Sermon: Who is Gideon to Us?

I delivered this sermon on March 15th, 2020, so I am pre-dating this post. Here is the video:
Our pastor, Micah Mercer, very kindly edited out my pre-sermon fumbling around with the music stand, the microphone, my coffee, and myself. The sound is occasionally a little low, but he has done a great job of making me look as good as possible. It's just under 30 minutes, which is standard for our church these days.

This was our second service that was exclusively streamed, with only about eight people actually in attendance. I found it very challenging to preach to such a small congregation, even though I knew that many of our regulars were watching on YouTube, as well as my parents and a friend or two back in Kansas.

As for the sermon itself, I intentionally wrote it for an audience who has read Judges 6, 7 and 8 at some point. If you haven't read it, you should, whether before or after hearing and/or reading this sermon. I touch on the major points (as I see them), but I do not tell the story in a linear way. It came to me in a sort of looping way, and I attempted to deliver it as I received it.

A church member told me that she appreciated the way I got into Gideon's head, and Maxine told me that it is entertaining to watch me preach (in reaction to Gideon's panic mode). I felt pretty good about this one. It had been about 18 months since the last time I preached, and when I offered to preach this Sunday, I had no idea how busy my life was about to become. COVID19 was still a fringe thing happening in China, my semester was supposed to happen in classrooms rather than Zoom, and my family was all healthy. The week before I delivered it was crazy with getting my department geared up for virtual teaching, and I wrote more of it than I care to admit the day before. But God works through brokenness and poor plans, as I can attest, over and over.

Who is Gideon to Us?

Judges 6-8

And the LORD turned to him (Gideon) and said, “Go in this might of yours and save Israel from the hand of Midian; do not I send you?”

And he said to him, “Please, Lord, how can I save Israel? Behold, my clan is the weakest in Manasseh, and I am the least in my father's house.”

And the LORD said to him, “But I will be with you, and you shall strike the Midianites as one man.”  Judges 6:14-16

Lord God, open our ears to hear your Word. Holy Spirit, refresh us with good news. Jesus, be our way. Amen.

When I read Hebrews 11 and 12 about the cloud of witnesses, I did all right up until chapter 11 verse 32. When the author gets to Gideon, and tells us that he doesn’t have time to explain why, my first thought as a university professor is, “Did you do the readings at all? Because it feels like you kind of remember him from Sunday School when you were a kid, that story about how he defeated a swarm of an army with just 300 men.”

Who is Gideon to me? You see, when I go back and read Judges 6, 7 and 8, where Gideon’s story happens, I don’t see a role model, I see a mess. A coward, a doubter, a complainer.

An Angel of God came to Gideon, not even asking anything, but telling him, “The LORD is with you, mighty warrior.” Gideon’s response is to question this assertion: “If the LORD is with us, why has all this happened to us?”

He’s talking about Israel being oppressed by Midian for the past seven years. The Midianites would come in like locusts, steal all the food and livestock they could find, and cause no end of trouble. More men than you could count, the Bible tells us.

Gideon knew the stories of how God had brought the people Israel into the promised land, and how God had given the land to them. He had probably learned them as a child the same way that my son has learned about Greek myths. But more than that. Recently God had sent a prophet, unnamed in this story. We think of prophets as people who tell about the future, but this prophet told of the past, drawing attention to the present. The prophet said,

“This is what the LORD, the God Israel, says: I brought you up out of Egypt, out of the land of slavery. I snatched you from the power of Egypt and from the hand of all your oppressors. I drove them from before you and gave you their land. I said to you, ‘I am the LORD your God; do not worship the gods of the Amorites, in whose land you live.’ But you have not listened to me.” (Judges 6:7-12)

So the stories and the prophet had to have been in Gideon’s mind, but he still didn’t quite believe them. He basically says to the Angel, “What has God done for us lately?”

Gideon seems to believe that the Angel is God’s emissary, yet he doesn’t believe what the Angel is saying, and has the nerve to put God to the test!

Jesus is quoting Deuteronomy 6:16 when he says, “Do not put the LORD your God to the test…” Not only is Gideon’s behavior contrary to scripture, it seems contrary to common sense! I like to think that if I had met an angel and heard God’s voice speaking to me, I would listen! I would obey!

Gideon’s doubts are so strong that it takes three miracles to get him to agree to the mission God has for him!

That said, Gideon does go on that mission. In Judges 6:34 we read that the Spirit of the LORD takes possession of Gideon, and that’s when he calls the troops together. This is Gideon’s big faith moment, the one that echoes back and forth through scripture, from Moses before him, to David after, and into Pentecost, when the Spirit of God was on the whole crowd, and on us today. That’s where Gideon shines. Not because he is brilliant, but because he does God’s will.

Then we come to the part of the story in which Gideon seems to do all right. This pattern seems familiar, because after our mountain top moments we all tend to behave well. For a while, anyway. Gideon follows the LORD’s instructions in assembling the army. The LORD doesn’t want him to lead too many troops into battle, because the LORD doesn’t want Israel to say that they won the battle by their own hand. The LORD should get the glory. So Gideon decreases his own army size from 24,000 to just 300 men.

Gideon leads his 300 men into the most unconventional battle since the walls of Jericho had fallen, many years before. His troops carried trumpets, and torches in clay jars. I will give Gideon some serious faith points for this one: it’s hard enough to risk your own life on something that seems so foolish, but leading 300 other people into what seems like certain death is a serious leap of faith.

The battle goes according to the LORD’s plan: The Midianites are routed. They have been tormenting Israel for seven years, and Gideon with his 300 men chase them relentlessly across the country. Finally, Gideon is a Bible Hero that does what we expect him to do.

But as I continue reading, that good feeling starts to fade. This is a war, and wars are ugly. But Gideon’s story turns dark, and it never seems to come completely back into the light. There is the usual bloodshed and carnage of war, and at one point Gideon is presented with the heads of two Midianite generals. The Old Testament doesn’t talk much about feelings, but at this point I imagine that Gideon is flooded with that feeling of being The Avenger. The bullies who had tormented his people were all dead fleeing, from an army not even a tenth of their size.

Also Gideon gets his revenge on those who do not help him along the way, whipping the uncooperative leaders with desert thorns to teach them a lesson. Our coward, Gideon, has become the kind of hero that we cheer for in the movie theater.

