a clean, well-lighted place

Unholy Sonnet 4

2011-12-22T17:00:00.000-06:00

I'd love to tell a hard tale of miserable abuse that I have suffered at the hands of conservative evangelicals that might excuse my tendency to push against them when in conversation. The thing is, I haven't suffered enough to have even a modestly-interesting story. I have issues, I guess, and those issues make me bristle in my soul whenever someone claims certainty about God--not certainty that God exists, but certainty about what He thinks or who He loves or doesn't love. Truth be told, I the only concept of God that doesn't set off angst in me is God as the source of unfathomable, unconditional love. That's my idol of choice.

It is no better and idol, really, than my Calvinist friend's 5-point, concrete system, and no better, really, than my brothers and sisters who picket funerals and claim to know with certainty that "God HATES Fags." Still, I choose Love. I say that it is better to throw away the scriptures than to use them in a violent, unloving way as a weapon against another. I say that God LOVES Fags at least as much as He loves self-righteous believers, women-haters and bigots.

But there I go, again, weighing this monologue to may way of thinking.

I love the way this poem, by Mark Jarman, strips away concepts of God as a thing--idolatrous versions of The Real God--and replaces that with the Truth that God is NO-THING, and therefore beyond concepts of God. Jesus is as close as we can get (I believe), and we pretty much mess Him up, too, and use Him in ungodly ways (and there I go yet again!). I swiped it from Steph Drury's blog Get your adverbs here.

Unholy Sonnet 4

Amazing to believe that nothingness

Surrounds us with delight and lets us be,

And that the meekness of nonentity,

Despite the friction of the world of sense,

Despite the leveling of violence

Is all that matters. All the energy

We force into the matchhead and the city

Explodes inside a loving emptiness.

Not Dante’s rings, not the Zen zero’s mouth,

Out of which comes and into which light goes,

This God recedes from every metaphor,

Turns the hardest data into untruth,

And fills all blanks with blankness. This love shows

Itself in absence, which the stars adore.

—Mark Jarman

Sorry I Never Listened, Dad...

2011-11-09T16:57:00.000-06:00

People say some strange, amazing things. It's weird to me, but much of the wisdom I've been offered has made absolutely no sense to me until much later, after I reached a certain age, experienced certain things, or just sort of grew up (at least for a time). For instance: I remember reading "The Road Less Traveled" when I was a Junior in college in Oklahoma and being completely blown away by this short, overly-quoted poem. I was actually kind of embarrassed that it suddenly meant so much to me because it was everywhere--I had read it before, and everyone else had, too. Coming to feel the poem in such a way seemed silly to me, especially when I tried to express its perfection to my friend, Nicole. I felt like I was rambling on and on about how much stuff Wal-Mart stocked, or something.

Still, that poem is amazing, which is why everyone has already read it. What is still baffling, though, is why I didn't "get it" the first time I encountered it. Was I not ready at 19 to feel that poem? Was I distracted? Probably all of the above. All I know for certain is this poem, which had seemed trite to me, I guess, suddenly felt unspeakably powerful, and the poem had not changed; I had.

Achtung Baby by U2 is my all-time favorite album. I ignore it for years at a time, but each time I play it again my old friend works, running me through the same whole-spectrum-of-feelings as it did in 1992. But, what I don't usually share when I speak of this album is that, though I wanted badly to love it upon my very first hearing, I was initially disappointing with it. After loving The Joshua Tree so fully, this new album felt harsh and even overly contrived, like the boys were pretending to be Eastern European or something. After having the album for six months, I heard a bit of it in Leigh Ann Tucker's Honda Accord and was floored to know that what I was hearing was the same album from six months back! And just like Frost's poem, the album had not changed. My expectations of U2 and my own feelings about myself did change, though, and allowed me to be open to the truth of the album.

Again and again in my life I find that the difference between experiencing the truth of something and missing the richness of it is often just time. It is true in my marriage; Thanks be to God, Stacy and I are in a place together that I literally could not imagine two years ago. She has changed, I have changed, and what I thought about her and about who she is inside is changed. The same is true in my faith--I doubt God has changed much, but I certainly have.

We ebb and flow. Time does, too. The wisest thing I think of (which may sound trite to you, today!) is that we are supposed to be in this present moment as fully as possible, so we can enjoy the peace and understanding while it is here. Because it will all keep washing in and out, we must try and try again to "get it" when we're ready.

Radical love

2011-08-02T22:04:00.001-05:00

2011-04-27T11:30:00.004-05:00

Welcome to the planet

Here we are--four months into 2011, and what have I shown the throngs of people who follow this blog so far? Nothing! You would think that I have been up to absolutely nada in this world. In truth, I have been terribly busy at work, and haven't been taking part in much of my usual activities, so I have had little worth writing about.

That is, unless you count having a beautiful, funny, full-term baby daughter as worth writing about!

Anna Kathryn was born on March 29; she was 18 and a half inches long (short like her daddy) and weighed in at 6.9 ounces (a whopping 4 pounds, 5 ounces aver Mia's birthweight!). Stubborn little thing that she is, she came out letting us all know that she has great lungs and a strong will, two facts that she continually reminds us at the Dickerson casa. She loves to eat; she had a few days of starvation while learning how to properly suckle, but she has made up for that time and is now about seven pounds. She is beautiful and very cuddly.

Aside from our collective lack of sleep, we are loving having a new baby to hold and feed and burp and change, and feed and burp and change. :o) She is one month old as of yesterday--give us another couple of weeks and we will share her with everyone!

2011-01-03T11:01:00.004-06:00

Welcome, Twenty-eleven!

I mean, you might as well welcome the new year because being inhospitable to it won't do anything good for you. :o) And that is true of so many things. For instance, you can push hard against whatever you encounter and make it worse, or you can accept it as it is and try to dance with it a little.

This is a core idea to Buddhism that I find really practical. I am terrible at it sometimes, but there have been times of my life when I have been blessed with the ability to really let things be as they are, and those times have been joyful at their core.

Stacy is 27 weeks pregnant today, and that makes her one week more pregnant than she has ever been before. A couple of weeks back, she was placed on bed rest because she was having frequent Braxton-Hicks contractions, and with our history of early babies, her doctor wanted to play things really safe. My response was to freak out! I went batshit inside, mostly because of fear buried from the last baby (I have pretended to be enlightened before, writing about the problems of embracing love instead of fear, but that is all intellectual posturing in the face of real, latent fears). Anyway, things are okay, now, just as they would have been had I relaxed and accepted the situation as it is. The drama came when I rejected the situation with a hearty, "this cannot be happening again."

2011 will see the birth of my second daughter, Anna (Beth or Reese, as of right now). Mia will finish up with first grade. Stacy will deliver this new baby and be able to enjoy her at home without waiting months for the baby to get out of the hospital. She will survive bed rest with her sanity and we will be fine without her income. And who knows what else this year will bring?

Dance the dance to the tune that is playing; don't try to make the music fit the steps you have practiced and prepared for because you will be the one who looks silly, not the music.

