Timber!

Though our house is in the city, we have a ton of trees on our lot. It was a sad day Thursday when we had to cut one down that has probably been here for 65 to 75 years. It was in danger of falling during a storm, though, with the projected angle of descent aiming right for my firstborn son's bedroom. No second thought for me. Given a choice between an old red oak tree and my son, I will pick my son every time. (I would hope that would be an easy choice for any parent.)

The tree was a double-trunk monster of a tree. It was so interesting to see Greg Hoskins (a shameless plug for his tree service) climb that tree with seemingly no fear. Of all the people in my house, there was one who sat watching in sheer amazement all day as the tree came down. From 8:30 in the morning until 3:00 in the afternoon, one person tirelessly watched every stage of cutting the tree down.

You might think it was my eight year old, who gets a kick out of everything. You might think it was my firstborn, who loves to know everything about everything, including how things work. Nope on both counts. It was Doug, my father-in-law. He gave a running commentary all day on the progress of the tree. It was truly amazing to see how they got the branches down without any danger of damage to the house, driveway, or yard. He called our attention to each new amazing feat.

And I realized that I want to be just like my father-in-law. At a time when we only want to watch 6-second videos and read 140 character or less tweets, I think it's safe to say that we have very short attention spans. Instead of filling my day with short snippets of nothingness, I want to focus on something, to pay attention to the details of a thing, to take the time to figure out how something works.

So, thank you, Doug, for the reminder to take the time to be amazed at the things of this life.