WARNING: The material on these two pages is explicit and disturbing, and may be inappropriate for some readers.

One of my favorite books to read to my boys is Moses by Carole Boston Weatherford. Interestingly, it’s not about the biblical character but about the American Moses, Harriet Tubman, who led her people out of the south and out of slavery. I’m often brought to tears when I read about this woman who risked her life and her freedom for the sake of others whom she did not know, determined that they would be free just as she was.

At some point along the way we all learned that slavery was abolished in the 19^th century; yet the reality is that there are more people enslaved in the world today than at any other time in history. It was about four years ago that I was first confronted with the problem of modern slavery and human trafficking. As I began to do research I found the statistics to be appalling.

• There are an estimated 27 million people enslaved throughout the world today.
• Slavery affects every country around the world.
• It is estimated that human trafficking generates around $32 billion annually.
• Modern day slavery is the second most lucrative criminal industry in the world.
• UNICEF estimates that 1 million children are forced to sell their bodies to sexual exploiters.
• Two children are sold every minute.

Although the numbers associated with human trafficking are disturbing, the things that have been the most powerful to me while researching human trafficking statistics are the stories of real people. Human trafficking is not just about statistics; it’s also about compelling stories of real people, mostly women and children, that must be told.

Consider the following story of a modern-day Harriet Tubman:

Somaly Mam, a Cambodian orphan, never knew her parents. She doesn’t even know how old she is. She endured a miserable childhood of abuse at an orphanage, and was forced into marriage with an older man. Around the age of sixteen, she was sold to a brothel in Phnom Penh, where she was beaten, raped and abused by pimps and clients more times than she could count. When she finally escaped the brothel at age twenty-one after a friend’s murder, Mam vowed to devote the rest of her life to helping other sex slaves go free.

Since that day, Mam has aided the escape and recovery of sex trafficking victims in Cambodia, Laos and Vietnam through her nonprofit organizations, the European-based AFESIP (translated as “Acting for Women in Distressing Circumstances”) and the Somaly Mam Foundation, based in the U.S. As a speaker and activist, she shares her own story to publicize the important cause of ending sex trafficking, and works with government officials to lobby for the passage of anti-trafficking laws. Since escaping the brothel, Mam has helped more than 4,000 former sex slaves to go free in search of a better life.

(From the article “Five Former Slaves Who are Changing the World” available at divinecaroline.com).

As I’ve gained more knowledge and understanding about the problem of slavery in the world today, I’ve also recognized that I must cultivate in my life a sense of holy awareness. I so often find myself racing through life caught up in my routines, busy living my life and taking care of my family. I must look into the faces of those around me and confront the brokenness of this world. My prayer is that our society also would cultivate a life of holy awareness, allowing our interaction with others to remind us of the great brokenness of the world and the hope we find in Christ Jesus. And my prayer is also that God would continue to raise up a new generation of abolitionists who will not turn a blind eye to the cruelty and injustices being suffered by so many people around the world.

Look with mercy, gracious God, upon people everywhere who live with injustice, terror, disease and death as their constant companions. Rouse us from our complacency and help us to eliminate cruelty wherever it is found. Strengthen those who seek equality for all. Grant that everyone may enjoy a fair portion of the abundance of the earth; through your Son, Jesus Christ our Lord. Amen.

Unfortunately Karen’s story isn’t uncommon. She has since gone through One Parent + Kids (OP+K) at IBC and now works for Parenting Alone. “Every single aspect of my life changed. I realized how strong I really am, and I’m in a really good place now.”

“Divorce is not a disease; it’s a situation,” adds Karen, but it is a situation more and more parents are facing on a daily basis. Who are these single parents? You may have a neighbor,
a friend, a boss, a family member or you may be a single parent yourself. Some of these men and women are divorced, some were never married but have a family and a few are widows. What they all have in common is they are unexpectedly parenting their children by themselves; they are the walking wounded, wondering “where do I turn for help for myself and for my children?”

IBC offers two ministries for single parents: Parenting Alone and OP+K.

Parenting Alone is a non-profit where newly single parents who are in crisis mode receive practical help for six to nine months: parenting skills, budgeting, communication, free fun events, etc. On the other hand, OP+K provides a safe place for single parents to come together to learn life skills to successfully parent emotionally and spiritually healthy children. In a nutshell, single parents in need of immediate help with finances or custody battles go to Parenting Alone, and when they are ready to grow and heal in a community of people on the same single parent journey, OP+K provides a safe place for them and their children.

Walking that journey with single parents, are Michael and his wife, Dayna, who themselves have been divorced, remarried and have led OP+K together for the last 10 years. At the beginning of each OP+K, Michael quips, “I have got news for you; you’re being promoted, to CEO, CFO, head cook, chauffer and bread winner of your family whether you like it or not.” He and Dayna, have led OP+K together for the last 10 years and have had the privilege of seeing single parents gain the help and hope they need through this program—parents like Roni, Karen and Natosha.

