This past Monday I sat down at work not having seen any of the Olympic games over the weekend, so I really wanted to show my national pride and catch up on the excitement.

“I’ll just find some Twitter account following the winners.” I found a few Twitterers tweeting Olympic news, but I couldn’t find anyone just updating medal winners.

“Well, I’ll just grab a RSS feed of the medal winners,” thought I. Searched around for a while. Nothing. Seems as though neither the NBC Olympics site nor the official Beijing 2008 site had medal feeds. It was just a lot of clutter to wade through to find out the relevant information.

I had an itch that needed scratching, so I put together a script that grabs the newest medal updates from the Beijing 2008 site and serves them up as they happen—via Twitter, RSS, email or just on the page itself. Of course, I needed some help getting the code all the way there, so I handed over to my good friend Arvind to knock it out of the park.

You can find out a little more about our little project over at our Olympic Medal update home base. If you find it useful, help us spread the news by digging it.

People of Berlin - people of the world - this is our moment. This is our time.

I know my country has not perfected itself. At times, we’ve struggled to keep the promise of liberty and equality for all of our people. We’ve made our share of mistakes, and there are times when our actions around the world have not lived up to our best intentions.

But I also know how much I love America. I know that for more than two centuries, we have strived - at great cost and great sacrifice - to form a more perfect union; to seek, with other nations, a more hopeful world. Our allegiance has never been to any particular tribe or kingdom - indeed, every language is spoken in our country; every culture has left its imprint on ours; every point of view is expressed in our public squares. What has always united us - what has always driven our people; what drew my father to America’s shores - is a set of ideals that speak to aspirations shared by all people: that we can live free from fear and free from want; that we can speak our minds and assemble with whomever we choose and worship as we please.

These are the aspirations that joined the fates of all nations in this city. These aspirations are bigger than anything that drives us apart. It is because of these aspirations that the airlift began. It is because of these aspirations that all free people - everywhere - became citizens of Berlin. It is in pursuit of these aspirations that a new generation - our generation - must make our mark on the world.

People of Berlin - and people of the world - the scale of our challenge is great. The road ahead will be long. But I come before you to say that we are heirs to a struggle for freedom. We are a people of improbable hope. With an eye toward the future, with resolve in our hearts, let us remember this history, and answer our destiny, and remake the world once again.

One discipline he considered highly valuable was Order, the idea that all things should have their pace and each part of your business should have its time. In an attempt to gain Order, he devised a scheme for his day which set aside time for all parts of his life.

I’ve always struggled with Order, so as an experiment in betterment I’ll attempt to follow his order for the next two weeks:

Scheme

5am—8am Morning. The Question: What good shall I do this day? Rise, wash and address Powerful Goodness! Contrive day’s business, and take the resolution of the day; prosecute the present study, and breakfast.

8am—12pm Work.

12pm—2pm Noon. Read or look over my accounts, and dine.

2pm—6pm Work.

6pm—10pm Evening. The Question: What good have I done today? Put things in their places. Supper. Music or diversion, or conversation. Examination of the day.

10pm—5am Night. Sleep.

Caveat Emptor

I think it only fair to point out that Franklin himself struggled with his daily order:

My scheme of Order gave me the most trouble; and I found, that, though it might be practicable where a man’s business was such as to leave him the disposition of his time, that of a journeyman printer, for instance, it was not possible to be exactly observed by a master, who must mix with the world, and often receive people of business at their own hours.

But he shared a humorously candid illustration about his struggle:

Like the man, who, in buying an axe of a smith, my neighbor desired to have the whole of its surface as bright as the edge. The smith consented to grind it bright for him, if he would turn the wheel; he turned, while the smith pressed the broad face of the axe hard and heavily on the stone, which made the turning of it very fatiguing. The man came every now and then from the wheel to see how the work went on; and at length would take his axe as it was, without further grinding. “No,” said the smith, “turn on, turn on; we shall have it bright by and by; as yet it is only speckled.” “Yes,” said the man, “but I think I like a speckled axe best.”

I’ll report back on this in two weeks and let you know whether or not I like a speckled axe best.

The air is warm and the ash gray road feels like day old embers against my bare feet. The pale, slow-moving clouds slow time as I run.

