April 2010 Lower Family Newsletter
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Chad T. Lower
Apr 5, 2010, 11:03:26 AM4/5/10
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I try to write our family newsletter on the first Sunday of the month--my thought is since I have it scheduled, I am more likely to do it. For those who have been following the newsletter for a while (I believe I started it in 2002), you may remember that I published it once a month through February 2006, then intermittently until December 2008 when I started posting monthly again. (In fact, for the 2007 year, the only post that was made was in regards to Alessandra's birth!) The main reason I began posting regularly again was that I scheduled the time to do so. As the date is relatively fixed from month to month, I don't actively seek out special days to write my newsletter on. However, today just happens to be Easter and it is also the first Sunday of the month, so I do get a rare opportunity to write the newsletter on a "special day." [NOTE: The newsletter was started on Easter and completed the day after.]
As a mathematician and lover of numbers, I especially enjoy visiting statistical research websites like gallup.com (The Gallup Poll) and bls.gov (the Bureau of Labor and Statistics). One poll that recently caught my eye was by the Barna Group (http://www.barna.org/barna-update/article/13-culture/356-most-americans-consider-easter-a-religious-holiday-but-fewer-correctly-identify-its-meaning) which was specifically about Easter. It turns out that about 2 of every 3 people polled (67%) described Easter as a religious holiday, but only 42% correctly identified it as being a remembrance of Jesus' resurrection. Personally, I consider Easter to be the most important holiday of the year, but Barna's finding showed that only 2% (1 out of 50 people) share that same belief. Another 2% said that Easter was a celebration of Jesus' birth. Although Jesus was probably born in the springtime, it is Christmas, not Easter, that is the celebration of Jesus' birth.
On the Thursday before Easter, our church has a Maundy Thursday service. Several members of the church recreate the Last Supper in the Upper Room and the betrayal at the Garden of Gethsemane. We also do foot-washing and communion. Last year, I went alone. This year, Bella and I went together. At the end of the service, Bella was crying as they took "Jesus" out of the room because she thought they were really going to kill him! Overall, though, she said she had a really good time.
Last year, Suzy attended two writer's conferences. One was RWA (as mentioned in last month's newsletter). The second was at St. David Christian Writers (http://www.stdavidswriters.com/) conference in Grove City, PA. Well, over the course of the year, she was elected to the St. David's board of Directors as the treasurer. In March, she attended her first Board Meeting as Treasurer. The fam drove to her parents' house, then I drove her to Clearfield where she hitched a ride with other board members. After a long day, I went back to pick her up and take her back to her parents' house. The next day, we had a birthday party for Chi before returning to Williamsport. The little man turned five! When we went to Kindergarten sign-ups for him later in the month, he was devastated when they were done because he though he would start kindergarten that day! Suzy did her best to explain to him that he won't start until the fall. I am eager to see him excited about school and pray that excitement continues.
Another activity Suzy did in March was a bookmaking class being offered by Penn College. She learned several techniques of binding books and spent a large part of the month creating journals using the Japanese stab stitch and the Coptic stitch. At the end of March, the local high school held their semi-annual craft fair and Suzy was a vendor selling these journals. She was not as successful as she had hoped, but in talking to other crafters who have been there for years, they told her that this was their worst outing at this location. I'm not sure what the reason, whether it would be due to the economy or due to a lack of advertising. However, Suzy does anticipate attending again in the future. Hopefully all the vendors will be more successful next time.
Last newsletter, I mentioned going to training for Odyssey of the Mind (OM). The competition that I judged for occurred in March. The day started with high school presentations, then middle school, and finally elementary school. Each grade level was judged individually and the top two from each level goes onto state competition. Our day started with one of the best performances of the day and ended with one of the worst. I was a judge for problem 2 (http://www.odysseyofthemind.com/materials/2010problems.php), which was Return to the Gift of Flight. The groups had to create 6 aircraft that would perform one of six different flight plans. In addition to creating the aircraft, they also have to create and perform a skit to go along with the flight plans. State competition will occur next week and world competition will be held in late May in Michigan.
Finally, the March activity I was looking forward to most of all occurred toward the end of the month. As mentioned in the last newsletter, Suzy and I rarely celebrate Valentine's Day on February 14 (or in February at all for that matter). This year, TobyMac released a new CD featuring a song in which John Cooper (lead singer and bassist for Skillet) assisted with vocals. Last fall, Skillet released a new CD, so the two bands came together and created the Awake Tonight tour. On March 20, they performed in Johnstown, PA which is about an hour south of Suzy's parents. We dropped the kiddos off with her parents and headed to Johnstown in the afternoon. We had a nice dinner at Red Lobster, then went to the concert. Together, we have seek Skillet in concert probably 4 or 5 times. This was by far their best performance that we saw. The energy was high, the pyrotechnics were awesome, and the crowd was loud. After Skillet's performance, I told Suzy that we had earned our money's worth; if she wanted to leave early, I would not be disappointed. After Skillet, TobyMac performed and it was a good show, but not nearly as nice as Skillet. I commented to Suzy as we were entering the arena that I saw a lot of fans wearing Skillet t-shirts, but not a lot wearing TobyMac t-shirts. The only "bad" part of the concert was that we had floor seats which consisted of folding chairs. When we arrived, it looked like our chairs had been pushed up by the people behind us giving us even less room than the limited amount of space we would have had anyway. During the concert, we had our chairs pushed up into the back of our legs (again, by the people behind us). Suzy, unfortunately, sustained a minor injury which caused her to sit for most of the TobyMac performance. Ironically, the people behind us also left partway through the TobyMac performance. After the concert, we went to Denny's to have dessert, then back to her parents' house. After the weekend, Suzy commented that this "Valentine's Day" was one of her most memorable.