Our hero Gideon drives the Midianites out of the land. Afterwards, the people ask Gideon to rule over them, to be their king. Gideon gives a lovely speech that seems to embody the ideals of the Kingdom of Heaven. He says, “I will not rule over you, neither will my son; the LORD will rule over you.” (Judges 8:23)

If we stop reading there it feels like a pretty good story, in spite of the blood and gore. If Gideon’s story had stopped there, and he had gone back to his farm, it would have been a much happier ending.

Gideon does not take the throne, but he does ask for a tribute. A payment, for services rendered. He makes a request, very politely, which the people willingly fulfill for him. Gold. A portion of the plunder taken from the dead bodies of their former oppressors, the Midianites.

God had not wanted Israel to take credit for the win, so God made Gideon send away all but 300 of his soldiers. But one thing got in the way of that plan: Gideon was still there, with the 300. And Gideon was willing to take credit for the win, rather than give it fully to the LORD.

He was also willing to take a tribute of 43 pounds of gold. In chapter 8 verse 27 we read, “Gideon took the gold and made an ephod from it, and all Israel prostituted themselves to it there, and it became a snare to Gideon and his family.”

Who is Gideon? On my scorecard, Gideon does not do so well. He is slow to get into the game, with a weak start. He scores some big points in the first half, but he finishes poorly. The LORD’s goal of ending the Midianite oppression was successful, but I suspect that very few of you would wish to be like Gideon. So tell me, why does the author of Hebrews say that Gideon accomplishes so much through faith?

Maybe the answer is that God asked everything of Gideon, and used what Gideon gave.

God called Gideon a mighty warrior, and told him to save Israel from Midian’s hand. Gideon doesn’t directly say “no,” but he questions. He tests. He humbly asks for proof.

And when he gets that proof, he believes! He knows that he has been speaking to an Angel of God! But then in verse 23 we read the following:

But the LORD said to him, “Peace! Do not be afraid. You are not going to die.” (6:23)

Now it’s not just an angel talking, it is the LORD Himself. And Gideon thinks that he is going to die. That’s what happens when God gets right up in your business. It’s scary.

So Gideon is jazzed! He wants to serve! He’s so excited that he builds an altar to God right there and then. He was probably searching for rocks, and stacking them up, and telling himself, “I just met an Angel of God! And God talked to me! How cool is that?”

Then, that very night, the first instructions come. God tells Gideon to tear down an altar to Baal and an Asherah pole, and build an altar to Jehovah, the LORD. To you and me, that seems like an easy choice, especially after talking to an angel of Jehovah. But it’s actually a very risky move. Baal and Asherah are the local gods. People took their gods seriously. The men of town showed up the next morning and demanded Gideon’s life for tearing down those idols.

Jesus gives us clear instructions: to lay down your life, pick up your cross, and follow. Gideon had to know that he was risking his life in this action. He was testing God again, but this time if God failed him, Gideon would lose his life.

Gideon comes through the best he can. I can imagine what was going through his head as he gathered his servants together to tackle this project. “This is crazy! My friends and neighbors are gonna be seriously angry! And my Dad! Oh, Dad’s gonna kill me! Oh, God, you’ve proved yourself to me, but this is crazy!” Then as he and his servants are tearing the altar down, “Oh, please God, don’t let me get killed over this! This is crazy!” Then as he waits for morning, because I’m pretty sure Gideon didn’t sleep that night!, he was probably thinking to himself, “That was crazy! God told me to do it, but it was crazy! What have I done?”

When that crowd of angry men shows up at his door, maybe Gideon is resigned to his fate. Maybe he thinks this day will be his last. Maybe he has given up hope.

It doesn’t matter. God is sending Gideon to drive out the Midianites, and God has no intention of letting Gideon get killed in a minor skirmish.

So God wakes the faith of Gideon’s father Joash. Joash is a big man in town, with many servants, and a lot of land. Including the land with the Baal altar and the Ashtoreth pole. Joash’s faith has been slumbering as he focused on being a leader in his community, but Gideon’s actions, driven by God, wake up Joash’s faith! He comes to the defense of his son and his God.

He confronts the crowd of angry men, saying, “What kind of god is Baal that he needs you men to defend him? If Baal is real, he can defend himself. In the meantime, anyone who touches my son Gideon will be dead by morning!”

Now hope soars in Gideon, and he is thinking, “Thank you, God! You were right! I AM your warrior! You ARE with me!”

Who is Gideon to us now? He is clearly the up and coming hero. Gideon has witnessed God at work in his life, and he is open to the Spirit of the LORD.

So Gideon does his hero work, driving out the Midianites. When God tells him to decrease his army of 24,000 down to 300, he probably thinks, “Really? Just 300? Well… God saved me before, I guess God can do it again...” Gideon sends away 23,700 men. He is obedient, but I think he is doubtful.

We don’t get to know Gideon’s thoughts directly. The Old Testament rarely lets us know what people were thinking, but God knows. And God must have seen doubt in Gideon’s mind, because God says to Gideon, “If you are afraid to attack, go down to the camp with your servant Purah and listen to what they are saying. Afterward, you will be encouraged to attack the camp.” (7:10-11)

Gideon accepted the offer for a tour of the camp, so he must have been afraid. Where does fear come from? Doubt. When you doubt that God will come through for you, you feel fear. God can see your doubt, like God saw Gideon’s. And if you listen to God, as Gideon did, God will give you a little tour of reassurance. Gideon’s tour reveals that the Midianites have been dreaming of being destroyed by Gideon himself! And with that, Gideon’s fears are gone!

When God tells Gideon to arm his men with only torches and trumpets, Gideon is probably thinking, “The LORD has got this! Only trumpets and torches? No problem!”

What is Gideon to us now? The Hero, with a capital H!

The pursuit lasts for days, and Gideon’s troops are riding high on a string of victories. I think this is when Gideon’s thoughts begin to change from “I am on God’s side,” to “God is on my side.” It’s a small change in word order, but a huge change in meaning.

As it happens, this is where we notice something missing: no more conversations between the LORD and Gideon. The last one was when the LORD gave instructions for the trumpet and torch attack. From here on out, Gideon still talks about the LORD, but he no longer talks with the LORD. Not according to the book of Judges, anyway.

Maybe that’s the change that lets Gideon casually accept the severed heads of his enemies. When God was on Gideon’s side, Gideon became the punisher, whipping men with desert thorns. The executioner, killing prisoners in cold blood. And he knew that it was good, because he was totally sure that the LORD was with him, backing him up.

Who is Gideon to us now?

