My Family 4

Since Suz and I have been married, my dad has been the great sage in our life. He is who we call. He is the one who knows. When I was extreme in a relationship issue with someone, he would balance me out. This is despite the fact that the past few years have been rough ones for him.

After 15 years of directing the jail ministry, he realized he was spending so much time raising support that he didn't have much energy left to have joy in his job. So he quit. He took on sales job, but as surely as the Ohio economy has proved it's instibility, the companies he worked for bottomed out. At one place he was one of the leading salesmen, even though he was new. But because he was new, he was one of the first to go when the company had to cut corners. He eventually just started his own carpentry business that was in it's infancy when he was diognosed. He told us a few months ago that he thinks the cancer started because he was stressed out about work. You see, he was the hardest worker I know, but when you get back into the job market at 50, and you live in Ohio, life is tough.

So I miss him. I've had about ten things come to my mind where my first instinct is to call dad and ask him. Now, I just have to take the wisdom that he did pass onto me and remember where I came from. The week before he died I was in the Tuesday "leaders meeting" at church and I got a call from my mom who was crying.

"The doctors told us today that the chemo isn't working."

Me stunned.

"They are giving him a few months."

I cried in the back room of the auditorium for about 20 minutes. When I came back to the meeting, it was pretty obvious what the news was. The guys prayed and cried with me.

We went back to Akron that Friday. He didn't look like he was real. He was so skinny and so pale. His breathing was hard and his voice had changed. My dad still had his humor, though it was tempered with the seriousness of the situation. "We'll just have to walk through this togther here" he said.

The next day Suzanne, Jaden and my mom where there with him in the morning. He told us he loved us, he was proud of us. He said that it's amazing how you push and pull and fight with your kids to try to get them to do the right thing and then they leave the home and "sparkle." The pain of the cancer was overcoming him, and the morphine took away his ability to concentrate and communicate, so told us that he was feeling that he was going to "Step out the door" soon (I found out later that had asked my mother that morning if that would be ok). He asked us if he had done anything to hurt us that we need to make better, we told him no and then he, in typical "Dennis" fashion, said "well let me pull out my list for you."

Later that day the whole family was together including his two sisters and his brother-in-law. He made a beautiful speech that was so emotional, I can't even get myself to write much about it. "fifty-four years old!" He said in disbelief. He ended by telling us that we need to keep our trust in God and some of us need to trust God in new ways. He looked at his sister (who isn't a Christ follower) and said "right Margaret?" The last thing he talked about was something his business partner Alan told him about a week before he passed. Alan was at one of their houses that they were renovating and selling and he couldn't figure something out, so he went outside and thought about it and decided to think "what would Dennis do." My dad then looked at my little brother Kevin who is 13 and said, "there will probably be many times in your life where you need to think 'what would dad do'."

I kissed him goodbye as we went home that night and his last words to me told me that he loved me so much.

He passed at about 4:20am that morning. I got there with Patrick at about 4:30. He was gone.

The visiting hours were amazing. We stood in line for over four and a half hours and shook peoples hands and gave hugs. There were guys who my dad had led to Christ in jail. So many people who were affected by his life. It was overwhelming. The funeral director said it was the largest crowd he had seen since he'd been there. But what got me the most where the countless men who considered my dad to be their mentor at some point in their life. Like with me, he had taken people under his wing and treated them as family, even though they were strangers at one time. It's an amazing legacy to live up to. So much wisdom. So much love.

