laughing babies

One of the things that has made this babyfizing so draining for us is that it hasn't really allowed us a moment's rest to relax, settle down and process the experience. Don't get me wrong - it's kickdonkey awesomepants - it's just fairly tense, all the time.

Last night, however, I took the chance to focus on someone else. A friend of mine has just found out he has cancer, and since the people of our church were kind enough to bring us so much food our refrigerator began to buckle outwards, I figured I'd pop in and drop off one of our extra boxes of mandarin oranges. My friend is a bit of a stoic - not one to dwell on his own "little troubles" - so I figured the oranges would be a good excuse to go by and let him know my wife and I care.

When I arrived, I discovered that he and his wife had just finished dinner and were sitting down at a game of bridge with some delightfully British friends. We chatted a bit, and then I took the chance offered by a break in conversation to mention that Anya and I were very sorry to hear about his test results. A slightly awkward silence followed, and I figured I'd created a bit of a strained situation, what with his guests and all.

I was about to say something more when he replied, "Actually, my testicles are fine - it's my, hem, prostate that has the problem. Another, much more awkward silence ensued. "Umm", I said, "I actually just was saying that I was sorry to hear about your test results".

That shattered the quiet, broke the dam, and exploded the five of us into tear-jerking laughter that went on and on, re-catalyzing every time anyone tried to say anything. His wife was pointing at him, shaking with laughter. The Brits' heads were thrown back and bobbying. The jollity went on and on. Finally, I was able to get a word in edgewise, "I'm usually pretty oblivious to social convention", I said, "but I hardly think I'm the sort of guy who tries to start after dinner conversations about the state of a friend's testicles". And off we were again.

Needless to say, I'm feeling a lot better. And if laughter is any sort of medicine, my friend should be well-emboldened for a good hard fight.

Eighteen hours of labor and a c-section. A week with literally almost no sleep. Watching your wife suffer more than anyone you've watched suffer before. Still reeling. Nothing but sentence fragments. And yet... there he is: Mateo Ezra Barkey. 10 lbs, 1 oz. 22 inches. Birthday, December 13th at 4:54 am. Yes.

pregnant with thought

A few thoughts from a still-expectant father (nine days overdue).

1. As a jungle kid raised in the belly of the Amazon, I didn't get a lot of television time. The longest period of exception was 1991, during which my family was on furlough in Calgary, Alberta and Orlando, Florida. I was eleven years old - an easy victim for the seduction of the boob tube. As a result, I can even now sing advertising jingles for literally dozens of youth-targeted products. A note to parents everywhere: the childish mind is a sponge, and television is a big, brown, muddy soup of poop-water. Protect your children! Shut the @$#%^ing thing off!


2. Never let yourself believe that the legality or cultural acceptance of an action correlates directly with its rightness. While the two may from time to time overlap, the interrelation is incidental. The true rightness of an action is a function of an independent REALITY that can only be experienced tentatively. There are plenty of actions that are both legal and generally acceptable, but in Reality are most likely both wrong and hurtful to human well-being. Likewise, there are a good number of actions which are illegal and culturally frowned upon, that may in fact be good for people. I suggest, therefore, that you not cruise boldly towards the rocky cliffs of your ending on the boiling waves of law and popular morality, but rather paddle with fear and trembling in the placid and less-traveled waters of the truth.


3. We are called to truly live, which is to say, to live abundantly. This is more than just being, this is also affecting. For while learning to "just be" is absolutely essential to a life of peace and tranquility, to go no further than that leaves us as passive objects. To really live well we must actively engage the world, struggling constantly to lessen the difference between the world as it is (or appears to be) and the world as we sense it ought to be (or, perhaps,is).

The need to strive for an impossible balance in this dialectic of the paradoxical states of Being and Acting is one of the mysteries that, fully embraced, can bring real joy into our lives. For if we can truly admit that what is essential to our "rightness" is also beyond us, then we can begin to turn over the anguish of our disability to the Deity in whom it is resolved, and get on with enjoying the fragmented messiness that is our reality.


4. I am not a great man. But if admitting that I am not a great man makes me one... well then, I guess I am.

adbuster buster

Cynicism is a useless waste of time - which may be why my more recent painting ideas have been a bit more whimsical in nature. You may remember my Thomas Kinkade ripoff painting (dubbed "the Sincade painting" by my Maple Ridge friends), which blasted the poor, happy little painter for only ever painting in "the key of glowing cottage". I attempted to counter this by subtly painting into the piece four demons, some fire, a grisly murder and a bloody hand print.

A fair bit of my work has been just like that: pointing a finger at some obvious (yet overlooked) problem and yelling, "Look! A problem!" This is well and good and, I think, useful. But the willful ignorance of evil has it's equally dismal flipside - the willful ignorance of good. There is a lot of beauty and truth and niceness out there. People give hugs, return lost wallets and give qualified help for free to those who can't afford it.

In light of that smiling point, this is the problem I have with magazines like "Adbusters": while they're useful and necessary and probably point to solutions by implication, they spend pretty much all their time whining and pointing and cynicizing. Down with evil corporations and unchecked consumerism and entertainmentcentricity - yes! But also, up with people! Up with sunshine and rain and hugs and up with babies and kisses and hope!

I don't know, maybe this is just wishful thinking on my part - maybe I just want it to be true because I've gone and half-made a kid that is almost born and I cannot stomach an utterly doom-and-gloom worldview because of it. But I think not.