Where to start?

Lately I've been considering a return to blogging. It's been more than a year since I've written regularly, and honestly, I just don't know where to start. But lately I've been reading some blogs again, and I randomly got two comments last week from readers I don't think I know.

By the way, thanks and welcome to both Anonymous and The Saxophone Player's Wife.

And so last week (or was it the week before?) I went on this random grammar tirade, and while it's true that grammar is a subject about which I'm quite passionate (Did you see how I avoided ending a sentence with a preposition there?), I admit it was kind of out of nowhere.

So let's start with the best part. I'm gonna be a dad. I think most of the people that will end up reading this have already heard that news, but you've probably never heard how excited I am. AND, dear reader, I've wanted to share this with you for some time. Sometime let's talk about abortion. Cause really, I'm not nearly as understanding as I used to be regarding that issue. Sorry. But an ultrasound can be a life-changing experience sometimes, just in case you didn't know that already.



We're having a girl. We're going to name her Emmelyn. It seems like every day I'll lean over to Wifey and ask something like, "Do you think Emmie will be smart?" or "Do you think Emmie will have curly hair?" or "Do you think Emmie will be funny?" Incidentally, if she doesn't have a sense of humor, she's not gonna make it in this house.

I'm already preparing my apology for the day my daughter comes to me and asks why we couldn't have given her a normal name. Because I know she's going to have to go through life repeating it to people that mistakenly call her Amy or Emma.

Honestly, there's no good reason we have for naming her Emmelyn. Sure, my mother-in-law's middle name was Lynn, and we're sort of naming our daughter after her. Her name was Kitty. Emmie's middle name will be Kitty. But really, I was just sitting around one day and thought it up. Emmelyn sounded like a real name to me, so I looked it up on the internet, and sure enough, it's a real, albeit obscure, name. And Wifey liked it too. So there ya go.

What else? We moved to the Dallas area. I'm no longer "a Texan on mission to California." My old church pretty much fell apart. (That's another story for another day.) I failed to get into any Ph.D. programs, which is just as well, because so far I've failed to graduate my Master's program too. (Grr! I'll get to that another time too.) And I've officially gone from employed to unemployed to underemployed, which is what probably best describes my current situation.

And even as I look back over this post, I feel overwhelmed by inadequacy at my ability to make up for more than a year of not writing, despite the much appreciated encouragement I've gotten from readers. It makes me want to just delete the whole thing and just find a Netflix movie.



But I'm not gonna do it. I'm gonna hit the publish button this time, with a few itemized disclaimers:

1. I make no promises, reader. I may blog again tomorrow, the next day, or I may wait another year.

2. If I do return to blogging, I hope to find some interesting topics. But I've figured out something that I think is a hard lesson for most bloggers. My blog is not likely to ever draw too many readers outside the circle of those that already care about me. That's ok. But even as I write now, I remind myself that the most important person I write for is myself. It's just good for me, as my wife often reminds me. So if I fail to entertain you, dear reader, I offer my apologies, but note that you have been warned.

3. To anyone from my church that reads my blog now or ever, let me apologize to you in advance my lack of pious restraint. I am humbled by the example of those saints that came before me, and even those that surround me now whose words are always befitting to their station. But me? I'm pretty raw, overly confessional, and sometimes bordering on crass, and if that comes out in my writing every now and then, you too have been warned.

4. To those who enjoy having something to argue about, to those that read my blog just to have someone to disagree with, to be mad at, to make fun of, you have been heard. I'll make an effort to get your ire up real soon.

To all of you, thanks for reading. See you again soon.

-Solid

My thoughts on the Muslim center near ground zero

I haven't blogged in a long time, but this is an issue I feel so strongly about that I'm choosing to emerge from the silence and make my feelings known. So here we go...

People, "Islamic" is not a word. Neither is "Islamist." If you're looking for the adjective version of Islam, it's MUSLIM. Now, whatever we all feel about whether or not there should be a Muslim center blocks from ground zero, I hope we can all come together and rally on common ground.

Grammar is everybody's problem.

If I hear one more journalist, pundent, or politician say "Islamic" or "Islamist" again, I'm turning the channel. It's a simple zero-tolerance policy.

While we're at it, the plural for "person" is "people." Not "persons!" We have no need of that word. Also, the act of moving is called "motion" - not "movement!" But we've been lax so long that both persons and movement have become accepted and proper English. We've got to draw the line somewhere.

The word is "Muslim," people. Say it with me. M-u-s-l-i-m...

Meet Penny!

We've been planning to get a second dog for months now, so Zeke will have somebody to play with, especially when we're out. Sunday afternoon we picked up a puppy from a rescue in LA. We're calling her Penny (I think). She's an honest mutt. Her mother was a mutt, with some identifiable Dachshund in her, and her father was a mutt of indeterminate breed. I won't go into responsible breeding here. I just want to show you our new family portrait!

New possibilities

Well, as feared, I didn't get into any of my schools this year. All the rejections came in a three-day period. It was pretty hard, and that's why I haven't gotten around to writing about it until now. It puts me in an interesting situation though. I'll be sending out a new round of applications in the Fall, but I've got a whole year free. We could do just about anything we like. We've got a few ideas.

1.) Move to Europe.

But what do you do next? Yay, I'm in Europe! I'd still have to find a job, get an apartment (Oh, sorry. A "flat."), and then there's the fact that I don't really know anybody in Europe. And I know me. I'm a homebody. Traveling is much more fun when it can be done by supper time and I can sleep in my own bed.

2.) Start a band.




