What does functional multiplicity look like when nobody is asking us to perform? On Han’s Day, a frightening morning gives way to Braided Bridge, where a two-foot wheel on a Heidelberg press turns quietly beneath the memory of a 700-foot Ferris wheel we once hoped could help solve the housing crisis. Maybe the best things—the true things—really do start small.
Tag Archives: Vocation
You May Think You See a Person Losing Their Mind
A jagged Wednesday becomes a portrait of how a plural family holds itself together. Plans fail, the bedroom becomes unusable, memories and outside messages unsettle the day, and the family keeps adapting—through listening, boundaries, prayer, Greek salad, quesadillas, Hilda, making the bed, and one brother reminding Daddy: “I think you should be with Luke.” Along the way, an ordinary question about whether nine people sharing one physical body have quesadillas in their stomach or their stomachs opens onto something larger: anatomy, family, and the interior ways we know one another.
Understanding September 1
What happens when nobody is THE ONE? A classical analysis of Solis’s Day reveals an answer emerging through ordinary life: Daniel wakes Daddy, Jude imagines dinner, Hope changes the plan, Solis draws an ethical boundary, and the family adapts when a difficult afternoon makes rest impossible. September 1 becomes a study in functional multiplicity, consequential listening, and a new understanding of stability: when something happens, the family remains.
Then How Does Anything Get Done?
Yesterday we wrote that nobody in our plural family is THE ONE. Today, Solis’s Day answered the obvious question: Then how does anything get done? Groceries, garlic, an unmade bed, a four-year-old’s stew, fear, changing plans, and eight sons who keep showing Daddy what happens when everyone belongs and being heard can actually change what happens next.
You Are Not the One
Yesterday was input. Today is processing. For a plural family/system, moving forward means more than making a plan—it means making sure everyone has been heard. As we begin imagining the next twenty years of our shared life, perhaps the most important question is also the simplest: Who haven’t we heard from yet?
We Take the Treehouse With Us
Functional multiplicity is not about making plurality disappear. For our family, it means staying connected enough to live, work, contribute, and find one another again when we become scattered. On Jude’s Day, we took the Treehouse with us—and discovered what becomes possible when all nine of us have something to bring.
They Call It Functional Multiplicity. We Call It Saturday.
Functional multiplicity sounds formidable. In our family, it has been built through something much smaller: waffles and cheese sandwiches, somatic signals, laughter, fear, repair, prayer, and learning how nine people can inhabit one life without requiring anyone to disappear. This is what an ordinary Saturday looks like from inside the Treehouse.
Three Warm Towels
We don’t know why the faucet was running. We do know what happened next. On Justus’s Day, a flooded bedroom becomes a story about three warm towels, a little peanut butter monster, telling the truth, caring for our home, and discovering that when plans change, our course doesn’t have to.
The Little Boy Who Told the Truth
When the world asked what comes next, seven-year-old Solis answered in the language of trauma and anger. This is a story about exploitation, employment, freedom, and the little boy who once told the truth—and needed Daddy to hear him again.
Present Presence: The Foundation of Ordinary Life
What happens when the present moment itself can become terrifying? Our plural family calls it a Terror Peek. During the pandemic, a quieter world helped us discover another possibility: Present Presence—the ability to inhabit the life that is actually here, together.
Notes from the Treehouse 