Oct
21
Posted by : | On : October 21, 2009
The whisper of a familiar voice and the tapping on my lower leg awakened me in the wee willy winky light of pre-dawn.
(**IMPORTANT NOTE** – For those readers unfamiliar with my family, my wife and I are the joyous and sleep-deprived parents of six beautiful children ranging in age from 4 months up to 14 years. Three boys and three girls. This is a little story from our past night-time adventures. I remember it fondly. I remember how much I love kids. I love my kids.)
“Doug….”
“Doug……Jonathan is with you, right?”
“Huh?”
“Are you sleeping with Jonathan?”
You see, on any given night in our house, there is a complicated game of musical beds going on. It is a dance of parents and children and beds which often includes a dog, an E-Z chair and a couch. On this particular night, in the midst of our packing, we have also re-arranged said beds to clean and store until we can move. This involved the rearrangement of the room that contains our 17 month old son, Jonathan, and our 4 and 7 year old daughters, Kateri and Gabrielle. Simply, the girls have been sleeping in bunk beds for several years and they have requested to have “side-by-side beds so we can talk and tell stories”. Cute right? Right. Jonathan has been, up to this point, in a crib. Sorry, let me re-phrase. There is a crib in this room that Jonathan occassionally occupies. Last night, we pulled the bunks apart, put them both on ground level, took apart the crib and put the crib mattress on the floor between the now dual single beds. A rite of passage to be sure, the transition from crib to bed. But no ceremony or four day fast or anything. This is, after all, the fifth time we’ve done it. We kept it simple. All three kids were thrilled. And, around 11:00pm they were all actually in their respective beds making us believe they were sleeping. Enter 5 am.
“No. Jonathan isn’t with me. You got him last night when he cried. Kateri is here beside me.”
Honestly, I couldn’t answer this question without first patting down Kateri from head to toe. She could have been any one of three children. I then proceeded to pat down the bed to my left and at my feet. And, a thorough search is not complete until I check the floor beside the bed. After which I confirmed…
“No hon, Jonathan isn’t here.”
A small discussion ensued here about who picked up who and put who back and where. These details are often obscure and based mostly on what we thought we did that night.
“I can’t find him. He’s not in his bed.”
“Weird.” I thought. But nothing to get too excited about. I rolled over and let Judy look for him. Often it’s just a matter of moving a sheet or lifting a pillow and the missing, sleeping child is found. But, not the case this bleary eyed morn.
After 30 seconds of Judy being unable to locate him, I went into investigator mode. I grabbed my Garrity LED Tactical Flashlight (http://www.garritylites.com/) and began my search.
Now, I must admit, as cool and calm as I am, the thoughts still go through my head. My fifth born child, who we safely tucked in last night, is missing, six hours of darkness and silence later. Did he wander the house and fall down the stairs? Kidnapped and ransomed for our fortune? Sleeping in the dog’s nest? Did the aliens come for him as they once came for me?
As a warrior, the calm mind, the deep mind must always prevail so these thoughts, through intense and rigorous training, are pushed down, allowing clarity to prevail. I first played my flashlights beam over the floor of our bedroom, moving aside piles of clothes and books, lifting laundry baskets and hampers. Nothing.
I proceed to the PLS. In search and rescue operations, this is the “point-last-seen”. It’s where we first begin looking for tracks and sign of the missing subject. I cleared off the blankets, pillows and stuffed animals. The crib mattress was indeed empty. I got down on it on my hands and knees. And then I saw it. Could it be? I highlighted the tiny foot with my flashlight beam. Reaching under my oldest daughters single bed, I confirmed it. The foot belonged to Jonathan! Thankfully, it wasn’t just his foot. I traced my hand up his body and bent over low to have a good look. With the side of my head on the floor, I could see the full form of his body. As any good dad would do, I tickled his foot to see that he was responsive. He shifted slightly and I secretly breathed a sigh of relief. Sound asleep.
What did I do next? Well, when a 17 month old male whirlwind is sleeping soundly, and there is no clear and present danger to his person, you leave him sleep. I returned to our bed and reported my findings. The child was sleeping and safe, under the bed. Not a word was said after that. My wife knows the value of sleep, ours and theirs, better than even I.
As I said, I’m not ready to be out of the crib yet.
Jul
22
Posted by : | On : July 22, 2009
After a significant labor of eight hours at home, we left for the hospital at 11pm yesterday. We were extremely thankful and pleased to be accompanied by our friend, Elder and doula, Maureane. She was a beautiful source of encouragement, wisdom and stories. By the time Judy was in her gown and being monitored she had gone into full active labor. By 1:30am, our new baby was safely here.