I'll keep telling myself to practice what I am preaching. :o) Welcome, 2011!

2010-11-16T11:37:00.002-06:00

Mia Emmeline in
The Ugly Pumpkin

2010-11-10T16:40:00.004-06:00

Seven years with Mia Emmeline

*Thank you, as always, Aunt Suzy for taking the Pumpkin Patch photos!

One-year-old Mia

Two-year-old Mia

Three-year-old Mia

Four-years-old (and I thought she was BIG!)

Five-year-old Mia

Six-year-old Emmeline

Mia at seven (2010)

2010-10-25T08:00:00.002-05:00

October 25 is Saints Crispin's and Crispian's Day

Those Protestant-types among us will likely not remember any significance about this day in relation to the aforementioned saints, two shoemaker brothers named Crispin and Crispian; that is unless the Protestant-type in question has ever seen Shakespeare's Henry V and heard the rousing "St.Crispin's Day speech" given by King Henry to his vastly-outnumbered men just prior to the Battle of Agincourt.

This day is called the feast of Crispian:
He that outlives this day and comes safe home,
Will stand a tip-toe when this day is named,
And rouse him at the name of Crispian.
He that shall live this day, and see old age,
Will yearly on the vigil feast his neighbours,
And say, 'To-morrow is Saint Crispian:'
Then will he strip his sleeve and show his scars,
And say, 'These wounds I had on Crispin's day.'
Old men forget: yet all shall be forgot,
But he'll remember with advantages
What feats he did that day. Then shall our names,
Familiar in his mouth as household words,
Harry the King, Bedford and Exeter,
Warwick and Talbot, Salisbury and Gloucester,
Be in their flowing cups freshly remembered.
This story shall the good man teach his son;
And Crispin Crispian shall ne'er go by,
From this day to the ending of the world,
But we in it shall be rememberèd;
We few, we happy few, we band of brothers;
For he to-day that sheds his blood with me
Shall be my brother; be he ne'er so vile
This day shall gentle his condition:
And gentlemen in England, now a-bed
Shall think themselves accursed they were not here,
And hold their manhoods cheap whiles any speaks
That fought with us upon Saint Crispin's day. (4.3.43)

What a speech! I remember reading and hearing it when I was in Yancy's class at TJC, some 19 years back. I actually hear the words in my head as they were read then, and still feel the crescendo in Kenneth Branagh's delivery when he gets to the "We few, we happy few" lines. There is nothing in my real life that I can point to in any way that is similar to some amazing victory at Agincourt, but this speech still energizes me. I think that's why I wanted to try to teach English in the first place--it is not English or Writing that I wanted to pass on, but the experience that reading great writing gives.

2010-10-21T14:08:00.001-05:00

The Enigma We Answer by Living

Einstein didn't speak as a child
waiting till a sentence formed and
emerged full-blown from his head.

I do the thing, he later wrote, which
nature drives me to do. Does a fish
know the water in which he swims?

This came up in conversation
with a man I met by chance,
friend of a friend of a friend,

who passed through town carrying
three specimen boxes of insects
he'd collected in the Grand Canyon

one for mosquitoes, one for honeybees,
one for butterflies and skippers,
each lined up in a row, pinned and labeled,

tiny morphologic differences
revealing how adaptation
happened over time. The deeper down

he hiked, the older the rock
and the younger
the strategy for living in that place.

And in my dining room the universe
found its way into this man
bent on cataloguing each innovation,

though he knows it will all disappear
the labels, the skippers, the canyon.
We agreed then, the old friends and the new,

that it's wrong to think people are a thing apart
from the whole, as if we'd sprung
from an idea out in space, rather than emerging

from the sequenced larval mess of creation
that binds us with the others,
all playing the endgame of a beautiful planet

that's made us want to name
each thing and try to tell
its story against the vanishing.

-- Alison Hawthorne Deming in Genius Loci:

2010-10-14T13:56:00.001-05:00

I Go Back to May 1937
by Sharon Olds

I see them standing at the formal gates of their colleges,
I see my father strolling out
under the ochre sandstone arch, the
red tiles glinting like bent
plates of blood behind his head, I
see my mother with a few light books at her hip
standing at the pillar made of tiny bricks with the
wrought-iron gate still open behind her, its
sword-tips black in the May air,
they are about to graduate, they are about to get married,
they are kids, they are dumb, all they know is they are
innocent, they would never hurt anybody.
I want to go up to them and say Stop,
don't do it--she's the wrong woman,
he's the wrong man, you are going to do things
you cannot imagine you would ever do,
you are going to do bad things to children,
you are going to suffer in ways you never heard of,
you are going to want to die. I want to go
up to them there in the late May sunlight and say it,
her hungry pretty blank face turning to me,
her pitiful beautiful untouched body,
his arrogant handsome blind face turning to me,
his pitiful beautiful untouched body,
but I don't do it. I want to live. I
take them up like the male and female
paper dolls and bang them together
at the hips like chips of flint as if to
strike sparks from them, I say
Do what you are going to do, and I will tell about it.

2010-10-14T09:24:00.006-05:00

Autumn round up: Who can say what the cooler weather will bring?

This is just a bunch of photos I have taken lately.

Mia lost another front tooth!

Josh Davidson likes to play peek-a-boo!

Stacy at lunch at Pho

Suzy and Terry at lunch at Don Juan's

Big Tex at the State Fair

Big Stacy at the State Fair

Mia and her Ms. Jeanes!

Mia has a spoon nose

This is my Harley, even though I am not a Harley kinda guy.

This is sweet Kelly!

2010-09-26T20:50:00.003-05:00

Mike's Story

Mike found the love of his life and married her; they could finish one another's sentences. They worked hard, but they were happy together. Mike's bride conceived and gave birth to a beautiful blue-eyed baby girl, and Mike understood what it means to love unconditionally. When his daughter was about two years old, Mike and his wife began noticing small, light bruises appearing on their angel. Believing someone at her daycare was mistreating his angel, Mike went to her school and questioned her teachers; they claimed that they were just as befuddled as he was.

One morning, while mike went to work, his wife took his daughter to the doctor. The doctor was so disturbed by what he diagnosed that mother and child were flown immediately to Dallas to Children's Hospital. As they boarded the helicopter, Mike's wife called him and he was off on what he described as the longest drive of his life. In his distress, he had to call 911--the operator he got spoke with him for half an hour, actually guiding him to the hospital.

He walked into his daughter's hospital room, where she lay hooked with tubes and sensors. His daughter greeted him so brightly that the thought of it brings tears to his eyes, even now. Se looked up at him and happily said, "Hi, Daddy!" She stayed in that hospital room for a month, and eventually came to pass away from the Leukemia that had caused her bruises.

Mike's marriage to the one he calls his soul mate melted under the loss of his baby girl. So, he moved on, eventually getting married again. His new wife had two sons from her previous marriage, and he took to raising them as though they were his own. With this new family, Mike began to carve out something of a life, though the sadness that he carried from the loss of his daughter and of the love of his life was ever present within him.