As a single parent who has been through the program, Roni explains that as CEO of your family you are in charge and your kids are your priority, which means “you don’t get to badmouth your ex because of how it negatively affects your kids.” Because of OP+K graduate Karen’s commitment to this principle, her boys believe their parents are friends, despite the fact that they’re divorced.  And in a community like OP+K, other people care about you and encourage you when life gets hard. Single parent and graduate of OP+K Natosha shares, “OP+K helps you back up when you’ve fallen off track because when you see other people open themselves up for God to work in and through them, you know you can, too.” Although these three single moms all agreed there’s no new normal, they now have hope and a network of supportive friends.

This is a call to arms: Both ministries need help, specifically male volunteers — even teens or young adults — who can be positive role models for the kids and encourage their brothers and sisters in Christ. Will you take the risk to show up and see how God can use you?

Ashley Hinton is a clinical social worker whose summer obsession has been frozen yogurt, which is way better (and cheaper!) than Prozac^®.

No one can deny that my children are mine and I am theirs. We are every bit a “real” family. I am their “real” dad, my wife is their “real” mom, they are my “real” kids and they are all “real” brothers and sisters. Believe me, we have the ups and downs to prove it. Whether we fit someone else’s definition of “real” is not really my concern.

While all of this is true, it does not negate that my children are not “all mine.” I cannot lay exclusive claim to them. Each of them came to me with history — some of it known, much more of it unknown. They have a past that pre-dates me. Although I am not a part of that past, I do have the opportunity to embrace it and help them do the same.

I recently read a quote by Betty Jean Lifton that made me stop and think. She wrote, “For me, a real mother is one who recognizes and respects the whole identity of her child and does not ask him to deny any part of himself.” This is no less true for “real” fathers as well.

As I think about all of this, I have discovered the reality that my children are on a journey. It is a lifelong journey that involves all of them; it is a physical, emotional, relational and spiritual journey. It is a journey to discover who they are and whose they are, and there are no shortcuts — at least none worth taking. It is a journey they must travel; I cannot travel it for them. Neither can I plan every twist and turn or determine where it will ultimately lead.

The only thing I can do is choose to travel the journey with them, often following their lead and compassionately guiding them when needed. Along the way they may lead me through rocky places of confusion, valleys of grief and loss and even into dark places of pain. But if, by God’s grace, I will embrace their journey as my own, I will experience one of life’s greatest blessings — the deep and lasting connection that comes from making each step of their journey an inextricable part of my own, and their destination our shared fate.

I cannot ignore that there are many things that can keep me from joining my children on their journeys. My fears; my own pain and loss; my lack of confidence in knowing what to say, when to say it and how; and the sometimes subtle sense that I am in competition with my children’s past. All of these things and more seem to whisper to me to run the other way. Yet I’ve come to believe that would require me to deny part of who they are and thus part of who we are as a family. I cannot do that if I am “real” and want to become even more so.

The difficult reality is that if it weren’t for the difficult realities of my children’s past, we would not be the family we are today. I love who we are and who they are. I love all of each of them. So instead of running from these things, I want to choose to run toward them, hand in hand with my kids. By doing so I believe I have the opportunity to become even more “real” to them and to make the redemptive story that God is writing with our lives even more real.

As I think about becoming more “real” to my kids I am reminded of the exchange captured by Margery Williams in her children’s classic, The Velveteen Rabbit. The Rabbit wants to become a “real” rabbit, and early in the story it encounters the Skin Horse, a well worn and wise veteran toy in the nursery. Skin Horse offers the following insight to Rabbit — and to us —about what it means to become “real.”

“What is real?” asked the Rabbit one day, when they were lying side by side near the nursery fender, before Nana came to tidy the room. “Does it mean having things that buzz inside you and a stick-out handle?”

“Real isn’t how you are made,” said the Skin Horse. “It’s a thing that happens to you. When a child loves you for a long, long time, not just to play with, but REALLY loves you, then you become Real.”

“Does it hurt?” asked the Rabbit.

“Sometimes,” said the Skin Horse, for he was always truthful.
“When you are Real you don’t mind being hurt.”

“Does it happen all at once, like being wound up,” he asked,
“or bit by bit?”

“It doesn’t happen all at once,” said the Skin Horse. “You become. It takes a long time. That’s why it doesn’t often happen to people who break easily, or have sharp edges, or who have to be carefully kept. Generally, by the time you are Real, most of your hair has been loved off, and your eyes drop out and you get loose in the joints and very shabby. But these things don’t matter at all, because once you are Real you can’t be ugly, except to people who don’t understand.”

“I suppose you are Real?” said the Rabbit. And then he wished he had not said it, for he thought the Skin Horse might be sensitive. But the Skin Horse only smiled.

“The Boy’s Uncle made me Real,” he said. “That was a great many
years ago; but once you are Real you can’t become unreal again. It lasts for always.”

I know that I am very “real” to my kids, but I also know that they need me to become even more “real” to them by joining them on their journeys. It won’t always be easy nor will it happen quickly. But having become “real” I can never become unreal. It lasts for always, and that makes it all the more worth it.