Then come voices of old friends in the dark, talking to their children on front porches in the early morning hours before responsibility sets in. For a moment I stop and thank them for motivating me, trying I suppose to reforge old friendships or simply experience again acquaintances that once were. But the visits don’t last long. It becomes quickly apparent—photos on the wall, a note on the table, someone unexpected walks in the room—that their lives are different now. So I turn back to the road.

I’m looking down at that ash gray road when the sky explodes with sunrise. The golden honey sunlight pours slow and sticky down the charcoal twilight. My reflex grabs for a camera, but I’m without one, so I just laugh out loud. I guess this one’s for me alone.

“In honor of your 3rd year of wedded bliss, a LEATHER gift is in order. I have selected one of our goats for slaughter, just let me know whether your prefer a large doily or several soda can wrappers.”

I’ll take a mousepad, please.

(Full disclosure: my wife and I sang the second song on Mark’s album Here We Stand at our wedding.)

Six more weeks!

Here’s a brief update; keep in mind, a lot of the surgery scheduling will depend on the severity of cleft, and we won’t really know that until our little guy is born. This is just our “best guess”.

A week or two after he’s born we’ll go to CHOP so the doctors can make a full evaluation and schedule surgeries.

If he has a full cleft lip that runs up into the nostril (which, from the ultrasound, we think he does), they’ll do a two-step lip repair. At three or four months, they’ll perform the first surgery which will connect the cleft in the nostril, essentially creating a partial cleft. After about 3 more months, they’ll perform another surgery to repair the lip fully. During the first surgery, an ENT (ear, nose and throat) physician will also install tubes in his ears since children with cleft palates are prone to fluid buildup and ear infections.

The palate repair is a much more involved procedure and won’t happen until he’s a year old (they wait because a lot of facial growth happens that first year). Finally, they install a bone graft in the gum around five or six years old so that the adult teeth will have something to be anchored in. They occasionally perform more cosmetic surgery into the teen years, but that really just depends on the scope and severity of the facial deformity.

Feeding and speech are the two major concerns for a child with a cleft palate. Breastfeeding will probably not be an option; we’ll most likely be using a special bottle with something called a pigeon nipple that helps increase the flow since children with cleft palates have a much harder time creating suction. (Which means more gas and most likely more fussiness.)

The really reassuring part is that we’ll be meeting each year with the entire cleft palate team at CHOP for an annual evaluation of all areas of his development. They truly have been wonderful to deal with and have lived up to every ounce of their reputation.

So, probably the next bit of news you’ll read about our little guy will be a birth announcement… Stay tuned, August 22nd! (If Jess had her way, it would be tomorrow.)

For the last few years, my writing has been decidedly utilitarian. Most of my articles and entries were written to answer a question, fulfill a need, inform the reader.

Tonight, however, I write because I can’t seem to figure things. I have a broad, unfocused restlessness that’s keeping me awake because I can’t even seem to find it’s boundaries and therefore can’t process it. Blogging to the rescue!

It started with a general frustration with the way people abuse other people online with cruel anonymous comments: attacking religious beliefs, mocking illnesses, scorning race. There seems to be no taboos as disrespect and discourtesy proliferate.

Then I think I began to think critically of some things that I often take for granted: my faith, my job, my political views. Probably this came from some of the disparaging remarks I stumbled upon, but that’s really no matter. I think it’s very important for people to think critically and talk openly about the most sacred things in their lives.

Ultimately I ended up with a passage from Emerson’s Nature running through my head:

Crossing a bare common, in snow puddles, at twilight, under a clouded sky, without having in my thoughts any occurrence of special good fortune, I have enjoyed a perfect exhilaration. Almost I fear I think how glad I am. In the woods, too, a man casts off his years, as the snake his slough, and at what period soever of life is always a child. In the woods, is perpetual youth. Within these plantations of God, a decorum and a sanctity reign, a perennial festival is dressed,, and the guest sees not how he should tire of them in a thousand years. In the woods, we return to reason and faith. There I feel that nothing can befal me in life, — no disgrace, no calamity, (leaving me my eyes,) which nature cannot repair. Standing on the bare ground, — my head bathed by the blithe air, and uplifted into infinite space, — all mean egotism vanishes. I become a transparent eye-ball. I am nothing. I see all. The currents of the Universal Being circulate through me; I am part or particle of God.