When Carrier began suffering from the economic downturn (politicians were still not daring to say the word "recession"), Mike was laid off from his job of eight years. He says, now, that his mistake was in his pride: when he looked for a replacement job, he kept looking for something in his field, that would pay as well as his Carrier job had paid. The fact is, there weren't many jobs in his field, paying well, in our area, so the days turned into months, and Mike's new family had to grapple with economic hardship: "When you are used to bringing home $1200 dollars each week, taking a job that pays $300 seems inconsequential," Mike told me. Of course, today, that $300 per week seems much too reasonable to have passed up.

Now, Mike lives on the streets. He can't get a "real" job because of his lack of transportation, his lack of an address, and his relatively poor hygiene. Let's face it--the 9-to-5 lifestyle just doesn't mesh well with someone who has fallen (or jumped) out of the system. Mike has a CDL, though, and, now tired from living on the streets for months, he hopes to recover that license and to find a job driving a truck, where it won't matter that he has no home.

Mike tells tiny fibs, like many who live on the edges of things and depend upon sympathy for this week's livelihood. He lives as part of a community of street people, and shares what he gets with a couple of them whose mental or physical deficits limit what they can do for food. Mike says that helping these friends makes him feel human, and that focusing on their problems keeps him from feeling sorry for himself. I don't know if he uses drugs, but I know that his feet are in terrible shape from walking everywhere he goes every day, often without socks. I know that something of his life on the streets is due to his own choices, but I know, too, that he would make a different choice, now.

At times, it is difficult to deal with Mike--he distracts me from my work, and assumes that I have and endless flow of cash to share with him. I struggle with a hardening of my heart towards him because I resent how quickly my handouts run out. But Mike is about my age, and it is easy for me to look into his face and see myself, to feel that it is only by grace that I sit on this side of my desk while he sits on the other.

By fate or choice--or really by both--Mike is one of the least of these. He can be either a problem to be solved, or, hopefully, an opportunity for me to feel my own humanity.

2010-07-19T15:38:00.006-05:00

Happy Birthday, Stacy, and other July fun...

July is Stacy's Birthday month.

Because of this fact, her friends pay her extra attention...

And seek out the Great Wall of China on their iPhones' maps ap....

Stacy thinks this is all great fun!

And then she gets huggy.

So, we celebrate with her, because she is now 30.

See?!

And then our nation celebrates her birth.

And she celebrates our nation's birth right back.

And Kelly loves.

2010-07-07T13:18:00.019-05:00

Viva la Cuidad de San Antonio!

Stacy and I traveled back to San Antonio at the end of June. She had follow-up with her surgeon after having her procedure a couple of weeks before, and we had to pick up the Volkswagen, which had developed an engine problem that we needed to get addressed before I could drive it back to Tyler. Repairs aside, the trek added up to two rental car bills (one for over $400 for three days. Thanks, Hertz!). Long story short, we tried to make the trip a little fun, albeit quick and hot!

Stacy in front of the Alamo--it always freaks me out that you can just walk right up to this place and go on inside; it seems like it should be preserved behind glass or something.

I love that, no matter how unGodly hot it is outside, when you go to the marketplace, there are always people playing music and people enjoying the music in the shade.

This is one of the gentlemen who serenaded Stacy and me at lunch; they sang a song of love that made Stacy's heart literally swell to the point of bursting. RIP, Stacy. Howisit that retired Texicans all seem to be able to sing songs of love that cause ladies' hearts to swell and burst like that?

This is what Stacy looked like as her heart swelled...

I was a disrespectful bastard, as usual, when I snapped this photo of this homeless gentleman at the marketplace. Looking at it, now, I am convinced that this might be what God looks like, if God ever looks like a man.

Finally, here's a shot of the gardens at the Spanish Governor's Palace. The whole place was great, but the gardens were a good place to sit to escape the heat and being on your feet.

2010-06-08T15:54:00.001-05:00

Midlife crisis 

I have never heard an accurate description of the infamous mid-life crisis, but I have seen the results a lot. I have seen men leave their spouses and quickly remarry, only this time someone much younger. I have seen expensive sports cars justified. I have seen "bachelor pads"--always a bit less than tidy--where men live like college guys again. 

I can imagine what motivates each of these "symptoms": we marry younger women in the attempt to find a partner who looks up to us (again), and to see if we can woo girls, frankly. We justify purchasing impractical cars because (at least in many cases) we feel that we have worked a while for success and have passed up many of the toys we dreamed of when we were 19 out of responsibility. We return to a less organized lifestyle in the attempt to live simply (in a masculine fashion?)

I write all of this because I am feeling all out of sorts, lately. I don't know what to do with myself. I don't want another wife (though I would enjoy being looked up to), nor does a sports car tempt me (I haven't worked all that hard for any length of time, anyway). I do wish to live more simply, but that has been true for a long time.

No, my crisis is manifesting, right now, as sentimentality about Mia.

She is growing up so quickly, and she is so much more complicated than I thought a six-year-old would be! She finished kindergarten, did I mention that?! 

I know that some of my off feeling comes from Mia's school year finishing, and some comes from the fact that I will turn 38 in a week or so (thirty-freaking-eight! I was certain I'd die before hitting thirty!).  Some also comes from Stacy having surgery later this week, ultimately hoping that she can carry another baby. All of it, together, makes me feel out of control.

If I drive off and end up in Alaska or the desert anytime soon, please understand.:o)

2010-05-20T19:18:00.001-05:00

Taking a Break from Facebook...

This is a reprint from my other blog about a fast from Facebook that I am in the beginnings of--I enter it here because it is personal, and this is my personal blog.  I want to write more, soon, about this experiment.

I am weary to the bone. Everywhere I turn where there are other  people, it seems a spirit of condescension has taken over where respect  (arguably) used to exist. That’s against my religion. 

I turn on the TV and find people screaming slogans at one   another, without regards to who might be listening. And no one hears. We  are desperately  longing to be heard, but unwilling to listen,  ourselves.

I read it on Facebook, where people with different political  perspectives rail against one another as though there were a “correct”  attitude to have about being alive in this country in these times, or a  simple solution to problems that have plagued humankind since we  discovered we were humankind. While there has always been antagonism  between political camps, I feel like we have moved from a situation  where people were valued despite their ideals, to one where people’s  Humanity is devalued based on their ideals.

Even in Sunday school class, where “Love one another” is meant to be  the organizing principal, politics creeps in and makes volatile the  discussion about helping the poor, the widow and the orphan.

We really do need to strive for civil dialogue–right  speech, as the Buddhists say.

Focusing on Facebook: 

Despite connecting with people I had lost touch with and enjoying the  wit and wisdom of friends that I would otherwise miss, there is not a  day that passes that I don’t feel like killing my Facebook account  (already, I barely watch television and I avoid talk radio like dental  surgery). I want to rise up and operate above the noise and the haste  that has hijacked discourse in my life.  I want to remain rational, and  not let my fear of what other people believe lead me into irrational  rants against this group or that group.

