Apparel

Warm congrats to my cousin, Matthew, and his wife, Megan, on the birth of their second daughter.

Most of my paternal grandparents’ grandchildren began having children rather late in life. So, although perhaps it shouldn’t surprise me, it always does – pleasantly – when another little niece, nephew, or once-removed first cousin comes along.

What a world to come into, though.

♦ ♦ ♦ ♦ ♦

Then again, things arguably were worse in Genesis-time. I have a couple of colorful t-shirts with the caption, “Need an Ark? I Noah Guy.” There’s a picture of the ark on the shirts. (Alas, I can’t find the picture online – just other shirts with the same caption but different artwork.) I obtained these shirts after a children’s program at my church. They were spares.

I wear them around because I’m edgy like that. And because they fit.

No one ever has commented on them – the occasional raised eyebrow is as far as things have gone – until today, when I wore an ark shirt to the to the Salvation Army Kroc Center. (The boys have been taking swim lessons there.)

My goodness, how many laudatory remarks I got.

Did you go to the Ark Encounter?, one man asked.

My people.

Now what I need is a Coach Cignetti shirt to wear to the Kroc.

The birthday boy

Happy birthday (yesterday) to Samuel, who is two. Here he flaunts his new German trainers, which his Aunt Edoarda & Uncle Stephen gave him.

He also got a set of wooden coasters from his Aunt Mary & Uncle Martin (when he visits their house, he plays with their coasters). … Dear me, if I try to list who has given what, I’ll leave someone out. I’d better just declare my all-extensive gratitude.

Other gifts: cleaning supplies (broom, mop, etc.); tools (hammer, power drill, etc.); clothes; greeting cards; books; pumpkins; candy; and cold hard cash.

We took him to two “trunk or treat” gatherings. Until this year, I was barely aware that people did this. Samuel wasn’t interested in collecting candy, but he did enjoy drawing with chalk in the parking lot.

For the record, he was dressed as a lion – not as a bear, as some 40% of his fellow “trunk-or-treaters” thought. Karin’s friend Nora brought her little daughter, Charlotte, dressed as Madeline. In that series’s fourth book, Madeline and the Gypsies, Madeline and her friend Pepito are forced to wear an old lionskin. Therefore, Samuel also was in Madeline costume. (I can almost feel the collective eye-roll. Well, this is parenting: one’s activities and cultural references become more childish. Before long, I’ll be finding meaning in Chuck E. Cheese.)

Or maybe he was Sam the Lion from The Last Picture Show.

Tonight the rain is heavy. Karin & I were in our basement, watching TV, when we saw one of our window-wells fill up with water (like the episode of Get Smart in which a flooded telephone booth almost drowns Max and Ninety-nine). Underneath the window-well, water seeped out from the wood panelling and onto the floor. We moved some boxes away from the deluge and resolved to seal up that window-well ASAP.

Two commencements

First, I want to congratulate my Uncle Tim (my father’s brother). During the recent commencement ceremony at Bethel College, he was honored as the Professor of the Year.

Although he’s a philosophy professor, he has taught many other subjects, including biblical literature, Latin American cultural geography, and the history of sport, and he has served as Bethel’s archivist.

He moved to Bethel in 1993, having previously worked as a missionary at the Jamaica Theological Seminary and the Caribbean Graduate School of Theology in Kingston. He holds graduate degrees from the University of Illinois at Urbana–Champaign, the University of Chicago, and Trinity Evangelical Divinity School. As an undergraduate, he studied at Fort Wayne Bible College, which later became Summit Christian College and then Taylor University Fort Wayne. (That campus is now defunct.) Relishing the overkill, he likes to decorate the back of his van with stickers from all these schools.

He wears a beard, a poncho, and a fishing hat. He says “Shalom” a lot. People call him Brother Tim. On a conformist campus, he’s something of a countercultural icon. People who don’t know him mistake him for a 1970s-style Christian hippie. He likes to talk about the persons and practices of our denomination (especially those of the early twentieth century), Christians in the developing world, missionaries, athletes, and ecclesiastical and collegiate politics. Secular politics hold little attraction for him. The same is true of logic, science, and anything that smacks of positivism. His vision of Christianity is both ecumenical and rooted in tradition.

He impresses those who listen to him. My sense is that the people at Bethel are less receptive to him than they used to be, and so this award may have come a bit late. But maybe I’m too pessimistic.

♦ ♦ ♦ ♦ ♦

I didn’t attend Bethel’s commencement. I usually avoid those ceremonies. Yesterday, however, Karin & I attended IUSB’s graduation ceremony, which was held at Notre Dame.

The keynote speech, given by the President of Indiana University, was a defense of truth. (You can read the version delivered in Bloomington.) The speech was rather bland even though it took a side in a perennial dispute.

You relativists and subjectivists! – the speech insinuated but didn’t say – Look where your way of thinking has led us! To Donald Trump! To “alternative facts!”

I wondered how many listeners understood.

I marveled at how utterly boring these mass graduations are. Hundreds of people must be recognized (they’ve paid tuition, after all). This leaves little time for anything significant. And yet … this is the last opportunity to teach these students. Why settle for a recital of platitudes? Even if these are platitudes that, embarrassingly, many academics now reject?

♦ ♦ ♦ ♦ ♦

We attended the commencement because I’d been invited to watch one of my tutees collect his master’s degree in social work.

I believe he’ll do a lot of good for the youth that he intends to serve. As a tutee, however, he often was difficult to work with.

During tutorials, he’d complain about the unspoken racism at IUSB.

If my own classmates can’t be genuine with me – he’d say – how are they going to be genuine with the population they’re going to work with?

Then he’d thank me for listening to him.

It’s like free therapy, he’d quip.

Well, I wasn’t prepared to be his therapist. Listening to him wore me out – especially on those occasions when he was irate with me.

But he liked me well enough, and I think I helped him to write better. And so, when he invited me to the commencement ceremony, Karin & I went. He was the very last person to receive his degree. He lagged a little behind everyone else in the ceremony – he walks with a cane – and so he had the whole stage to himself, and the audience cheered and cheered for him. It was very moving.

Afterward, Karin & I went to his graduation party at a restaurant in downtown South Bend. He greeted us warmly and went around introducing me to everyone. Karin & I were pleased for him, and we ate as many chicken wings as we could.

Disco JP

Somebody at work filmed me with his cell phone. He used the “disco ball” effect.

Little did he know, this really is what it’s like to be John-Paul.

The game against Venezuela

Ecuador and Venezuela scored one goal apiece.

(Video)

Before the game, when it was time for the Venezuelans to perform our anthem, they performed the anthem of Mexico … jackasses.

(Video)

We’re second in South America, nipping at Argentina’s heels, well on pace to reach the World Cup. This was our last qualifier of the year. Our next qualifier will be contested in March.

Pink socks.