Gideon has not completely lost sight of the Kingdom of Heaven, but his vision is becoming ever more blurry as he moves forward, ahead of the LORD, rather than with the LORD.

In the end, Gideon gets the outline of the big picture. He doesn’t allow the people to crown him King. But he accepts their gold, and their praise. He has seventeen sons, for he had many wives, and a concubine in Shechem bore his son Abimelech. Judges 9 follows the tragic fruit that grows from these seeds.

Gideon died at a good old age, surely still believing that God was on his side. After all, he had accomplished what God had set out for him to do: to deliver Israel from the Midianites.

Maybe you recognize yourself in some part of Gideon’s journey. God is most definitely calling you to see his Kingdom.

Maybe you are still listening to the unnamed prophet, and turning the ideas over in your mind. Or maybe you are in the middle of the conversation with the angel.

Maybe God has answered your questions and consumed your offering, opening you to God’s Spirit. Maybe you have made the first moves, in spite of your doubts and fears. Maybe you’ve already routed the armies.

Maybe you’ve decided that God is on your side, rather than you being on God’s side.

So what is Gideon to us? To me? To you?

Let’s revisit our memory verse from January, Hebrews 12:1, “Therefore, since we are surrounded by so great a cloud of witnesses…” Gideon is part of that cloud of witnesses. As we’ve seen today, Gideon is not a textbook example of practicing faith. Rather, he is an example of one way that the LORD works with faith in real life.

Gideon’s faith was not enough to make him perfect. You do not have to dive deeply into the Hebrews 11 cloud of witnesses to see that NONE of them had enough faith to be perfect.

Yet Jesus tells us in the Sermon on the Mount, “You must therefore be perfect, as your Heavenly Father is perfect, or you will never enter the Kingdom of Heaven.” (Matt 5:48) That’s after telling us to love our enemies and pray for those who persecute us! Gideon is like the poster child for hating your enemies!

So who is Gideon to us, especially within this cloud of witnesses? And not just Gideon, either. These past few weeks as Micah has led us through Hebrews 11 and 12, he has pointed out how the people who make up this cloud of witnesses had problems. They were broken, imperfect vessels of God’s perfect faith. Each of them had a vision of God’s plan, some clearer than others. And each had a desire to make God’s vision a reality. But each of them, in their own fallen way, twisted and tweaked God’s plan, and poked at it, and bent it to make it a better fit for the world in which they lived. They tried to combine the Kingdom of the LORD with the reality that they were accustomed to.

Still, at heart, each in their own way had faith. They all felt assurance for what they hoped was real. Though their feet were planted in the world that we are so familiar with, their eyes were on God’s Kingdom. Having babies at 90 years old. Rising from slave to Pharaoh’s right hand man. Going to battle with torches and trumpets, attacking 20,000 men with a force of 300.

This cloud of witnesses.

What does a witness talk about? Usually not themselves. They talk about what they have seen or experienced. This cloud bears witness to God’s faithfulness. They bear witness to the fact that God used them in spite of their flaws. They bear witness to the grace of God, the forgiveness that flows freely, the undeserved love, and the protection of God. And they bear witness that when God plans for something to happen, it will happen.

In the here and now, we don’t face armies of invaders stealing our food. We don’t face being enslaved, sawn in two, or being persecuted in any serious way. Don’t get me wrong, there are Christians today who face real persecution. But not us. Not here.

Our battles are smaller, but in a way just as impossible on the surface. Jesus calls us to be peacemakers and healers, even when there is a virus that pushes us apart, labeling an entire ethnicity as lepers and enemies. Jesus calls us to love our enemies.

We all feel the need to be avenged for every insult and disrespect; it is a deep part of us, our sinful nature. But it is our calling to be on God’s side, rather than assume God is on our side.

The urge to gossip, to put down the weak and blame the poor. Society tries to convince us that this is how we survive, by putting ourselves first, throwing the other guy under the bus.

Maybe stopping to listen seems ridiculous to the world. Maybe forgiving someone who hasn’t even asked is the equivalent of attacking a larger army with nothing but trumpets and torches.

Maybe forgiving yourself is as hard as tearing down the altar where everyone in town worships.

The author of Hebrews tells us that this cloud of witnesses, including Gideon, are pointing us towards Jesus, the founder and perfecter of our faith.

That’s who Gideon is.

Lord God, thank you for giving us faith, for using us and loving us, though we are broken, misguided, and all but blind to your glory. Make us worthy to join your cloud of witnesses. Amen.

Sack Family and COVID19

We are doing okay. Not great, not bad, but a solid okay.

There. That's the post. I can't go into more detail, because the details are all tangled up like a pile of coat hangers: if I pull one out to include, I just have to include a couple more to support it, and those sort of need more background to make sense of. Next thing I know, we're talking about the Japanese occupation of Korea, my job, which has changed a lot in the last year, and Busan Waldorf School, where my kids currently aren't going to school.

Nevermind. It's all in my head. I just don't want to go into it because my brain is getting used up on other stuff. I started writing this update a few days ago, and found that it was a page and a half about my job. So I retitled it, set it aside, and started this post. It's Sunday, April 5th as I start this, and I plan to publish this week. Preferably early this week, so I can use it to procrastinate for work that needs to be done by Thursday.

All right, enough culture talk. This is twice now that I have started a post about my family and dodged the issue. It's now it's April 11th, and there are two more posts in the queue and this one has been reduced to half a page.

Winter vacation is always an interesting time for us: Horyon usually has about two weeks of actual vacation, during which we try to go out of town for some kind of trip. The rest of her vacation is taken up by "vacation classes," which I could have sworn I had written about previously on the Roblog, but a brief search revealed nothing, and an intense search felt like more procrastination than I was ready to commit to. I am leaving this coat hanger in the closet. Even with vacation classes, Horyon has more time at home than usual. The kids have about 6 weeks off, and I have more than two months. By the end of vacation time we are all ready to go back to our normal lives. There is protesting on all fronts, but it is clear that everyone wants to be back in their respective schools.

