From everything I’ve researched and read (and admittedly I’m not a genealogist, so I could be completely wrong), the first Spooners to arrive in America landed at Plymouth in 1637. Ann Spooner (born in Nottinghamshire, England, in 1598) arrived with her young sons William (my ancestor, age 16 at the time) and Thomas (age 14).

Ann was a widow, her husband John having died in 1628. They were part of the early Puritan movement that left England in protest of the Church of England in 1608-1610 and settled in Holland. Born in Buckingham, England, in 1594, John took up the trade of ribbonmaker once in Holland. (Many of the Puritans worked in the textile industry, which was extremely difficult labor.) John was in the same trade as early American settler Jonathan Brewster, son of Mayflower passenger and Pilgrim leader and preacher William Brewster, and John and Jonathan were often partners in various transactions. John, a widower himself who lost his first wife Susanna in 1616, married Ann Peck — a fellow Pilgrim from England — later that year, and they had two sons, William and Thomas, both born in Leiden.

In 1637, Ann and her sons boarded a ship for the Plymouth Colony. It’s not clear exactly which ship they came over on — there were quite a few ships arriving in Massachusetts from London at the time as the Pilgrims began flocking to the new colonies — but the first record of William on this side of the ocean was on March 27, 1637. Ann, a widow with two young boys, was undoubtedly very poor when the three of them arrived in Plymouth, and William came over as an indentured servant of a well-to-do citizen named John Holmes of New Plymouth. Indentured servitude was a common practice at the time, an arrangement whereby the servant agreed to work for his master without pay for a set period of time in exchange for transportation, food, and lodging. It was likely the only way William could’ve afforded to make his journey to America.

After arriving in Plymouth, Ann and Thomas settled in Salem (yes, the same one where the Salem Witch Trials were held in the 1690s), while William was transferred to Colchester, in Essex County, and then to New Plymouth. Typical of the time, William had very little formal education, but as an apprentice to John Holmes, he was considered to be a faithful and competent steward and was entrusted with the administration of his master’s estate and the custody of his children. In August 1643 he was also mentioned as one of “all the males that are able to beare arms, from xvi years old to 60 years with in the several townships.” On June 7, 1653, William was put forth for consideration to be set free from his servitude, and a year later was officially declared free. About the same time, William was appointed Surveyor of Highways, and he also served on the Grand Enquest in 1657 and 1666.

William married Elizabeth Partridge (born ca. 1622 in England) in 1642. They had one son, John S. Spooner, born in 1644 in Plymouth. Elizabeth died in 1648, and William remarried a few years later to Hannah Pratt (born in 1630 in Plymouth) in Dartmouth, Massachusetts. He and Elizabeth had five children: Isaac (1652-1709), Sarah (1653-1720), William (1654-1735), Samuel (1654-1739), and Martha (1657-1717). I descended from Samuel.

William and his family resided in Plymouth until 1660, when they moved to the settlement of Ascushnet in the Dartmouth purchase. He held land in his own name and interest in the purchase. His land and grants made to his sons and grandson were situated near “The-Head-of-the-River” northeast of modern-day New Bedford, Massachusetts. He and his sons built the first mill in Dartmouth, which is located in what is now the village of Ascushnet, and he died on March 8, 1683/1684, in Dartmouth.

Over the years, the Spooners would migrate to Albany, New York, and then to Ohio before reaching Texas shortly after the Civil War. And that’s where I’m from, a proud Texan, but also thankful for my Pilgrim heritage.

Happy Thanksgiving!

Previously:
Thankful for the Pilgrims
Red, white, and blue states
Remembering my grandfather

I decided to move to a new web hosting company after my old one kept going down. Every day. Multiple times a day. Now granted, I don’t get a lot of traffic here, and most likely no one but me noticed the outages, but it really ticked me off. I mean, if I’m gonna pay for a service, I kinda expect it to work. That’s not too much to ask is it?

So everything’s been moved over, and as far as I can tell, it seems to be working fine. There may be a few kinks that still need to be ironed out, but I think we’re good for the most part. The new host seems to be a lot faster, too, which is nice.

