A Dialogue on Moderation

Emily is stuck at home today and I stayed home for the morning to help out with a few things. As often happens, we got sidetracked with an interesting conversation and decided to capture it. The conversation was prompted by a book I'm reading, The Challenge of a Disciplined Life by Richard Foster that is very provocative on three big topics: money, sex, and power. Emily talked with a friend earlier this week about another Foster book, Freedom of Simplicity. Moderation is a topic Foster seems to address with energy in his thinking and writing. The best example of his definition of moderation to me is watching television - that discipline can free us to not be couch potatoes, and not to be "TV-totalers," but instead to enjoy watching one program and then to turn off the television. Moderation means enjoying God's gifts without becoming excessive, or rejecting God's gift altogether out of fear of one's own lack of discipline.

From Emily:
"The culture is so excessive. You know what I'm saying? I was looking at the latest edition of In Style, and there are sundresses for $250, and sunglasses for $85. It's so excessive. The church has a response to this. Well, I take that back. Some churches have a response to it which is to ignore it - they don't talk about it. Others have this response that is like "no, this is from the devil - you shouldn't spend $85 on sunglasses." It just seems very extreme. Is there moderation? It's just like our house - we bought this house, it was in our budget, and then its really gone up in value as has the neighborhood around us, and we feel this tension - we own this house, I feel this obligation -- let me back up - we own this house, and I'm just a "nester" and I want to buy nice things to make our house pretty. And we have the means to make our house look great - but my inclination is that we should only buy second hand furniture, only buy used rugs, do everything on the cheap - not in terms of quality, but as inexpensively as possible. And I wonder - what would Richard Foster say? Is this living in moderation? Now don't get me wrong - the couple of rooms we've done are really pretty, and we haven't spent a ton of money, but is even that appropriate? And what's appropriate *where* we live -- in the city we live, around the people with professions where we live? Is there something beyond just trying to get away with spending the least we can get away with spending? Is there a way to do some of things we're not doing that we would like to do but are not for the sake of frugality? So with finances, is there a balance between excessiveness and frugality? And what about the rest of our lives?"

From Randy:
"I do think moderation gets a bum rap today - like you said it's just out of vogue. I feel this tension that in order to be "godly" I need to be self-sacrificing, but in order to make friends comfortable and to satiate some of my own desires, e.g., that new 42-inch flat screen TV, I need to buy expensive things. More than in finances, I think a need for a proper understanding of this concept of moderation is one of the things that keeps me from being an effective witness at work. At work, I feel like I need to either ask people if they would like to be saved today, or ignore the topic altogether. There's something beyond balance between two extremes that I want but I can't define and certainly don't practice. That something would be a positive synthesis that doesn't just thread the needle, but is an equilibrium that can be lived as a principle on its own. I don't know how to think about that except to chunk up life into categories like "finances," "work," "family," "fun" and find the right middle ground in each. I think what I feel, but haven't figured out intellectually yet, is that there is a solution that involves moderation in one's holistic life that expresses itself in the chunks (rather than being rooted in the chunks). Instead of vacillating between extremes within categories of life, the initial approach to new ideas, thoughts, and people should be one of moderation."

From Emily:
"It's interesting that you use the word 'equilibrium.' I'm reading that book Living With Contradiction by Ester de Waal, and that is part of what the book is about - she uses that term too. She's talking about it in prayer, in community, she's talking about the way you manage your time. It's holding together the two extremes. It's being balanced while you hold your one hand in one pot, and one hand in another - it's not compromise, it's being both extremes simultaneously. So for our life in Charlotte, and the people we interact with - is God teaching us about living in this tension, with one hand in the 'extravagant pot' and one hand in the 'pauper pot,' and living in that tension between the two without solving it?"

Agreed - that God is speaking to us about getting comfortable with the tension, and not about resolving it.

The Fashion Four

At lunch today we realized all members of Scott's fashion SWAT team were present, and he was wearing one of the ensembles they put together for him. Hilarious.

Memorial Day Mountain/ Metzl Trip

Spent Memorial Day weekend in W. Jefferson (Ashe County) with the Metzl family. Had a ton of fun, including attending a volunteer firefighter BBQ fundraiser in Lansing where we took these pictures with Josh. Memorable moments: the smell of brimstone when we turned on the water the first time, carpenter ants swarming on the inside walls, and beating the broken thermostat. Other (more positive) moments included Josh with the water house Monday, the clogger-man in white shiny shoes Saturday, and those awesome steaks Saturday night.

Emily is starting to show - a lot!

It was a little disappointing for the first few months that Emily didn't look like she was pregnant. Then sometime in early May she started looking, well, something, but it wasn't quite pregnant. We're pretty sure Zipper was stretching (constantly) sideways in Emily's belly. Emily looked very cute, but it was hardly a no-brainer that she was pregnant. Last week Zipper started laying a little more comfortably I guess, because Emily really popped - it's maternity clothes only from here on.

The first pictures was May 1, 2007 (week 15) - showing a little, but disturbingly ambiguous.

















This is the week of May 15, 2007 (baby week 18). Again, showing a little, but mostly poking out on the sides and not in the front. Poor Emily - she thinks people who don't know she's pregnant just think she's putting on weight.
















The week of May 30, 2007 (baby week 20). Finally, unmistakeably pregnant and showing!

It's a girl!

We found out May 15 that Baby Fink is a girl! The reality of becoming parents really started to sink in with the pictures of the ultrasound. Wow - she was A-C-T-I-V-E! The ultrasound showed that she was doing cartwheels in the womb, and by a quirk of strange etymological connections we decided to nickname her "Zipper" until we settle on a more permanent name.

One fun tool that we've been playing with RE: finding a name is The Baby Name Wizard's Name Voyager. It graphically shows the popularity of names each year for the past 100 years or so.

I got a new job, Christmas was great, Emily got a new job, David & Erin were married, We're having a baby, and Grandpap Gathagan passed away

I'm newly motivated to try to share info and pictures through this blog so a quick update:

1. I'm now working at Merrifield Partners, still doing commercial real estate development and also leasing (office, industrial, a little retail) and property management;
2. Thanksgiving and Christmas were really great with very little traveling;
3. Emily got a new job in Community Development at the Charlotte YMCA;
4. David and Erin got married - really sweet, and fun, wedding;
5. We're having a baby! Found out the morning of David and Erin's wedding, but kept it secret for a couple of weeks;
6. My mother's father passed away in April and I grieved a lot more than I expected, but enjoyed seeing all the family and old friends in Hollentown (a small village in Reade Township, Pennsylvania).