Kickin the Astros

Baseball was never my favorite sport.  I was more of a football guy.  Part of that was because my dad didn't really get into baseball, and he loved football.  My brother was a big basketball fan, and my dad did enjoy that.  We had SuperStation 17 WTBS on our television, so we were force fed Braves and Hawks games.  If sports were on the tv, it would primarily be football or basketball - unless the Olympics were running.  We watched those religiously.

We also were an eclectic team-loving family.  We lived in West Palm Beach, down in South Florida.  Usually people gravitate towards teams that are close or that are generational.  Dad grew up in Vermont, so there wasn't any hometown team.  Lots of New Englanders lean towards the Boston teams, but he only did that for the Celtics.  He was a huge Bears fan; I have no clue where that allegiance originated.  He didn't cheer for anyone in baseball.  The natural thing would have been to cheer for the Miami teams, since they were the closest.  But there is something a lot of people don't know about Floridians: lots of Floridians detest Miami.  I am one of those.  Miami is not the same as Florida.  There is very little I like about Miami, except the Cuban food.  So my natural inclination was to cheer against any Miami team.  My dad did like The U's football team, but that was mostly because they were mean.  (Not joking.)  As for the rest of us, my brother liked the Lakers, Redskins, and Southern Cal - he hated baseball.  My sister didn't care.  My mom cheered for the Broncos, because of John Elway (this is not the most confusing of my mom's stances, but it is up there).  My grandmother loved the Bravos.  I hated them.I was a pretty typical kid, a front runner.  I picked my teams because they were doing well when I was young: Yankees, Cowboys, University of Georgia. I did like the Hawks, but mostly because of Dominique Wilkins.

I have not really aligned myself with the belief that you have to stick with one team your whole life.  I remember Bill Simmons writing an article years ago about sports monogamy and the only reasons you can abandon a team.  But it seems really silly to force a 45 year old to root for the same teams he did as a kid, just because he did as a kid.  I also used to wear footie pajamas, pick paint off the chair in the living room and eat it, and run around in clothes with Garfield on them.  I also used to wear kneesocks, apparently.  Do I have to stick with those poor choices?  I say no.  When I thought I was going to go to FSU, I started rooting for them.  When I actually did go to UCF,  completely switched my allegiance to them.  That is a situation where a lifelong allegiance to a team should be expected.  They are my primarily fandom and always will be.  #NationalChamps2017  My move to Orlando also changed my basketball team to the Magic.  I definitely justify that because I feel like I would have been a Magic fan if they had been around when I was a kid.  Plus, entering a close proximity to a team seems like a justifiable reason to start rooting for them.

The Cowboys and Yankees remained my teams through college and into my 20s.  But then I started to wonder why I liked these teams.  They both were teams with a massive fanbase, which actually made them kind of annoying.  They were the proverbial bandwagon teams in each league.  And, more that that, they didn't do business the way I felt groups should do business.  Jerry Jones owned the Cowboys and he was/is a obnoxious narcissistic person.  He kicked one the most revered coaches (Tom Landry) to the curb without remorse.  He kicked his own friend and successful coach (Jimmy Johnson) to the curb because Johnson got too much credit for the Cowboys' success.  And in the decades since that, he has made so many stupid decisions just because he wanted to be right.  I ended up switching to the Jaguars because my wife's family lived in Jacksonville and would go to games once in a while.  Also, my argument for the Magic could be used here (proximity, didn't exist in 1980).

The Yankees were a different story.  I mostly walked away from baseball after they lost a season to a strike.  I would wander back and forth to the sport when notable things happened: Cal Ripken's attendance record, home run record chase, Yankees winning.  But time and again, I kept walking away.  And I really got sick of the Yankees.  They made a joke of the salary cap, basically buying their way to World Series after World Series and dared to call it "a dynasty."  How is it a dynasty when you're paying twice as much for players as everyone else?  But the killer moment for me was the Mitchell Report about steroid use.  Twenty-six Yankees were named in the report as using performance enhancing drugs.  Twenty-six!  That is, as the NCAA says, a lack of institutional control.  I was done with them and with baseball.  I was interested when the Rays made it to the World Series - a team with extremely low payroll making it due to great players and coaching (what a concept).  I made the kids pay attention when the Cubs won the Series because it was history making.  Overall, though, baseball was less important than hockey.

Then we moved to Houston.

We have moved around quite a bit and been in cities with beloved teams before.  But I never really picked up on the complete marriage of team and city like with Houston and the Astros.  Maybe it is because people can actually experience the relationship.  Other sports are so expensive to go to.  The Texans' tickets were ridiculous.  We were able to get tickets to one preseason game and sat in literally the top row of the stadium.  For five people, Rockets tickets were very prohibitive, so we never saw them at all.  (This was compounded because I was boycotting Dwight Howard at this point.)  But Astros tickets are pretty easy to come by.  You can pay $8 or $10 and get a good seat.  We went to several games and the kids had a lot of fun.  Their classmates were mostly Astros fans.  There were Astros billboards and commercials.  George Springer lived out in our neck of town.  Plus, they were a fun franchise to root for.  They went from suckville to dominant in just a few years.  The players had fun and were lighthearted.  The manager was great.  We started to feel ourselves pulled into their orbit.  (HAHA  Astros. Orbit. ... Ok moving on)  My kids have never really been sports fans (although they loved watching quidditch).  However, when the 2017 season started, they wanted to know everything.  When did it start? How were they doing? How did Altuve do?  They had Astros shirts and hats.  We went to a couple of games and they had so much fun.  Our whole family had turned into Astros fan.  As a sports-loving dad who never had sports-loving kids (except for UCF, because it was important to me), this was awesome.  We would actually watch games on TV sometimes.

