
Upper West Side, New York City. November 25, 2011
365 Part Deux




A few nights ago, I realized that I had misidentified my dog as my son rather than my daughter. This was a mistake that she demanded that I rectify (or she was hungry – with dogs, it is hard to tell the difference). While editing our relationship, I noticed that facebook had finally added “-in-law” options. YES! With joy, I finally fixed my status with all my in-laws. And it was during that little journey that I discovered something disturbing: you can label a relationship between you and another profile as expected: child.
What.
I know, I know. I have heard, and seen, fetuses having their own facebook profiles. Mothers and fathers, in their excitement, quickly create a profile for their not-yet-born. They are excited and want to post their sonograms everywhere (changing their own profile picture to it isn’t enough). I can’t hate them too much for that. But…well…I can say that it’s a little strange. I mean, as a creature living in the digital age, all current children are going to be digitalized, photographed, iphoned, blackberried, smartphoned, tweeted, facebooked, and blogged for their entire lives. My parents have a suitcase in their basement containing photographs of me, my brother, and some documentation of our finer moments during our earlier years. My future kid is gonna end up having a digital suitcase online. It’s a different world and I think I’m going to let them have their own facebook, created on their own terms. I figure, with them being a future pk (pastor’s kid), they already have enough things counting against them. I’ll at least give them their own online identity – but they better friend me. That’s all I demand ask.
So, on Christmas Eve Night, the CBS Christmas special was shown. It was actually filmed in early November at my seminary (General Theological Seminary). Even though I didn’t do anything during the service except sit in the audience, if you watch closely, you’ll see my lovely face all over the place. And, lucky for you, the entire thing is on youtube! We’ve still got a few more days in this Christmas Season so enjoy.
I’m not really a “year-end” kind of person but I do take a lot of pictures. I started this post as an experiment to see where I’ve been and what I shot (even though there are two weeks of photos that have not been uploaded yet). My first culling resulted in over 100 photos that I loved. Sadly, I had to condense. Here’s a very tight group of photos that are some (32) of my favorites from this year (in chronological order).


Casey and Dr. Lathrop: Trappe, PA

Jeanne and Pastor Church: Trinity LIC

K at my mom’s birthday: Cody, WY

Morning on the shore of Yellowstone Lake

K’s bone marrow donation, Cornell Medical Center

K and Rebecca at J and A’s wedding: Dumbo, NYC

At J and A’s Wedding: Dumbo, NYC

Twinkie is silly, My Apartment

Chapel of the Good Shepherd: General Theological Seminary
Late last night, my wife and I shared some news with the internet: we’re gonna be parents! Our first child is due the first week of July. We’re very excited and I think the internet world needs to know my experiences of Fatherhood. If I’m going to embarrass my future children, I should start now.
Anyways, here are some highlights of our spreading the news this Christmas season.
There isn’t a whole lot of religiousness in my family tree (except for a 16th century saint). The same isn’t true in my wife’s family however. Two of her great-grandparents were clergymen in the free-church/baptist traditions. And during this Christmas trip, I got to see their letters of call.
I’ll admit that, ever since I entered seminary, I’m a little nosey when it comes to letters of call. I’ve seen a few but I want to see more. I’m curious what the differences are between pre-ELCA letters of call and the current letters. I want to know if they change every year or if they are the same. I want to know how they’re formatted, what font they use, how easy they are to frame, what kind of paper they are printed on, what kind of inks are used, and how elaborate (or boring) they appear. I’m sure once I get my own (God-willing), I’ll have a few answers to share. But, for now, the letters of my ancestors-by-marriage will have to do.
The first up is my wife’s grandfather’s father. He was a preacher in England and was good friends with Billy Graham. He helped setup Billy Graham in England, organized crusades, and even answered some of Billy’s correspondence. In December 1933, he was added to the ministerial rolls of “The Baptist Union of Great Britain and Ireland”.

Next up is my wife’s grandmother’s father. He never received an M.Div degree, was educated at the Moody Bible Institute, and was called as a minister by 9 “messengers” from 5 congregations in December 2, 1921. I love the title of the piece “Set for the Defense of the Gospel.”

Although both letters are not part of my denomination’s tradition, both are letters of call issued by different bodies of the wider church. I find these pieces of paper, and what they mean and symbolize, to be just fascinating.
UPDATE: After posting, my father-in-law informed me that there are other folks in the their ancestry that were called towards authority in religious communities as well. My wife’s great-great-grandfather was a Yeshiva student in the Ukraine who was murdered (in front of his family) by a pogram in the 1890s.