This past vacation was no different. We drove to a big, famous amusement park called Everland south of Seoul. This was early February: the Coronavirus was starting to come into public view, so people were wearing masks and it was hard to buy hand sanitizer. There was no government directive to avoid crowded places, but people were starting to do that on their own. And the temperatures were wintery: below freezing at night, snow on the ground. Hat and gloves cold. There were not many people there, so we could go on most of the rides without waiting long. When Everland is running full steam you wait an hour or two for most rides, and they sell an add-on package that lets you go to the VIP line. Not necessary in February. Of course, the water-based rides were closed, and the wooden roller coaster was as well. I was very disappointed with that. But we had a

This year the kids had a week of school, then we went on COVID19 lockdown. At first the kids were happy, "Yay! More vacation!" That lasted about a week*, which was about a week longer than it lasted for Horyon and me. Then we started hearing, "I want to go back to school," and "I miss my friends," and "My soul is starving in this wretched isolation."

* This is a sort of average. Maxine figured out that this was bad news within a few days. Quinten took longer.

By now I'm pretty sure you all understand this reality. You are either under some sort of lockdown, or reading this in the future, trying to figure out how exactly our species was wiped out.* But we started in early March, so we've been doing it longer.

*I know, my optimism is amusing.

The country as a whole has done well, but we've had some minor scares along the way: Horyon has had low-grade fevers (under 100 degrees F), enough that her school nurse made her go to the hospital to get tested. Twice. Both came back negative, both within 12 hours from hospitals designated for testing. Early on she had a week or so of a bad cold or flu, with a real fever. She slept in a separate room for a couple of weeks, just to be safe.

Maxine was also sick for a while with the same flu Horyon had. So along with our family being isolated from everyone else, we were isolating ourselves from each other. Horyon and Maxine were pretty much worthless for about a week. Maxine's been doing dishes the past few months, so we really missed that, and when Mommy goes down for the count, everything slows way down.

So now it's April 19th. I am determined to publish this soon, but that has been the case for two weeks.

The kids are going back to school. Just once or twice a week, with classes divided so that only five students at a time are there. Our school is a Waldorf school, so they don't have kids doing computer literacy until 10th grade (next year for Maxine). Even then, they have a ground-up approach, starting with how computers are made and work, the basics of programing and communication, and touching on the Internet right at the end. Before that, they don't want students to get on the Internet at all.

I refuse to stick slavishly to these guidelines, but my kids do get a lot less screen time than most, and it's a win most of the time. I miss being able to discuss much pop culture with them, but they are still pretty fun to talk to. Which is all beside the point. The point being that my kids don't do online school time. They go to school a couple of times a week, with just four other kids from their class at a time. They get homework to do, but it's not normal by most standards. Quinten's includes things exercising (take the eight flights of stairs to our apartment eight times a day), growing bean plants from dried beans, and copying a huge amount of text into his notebook. Maxine is at a strange in-between stage, without a regular teacher, so she doesn't have homework per se. Her class is going to do self-directed projects, but they are still working on how that will look.

And now it is April 20th, more than two weeks since I started. I'm going to leave you with just one photo:

Maxine and I with 2000 pieces of Glorious Fun!

Twilight

[I started writing this post in October of 2018, about the time I wrote a Roblog post called Just Reading, which, by the way, you should go read now, even if you read it when it first came out. It's a pretty good one, and it suggests that I was going to write about Twilight. Which I did. Until I stopped writing. Not just that post, but in general. The Roblog has only 3 posts for last year, not including this and a couple of others that got stuck in the pipeline. I will attempt to get things flowing again, but I suspect that this year will not be an improvement. Time will tell.]

There comes a time in every father's life when he realizes that something has changed. His children are not little offshoots of his own personality, they are individuals. Not only are they separate from him, they are practically little aliens. It is enough to make one wonder whether some otherworldly genetic code has somehow been spliced into the offspring.

Okay, I'll just come out and say it: Maxine has read the entire Twilight series by Stephanie Meyers, in Korean and in English. And she likes it. And that kind of freaks me out a bit.

Don't get me wrong, I bought the full set of books for her. Any reading is good reading at 13 (14 now, 16 in Korean age, damn you Korean age counting system!), and tastes change as one matures.

I read the first book for myself, and it was just not my thing. It had bits that weren't bad, like... (spoiler alert! though I'm guessing that everyone reading this falls into one of two camps: 1) read the books multiple times 2) hasn't read the books, has no plan to read the books, is only reading this because it's laying some pretty sick burns on the books, can't imagine reading these books no matter how much they love their little girl, etc.)

One bit that wasn't bad was the fight scene at the end. It was well told from the point of view of the human being used as bait. There were a few other plot driving scenes that worked all right, and some conversations that... communicated ideas important to the plot.

Speaking of the plot... Twilight felt like a short story expanded into a novel, but I understand that this may be a symptom (cough-cough) of the supernatural-romance genre (the romance part, not the supernatural part). There were so many words dedicated to admiring Edward that by the end I found myself wondering what it would be like to drag my fingers along his finely sculpted chest, just like Bella spent most of the book wondering. One reason I love to read is that it helps me understand others better. But what is the difference between understanding the alien and becoming the alien?

Of course, the answer is that now I remember the imprint of that longing, but it was never mine. It was just a tour of the heart of a teenage girl, albeit a fictitious one. But a tour that many young women and girls gladly take, over and over. I can imagine myself being easily carried away by such longing if it had been more in synch with my own.

This wasn't my first vampire book, of course. I read Stoker's Dracula many years ago (perhaps long enough that I owe it another read). I followed Anne Rice's Interview with the Vampire series for a while, as well as Susie Stackhouse's books about being dead. Many movies, t.v. shows, and short stories involving vampires have also left their impressions, so my definition of "vampire" is a flexible one.

As such, I was not overly upset by the liberties that Meyers took with defining her blood-drinking, living dead anti-heroes. I actually thought that making them sparkle in the sunlight was an interesting twist on explaining why they avoid sunshine.* My biggest gripe is the one that every vampire mythos has to deal with: you have a ridiculously overpowered predator which can easily turn a regular human into another ridiculously overpowered predator. One lapse in judgement and it's Vampire Apocalypse. The Vampalypse? Apocapire? The Vampocapiralypse?

*They avoid sunshine because of the ancient law: "Thou shalt not combine the serious and the fabulous, lest the Lord smite thee with irony and they neighbor be consumed with jealousy."


It's possible that she deals with this power imbalance in the sequels, and she did introduce the werewolves to keep an eye on the blood-suckers. But maybe this is just a limitation of the vampire genre, like faster-than-light travel in science fiction, the powers of superheroes, and people breaking into song during a musical: you just sort of mentally look off in another direction and whistle tunelessly rather than think too much about it.