Speaking of Suzy, she is still writing. We still have not heard back from the publisher about her story, so keep praying for that as Suzy is still anxious about the whole situation. She did send the same manuscript to an agent and was told that she writes really well. Unfortunately, for the word length of Suzy's book, the agent feels she'd have a better shot of selling the manuscript if Suzy would increase the word count. She has asked Suzy to consider adding another 20 to 30 thousand words to her story and then send it back to her for consideration. If, in the meantime, Steeple Hill decides to publish it as is, she will leave it alone.
Last April, Suzy entered a challenge called Script Frenzy. The premise it to write a 100 page screenplay in the month of April (30-days or less). Last year, she made it to 71 pages, but did not finish it. This year, she is going to try again using a similar story to last year, but with a more thought out plan of attack. Of course, this is in addition to trying to up her word count for the agent and trying to finish a second manuscript to bring with her to the RWA conference this year. But I have faith she can do it, she's an amazing woman. In addition to blogging, writing novels, and crafting, she finds time to write eHow articles (mostly explanations of her craft ideas). Her newest article is How to Alter a Composition Notebook Journal Cover with Scrapbook Paper. Her most popular ones last month were How to Create a Vehicle Mileage and Maintenance Log Record Book, How to Size a Central Air Conditioner, and How to Make Window Cleaner From Vinegar. Tis the season, I suppose.
Continuing our look at I Corinthians 13, the next part of the love definition we find is [Love] is not easily angered. I appreciate how Paul does not say love does not anger, because that would be a lie. God gets angry (see the story of Noah and/or Sodom and Gomorrah for two easy examples). Even Jesus got angry (see Mark 3:5 and 10:14 for two examples). But how can we be slow to anger?
One way to be slow to anger is to listen and ask questions. Epictetus is quoted as saying, "We have two ears and one mouth so that we can listen twice as much as we speak." James reinforces this idea in chapter 1 verse 19. The Message translates it as, "Lead with your ears, follow up with your tongue, and let anger straggle along in the rear." Even if we are not slow to anger, by asking questions and listening to others, at the least, we allow more time to pass before exposing our anger. Ideally, through the time spent listening (and possibly even the explanation itself) can help to alleviate our anger.
Some manuscripts (and the King James versions) include the words "without a cause" as I have shown above, but even without that clarification, we should be careful about getting angry with others. I want to use a story to illustrate my point for this last verse; however, I have found it duplicated in several places so cannot properly cite the source: If you were riding on a bus and felt a sudden, sharp poke in the ribs, how would you feel? Most people say they would probably feel irritated or angry and some say they would feel scared. That's normal. Let's say, just for this example, that you would feel angry. You might be thinking something like, "That stupid jerk. He ought to be careful. You shouldn't just poke people in the ribs." Those thoughts would clearly lead you to be angry.
Now suppose you look over to see who had poked you and realize it was a blind man. He was taking off his sweater and he accidentally poked you with his elbow. Now how would you feel? Most people say they would feel sad or even embarrassed that they were angry with the man. Here's the important part…YOU STILL GOT POKED IN THE RIBS! The event (getting poked in the ribs) was exactly the same but your feelings changed from anger to sadness or embarrassment. Clearly, if events and people MADE you angry, then the same exact event couldn't immediately cause two different feelings. The feelings must be controlled by something else. That "something else" is your THOUGHTS.
When you saw it was a blind man who had poked you, your thoughts probably changed to something like, "It was an accident. He didn't mean to do it." Those thoughts would make your anger disappear. So the biggest myth about anger is that other people and other things CAUSE anger. They don't. Your THOUGHTS cause anger and that's good news because if your thoughts cause anger, you can learn to change your thoughts to manage your angry feelings.
I think the biggest point we can get out of this example is to think the best of people and not jump to conclusions. In this example, once we realized the person was blind, we gave that person the benefit of the doubt--they probably didn't mean to poke us. I thing that in most cases, it would be appropriate to give others the benefit of the doubt. It is highly unlikely that a person woke up this morning and said to themselves, "What can I do to get <so-and-so> angry?" That person that ran the red light or cut you off in traffic and caused you to be late did not intentionally desire your lateness. Perhaps they were also running late and were trying to make up some time. When you drive to the store for an item and find the store is out of stock, the sales employee did not say to himself, "I better order fewer boxes of this item just to make <you> angry when <you> come in to buy it." When your spouse (or significant other) does <fill-in-the-blank>, he or she probably did not do it to intentionally to upset you. I think by giving them the benefit of the doubt will help to slow our anger the most.
In closing, I am eager for April to conclude as we are only 4 days into the month, but have two items I am eager to share with you including a doctor's appointment and a visit to the Crayola factory in Easton, PA. Until next time...
Chad T. Lower
a.k.a. Chopper
http://chadtlower.tripod.com/
Fight Spam! Join CAUCE! == http://www.cauce.org/
Don’t be selfish; don’t try to impress others.
Be humble, thinking of others as better than yourselves.
Don’t look out only for your own interests, but take an interest in others, too.
Philippians 2:3-4
a.k.a. Chopper
http://chadtlower.tripod.com/
Fight Spam! Join CAUCE! == http://www.cauce.org/
Don’t be selfish; don’t try to impress others.
Be humble, thinking of others as better than yourselves.
Don’t look out only for your own interests, but take an interest in others, too.
Philippians 2:3-4
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