Then Hurricane Harvey hit.  I remember the Yankees going to the World Series after 9/11 and the Saints winning the Super Bowl right after Katrina, and how it seemed like supernatural forces made those things happen.  They were called teams of destiny.  That is totally what happened in Houston in 2017.  The city had been beaten and bruised.  We all felt horrible and completely overwhelmed by what had happened.  How does a city recover from a flood of that magnitude.  We had lived in Columbia during their flood just a couple of years earlier, but Harvey made that one seem small.  The Astros were on a road trip during the storm and couldn't get back home to play.  The Texas Rangers forever got on my poop list for how they wouldn't help.  But the team talked about how they felt, flying over the city.  They looked out the windows and wept, knowing friends and family were struggled down below.  And it pushed them.  I think it pushed management to trade for Justin Verlander.  That news hit my phone while I was sitting in our crappy hotel during our forced evacuation.  Even reading it made me happy.  The team came home and put the city on its back.  We went to the second game after the flooding.  They had first responders on the field to thank them.  There were so many things going on to help the victims and shine light on the situation.  While St. JJ Watt was raising his millions, the Astros were lifting up their millions.  The water slowly receded, the city slowly recovered, and the Astros went on a tear.  The whole city could feel it.  The team of destiny.  It was as if the Houston Metroplex was pushing energy into those players.  The number of last minute comebacks?  Verlander was unbeatable.  They stormed through the rest of the season like a juggernaut and hit the playoffs.

I had been around successful teams in the past.  The Magic made a finals run while I was in Orlando.  The Bucs won a Super Bowl while I later lived in Orlando.  South Carolina had several sports teams have title-chasing and title-winning seasons.  Clemson has also been quite successful while we lived in the Palmetto State.  And that UCF National Title, of course.  But I have never felt anything like the Astros 2017 playoff run.  People everywhere had Astros gear on.  It was actually hard to get stuff, so many people had been buying it.  I remember walking out of Target one day with my Astros shirt on.  An older lady asked me if the game had started yet.  Another guy yelled "Astroooos."  The kids would jump in the car after school and ask what the score was.  (We had to play all the afternoon games because, face it, the Astros still aren't the Yankees or Red Sox or Dodgers.)  Houston took out the Red Sox 3 games to 1.  Then they had to fight the Yankees.  (Grrrrrr)  They went up in the series, but then fell behind 3 games to 2.  New York had to win one game.   But, in classic Astros style, they won both games behind their powerful lineup and great pitching.  They were in the World Series.

Team of destiny.  Up against the Los Angeles Dodgers.  Another big salary team.  Unbeatable pitchers.  Huge stars.  It was a slugfest.  Back and forth.  Come from behind victories, blown leads.  Then Game 7, Houston teed off on Yu Darvish and ended up walking to a 5-1 victory.  World Champion Houston Astros.  The city was out of its mind.  You thought Astros gear was hard to get?  Try to get championship gear.  It would come into the stores and get swooped right up.  The parade was insane.  School districts cancelled school for people to go.  (Not our district.  They were trying to make up the 21 missed days.)  My kids knew what it felt like to cheer for a champion - a feeling they felt a couple months later with UCF.  But this one was not an 'alleged' title.  It was official and amazing.

The teams in 2018 and 2019 both made impressive runs.  They didn't make the series in 2018, but still were fun to watch and cheer for.  We moved back to South Carolina, but still followed the Astros religiously.  Our kids would be the only ones in the classes with Houston gear on, but we didn't care.  The 2019 World Series was heartbreaking.  How come the Astros, who were so dominant at home, never could win in their own stadium?  They seemed like a different team in DC vs Houston.  In the end, Washington got their title and Houston figured it would just gear up for next year.  Even though a bizarrely large number of free agents left, there was still the belief that Jeff Luhnow and AJ Hinch would keep things rolling.

Rumors of sign stealing started to circulate.  It was hard to hear.  Like most fans, I wanted to give my team the benefit of the doubt.  They won outright on the field.  They were just the better team.  Louder rumors swirled.  They are good guys.  Remember how they embraced the city?  Altuuuuuuve.  A former player dropped the bomb and flat out stated that the team was stealing signs.  He said how it was done and how often.  There was no denying it at this point.  The league got involved.  I didn't want to believe it.  I still hoped this dude was lying or something.  Nope.  Hinch and Luhnow are suspended for a year.  "Oh no.  Well Sean Payton was suspended for a...."  Then they were fired.  The team was fined.  No players were punished, but so many were implicated.  Even the former "heart and soul" players like Alex Cora and Carlos Beltran go fired from their new manager jobs because they were named as two of players who the formulated the scheme.  Since then, the Astros have been about as tone-deaf as a team can be.  Their social media team has been working overtime, trying to distract everyone from the situation.  They haven't talked about it, but they have waved around the awards they won last year.  And they had their fan appreciation day.  And they made appearances.  And they let two really good men take all the blame.  And they hope that the city will forget what happened.

How?  How can they?  How can I?  Like I said when I abandoned the Yankees, I cannot support cheaters.  I am a dad with three wonderful kids.  How can I stand there and tell them how important honesty and integrity and fair-play is?  How can I call out injustice and wrongdoing and lies?  How can I say those things and then still wear my Astros cap and shirt?  I can't.  This wasn't a one-time thing.  This wasn't an accident.  "Oops, our camera accidentally aimed at the catcher all game and we accidentally tracked his signs and accidentally banged on a trash can in a method that accidentally alerted players."  Nope.  Sorry.  Not working.  I have some really cool Astros caps.  They mean a lot to me.  I looked around online for an asterisk pin to put on them.  But right now I can't even bring myself to wear them.  I don't want to read news about the team.  I can't cheer for them.  Everything they've done in the last three years has to be questioned.  It is all fake.

Even 2017.  That is what makes me the most outraged.  All of that goodwill and destiny was manufactured.  It wasn't real.  They weren't playing fair.  When Yu Darvish unraveled in the games against Houston, was it really him tipping pitches? Or was it the Astros stealing them?  Those great guys we rooted for?  The gutsy, come from behind, never say die players.  They were cheating?  Of course they came back later in a game.  By then they had seen multiple appearances by starting pitchers or they saw relievers they had a compendium of stolen signs from.  That title feels dirty.  That experience of an entire city pushing a team forward - it isn't so amazing when the team had greased the track in front of them.  And I know that this is probably not isolated to Houston.  But I don't care.  "If everyone jumped off a bridge, would you do it?"  I want my kids to have integrity when no one is watching and when everyone is.  I want them to be the one kid in the room not cheating, the one worker not padding stats, the one driver following rules, the one taxpayer filing honestly, the one person who returns extra change or extra accidental products, the one customer who points out when the waiter forgets to charge for a drink.  How can I want them to live up to that standard and then cheer for people who don't?  Trust me, this question troubles me on many fronts in our world today.  But with sports, at least in that realm I can do something about it.  I have that world in my control.  So I will walk away from baseball again.  I'll turn my back on the Houston Astros.  We had some fun, but I don't know if any of it was real.  And I don't need that kind of garbage in my life. 