My Family 3

My brother Patrick the giant was born in 1986, he was a huge kid. He now stands 6'3" or 6'4". But he was big for a baby also. My brother Kevin was born in 1991 he was huge also. He's not quiet the giant that Patrick is, but he's still got a lot of growing to do. So our family grew to six. Anyways, we moved out of Akron in 1993. We "fled" to the suburb of Green and I went to public school for the first time. Yes, of course our school colors were orange and black, you don't expect things like that to make sense. I liked school for the most part, girls liked me, I played baseball. I do have to admit there was one guy who had it out for me though and made some of my highschool time pretty miserable. He was a big stocky kid who was pretty much Eric Cartman from Southpark. Even Cartman and I made peace though by the end of High School. I worked at Camp Carl in the summers. It was the most fun part of my life. First I was on maintenance crew and then I was a counselor and boat driver. My life was shaped spiritually while I was there. I was put in situations where I was taking care of kids and this gave me patiences and kept me sharp to what God's word said. While I was out there though I got into a car with a girl... dum dum dum... We hadn't gone more than a mile when she wrecked into a ditch. I looked over at her, she was unconscious. And in my shock I pulled her out of the smoking car and put her behind a nearby boulder. I was dizzy and couldn't think straight, but the ambulance came and the paramedics asked me to take a walk with them, they strapped me onto a stretcher and away we went. The girl was fine. She woke up with the feeling of a mild hangover. I had hurt my back. cracked disk. Suck. No more baseball for me. I spent the better part of the next couple weeks in bed. I tried to play baseball the next year, but it hurt too bad to run. Finding nothing else to do, I picked up my dad's old guitar and taught myself some chords. I sucked. For a long time. Sorry mom.

I found my good friends in high school. Troy, Josh, Jim, Charly, and Kevin were always around. We smoked our first stogies together. We played "extreme flashlight tag" with Roman Candles and bottle rockets. We helped each other in girl relationships by giving high maintance girls the "pink slip." These were good times.

All the while, things were fine at home. I was the typical teen, gaining my independence. It wasn't a time of being super close as a family, but we all loved each other, we were just trying to figure out where our freedoms were.

College was the place where Dad became my friend. He drove me down to Cedarville one time and for some reason the pressure to be Dad and Son wasn't there. We were friends. Good friends. I told him about my life. I asked him for wisdom. He shared about his life. The next thing you know, I've met the most wonderful girl in the world in Suzanne (my friends were jealous, there was no pink slip this time). We knew right away that we were going to get married (this is a story in itself, but I'll spare you for now) and we knew that we wanted my dad to do the marriage counseling. No one else would understand us. So he drove two hours to Columbus four or five times, to meet with us. We not only had his blessing, we felt empowered by his wisdom and assurance that we were adults and were handling life as well as anyone could expect to.

What God Thinks of the Pope

He seems to be doing pretty well in heaven

My Family 2

I forgot to mention in my last post about the nature of our church at the time. It was, as you may have inferred somewhat charismatic. It was a place that would creep a lot of people out, but at the same time, I think it attracted many people looking for deep emotional connection in our spirituality (the kind of passion of which is sometimes lacking in the circles I've been in.) Anyway, despite this, our first taste of "friendly fire" was at this church. Before my dad died, they brought in prophets. Not like Moses or anything, but people who thought they were modern day prophets. Anyway, they turned out to be not very good prophets, or maybe it was just a bad day, but they were dead wrong. The prophets said that my dad would make it through the cancer and live. Hmm... There were even a couple people in the church who blamed my mom for not praying hard enough. When I was old enough to hear this I was so angry. But for the most part people were kind and we had community around us which is cool.

On with the story...

After my mom was remarried it took time to adjust to the changes. My dad (stepdad) and I had to figure out how to be father and son. It took a long time, in fact it probably wasn't even quite finished when he passed on. My adolescent years were somewhat tough between us and at the same time I learned so much from him. He made us follow rules that, even looking back, show that he was still inexperienced as a parent. He made us sleep with toys that we forgot to pick up. My sis and I didn't like that. But he was so intentional in teaching us about God and the Bible. He had a makeshift office that he took us into and taught us curriculum called "Bible Truths." Some of that stuff has stuck with me for years. It's pretty amazing when you think about it, something that I learned when I was so young echoes throughout my adulthood. He taught me to pray for wisdom. He taught me how the love of money was evil, but being responsible and giving to others was the way of Christ. My mom told me that he had goals of things that he wanted to teach us kids. I'm not sure if I could tell you exactly what those goals were, but I would tell you that he taught me a whole lot.