I have been feeling this way for a while, now.  It started when I realized that I was being snarky  without cause, and it continues too often. The good of social  networking far outweighs the bad (for every snipe or rant there are five  baby-in-tux photos that make me smile), but I seem  to remember the bad too often. So, I am going to follow the little voice  inside of me and do a little experiment. I am going to give my password  to a good friend of mine and have him change my password. I am going to  ask him not to give my account back to me until August 11 (when Ramadan  begins?).

If you are a friend and you want to visit with me during this  sabbath, find me on Twitter, comment on my blog,  or email me [no spaces: d di cker son 7 2 (at) yahoo (dot) com].   Better yet, call me and let’s meet up for a beer. You can tell me,  face-to-face, about the music you love, the vacations you enjoy, the  people in your life who move you. And I will talk back and share my life  with you.

I hope to run into you in public more often.  )

2010-04-21T09:54:00.001-05:00

I have wonderful friends. 

In fact, looking back through my life, I  have always been blessed to have amazing, unique, beautiful, dynamic  people walking around in my life; some of them have been dear, personal  friends to me, and others have been just people I know, but all of them  have taught me so much truth.

Right now, my closest friends are so much more dynamic than me,  and their energy just inspires me. They are passionate about life and  God and music, they love their families and want to make a difference in  the world.  They dream big dreams about making this community better,  and not in some glamorous, self-serving way, but by loving more people  in more ways. 

Today, I feel awake to both the possibilities in  these kind of big dreams and to the fact that having friends and loved  ones like I do is the richest kind of blessing. On paper, my life is  pretty boring, but it is thick and rich in practice, and that is because  of my family and my neighbors, my daughter and my best friends, all  living in this life in their own beautiful ways. And they are all so  different, and they all inspire me in unique ways.

I wish there  was a sincere way I could tell each of them--friends from right here and  right now, and friends from my whole life--how blown away I am by their  humor and intelligence and grace. I am tempted to start a list of names and to literally write little thank you notes for time shared and laughter and honesty and fun, but I don't see clearly where to draw the line--When you realize that your whole life is worth living because of a web of people who touched you, who do you leave out?  :o)

That just might be the best possible problem a person could have. 

2010-03-19T10:07:00.003-05:00

Mia in Motion

I just purchased a new Digital SLR, a Cannon Rebel XSi.  I shopped for it for a couple of months, and gathered information so I could compare all sorts of SLRs--it sort of felt like information overload.  My tastes run expensive, but I ended up picking this inexpensive camera.  I am a beginner, after all.

Anyway, I carry the freaking thing everywhere I go, now, thinking that I don't want to miss a shot since I own a good camera.  But I am still re-learning photography, which means several hundred lackluster photos come for every decent one.  Here are three of my favorites from this past weekend; we were in Houston to visit sweet Kelly.

This is Mia in Motion. It is blurred because I didn't have the shutter speed set right,

but it looks like joy to me.

I Love the genuine smile on Stacy's face in this shot.

Mia had cotton candy all over herself! I like her fingers a bit out of focus in the foreground.

Mia was excited to finally see Kelly! I especially like Mia's face in this shot.

2010-03-04T08:25:00.004-06:00

The sweetness comes

in a thousand stolen moments, between the grand events. A wise man--in may case, a lucky daddy--occasionally gets this fact.

2010-03-01T12:08:00.002-06:00

How big it all truly is...

2010-02-24T08:30:00.002-06:00

Via: Online Schools

2010-01-08T10:07:00.001-06:00

Sad, but true?

Thanks, Friends of Irony...

2009-12-21T17:47:00.003-06:00

Merry Christmas 

Here it comes–Christmas is merely days away.  On one hand, it feels as though that blessed day has been on its way since mid October, when I first saw Christmas items at market.  By now, we have each heard enough Christmas music to render us vegetables, seen enough manufactured Christmas cheer to harden our hearts, and been dehumanized in public enough times to wonder what in God’s name He was doing coming here to save us, anyway.

We trample people to death when they stand between us and the goods we want, after all.  All in the name of providing a “meaningful gift.”

The Advent Conspiracy tells us that we Americans spend tons more money each year during Christmas than we would need to spend if we, collectively, decided to end the world’s water problems. The WHOLE WORLD’S water problems! I am humbled to think that we could make this world better, but we choose not to….

And everywhere I go I hear people making a big deal about saying “Merry Christmas,” rather than the unholy “Happy Holidays,” as if what we say, alone, will magically change the hearts of the people we are around, who see us as obstacles rather than as people that God loves. I have also read articles from several sources that delight in reminding us all that Christmas was not likely as it is in our Christian story (who knows how many wise men came, how old Christ was when they arrived, whether he was born in a cave or what we think of as a  stable, if Jesus was born in April, or if Mary was, indeed, a virgin?).  What remains, aside from the trivia, is what matters most: God came here.

Call it Holidays or Christ-mas, next week we celebrate God doing something totally new. We celebrate the truth that the creator of all things went out of his way to show us love, knowing how we’d react (think, again, of the Wal-Mart trampling for a glimpse of the human nature Jesus came to love).  This bit from Stephen W. Simpson, PhD sums it up, for me:

“Manger” is just a cute word that hides the fact that the Son of God spent his first night in a place where sheep ate. Jesus was born poor, against the backdrop of impropriety.

He could have done it another way. He could have descended from heaven in a flaming chariot. He could have emerged from the ocean, bellowing with righteous rage as he struck down evildoers. Or he could have not come at all, leaving us to worship a distant God who has no idea what it’s like to be human.

Clearing the record about things like donkeys and wise men doesn’t show us the real truth of Christmas. The power of the Christmas story has little to do with who did what and when. It doesn’t matter if Jesus was born on December 25 or on Flag Day. What matters is that he came into the world as a fragile human being, a baby boy in the care of a teenage girl with a skittish husband. God showed us that humility and grace mean so much more than power and glory. Once we clear away the decorations and the subterfuge, we see God revealed in an impoverished infant. I don’t know the mind of God, but it seems like he was making a point.

May we tangibly feel our blessings this year; May we finally get the point, at last. Merry Christmas to you!

2009-12-03T15:23:00.002-06:00

Fifty People, One Question

For more, see http://fiftypeopleonequestion.com/

2009-11-20T14:21:00.002-06:00

Happy Birthday, Dear Mia!

Yep, it is that time of year once again: Mia Emmeline turned 6 today!  I don't really know how to articulate how that fact makes me feel.  On one hand, it delights me every day that I see her as the big girl that she is.  She is smart and funny and she is always upbeat (except for when she isn't, but that's usually when she is tired).  Mia loves to sing and be silly, and nothing delights her more than music, it seems.  It is amazing to think back to where she came from, when she was a tiny preemie, to where she is, now.

On the other hand, thinking back like that makes me sad because I miss my baby Mia.  I delight in my little girl Mia, but baby Mia is still inside my heart, too.