But I'm already in a band! I've played in a bunch of bands in my life. On the upside, I already have a pretty red electric guitar. On the downside, bands have to rehearse. Hours and hours playing the same songs over and over. Listen - bands are cool, but trust me - it's a lot of work.

3.) Hike the Pacific Crest Trail.


The Pacific Crest Trail runs North and South across the West coast, beginning at the U.S./Mexican border and ending somewhere in Canada. My brother-in-law has chosen this option himself, and plans to leave sometime in mid-April, depending on the weather. He's been training since December, and packing since . . . oh, I don't know. August?

More power to him, really. But Julie brought up a good point the other day. What do you do every night? Seriously. You're out in nature, all by yourself, with nothing to do but feed the fire. Yeah, I see the romantic appeal, but I just think I might get bored after about a week of that.

4.) ???

What would you do? I'm open to suggestions here. And yes, I have a few more ideas. But what would you do if you had a year with no real commitments?? (Assume you have to provide for yourself somehow.)

March already?

Seriously, it's March 1st, and I still have no idea where I'll be living or what I'll be doing as of this summer. Of the four schools to which I've applied, not one has responded. However, I have third-hand information that Fordham has already accepted the people they're going to be accepting, except they didn't accept me! So I'm trying to accept that.

That leaves two schools: Boston University and Marquette. Word has it that Marquette sent out their answers at the end of last week by snail mail, so I should know something there by the end of the week. BU says they're informing everyone of their decisions soon too.

Waiting, waiting. Tired of waiting.

Welcome, religious solicitors!

I'm regretting a conversation I had last week. I got a knock at the front door, and Zeke started barking. (What a vicious little dog. What does he really think he's gonna do?) I picked him up and opened to the door to find a young Jehovah's Witness looking for someone to talk to.

I have a policy about this. If somebody comes to my door and wants to talk about knowing God, I'm in. The last time it happened, it was an older lady, and a roommate and I (This was a few years ago) invited her in. She opened her Bible to Exodus 3:14 and showed us that God had actually revealed his name to be Jehovah.

Jehovah's Witnesses have a slightly different Bible from the one you might have (unless, of course, you're a Jehovah's Witness). Most biblical translation is done with the intention of faithfully translating the plain meaning of the original Greek, Hebrew, and Aramaic texts. The Jehovah's Witnesses also rely on direct revelation through their prophets, as God tells them how the Bible should really be translated. So theirs reads a little differently sometimes.

I grabbed my own Bible and pointed out the distinction. She really wasn't interested. I shared a theory about the origin of the name Jehovah that I'll share with you as well.

In Hebrew, that text in Exodus 3:14 says God's name is YHWH. We transliterate that as Yahweh sometimes, but that's just a guess at the pronunciation. It's difficult to translate it in English. Most often we translate it as "I Am," but it says more than that. It's "I Am Who I Am," or "I Will Be Who I Will Be." But if you're reading Hebrew, you'll see something funny there. See, the Hebrew language didn't have vowels. But in later years, rabbis added in vowels underneath the text, so you'd know how to pronounce the words. This was an exception.

The true name of God, as revealed in Exodus 3:14 was spoken only once a year, by the High Priest. And there hasn't been one of those for about 2,000 years. So now we really have no idea how to pronounce YHWH. If you look at the word in the ancient Masoretic text, YHWH has the vowels "AOA" below it. That's short for "Adonai," which is what Jews will say instead of uttering God's true name, which they would deem sacrilegious.

Now watch this...

If for whatever reason, no one ever told you that, and you just tried to read the Masoretic text with no knowledge of all that, you might read it as "Yahowah," unless, of course, you were German. So much theological work was done in Germany over the past 1,000 years that German is now a required language for Ph.D. students in theology. You don't really have to know Hebrew or Greek, but you do have to know German (and probably French).

If you're German, and you see before you the word "Yahowah," you're gonna read the Y as a J and the W as a V, cause that's what you do in German. And all of a sudden, bam. There you are with "Jahovah" (or "Jehovah?"). It's just a theory, but do you think that might possibly be where that came from?

Back to my story...

So there I was, with a barking dog in my hands, looking at a young Jehovah's Witness through a screen door, and I just wasn't feeling up to the conversation. I said something like, "I'd be glad to talk to you, but I don't think you're gonna want to talk to me. I've had some training in theology, and usually you guys don't like to hear me out. I appreciate you coming by though."

I was nice, but the kid left. Fine. I've tried to justify it, but really I was just being lazy, as is so often the problem. So let me try and make up for it by saying that if there are any JW's out there reading this blog, or Mormons, or...I don't know...atheists, agnostics, whatever, let me just say I'd be glad to talk. And for everybody else, I hope you at least appreciated the etymology lesson.

-Solid

Waiting, waiting

I realize it's been a while since I've made an update, but there's just been nothing to tell lately. The main thing I'm doing in life right now is waiting for the phone to ring or an e-mail or letter to come through telling me I'm accepted into a Ph.D./Th.D. program. (Incidentally, did you know that Chicago/Turabian style specifies spelling e-mail with a dash? Small price to pay for entry into the ranks of the grammatically elite.)

I'm at the point where every time the phone rings I take a deep breath before looking at the screen and answering. I have the ringer at maximum volume, and I have my email set to make a loud noise whenever something new comes in. Once a day Julie and I go to the mailbox together hoping to see a big manila envelope and dreading a little white one. I could hear something today, or it might not be until mid-March.

Rest assured, friends, that you'll know as soon as I do.

-Solid