It’s hard to believe I’ve had this blog for almost four years. And actually, I’ve had the domain since 1998. The first iteration of tindog.com was a really bad personal home page built with FrontPage 98. How bad was it? Well, the fact that it was built with FrontPage should give you a clue. And I think I used Comic Sans for the font. And there might’ve been a picture of Mao Tse-Tung on it (for some unknown reason).

The next version of the site came around 2000 and was a sort of catch-all not-quite-a-blog website built with Dreamweaver 3.0. A definite improvement but still horrendous. The idea was to have different sections for news, music and movie reviews, miscellaneous downloads, and a blog-type page called the Coffee Bar. (Which is where the “coffeehouse” idea for this version came from, by the way.)

That site lasted for about a year before I shut it down and moved on. I had another blog on Blogger for a while in 2005-2006, but it got to be primarily political and I burned out on it. Ready to start over, I started this one on WordPress.com in December 2007 and then moved it to a self-hosted version in July 2009.

It’s weird going back through four years of posts. I’ve never really had anything specific that I wanted to focus on here, choosing to write about basically whatever was on my mind. Often that veered back into politics, but I’m pretty much over that now. Lately, I’ve tended to write more about my faith, and it’s those posts I think I’m most proud of. Not because they were well written but because they usually end up being more personal and genuine.

So what’s next? I don’t know. More of the same most likely. Whether that’s a good thing or not is up for debate, I guess. But honestly, I’ve enjoyed writing here even when no one else reads it. So as long as the server stays up, that’s what I’ll keep doing.

Previously:
Quitter
One thing
Who are you following?

I grew up in Lubbock, Texas, home of Buddy Holly, cotton, and endless miles of flat dirt. Which means I also grew up as a Texas Tech fan. Some of my fondest childhood memories are of going to the Tech games with my grandparents. My Papa would always wear his red and black cowboy boots, and I’d cross my fingers and hope the Saddle Tramps would throw a little red football my way. Then when it got cold, we’d huddle under a blanket and drink hot chocolate out of a Thermos and ooh and ahh over the Goin’ Band from Raiderland. On a field trip once, we got to run out onto the field at Jones Stadium, and it was like a dream come true.

But when I was in junior high, we moved to the DFW Metroplex, and I soon discovered that Red Raider fans were practically non-existent outside of West Texas. Most people were either loved Texas or Texas A&M, and over the years, my allegiance to Tech waned in favor of the Longhorns.

It’s important to point out, though, that even then, I wasn’t really a big fan of any sports, college or otherwise. Yeah, I liked sports, but I didn’t pay much attention to them, preferring Star Wars, comic books, or any other nerdy endeavor to football or basketball. (My dad once tried to get me excited about baseball cards. To this day, I still don’t understand the appeal of them.)

It wasn’t until late into high school and into college that I started to get interested in sports, and it wasn’t until after college that my love of college football really took off. (Of course, I don’t think it helped that I went to the University of Texas at Arlington, the only college I know of that has a marching band but no football team.) Late bloomer or not, though, today I’m a college football junkie and a die-hard Longhorns fan.

But it’s not just Texas that I root for now.

In the last couple of years, I’ve gotten hooked on the TCU Horned Frogs, a team I’ve always liked going back to the days of the Southwest Conference but never really paid much attention to. Part of my new-found admiration, of course, is due to their rise as a football powerhouse under Coach Gary Patterson. And part of it is due to my rediscovery of the city of Fort Worth. I worked in Fort Worth a while back but it wasn’t until we moved into the city limits a few years ago that I really began to think of it as my home. And how can you not root for the home team, especially one with such a Cinderella story?

Until Thursday, that dual affection for both Texas and TCU was perfectly acceptable, seeing as how since the breakup of the SWC in 1994, they’ve been in separate conferences and rarely play each other. It was perfectly fine to wear my TCU purple while flashing a spirited “Hook ‘Em Horns” to a fellow Longhorns fan. But all that changed when news broke that the Big 12 had invited the Frogs to join their conference, thus reuniting them with UT and causing a potentially embarrassing conflict of interest. Suddenly, I was faced with a serious dilemma: Do I have to choose one team over the other? And if so, where do my true allegiances lie?