So, I choose to ignore the pang that comes when I notice how capable and independent she is, and I choose to applaud her for getting to be such a big girl.  She has always been her own person, even in the hospital, and I think she is turning out wonderfully.  Watching her blossom is the best part of life, to me.

So, happy 6th, little pumpkin. Tonight, we will celebrate at Bruno's with more people who love you.

(Click HERE for last year's entry)

2009-10-27T11:51:00.000-05:00

Twenty-five random things about me (because this is my blog, damn it!)

1. I have an irrational need to always be “the good guy.” It is subconscious, so there’s not much I can do about it.

2. I would rather be real, though. That’s my struggle.

3. The closest thing I know is the love I feel for my daughter. Before she came, I didn’t really know what love is. I can’t say I’ve mastered it, but I know, now.

4. My favorite color is deep blue. It gives me peace.

5. I crave simplicity, but I make things complicated.

6. Inside, I feel today pretty much the same as I did when I was seven years old.

7. I have an auditory memory, so I can usually recall things said and music verbatim.

8. I have daring dreams, but have always felt selfish when I wanted to chase them. That might be the tiny tragedy of my life.

9. I really admire people who can write creatively.

10. I wish I could truly start fresh. That would be revolutionary in all parts of my life.

11. I have a terrible sense of time. I have about five watches, but I can’t accurately estimate how long things take, so I am often late.

12. I am attracted to Indian/Asian culture, for no apparent reason.

13. Spiders creep me out. I am not scared of them, but I impulsively try to kill them, despite knowing that they are good bugs. My excuse is that they supposedly crawl into people’s holes…

14. I also love peanut butter. I enjoy it by the spoonful pretty often.

15. When I was a kid, I liked science better than any other subject in school. That’s because my teacher mistakenly treated me as though I was good at it, so I became good at it. I like to be the good guy…

16. I was “agnostic” in college, but looking back I think it was mostly a put-on. I wanted to be different than I had been growing up. I always felt like God was with me and it would all be okay.

17. I really do want to live some different, better way than just working and spending. So far, though, that's a FAIL.

18. I wish I had a talent, like photography, or painting or sculpting or playing a musical instrument.

19. I used to want to be an actor because it is energizing and freeing--acting is hiding in full sight.

20. For someone who tries to be nice, I sure owe some great people apologies.

21. I am a terrible friend, once I am separated by daily routine or distance.

22. My favorite times have been spent with a good friend in good conversation. I am a kind of addict to the intensity of that kind of evening.

23. I minored in History, but had more hours in Philosophy when I graduated. I wish that kind of study had given me some answers.

24. I am a flibbertigibbet, but I am trying to be grounded.

25. I have slept through whole portions of my time on Earth; in a daze, I accidentally neglected people I love. I try hard every day, now, to be awake to what is around me. I often fail, though.

2009-10-20T13:55:00.002-05:00

Life is as thin as a thread and as delicate as the petals of a yellow wildflower. And as precious.

2009-10-15T11:00:00.000-05:00

How's about some humble patriotism this morning, hmmm?

2009-10-15T10:32:00.000-05:00

Halloween is on its way. Enjoy spookiness...

2009-10-12T10:37:00.005-05:00

Caddo Lake, October 9-11, 2009 Stacy and I "enjoy" camping. Well, we like to go camping, anyway--how do you claim to enjoy doing something that you do maybe once each year? We like to camp and canoe and wander through the woods, but maybe we just WISH we really enjoyed it.

Check out that crazy spider web....

Anyway, we joined the Woodruffs (Mark, Leah and Morgan) and the Warners (Jen and Clint) at Caddo Lake State Park this past weekend. It never stopped drizzling, really, and we took Mia with us this time, partly from guilt at leaving her while the Woodruffs brought Morgan, and partly in the hopes that she would take to camping. Mia did have an alright time--Mia ALWAYS has an alright time!--but she got bored sitting around the campfire and wanted to run around like Morgan can; she tried during daylight hours, but I discouraged her when the light faded because she falls down on level ground. Stumpy trails are not a special-needs girl's best friend.... She also put up with canoeing, but really wanted to go home where cartoons come on TV, until we turned the canoe around and started singing silly songs (then, she was a trooper!).

Cuties on the ride up to the Rangers' Station

Whatever the weather, Caddo Lake is one of the most picturesque places I have been--it is no Grand Canyon, but it is a spooky, beautiful swamp, with bald cypress trees everywhere. Once the leaves turn (in another few weeks) the cypress boughs will be bright orange, and with the moss covering the limbs, they are haunting.

Take your camera, rent a canoe, and go enjoy an afternoon in swampy paradise.

2009-10-02T08:52:00.000-05:00

Her Morning Elegance

2009-10-01T10:07:00.000-05:00

Urban Listening

2009-09-25T14:35:00.001-05:00

Comedy Gold: television news reporter edition

2009-09-01T08:18:00.001-05:00

Thanks to the generosity of good friend, I have been able to read Donald Miller's latest book in its manuscript form. A Million Miles in a Thousand Years is so close to perfect--seriously, it is on the surface a book about editing Blue Like Jazz to make a movie, and thus editing Don's life. But is is about so much more, and it resonates completely through me (especially as I reach out to college students in and out of the classroom).

I could write and write to try to capture what is so beautiful about the book, but you just need to read it. Here's the first 30 pages for you:

A Million Miles In A Thousand Years by Donald Miller

2009-08-28T16:43:00.004-05:00

August 27: Enter the Labyrinth

I swiped this explanation of a prayer labyrinth from the internets:

We are all on the path... exactly where we need to be. The labyrinth is a model of that path.

A labyrinth is an ancient symbol that relates to wholeness. It combines the imagery of the circle and the spiral into a meandering but purposeful path. The Labyrinth represents a journey to our own center and back again out into the world. Labyrinths have long been used as meditation and prayer tools.

A labyrinth is an archetype with which we can have a direct experience. We can walk it. It is a metaphor for life's journey. It is a symbol that creates a sacred space and place and takes us out of our ego to "That Which Is Within."

Labyrinths and mazes have often been confused. When most people hear of a labyrinth they think of a maze. A labyrinth is not a maze. A maze is like a puzzle to be solved. It has twists, turns, and blind alleys. It is a left brain task that requires logical, sequential, analytical activity to find the correct path into the maze and out.

A labyrinth has only one path. It is unicursal. The way in is the way out. There are no blind alleys. The path leads you on a circuitous path to the center and out again.

Anyway, Mosaic borrowed a prayer labyrinth from First Pres here in Tyler, and we set it up in the Public Library last night, August 27. No one else really ventured into it, but those of us who were there enjoyed it.

2009-08-28T16:38:00.005-05:00

August 25: Lunch with Paul Bolding Paul and a bunch of friends from Marvin were heading to Frisco to see and hear Hillsong United lead worship. Before they fled, Paul and I stopped in to Subway for lunch, where I snapped some photos.

