Part I

I am the Chixo Recovery King of the North Central Texas Area.

For those of you who are unfamiliar with Chixo's, they are small plastic dolls about 2" tall with interchangeable arms, heads, feet and heads. Today, the orange headed Chixo fell victim to physics and my surgical expertise was required. Fortunately for my patient, my services are free, as the procedure was quite experimental and required several stages to complete. The process to re-attach and re-connect her head, arms and torso (so that her head was still interchangeable) was as follows:

1- hot glue: fail

2- clean doll off with rubbing alcohol, hot glue: fail

3- connect head to torso with tiny metal pin, hot glue: fail

4- connect head to torso with straightened fish hook, hot glue: fail

5- attempt to barb both ends of fish hook - fail

6- solder two barbs from two straightened fish hooks so that the barbs are at opposite ends, shove one barb onto shoulder piece, shove other barb into torso, thereby creating a hardened steel spine to running from the lumbar (lower back) to the cervical (neck) regions of the doll. Re-solder three times to get proportions and spacing right; seal remaining gap with hot glue. Success.

We made a few "Halo Barbie" jokes along the way. If you don't know what a "halo" is, it's a setup used to stabilize the vertebrae of spinal injury patients. You can see one here, should you desire to expand your acumen regarding spinal trauma protocol.

Part II

I brought up the whole last blog because of a conversation I had with a girl at work who is a Jehovah's Witness. She was explaining to me why they don't celebrate Christmas or Easter, and after she explained it to me it wasn't nearly as wacky as I had originally thought. As I understood it, they don't want to associate any pagan symbolism (like the tree, evidently) with the birth of Christ, and are committed to not celebrating anything that's not 100% historically accurate. I can respect that. We haven't discussed much else yet. They also hold their church to be the first place they run to in any kind of real national emergency, too, which I thought was a better plan than most of America has, and was something that maybe some of us could learn from. I'm interested to see how what "they" believe and what "we" believe differ, and in what ways.

See, growing up, I think I learned that it was OK to make fun of JW's and Mormons because they had different beliefs than we did, and that their religious beliefs were OK to ridicule. I think I grew up learning how to blow holes in their theology instead of learning how to love them, and I (now) think that loving those folks - maybe even into the God's Kingdom - is better than arguing them down. Preach Christ always, and when necessary, use words - right? My $.02, anyway.

And I have no plans to convert, so don't freak out on me. I'm hoping it wasn't necessary to say that, but I am just in case some of you are getting antsy. I know you people.

Part III: God showed up in a Saturn

today, I had an experience I want to share with you guys, especially in light of some of what I wrote last night.

Back in 2003, I spent Christmas Eve upstairs with my then two-year old daughter. I was video-taping her and she was talking about Santa, and just generally being two. At the time, my marriage was within hours of ending, and most of what I remember was such a sense of profound sadness it broke my heart just to be in the same house with her, talking to her about Christmas and trying so hard to be happy and upbeat, while inside I felt like I was dying. Now, what makes this story important is this: in the background of the video was Sinead O'Connor singing "Silent Night". You can here it here if you want. At the time, I was struggling to hold it together for my daughter while I was filming her, knowing that her life was about to change forever, and that I was both powerless to stop and terrifies and devastated because I could neither stop or control it, and the music made it so sad that after viewing the tape once a few days later, I've never gone back and watched it again. I've had a hole in my heart with that song ever since. I've never heard that version again.

Today, as I drove home after I had after Christmas shopping, it came on the radio.

I was stuck at a light, and I was so paralyzed by hearing it I was unable to change the channel. I sat for a moment, waiting to either the tears to come or that hurt to come rushing back with full force.

It didn't happen.

For a moment, I felt a peace settle over my heart, and it was if God was telling me "It's OK - I'm still here. I haven't forgotten you or your daughter. You are both my children, and I love you, and it's OK." I don't know how else to describe it. As the song progressed, I could feel that hole filling back up, but instead of hurt, it was peace. The fear was gone, and that wound lost it's power. That missing piece of my heart that was broken six years ago today has begun - at last - to be restored.

I like it when God gives us Christmas presents we can't get anywhere else but from Him. That's even better than getting money today to replace my right rear tire, which has several chunks of tread that's just flat-out gone and a lot of abraded steel that's just poking out like a metal gopher.

You guys enjoy this one - it's Charlotte Church, whom I like about as much as I like Kelly Clarkson. Stick around for the last verse and enjoy the chills.



Actually, have two.



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