Ben Meredith, Author at BenandJacq in the Browser

September 5, 2008January 22, 2010

Campaign Season

I love the season right before presidential elections. I start to get some of the funniest/saddest forwards in my email inbox. The most recent I saw was a comparison shot of McCain and Obama in their “younger years.” McCain is sitting by a fighter jet, looking very patriotic, while Obama is dressed in what looks to be a traditional African man’s dress, with a head wrap that screams “I am a muslim.”

Here’s the thing. You could find pictures of me in my “younger years” with all of the following:

a mohawk
an afro
wearing a tacky suit I bought for $1.50
wearing a traditional Saudi Arabian headwrap in front of a Saudi flag
holding the flag of Turkmenistan, Sweden, or Korea
standing outside a Mosque in Turkey
standing outside of St. Peter’s basilica in Rome (might have even caught a shot of me kneeling and praying there or at the mosque)

My point being that according to pictures from my past, I am a punk, a hippie, a televangelist, a friend of terrorists, not loyal to my country, a Muslim, and a Roman Catholic. Ripping pictures from their context is helpful for crafting a story according to your agenda, but it is hardly helpful at all in discovering the truth.

I’m not making an endorsement either way in this election, primarily because I think it will not help the cause of Christ on campus to pick a side. Jesus died for Democrats, Republicans, Communists, Socialists, Libertarians and Nazis(among others). But I am calling for all folks, no matter which side of the aisle we lean toward, to argue the issues, not the pictures.

September 7, 2008July 19, 2010

The Short Version.

My friend Mike called me the other day, and said “I went to your blog, but dude, there’s a lot of stuff on there. Give me the short version of what’s going on.”

From here on out, you should be able to visit this specific post (bookmark it) and when something happens, we will update this post. There is also a link to it on the top right.

UPDATED September 19th.

Our son has two medical issues going on. The first is craniosynostosis, or the premature closure of the bones in the skull. There’s a cool video of his little skull here. We just had surgery to fix that, on September 17th. The surgery and recovery stories are posted here, in chronological order.

The other issue is dysgenesis of the corpus callosum. That is medical-speak for the fact that Benjamin doesn’t have all of his corpus callosum, which is a part of the brain that connects the two halves, and helps with complex or abstract reasoning. Read about that diagnosis here and here. This diagnosis is not fixable, and just means that we will have to closely monitor his development and help treat symptoms if and when they occur.

September 8, 2008January 22, 2010

Community.

We have a filter system in place for our blog. I write some posts without using it, and some posts with it. It’s a very simple system. I write a post in an email instead of directly to the blog, and I send that email to Jacqueline. She then has filter power.

Last night I did exactly that. I emailed her something that I was processing in life, and she exercised her veto power. That’s not to say it is something that I wanted to post and she didn’t, but just that I needed to make sure it was ok with her that I post it. It is not just Ben’s blog. She is a great filter. I have found that in this blogging process, I often use the blog itself as a way of processing things. I don’t even know how I feel about things sometimes until I type it out. So, the filter system works great. I am able to process it, and communicate with my wife, and not share more than I need to wth people that don’t need to know.

The post last night was about something that I am currently running to instead of Christ. It was telling that I was willing to broadcast to the entire internet a sin of mine that I was not willing (at the time) to take to the men in my life that hold me accountable and pray for me. Broadcasting it to everyone is a false sense of community. It is (as my wife helped me to see) a sad case of me trying to be real, honest, and humble, in a prideful and showy way. That’s right… I am prideful about how humble I am.

What broadcasting it to the whole world does is enable me to skirt around the tough parts of real community. The sitting across the table, looking at another person and having to spill your junk aspect of community.

So, instead of telling all of you where I am currently struggling, I have been (and will be) taking that struggle to Christ and to the men in my life that know and love me here in Asheville. Then, maybe my real-life community can create a foundation for a flourshing online community, where we are able to be real and honest without sharing stuff that others don’t need to know.

Oh, and this post is unfiltered.

September 9, 2008January 22, 2010

Check this out. What a great way to hear and purchase new music. Matthew went to West Forsyth High School (the rival of my alma mater) and graduated a year or two before me. He makes some great music. It’s worth some coin. Help a brother out.

September 12, 2008July 19, 2010

The latest, as far as we are aware.

Not much LB news (short for Little Ben… our friends Jonny and Sarah have begun calling him LB, and I have found myself defaulting to it) to speak of this week, since we are in the medical equivalent of circling high above the airport waiting for clearance to land, with his sugery coming up next week.

But yesterday we got a visit from Child Developmental Services, represented by a pleasant lady named Heidi. She was referred to us by our pediatrician, and her role is to come and introduce us to the early intervention program, where we can start early noting any developmental issues that may result from Benjamin’s Corpus Callosum disorder (if none of this makes sense, click on “The Short Version” at the top right to be brought up to speed).

It was a good appointment, and we were encouraged that she seemed to think that he is progressing at a normal rate developmentally at this point. We knew that, but it is nice when an expert tells you what you already knew. After all, they see tons of kids, and I just see this one, and I am seriously biased.

We are gearing up emotionally for the surgery on Wednesday. Pray for us, as Tuesday will be a really long day of learning and pre-op stuff, and then Wednesday will be a rough day and the beginning of rough days for a few thereafter. Pray that Jacqueline and I would hold tightly to each other through this (metaphorically and/or privately… it would be odd to walk around in a constant state of hug… and I am not a fan of Public Displays of Affection in general). Seriously, though, these are the types of things that take marriages down with them, and I am keenly aware that our marriage is not above it. Pray with us that we would hold tight to Christ and to each other.

This post is unfiltered. (more about our filtration system)