However, my biggest issue with the story is over a different kind of power imbalance, namely the relationship between Bella and Edward. At just over 100 years old (born in 1901, converted at 17) Edward is young for a vampire. But Bella is a high school student, 17 years old. The same age that Edward was when he died. (By the way, ick.) By contrast, I am almost 50 years old, and I can barely even remember a time when I was young enough to look at a 17-year-old girl and think, "I wish I could marry her!" And for me, the rest of my life is only a few more decades (if I'm lucky), as opposed to forever, or until someone cuts off my head and burns my body and scatters the ashes just to be sure.*

*Instructions from the book for killing a vampire. Technically, having my head cut off and my body burned and the ashes scattered would be end my life. Okay, not even technically. It just would. The point being that however miserable I might be in a relationship, at least I know it will end when I die. And that it won't be that long. And... I think I need a drink.


I suppose one can get around this by just thinking of Edward as a kind of freaky 17-year-old with sparkly skin and super powers, but this is not a big improvement. Not if you've spent much time around most 17-year-olds.

I also did not care for Bella's father: he was like a cardboard cutout with "father" written across the chest. He was the most trusting police chief and least paranoid father ever. I know that the family was broken, and that his relationship with Bella needed some work, but it felt like she was more casual housemate than daughter to me. Perhaps a distant cousin. Maybe in the next book he will be a little more protective, since the first book ends with his daughter hospitalized with a bunch of broken bones. I will probably never know.*

*Because there are many many books I still want to read, and a pretty long list of books that I would be happy to read again, and I will have to be extremely bored and have access to nothing much else before I pick up a copy of Breaking Dawn.


I did figure out a way to get some amusement out of Twilight other than tearing pages out and throwing them at passers-by. Because the story is told from Bella's point of view, the only clues we have as to Edwards thought processes are what he tells her. This is actually a key point of the plot, that she isn't sure what he is thinking. So while I was reading it, I imagined that Edward was playing with Bella on the level you would expect from a one hundred year old, frightfully intelligent and quick-thinking manipulative jerk of a vampire.* Since the reader only sees and hears what Bella sees and hears, we have no idea what is going on in his head. Vampires are often portrayed as being fiendishly intelligent and completely lacking in morals, so what if Edward is really just seasoning Bella up so that she will taste better later? Maybe the more she likes him, the tastier her blood will be! And if she truly loves him with all of her heart, draining her of all life will be a transcendent, maybe even religious experience!

* Like Lestat, or Count Dracula, or a member of the Black Court from the Dresden Files. Don't get me started on Jim Butcher's vampires: clever, evil, non-sparkly, and powerful, but not the most powerful players on the board by a long stretch.

If that is the case, Edward needs to get Bella to think he is the bees knees.* Like any good lie, there are bits of truth in what he says: it's hard to resist feeding on her because she is so fascinating to him. True. Fascinating like a bucket of fried chicken. And when he says he won't let anyone hurt her, he means it. He doesn't want her unique flavors ruined by anyone else. When he says he loves her, it's like loving a bottle of wine that you are saving for a special occasion. And at the end of the book he has the strength to defeat a stronger, meaner, older vampire because that philistine was not only stealing his property, but would never be able to fully appreciate how delectable she was.

*An expression popular in the 20s, when Edward was in his 20s.


Lying to Bella is easy for Edward, because he has had a hundred years to practice: He can control his body completely, down to pretending that he needs to breath. He can read her physical reactions with a little effort, even if he's not lying about being unable to read her mind. (I'm accepting this as true in my interpretation, and part of what makes her smell so tasty to him.)

My little theory only works early in the series. In one of the later books they get married. He makes her into a vampire so that they can "live" happily forever after (or until they get crossovered into a "Blade" sequel, knock on wood). It could still be an alternate version of Twilight, but I will never give my theory the write up it deserves, because to do it properly I would have to spend even more time reading and researching the original. Also, I'm just not in the mood to make that many enemies. I don't even have a good title for it. I was thinking maybe, "It's Getting Kinda Dark Outside," or more simply, "Gaslight." Perhaps "Edward is Evil, but What a Hunk." Fans would refer to it as EEWH. I'm open to suggestions.

Though I didn't really enjoy it, I have to admit that the Twilight series has staying power. People are still reading them, and they were made into fairly popular movies. Female friends of mine have laid claims to these books, saying that they enjoyed the books when they were younger. One attraction seems to be that Bella is written as a blank slate in the book, ready for the reader to step into her place. When I was young I often imagined myself as a character in the story I was reading, and as such enjoyed the first person point of view. It's a tougher sell for me now, especially when I find the viewpoint difficult to process.

Like feeling totally helpless in front of someone you have a deep crush on. That's not a fantasy, it's a nightmare. To me, anyway. I understand that the fantasy is that Edward has all of this power over her, but he doesn't use it. He doesn't want to use it, and is afraid of using it for fear of hurting her. (Unless you read my fanfic!)

In this story of immortal beings with supernatural strength and abilities, it's possible that this particular fantasy is the most difficult to believe, and the one that appeals most to the target demographic.

I understand the words and ideas, I just don't see the appeal. My mind went right to imagining that Edward so devious that Bella doesn't realize that he is evil. I don't want to be Edward, but it's hard to imagine him the way he is portrayed. I want to understand Bella, but I can't see wanting what she wants.

The whole thing is just too alien for me. But attempting to understand it may give me some insight into how Maxine thinks and feels, so it's worth it.

Earth to Maxine, can you hear me? What is it you see in Edward and Bella that makes you read and reread those books the same way I used to read Asimov's Foundation series? Can we communicate? Can we find any common ground?

Or do we just sit and read together? I call that a good start.

When Three People Ask... (Faith Journey pt. 1)

On three consecutive days I was asked for the same story by three friends, each from further back than the last. The first made me happy, the second made me sad. The third insisted that I share my answer with you, here, in the seemingly permanent cloud that is Blogger.

The first friend was Sam, who I first met this year. He's 21 years old, married, and interested in philosophy and other people. He asked to meet me mostly so we could exchange stories. We both talked about the role of God and the Church in our lives, and when we parted I felt good about my story.

The second was David C., who I first met in university. We both lived in Pearson Scholarship Hall at the University of Kansas, but lost touch years ago. Then out of the blue I get a Facebook message from him: "Hi! Remember me? I found you, and read some of your posts. When did you become a Christian? I'd love to hear about it!"