2009-08-20T11:50:00.013-05:00

24 August

23 August

22 August

21 August

Kirk and I had mediocre burgers at a place downtown, where they are particularly patriotic about their beef!

20 August, 2009

19 August

18 August

17 August

16 August

15 August

14 August

13 August

12 August

11 August

10 August

2009-08-10T15:00:00.002-05:00

Sunday, August 9

How's about some Sunday clouds for you?

2009-08-10T14:49:00.002-05:00

Saturday, August 8: Morgan's Birthday!

I am told that Five is a fun year--I hope it's more than fun for Miss Morgan!

2009-08-10T14:45:00.003-05:00

Friday, 8-07-2009 I got to have lunch with these two (see photo below) at Bruno's on Friday! Suzy and Mia were there, too...!

2009-08-10T14:37:00.004-05:00

August 6, 2009:

After Rachel's going-away shindig, I went downtown to pick up Emily and Kathy. I got to watch the TPD pull Kathy over and give her a warning....

2009-08-06T09:44:00.002-05:00

5 August, 2009

Yep, you guessed it: Ants attacking someone's discarded Lunchable. Aside from this, I got nothing!

2009-08-05T11:38:00.005-05:00

Tuesday, August 4, 2009

Terry showed Suzy and I around the new TFD super engine. It is massive!

Why do I love thee, O pitiful, short shell? Brady's Specialty Coffee, voted as my favorite refuge from reality, 2009

2009-08-05T11:35:00.005-05:00

August 3

What a suck day Monday, 8/3 was!

2009-08-05T11:25:00.004-05:00

Sunday, August 2

I didn't technically take this photo, so I guess I am a dirty, cheating fiend. Stacy took it. She's the reason there is a Sunday August 2 photo, and the reason I was out at the lake after church in the first place.

I did catch that fish on my own, though I was using my dad's rod and reel.

There is no health in me.

2009-08-03T11:06:00.004-05:00

August 1st, 2009

We mistakenly refer to these insects as "locusts," though no one seems to know why. Their sound is inseparable from my childhood here in Eastern Texas. I like them.

From Wikipedia: "

A cicada (pronounced /sɪˈkeɪdə/) is an insect of the order Hemiptera, suborder Auchenorrhyncha, in the superfamily Cicadoidea, with large eyes wide apart on the head and usually transparent, well-veined wings. There are about 2,500 species of cicada around the world, and many remain unclassified. Cicadas live in temperate to tropical climates where they are among the most widely recognized of all insects, mainly due to their large size and remarkable acoustic talents. Cicadas are sometimes colloquially called "locusts",^[1] although they are unrelated to true locusts, which are a kind of grasshopper. They are also known as "jar flies". Cicadas are related to leafhoppers and spittlebugs. In parts of the southern Appalachian Mountains in the United States they are known as "dry flies" because of the dry shell they leave behind.

Cicadas are benign to humans and do not bite or sting, but can be pests to several cultivated crops. Many people around the world regularly eat cicadas: the female is prized as it is meatier. Cicadas have been (or are still) eaten in Ancient Greece, China, Malaysia, Burma, Latin America, and the Congo. Shells of cicadas are employed in the traditional medicines of China.^[2]

The name is a direct derivation of the Latin cicada, meaning "buzzer". In classical Greek it was called a tettix, and in modern Greek tzitzikas - both names being onomatopoeic."

2009-08-03T11:01:00.003-05:00

July 31

Friday morning traffic on my sideview mirror, Paluxy and Loop 323

The tollway between 2661 and Paluxy

2009-07-30T13:33:00.004-05:00

Thursday, July 30

Though I resist it every day, something in me knows that this crappy street is my birthright. On a rainy Thursday, as July dies a messy death, Erwin Street seems beautiful.

2009-07-30T13:28:00.003-05:00

Wednesday, July 29

It was so good to have a bit of time with best-friend Morgan and family again.

2009-07-30T13:18:00.003-05:00

Tuesday, July 28

Sleepy-eyed Mia at the dentist

2009-07-27T16:14:00.002-05:00

Monday, July 27

I lost another couple of days this weekend. I know that Stacy and I went to the movies on Saturday night, and that I mowed on Saturday. Sunday, I taught Sunday school and lead worship because Paul was in Michigan. It was a busy weekend, but certainly not too busy for me to take a shot or two, at least with my iPhone....

Nevertheless, slacker that I am, I missed two days.

This sign was "vandalized" Sunday night. I drove past it this morning with Mia in the truck and had to swing back by to immortalize someone's (mild) creativity with this photo.

It's certainly not Shakespeare, but it made me smile.

2009-07-27T16:07:00.002-05:00

Friday, July 24

I got up extra early to take Mia Emmeline to Dallas to Scottish Rite to have her braces adjusted. I took several good photos that day (can't find a single one for Thursday, though!) but below is the one for me to post.

I stepped outside as the sun came up--I saw the strangest color of fuchsia in our kitchen and wanted to make certain that nothing in our neighborhood was on fire.

And it was just the sky.

Sky on fire

2009-07-23T11:07:00.003-05:00

Wednesday, July 22

I took Stacy to lunch on Wednesday--I was having a lousy day at work, so she suggested we go for a walk in the neighborhood across from the hospital where she works. We came upon this little impatient growing through a crack in the sidewalk; it was perfect, and perfectly out of place. It reminds me that we are where we are supposed to be.

2009-07-23T11:02:00.004-05:00

Tuesday, July 21

This is my cousin, Roscoe. He has worked for our family's transmission shop since he was about 13, mowing and cleaning up, and now he is a great mechanic. Men in our family (aside from relatively-effeminate me) like to act tough, but they all have great hearts. Roscoe talks all sorts of crap, pretty much non stop, but he would do nearly anything to help other people.

2009-07-23T10:55:00.003-05:00

July 20

There were a million birds in the sky Monday night outside of Best Buy. They sounded like Swallows, but were too far above me to be visually identified. Seriously, click on the photos below to enlarge them and witness just how many birds were there. And they were that dense from one side of the parking lot to the other!

2009-07-20T14:12:00.002-05:00

July 19, 2009

July 19 is the birthday of my eldest niece, Melissa. I didn't call her to give her good wishes, but I thought about her all day.

We went to Ecclesia to worship in the morning, and I would have taken a photo there, but it seems to be in poor taste. Instead, here is downtown Buffalo, Texas, taken whilst driving 65 m.p.h. on the way home, yesterday.

2009-07-20T13:58:00.002-05:00

Saturday, 18 July, 2009

We traveled to Houston this weekend to visit Kelly. On Saturday, we took Mia to a park in the middle of downtown, where they had tons of water games and kid aerobics going on for free, just for your average Saturday. I snapped this photo of grumpy Mia sitting at a cafe table. I love how she is reflected in the green tabletop.