It’s not an easy question. There are those that would say that you can only really be loyal to one team, and if you didn’t go to that school, you aren’t even worthy of wearing its colors. Which again, creates an immediate problem for those of us that didn’t have a team to root for. I guess I could say that since UT Arlington is part of the UT system, I’m sorta justified in bleeding burnt orange. But then I could say that I should stand behind the home team, which is of course outsized by Texas in every possible way except for the cost of tuition. I’ve always been a champion of the underdog, and TCU, despite its recent successes, is the epitome of an athletic underdog.

But the truth of the matter is, I don’t wanna choose. I don’t wanna stop throwing up a “Hook ‘Em Horns” any time I feel like it or tagging half my tweets with “#GoFrogs”. I don’t wanna trade my purple or burnt orange in for a single shade of collegiate attire. Why can’t I love them both equally (albeit for different reasons), even if this time next year they’ll be facing off against each other in a Big 12 conference game? After all, I may not be as enthusiastic about the Red Raiders as I once was, but I’ve never stopped liking them (although I always hated Mike Leach). Heck, I even like Baylor!

Does that make me a sports hypocrite, a fair-weather fan instead of a lifelong devotee? Perhaps, I don’t know. But at the end of the day, I really don’t care.

I say, Go Frogs, Hook ‘Em Horns, and hooray for college rivalries reborn.

Previously:
That awkward moment your daughter says she wants to go to Texas A&M
College football realignment? Done
The future of the Big 12 and how to stop it
…And win they did

As a father I’ve tried to prepare for the delicate, difficult, and even sometimes embarrassing questions that my kids will inevitably ask. Ask me anything related to religion, morality, or the human anatomy, and while I may not have all the answers, I’m at least not surprised to hear the question. But nothing — and I mean nothing — could’ve prepared me for the question Megan asked me last night:

“Daddy, what would you do if I went to Texas A&M?”

After I regained consciousness, I explained as sweetly as I could that I would have to disown her but that I would be absolutely heartbroken about it.

OK, I didn’t really tell her I’d disown her. But is it that unreasonable to ask that your first-born child change her last name before moving off to college? I don’t think it is.

Clearly I have failed as a parent to properly educate her on the ways of the Texas Aggies. How smart, well-grounded young men and women move to College Station and become brainwashed into the Cult of the 12th Man. One day they’re well-mannered, intelligent adults, the next they’re shaving their heads, building structurally unsafe bonfires, and “Whooping” every five minutes. And then when they get older, they have little Aggie babies with maroon diapers emblazoned with a broken longhorn logo and “Saw ‘Em Off” written in burnt orange Comic Sans. And no grandchild of mine will be humiliated like that!

Megan’s new-found affinity for A&M, thankfully, isn’t due to indoctrination but rather her dream of one day becoming a veterinarian, and practically speaking, there aren’t that many vet schools in Texas. I could try leading her to a new dream, for example the exciting world of Information Technology, but frankly I can’t bring myself to crush her soul like that. Or I could try to persuade her to look outside the state for another vet school, but then I start thinking about out-of-state tuition costs and my head starts hurting. My only saving grace is that she’s is only 10 and a lot can (and will) change between now and high school graduation.

Of course, I’ll continue to love her unconditionally and support her no matter where she goes to college or what she does with her life. She’s my daughter, and I’ll always be her dad. And nothing will ever change that. Even if she does end up going to, well, let’s just not think about it.

Previously:
I hope they follow me
On dragons
The circle game

And three days ago, I finished it.

Here’s my final completed chart. Each of those squares is a chapter of the Bible, and the gray ones are those I’ve read. I think it’s just missing a gold star and maybe a smiley face. Maybe I’ll Photoshop that in later.

So what have I learned over the past year? A lot, actually. I’ve already blogged about a few of those things (here, here, here, here, aaand here), but there’s a lot more.