Michael Monroe and his wife Amy have four children and lead Tapestry, IBC’s adoption and foster care ministry. This article was originally published in the February 2010 issue of Adoption Today.

It’s like that with a lot of things: relationships, marriage, parenting, your e-mail inbox, etc…

You get the picture.

The college kids here at the camp where I work sometimes ask me how many e-mails I typically receive or send in a day. I tell them it’s well over 50 (not counting tweets, Facebook messages or IMs). I’m sure it was a great deal more than that when I lived in the Dallas area. That always blows their minds. Kids these days, they just don’t understand e-mail.

Because so much of what I do flows through e-mail, it’s more than just communication. My inbox also functions as my to-do list. My job requires me to be out on my feet a great deal. But, when I do get the chance to sit at my computer for an extended time to catch up, the first thing I’m going to do is start working through that inbox. And, generally speaking, once I get through it, or I should say if I get through it, I have the sense that I have at least caught up with the immediate things I need to address.

Herein lies the problem. I just checked, and as I write, there are exactly 132 e-mails sitting in my inbox. That’s actually low. Last week I had a few hours to work in the office, and worked through more than a month’s worth of build-up. At the start of that project, there were over 500 e-mails in my inbox. And here’s the kicker: all of those were things I really did need to address. If not, they wouldn’t still be in there. And, whenever I have that many to work through, I inevitably come across a few that are “past their expiration date.” That is to say, that people were looking to me to answer a question or deal with an issue that is no longer relevant. I was just too busy to get back to responding. E-mail apologies are called for. Some of you have gotten one or more of those types of e-mails from me. Sorry about that.

Here’s the deal. I breathe e-mail like air. Even living on a remote mountainside in Colorado, on the outskirts of a town with a population of less than 500 people, with a job that has me running around all day, I take in and send out over 50 e-mails a day. And that’s still not enough. I still need to carve out time that is set apart to keep up with it all. And I still haven’t quite figured out how to do that.

There was one period of time, however, when I did. A number of years ago, when we were living in Lewisville, Texas, our kids attended a school up in Denton twice a week to supplement our homeschooling program. Once a week, it was my job to take the kids to school and bring them home. They were there for about three hours. It was just too short of a period of time to make it worth it for me to drive back to Lewisville or Irving while they were in class, but enough time that I needed to figure out how to get something productive done while I was there. So, I found a little coffee shop that had wireless Internet and determined that each week, for those three hours, I would work through my e-mails.

And it worked. This is the only period of time I can honestly say that I kept up. I had a healthy inbox for a whole semester!

Of course, I could have carved out the same three hours sitting in my office at church, or at home, but I didn’t. There were too many other options. Something about the space-in-time created by the constraints of that situation made it happen. It had become sacred space.

If you think that seems like a strange word to use in this context, a look at one of the general definitions of the word “sacred” on dictionary.com may help: “secured against violation, infringement, etc.”

A look at the full definition of the word yields the idea of dedication, reverence, and something that is set apart or protected for a specific, worthwhile purpose. That’s what the three hours in that coffee shop were for me. E-mail sacred space. And it worked.

Same thing for those who have disciplined themselves to work out at the gym, or go for a run at certain times each week. It’s dedicated, sacred space. And, if I’ve learned anything from my e-mail situation, it is that it doesn’t just happen. You have to create the space yourself. And you have to protect it. Otherwise it’s not really sacred.

Now let’s apply this to our spiritual health. Like my 50-plus e-mails a day, many of us think about God and regularly pray in the daily flow of our lives. Especially before a job interview, or a big test. But, this is not enough to really keep us spiritually healthy, any more than the occasional walk to the mall from a remote parking spot on a busy shopping day is going to keep you physically fit if you are spending most of your time sitting in an office. It’s just not enough.

This is where the rich, historical practice of spiritual discipline comes in. We all need to set aside sacred space to engage with God through the Scriptures, prayer and meditation. And I don’t think that physical space is necessarily the fundamental issue for us in our contemporary lives. I think the space we are most in need of for our spiritual health is time. But the two are really inseparable.

Here are just a few ideas:

Take walks. The physical constraints of your route — on the trail, in your neighborhood, around your office building, or even at the mall (not to shop, just to walk) — will create the protected time. Get a dog you’ll need to walk to help force you to do this if it will help. Use the time for prayer and meditation. Get prayers or Scripture readings on your iPod to listen to while you walk.

Got a long commute? Figure out how to protect it and make it a dedicated time for your spiritual health. Take the radio out of your car if you need to. Gasp! Or plug in your iPod and listen along with recorded Scripture readings or prayers. But remember, silence is a spiritual discipline too.

Find a local park, church, or other location out of your normal routine and set aside some time there on a regular basis. Turn off your phone. Take your Bible or prayer book.

The list of resources you might use in addition to your Bible is extensive. Chatter has recommended many over the years, but a simple Internet search will quickly yield numerous options as well. I won’t make any specific recommendations here. I’ll leave that to you.

But, remember. It doesn’t matter how many shelves of cool devotional prayer books you have if you have not created the space in your life to actually use them.