Unpredictable

 Natalie set up camp in the breach position. This was especially annoying because Heather was desperately wanting to have a VBAC - a “normal” birth after Josiah’s Caesarian delivery. We kept checking to see if she changed position, hoping all the way until the final day that she would move. Right before our final appointment prior to delivery day, Heather said that it really felt like Nat had spun around. At the appointment itself, the doctor said she that she agreed. The plan was to do an ultrasound on delivery day to verify Natalie was still ready to go. If not, we would do the C-Section. When the picture popped up, Natalie has switched back with her tushie where her head should be. Now, babies are pretty big at this point, so that kind of flipping around doesn’t happen much. It was quintessential Natalie - always unpredictable and doing things her own way.

My mother gave Natalie dolls several times. She gave her handmade ones, which Nat would never play with. She also gave her ones with porcelain faces that really were supposed to just be displayed. These were the ones Natalie would use, until the rubber bands holding them together snapped.  When she rode in her stroller through the mall, nothing would get her bopping around faster than hearing Gwen Stefani and No Doubt on the radio. No standard kid-friendly music for this girl! Disney princesses? Sure. But not the ones available on everything. She loved Jasmine, who wasn’t on ANYTHING!

Once Natalie got into school, she continued her unique approach to life. While whipping her hair back and forth to the song of that name, she banged her head against the counter - wigging out her teacher. The next year, the school brought an owl in for the kids to see. Young Natalie came home and told us that the owl had pecked her on the nose during the assembly. We were a little stunned that we didn’t hear anything about this. A few months later she told us that the owl never pecked her. In fact she didn’t even get to see the owl. It was only for the older kids and she was jealous that she didn’t get to go, so she made up the story about the owl. What?

Nat was a sneaky little fink. We had this big pantry in our apartment. She would ask if she could have a Pop Tart. We would say yes. She would go into the pantry and eat one Pop Tart and then come out with the other one - with us none the wiser. She would sneak into the pantry to eat marshmallows. She did it so often she made herself sick and now can’t eat them at all. We had a computer in the office where the kids could play on our safe browser. They got into playing Club Penguin. They could get different characters and decorations and such. One day we hear Josiah screaming. “Natalie!! What did you do to my penguin?” We ran in there to see what had happened. He pointed at the screen and his penguin had a rainbow wig, a pink dress, and crazy decorations. Nat had logged into his account and spent his coins to prank him. We had a very hard time keeping a straight face over that one.

Justice. It used to be her favorite clothing store, but it has always been something she pushes for. From elementary school she has hated when students are treated unfairly by other students or by teachers. She has gotten herself into trouble socially and in the classroom for speaking her mind about situations. Consistently she stands up for the underserved, the underrepresented, the misunderstood. Her mature assessments of life has challenged us for years. She has made us really think about the world around us and how to interact with it.

Today is her sixteenth birthday. We had ramen for lunch (with fried baby octopi) and boba tea. Her cake was a big cup of tea as well. That’s a far cry from the usual burger and pizza places where most of our family birthdays are spent. But it makes perfect sense for Nat. She is unique. She is unpredictable. And I love it.

I love having a challenging daughter. I love having a rebel. I love her. She is spunky and salty and snarky. She is thoughtful and generous and hilarious. She is the most loyal friend someone could hope for. And she is a constant gift to us. Happy birthday sweet girl.

The Ornaments

My brother died in September.  I haven't written much about it because .... well .... I still am not entirely sure what to say.  In one of the few moments in my life, words fail me.  I've lost family members before.  Four grandparents, both parents, two grandparents-in-law.  All of those were kind of expected.  My dad was surprising in the moment.  He hadn't given any indication that he was going to die soon, but he also had a history of heart attacks and all other kinds of infirmities.  My mom had cancer and had been telling me she was dying for over 30 years.  The grandparents all were older and having health issues.  They all hurt - loss always hurts in so many ways.  But this... this was something completely different.

Chris was 50.  He shouldn't be gone.  This is the guy who was always moving and playing and working.  He worked outdoors at a landscape supply company.  His job included moving huge trees and bags of mulch and other massive things that people use in yards that I don't know about because I know nothing about yards.  He surfed and biked and played basketball and played football and -- he played everything.  He worked out.  This constant physical activity was at the crux of our faceoffs for so many years.  He was all about outside; I was all about inside.  We would play football and basketball together, but as I got older I wanted to stay inside more and more.

Chris and I had a difficult relationship.  We were brothers, but we were very different people.  There was always the usual sibling rivalry present, exacerbated by my insane need to compete with everything he did (academically - I conceded sports as a whole to him).  He liked the Redskins; I liked the Cowboys.  He liked the Lakers; I liked the Hawks (TBS 17 Baby!).  He liked the Expos; I liked the Yankees.  The only sport entity we agreed on at ALL was the University of Georgia: I rooted for them throughout my childhood and he got his doctorate there. Yeah, all of that was there.  But there always seemed to be something more entrenched - something that neither of us had any control over.  We seemed to be pitted against each other by our parents.  My behavior was held up to Chris as how he should be acting.  His work ethic was held up to me to show me what level of effort I should give.  The struggles he went through in his life would be repeated to me to show me that I "had it easier" than he did.  My willingness to comply with requests (or my ability to be manipulated - still not sure on that) would be held up to Chris when he complained about doing things.  As a result, we both resented each other.  He hated that I was overweight.  I hated that he pointed it out all the time.

We didn't stay close.  We both tried at different times to rekindle a relationship, but it never lasted long.  There were things done and said that caused deep wounds.  He lived far away for many years, so visits were rare.  I kept myself distant from him for other years to try to protect myself and my family.  He battled his demons, especially alcohol.  And he lost more and more often.  And my heart broke over and over again.  This strong man.  This brilliant and strapping physical specimen who could not be defeated by anything.  He kept on losing. All we could do was to watch it happen, try to reach out, try to encourage him.

In July, I got a phone call from him while I was at a baseball game.  I couldn't answer because it was loud and it was 742 degrees and I was melting.  He called back twice and then we texted.  He wanted to come up to Columbia to see us.  He was planning on taking a vacation for the first time in decades and was thinking about going to North Carolina.  I told him the next weekend wouldn't work, but two weeks later would.  We texted about it a couple of times, and I asked him to not drink while he was at our house.  He said fine.  A week or so went by and I texted him again and asked if he was still coming up that weekend to see us.  "What is this weekend and why would I be coming to see you?"  I was kind of shocked, since we had just talked a few days before.  I didn't know at that point he was already in some serious trouble.  Within a couple of days he was in the hospital.  After a couple of weeks he was discharged to my Aunt and Uncle's care, but he was a poor facsimile of my brother.  He ended up back in the hospital pretty quickly and never left.