2009-07-17T12:35:00.003-05:00

July 17th, 2009

Trash Truck

Because of the general disorganization of my bill-paying system (if you can call it a system), the trash truck from the company that services our trash-generating home (filled with four adults and two children) neglected to take our trash Thursday. I promise I paid the bill, though the check didn't reach them in time. Anyway, I went ahead and carted our full can into town and disposed of its contents in the shop dumpster.

I think I am going to change trash companies. Not because they are wrong to cease serving us, but because they are snippy, and someone out there would likely be less so. That's the free market for you; right or wrong, based on fact, or on whimsy, the lousy public will do what we will do!

2009-07-17T12:26:00.004-05:00

16 Jew-Lie (no antisemitism intended!)

This is a shot of the neighborhood beside and behind the shop where I work. I have had the opportunity to walk the streets back there and had the sense that there was a time--perhaps back in the 1950s--when this neighborhood was the epitome of the American Dream. Sure, the houses were small and tidy, but back then the "dream" was not that each American could have 4000 sq. ft. and a swimming pool, but that each could own something of a place of their own.

Today, the neighborhood behind the shop is the American nightmare: crack houses and other homes that are badly in need of major renovation, trash, junk, dead chickens (yes, I said dead chickens!) and other wreckage.

It's a different world from the one I live in, except that I am on the fringes of it for six to eight hours, Monday through Friday.

2009-07-17T12:10:00.004-05:00

July 15

It is crazy hot in East Texas lately. I know, I know; it is ALWAYS hot here in July. But this year is even hotter, and it has been this was for weeks, already. Enjoy a bit of this Texas sunshine, if you need some:

All this photo needs is a pair of sunglasses and a smile!

2009-07-14T17:24:00.005-05:00

14 July

The Ride: Well bicycle tour is traveling back through Tyler this week; they are all riding across the USA to raise money and awareness about the problem of potable water in Africa. The problem is huge and very solvable. Their response is also huge, and it makes me wish I was riding with them.

Breakfast this morning for the tour was provided by Pause

2009-07-13T16:42:00.003-05:00

11 July

I went with Stacy and Jerelen and Jarrod to sing Karaoke. Whilst there, I had a large beer.

2009-07-13T16:32:00.005-05:00

July Tenth, Two-Thousand and Nine

We (the Davidsons and the Dickersons) hosted "Ribs at the Crib," and drew a decently-sized group out to Flint. A good time was had!

Garrick and his big eye at "Ribs at the Crib"

2009-07-10T17:22:00.005-05:00

9 July 2009

IKEA is so cool. They even have a play-area to allow parents an hour to lust for products kid-free....

2009-07-10T17:13:00.006-05:00

Eighth-of-July, Two-thousand and Nine!

Happy Birthday, Suzy! (AND, WELCOME to life BABY AMELIA!)

Suzy, still sparkly-eyed after 44 years of schlepping this planet!

Amelia Lee, still cheesy-headed after wriggling her way into life on this planet!

2009-07-10T17:05:00.005-05:00

July 07/2009

We finally purchased a bunk bed for Mia and Emily's room. Here's Brandon taking care of the minor assembly required...

Most of the "work" consisted of getting all the toys into a manageable pile so we'd have room to do the real work!

Mission completion!

2009-07-10T16:57:00.004-05:00

07/06/2009

The sixth was Stacy's birthday, so, although I SHOULD have taken photos that day, I evidently did not. Here's a photo of her blowing out her candle on the 4th at her parents' house....

One candle on this cake means one last year before hitting 30! :o)

2009-07-10T16:51:00.004-05:00

07/05/2009

Eric (playing "First Day of My Life," by Bright Eyes) being loved by Matt (Who HATES "First DAy of My Life," by Bright Eyes). Our Pause Coffee shop time rocks like that!

Marvin at 7:20a.m. last Sunday.

2009-07-10T16:41:00.006-05:00

7/04/2009: Happy Independence Day!

I'm blaming the holiday for posting extra photos this time. BTW, what does setting fire to Chinese-made fireworks have to do with remembering and honoring the sacrifice of our Nation's founding fathers?

Before...

Mia shopping at the fireworks stand

and after!

2009-07-10T16:34:00.004-05:00

7/02/2009

Little girls are awesome!

Sugar and spice, all the way!

2009-07-10T16:30:00.004-05:00

July is here: 7/01/2009

This is Bryan, the drummer for the band I sing with sometimes. He is a good guy, and is heading off to Baylor in the Fall.

B-Bake in red

2009-07-10T16:20:00.003-05:00

June 30?

Seriously, I can't remember June 30th. Perhaps I was abducted by aliens or something, and they stole memories from that day. I wish I'd gotten a picture of THAT!

The taillight of a truck that was in front of me in traffic. I spend lots of time in traffic, so thought it should be represented here.

2009-06-30T16:21:00.003-05:00

June 29th: ZuZu

What more needs be said? :o)

2009-06-29T16:26:00.003-05:00

Photo#9: June 28th

We have a little discussion group that meets every Sunday night at Brady's Specialty Coffee--Brady was kind enough to give me a key so I can go in and actually make drinks for people who come and visit each week. All total, probably 40 people or so have come, though week-to-week we usually have about 10 to 15 at tops. Some people are really regular, showing up every time (and returning to Brady's when I am not there!); others show up when they can.

The only thing that is guaranteed is that we'll all get great coffee drinks, and we will discuss something at least vaguely thought-provoking.

Matt can actually get the large Cappuccino spoon in his mouth. Pretty impressive!

2009-06-29T16:14:00.003-05:00

Photo #8: June 27th

Stacy and I took a bit over half of the day off on Friday, borrowed my dad's small trailer, and began moving trash, junk and treasures from our garage, our office, and in some other storage places. The goal? We were making room for our friends, Brandon, Kathy and Emily Davidson, to move into our house with us!

That might sound crazy to some people, but it makes perfect sense, really. First off, Stacy and I try to be Christians, and some dear friends were about to have to move to Arkansas to restart their lives. Opening our home to the Davidsons is a simple act of love. Second, we really are not THAT crazy about the whole "American Dream" of getting and spending and providing for only ourselves. We are GREAT at getting and BETTER at spending, and WAY TOO GOOD at taking care of our little family above all others, but that all seems pointless.

Having a little community feels like the right start to something. I could go on and on.

Here's our garage on Saturday--this photo will have to count for two days, since those two days were equally consumed by moving, dumping and storing crapola!:

What does it mean that this photo shows our garage in an IMPROVED condition?! :o)

2009-06-29T16:08:00.003-05:00

Photo #7: June 25th

Here's a little dancing from the St. Pauls' Neighborhood Festival

2009-06-25T11:33:00.004-05:00

Photo #6: June 24

It is Mission Week in Tyler, again, and even though the extent of me taking part in it this year has been eating lunch at St. Paul's UMC (see photo) and painting some trim in a room at the dental clinic we helped build six years ago, I am still amazed at the way people can show God's love to one another when they work together to help people who are less fortunate than they. IMHO, the BEST thing a person can do for his or her own mental and spiritual health is to find a place to serve, lovingly, and SERVE!