First off, the Bible is hard. It’s a tough book to read, not just because of the length or the subject material, but because in many parts it’s not really that exciting. Most of the Bible is comprised of the Old Testament, which spans from the beginning of the universe to about 400 years before the birth of Jesus. That’s a long time. The OT is mostly a historical narrative of the ancient Israelites, passed down verbally through many generations before being collected and written down by a variety of scribes and prophets. From a scholarly perspective, it’s interesting. But it’s also dry, repetitive, and often confusing. No one says, “I’ll think I’ll do a little light reading,” and then picks up Deuteronomy or 1 Chronicles. And the prophetic books are just as difficult. You need a cheatsheet to keep track of all the various kings of Israel and Judah and which ones the prophets are talking about, and then of course you have to try and pronounce them.

That’s why most Christians–myself included–tend to stay in the New Testament. Not only is it easier to understand, it also seems much more relevant to our day-to-day lives. It’s less about history (although there’s a lot of history in the NT) and more about applying the lessons of the Gospel. The problem is, without all that boring OT stuff, the New Testament has no foundation. Why did Jesus come, and why was His death and resurrection so important? You can’t begin to really appreciate the significance of the birth of Jesus without understanding everything that led up to that moment. You have to have the context, which the Old Testament provides.

That said, it’s impossible to get it all in a year. Unless you’re a seminary student or just have nothing else to do for 12 months, you simply don’t have time to dig down into the Scripture and make complete sense of it and still be able to get through the whole thing in a year. In any given week, I’d have upwards of 20 chapters to read. Being the slacker I am, I typically condensed that into 3 or 4 days, using my lunch hour to read the chapters online. Maybe I could’ve gotten more out of it had I used all 7 days and used my study Bible with all its footnotes and maps and diagrams. But even then, I think I would’ve only barely scratched the surface. So instead of worrying about all the details, I focused on the big picture narrative. In that sense, it was a success. But I don’t think I’ll be repeating the exercise again for a while. The big picture is good, but I kept thinking I really need to come back and dig into this more later.

Another problem I ran into was my stupid human nature. I really wanted my heart to be in it, and it was sometimes. But often, I read just to get it checked off my to-do list. I didn’t care about what impact it really had on my life, I just wanted to get through it. Particularly when you’ve spent several months buried in the prophetic books of the Old Testament, and they just seem to go on forever. I was so excited in June when I got to go back to Mark after not seeing the New Testament since January. Maybe I would’ve been more engaged had a I followed a different schedule, but I was committed to following the schedule my pastor gave us. Still, with the OT being as long as it is, it’s impossible to not spend the bulk of your time there.

Even though I wasn’t always feeling it, however, I tried to make as much sense of it as I could. I mentioned in an earlier blog post that my faith had been really challenged. Anyone who reads the Bible cover to cover and walks away with fewer questions than answers isn’t paying attention. The Bible is kind of a weird book. You have books like Genesis and Revelation that talk about extremes–the extreme beginning and the extreme end–and things sometimes get really bizarre. A talking serpent? A beast with seven heads and ten horns? These are the mushy parts, the parts we don’t have reliable facts to back up. Much of the Bible is historically accurate and can be verified through non-biblical sources. But the mushy parts are where people, especially Christians, get tripped up. And then you have the Gospels (Matthew, Mark, Luke, and John), which are mostly consistent but sometimes totally contradict each other. As a Christian, what do we do with that? Do we try and reconcile the discrepancies or overlook them? Further, how much of the Bible is literal fact and how much is allegory? And how do we know which is which? What about evolution, dinosaurs, or non-biblical stories of the Great Flood such as the Epic of Gilgamesh? Or forget those. What about people in China or South America, cultures who had thriving, advanced societies at the same time the Israelites were wandering through the Sinai Desert. Where do those folks fit in? Clearly, the Gospel applies to them, but there’s no mention of the Zhou Dynasty or the Mayans anywhere in the Bible.

The short answer, I think, is that some things just fall outside of the scope of the Bible. It’s not a complete history of every culture that has ever lived or a scientific catalog of every species. But it does explain who God is and our relationship to Him, and that’s really the purpose of it. For some people, that may not be a good enough answer. They want more facts and figures and concrete numbers and then throw the whole thing out when it doesn’t provide them. To those people, I guess I should apologize. But the Bible is what it is. Why is so much left up to interpretation or left out entirely? I don’t know. But does that mean it’s invalid? No, I don’t think it does.