I tried to get down to see him, but it seemed like things were stacked against it.  School was starting, work was super busy, hurricanes were threatening to slam into the coast.  I would call and talk to  him when I could.  I left voice mails.  We would text each other - often via my Aunt's capable fingers instead of his failing ones.  And I planned to come the third week of September.  However, my sister Holly went down to see him and called me.  "You need to get down here now."  I saw him on FaceTime and was not prepared at all.  He was yellow and OOOOLD looking.  He wasn't really coherent at all.  When I hung up, I completely lost it.  I wailed and wailed.  This couldn't be real, but it was.  During the crying I was texting and emailing work, getting out of commitments and moving things around.  My in-laws headed to the house to stay with the kids.  Heather got out of work.  And we headed to West Palm Beach as fast as possible.  We ended up getting into town after midnight and went straight to the hospital.  They sent us up to the Hospice floor and the nurse met us at the door and said, "I'm so sorry."  I nodded and thanked her.  She said, "I just went in there and he is gone."  I was confused.  They moved him?  Why would they move him?  They didn't tell me that downstairs.  Heather, thankfully, was clear-minded and got clarification.  Then it hit me.  "Wait.  He's dead?"  The nurse nodded.  I walked to the door and looked in.

I missed him.  I didn't get to say goodbye.  I didn't get to hug him.  I was too late.  I should have left earlier.  I should have driven down during the hurricane earlier in the month.  Guilt and pain and grief just crushed me from every direction.  What was laying in that bed wasn't my brother.  It couldn't be.  I walked in and looked at him.  He looked like a horrible prop from a cheap movie.  He was yellow and waxy and cold.  Bloated with white hair and this weird mustache.  He hadn't had a mustache by itself since high school in the 1980s when people thought mustaches looked good.  He had a goatee for years.  He had been clean shaven for the last decade or two.  I collapsed into a chair and held his hand.  Then I laid across his chest and just cried and cried.  I told him I was sorry I didn't get there earlier.  And I tried to process what was going on.

Chris was gone.  My brilliant, gifted, athletic, strong brother.  The one I constantly pursued, the one I desperately needed approval from.  He was gone.  He had lived far away from me for over 30 years, so I was used to him not being around.  But he was gone.  How in the world? We were five years apart, and it felt like more than that most of the time.  But this was my brother.  I was so proud of all he had accomplished.  He had a doctorate in Bioinorganic Chemistry.  He worked for NASA's Astrobiology unit.  He worked on some iron-sulfur bond as part of his studies.  There were three components to it and he had divvied up the components with his collaborators.  He had the final component and finished his work first.  Then he went ahead and completed both of the other pieces also.  (I don't understand all of what that meant. Not a science person.)  He presented at an International Conference in Germany.  He was one of the most gifted artists I had ever seen.  There wasn't an art style he couldn't master.  Well, I don't know if he sculpted ever.  He would have been a great sculptor.  He was a true athlete - mastering any sport he played.  But at the most basic level, he was my brother... my first friend.

We shared a room for over 12 years, until he went away to college and basically stopped coming back very often.  We would mess around and irritate each other.  We would laugh at stupid stuff we said to each other.  We would not go to sleep after we were supposed to.  Even though we were so so different, we still were able to connect over silliness.  We could always get each other laughing.  I had this 8x10 picture of myself as a baby hanging on our wall.  (Hey, I was cute.  Don't judge me.)  We were siting in our room one day and he kept messing with the picture.  I said something about him pretending to pick my nose in the pic.  Then I said, "Ha.  You should put a booger on it."  SO HE DID!  He picked a booger and put it on baby David's upper lip.  "GET THAT OFF OF THERE!"  He cleaned it off, but it took some of the color with it.  Forever the picture was blemished with the reminder of that fateful day.

Chris used to listen to music Holly and I couldn't listen to due to our ages.  He was always worried I would tattle on him if I heard him singing some song that he was singing that wasn't appropriate.  I have no idea where he got this idea.  I wasn't a tattle-tale.  (Looking around for the lightning bolt.)  So he used to change the lyrics to try to convince me that I wasn't hearing what I was really hearing.  So, Dire Straits were bemoaning that singers would get "their money for nothing, and their checks for free" - not chicks.  The Police's Roxanne was not about a prostitute.  Rather it was about a street.  "Roxanne Street.  You don't have to put on the red light."  (You could wonder why I knew what a red light stood for when I was that young, and how my mom felt that was okay.  We had a house down the next block over that had a red light in the carport.  My dad made a comment, my mom explained, elementary aged kid now knew about red light districts.)  Panama by Van Halen, which is LOADED with double entendre, was merely about a guy driving around and nothing more.  The best music interaction came one morning when he was walking around singing and getting ready.  "WHOA.  She's beautiful!" It wasn't time for me to be awake for school yet, but I was usually awakened by his singing anyway.  This time I called out in my most lady-like voice, "Thaaaaa-aaaanks."  He stopped walking and said, "Uh ...  you're welcome?"  Then he tried to figure out who said it.  "Holly?  Holly?  Did you say that?"  He went into her room and WOKE HER UP (this was getting better and better) and asked again.  She, of course, denied it because she had no idea what was going on.  I couldn't hold it in any more and busted out laughing.  He came in our room.  "That was YOU?"  I think he hit me with a pillow.

What made me finally get around to sharing?  It is the holidays and Chris' death interacted with a sad tradition I have.  The year my dad died, my mom gave me a red ornament with gold printing on it of a postal stamp that had a deer on it.  It was sold as a tie in with the Christmas stamps from 1999.  My dad had been a postal worker for most of his adult life.  That was the only job I knew him doing, despite him having many many others when he was younger.  So I started hanging the ornament on the tree.  As the kids grew up and started doing more with the ornaments, they would never hang that one.  That was mine to put up.  It usually led to reminiscing and sharing about Dad, who none of them had ever met (even Heather).  The ornament fell and broke a few years back, but I found a replacement on eBay and it slipped right into the role.  The year my mom died, I tried to find an ornament that could serve as her memorial on the tree.  I saw one at Hallmark, but it had sold out when I went to get it.  So I took one of her bottle glass suncatchers with a grapes on it and hung it next to my dad's ornament.  This year, I needed to now find one for Chris.  I looked at surfer ones and fisherman ones.  But none of those felt right.  In my darker moments, I thought about buying an alcohol bottle to put up there - they even had them at Belk.  But, as my counselor said, that would be funny for one year and then be painful.  One day in the car, my brilliant insightful daughter said, "You should get a Swiss Cake Roll."  I looked at her and said, "Nailed it."

