I’m blessed to have re-re-re-uncled. My 4th neicephew arrived late last year, and while I haven’t verified it myself, my brother assures me that this latest entry into the family has in fact resolved as a nephew. I’ve seen him a few times now, and I gotta tell you, he’s a stud. A tiny tiny little man, but stud none the less. His sisters adore him, and I’m fairly confident that they’re just the first two in a long line of adorers.
He’s a funny little guy though; he doesn’t cry exactly. He makes a severe cry face, holds it for a while, convulses a little to make sure you understand it’s for real, then lets out this fairly quiet bleat sort of sound. Now that I think about it, that’s very close to the sound he makes all the time; he’s a bleater. He bleats when he’s taking a bottle too. Personally I think it’s his pacing sound. At least that’s what I use to tell when it’s time to burp him… 14 to 16 bleats seems optimal, after that his burps take on a little more substance.
Honestly, it’s kinda fun to throw a tiny little baby over your shoulder and pound on him for a while. Especially when he bleats the whole time. He’s not as squeaky when he’s burping as when he’s feeding, but he still bleats a bit. Maybe I should call him goat-boy. I bet that’ll make all the girls swoon.
I wonder a bit if it’s not because he’s number 4. At this point my brother and sister-in-law have got child rearing down to somewhat of an art if not a science. Goat-boy barely has to make a sound and they know what he needs. In fact, they pretty much have him on a schedule where he never even makes it to “need”. It’s time to eat, he eats, time to sleep, he sleeps. He lets out an occasional bleat and gets his diaper changed. Ah, to be tiny again.
So I’m sitting there, hanging out on the couch with tiny goat boy when I realize that I’m probably pretty protective of him just because he’s tiny. I don’t know if I’m super-over-protective of all my friends, but i definitely am with the smaller ones. Yes, it’s possible that I’m just that conditioned to stand up for the little guy, a point I would especially like to make to any would-be applicants for my currently open midget secretary position.
But yeah, sitting there looking at tiny guy when I have the overwhelming sensation of tininess. I’m a tiny tiny little man in the arms of a God who thinks I’m so important that he’d have his son become a tiny tiny man too. He then had that tiny man die all alone so that this tiny man wouldn’t have to be dead or alone any more. That can make a tiny man feel pretty big.
My little goat boy nee neicephew was baptized this past week. And though I admit I was terribly frustrated with the service, I’m thrilled that my daddy loves my nephew so much that he’d want to make this tiny tiny baby man a big important son too. Ah, to be tiny in the hands of an awesome God.
Normally I would pretend right about now to write something to you even though I’m just writing it because I so desperately want to read it… But this time, please forgive me for not pretending… And so my tiny little fuwjax, whether you are bleating for your pizza or bleating for nap time or bleating for a change from all the crap you’re wading through… you are tiny that you might become great, you are suffering that you might know peace, you are on your own that you might know true companionship, you are wandering that you might know your home.
While I’m at it, I’d like to take the time to thank a tiny friend of mine. She pointed out that my previous post was total crap. I call “God” a man who cared only about those he loved and called his own. He did not care what people said. He did not care what people thought was appropriate. He cared only about His Father, His Father’s will, His Father’s truth, His Father’s word. He cared only to love his bride with every ounce of his humanity and his divinity. This is the man who has called me his own.
It feels broken to me to have physically intimate relationships that are emotionally and spiritually void. I have no reason to think that your physically intimate relationships are emotionally and spiritually void. I have no cause to judge you for your relationships. But it is easy for me to judge me for mine. I have taken the beautiful and made it broken.
It feels broken to me to deny physical intimacy in emotionally and spiritually rich relationships. I find it suspicious to hear people preaching “laws” like abstinence as though they were truth. While I have no cause to judge your abstinence, I do find great cause for alarm that you would bind your brothers and sisters by your own laws when Christ has gone to so much trouble to set them free.
I find that there is great joy in limiting yourself for the sake of someone else. There is something wonderful about being tackled by a four year old. There is something humbling about having a six year old tell you which cars you get to play with, even though the other cars are cooler. There is something peaceful about building a super badass wooden train track just so a two year old can play with it. There is something deeply passionate about denying yourself something, so that someone else can experience you on a level that grows your relationship instead of sacrifices it.
Yes, I’m referring again to sex. And to alcohol, and to playing with hot wheels, and to tackle time. But really I’m talking about what God does with us. Ah, to be tiny…
Posted with : The Way, Bare with Me
I fucking miss you so much. I wish I could be with you, and talk with you for hours and hours, and get one of those hugs that makes me think, alternatingly, that I might not ever breathe again and that I might not care. I MISS you. I know I don’t act like it, b/c I don’t keep in touch the way I should, and I haven’t seen you in so long, and for all those other reasons, but it does not diminish my love for you, or how I miss you. Brother, I pray you are well, and blessed.
steph