The next computer?

gives you a good idea of what the next computer might look like. Very cool use of touch screen.http://www.blogger.com/img/gl.link.gif

Sunday morning out of focus

I'm getting over a brief flu thing today. The stuff I'm coughing up is clear now. It was yellow yesterday.

Someone named Mary Kate was doing the sermon at church today, though I was not really able to focus because I still feel a bit bad - nervous energy from the caffine in the Excedrin I needed to quell the headache, a little nauseous.

She was talking about hands - what Jesus did with his, what we're doing with ours. I'll link to someone who has a clearer description if I see it online.

I have a lot of work to do today on the Best of stuff. It's due tomorrow.

Tuesday night house church

The Klinefelters are here tonight. It's a nice time to be around people we love.

Chad and the Canipe Family are, obviously, a focus tonight. This is also a very loose session; Eric has questioned Colin Powell's pronunciation of his first name being, as he says, that his last name sounds like "Bowel." So loose that we're talking about dog names - Cory's name used to be Marquette and she came with the house. So loose that I'm blogging, live.

Other comments include Angela talking about the "Quick Wok" restaurant on "Long Drive" and Tracy wanting to end her sentences with the word "semi-colon" instead of "period" - more on this below.

"I want to give us an opportunity to process a bit...and share some stories," Thurman says.

Chad's Podcast
This is our conversational centerpiece tonight. It's his first and (only?) audio blog entry about the church, Poema, he and Renee intended to start.

Here it is.

He and Renee moved here, to Norwood, to build Poema.

In the podcast, Chad said that he wanted a dialogue and that the journey of faith he wanted to walk in was one that begins with questions. And, boy, has this community got 'em tonight.

Good news, btw, Palmer is doing better - check Kevin's site for stuff about him.

Poema, Chad says in the podcast, means masterpiece or workmanship - and "...that's what we're about, being God's masterpiece, his work of art."

Chad asked listeners suspend any disbelief and consider the idea that "...God created. He is the master artist...he has a plan and a purpose for your life..."

Chad said that our purpose was deemed and intended by our creator and that we should try to discern what that purpose is(I'm extrapolating a bit - correct me if you think I'm off on this one.)

Chad spoke about disasters, Like Hurricane Katrina, which had just happened at the time he recorded this. He said no matter what happens in our lives, God can use even the bad things that happen - tragedies - for his purpose and make something good out of it. This kind of foretold the situation we are in now.

"Thanks for listening. It looks like I've gone a bit longer than I expected."

Sara Klinefelter said, "Here is Chad comforting us..."

Everyone felt that the recording spoke to them.

"What part of Chad's mission are we called to carry forth?" Kevin asked.

Julie Gross spoke about how open Chad was to discussing his faith ecumenically, such as with a Hindu friend at Fifth Third.

"It's ordinary and extraordinary at the same time," she said. "I think that part of his vision is something to carry forward."

Aaron said that Chad was visionary and died before his ideas came to pass - that being the vision for the city. "You don't hear that at seminary," Klinefelter said. "Chad's thing was being known as the best neighbors you could have."

"I sense that that nugget is something that's going to be coming," Aaron said. "It seemed very significant."

Angela brought up the communion of saints. "Chad talked about email him or call him," she said. "And you still can."

For myself, I was struck by the depth and detail of planning Chad had done. You have to understand how meek and understated Chad was in person. I had no idea about this at the time.

Along the lines of the communion thing Angela mentioned, that thing that happened the day he died seemed significant. Our answering machine started playing all of its messages just before 7 am, the morning and approximate time that Chad died. I also felt strongly that Chad would die a week before it happened. The podcast is maybe the message (recorded) that he wanted us to listen to(?}

Kevin said that he and Tracy as well as the Canipe family also felt that Chad was going to die several days before it happened.

Klinefelter (Aaron) said he had an experience on Thursday (the day before Chad died) and that he understands the idea of speaking with the saints better. That the plane between this world and the next is much thinner that we often believe. I gather that the communion of saints stuff is verboten or taboo or something in evangelical faiths(?)

Klinefelter said he went to the hospital on Thursday night and felt very discouraged, disconnected and defeated. "It kept going down, down, down," he said. He said he listened to scripture on the way to the hospital to seek comfort. He just wanted God to say something. "The sense of...deep and abiding peace (the Canipe family) had...I received so much form them in terms of encouragement...I felt like other people in our community needed to know that."

