I got to see Youngest Daughter for a bit yesterday. She can’t come down on Sundays because that’s the day campers arrive and it’s all hands on deck for that.
The HVAC system started acting up on Saturday too. The thermostat screen would blink out and apparently quit talking to the HVAC unit, shutting down for anywhere between fifteen and thirty minutes. That’s something of a problem when the temp is in the high 80s and the humidity is in the 60s. Crossing my fingers that it holds on until Monday when we can get a tech out.
Car Hunting
I’ve basically given up on repairing my Subaru. It’s been in the shop for two months or more as they look for a new transmission, and they’re not finding one. I could send it to a different shop for a rebuild, but it’s not worth it on a 23-year-old car. So I’ve started looking for a new car.
It’s kind of a pain to do that when you’ve probably got ADD.
I’ve never been officially diagnosed, but there are a couple of signs, and the main one that comes into play here is executive paralysis. It’s akin to information overload. I’ve got too many options, so I have a really difficult time choosing anything. At one point, my list of cars that I liked hit almost 40 between Cars.com, CarGurus, and Autotrader.
I won’t swear there were a couple of duplicates in that list.
I flagged cars in Texas and Kansas, just because they fit my not-very-selective criteria: Under $12,500, and under 100,000 miles. A surprising number of Mercedes-Benz showed up on my list, though they were far enough away that I really shouldn’t have saved them. I test-drove a local one but too many warning lights lit up the dashboard.
I finally asked Diana for help. She’s analytically detached enough from the decision other than giving me a budget that it was easy for her to guide me winnowing the list. Thursday we headed up to Tulsa to look at a couple of VW Passats. They were both 2012 and about the same mileage (low 80k). One was a diesel with a sunroof, so I was interested in that one a little more than the gasser.
We test-drove the gasser first though for no particular reason. The Passat has a lot more space than you’d expect, really, and the cockpit was pretty well laid out, at least for me. This one had just a little front-end damage, but not enough to keep me from buying it if it came to that. During the test-drive, the car displayed no bad tendencies, other than the driver’s windshield wiper blade flying off as I drove down the road.
Yeah.
Everyone in the car kind of said, “What?” The salesman said not to worry about picking it up because of the traffic on the road.
We decided to go look at the diesel at another dealership, but not because of the wiper blade. I just wanted to check it out.
I could have skipped it. The dealership had listed it even though it’d just come in and hadn’t been cleaned or reconditioned. There was a ton of dog hair throughout the car, the headliner was coming off from the sunroof, and the back door panels had a bunch of loose fabric.
We test-drove a Nissan Altima at that same dealership but it didn’t really do anything for me, so I’m still looking.
I did find a 2021 Chevy Malibu (Diana has a 2017 edition) in my price range, but it’s in Texas. It’s got 68,000 miles on it, which is a little high for a ’21, but is a lot lower than other cars in my budget range. We’ll see. Next week is going to be busy as we get our church’s fireworks stands set up, so I may not be checking any cars out until after the 4th of July.
Father’s Day
This year marks my 34th Father’s Day. It’s the 30th since I lost my Dad, too.
I’m not sure how I feel about that.
A couple of years ago, Oldest Son sent me an invitation to Storyworth. That project prompted some deep introflection over the months. There’s a chunk of writing I did for it that fits in well here.
“Cat’s In The Cradle” talks about a dad who spent more time at work than he did with his son, with the son saying, “I’m gonna be like him.” I remember saying when I first heard the song that I’d never be that dad, that I’d always make time for my kids so that what happened to the dad in the last verse wouldn’t happen to me.
That song never fails to make me reflect on the kind of father I’ve been compared to the father I had and the father I should have been.
I loved my dad. Really. He was pretty good at what he did, too. But he didn’t have a father for a good part of his childhood. He had uncles and cousins and brothers, sure. But his father died when Dad was seven. He didn’t have someone who was always there for him, so I think there were a lot of times with me and my brother where he didn’t know what to do and didn’t really have someone he could ask for help.
So Dad seemed distant a lot of the time. I’m coming to think that apparent distance was mostly based on his not having almost any example of what to do, of how to be a dad.
I didn’t really know any other way to be a dad. I was kind of distant to my kids. Dad left in the morning to teach, then came home, had a couple of drinks. Then we had supper and he headed off to his study to do…whatever it was that he did there. I didn’t know much of what he did because his study was his sanctum sanctorum. I rarely went in there when I was young because I wasn’t supposed to disturb him. He was doing big important stuff then.
The reality was that he was working on genealogy research, writing music, or getting ready for his lectures the next day. I didn’t understand that as a little kid though.
As my kids came along, I fell back on the example I had. Dad let Mom do most of the work of raising me and my brother, at least as far as I could tell. I followed that example because I didn’t know how else to be a father.
I don’t feel as bad as I used to about the mistakes I made as a father. But they still affect me.
I hope your memories of your father are good ones.
Church and Sex Abuse
I came across a really disturbing graphic on Twitter this week.
I’m really kind of grossed out that the top two items aren’t closer to 100%. I don’t understand how any pastor would be willing to trust a pedophile again. Admit them back to your congregation. Sure, if their post-sentencing limitations allow it. Allow them back into the ministry? No. In my mind, it’s too much of a risk.
People in the thread made some seemingly invalid conclusions about the data, but the OP didn’t include any information about the original survey. I headed over to Lifeway Research to see what I could find.
I found the original article here. It explains that the numbers for the first question regarding pastors who have assaulted children are not quite as bad as the original graphic on Twitter might suggest. About half of the other 17% of respondents do want an offending pastor suspended from ministry, though they disagree over how long.
I’m curious about the 7% who are “not sure” about how long a person should withdraw from ministry after sexually assaulting a child. How can you not choose one of the offered choices?
The supporting data (found in this PDF) points out that older clergy members are less likely to support permanent withdrawal.
The survey of congregants gave up some concerning numbers. 15% of respondents say they would want reports of sexual misconduct to be dealt with “quietly” and 14% wanted the pastor “protected.”
Do people realize what that says about them when they want the offender protected?
It’s been five years since these surveys were done. I’d be very curious to see if the results have changed much since then, especially among SBC churches.
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