Culture Shock

After a holiday hiatus, I have to get back in the blogging game.  And there's no better way to do so than to rely heavily on one of my favorite Op Ed columnists - David Brooks .  In his latest piece he reviews a book called "All Things Shining".  He highlights several parts of the book, but let me cut to the chase.  Brooks paraphrases authors Hubert Dreyfus of Berkeley and Sean Dorrance Kelly of Harvard when he says this: The most real things in life well up and take us over. They call this experience “whooshing up.” We get whooshed up at a sports arena, at a political rally or even at magical moments while woodworking or walking through nature. He then goes on to dismiss some of the conclusions these two philosophers come to, but zeroes in on something that grabbed my attention: We have official stories we tell about our culture: each individual is the captain of his own ship; we are all children of God. But in practice, willy-nilly, the way we actually...

Turning two - and having a child that turns two - can be shocking.  Although I've done the former, I can do a better job of reporting on the latter.  Let me give you some adjectives to describe the culture shock that has accompanied Enoh's transition into the twos. 1. Terrible .  Don't stop here!  It's not that bad.  But sometimes you just have those instances, like the one below, where you wonder what got into your kid.  For those of you who received our Christmas card this year, this was the scene 10 minutes before the family picture was taken.   Yep, it can be terrible, but those moments only last for a...moment.  2. Turbulent.   This is the one my wife prefers to terrible.  And I get it.  The life of a parent of a two-year-old is a plane ride over the Icelandic volcano - up, down and all around.  You just never know what response you'll get to a "no" or which parent, grandparent, or stranger they'll prefer over yo...

As we sat down on the pew last Sunday, our 2 year-old son Enoh looked up at the projector screen hanging from the ceiling in front of the pipe organ and said in a manner that would make any Christian dad proud: "Iwant...Isus (Jesus)!"  Enoh begins at least half of his sentences this way whether the object is in Croatian or English: "Iwant...gamma" (grandma), or "Iwant..meko" (mlijeko, or milk).  (We are working on "please") What was it about this church service that made him say he wanted Jesus?  Did he associate the PowerPoint on a large screen (like many congregants would these days) with church?  Did he connect the pipe organ (like many congregants in the past) with religion?  I honestly don't know for sure. But I don't think so.  I think it started with the fact that there were a bunch of people in the room.  I think the kind people who gave us a hug and asked how we're doing gave him another clue.  I think standing, ...