It is always a challenge to form a new habit that is out of your normal pattern, but you can do it. Eventually, if you stick with it, you’ll not know how to do without it. And you will find that God will become more real to you in the day-to-day and overall direction of your life than you ever thought possible.

You’ll find yourself fighting to protected it! It will become sacred space.

WARNING: The material in this article is explicit and disturbing, and may be inappropriate for some readers.

What is Sex Trafficking?

Human trafficking is a form of modern-day slavery that affects both Americans and foreigners. Women and children are most at risk. Texas has become a hub for the international crime because of its interstate highways, bus stations, airports, shopping malls, large number of sexually oriented businesses, as well as its shared border with Mexico.

According to Texas-based advocacy group Children At Risk, it is estimated that one out of every three kids on the street is lured into sex trafficking within the first 48 hours away from home, indicating that at a minimum, 2,000 youth, age 10-16, are at risk of being trafficked in or from Dallas/Fort Worth each year.

The Trafficking Victims Protection Act of 2000 defines sex trafficking as “the recruitment, harboring, transportation, provision, or obtaining of a person for the purpose of a commercial sex act” (“commercial” meaning, the giving or receiving of anything of value — i.e. money, drugs, shelter, food, clothes, etc. — to any person in exchange for a sex act). The law further defines severe forms of sex trafficking as “a commercial sex act induced by force, fraud, or coercion, or in which the person induced to perform such acts has not attained 18 years of age.” In other words, by our human trafficking laws, any child found in a commercial sex act has been “trafficked” by definition.

There are many cases of homeless youth in our city engaging in “survival sex” to secure food, housing, transportation, and other items just to survive on the streets. In the absence of a trafficker/pimp selling the youth, the perpetrator paying for the sex act with food, a bed, or a ride becomes by definition “the trafficker” and the situation is defined as “sex trafficking.” Most importantly, the child is defined as a “victim” of domestic minor sex trafficking.

Despite the connotations of the word, trafficking does not require proof of physical movement of the person. Thus, a person can be a victim of sex trafficking without ever leaving his/her home. Trafficking is a crime of exploitation.

Minor sex trafficking is a burgeoning criminal enterprise in America. Gangs are turning to prostituting minors as a less risky source of revenue than drug trafficking or other crimes. Traffickers of foreign victims into the U.S. are finding local, American children easier to recruit and sell without the difficulties of crossing borders. Local communities are being adversely affected with the loss of hundreds of thousands of children to this victimization.

Source: Taken from the Shared Hope International report on Domestic Minor Sex Trafficking.

“Is this not the fast which I choose, to loosen the bonds of wickedness, to undo the bands of the yoke, and to let the oppressed go free, and break every yoke? Is it not to divide your bread with the hungry, and bring the homeless poor into the house, when you see the naked, to cover him; and not to hide yourself from the needs of your own flesh and blood?”  Isaiah 58: 6-7

Darla’s Story

Darla’s mother was addicted to drugs. She never knew her father. She was removed from her mother’s home when she was very young and was shuffled from one foster home to another. A relative of one of Darla’s foster families began sexually abusing her, convincing her she had used up all of the foster families in the system, and threatening that if she told anyone, she’d wind up on the streets. Darla turned to drugs and alcohol to numb the pain of yet another year of sexual abuse, and finally ran away at the age of 14.

Within 72 hours of running away, a pimp approached Darla and the usual process of “grooming” began. He promised her a stable life and things she’d never known before: that he’d care for her, that he would provide the things she’d never had — safety, security, nice things of her own. And then the nightmare began. Darla was beaten regularly, locked in a closet with no food or water for days, and raped repeatedly; all common tactics of physical and psychological “warfare” that results in complete submission. When the pimp turned Darla out onto the streets to begin “work,” she was too afraid to run away. If she wasn’t where she was supposed to be when he came back, she knew he would find her and kill her. He’d said so many times.

Over time, other girls were added to “the family,” and Darla became responsible for showing them the ropes. She would sometimes have to participate in their “punishment” if they defied the rules or disrespected “Daddy.”

This went on for ten years.

One night while working, Darla was brutally raped, beaten and stabbed. She lost four teeth in the attack. At the hospital, her pimp decided it would be too expensive to get her back in shape for business. After all, he had younger girls that made more money than she did. And that’s how Darla got out of the “business” — her pimp abandoned her in the hospital after she failed to bring home her quota.

Darla made it on her own for a while, making a living out of a hotel room where she lived. When she got pregnant, she decided she couldn’t continue the life she’d been living. That’s when Darla came to New Friends New Life for help. She says it took six months before she’d really trust anybody there and kept waiting for the “strings attached” part to kick in. Darla finally realized it wasn’t a trick, that there weren’t any strings attached except things like going to counseling, meeting with the other women on Wednesday nights, meeting with her Advocate, and being responsible with the money she received for living expenses. But those were strings that brought freedom instead of bondage.