My dad had the same job as Joel Haist. He sold phone systems to companies. He was pretty good at it too I guess, but he felt in his heart a compassion for people. A guy from a jail ministry who he had known asked him to go on staff with them and he decided to go for it. It meant no secure income. It meant no benefits, and it meant that he would have to support raise his entire salary. Prison families aren't usually the type of people to have a bunch of money laying around to spend on the minister that led their patriarch to Christ. So it was hard. Me and Rach were some of his biggest "volunteers." We spent evenings on mailers. We had nightmares about stuffing envelopes. We visited kids whose fathers were in jail. We helped with "Operation Shoebox" where people stuff shoe boxes with all kinds of cool stuff for the inmates. We had to take out any pencils that had metal binding on them, because that could be used as a weapon. My dad would read us letters of thanks from dozens of guys who couldn't believe that so many people cared enough to send them something for Christmas. When I was older I would go into the jail with him and he would let me lead a song, usually Amazing Grace, because most of them know that one. We had ex-cons living in our house at various times until they found something permanent. My dad told us that when we take people into our homes like this it was like we were doing it for Jesus.

My family

Ok, this might take a couple posts, but I just want to give some context to my family history. So here goes...

I was born in Akron OH. My dad was a carpenter, my mother stayed at home with us. We lived in a neighborhood that would soon be overtaken by Applebees, Circuit City, and Giant Eagle seeking good location off the main Akron highway. But when I was a kid there was less traffic. We could play games in the street with the neighbor kids. Anyway. I remember playing in the back of my dad's pickup truck. I remember playing in the living room with him. I remember a fight that that my mom and dad had. My dad spilled rice all over the floor. My mom says it was really their only major fight ever. They stopped when they realized I was there. They apologized. I forgave them.

When I was four and my sister was two my dad got sick. We sent him to New Mexico for a while, he brought back a picture of the desert. I remember the cactus and the orange sky. I thought New Mexico was about like going to a different planet. The natural remedies didn't work though. We got a hospital bed in our house that would move up and down with the press of a button. I remember laying on my dad's chest and whispering "I love you."

Then one day I was playing at my grandma's house and my uncle came over. He sat us down and told us that he had something serious to tell us. "We are going to go home in a bit, but your mom wanted me to talk with you." I thought we were in trouble. "You dad has passed away. When you get there, his body will be there, but his soul is in heaven." I didn't know what to think. Heaven's good. We got home. Mom asked if I wanted to look at him. "No."

Funeral happened. I saw the body. We drove to the grave site. People were talking and crying. A few weeks later, I had forgotten and asked mom when dad was going to be home from work. She started crying and I suddenly realized that he wasn't coming back in this life.

We were church going people. Our church was a bunch of hippies who got saved and became Jesus freaks. They still had long hair, they played guitar, they just spoke in tounges instead of smoking pot. The women nursed their kids in public. The men danced in the aisles. People brought guitars and tamborings and played along with the band. It was weird, but there were great people there. John Morgan was the worship leader and he took me to the father/son campout. Bob Strubble took me fishing, we had to get up while it was still dark out. I realized that I needed God, so I asked my mom to pray with me. In that moment I decided to follow God. I still felt a bit different though without my dad. One time we were in the car and I asked my mom "so who is my dad now.?" Mom answered, "God has promised to be your father." And he was. I pictured God hugging me and I felt safe.

My sister and I grew older, my mom started homeschooling us. We were pretty smart. We took the same tests that kids in public school took and were grades ahead of most. People would come over and help out with stuff around the house. One of these guys was Dennis Knable. He helped build a deck on the front of our house with a bunch of other guys from church. He began hanging out more. My sister and I thought he was funny. Dennis bought me a lego fire station. Then one day my mom and Dennis called us into the living room and said that they have something to tell us. "If you guys are ok with it, we are going to get married." "Really?" "Really?!" We were embarassed and ran around the house like crazy kids. We were happy. I told him that it might take me a while to start calling him "dad." It took me about two weeks.

So there was a wedding. I was six Rachel was four. I was the ring-bearer and she was the flower-girl. It was a good day...

