Deep Thoughts « The Rohr Family

I remember taking this picture in 1992 of my new wife and new baby.

I borrowed a friends SLR camera, bummed some black and white film, and took a few shots for a college photography assignment. We didn’t even have money for photo paper so I developed this print on lithography film I found at school.

Times were tough, but we made it through.

Fast forward 16 years and much has changed – but much has also stayed the same. We find ourselves once again in the throws of late night feedings, sleep deprivation, exhaustion, tight finances, unspeakable joy, and emotions so intense they can sneak up on you and take your breath away.

I walked into the living room this morning to see the wife of my youth and our beautiful daughter asleep together on the couch. They were nestled together and even though I wanted to take a picture, the moment would not allow the interruption.

Time stood still and backed up 16 years.

I was once again looking down on a familiar scene, one that has been replayed millions of times in millions of families in millions of homes.

The scene of a wife becoming a mom.

The unexpected merger of past and future, lover and mother, individual and family, experience and uncertainty. The balance of life and death locked in flesh and blood as gentle as a newborn, yet lethal as a lioness.

Somewhere in the morning light, amidst the rise and fall of breaths as mother holds baby inches away from the life they once knew, a transformation takes place. The wife becomes mother and steps into a role of preparing the next generation to become the same. She pushes past herself, denying, submitting, sacrificing, laying everything down to make her ceiling the newborns floor.

For it is in this place of sacrifice, determination, love, that she becomes more than just a wife, more than just a friend, more than just a lover, she becomes so much more. She grows and transforms and starts a new existence, a new journey, a transformation as a caterpillar gaining wings.

She has been added to. She is more than what she was before. She is a wife and mom and her husband stands in awe of the beauty of her.

Written on September 9th, 2008 , Deep Thoughts, Everyday Life

Time

Time has always fascinated me. I spent a great deal of it over the years trying to figure out how, and more importantly where, time actually goes. I have resigned myself to the conclusion that time, like many other things in this life, is a mystery.

An even greater mystery is how we formulate questions that have no answers? That alone is reason enough for me to discount evolution as an explanation for this whole thing we call life.

When an object moves from one spot to the next, say a pen on a desk, where did the pen go that used to occupy the original spot? Experience tells me that the pen simply moved, but if I were able to re-wind time, say take a snapshot of time, the pen would be in the original spot, physically in that spot. Where do all the snapshots of the pen go? How can something be in one place at a specific point in time and yet be somewhere else a fraction later?

One theory is that matter is instantaneously assembling and nothing is “real” only assembled for a moment. As I understand the theory, the whole universe and everything in it is being created as we move through it and once we move past that point in time everything is dismantled instantaneously behind.

Interesting.

I like that idea as it helps explain the mechanics of faith and how things that seem impossible can be made possible in time. If we are constantly being re-written so to speak, it makes sense that the author can change us along the way. Trying to get my head around the rest of the theory makes my brain hurt, so I will be content with my questions for now, even though someday I would like an answer.

I like having answers and perhaps that is why writing interests me. Even though I am a poor wordsmith there is something elemental and satisfying about creating with words. To the best of my knowledge the string of words assembled above have never been arranged in that way before. The images, voices, emotion, and tone generated in my mind and the mind of the reader actually create something. Words become real, instantaneously having life breathed into them, as communication happens and you hear what I was thinking.

Very interesting.

To me, this is the essence of creativity. To take something that was a fragrance in my mind, breathe life into it, clothe it with meaning, and set it into a world only I see within is divine.

It is written that we are created in the image or likeness of God. My particular understanding of this scripture is that “His image” is not so much about arms and legs as it is the desire to create.

We get to father (and mother), like our heavenly Father.

Yesterday, my wife and I were talking with the kids about baby and pregnancy and wondering aloud if Emily would still have been Emily a month or year earlier or later in time. That, like time itself, is a mystery that can never be answered this side of eternity.

I do know that once she was conceived, Emily had always been Emily. We knew her immediately, like a character developed in a story and she is exactly like we imagined she would be.