Today, Darla has a beautiful 2-year-old daughter, has gotten her GED and has been certified as a nurse assistant. And, she’s proud of herself. In the fall, she’d like to enroll in college to pursue her nursing degree. Darla has realized that her past does not have to dictate her future, and that circumstances beyond her control led her down a path she would not have chosen for herself. And, last spring, Darla trusted Jesus with her life. It came to her one day that he loved her, accepted her, forgave her and had provided for her — all because of her experience through the ministry of New Friends New Life. These were women who loved and served Jesus, and who in turn had loved and served her. She saw him through his people, and now she is one of them.

There is Hope

There are many local organizations committed to fighting the crisis of sexual exploitation. For more information on human trafficking and ways to get involved, visit:

New Friends New Life
newfriendsnewlife.org

Traffick911
traffick911.org

Mosaic Family Services, Inc.
mosaicservices.org

The Letot Center
dallascouty.org

And, watch for ways IBC will be addressing the sex trafficking crisis in future issues of Chatter.

The word mentoring, or using the words mentor or mentee, is kind of funny to me. It might be because they are very formal words, and I am not a formal person. Or maybe because they make me feel like I should have a head of gray hair and mounds of wisdom to impart. Honestly, I don’t have either. (And hopefully never will have gray hair thanks to the beautiful invention of hair color.)

Deciding to jump into the mentoring process was a big step for me. I don’t like to do things half-heartedly, and when I commit, I like to give 100%. The kids that live in West Dallas have enough flaky people in their lives. They want and need a consistent presence. They don’t need another person who will walk out of their lives when the going gets tough or when it’s not convenient or just because it is hard.

Mentoring is a process.

I have to be honest that I am not a process-lovin’ person nor do I long for the “journey” that so many of you people out there passionately explore (unless it involves travel — then I am in!). I don’t even own proper “journey” shoes. I own flip-flops.

I see a need.

I meet it.

I move on.

I look for the end of the road and how problems can be solved quickly and effectively. Sometimes this happens in life but most of the time it doesn’t. However, God is in the process. Our lives are a process, a journey. We don’t get perfect overnight.

And this is how it has been with my Larrishelle.

After three years, she still may be failing some of her classes.

She might have gotten suspended several times in school this year.

BUT…

She is talking more and asking questions about life, about Jesus, about how I deal with things. And she is sharing more of what is going on in her life. In the last few months, we have had a lot of good times and good conversations. I get to share how I have dealt with issues in my life, and I get to counsel her on how to deal with things in her life as best I can. I get to be that person I hope she will turn to no matter what. I get to be Jesus to her and show her unconditional love, encourage her to grow and live and be who she is created to be. Sometimes it is a burden, sometimes I don’t want to go hang with her, sometimes I don’t have answers, and sometimes I just want to be selfish and live my own life. Sometimes I just want to curl up in my blanket and have my own issues each day and not worry about hers.

But I am reminded that Jesus calls us to reach out to those in need. He wants us to be his hands and feet. Not just to help people so we can check it off on our good list and get an extra jewel in heaven. No, this is his heart, his passion, and his mission: that all may come to know him in a greater way. And when we help those like Larrishelle — those who think that the only dependable things in the world are the U.S. Post Office and Hot Cheetos^® — he uses that to transform us even more into his own image.

Though I am “mentoring” Larrishelle, she is teaching me so much more than I am teaching her. (What I did not expect was to grow in my dance moves also. While I never claimed to be Michael Jackson, I feel like I do have some moves. Larrishelle always just shakes her head and laughs at my white girl moves. She keeps me humble. But as I tell her loudly over her laughter, it doesn’t matter if you can dance, just that you dance anyway.)

Please pray about becoming a mentor. Pray about who your Larrishelle will be. There are so many kids waiting just to hang out with someone cool like you. It turns out you don’t even need the proper shoes, and you might even learn how to dance better.

Backpacks for Mercy Street

IBC has the opportunity to be a part of Mercy Street’s Back to School Backpack Giveaway. If you would like to participate on August 21, please contact Jen at mercystreet@irvingbible.org.

Sliding upside down in your car on a major freeway in rush hour traffic is an interesting sensation. Those seven seconds become elastic as the brain catapults into an overload of mental input. There is the dizzying array of lights from hundreds of headlights surrounding you while the sparks from your roof light up the road like fireworks. The band-saw sound of hard concrete sheering the metal and plastic off your vehicle grates the nerves. And the unforgettable smell of burning metal and plastic sticks to your nostrils like crazy glue. At that same moment, your emotions become numb in self-defense; each victim enters their own personal shock.

Unfortunately, this is not the first time I’ve experienced this.

Bye Bye Bumper

My first wreck was in 1992, a double head-on collision in a snowstorm. Yes. Double. I was hit head-on then spun around and was hit again by another vehicle. Our family spent the next six weeks getting to know the Des Moines hospital staff. Almost exactly a year later, our family was t-boned by a guy who ran a red light going 70 mph. Cheryl, my wife, took the brunt of that hit and barely survived. The next ten years were quiet until a relatively slow drive through St. Louis in a major downpour where we hydroplaned and flipped over a few times. We found ourselves upside down in a tree that thankfully stopped us from landing in a flooded creek.