There is a breath-taking set of moments when a baby first emerges. Today, it was a mixture of joyful surprise seeing it was a new baby girl and desperate hope that she was healthy and vital. When those first cries come, tears have never failed me. Today, during that moment, all of your prayers and support and encouragement came to bear, leaving Judy and I both so grateful for your presence in our lives and the influence you have in the hearts of our kids.
It’s been a long night and day so I’ll let a couple of pictures speak and I will write more later. Thank you so much for being a part of our journey.
Hannah Therese Kramer
July 22, 2009
7 lbs. 5 oz.
Jul
15
Posted by : | On : July 15, 2009
I sat to pray and talk to God this morning. Man, my heart is so full right now. Full with worry, excitement, impatience, desire, frustration, ideas, heartache, Vision. SO much of me right now wants to just lay down and rest. To STOP. Everything. Except Judy and the kids. I just want all the time and energy I have to go there. But I feel the drive, the pull, to our Wild at Heart trip for men in November, to a Vision of the ranch, to our growing online business, to building a true community, to getting in top physical shape. So deep. I feel God’s call to all of it. I love it. It’s incredible to be tapped into that wellspring. But, like hypothermia, as the cold drains strength, the desire becomes strong to just lay down and rest. Give up and give in. But give in to what? The slumber is the kiss of death. It’s a resignation. A false contentment. Dispassionate and apathetic. It is a giving of life over to death. And like the hypothermic slumber, life can go cold. We fall asleep. We become falsely content with chasing mediocrity. There is a strong likelihood that we haven’t actually ever been really awake. Or we’ve known moments of “awake-ness” but haven’t had the strength or the people around us to maintain it. So we long to go back to sleep.
Like Cypher in “The Matrix”. He was wakened by Morpheus and was called into a titanic struggle for the hearts and minds of other people. Their mission, as a crew, was to pull people out of the Matrix and invite them into a real existence, in a community that was truly alive. But Cypher became jaded. Watch the clip in the sidebar to the right. Or click here to watch it on YouTube.
Surrounded by wine, steak and a fine cigar, Cypher makes a deal to go back to sleep. “I don’t want to remember nothing. NOTHING. You hear me?”
Let the Matrix take over again.
But I can’t. (Actually, I can. You can too.) We can choose sleep. (In fact, we need to choose rest. But they are two different things.) We can choose mediocrity. We can choose all those things that we think give us life but actually keep us asleep.
Grandfather spoke about those things that stir our hearts awake to the reality of an unseen and eternal life. From his native language to English, he translated it as “Inner Vision” or “The Voice of God”. He said the Voice of God gives us Vision for our lives, our true purpose. And then he said:
“A person who is not living their Vision is living death.”
And I remember. I begin to remember why I can’t fall asleep. Because it would mean death. It would mean ignoring Vision. It would mean ceasing to live for others. Death by selfishness. Death by numbness. Death by mediocrity.
I can’t do it. I won’t do it.
One foot in front of the other. Stay awake. Stay alert for the needs of others and rise up to meet them. Fight. Live. Pray. Listen. Laugh. Love. And wake up the next morning to do it again.
Jun
09
Posted by : | On : June 9, 2009
Watch our video and send me an e-mail!
Apr
08
Posted by : | On : April 8, 2009
I’ve lost count the number of times I’ve sat on the floor with teenagers and adults just like you and heard from you some EXTREMELY TOUGH QUESTIONS.
Questions about life, relationships, faith and your purpose for even being here.
I’ve sat and listened to dozens who were both angry and disappointed with the answers they did find or could not seem to find to their very tough questions. Just in the last few weeks, I’ve heard from three different teachers that they had a list of questions from high school teens.
Questions that are really, really tough.
I know you have questions. So we want to provide you with an opportunity to both ask your questions AND possibly have your question podcasted here at Into the Wilderness. We want to take the next month to assemble a list of questions and then, one by one, we are going to team up with some incredible people to do our best to offer you the answers that we can.
In the boxes below, give us your name, e-mail and your question. We’ll update the progress of the list and show you samples of the questions. Please, as you do this, be completely honest about the questions. No question is too tough.
Looking forward to hearing from you.
P.S. After you submit your question, you will receive a confirmation e-mail in your mailbox. There will be a link to click on to confirm your question, just as a safeguard against spam for you and us. Please click on this link. Your question will not be submitted unless you complete this step! Thanks!
- Doug