My brother, like most teenagers, didn't like doing things that my mom asked him to do.  The one exception was running to the grocery store. I was a dorky kid and actually liked going to the grocery store.  I went just about every Saturday morning with my mom until I went to college.  I also was an annoying punk little kid and wanted to go hang out with Chris in the car.  Finally my mom told him  he had to take me.  We drove to Publix and went inside.  We were walking around and grabbing the things on the list.  Then he said, "And a box of Swiss Cake Rolls."  I had a sneaky suspicion that wasn't right.  "Is that on the list?!?"  "No."  "Then what are you doing?"  He stopped and huffed.  "Every time mom tells me to go to the store, I buy a box of Swiss Cake Rolls as well."  I stared at him flabbergasted.  "What does she say?"  "She doesn't know."  "What about the receipt?"  "It doesn't list items, just prices."  "How do you get them in the house?"  "I eat them in the car."  "She would see the box and wrappers."  "I throw them away in the outside garbage on the way in the house."  I was completely baffled.  What deception!  What brilliance!  He then said, "You can have some of them if you don't say anything."  Deal.  So we ate a box of Swiss Cake Rolls on the way home and threw the trash away in the outside can.  And we repeated this many times afterwards.  And when I became the one to run to the store?  I did the exact same thing.  Even when I was in college, I would find myself buying a box of Swiss Cake Rolls at the store.  I cannot even see the product any more without thinking of Chris.  So it was a PERFECT ornament.

Christmas is one of those days that is so filled with emotion on its own.  It becomes so much more on the first year after you lose someone or on an anniversary of the loss.  This year will definitely bring thoughts of Chris.  My sister and her son are coming to spend Christmas with us - the remaining two from our family.  I have lots of fond memories of Chris on this holiday.  For years, he would get a Whitman's Sampler as a present.  Sometimes he would let us have the pieces he didn't like.  For a couple of years, my mom would give him a box of Frosted Wheat.  We weren't allowed to eat sugary cereal (only to dump a spoonful of sugar into our non-sweetened varieties).  Chris loved the frosted version of the horrible haybale Shredded Wheat.  This was back before mini-wheats were a thing.  Once a year she would give him a box of the frosted treasures.  One year we all swapped names betwixt us and had $100 to spend, but we had to get something out of four categories: something to wear, something to eat, something to play, and something from a hobby.  I had Chris' name.  He had owned a dive watch for a long time and really loved it.  It had been beat up and had the strap changed several times - once from laying on top of a lit kerosene heater.  But it had finally given up the ghost.  So I planned to get him a new watch.  I had to be super creative.  So I got him a springform pan for making cheesecakes, a box of cheesecake mix (which I don't think he ever lowered himself to use), and a bar of surfboard wax.  The rest I spent on a new dive watch.  It wasn't exactly what he had, but he wore it for decades.

I miss my brother.  Sweep away all the anger and confusion and hurt and sadness.  I miss him.  I've missed him for a long time, but now I know it is a permanent loss.  I'm glad that I have memories of him.  Some are physical, like his paintings and fishing poles and surfboard.  Some are mental, like Swiss Cake Rolls and his brilliant mind and his constant singing.  Every time I pass the Little Debbie end cap.  Every time my kid leaves an empty cup in the living room.  Every time I put a booger on a baby picture.  Every time I hear someone talking about bioinorganic chemistry.  Every time I see a surfboard.  Every time I pass my Christmas tree.



NOTE: This isn't to be cheesy and schmaltzy.  Take time this holiday to hold those you love a little closer.  You really don't know what tomorrow holds. Last Christmas, I had no indication that Chris wouldn't be here this holiday.  And if someone in your world is struggling with substance abuse, depression, loneliness - PLEASE don't blow it off.  You may be the voice that they are relying on to keep going.

Josiah Is A Man

The last week has sucked.  A hurricane swirled around in the Ocean, decimating the Bahamas and threatening Florida before wrecking havoc on the Carolina coastlines.  More idiotic and hateful things happened that only serve to convince me that the concept of “love your neighbor as yourself” is completely lost in this day and age.  Oh, and my brother died.  Can’t forget that one.
In the midst of all of this, my oldest son Josiah was rapidly approaching his 18^th birthday.  He’s excited, as he should be.  As his father, I am struggling trying to rectify the truth that my little baby is now a legal adult, preparing to move hours away for college.  Life has been weighing heavily on me for several weeks now as I watched my brother descending in his final days.  Josiah walked up to me in the kitchen on Sunday.  I was standing there, trying to figure out what to pack in an emergency last-minute trip down to see Chris before it was too late.  This beautiful man child said something about feeling bad because his birthday is this week and he was worried it would be a distraction - or that it may always carry the stigma of whatever happened with Chris.  I looked up at him.  He is so tall and strong.  He has Chris’ longer hair and shorter height, with my burlier body.  My coloring and Chris’ aptitude for science.

Tears collected in my eyes and I told him.  “Eighteen years ago, the worst thing that most of us will ever experience happened.  Our worlds were in ruins along with those towers.  And you came along that night, bringing joy to so many as they looked at you and realized that love and hope were still alive. And I have no doubt that your turning eighteen will serve the exact same purpose.  Your whole life has brought joy to us.  It makes sense that your day to become a man will bring joy in the midst of pain.”  Then I hugged him.  Hard. 

When Josiah was in fourth grade (I think), we were experiencing some parenting challenges.  He wasn’t a naughty kid; he’s NEVER been a naughty kid.  He just was growing up and we had never had a fourth grader before.  Especially one that frequently appeared to have left his brain in another part of the house.  We wondered if maybe there was something we were missing - something medically off.  So at his annual checkup, we asked Dr Michael Middleton that very question.  He laughed.  “No.  Nothing wrong.  He’s a very normal ten year old.”  We felt better, in some ways, and we felt irritated in others.  If this was normal, what exactly does that mean for us?  We were frequently at our wits’ end.  Okay, fine, I was frequently at my wit’s end.  Josiah and I are NOT the same people, but we have enough overlapping characteristics and qualities that it can be like dragging the rough sides of two pieces of sandpaper across each other.  I probably made some sarcastic comment (you already figured that, I’m sure).  Dr Middleton looked at us and said one of the most insightful things I had and have ever heard.  It changed how we (I) parented forever.  “You are not trying to raise a good ten year old.  You are trying to raise a good man.  And there are going to be times where raising a good man will cause problems with your ten year old.  But remember the end goal.”  