Those words have always been so full of essence for me because they best describe those days of childhood when I would lie beneath a hundred tall trees and stare heavenward through tears. There was so much feeling and emotion compressed into a moment that my fifteen-year-old frame couldn’t handle it.

But you’re probably thinking that I skipped a part, so I need to go back and explain the transition from my religion to transcendentalism. Trying to do so is like trying to recount yesterday’s dream: some parts are so vivid and some parts are vague but the transitions are the really difficult parts to recall. “I was standing high atop a cliff, and I was studying algebra; then I was in our old house, I can’t quite remember how I got there.”

The reasonable part of my brain is telling me that this is an aggrandized cop-out, a sneaky way to appear intellectual and to sound sincere while ignoring responsibility. He (reason) dutifully informs me that feeling strongly about something is not the same as taking responsibility for it. That’s the addiction, says he, of the movie theater: you come away having felt deeply and done nothing.

So my raging emotions must sit beneath the schoolmaster of reason yet again. I picture my emotion at a chalkboard, writing out one hundred times: “I will accept responsibility for my beliefs and my actions.”, writing this while reason peers over his horn-rimmed spectacles. But the eyes are not on the board, they are staring out the window, lost in imagination.

I came across a particular article today that brought these strong feelings to mind. It seems as though a random woman I do not know dropped her phone into the toilet. It’s a very good article arguing that technological tethers are nothing more than imaginary compulsions we place on ourselves.

But that’s not what I’m compelled to talk about right now.

I must, for the record, make it known that if you call me and you are using the toilet, I will hang up on you. If we’re in the middle of a conversation, and you begin to use the toilet, I will hang up on you. If you’re washing dishes or walking by a sprinkler or bending over to tie your shoe, I reserve the right to hang up on you.

I’m alright with you sending an instant message whilst on the can or even you participating in a hearty IRC chat while relieving yourself. Just not the phone. The “ambient noises”—grunts, gurgles, splashes, sprinkles and the like—are more than I can bear. It doesn’t matter how controlled you are, everyone grunts a little.

So don’t be offended if you flush and I disconnect. It’s nothing personal.

The following is a transcript of the speech I gave at the Northern Dutchess Christian School commencement exercises:

For those of you that know me and know what kind of person I am, what I’m about to say may surprise you:

You are about to head into a life that is filled with struggle and challenge.

I say this for two reasons.

First, I would be doing you a great disservice by sending you out into the world expecting ponies and rainbows. No doubt you’ll come across some ponies and some rainbows, but make no mistake about it, you will face some obstacles in your lives that will seem insurmountable and you will be tempted to quit.

The second reason is so very important, and it’s this: I want you to understand that struggles and challenges are the raw materials of change.

It’s been a busy week, which seems more common these days. Between getting Simply Recipes running on the new version of Movable Type, finishing/launching the new Oxford Valley Chapel website and several other sundry tasks, I didn’t get much sleep. I keep telling myself that I’m practicing for when our little guy is born, then something in the back of my head says, “Now is the time to sleep while you still can.”

I usually just ignore that voice.

I’m actually finding it hard to sleep tonight. I’ve been asked to give the commencement address tomorrow at the school I used to teach at, so I’m finding it a bit difficult to settle my mind. It doesn’t help that my wife and son are back in Pennsylvania. I drove up this evening to stay at my parents new house—which is beautiful, something I never thought I’d say about a house in Troy, NY. I left Jess behind because her baby shower at the church is tomorrow. Her family is down for the shower, so we’ll both get to spend the Father’s Day weekend with our Dads, just not with each other.

I had written out the entire speech, but couldn’t find the paper where I wrote it out before I had to leave. It doesn’t really matter all that much, because I remember nearly everything I wrote. It’s just those few carefully chosen words I spent a long time on that I’ll miss; they’ll likely escape me tomorrow when I really need them.

And speaking of not getting something when you really need it… my car is stuck in reverse! As I pulled into the local convenience store parking lot to get directions to my parents new house, I put the car in reverse to back into a space. I tried to put it in first to straighten the car, but the gear stick was limp as a biscuit! I couldn’t do a thing except: Run Away!