Klinefelter came to the Brown House looking to share..."after I left here that night, driving home, I had a very real sense that I was talking to Chad. I don't even know how to explain it. Not that he was there with me..."

Aaron said he communicated to Chad,"don't be discouraged. God's got it."

It was like I was having a conversation with chad and it was like he was saying, 'Thanks for saying that, but I've got to go...I can't fight in this physical body, I've got to go.' I remember driving home thinking he's not going to survive...but that he was okay with that...it's time to go and it's like just letting me know, it's okay."

Tracy said he died, "...very gracefully, very quickly and well...even the position he was laying...was like he was laying back, watching a football game, was peaceful."

"Just as a comfort to you all, he did really well," Tracy said. "I don't think he suffered."

Kevin said he thought Chad could hear things even though he was in a medically inuced coma, and he was spoken to by many for the days he was in the hospital.

Julie said this means the Kingdom is not far away, period. (Tracy would have said ...far away, semicolon." That's the context of the joke from earlier.)

"Those who believe in me will never die (experience death)," Kevin quoted.

"I have this kind of working theory...somewhat based in hope...that there is this kind of seemless time when you're entering...this transitional time where you're literally being greeted by people who are going to help you...(and yet you're still connected to the material world)," Kevin said.

Sara said when her mom died she had this amazing understanding of the term, "Born Again." That she had this literal vision of her mom being born again, going through the birth canal. "It was like labor," Sara said. "She kept saying she had to go."

She kept crying out, 'God help me.'" Sara said. "I just had never felt the presence of God so full."

"You just have this amazing new life in a different form," she said. "I've never thought of born again Christian the same way again...now it's even more real."

Sara said she prayed, "God breathe life into Chad. Breathe life into him again...that's all I could pray and it was like a joyous song...and that God was going to breathe life into Chad...and whatever that would look like...I really had the faith that God was breathing life into him like he had never known...he was at the feet of God...can you just imagine?"

Aaron said he felt a piece of himself, and the community was gone with Chad. "That's not like a bad thing, as in 'Woe is me,' it's just the reality of it...he made up a part of who I am and when he leaves this place to the other side of the veil, theres a piece of me that lacks..."

Thurman said," When you said that, I thought, 'A piece of me went with Chad and Chad is at the feet of God.'"

I don't feel so much closer to Chad as I do closer to God," Kevin said. "When (some of Kevin's friends went to India) I felt like part of me was in India."

"This was a tragedy but now a lot of people are reexamining their lives," Kevin said. "...I'm very comfortable dying now in a way I wasn't before this."

"We're a fairly young community," Aaron said. "...death is a part of life. It's like we know now of a whole other country that we didn't know of before...I can say, with confidence that we, as a community, can get around in that country."

Aaron compared this to orienteering. Julie compared this to becoming fluent in the language of heaven. Becky spoke of her uncle Stewart's death and how connected she felt to him.

"We've been talking for the past few weeks," Aaron said, "We've been talking about healing and...what happened? ...I see what happened to Chad as part of the same conversation as to what does healing look like...his healing came as going beyond the veil...I think what we've experienced has been healing for us as a community in a way that Chad healing physically (could not have)...You always lose something when you got to war you always gain something when you go to war...it has hurt like hell...but that has also brought about healing (to the community)."

Aaron said that he thinks something is happening, very deep down in our community, that Chad's death won for us.

"If we continue to talk out and feel this...we're going to know him as we never have," Sara said. "...if we keep opening it up and feeling, then we can keep growing."

There was much more laughter than crying tonight. And, as Chad said, God is near.

As a child

That's the name of an album by my friend, Eric Falstrom. Eric has a hell of a sound and, I thought today, is on target with this album title, naming what is really a primal drive.

I was taliking to Kevin and Tracy Rains daughter, Zoe, today about just this thing: As a child, you're in a hurry to grow up and, when you grow up, if you have any sense, you spend your whole time trying to be a kid again - or wishing you were.

Zoe said she cried today at school about Chad. I think a lot of people did.

Awake before anyone else

Or at least I think I am.

It was 4 in the morning when I woke up today. I guess I can make it to morning prayers today.