I told him that I would get back to him. Which is what I am doing right now. And it's taking a while, because I didn't feel so good about my story at this point. I didn't feel so good, because by the time I first met him, I had been a Christian for years. Just not a very good one. Or at least not an obvious one.

The third request for my story coalesced from a few different directions: the first two requests, a sermon that my Dad is preparing, a marriage seminar Horyon and I attended that Saturday, Sunday's sermon, and a Sunday lunch conversation with my friends, Rick and Joe. By the end of lunch I shared with them the source of the third request: The Holy Spirit.

The Spirit was telling me a lot of things. "Share your story bigger, wider, farther. You are not disgusting to me. Your sins are covered, forgiven, forgotten. David won't judge you, your friends at Redeemer won't judge you, and even if they all do, We won't. Besides, you haven't posted to the Roblog since March. Seriously, it's been two months, and that last post was about your gout. You had no trouble publicly discussing the pain in your sole, so why not deal with the condition of your soul? Let's get something worth reading up there. Now get busy."

I only stalled for two days before getting started. Not bad for me. The 400 or so words up to here are the last of the stalling.

I grew up going to the First Christian Church (Disciples of Christ) in Leavenworth, KS. Sunday school, choir, youth group, camp and retreats. I turned 49 this year, and my childhood memories are hazy, but I was baptized around the age of 13, because that's when kids got baptized in our church. We took a class first, but I don't remember much about any of it. I certainly don't remember a sense of becoming a new creation.

If you had asked me, I'm sure I would have told you that I took my faith seriously, and that I believed in God, and that I was saved. I believed it then, and I believe my then-self's sincerity. I knew my Bible stories, I felt the love of God in my church. I believed.

I was a church camp counselor. I went to church camp and helped younger kids along the path of belief. In high school I attended a weekly morning prayer group, because I believed. I didn't talk about my belief in the halls or at lunch or in class, because people didn't do that, but I believed.

Then I went to university. I was on my own, and my weekends were mine to use as I pleased. I visited the local Disciples of Christ church a couple of times, but it didn't feel like home, so I didn't go back. Besides, I was home once or twice a month, and that was enough church.

I drank some alcohol there, but not nearly as much as a lot of people. Never more than once a week, and a lot less than that before I turned 21. And I know that I did some swearing, because there was no one telling me I shouldn't, or making me feel shame at it. And one way to blend in with a group and find acceptance is by using the same language that they do. So I did.

But I was still a believer. Not like David, but I believed. David wore his faith on his sleeve: relentlessly cheerful, kind to everyone, and always ready to talk about God. Church every Sunday, no drinking, no swearing. To him, I must have seemed like just another heathen.

Some time during this education, I took a couple of classes that struck some serious blows to my poorly exercised faith. The first was "Women in World Religions," a.k.a. "Being a Woman is Really a Bummer in Most Religions." It hit all the major religions, including Christianity, pointing out the inequities inherent in most all of them. Most of it was unpleasant to learn about, and some of it was sickening. But as long as we live in a world in which female genital mutilation happens, it is important for us to learn that it happens. I took comfort in belonging to a church in which women held leadership positions. Though we had never had a female pastor, it was not out of the question (though always a decade or two in the future).

That class made me compare my religion to others in a way that I had not previously. In hindsight, this was essential to my faith. After all, can one truly choose their faith if one has not even considered others? It did draw attention to a broad pattern of treating women as less-than-equals in faith communities. I do not recall whether or not the professor portrayed this as a fundamental flaw of religions in general (and by extension, of God), but it's a simple enough connection to make, even for a student as lazy as myself. This was never a core idea for me, but at the very least it colored my perception of God, and got added to the barrel of bad things that a good God would never allow to happen.

The other class hit harder. It was on the Bible as an historical document. There was some literary analysis, a lot of connections to previous and surrounding cultures, and a sort of clinical detachment that left faith completely out of the discussion. From my perspective now, I can see some advantages to this approach. Namely, it helps to avoid arguments that aren't going to be settled in a class like that. I learned a lot in that class, but my big takeaway at the time was that the Bible is a mess of a collection of documents written by people.

As I've mentioned, I had grown up with the Bible as a steady presence. Not that we had regular family Bible readings, but faith was lived out in our home. It was an underlying assumption, rather than a line to be toed. The choir practice and youth group meetings I went to were modeled for me by my parents going to their own choir practice, board meetings, elder meetings, celebrations, funerals, church gatherings, and Sunday School. Every year Chris and I got Sunday School attendance certificates, because we went at the same time as our parents. Never even occurred to us to try to avoid it. We went and we learned, because it was important. Bible stories and faith were sometimes talked about at home. Monthly giving to the church was not only done, but the percentage increased over the years.

My faith was based on our church, which was based on the Bible. And I felt like the Bible was starting to crumble around the edges, maybe even fall apart completely. (In hindsight, I am the one who was crumbling around the edges, making it possible for me to be renewed by God, but at the time it sure didn't feel like that!) In the following few years, I had some conversations with my pastor, and with a few other people I trusted. I gradually came to understand the Bible in a new way. Well, new for me, anyway. And by gradually, I'm not sure exactly how long that process took. In a sense, it is no more finished than I am.

I will return to this idea later (maybe in another post), but for now I will just say this: I stopped thinking (or I began to stop thinking) of the Bible as a book that God sat down and wrote, or even dictated to people.

That process of evolving faith continued into the year after I graduated from university. I spent that year joining the Peace Corps, though I had no idea that it would take that long when I started. Submitting all the proper forms, having an interview, getting a full medical check-up and background check, and lots of waiting, including a couple of false starts. I lived at home, with my parents, for more than a year. An extreme test of their patience which I am afraid I barely noticed. I worked with Dad building decks and doing other projects, and directed a youth choir at church.

During that year, I attended my parents' Sunday School class, The Seekers. (They were founded back when names like that were widely considered to be 'groovy,' and they still have the same name.) That's where my concept of what an adult group of believers could be, and my current style is still modeled on it.

It was a good year, and I wish that I could tell you more precisely how my faith evolved during that time. I was journaling then, but those journals are in my parents' basement, 14 time zones away from my current home in Busan.*

*That is a convenient excuse. I am not lazy enough to have my own meme about it, but it is easy to imagine that I would either not go look at all or get so distracted that this project would get left behind.

My time in Nepal with the Peace Corps was a Big Deal. A big enough deal that it calls for at least the beginning of its own post.