Last night was easy-going compared to the past accidents.

I was driving to the Stars hockey game alone in my Nissan Xterra SUV. It was about 7:15 p.m. Traffic on the three-lane road slowed to about 45 mph. I was getting close to my exit when a guy going well over 70 hit me from behind. The sensation was very similar to a roller coaster heading down its first big hill. Having the back of my vehicle picked up and flung forward left me with few options; I did not hit the brakes but just tried to maintain control. That’s when my Dukes of Hazzard trick came in handy: using the VW bug in front of me as a ramp, I drove up his driver’s side with my right wheels. (The driver later said it was weird seeing the undercarriage of my car right next to him. He thinks I might need an alignment and that I might be leaking a bit of oil.)

This was enough to send me careening down the highway, sliding on the driver’s side of my vehicle.

(Driving sideways sounds cooler than it actually is.)

A second later, I was upside down heading south on I-35. Out of the corner of my eye, I could see the sparks of the metal on the concrete. It was pretty, in a life-threatening sort of way.

Very Clear View Now

Every person reacts differently to this sort of moment. I can only tell you how I reacted. Upside down for those three seconds, I said out loud, “It’s going to be ok.”

But my nonverbal thoughts would have sounded something like, “There is no way this can be happening again… Going through insurance will be a pain in the butt… I am going to be late for the Stars game… I have an overwhelming sense of peace every time I come to the edge of eternity and I find that quite interesting… I really like this car and now I am going to have to find a new one… look at the pretty sparks, oooooo…Didn’t this happen to the Blues Brothers?… I wonder if someone is going to hit me… I hope that if I am going to die, it will be instantly… Being upside down is disorienting… How did I get back upright?… Cheryl is going to kill me… But it wasn’t my fault… I want to hug my family.

Rear Driver’s Side

Before I could think anything else, I hit something new — I think it was the metal guard rail — and the Xterra bounced back into an upright position, stopped in the middle lane and faced the proper direction. I really have no idea how this happened; physics has never been one of my strong subjects. Stopped in the middle of the highway, I simply waited to get whacked by another car. But none came. They had all stopped to look at my VW “ramp,” now dead about 300 yards behind me. The guy who hit me was parked on the other side of the three-lane highway, probably in the process of emptying his bowels. My car was still running so I pulled it off the road.

The whole driver’s side of my car was sheered down to the silver metal. I lost my bumper and both my front and back windows. The roof of the car looked like a grand piano had been dropped on it from a tenth-story window. But I was weirdly calm. After four life-threatening accidents like this, you stay pretty stable. No shakes or nerves. I just jumped into making sure everyone was okay and gathering my valuables from the car and off the highway where many of them had been scattered. The police were there in a minute and thankfully no one was hurt. One officer looked at the car and asked who was driving. When I told him it had been me, he shined his light on my face and said, “You should be leaving here in an ambulance. You are one lucky man.”

I knew luck had nothing to do with it.

Not Designed for Roof Driving

I continued to the Stars game because my ride home was meeting me there. What stuck with me the rest of the evening was the smell — the smell of
twisted metal, burning plastic and splattered oil. It never leaves my brain. It conjures up all the other accidents at the same time. Twenty-four hours later,
I am sore but alive.

I learned a long time ago how fleeting life is and how quickly our candles can
be snuffed out. After recovering from my first near-fatal crash in 1992, I determined to live life to the fullest and take nothing for granted. Then, I lost one of my brothers to a car accident in 2005. He was about the same age I was in my first accident. He died and I lived. I don’t try to understand the reasons. I just acknowledge the truth that because I am not promised tomorrow, I must try
to embrace every day as a gift. I have to hug the people I love, attempt to bring joy and peace to those I see daily, and hope to make some sort of difference in the world.

If we allow it, sliding upside down every once in a while may just turn our lives right side up again.

CAN YOU EVEN BEAR THE EXCITEMENT OF IT ALL?

It’s not that we’ve started training him in earnest. Yet. After all, he is still recovering from a major move and from being evicted from his crib into a bed the size of Texas, where getting into it — and remaining inside — has become a spectacle of toddler Olympics. Not to mention the impending birth of his sister, which will hopefully be mere days away when this publication goes to print. All very traumatizing to a person who has only recently been referring to himself in the first person.

No, we have not yet morphed into drill sergeants about going sans diaper, but we have been diligently weakening Drew’s defenses against the idea should he prove hesitant, or, more likely, downright militant (in the good Irish-Lebanese tradition from which he is descended). We’re wearing him down like a city under siege, and then we will attack.

But not until November.

All this looming on the horizon reminds me that much looms on our collective horizon as August arrives: school starting, fall descending soon (in theory if not in Fahrenheit), the holidays making cameo appearances in our conversations, the dream of not mowing our lawns materializing — a small speck in the distance, but growing larger — and of course, the sweet end of swimsuit season and blessed advent of fall fashion. Fashion that will not be wearable in this heat until Christmas. But still.