So I wake up this early - I haven't slept through the night in half a year - because of this machine I use, the CPAP - basically an air compressor that keeps my airway from closing up at night. The thing dries me out since I don't use the humidifier on it. I choose not to use it because if I did I would have to wash the breathing assembly (a little barrel with two soft nozzles that fit into my nose) and the hose with antibacterial soap every day. This would be to avoid things like Legionnaire's Disease which thrive in moist environments. I;m just not disciplined enough to do this , so I live with the dryness.

This limitation is small compared to the gain; I've had only five hours of sleep and yet I feel more rested than I did before when my sleep apnea disrupted my sleep.

Beck and I have this joke, "Thanks, CPAP, it's incredible," making fun of the awful video the local clinic uses to pimp this thing. Ask us about it sometime.

Chad's viewing was last night. I was glad to be able to go, even though I normally avoid these things. I told Beck this was the first one I've gone to where it hasn't felt like an obligation. I'm glad it wasn't in a funeral home. Those places feel like dollhouses.

Ghost is awake with me. Chewing on an old water bottle.

So, in a last gasp of early morning indulgence, here's what I'd like to get done today. (I have no printer now as mine recently konked out - anybody want to sell a used Mac printer?)

- email Julie Boehm about the poverty documentary project
- Finish up the top ten list stuff for John Fox, my editor on the Best of Cincinnati project
- get the books out from under the sofa
- make arrangements to borrow a van and add a bookcase to the living room
- clear off space on my computer - I have less than a gig free on an 80 gig system!
- clean the bathroom
- make arrangements to find a new printer
- email Angela with the writers project info
- add my blog info to the signature on my email
- clean the backyard and measure for pavers - we're paving the little back yard we have.
- do four loads of laundry
...that's this day's peek into the glamorous life of a freelance writer.

-Steve

Child Rearing and Chad's Funeral

That's where my mind has been for the past 24 hours.

We visited Molly yesterday at the Kenton County Detention Center, a real jewel of the American justice system, I hear - not.

She was in good spirits and we got a long visit with her yesterday. Beck and I have confidence that she'll make it and stay sober this time.

After visiting Molly we bought something like six pounds of spinich for $2 from Findlay Market. I highly recommend you check out this urban farmers market. The prices are so low I think we could buy product and resell it here in Norwood at profit and still undercut the grocery significantly.

After that we had so much spinich, we needed to give some away and we went to the red building and gave some to, among others, Krystal Dawson. Brandon is away working with Over the Rhine in New Zealand and she's been alone with Avian. Anyway, she asked us to dinner.

At dinner we spoke with Krystal about their parenting method, which we didn't know much about before last night. It turns out they are focusing their parenting on trying to raise avian to respect authority that acts out of love, not out of fear. (these are my words, not theirs, and my very limited understanding of this method, called Adlerian Psychology or the Positive Parenting menthod) This is a method to create a child that is neurosis free, and has only egalitarian relationships. I'll blog on this more later...

So anyway, we had a lovely evening with Krystal and Avian and had a really neat conversation about this stuff. Beck and I talked a lot about how we might raise our midget.

Today - this morning - was Chad's funeral. It was a beautiful service and a lot of folks stood up to talk about his life. I particularly liked Chad's dad's story of how, when Chad was a kid, he got stuck with the dog in an icy garage and scrawled "help" on the garage door window.

We're at the Brown House now, hanging with Tracey, Jeremy, Sandy Brock and a few other folks.

I'm still working on the Best of Cincinnati text.

More later...

Past tenses and tensions

I woke up this morning with a headache as my wife predicted.

It isn't the skullsplitter variety - a description that never fails to make Becky wince - it's just a simple tension headache caused by a shot of Jagermeister. "It's just one drink," I told her. And, of course, she was right. One was enough.

and in this episode of "This Old Anarchist"
I think I am begining to understand why the "obey" thing is worked into the common wedding vows. It wasn't in our vows, but that's beside the point. It doesn't have to mean some sort of sick, psuedo-parental thing where spouses act out their respective neurosis (what's the plural here?) on one another - it can just mean, "Listen and try to respect what your spouse has to say before having the kneejerk response to fight them on stuff. They may have a damn good reason to say whetever they're saying."

So wow, how 'bout that.

The Big Chill
Our friend, Chad Canipe, died on Friday, March 9. He left behind two sons - ages seven and three (Colin and Aidan - I think Aidan is three) and a wife, Rene. There's a memorial site being developed at http://www.CanipeMemorial.com. I'm sure they'll be accepting donations for the family at the site and I can attest, if they do, it's for a good cause: to support the grieving family of a kind and very decent man.