Go back and read that again.  Brilliant stuff.  America has become an instant-gratification society.  If a football coach doesn’t win in year one or two, he gets fired.  If a company doesn’t make enough money in a quarter, the board gets canned. If a school, church, politician, girlfriend, spouse, kid doesn’t show the results expected, they are tossed in favor of something better.  Thank God Almighty that He doesn’t treat me that way - and that my wife didn’t treat me that way.  We were falling into that pattern with our kids, though.  There were many times where we were getting super frustrated with our two year old or six year old or twelve year old.  They didn’t live up to the image that somebody had put out there  as the way a kid that age should act.  And that leads to exasperation and anger and panic.  

My wife watches a lot of Gilmore Girls.  On repeat, every night, even when she falls asleep.  As a result, I have seen every episode many times - probably more times than she has seen them, actually.  They play when she falls asleep and then they play again the next night when she watches them awake.  And the next one plays when she’s asleep, and so on.  Anyway, there is a storyline with Luke (the Diner owner and Lorelai’s soulmate) and his idiot nephew Jess (Milo Ventimiabdulaoblingata at his most irritating - yes, worse than Heroes).  Jess is a punk.  And the town hates him, deservedly so.  They want him gone.  And Luke finally snaps in a meeting and says, “If I remember correctly, I was a trouble maker and a rough kid.  And I made a lot of bad choices.  But now I don’t think I turned out so bad.  A lot of people made sure I didn’t turn out so bad.  And I am not going to let that kid fall through the cracks.”  THAT is the “raise a good man” approach.  And (spoiler alert), he succeeded.  Jess turns out to be a pretty good man.

All of that is to say my priorities changed that day in that office.  As frustrating as things could be, the goal was to raise a good man.  

So now I look at my high school senior, my legally adult son, and I think Heather and I succeeded in raising a good man.  No, he isn’t a good man.  He is a GREAT young man.  His story isn’t done yet.  He is just starting on the adult path, but I am so very proud of where he is now and where he is going.  He is kind and compassionate.  He hurts when people he loves hurt.  He takes care of us and his sister and his brother.  He gets angry at injustice.  He is not perfect.  But he has noticed areas he needed to improve and he has worked very very VERY hard to do better. His freshman year was rough academically and socially.  But he buckled down and worked hard and got organized.  He took on aggressively difficult schedules, all while doing band.  He practice his instrument every day until he went from being the “kid from South Carolina band” (that was an insult in Texas) to the head of the lower brass choir, district band member, and the de facto leader of his section here in Columbia as a new student.  He passed every AP test with 4 or 5 - meaning he earned college credits in all of the subjects.  He scored high enough on the SAT to assure that a big chunk of his college is going to be paid for immediately - in state or out of state.  And he is pursuing a path towards Vet School.  By all of those standards, he is a success.  He has done well.  

But all of that is just surface stuff.  Lots of kids do that stuff and turn out to be the kinds of people who exacerbate the disease of hatred and ignorance that is destroying our country.  They are the ones who Apostle Paul describes as speaking with the tongues of angels and dining with kings but not having love. THIS is where Heather and I are the most proud of Josiah.  He is a GOOD man.  He cares; he loves; he serves; he hurts; he gives.  A few weeks ago, when my brother was starting to get into bad shape, I got off the phone with him and just sat there on the couch and cried.  Josiah came downstairs and saw me sitting there.  He started crying and came sat next to me and hugged me.  He just held me, knowing that I needed that.  This high school senior who should have an adversarial relationship with his parents (according to most stereotypes) sat there holding his dad like it was his job to comfort ME.  Last night he and his siblings were arguing over who gets to have me and Heather stay with them when we are old.  As he has been considering becoming a veterinarian I have been trying to make sure he understands it isn’t just playing with animals.  I’ve told him he is going to have to do surgery on animals and see animals hurting and put animals down.  He will have to give pet owners terrible news. He has looked at me and said, “Yes I know.  And they’ll need someone like me at that time.”  He’s just like his mother - the doctor who deals with kids with death sentences and fights their disease while bringing them hope, dignity, love.  I have no doubt Josiah will be an absolutely incredible vet.  

Josiah is a collector.  He got that from every side of his family, I think.  He collects Funko Pop figures from Marvel and Jurassic Park and a few other franchises.  It has been interesting as we have watched him start collecting and as he has moved into a serious collector.  He has an eye for things.  He has become a member of that collecting world, contributing on message boards and hunting down pieces he is searching for.  These aren’t always for him, mind you.  He knows what every person in his family is drawn to and knows the exact date every one of those pieces go on sale.  He has searched down exclusive and hard-to-find figures for his parents, siblings, cousins, aunts and uncles.  When you combine that attention to detail and the gift-giving love language, you get a very special present giver.  One of the best stories in his collecting was when we wandered into a Half Price Used Books store in Sugar Land.  He always checks the Pop walls and stands.  This time, he saw a Game of Thrones character that he recognized as pretty valuable.  It was on sale for five bucks.  He got it and then flipped it online for a very exclusive and expensive Marvel piece he wanted and sixty dollars - that he turned into two other hard-to-find items.  I’ve enjoyed watching him (okay, fine, enabling him) as he became a grownup in that world.  This once timid kid calls stores all over, negotiates sales and purchases, and does it in a respectful and thoughtful manner.  He’ll never try to buy out a store’s stock because he knows there is a kid like him who is going to come along and want that piece, and he wants that kid to be able to get it.

I’ve been wrestling with grief over my brother for several days now.  People ask how I’m doing and I don’t always know what to say.  Sometimes I’m numb.  Other times I hurt.  There are times when I am just confused.  Mostly, though, it feels like a part of me got ripped out.  Today was the first day I’ve been alone since this all happened.  I was worried about how it would go.  But I went and sat at my computer to write about my son.  And just like I told him, it brought me joy and hope and healing. When I focused on him and the man he has become and the man he will be, I was excited about the future.  He is going to bring so many people joy in the worst of times: when their pet is sick, when they are brokenhearted, when the world seems to have forgotten them.  He is going to bring them hope.  It is what he always has done.  That’s a man to be proud of. 