I had to call my parents to come pick me up and leave my poor Saturn at the mercy of downtown Troy. Tomorrow morning I’ll check if it’s simply a detached cable. (Here’s hoping.) Now off to write out my speech for the second time.

Unfortunately, sex has gotten a bad rap in Christian circles.

I say unfortunately because God created it and called it pure. In the beginning, God created both the male and the female sexes and made a point of declaring them good; in fact, the very first command that was given to Adam and Eve required intercourse. The word translated as marriage bed in Hebrews 13:4 is transliterated coitus. Sex within marriage is just as honorable to God and proper as reading your Bible, praying and tithing!

Sexual behavior is a window into a person’s heart. In Matthew 5, Christ himself taught that sexuality was a matter of the heart. Romans declares inordinate sexual desire to be a rejection of God’s glory and authority. To put it plainly, heart sins lead to behavior sins. Every person, single or married, must decide who or what he or she will worship; your sexual behavior will demonstrate your conclusion.

The marriage relationship is intended to help reveal some of the mystery of spiritual truths. The intense companionship and intimacy within our relationships teaches us about the believer’s relationships with Christ; conversely, our relationship with Christ helps us understand what kind of spouses we are to be. Adam and Eve give us a helpful model: they were alone with each other, they found companionship with one another, and they were “naked”, sharing deep emotional and physical intimacy with one another.

Contrary to popular belief, God encourages pleasure within marriage. The words in Proverbs 5 “satisfy” and “exhilarated” are very strong words of pleasure: intoxicated, ravished, overwhelmed with pleasure until you have no further desire. And this satisfaction is meant to be a major factor in preventing immorality. Frigidity at home does not justify adultery, but it can be a contributing factor. The husband and wife are to so satisfy each other that there is no desire for anyone else.

The problems come when we pursue sex without the marital intimacy: lust, masturbation, fornication, adultery. Our culture is consumed with the idea that sex is about personal pleasure; and selfishness has taken over our thought processes. But the Bible teaches that sex is about pleasing your spouse. Ultimately, each person is to view his or her own body for his or her mate’s sexual enjoyment. This may sound unusual, but it’s really just an application of many other biblical principles.

Some people are clammers. In an effort to avoid confrontation, they avoid communication. This often furthers problems instead of solving them. First and foremost, we need to be willing and courageous enough to speak honestly with each other.

Dishonesty can take several forms. Outright deceit is fairly straightforward: saying things that aren’t true. Incongruency is when what you say isn’t lining up with your actions. Perhaps the most dangerous form of dishonesty, though, is disguised communication. Disguised communication is a distant cousin to sarcasm. Humor and sarcasm are valid forms of communication, but there is a fine line between sarcasm and veiled complaints.

The more important the message you need to convey to someone, the more thought you need to give to how it will be received. Loving communication acts with another person’s best interests in mind, asking the question: “What can I do to make this easier for someone to hear?”

Keep Current

Though often demonized, anger is not wrong. It can be misused to attack others or one’s self; but it’s really just energy to be used in solving problems. Failure to keep relationships current opens the door to resentment and hatred and often ends up causing more problems in the future like strained sexual relationships and distortions of future problems.

Attack Problems, Not People

Unwholesome communication is destructive; edifying communication is constructive. We ought to be looking to solve problems and increase our understanding, not fire off salvos and act as a prosecutor. Effective communication rests centrally on personal responsibility and offers graciousness to those who hear it. Problems are attacked most effectively by asking questions and seeking to understand a person’s goals and motives. It’s important to point out that attacking a person takes a lot less effort than attacking a problem.

Act, Don’t React

Reactions are natural, built-in responses to stimuli. You never have to practice them and all it takes for a reaction to occur is the right stimulus. Our typical reactions take on several forms:

1. Bitterness: refusing to treat someone as if they never hurt you
2. Wrath: from the Greek word thumas; an explosive outburst of rage
3. Anger: from the Greek word orgay; a slow burn of indignation
4. Clamor: this is public quarreling, or as they say in the South, carrying on
5. Slander: from the Greek word blasphamia; injurious or abusive speech
6. Malice: the desire to harm others or see them suffer

However, we ought to replace those reactions with these three actions:

1. Kind: benevolence and helpfulness towards others
2. Tenderhearted: compassion and sympathy towards others
3. Forgiving: passing over an offense and freeing an offender from the guilt of it

And it’s absolutely essential to realize that replacing reactions doesn’t happen by trying to get rid of them first. These are communication replacements. You stop reacting wrongly when you start acting rightly.