But as a reward for staying with me this whole time, I offer you photos of a more recent journey. These are a few family selfies from January of this year, on our way to visit my parents in Kansas. The first nine are of us waiting in the Busan airport for our first flight. You will notice that in each one of these nine photos, someone is out of focus, or looking the other way, or being extremely silly. In a way, this sums up our family very well. The tenth photo is in Chicago, about 16 hours later. It accurately captures how tired we were, with one more flight to go.

Pretend hamburger?

Looking in Quinten's ear.

Tongue out.

Blurry wife, Maxine starting to lose it.

Blurry everyone, me starting to lose it.

Wife stretching, Quinten fading, Maxine worried, me annoyed.

Maybe this time... nope.

Seriously?

We give up. Maxine is not amused.

I cannot explain my cheeriness in this photo.

Gout

I don't know about you, but when I hear the word "gout" I think old-timey, rich old dude disease. I had no idea what caused it, or how to treat it, or even what the symptoms were.

Now I know. And not in my usual "I read it somewhere" way, but in a more practical sense.

Last Monday as I went about my day I got a cramp in my right foot, at the joint where my big toe is attached to my foot. I tried to work it out by stretching and walking through it, but it got progressively worse through the day. It got a little swollen, but not as much as I would expect from a fracture. That big joint became painful to the touch, and I started to lose flexibility in my foot. At the end of the day, I got a ride home because I could not stand the thought of walking to and from the bus. When I got home, I went to bed, took some Tylenol, and tried to sleep. That didn't go so well, since my foot was only comfortable when not being touched by anything and resting at a comfortable angle. I couldn't find a comfortable angle, and I live in a universe that is chock full of matter, so my foot was constantly touching something. It was a lousy night.

The next morning, my father-in-law, Youngsoo, took me to a clinic. They took x-rays and drew blood for testing, and made me walk around with one bare foot in their office, which made me grateful that it was early in the morning.

(Side note: every x-ray technician I have encountered in this country has inspired an incomparable blood lust in me. Apparently they believe that foreigners feel no pain, probably because we are not very good at expressing ourselves when some ass-hat grabs an injured limb and twists it into position for that perfect angle. And while I am aware that in Korean culture laughter is a very common way to show discomfort, it is difficult to set aside the fact that in American culture laughing at someone else's pain is considered a sign of being a super-villain. Fortunately, my Korean is not good enough to say, "I wonder what sort of x-ray picture we would get if I were to forcibly insert the x-ray projector into one of your body cavities?" I really need to take more Korean lessons. But I digress.)

The doctor was guessing gout, and gave me a prescription that he said would help if it was. I went to school that with a cane borrowed from Youngsoo and medicine to take after lunch. I was walking like a gimp, trying to figure out how best to use the cane, and how to avoid flexing my right foot. It was a long day, and I was exhausted from trying to avoid pain.

So here are some things I learned about gout. I do not know if they are generally true, or just in my case, and some of them are a bit speculative. I do not recommend quoting me in a research paper.

- gout happens when uric acid crystals form in the joints, most often the big toe.
- it is very much driven by diet, and can often be avoided by changing one's diet.
- the big toe does not, in fact, go to market, nor is it a piggie.
- crystals in general are kind of cool, but they have sharp edges, like a thousand little knives.
- flexing the joint with the crystals in it applies pressure to the crystals, breaking them into millions of tinier, newer, sharper crystals.
- uric acid is highly concentrated in organ meats, so I need to avoid liver, gizzards. No problem.
- and red meat in general. Dammit.
- and some seafood. Well poop.
- Including mackerel, a fish which I could not have picked out of a lineup before moving to Korea, but is now easily my favorite: cheap, flavorful, with so much natural oil you can cook it in a dry pan, big bones that are easy to remove, and full of the purines that lead to high concentrations of uric acid in the bloodstream so GOUT GOODBYE MACKEREL I WILL REMEMBER YOU FOREVER!
- It is removed from the bloodstream by the kidneys, unless they are busy processing alcohol, so I am going completely dry for the next month. Maybe longer.
- Oh yeah, sugary drinks interfere too. I didn't want my weekly Pepsi that bad anyway.
- The doctor said it is aggravated by stress, so if giving up everything you enjoy eating stresses you out, TOO BAD YOU GET GOUT ANYWAY! HA HA! - sincerely, your body.
- Once you announce that you have gout on Facebook, you quickly find out who else does as well.
- Just like every other medical condition, you are likely to do better if you are not overweight.
- But hey, if I'm taking everything fun out of my diet, that shouldn't be a problem.
- The medicine works, and fairly quickly.

By Wednesday night I had no trouble sleeping. I was walking more carefully, and my foot only hurt when I flexed it too much. But at least I could flex it, and it was no longer painful to the touch.

Thursday I was walking slowly, with short steps, and without the cane. Occasional pain when I forgot what I was doing, but nothing like earlier in the week.

Friday I was mostly back to normal.

Except that I'm no longer sure what normal is. Even now, a full week after I had trouble sleeping because of the pain, I feel something when I flex my foot. Not exactly pain, but the memory of pain. A sense that that pain is lurking just out of sight, and ready to come back any time. I have medicine to take, and I'm pretty sure I'll recognize it the next time I have an attack. Taking the medicine early and being gentle with my foot should make a second attack much more manageable, but...

It's a reminder that even though we pay attention to how our age is counting up, our remaining days on Earth are also counting down. It's a reminder that the body is a wondrous machine, but like any machine it requires maintenance. It's a reminder that going to America and eating your weight in meat has a downside.

I'm not going to claim that this has turned my life around. But I'm paying more attention to what I eat now. I'm trying to be more active.

And I am seriously hoping that research into the human microbiome leads to that Woody Allen future where you eat whatever you want and remain healthy and fit without even trying.

The Return

February 2019

It was not the smoothest of trips, but it wasn't bad. I did a terrible job of emptying my pockets, so I got the full pat-down by the heroes who keep our airports safe. Since I didn't take some things out of my pockets, it seemed reasonable for them to assume that I was a potential terrorist, using my own children as cover. I also had four tubes of toothpaste in a carry-on bag. Fortunately, they caught that and threw them in the trash. I don't know about you, but I feel safer knowing that no one on the flight had a full tube of toothpaste.

"I demand that you fly this plane to Libya, or everyone here will soon have minty-fresh breath!"