There’s more I could go into, and maybe I’ll come back to some of it later. Suffice it to say, it was a really challenging endeavor spiritually but an extremely worthwhile one. Although my faith was challenged repeatedly, it was also strengthened immensely. I did learn some factual stuff I didn’t know before, but more than anything, I developed a better understanding of the nature of God, how much He loves us and how much He wants to have a relationship with us. It’s easy to miss that when you just read a few chapters or a single book, but when you read the whole thing, you see it everywhere. If you’re a Christian and you’ve never read the entire Bible, I’d definitely encourage you to do so. As difficult as it is sometimes, it’s well worth the effort.

In the meantime, as the title of this post suggests, even though I’ve read through the whole Bible, I’m really just getting started. I’ve gotten the high level overview, the big picture. Now to start digging down into the core of it. I have an idea of where I want to go next, but I’ll save that for another post.

Previously:
Thoughts on Genesis
Bible reading: At the halfway mark
Bible reading: Jeremiah is a bullfrog
Bible reading: Exile
Who is your Elihu?

Of course, I know I won’t. But maybe I need some time away, an extended break from that online world that may or may not be reality.

Truth be told, I’ve been struggling lately. I touched on some of it in my last post, but honestly, that’s just barely scratching the surface. I feel like I need to talk about it or at least vent some of my frustration, but Twitter isn’t the place to do that. And really this blog isn’t either. So I’ve been kinda quiet lately, not wanting to say something online that I’ll regret or that could be misinterpreted.

Withdrawing is a natural response for me. It’s what I do when I get depressed or stressed out. I shut down. I’m a private, introverted person anyway, but I become even more so until I’m able to work through my emotions. That’s probably not too healthy, and I know it gives my wife fits. But I guess it’s better than erupting or overreacting. Or maybe not, I don’t know.

Anyway, the point is, I don’t necessarily need to be on Twitter during times like this. When I try to post something of value, it usually just comes out wrong, and it’s not like anyone really gives a rip about what I have to say anyway. Except for a few people who follow me, nobody on Twitter knows me in real life. They’re not actual friends, and my presence or lack thereof has no bearing on their lives. To pretend to be more significant that I really am would be foolish and extremely egotistical. At the end of the day, I’m nobody, at least as far as the Internet is concerned.

I matter to my family, and I’m thankful for that. I’m thankful for my wife and kids who love me. That’s real life. That’s reality.

Twitter isn’t. So for now, maybe I need to set it aside. It’ll still be there if I decide to go back.

Previously:
Drought
One thing
Happy New Year
Who are you following?

It was like the day was burning
Everywhere he turned, he saw the fields on fire
Captive by the wire

Home fell like breaking china
Fear was the only thing they shared at all
Bearing every soul

Oh, give me rest tonite

– Hoi Polloi, “Rest Tonite”

Texas is in the midst of one of the worst droughts in the state’s history and suffering through one of its hottest summers. Here in the DFW Metroplex, we racked up 40 days straight of triple-digit high temperatures in July and August, two days short of tying a record, and have so far had 57 days total over 100 degrees, with that number climbing daily. Further south, it’s much worse. Austin has already had 69 days of 100 degree-plus weather and much less rainfall. Losses in crops and livestock due to the drought have cost Texas $5.2 billion, and much of the state is under severe water restrictions.

And there’s no sign of relief any time soon. While the temperatures will eventually subside in a month or so, meteorologists are saying we’re probably in for another drier-than-normal La Niña winter. Which means things will probably get a lot worse before they get any better.

Not that I want to go back to the ice and snow we had back in February that all but shut down the Metroplex for a week, but I’d like to at least go outside without the fear of spontaneous combustion. Is that too much to ask?

As bad as the weather is, though, it’s something you expect living in North Texas. Triple-digit heat for weeks on end in summer is perfectly normal, and anyone who’s lived here more than a couple of years knows how to deal with it. What’s debilitating, however, is the other kind of drought, the one that doesn’t come with maps, charts, and rainfall records.