She just fits in perfectly for this place and time and I can’t imagine my story without her, my wife, or her brother and sister in it.

Written on September 2nd, 2008 , Deep Thoughts, Everyday Life, Faith

Dear Brain

I like you, really I do. Even though we have never met, and the only time I have smelled you is when I hit my head running backwards in gym class, I still like you becuase as far as I can tell everything I think I am is contained in you.

You are like my ziplock sandwich bag holding my peanut butter sandwich. Just don’t put oranges in another ziplock sandwich bag in a confined space becuase even though ziplock corp. claims the bags are airtight, it is impossible to miss the tangy acidic bite of orange bread and orange laced Jiff. Or Peter Pan. Or that huge tub you get when you are on welfare.

You are my brain, and I have learned to love you. Mostly because you control my emotions, so you pretty much force me to love you, you sick Stockholm Syndrome lover you.

I hate you brain. I take that back, I didn’t mean for my fingers to do that, sorry. jerk.

No, no, I meant jerk, like the rub you put on beef.

I love you brain.

Where would I be without you?

Probably in West Virginia, but I kid, I kid!

I would most likely be in North Dakota actually, because you can roam around there without a brain and be pretty much okay unless you run into Bison.

Well, not actually “run into them”, that would be weird, seeing as how they are much faster and would most likely not just stand there waiting for your drooling face to slap them in the flank.

You are my brain.

You are big an gray and keep me awake at night moving memories and making things appear that I have never seen.

You are my brain and I am scared of you.

Really, horribly, peeing my pants scared of you.

Big guy.

Filler of head.

Backer of eyes.

Producer of ear wax.

Skull candy.

You are my brain.

I am glad we had this talk.

Written on July 22nd, 2008 , Deep Thoughts, Humor

When Heaven Invades

For as long as I can remember, Heaven has always been a place. When I think about it I look up assuming it must be out there. I still have that pull when contemplating Heaven, the draw that it is somewhere up and out of this world.

Exactly where, out there, I can’t be certain, but I think someone should equip people with tracking devices that measure where they look when they think of Heaven. Wouldn’t it be interesting if everyone looked to the same point in space?

The point is, I think most will agree that Heaven is outside this sphere we spin on called earth. Even those that seek Heaven within eventually escape the grips of the earthly realm to enlightenment.

For far too long I used to think that Heaven was the reason for this whole earthly experience. That God took us from Heaven, deposited us in earthly bodies to experience life as a mortal, and if we passed “the test” we got to crawl back up to Heaven. Basically, we lived in some spherical petri dish as God watched from above with the heavenly hosts taking bets on who would make it.

Admittedly, that is quite an irreverent thought, but that was my understanding and from the lives of everyone around me that professed faith in God, was a perfectly logical conclusion. Most people I meet live a life in God that resembles that sentiment. A life constantly anchored from the perspective of just getting through.

The thing is, I don’t buy it.

It doesn’t make any sense that we are sent to the earth just to struggle through to the sweet by and by. What is even worse is that this type of thinking contradicts the attributes of a loving God. Accepting the premise that we serve a loving but conveniently removed God is what leads people to schisms that ultimately force them to reject Him. If we can agree that God is good and God is love and hold on to that basic character trait of God, then there can only be one reason for the state of our life.

Us.

This is where it gets difficult.

Pointing the finger back to us is the last thing anyone wants to do. We have made responsibility for our own lives the forbidden topic. We need look no further than our politics to see the end game of this type of thinking. When we refuse to look inside and ask God to change our condition and instead start blaming God for that condition, it puts us in opposition to the very nature of God. Once in opposition to who He is we must reject Him which leaves us once again with ourselves. Having the finger pointed back at us with no hope remaining for change we create a surrogate called government.

We can’t escape it, no matter how much we squirm we are still responsible because being responsible is why we are here. God made us sovereign on this planet to rule over it and instead of exercising that authority to change our own lives, we give that authority to elected officials to rule over us. The more we reject the authority in our own lives ordained by God, the more that delegated authority will be turned back to rule over us!

