What Happens In Vegas

Until Saturday I used to think that the main business of Las Vegas is gambling.  On Saturday, June 9, 2012,at about 4:30 in the afternoon, I learned the truth; The main business of Las Vegas is weddings.  You know, "goin' to the chapel and I'm .... gonna get married, yes I'm ..... goin' to the Chapel ... of ... Love."  Of course, getting married is a form of gambling so perhaps I was right all along.

There may not be a lot of active churches in Las Vegas, but there are dozenss of chapels.  Chapel of Love, Chapel of the Flowers, Little White Wedding Chapel, the list is seemingly endless.  I believe there might be more wedding chapels than casinos because every major casino has a wedding chapel, and then there are a bunch of independent wedding chapels.

My daughter, Valerie, and her new husband, Matt, picked the Chapel of the Flowers.  In the hour we were there, from about 4:15 to about 5:15, I counted 8 wedding groups.  I counted 7 limosines owned by Chapel of the Flowers, 11 photographers, three "preachers" (the guy who performed the ceremony for Valerie and Matt really was a Christian pastor) and numerous other support staff.  Doing a little rough calculation, I figured the Chapel of the Flowers probably did 80 weddings on June 9, 2012, at an average cost of $300-$400, and not counting extra services like photo's, limo's etc.  I figure they must gross at least $50,000 a day on a busy day.  Multiply those numbers by a hundred chapels, and you are talking something like 1000 weddings and five million dollars of love money in one day!  Love is a big business!

The wedding was all very nice, really.  Nice talk by the preacher about a house just being a house until it has people in it who love each other, and then it is a home.  About the meaning of love, and the power of forgiveness.  Traditional but modernized vows of loving and respecting each other for as long as you live.  Candles, with a unity candle.  Rings.  I cried a little, of course.  Valerie was radiant and beautiful.  Matt was handsome and dashing in his tux.  They were as goofy and genuine as ever, and picked bears to top their wedding cupcakes. 

    

Jessica knitted a bow tie for Yoda the dog.  Matt and Yoda, the only two men in formal attire, shared a tender, funny moment.

And now, for my daughters, Cheri and I have two sons-in-law cut from similar cloth.  Matt and Luke are fine, healthy, intelligent young men, both from well adjusted close-knit, loving families.  Fun-loving and  fun.  Hard working with good moral fiber.  What more could a father hope for?

There is a lot of strength and love backing these young married couples. 

There are a lot of people happy for them, pulling for them, supporting them, cheering them on.

Speaking of cheering them on, wouldn't you know that the NBA Western Conference Finals, game 7 would be on this afternoon?  There are some important things in life that simply can't be put aside.

After a brief interruption of the wedding festivities for the coronation of King Lebron ...

... it was back to business.  The Love business.  With the coronation of the King and Queen, Matthew and Valerie Croskey!  We salute you, and wish you great love and happiness

Closer To Heaven

There are a few things you can do in this life to get closer to heaven.  My short list includes (1) spend more time in the mountains; (2) love a lot, and as much as possible stay on good terms with the people you love; (3) forgive, and seek forgiveness; and (4) build tree houses and hang out in them.

When I married Cheri last April (yes, it's already been more than a year!) I got three additional "kids" and two grandsons as part of the deal.  The grandsons, Nate and Jake, live somewhere in Indiana in a house with a large lot, the permimiter of which is wooded with undergrowth and trees.  Trees.  Grandsons.  As if in a black and white dream the vision came to me -- treehouse!

And then, with a few posts and sticks, the clearing of a little brush, the vision itself became clearer.  Others caught the vision and became excited.  Yes, by George!  A treehouse!

We came, and we saw.  We put the hammer down.  We drilled, and leveled, and fastened.  And slowly, measure by measure, the dream took shape.

 

 

It was a family effort, working together, sharing a vision, sharing a dream, getting closer to each other and closer to heaven all the while.

X marks the spot for a break.

The picture above shows Nate and Jake up in the "crow's nest" of their new tree house, a little closer to heaven.  The picture below shows my daughter, Jessica, about age 3, up in a tree house we built together about 22 years ago out of old packing crates and scrap wood.  A scrappier and more modest effort, perhaps, but overall the same idea and the same result.  Spending quality time and working together to get a little closer to heaven.

An End and a Beginning

Plato wrote that "(n)o man should bring children into the world who is unwilling to persevere to the end in their nature and education." This quote resonates with me this year, as I have two children, out of two, who are now only months away from completing college graduate studies. Here I am, a little more than a half century old, and a quarter century from bringing two children into the world, and can I now say that I have persevered to the end in their nature and education? Probably not, but work with me here. Let's pretend, for a while, that I can.

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My children may both deny that I have persevered in any way in this latest stage of their education (I hesitate to say "last stage," because really it probably isn't, nor should it be). Their graduate work has been theirs and theirs alone. And the cost of their graduate studies is chiefly theirs, as well. Nonetheless, I have been a major player in their respective journeys. I have devoted a great deal of my labors and my life to my two "children" for the last 25 years, and I am pleased and proud to see them coming to these plateaus of education and accomplishment.

Plato correctly taught that "the most important part of education is training in the nursery," and also generically that "the beginning is the most important part of the work." What their mother and I taught them in their early years, and what we modeled, are the foundation on which their natures and their educations rest. So while we may not claim the full credit, nor even the fuller part of it, for their accomplishments, they really did get their start from us.

On the other hand, since we can't claim the full credit for who they become, neither are we ultimately responsible for who or what they finally become. When our children are infants, we have 100% of control over them and 100% of the responsibility for their well-being. If we are parenting correctly, we gradually give our children more responsibility and more control, until, at some point, they have 100% of the control over their own destiny and 100% of the responsibility for what they do. If there is anything my children regret about who they are, about their character, or about what they know or don't know, it might be easy and convenient to blame their mother or me. But they're both smart. They got that from us. And if we taught them anything, we taught them to think critically, and we taught them that ultimately they have to claim responsibility for who they are, and who they become.

The end of childhood is both an end and a beginning, and that's true for both the child and the parents. Similarly the end of a formal education is both an end and a beginning. A new life, and the end of life, are both an end and a beginning. Even a decision to become something other than what you are, and the giving and receiving of grace, are both an end and a beginning.

Now, maybe, my childrens' continuing educations will include new lessons that are as old as man -- lessons that I have learned but which I am unable to teach them -- like that being a parent is both the most wonderful experience in life, and also the most challenging; like that it isn't easy being a parent, and sometimes you make mistakes. You don't always know what to do, or how to do it. It was Aristotle, the student of Plato, who observed that "the things we have to learn before we can do them, we learn by doing them."

And so it is with life. Life really is a dance we learn as we go. And each step we take, each phase of life, each sunset and every new day is both an end and a beginning.