It’s the physical drought, emotional drought, spiritual drought, financial drought. All of which I’ve been dealing with lately. More than just being in a rut, it’s the sense that nothing is ever going to get better, that relief from the current stresses and struggles is never going to arrive.

I haven’t been sleeping well. My back has been killing me due in part to the horrible bed we have, and I toss and turn at night only to wake up just as exhausted as I was the night before. I haven’t been eating right or exercising, which of course hasn’t helped the situation. And the financial hardships we’ve faced over the past several months have weighed heavily on me, not that I’m bothering to pray about them like I should. I have been reading my Bible, still on track to finish my year-long commitment to read the Bible by the end of September. But often I squeeze in my reading on my lunch break just to get through it and cross it off my list, not taking the time to reflect on what God is trying to tell me through His Word.

The result is that I’ve felt drained all the way around. Stuck. Worthless. Hopeless. Even though I know that just as with the months-long drought, the situation won’t last forever. Even though I know I can actually change some things on my own now, even if the changes are incremental.

Costa Rican missionary Jamie Wright recently wrote about a neighbor who, unable to sleep for weeks on end because of another neighbor’s barking dogs, has repeatedly begged for the barking to end, desperate to get some rest: ”PAZ SEÑOR, PAZ POR FAVOR….necesito dormir. NECESITO DORMIR… HAGA ALGO…”

“PEACE, SIR, PEACE PLEASE… I need to sleep. I NEED TO SLEEP… DO SOMETHING…”

And that’s exactly how I’ve felt. Tired, sore, beaten down, and desperate for rest.

There was a tinge of disappointment when our 40-day streak of hundred-degree heat was briefly broken a couple of weeks ago. If we were gonna suffer through so much heat, then we wanted some kind of recognition for it; we wanted to be Number 1. But I think there’s something significant about the streak only lasting 40 days.

In the beginning of His ministry, Jesus went into the wilderness and fasted for 40 days. During that time He was tempted by Satan, but the Bible says Jesus also became very hungry. Knowing how long that 40 days of heat felt like (somewhere around an eternity), I can’t imagine fasting for that long. Something tells me “very hungry” would be a drastic understatement. And yet that’s how long He was out there. Did He feel tired? Beaten down? Desperate? I don’t know. But I’m pretty sure there was a reason He did it. Jesus was about to begin a three-year ministry that would end with His death on a Roman cross. He knew the road ahead of Him and knew how difficult it would be. But it was necessary, and He needed time alone with His Father before it began.

Of course, there’s a big difference between a fast and a drought. Jesus chose to fast; we didn’t choose to have a drought. Yet both are hardships, and both bring pain. Hebrews 5:8 says, “Even though Jesus was God’s Son, he learned obedience from the things he suffered.” There’s no question Jesus suffered during His 40 days in the wilderness. But through that suffering He learned obedience. In the midst of pain, you essentially have two choices: You can grow up or you can give up. Jesus didn’t give up. And neither can I.

This past Sunday our pastor talked about James 1:2-4:

Dear brothers and sisters, when troubles come your way, consider it an opportunity for great joy. For you know that when your faith is tested, your endurance has a chance to grow. So let it grow, for when your endurance is fully developed, you will be perfect and complete, needing nothing.

When you’re going through the troubles, the pain, the drought, he said, you’re not gonna feel joy. You’re gonna hurt. You’re gonna mourn. But the joy comes in the fact that your faith is being tested, that it’s being proven real. It’s easy to have faith when it’s never tested, but if it’s never tested, how do you know you can really depend on it? Only through putting it to the fire can we know that it can withstand the flames. And for that reason, James says, we should be joyful.

So that’s where I am: in the middle of the fire. Tired, beaten down, financially broke, spiritually broken, desperate for rest. And yet somehow full of joy and thankful for the drought.

Previously:
Who is your Elihu?
Look for the search lights
What, me worry?
Who’s in your mine?

Of course, trivia buffs know that the first video ever shown on MTV was The Buggles’ “Video Killed The Radio Star”. But the first video I ever saw on the basic cable network (you know, back when they actually showed music videos), was “Centerfold” by The J. Geils Band.