Love

My fellow follower of Christ,

I feel it is time for us to have a serious discussion. I have felt uneasy for quite some time about how things are going. I guess I was hoping things would turn around, that they would get better. I hoped that there would be some sort of unity or reconciliation. But everything is getting worse. It is spiraling out of control, truthfully. It kind of feels like one of those old Hollywood bar fights that start between a couple of dusty guys in dusty hats. Then it takes over the whole bar. Eventually it pours out into the street for everyone to see. That’s where we are right now. We are a bunch of drunk cowboys fighting in the street. Shooting and punching and yelling and destroying. It’s not a good look. 

This goes beyond politics, beyond denominations, beyond worldviews, beyond resolutions. This is so much bigger than all of that. It is about the heart - literally - of who we are, who we claim to be, Who we follow. We have divided our attention and betrayed our affections and confused our direction. And we have lost the most important facet of all, the one thing that is supposed to define us. The one thing we were told time and time again that we should pursue. The one thing that was preached from the front of The Book to the end. 

LOVE

If a poll was taken about Christians, if a hundred or a thousand random people were asked what makes a Christian, it is doubtful that love would make the list. That is not our defining characteristic. That is not our calling card. It probably wouldn’t make the top ten. The top twenty. We would get lots of other words: judgmental, closed minded, hateful, intolerant, mean, out of touch, harsh, greedy, hypocritical. But we certainly wouldn’t get love. 

This is so wrong. Even as you read this, chances are good that some of you are already getting angry. You’re wanting to scream at me, to write a vicious comment on the link. “Loving doesn’t mean accepting!” “God doesn’t tolerate sin!” “We are supposed to stand up for what is right.”  It is amazing the arguments we will make to defend our lack of love. It is startling how far we will go to dismiss that commandment. How we will use legal and economic and political and logical treatises to justify our sinful behavior. We will point out all of the other people doing things wrong. We will quote the US Constitution, the Bill of Rights, Atlas Shrugged, Joel Osteen, Stephen Furtick, Donald Trump, Sarah Sanders, Bernie Sanders, Hillary Clinton, George Clinton. We will use anything we can to justify our NOT doing the thing that we were supposed to be doing. 

From the very beginning, God had some simple instructions. They were woven through the Ten Commandments. They were peppered through the Old Testament. They were preached by Jesus Himself. They were echoed by His Disciples. 

Love God.

Love Others. 

It doesn’t say to be the judge, jury, and executioner. It doesn’t say to be the moral compass. It doesn’t say to be the behavior police. It doesn’t say to wield the most political power. It doesn’t say to dictate financial policy. It doesn’t say to promote your country of citizenship. It doesn’t say to decide your race is better. It doesn’t say to oppress people. 

Love God. 

Love Others. 

We see it in Leviticus 19:18. You shall not take vengeance or bear a grudge against the sons of your own people, but you shall love your neighbor as yourself: I am the Lord.

We see it in Deuteronomy 6:5. You shall love the Lord your God with all your heart and with all your soul and with all your might.

The Ten Commandments can be divided between the ones telling us to Love God and those telling us to Love Others. 

And lest those statements confuse anyone, God went so far as to clarify what neighbor meant. Leviticus 19:34 and Deuteronomy 10:18-19 explicitly tells God’s people to extend that love not only to those like them, but also to the sojourner, traveler, refugee. This was a hallmark from the very beginning. From the first set of laws laid down, God clearly commanded His people should be people of love. 

Deuteronomy 11:1 You shall therefore love the Lord your God and keep his charge, his statutes, his rules, and his commandments always. There is no wiggle room. God demands obedience to His statutes. His statutes include loving others. 

This is echoed over and over again. God demonstrates His propensity for love and demands His people follow likewise. 

Psalm 31:23, , Psalm 33:5, Psalm 100:5, Psalm 103:8, Lamentations 3:22. They all describe God’s loving and patient nature. How He is slow to anger and quick to love. 

Proverbs 10:12, Isaiah 61:8, Amos 5:15. They all instruct us to pursue love and justice and put aside strife and wrongdoing and evil. 

 Micah 6:8 He has told you, O man, what is good; and what does the Lord require of you but to do justice, and to love kindness, and to walk humbly with your God? and abounding in steadfast love It is there in black and white. The characteristics desired are justice and kindness and humility and love. This is undebatable. It is the clearest set of marching orders anyone could require. 

I know what’s coming. I know that the responses of “But that is the Old Testament. We aren’t under the Law. We are under grace. We are not the modern reincarnation of Israel.”  First if all, those protests only come up when it suits our needs. The same person who will reject the Old Testament teachings on things like this will embrace them when teaching on homosexuality or tithing or God being a wrathful God. Second, dismissing the call to love would possibly, maybe make sense if the New Testament veered away from this calling. And that is not the case. If anything, Jesus’ life and teachings ups the ante on the need for love. 

Jesus time and again calls on His followers to live lives defined by love for God and love for Others. His entire purpose for coming is presented in one of the most famous passages in the entire Bible. In John 3:16-17 Jesus tells Nicodemus, “For God so loved the world, that he gave his only Son, that whoever believes in him should not perish but have eternal life. For God did not send his Son into the world to condemn the world, but in order that the world might be saved through him.  Love, not condemnation. Love and salvation, not banishment and death. Jesus came and died out of love. And He consistently taught His disciples to live in the same manner. 

Jesus didn’t get in trouble with the authorities due to His refusal to give up His rights, or pounding the moral drum, or seizing political power. He got in trouble with organized religion because he kept calling for people to Love God and Love Others. That was why they mocked Him, hated Him, and killed Him. They refused to Love God and Love Others. 

Jesus said to ...

Love God

Love God even more than money

Love our neighbors

Love one another

Love our enemies

Love those who persecute is

Love those who hate us. 

That just about covers every loophole. There is no one escaping those descriptions. It wasn’t, “Criticize each other.”  It wasn’t, “Point out everyone’s sins.” It wasn’t, “Attack everyone who disagrees with you.”  It wasn’t, “Push aside everyone who looks different than you.”  In fact Jesus went so far as to tell us specifically to NOT do those things. He told stories that illustrated how we should love people, no matter their characteristics. He demonstrated how to love people of every background and weakness and sin style and belief. From whores to lepers to children to Romans to the establishment to criminals to average guys. Jesus loved them all. 