And it’s at this terrifying-yet-exciting moment of anticipation and angst that I leave you, fair reader, at least temporarily. See, I’m having a baby. Like, soon. Like, tomorrow. And try as I might, there is no really effective way to edit Chatter from the confines of Harris Methodist; much less from the hormonal fog that envelopes your head and plugs your nostrils and ear canals for the first weeks and months of newborndom. I might spontaneously combust, go crazy and join the circus (because who knows but that the upheaval will create a new Bearded Lady), or more likely, sit around and cry for six weeks until she finally sleeps for five hours straight. And then Day Two of second time parenthood will have begun.

(Trust me, you don’t want me around.)

But never fear, for I leave you with the skilled red pen of Kristy Alpert, our new interim editor. Kristy is a former IBCer, former D Magazine editor, and all-round Chatter fan and cool gal. (I hear she even has a HOLSTER for her red pen, which is pretty fancy and hi-falutin’ if you ask me.) She and her hubby are living in Portland, OR right now where she freelances writing and editing. Lucky for us, Chatter knows no geographical bounds and will be in the best of hands until my return. So send Kristy a fruit basket or something as a welcome — after you send me a bottle of progesterone to dull the crazy, of course.

And if you want to keep up with me in the meantime, check out my blog every Thursday at the Fort Worth Star-Telegram: www.mom2momdfw.com. Click on “Wet Behind the Ears” or the picture of the goofy-looking brunette. (Thus ends my shameless plug and I won’t ever say another word about it…until my next maternity leave.)

So.

Next time we meet, a lot will have changed. That’s true every month Chatter prints, of course, but this time — oh my! And really, I’ll miss you. I’ll miss Chatter. Producing Chatter is not unlike giving birth every month — with less blood-loss — but it’s especially fun because this “child” is born with a sense of humor, a sort-of sturdy spine, and most importantly, something to say. I also want to thank the designers who make Chatter so great every month and who will be towing a lot of slack while I’m gone: Dennis Cheatham, designer extraordinaire; and especially Josh Wiese, who is largely responsible for Chatter’s attractiveness, readability and flavor month in and month out. You make me look good, but you could make a monkey semi-attractive, unless that monkey was me dressed up like a monkey. Anyway. Thanks for everything.

And hey, it’s not like you are getting rid of me forever, as much as that idea may tempt and delight. In the immortal words of Elmo, “I’ll be back.”

Wait…Ah, forget it. I’m on vacation.

Peace until next time,

If you think that’s a cruel statement for a father to make during the peak of summer fun, you think correctly. But as it was the cruelest thing my dad ever said to me, I’ve let it slide all these years. Besides, he was right. It would only be a week or two later when the back-to-school ads for Toughskins, Trapper Keepers and other pseudo-implements of pseudo-education would break the joy of “A-Team” and “Manimal” reruns. Then the shopping would commence, new iron-on shirts would be purchased (the lone good thing about the encroaching internment) and before we knew it, we were back at the bus stop waiting for ol’ number 43 to rumble down Masterbrooke Drive.

You would think (yeah, you would think, wouldn’t you?) that I would’ve liked the return of school days, if for no other reason than that it heralded the arrival of Birthday Season. As in my birthday. Which is September 18 in case you’d like to get me a Triumph Bonneville (don’t tell my wife). Sure, I was always excited about my birthday. What kid isn’t, aside from that weird boy up the street who kept feeding Pop Rocks and Diet Rite cola to woodchucks? But I did not equate another school year with birthday bounty.

No, I reasoned that school should either wait until after my birthday to begin (yet before my brother’s birthday a week later), or I should be able to legally change my birth date to August. Of course, I also once believed the world was black and white before the 1950s, so my logic may have been a touch off.
Regardless, I was able to separate the two events in my mind: School bad, birthday good.

I don’t really even know why I disliked school so much. I was a good student. I rarely found myself on the wrong side of a shiv. And I only once ended up in a gang-related dance-off set to Wham tunes instead of Sondheim — the donnybrook abruptly ended when both sides decided no one wanted to wake up anybody before they went went. Perhaps my ambivalence towards primary and secondary education stemmed from my belief that I could’ve compressed the entire 13-year slog into about three. While I may have missed a certain amount of socialization following such a plan, anyone who knew me in my twenties or thirties (which is now) could tell you whatever socialization I did receive didn’t really take. My life is one long awkward stage.

But now that I’m on the far, far, far side of my school days (’87 thinks they’re cool! ’88 will never rule! When ’89 is dead and gone, 1990 will party on!), I generally can’t wait for school to resume. There’s just something about knowing book-learnin’ is afoot that puts a jingle in my jangle. Or, more precisely, my iJangle 4.0.

I’ll no longer have to fear the roving bands of 12-year-old trash can turner-overers that stalk my alley. The malls won’t be swollen with gaggles of inappropriately bedazzled, hot-panted young’uns. I won’t have to worry about speed traps because the coppers will be gunning (only with radar, unfortunately) texters in school zones.