That was in late 1981 or early 1982. Which means I was 7 at the time and in 2nd grade. My dad had moved into an apartment across town and had gotten cable, which was amazing in and of itself. I remember going over there one weekend and him showing off all the dozen or so channels, which were changed using one of these. I was hooked instantly. And I wanted my MTV. (It was also at his apartment where I first saw “Monty Python and the Holy Grail”. While eating Taco Bell. I’m not sure why I remember that, but obviously it made an impression.)

Now, would I ever let my 7-year-old watch a video about a former high school crush-turned-Playboy model? (A song, by the way, that contains probably the best lyric ever: “We’ll take your car, yes we will / We’ll take your car and drive it / We’ll take it to a motel room / And take ‘em off in private”.) Um, that would be a no. But strangely the thing I remember most about that video isn’t the girls prancing around, it’s the drum filled with milk.

Hey, I was 7. What do you expect?

Our house backs up to an undeveloped greenbelt, and we have a 4-foot wrought iron fence along the back. Because the HOA wouldn’t do any landscaping behind our house (like they were supposed to), we had a hard time keeping the grass trimmed along the fence, so I took matters into my own hands and decided to trim it myself, which required climbing over the fence because we didn’t have a gate at the time. While Christy was busy studying for school and the girls were watching TV, I climbed up onto the fence and hopped over. And that’s when everything went to hell.

I landed on the uneven ground wrong, hyperextending my left leg as I fell. Hearing a pop from my leg, I knew instantly I had hurt myself pretty bad. Nothing appeared to be broken, so I tried standing to see if I could put any weight on it. Nope. Back to the ground. A minute or so later, Christy came out and asked if I was OK. I think I said something, but I don’t really remember.

After making it to the ER, the doctor initially diagnosed it as a sprained knee and told me to follow up with an orthopedic doctor if it didn’t improve. Obviously, it turned out to be quite a bit worse. I spent the next two weeks on the couch with my leg immobilized. The orthopedic doctor determined that it was an in fact a tibial intercondylar eminence fracture and that we’d have to wait to see if it would heal on its own. It eventually did, but not before I developed a blood clot in my leg.

Turns out I’m positive for Factor V Leiden, a common hereditary disorder which increases your chance of developing blood clots. (My mother, sister, nieces, and at least one of our daughters have also tested positive for it.) I spent three days in the hospital to be treated for the clot and was then on Coumadin for another nine months.

Today, I’m off the medication and the fracture has long since healed, but I still deal with a lot of pain in my knee. I’m also much more paranoid about reinjuring it or developing another blood clot. And I’m also still paying off the hospital bill, which will probably linger for a while.

The moral of the story? Obviously, don’t do anything stupid. Easier said than done, I suppose. And if you have any family members who’ve had issues with blood clots, get tested for Factor V Leiden immediately. Had I known I was positive, I could’ve gotten on blood thinners immediately and would never have had to go to the hospital.

But I think the deeper lesson is this: Sometimes things just happen. I blamed myself for a long time for causing the injury and all the misery and hardship to my family that came with it. Heck, the blood clot itself could’ve been fatal. But at the end of the day, it was just an accident, and I had to learn to let it go and move on. I was having a crappy summer up until then, mostly due to work, and had I not gotten injured, I probably would’ve bitched about my workload for another couple of months. Instead, I ended up coaching my daughter’s soccer team just a week after leaving the hospital. (I actually showed up to the first practice still on crutches and spent the entire season with a leg brace on.)

I’m gradually getting better and hope to eventually run (or at least complete) a 5k with Christy. And I’ll likely be back on the sideline coaching my girls’ soccer team this fall. I may not be 100% by then, but at least I won’t be on crutches.

Previously:
About nothing in particular
I signed up for WHAT?!
August, you suck too
Goodbye, July

But before I jump back into the New Testament, I wanted to look back at the Old one for a moment. Prior to starting this adventure, I had a rough idea of Israel’s history, but I didn’t fully understand it. Nine months later, I still don’t fully understand it, but I do have a little bit better grasp of it.