People were drawn to this Jesus. They couldn’t get enough of Him. Children loved Him. You ever been around kids? They don’t flock to someone who is going to be dark and moody and judgmental. People don’t usually follow a miserable malcontent around all over tarnation. They had never seen anyone like Him. They had never been loved by anyone like Him. They weren’t used to having their petty concerns cared about, their little needs seen as important. They were used to people walking away and ignoring them. People didn’t care if they ran out of wine or if they were blind or if they didn’t have enough money or if their servant died or if their child died. Society kept rolling and everyone was caught up in their own problems and issues. And then Jesus came along and fed the masses when they were hungry. And He healed the meaningless beggars. And He brought the regular people back to life. And He listened and cared and celebrated and mourned and loved them.

Before Jesus left He took Peter aside and talked with him. This man was a coward. He swore he didn’t know Jesus and ran away when things got rough. He hid like a little kid. He was a screwup. He failed so badly, and all after he bragged so loudly. This was Jesus’ opportunity to really rub it in his face. Instead, Jesus asked Peter if he loved Him. He lowered the bar all the way down and asked Peter if he even liked Him. Peter kept saying he did. And each time, Jesus said that if Peter really loved Him, he should take care of people. The ragged lame poor stupid different oddball people. The terms Jesus used were so tender. “Feed my lambs. Tend my sheep.  Feed my sheep.”  You don’t go running up to feed a lamb with a whip, screaming. You don’t tend sheep by getting in their faces and yelling. “What’s your problem you stupid sheep? Why don’t you do this right?” The mantle of loving was passed on. 

Jesus made it as clear as possible in John 13:35. By this all people will know that you are my disciples, if you have love for one another. People will know you are a Christ follower by your love. Not the fish on your car, not the party you vote for, not the church you attend, not the people you hate, not the things you do, not the things you DON’T do. By your love. Love for others in your family, your workplace, your church, your denomination, your neighborhood, your city, your state, your country, your planet. 

Jesus’ followers got this. It wasn’t unclear to them. That is why Paul’s Epistles are flooded with verses telling us to love those around us. ALL of those around us.  There are so many verses to pull up. However, the  most famous passage about love comes from Paul in 1 Corinthians 13. Read this and see if it sounds like Christians today. 

If I speak in the tongues of men and of angels, but have not love, I am a noisy gong or a clanging cymbal. And if I have prophetic powers, and understand all mysteries and all knowledge, and if I have all faith, so as to remove mountains, but have not love, I am nothing. If I give away all I have, and if I deliver up my body to be burned, but have not love, I gain nothing.  Love is patient and kind; love does not envy or boast; it is not arrogant or rude. It does not insist on its own way; it is not irritable or resentful; it does not rejoice at wrongdoing, but rejoices with the truth. Love bears all things, believes all things, hopes all things, endures all things.  Love never ends. As for prophecies, they will pass away; as for tongues, they will cease; as for knowledge, it will pass away. For we know in part and we prophesy in part, but when the perfect comes, the partial will pass away. When I was a child, I spoke like a child, I thought like a child, I reasoned like a child. When I became a man, I gave up childish ways. For now we see in a mirror dimly, but then face to face. Now I know in part; then I shall know fully, even as I have been fully known.  So now faith, hope, and love abide, these three; but the greatest of these is love.

That should make us fall to our knees, begging God and everyone around us for forgiveness. It should make us delete our Twitter account and start over. It should make us re-examine our Facebook and Instagram profile. It should make us take a long hard look at how we treat those people different from us. The ones with different colored skins. The ones with different beliefs, different lives, different incomes, different nationalities. How can a people that clearly called to love be so willing to hate? To discriminate? To marginalize and abuse and hurt and wound and kill? 

Even Peter himself finally got it. He actually sums it up quite nicely.  1 Peter 2:17 Honor everyone. Love the brotherhood. Fear God. Honor the emperor. And in 1 Peter 4:8 Above all, keep loving one another earnestly, since love covers a multitude of sins  No one is omitted from this list. Not people who wrong you, not people who rule you, not people who betray you. No one. 

The final word on love comes from John, Jesus’ closest Disciple. His book of 1 John is a dissertation on how much love should be a part of our lives. In chapter four, starting in verse seven, he goes through and again clearly explains that it is impossible - yes, IMPOSSIBLE - to follow Christ and not love people. 

Beloved, let us love one another, for love is from God, and whoever loves has been born of God and knows God. Anyone who does not love does not know God, because God is love.  In this the love of God was made manifest among us, that God sent his only Son into the world, so that we might live through him. In this is love, not that we have loved God but that he loved us and sent his Son to be the propitiation for our sins. Beloved, if God so loved us, we also ought to love one another. No one has ever seen God; if we love one another, God abides in us and his love is perfected in us.  By this we know that we abide in him and he in us, because he has given us of his Spirit. And we have seen and testify that the Father has sent his Son to be the Savior of the world. Whoever confesses that Jesus is the Son of God, God abides in him, and he in God. So we have come to know and to believe the love that God has for us. God is love, and whoever abides in love abides in God, and God abides in him. By this is love perfected with us, so that we may have confidence for the day of judgment, because as he is so also are we in this world. There is no fear in love, but perfect love casts out fear. For fear has to do with punishment, and whoever fears has not been perfected in love. We love because he first loved us. If anyone says, “I love God,” and hates his brother, he is a liar; for he who does not love his brother whom he has seen cannot love God whom he has not seen. And this commandment we have from him: whoever loves God must also love his brother

This is as plain as it can get. We should be people defined by love. But we are not people defined by love. This is wrong. It is sin. It doesn’t matter the situation. There is no scenario where we can escape this calling. And there is no way that we can argue with this.  And there is no one out there who can just nod his or her head and say, “Yup. Good points. I’m nailing it.”  Every single one of us should be heartbroken at how poorly we are representing our Lord. We should wail out in sorrow at the people we have led astray due to our hate and prejudice and callousness and selfishness. If we truly want to see this country, this world to change, we have to stop fighting and start loving each other. We have to stop striving for power and start loving. We have to stop attacking and start loving.  We need to stop pushing agendas and start loving. Love is the only thing that will make a difference.  

Love, 

David

1 Corinthians 16:14. Let all that you do be done in love.