I still am having a difficult time accepting that he's gone and, paradoxically, am finding my memories of Chad to be fleeting. I can recall events and conversations, which I'll relate later in this letter, but not his voice or face all that clearly. Just a tinge of his soft, slightly raspy way of speaking is left and just a smile or so remains in my memory. I can't recall how he frowned (perhaps this speaks well of him) or what his serious look looked like.

There was a radio show I heard once that described the reactions to death in other cultures and they spoke of a particular (African?) culture that viewed it - death - as being of two types: The recent dead, who still live in the minds of those who knew them and the long dead who are recalled only in stories or not at all.

My friend Quintina, like Chad, is among the recent dead. Quin died in - wasn't it January? - That's already begun to slip - and she, like Chad, was only about 35. It was sudden and it was a shock. My friend, Adam, who, along with his wife, Laura, played a large part in our wedding, his favorite movie was The Big Chill, which is about a group of friends who reuinite after many years at the death of one in their clique. I don't think Quin's death acted on my loose group of high school friends as it happened in the film, but then, in some ways it did. It was a geologic occurrence, shaking us to our core and forcing us to confront our own mortality.

Quin, by the way, laughed so hard at one of my stories that she threw up. John Waters said once that to him, if he could make an audience member vomit, it was like a standing ovation. Thanks, so much, Quin. I've never been paid a better compliment when telling my stories of urban decay.

Chad's death may be the first death in Vineyard Central - could that be? Maybe. That seems harder than the second will be. Kevin Rains, my friend and pastor will be doing the memorial service.

the year of magical thinking
When time has passed and those close to Chad can sit down to read it, I hope they, especially Rene, check out Joan Didion's The Year of Magical Thinking. This is a memoir by Didion - a journalist/author - on the first year of her life without her husband. Didion is an athiest, though the book is really about how we grieve. There is an engaging abstract of what one will find - a 25 minute interview by Terry Gross. Quoting the Fresh Air site, "In her memoir, Didion contemplates how the rituals of daily life are fundamentally altered when her life's companion is taken from her. Her impressions, both sharply observed and utterly reasonable, form a picture of an intelligent woman grappling with her past and future."

Memories of Chad
Chad and I were not close, but I have always known him to be a gentleman, a devoted husband and father and a loving friend. Here are just a few notes that will act as a simple buttressing of wonderful stories that will no doubt be told about Chad.

His kindness: He went out of his way to hook me up with a job at 5/3 which I decided, ultimately, not to interview for. He looked for ways he could extend a little grace into others lives.

His love of his family was alway clear to me. The way he cared for his family was always clear in his soft spoken, gentle and soothing manner towards them.

His faith: Clearly stronger than my own, he was convicted on the love and authority of God.

His damned free weights: Were a pain in the ass to move downstairs to his basement. But, they reinforced my understanding of his sense of humor. The man could take a joke and always had a laugh ready for my sarcasm.

You'll be missed, Chad.

Steve

PS: My headache is gone now. And Chad's blog keeps going, as his spokesperson and testimony of what his life was about. Once you get past his unnatural obsession with the Steelers ( ;) ), you'll find a very deep soul imprinted its mark on those pages.

Here's the letter we sent to the relative with the problem:

XXXXXX,

Thank you for your letter. We appreciate the sentiments you expressed, but we believe that you miss the point, and what was the problem that evening.

When you expressed that you did not like the music playing and went into the bathroom I was already changing the station. When you came out with TP in your ears I had already changed it to a station playing XXXXX. Maybe you didn't like that either.

Regardless, your behavior was very rude. Instead of asking us, "Would you please turn the music off or change the channel?" you made snide comments, stuffed TP in your ears and then started singing at the top of your lungs.

And even these behaviors are not the point.

You acted this way because you were drunk. You were drinking in the car and brought beer into our home.

Beck and I have decided to establish that we do not want to be around you when you have had any amount of alcohol. If you've decided to drink, please call and cancel any plans with us. We don't intend to go through this again.

For the record, you may not drink in our home and we do not want to see you if you have had any alcohol.

We love you and want to maintain a relationship with you. To do this, we cannot accept your drinking in our presence. You are not your normal and pleasant self when you drink, you become a person we do not want to be around.


Steve and Becky