Essentially, the Old Testament tracks the history of Israel from the birth of mankind to about 400 BC. In that time, you see the origins of Israel’s twelve tribes, how they came to be enslaved in Egypt, were led out of Egypt and into the Promised Land, formed a united kingdom which later split into two separate kingdoms, how each of those kingdoms was conquered, and how God restored the southern kingdom of Judah in preparation for the Messiah. And one particularly prominent theme throughout that history is that of exile, specifically Judah’s exile in Babylon.

The story of the exile begins about 930 BC, when the kingdom of Israel splits into Israel in the north and Judah in the south. Each one is ruled by a bunch of different kings, some good but most of them bad (and some really bad) until 722 BC, when the northern kingdom is conquered and taken into captivity by the Assyrians, at which point they pretty much disappear forever. Judah, however, remains until 586 BC, at which point they are conquered by the Babylonians (who had previously conquered their northern enemy Assyria). Jerusalem falls to Nebuchadnezzar in 586 BC, and the Jews are exiled to Babylon for 70 years before being released by the Persian king Cyrus, who had led a successful conquest of Babylonia.

Pretty straightforward, right?

From a narrative standpoint, everything makes sense. God punishes Israel for its extreme chronic disobedience by letting it be wiped out by Assyria. Then He punishes Judah for its disobedience by letting it be conquered by Babylon. But God remains faithful to His people and eventually frees them, honoring His promise to not completely destroy His chosen people. It’s a great story of a loving but gracious God punishing His children but giving them another chance.

Except, well, the Babylonian exile wasn’t exactly that much of a punishment. Yes, a lot of people died during 2½-year siege of Jerusalem and subsequent military conquest. Yes, it was a violent campaign that destroyed entire towns. But once the Jews were finally led off to Babylon, they didn’t seem to mind it. Why?

According to JewishHistory.org:

Eleven years before the destruction of the Temple, King Nebuchadnezzar had taken some 10,000 of the elite among the Jews and transplanted them to Babylon in an attempt to weaken Judea and prevent it from rebelling. In so doing, he unwittingly set up the next 2,500 years of Jewish history. In little more than a decade, those 10,000 Jews — which included prophets and sages like Ezekiel, Daniel and Ezra, as well as the entire Sanhedrin – created the foundation of the Jewish future. …

When the Temple was destroyed and throngs of bedraggled Jewish survivors were forcibly exiled to Babylon they did not come to a completely non-Jewish country. The new exiles arrived to a community that already had synagogues, Torah academies and other institutions teeming with prophets, scholars and leaders. …

Babylon became such a home-away-from-home that the Talmud (Kesubos 111a) went so far as to say that one who lives in Babylon is as though he lives in the Land of Israel, and will be spared the “birth pangs of the Messiah,” the terrible sufferings that will herald his coming. There is even an opinion in the Talmud that Jews were forbidden from leaving Babylon until God would come and redeem them. They should not go back to the Land of Israel on their own. Even though that was not the accepted opinion in Jewish law, and it was not accepted in practice, nevertheless it was an idea that was floated about. Such an idea could gain currency only if there was a hospitable climate.

In other words, instead of Babylonian exile being a merciless punishment inflicted upon the disobedient Jews, it was more like a parent sending their rebellious toddler to his room for a time out. Certainly, it got their attention, but it wasn’t nearly as drastic or as permanent as what happened to the ten tribes of the northern kingdom. In fact, when Cyrus finally did release the Jews in 538 BC, only a handful headed back home. More would migrate back to Judah over the next hundred years, but some actually never left. And even after a revival led by Ezra and the reconstruction of the Temple and the walls of Jerusalem, by the time of the last Old Testament prophet Malachi in 430 BC, the Jews had fallen back into their old pre-exile ways.

I suppose this kinder, gentler version of the exile still fits the Old Testament narrative of disobedience, punishment, and grace. But I have to admit that it caught me off guard. I guess I was expecting more wailing and gnashing of teeth, especially considering the dire warnings of so many prophets. Nevertheless, exile is exile and God fulfilled the prophecies just as He said He would, just as He also fulfilled His promise of a Messiah 400 years later.

Previously:
Bible reading: Jeremiah is a bullfrog
Bible reading: At the halfway mark
Thoughts on Genesis
Jesus as the fulfillment of prophecy