It all felt like a punishment for not properly preparing to fly in a police state. Seriously, how much more secure are we with everyone getting their shoes run through the x-ray machine? And please, don't tell me that you feel more secure. You know what makes me feel secure? Cockpit doors that are sturdier than the lavatory doors. Remember, we have our shoes x-rayed because one idiot tried to smuggle a bomb in his shoes. And it didn't work, not even close. I was already emotionally exhausted, as well as physically tired. The annoyance you see here is what's left of my ire four days later. Sorry, five days. I forget that the trip itself takes an entire day.

Everything is amazing, and nobody is happy.

(Dang, that's Louis C.K. Sorry, but it's still funny even though he is a jerk.)

One good thing did happen in Kansas City International Airport: In packing, we had loaded up Maxine with a relatively big, blue, fabric suitcase to use as a carry-on bag. It was heavy, because it had a lot of her books in it (that's my girl!), and she added some notebooks to bring back as presents for friends (that's Mommy's girl! I don't bring back crap for my friends!), making it even heavier. I figured it was still way cheaper then shipping it all, and was prepared to carry it myself. Then, while we were waiting to board, they announced that the plane was overbooked, and that there would be trouble fitting everything in the overhead compartments and under seats. They offered to check a bag if we wished, all the way to our destination. Complimentary! So we shuffled her important stuff into her backpack (which was in the blue suitcase), moved some stuff from Quinten and my carry-ons as well, and checked it through! Bada-bing bada-bang bada-boom! We dropped at least 15 pounds of carry-on stuff! That would have cost us like $200 to check!

I'm sorry, sir, but I'm going to have to ask you to step aside for a body-cavity search. You just used the word "boom," which is a sound we expect from terrorists. Please come this way, and do not resist.

Once we got on the plane, everything was fine. Except that there was a problem with the fueling truck, so they had to bring over another fueling truck. So we left a little late, maybe 15 minutes. They made it up by giving us an extra snack and asking us to all hold our breath so the plane would be lighter. Apparently it worked, because we arrived close to our scheduled time.

They did not ask us to hold our breaths. That would be silly. And they also did not give us anything extra. That would be intruding on the profit margin, which is even more silly.

We had no problem making our flight from Chicago to Tokyo. It was a long walk to our gate, but at least we didn't have to carry as much stuff. I mean, we were all carrying our bags, coats and jackets, but we got to use a restroom on the ground, and smell airport food. #blessed. The flight itself was fine. We landed in Chicago at the time they started boarding our next flight, and we were almost the last passengers to board, but we made it. In hindsight, it would have been very nice if the airport staff had offered us a ride on one of their golf-carts, but at least I can rest assured that no one there had a full tube of toothpaste.

The Chicago airport actually smells pretty good: there were a number of restaurants, and it was early enough in the day that most travelers had not yet acquired the funk you get after about 10 hours. I know this funk because I generate it in spades, and appreciate how it encourages other people to keep their distance.

The flight from Chicago to Tokyo was about 12 hours. Half a day. It is absolutely amazing that we can cross to the other side of the world in such a short time. One hundred years ago it would have seemed like a miracle. A hundred years from now it will either seem tediously slow or just one of those stories old people tell around the hearth about how things used to be right before they start crying and yelling, "You blew it up, you b***ards!"

You know you've been travelling too long when the ending of Planet of the Apes starts to look more like a sunny day at the beach than a post-apocalyptic vision.

As usual, the last flight is the most painful. We arrive in Japan feeling like we should be home, but there one more flight waiting, just two and a half hours, and a couple of hours in the Tokyo airport. That's a long four and a half hours, even though it takes about 40 minutes to get from our arrival gate to our departure gate. And during that time, I hear our names being paged. I go look into it, and they tell me that something in our luggage looks like a gun. They will want to open one of my suitcases with me, just to be sure. I'm thinking it's probably Quinten's bug-catching gun, a chunk of plastic that is suspiciously shaped like a futuristic ray gun.

Sure. Whatever. I haven't slept more than 4 hours in the last 40 hours, I'm an emotional mess after leaving my parents behind, I'm exuding a funk that has me hallucinating, and I'm an American. But you want me to be there when you open the suitcase that might have a gun in it? What could possibly go wrong? Just in case, you all should prepare to be shrunk, or frozen, or turned into newts.

It is the euphonium. They have a musical instrument case the size of a bassinet, and they want to make sure that I'm not smuggling a gun in it. Oddly enough, at the American airports the subject never even came up. Because flying around with a gun is fine, but

leave the m****r-f*****g toothpaste at home!

Sorry. I'm still pissed that I had to throw away almost four full tubes of toothpaste, and I can't even blame it on Trump because America has been buying into this ridiculous crap since 9/11.

By the way, you are welcome to disagree with me on this, but unless you can point towards a legitimate source showing that the TSA has stopped anything significant, I'm going to just suggest that you write about it on your own blog.

So the last flight is painful. Night is falling, and I feel that I am, too. My eyes are getting that gritty feeling, like I've been in the desert a couple of days with nothing to drink buy my own urine. My wrists and ankles hurt, my hands and feet are still swollen from the previous flight. When we got on the plane I start watching a movie. (It is my 7th on this trip, "The Greatest Showman" because I don't feel like I need to pay close attention to it and the music will keep me awake.) Thirty minutes into the movie I look out the window (from the center section of seats) and am surprised to see big, clear lights. I think, "Oh my, we shouldn't be that close to the ground! Maybe it's a reflection of a light inside the plane?" Then I realize that we have not yet taken off.  We end up taking off 45 minutes late.

Thirty minutes into the flight: "Ladies and gentlemen, this is your captain. We had some technical problem before taking off. We thought we had it fixed, but after testing we found that it wasn't. So we fixed it again, and that's why we left so late. But everything seems okay now. Thank you for your patience."

Don't get me wrong, I appreciate the politeness and honesty. But the timing was a bit disturbing. And I will chalk up the use of "seems okay" to a translation slip. I'm sure he meant that "everything is absolutely okay and this airplane is working perfectly."

Seriously. Translating is hard. I mean, it seems to be hard.

We arrived in Korea and cleared customs and immigration with no problems. From getting off the plane to getting our bags was less than 30 minutes, then we were out, euphonium cannon, non-minty-fresh-breath, bags and all. Horyon was waiting for us right outside, and I was the same emotional mess that I was when we arrived in Kansas City a month earlier: happy/sad/exhausted/relieved.

Please be careful while deplaning as your emotional baggage may have shifted during the flight.

And don't even THINK of bringing a full tube of toothpaste!