said:

Thrift is the really romantic thing; economy is more romantic than extravagance. It is the more poetic. It is poetic because it is creative. --G.K. Chesterton

Baseball's Lessons on Eternity and a Father's Love

Game 1 Sunday June 21, 1964. Phillies 6, Mets 0.

The first place Philadelphia Phillies are in New York for a doubleheader against the basement dwelling Mets. The Phils have been perennial also rans since the 1950 Whiz Kids season, but now appear to be the real deal and are winning over the Philly Phaithful. Johnny Callison and rookie Richie Allen are pacing the offense. The pitching staff is led by an off-season trade acquisition from the Tigers, hard-throwing veteran Jim Bunning.As Bunning took the mound that summer Sunday afternoon, a television in the living room of a cape cod in Norwood, PA was tuned in. My dad sat down to watch the game with my grandfather. I don't think that either of them were really big sports or baseball fans. Granddad was an engineer with GE in their old Southwest Philly plant. Dad had just turned 13 and finished up 7th grade. Dad's older brother by 8 yrs, my Uncle Bill, had gotten married the month before, and so it was just Nana, Granddad and Dad. With all that excitement, plus Granddad's own 50th birthday having just passed, perhaps a low-key Father's Day was in order. Just a kid with his Pop. One on one. And so the game began.

The Phils put up a run in the top of the first and another in the second. When the Phils went up 6-o in the sixth on a Callison homer and Bunning helping his own cause with a two-run double, the game was well in hand. But something else was happening. Jim Bunning was pitching brilliantly. Every Met who stepped to the plate was retired. Not a hit, not a walk, not a hit by pitch or an error. No one had reached first base. As the bottom of the ninth came around, dad and granddad joined thousands of other fathers and sons throughout the area in sitting too close to the television and watching and waiting nervously. Charley Smith pops out ... George Altman down on strikes .... and John Stephenson .... down swinging!!!! He Did It!!! 27 up, 27 down. Jim Bunning Pitched a Perfect Game! First since Don Larsen in '56, and the first in the National League in 84 years. And most importantly, time had been spent and memories had been made. In the unexplainable magic that baseball can bring, Dads and Sons spoke without words:
"I love you."
"I'm glad you're here."
"This is gonna be some summer!"

The next morning, Granddad died of a heart attack. Some summer indeed!

Since baseball time is measured only in outs, all you have to do is succeed
utterly; keep hitting, keep the rally alive, and you have defeated time. You
remain forever young.
-- Roger Angell

That's the poetry and mystery of baseball. But we know time isn't ever defeated. Sometimes it goes way too fast. Like from a thrilling Sunday afternoon to a terrible Monday morning. In a memory though, or just a story for me, Dad is still forever young and the Granddad I've never met is still here. And in Another Place, Granddad waits. And there, time really is beaten. There is only now, the hits keep coming, and the rally is kept alive.

William N. Lester 1914-1964. Lux perpetua luceat ei.

Game 2: October 8, 1977 Dodgers 4, Phillies 1

Fast forward. October 8, 1977. The Phillies are in the playoffs against the Los Angeles Dodgers. Despite a ridiculous loss the night before to fall behind 2-1 in the best of five series, hope springs eternal. Not in the hearts of all the Philly cynics, but certainly in my mom. Mom has scored a pair of tickets to the game. The seats are way up in section 725 at the Vet. The forecast is for a cold rainy, night. And by the way, mom is nine months pregnant with yours truly. Mom is stoked. Dad is worried. As the evening came and they were getting ready to go to the game, I apparently began mildly suggesting they change their plans. The rain began to fall, giving my parents more time to debate whether the hospital or the stadium would be the destination.I became more adamant, and dad convinced mom that the hospital was the place to go. In the delivery room, mom screamed often. Sometimes at me; sometimes at the radio with the game on it. (This apparently caused some consternation among the nurses). I came into the world four minutes after midnight. Shortly after, the Phillies went down to an ignominious defeat and their season was over. In South Philly, misery. At Lankenau hospital, joy.

Mom and Dad's unused tickets from that night are framed and hang on my wall. On Christmas 1986, Dad gave me a book; I don't remember the title, only that it was a sort of baseball historical timeline. But I remember clearly what he wrote inside:

Brian,
Page 243 tells of a sad, sad night for the Phillies. It was the
happiest night of my life.
Love, Dad

I don't know quite how all that registered in my 9 year old head, but I do know that was the moment I became a baseball fanatic. What might have been just a boyhood phase became a lifelong passion, because in playing, watching and reading baseball I was connected to Dad, and knew he loved me.

Game 3: July 11, 2006 American League 3, National League 2

There have been times watching baseball where I've leapt for joy, yelled in anger, or just plain cried (Joe Carter anyone?). But mostly I know it's just a game. And nowadays, a game played primarily by obscenely rich and arrogant players for even more obscenely rich and arrogant owners. I really love the game because it reminds me how blessed I am, and how precious life is, and how the next day or minute, or next at-bat or pitch, just might change everything. It reminds me of Granddad and Dad watching one last incredible game together. It reminds me of Dad telling me the story of that game as we visited Cooperstown on my 11th birthday. It reminds me of watching the 2006 all-star game as a new dad, with 3 week old Kenny asleep in my arms, looking at him and thinking that just a month before, I could never have imagined the depth and breadth of love a father has for a son, and longing to do anything I could to teach him, protect him and to ... succeed utterly; keep hitting, keep the rally alive, and have defeated time. So we could remain forever young.

Alas, I can't do that. But our Heavenly Father can. And in Him, Granddad, Dad, my sons and I are all brothers. And we are young. And there are games to play.

I love you Dad. Happy Father's Day.