Quick

ok, so quick post. I have so much to tell about my dad, about his last days, about the funeral the stories that people told me, the love that has been shown, the hurt... All that will come, but right now I have one question for you computer geeks. I use Entourage and the past few times I've checked my email all the previous "new" emails come up also, so I'm getting hundreds of "new" emails every time I check it. When I check my email through Yahoo though, it doesn't seem to do this, so I'm guessing this is and Entourage problem. Any ideas?

Update

So, yeah, my dad is better I guess. He passed away early Sunday morning. We got down here Friday and were able to talk with him on Saturday. So yeah, it's good for him, sucks for us. I'll be down here until Sunday with Jaden. Thank you all for your prayers and love.

Panther

So my computer's operating system crashed today. Weird. Anyways, I took it into Eubulus, who work on warranteed Apples. They "fixed it" by trashing my OS and putting Panther in for me (I had Jaguar). They wanted to charge me $75, but I pointed out that it's under warranty and the guy told me that he'd let me have it for free right now, but the Tech who worked on my computer will give me a call tomorrow and I might end up having to pay the $75, but even so OSX costs about $150 and I was going to buy Tiger next week to upgrade anyways. Just a strange little computer story.

Virex

So I downloaded the new version of Mac virus software and my computer wouldn't start up again. So for a while I won't have my computer. You can still email me because I have my POP account fowared to Yahoo.

going

Well, things have not turned out well for my Dad. This round of chemo did not work, and so the doctors did everything that they could. There is nothing else... except to make my dad comfortable. Tough thing to do I'd think, make someone comfortable, when they are going through this. They gave him "months." Still so unbelievable. Anyway, the three of us are heading down Friday for the weekend. Dad said it's time for some serious talk. And I guess that he is right. I know we need to face this, but I really don't want to. I'd rather tell you how I like the new Jack Johnson album, even though it is the same as his last two, just with different lyrics. I want to tell you about how wonderful the Bannana Foster is at the Crepe shop. I want to tell you about the song that Brian and I have been working on. But I should probably face this instead of compartmentalizing my life with such well-defined lines.

Open Mic Nite

Hey guys, just want to let you know that I'm cancelling open mic tonight. I will let you know when we will do it again in the future. Thanks.

CAT Scan

My dad got a CAT scan done today to see if the cancer is shrinking. He will have the results tomorrow. If you happen to read this tonight, please pray for him. The doctors don't have anything else they know to do if this chemo doesn't work. Please pray. I will keep you guys updated. Thanks.

D.L. Moody and Evangelism

This is an interesting interview by Off the Maps of Todd Hunter

Here's a smidge...
Why would the Emergent Church movement be interested in Alpha? Isn’t it just another contrived, modernistic church program?


The emerging church scene may be interested in Alpha because the vast majority of them instinctively know that the movement as a whole (and most of its parts) is not doing a bang up job at evangelism. I believe we all want to, but we are stuck having deconstructed things we don’t like but have not yet put forward positive alternatives. If by contrived one means “made” or “manufactured” that may not be a bad thing, because anything we build, including the emergent church, has been “made.” If on the other hand, one means the negative nuances of the word like “false” or “hypocritical”, then I don’t believe that to be an accurate description of the Alpha Course. D.L. Moody (I think) responding to one of his critics, who was not engaged in evangelism, is reported to have said (Hunter-paraphrase) “I like the way I am doing evangelism with all its faults better than I like you're not doing it.”


My honest assessment of Alpha is that it has both modern and postmodern aspects to it. Thus, I can certainly see why some people might look at it and observe the modern components and say that it doesn’t fit the postmodern world. Others, however, notice the postmodern components and believe that they can work around the modern parts.



 

open mic

I'm hosting open mic again this Tuesday from 7-9pm. Il Bacio Caffe on S. Cedar St. in Holt. Come on out for some great music and coffee!

John Stirrat

John Stirrat, originally uploaded by groovingdan.

I went to Schulers to see John (bassist for Wilco) and his sister Laurie play a free set. And yes, for all of you who know I'm obessed, I skipped their concert to play poker.