But I also look forward to a new school year because, as a person of fatherly age, it is now my turn to harass the youthy youths of today. What, with their pants on the ground and hippity hop and spray-on tans and “Twilight” sagas and flibberty-gee, they’re ripe for the taunting. Also, they need to stay off my lawn. Seriously, kids, it’s chock full of fire ants. And pressure-sensitive sprinkler heads. That shoot lasers. Tiny lasers mounted atop even more fire ants. Honest.

My eldest children, highly advanced though they are, will not be allowed into the kindergarten until 2013 (and into the Biebergarten never), at which time they will learn the true reason why I’ve been feeding them paste since birth. A reason I will not disclose here lest they read the secret before the appointed time and set in the motion the rise of the Third Cyrus. They will also learn why dad hasn’t been allowed to talk to the neighbor kids since 2009.

It might have something to do with honey-seared locusts.

I knew before having Cal that the change looming over me was one for which I was unable to adequately prepare. Having a child is like language training by immersion. You don’t really learn a language if you don’t travel to the country and immerse yourself in it.

You can’t learn how to be a parent unless you do it.

So I did all this planning and preparing for my natural childbirth, breastfeeding and sleep scheduling. I planned for 9 whole months! The natural childbirth didn’t pan out. Oh, I labored naturally for a long, long, long time. But Cal wasn’t having it. He felt that life was quite comfy at a -1 station and no amount of coaxing from me, my midwife, or forceps was going to change his mind. So I went from a drug-free birth to a C-section. Nine months of planning went down the drain in less than a day.

And I don’t even want to talk about the sleep scheduling. Let’s just say that, in my zeal to feel prepared, I read books that made the most sense to me as a non-parent. They were books about feeding and sleeping on a schedule. However, my child made it abundantly clear that he did not care about what those books had to say. Breastfeeding was also a challenge and my son was hungry and crying all the time.

I started in a bad place: recovering emotionally (and physically) from a birth experience gone awry. I moved forward, only to find all of my plans not working. And I was really tired. So I was struggling to feel thankful. I cried a lot. I cried every day, multiple times a day, actually. Cal cried a lot too. It was a lot for me to handle, especially with all of the hormones raging around. I even struggled with the fact that I was struggling so much. I mean, shouldn’t this be one of the happiest times of my life? Shouldn’t I be thankful that I could even get pregnant in the first place? Don’t get me wrong, we were beyond happy for a healthy baby and for all the richness it brings, but I couldn’t help the fact that I was mostly miserable. I felt alone. And did I mention I was tired?

After a frantic e-mail to a friend in which I wrote out all of my issues and asked her to please confirm or deny if I was going crazy, she suggested that I join a new mom’s group. Once a week for the next six weeks, I drove across town to a church where I sat in a room for two hours. I was surrounded by other brand spankin’ new moms. We brought our babies with us and fed our babies and changed diapers right there in the room. If the babies started to lose it, there were some sweet women present who would hold our babies and try and quiet them down for us. There were moms who had home births, drug-free births, epidurals and C-sections. There were moms who breastfed and moms who formula-fed. There were moms who really did feel like this was one of the happiest times of their lives and there were moms who couldn’t get through a meeting without breaking down in tears. There was practical advice on everything from how to take care of our babies to how to take care of our marriages. There was also spiritual advice and prayer: we would share prayer requests and struggles with each other.

Last and most certainly not least, there was gratitude. Each week we had to share something we needed prayer for (the easy part), and we had to share something we were thankful for. Some of the girls were thankful for so much! Some of us were in tears and in need of much prayer every time. But we had to say something we were thankful for. We had to. And that exercise in gratitude changed my life.

Each week, as I sleepily struggled through with Cal, I started noticing things. “Oh, that is what I will be thankful for next week! What a sweet time that was with him sleeping on my chest.” But the great thing is that once I started looking for my thankful moments, I started seeing more than I ever realized I had.

I was thankful for so much.

For starters, Cal had such a sweet spirit, and while I wanted him to sleep without having to be on top of me, I knew those moments were fleeting and that I would wish to have them back again one day (I already do). And he had the softest, sweetest-smelling head! And every now and then, most likely out of sheer exhaustion, he would take an unexpected, incredibly lengthy nap! And those sleep scheduling books? I was thankful to be out from under their black and white, “my-way-or-the-highway” sentiments.

And looking back, I have realized that being grateful has always changed me. It’s those moments when you can finally come to grips with what you have — and honestly admit that it is enough — that are so liberating. Those are the moments when you start truly living.

Are you an expectant first-time mom? Would you consider joining our group for first-time moms? If your first child will be 6 months or younger on
September 30, we would love to have you join us.

Square One, IBC’s community for first time moms, will meet for 6 weeks starting September 30 from 10 a.m.-noon.

Square One meets for 6 Thursdays starting September 30, 10 a.m.–Noon

Square One is for moms and their first baby up to 6 months of age. Babies attend with their moms.

To register, contact Sara Taylor at sarabeth2@me.com.

There is no registration fee.