Jesus said an interesting thing in Matthew 28. Actually, Jesus said quite a few interesting things in Matthew 28 but this one is key. “All authority has been given to me”.

All.

Not some, or most, but all. Right after that statement Jesus told his followers to go and make disciples in all nations, baptize them, teach them His ways and that He will be with us to the end.

If Jesus has all authority, what He tells us to do we can do. Period. Jesus only did what the Father told him to do, so in the end we are to do the same. The trick is hearing the Fathers voice and I don’t want to get into that right now, but it still comes down to us.

To help us out Jesus taught us how to pray to God:

Our Father in heaven,
hallowed be your name.
Your Kingdom come,
your will be done,
on earth as in heaven
Give us today our daily bread.
Forgive us our sins,
as we forgive those who sin against us.
Lead us not into temptation,
but deliver us from evil.
For the kingdom,
the power and the glory are yours.
Now and for ever. Amen

Your Kingdom come, your will be done.

This is where we run astray in our own lives. God gave Adam authority over the planet and Adam gave it away to Satan by betraying God. Adam turned into a bad governor if you will, and the King took away his power. Jesus redeemed man through the cross and all authority was given back to Jesus becuase he was obedient. Jesus then gave that authority and right standing back to the sons of Adam. We are now workin’ for the King again. Satan no longer has a right to the authority of this world, Jesus does. When we pray for the kingdom of Heaven to come, we are literally asking God to invade this world with His kingdom.

We are His ambassadors on the earth.

I can’t overemphasize this point. God is sovereign but He will not usurp His own decree that we have authority without our permission. That in a nutshell is why you hear people ask “If God is good, why does a good God let bad things happen?”.

The truth is, it is our fault, we run the place!

When we pray we are essentially asking God to do His will on this earth as it is in Heaven. Since His kingdom is Heaven, whatever is normal there should be normal here. We are saying to God that we recognize the authority Given to us through Jesus and we align that authority to reflect the way things should be in Heaven.

Your will be done here Daddy, let her rip!

Jesus also told us to: “Heal the sick, raise the dead, cleanse the lepers, cast out demons. Freely you received, freely give.”

Um, Jesus really meant we should do that, becuase I don’t think people are sick in Heaven! Pretty sure they are all alive, free of incurable diseases, and certainly not demon possessed.

I don’t know about you, but when I think about doing all that I get a little freaked out. I also get a little excited becuase I have been seeing more of it happen in and around my life.

The problem is I don’t see it happen all the time and I am earnestly pointing the finger inward and asking why, it obviously must be me.

Written on April 17th, 2008 , Deep Thoughts, Faith

The wonder of it all

Saturday we had our 22 week checkup on our baby girl. She is doing great, Mom is doing great, Dad is doing great and everything looks perfect.

I am not sure if it is our age, losing our last baby, my sisters struggling with their pregnancies, or exactly what has changed, but whatever it is this pregnancy has been very different.

In a very good way.

I know we appreciated the other pregnancies, but this time around I think we know better. We know that getting pregnant and delivering a healthy baby is not an automatic package deal. We know that sometimes our hopes and prayers go unanswered and outcomes arrive that did not fit our plans. We know that everything can change in an instant, that life is a wisp, a breath, a vapor, and the challenge is to make the most of every moment because one day every moment will be gone.

We are so blessed to be able to experience the wonder of it all this time around. To be able to move past the understanding and mechanics and clinical definitions. To remove the surface marks placed by inferior intellect in vain attempts to comprehend divine design. To forget what you think you know and rely on what you know you feel and soak it in and rest in the peace of it.

To become child like and stare at the world for what it is.

It is an amazing feeling to place your hands on the wife of your youth and feel your daughter alive inside and simply experience. Linger in the moment long enough and before long everything else just fades to black. To quietly look and feel and hear and remember that life is in the living, experience is the truer pursuit over knowledge and the moment is all we ever have.