We had to leave early Saturday morning to make it up in time for Sarah’s baby shower. (She’s due any day now.) The fog was thick and driving up 31 through New Jersey was full of mystery and other things I’m not accustom to quite so early in the morning.

We got a chance to go home for a few days to visit both sets of parents and some siblings. While I was home, I had to say good by to the house my grandfather built; my parents finally closed the deal and plan to move out shortly.

It was also fun watching Sarah and John’s puppy Melody roughhousing with my parent’s dog, Cookie. I’ve never seen Cookie look quite so young and playful. (Click the picture to see the whole album of them.)

The day we drove to Jessica’s parent’s house, the weather was stunning. There was a chilly breeze blowing huge white clouds across a perfect blue sky. Just down the road from my parent’s house is a meadowed hill we used to call Piotrowski’s Hill. I always wanted to build a house on it because you could see clear to Albany on a clear day. Unfortunately, someone beat me to it. But the barn has such character. I especially love the new plywood nailed over the doors. And to think, I almost passed this shot up.

And just before we reached the Clum’s house, I stopped by what I consider to be one of the most beautiful spots in all of New York: Stickles Road in Livingston. My gracious wife looked on as I snapped some of these stunning shots:

Be sure to visit my Flickr site as I’ve put quite a lot up there in the past few days.

First, gather information. You’ll never be able to effectively help people if you don’t know what they’re struggling with. Don’t be afraid to probe extensively. Proverbs 18:13 says that a fool addresses a matter before hearing it; if you you don’t listen extensively, you risk giving out bad or ineffective counsel. Even giving biblical counsel before hearing the whole matter is foolishness. Also, be sure to pay attention both to verbal and non-verbal communication. Often how a thing is said (halo data) is more important than what is said.

Discern the problems. This is really about putting a problem up against the Bible. It’s important to use biblical labels when talking about problems. Words are important; using biblical terms to describe behavioral problems actually builds hope because biblical problems have biblical solutions. There are several different levels of problems people face: presentation problems, often emotional; performance problems, often factual; preconditioning problems, often behavioral patterns that have become habits; and heart-level problems, a revelation of a person desires most.

Build involvement. Part of this step is establishing a relationship. Ultimately, you want a person to be comfortable enough in the relationship to not only share their concerns but also to be willing to accept your counsel. This is really a matter of trust, and trust is established several ways. Be compassionate; imagine yourself in their position. Be respectful; don’t patronize and do take their problems seriously. Finally, be sincere; pretending to have it altogether just further discourages those who are struggling.

Give them hope. You cannot promise people that they won’t experience negative consequences from their actions; you can’t give false hopes that infirmities or tribulations will magically disappear. What you can promise is what God has promised: that He will bless those who follow His Word. Think back to the twelve spies who went into Canaan to bring back a report on the land. All twelve saw giants; but ten said they couldn’t take the land and two said with God’s help they could. Interestingly enough, the Bible says that the report the ten spies brought back was evil. Any “report” on our circumstances need to be full of faith and hope or else it’s an evil report.

Give proper instruction. Simply put, present practical solutions that are fitting to their condition. These solutions need to be two-fold: putting off the old and putting on the new. They need to be appropriate: specifically addressing their needs, factoring in their spiritual condition and geared towards their learning style. It’s also important to clearly distinguish between God’s commands and man’s suggestions: don’t let people walk away thinking that the practical suggestions you offer are on the same level as God’s commands.

Assign homework. It may sound trivial, but homework is one of the most effective parts of the counseling process. Nearly everything up to this point has been theory, but the Bible constantly emphasizes doing. Giving people something to do not only reminds them that the responsibility for change lies with them, but it also brings hope and anticipation of change. Talk alone is counter-productive to lasting, biblical change.