Spending time with family

I've lost track of the times I've heard high-profile Christian leaders (and other people) say, "I didn't spend as much time with my family as I wanted to." It is perhaps true that given the vast amount of travel that I've had over the past 18 years, I might reflect that as well. Still, I remember the words of a colleague and friend in Washington DC many years ago. In the midst of the Dan Quayle "family values" debate (some of you might remember that), he said that "the most important thing is spending quality time with your family(epecially kids). Unfortunately," he went on to say, "quality comes directly out of quantity time."

I've tried to live that. Spending as much time as I could with my two boys as they grew up. This picture is of us over the Fourth of July weekend (Joe on left; John on right). This calendar year alone, between soccer games of theirs I've photographed, baseball games I've managed, college basketball games we've watched together, and, of course, the World Cup -- we've had great experiences and cool conversations. Times that I'll treasure just as in other years.

Later next month, they go off to college to be mostly on their own and give me and Christine much less access to them. Have I spent as much quantity time with them over the years as I wanted. Probably not. Did I spend a lot of quality time with them? A lot, but never enough.