It is totally transforming. I have seen total jerks morph into the image of Christ through service (of course, I was looking in the mirror at the time).

Lunch at St. Paul's includes some singing, a devotional, site reports, and delicious food.

2009-06-25T11:27:00.004-05:00

Photo #5: Tuesday, June 23

Mia (convincing me that she looks like "baby Mia") in her hijab, getting ready for bed.

2009-06-23T19:14:00.005-05:00

Photo#4: Monday, June 22nd

One of the points behind this kind of photo project is to become a better photographer. My problem is that, in order to spontaneously capture a photo every day (though I missed Father's day--I took photos with a film camera, so I have to wait to get one back in the future) I use my old 2G iPhone's camera. I doubt my shots will ever get any awards! Regardless, here's Monday's photo:

Tongue required for concentration!

Mia was watching Everyone's Hero, a baseball cartoon that I really didn't think she'd go for. But, in the tradition of making your parents into fools, she absolutely LOVED the movie! So, I stole into her room and snapped this photo while she stared transfixed, between squeals and giggles.

I love that girl a lot!

2009-06-22T15:41:00.004-05:00

Photo Number Three: Saturday, June 20

Saturday was surreal. There was a period of extreme laziness early in the day (no, I did not mow the lawn). Then, I went to the Davidsons' house for the garage sale. Then, I ran home and got cleaned up to go to Stacy's parents' house to visit and to spend a little time with Kelly.

Photo #3 is Kelly loving up her daddy on the day before Fathers' Day.

Little girls grow up to be big girls, but both know how to melt their daddies' hearts!

2009-06-20T17:42:00.005-05:00

Photo Number Two: Friday, June 19

The following photo is not for the weak stomached. My friend, Brandon, decided to take up skateboarding recently. He is pretty smart, and wears a helmet and pads whenever he endeavors to skate, but last Saturday night, he decided that it would be fine to skate in Toms shoes.

The score now stands at asphalt/longboard: 1; Brandon/Toms shoe: 0

I took this photo while I was playing hooky from work for a couple of hours, trying to help get Brandon and Kathy set up for a garage sale. They are moving to Arkansas, since they have both lost their jobs...

Initially, they thought he had broken his foot and that bone was protruding. Luckily, that wasn't the case. Hard to move with a broken foot!

2009-06-19T11:37:00.005-05:00

Photo Numero Uno: June 18, 2009

Yesterday was my 37th birthday, and that's a number that seriously freaks me out! I mean, I can literally recall twenty years of relative adulthood (Come on! I said "relative"!).

Anyway, today has been a good day. No, I didn't get some object of my dreams--aside from a sixteen-foot aluminum extension ladder from my parents, which was previously filed under the "things-I-want-but-would-not-likely-pay-for" category. Instead, this year, I tangibly enjoyed people wishing me well. I felt rich with good will, which is not a bad way to begin another year of life.

Stacy stayed up late Wednesday night baking me a cake, and Mia requested a slice for breakfast, so we all sat down and started the day with pure sugar. Mia became noticeably grumpy a half hour later, thanks to the crash. And she stayed with me, waiting for the Dish Network tech to come replace our tree-crushed dish, up until heading out with dad to go to his house for a much-needed nap. Anyway, somehow the time felt special.

Here's the first photo in my photo-a-day blogging exercise. One down, three-hundred-sixty-four to go!

Mia made the card for me, with Stacy's help. She colored the Smurf and Jo Jo pictures all on her own!

2009-06-17T10:59:00.002-05:00

How's about a photo a day?

I have a problem updating this blog. I just don't pay enough attention to the personal things going on in my life, it seems, so I rarely think that whatever I am doing is blog worthy. So, while my ministry blog gets at least the occasional quality update, this one sits languishing for attention.

Enter the idea of a photo per day....

Project 365: How to Take a Photo a Day and See Your Life in a Whole New Way
People will often say that their whole lives flashed before their eyes after they experienced a traumatic event. Perhaps it’s a bit morbid, but we think that sounds pretty incredible.

When Taylor McKnight started taking a photo a day on January 1st, 2004, he never imagined the project would not only serve as a way to remember a year, but also help him understand what was important to him in his life.

Whether it was his relationships, his career, or his fashion sense, recording a photo a day for a whole year left him with a rich visual history of his life. And it made him a better photographer to boot!

Now that he’s in the middle of doing it for a second time, we asked Taylor to write about it for us. Read on for our tutorial on how and why to create your own daily photographic history.

Project 365: How to Create a Daily Photographic History
www.photojojo.com/content/tutorials/project-365-take-a-photo-a-day/

Why do it?

Taking a photo a day is a big undertaking with big payoffs. Here are just a few reasons why you should consider doing it:

Imagine being able to look back at any day of your year and recall what you did, who you met, what you learned… (Often we find it hard to remember what we did just yesterday or even last night, let alone a whole year ago!)
Your year-long photo album will be an amazing way to document your travels and accomplishments, your haircuts and relationships. Time moves surprisingly fast.
Taking a photo a day will make you a better photographer. Using your camera every day will help you learn its limits. You will get better at composing your shots, you’ll start to care about lighting, and you’ll become more creative with your photography when you’re forced to come up with something new every single day.

Tips on How to Do It

Here are six tips on how to create your own Project 365:

Bring Your Camera Everywhere
Yes, everywhere. Get in the habit. Grocery stores, restaurants, parties, work, and school. Going to a movie theatre? Snap a pic of the flick with your phone–there are photo-ops everywhere. If you have one of those tiny tiny cameras, you have no excuse not to have it in your pocket all the time. And if you don’t? Camera phones are a great substitute.
Make Posting Easy
You can install blog software like Movable Type or Wordpress on your own site and create an entry for each photo, but for true ease of use, try a photo sharing site. Flickr will let you post a week’s worth of photos in 2 minutes flat, and fotolog and Photoblog.com are geared toward a photo-a-day workflow. Making it fast and easy means you’re much more likely to do it.
Vary Your Themes
Try to capture the day’s events in a single photo. Perform photographic experiments. Take a photo of someone new you meet, something you ate for the first time, or something you just learned how to do. Take a photo of something that made you smile. And don’t forget to take a photo of yourself at least once a month so you can remember how you’ve changed, too.
Tell a Story
Use your blog entry, or your photo description, to explain what’s going on in each day’s photograph. How good did that dinner taste? What made you want to take a photo of that stranger? It’ll help you remember down the road, and it gives friends following along a better appreciation of why you took the photo you did. You don’t need to write a lot, just enough to add some color.
Don’t Stop, No Matter What
This is perhaps the most important tip of all. You will get tired of taking a photo every single day. Some days, you will consider giving up. Don’t. The end result is worth the effort. Remind yourself why you wanted to do it in first place.
There will be times you’ll think there’s nothing interesting left to take a photo of, and times you’ll think you didn’t do anything exciting enough to take a photo of. There’s always a great photo to be made.

Get out of the house and take a walk. Or stay inside and look around. Take a photo of something important to you. Take a photo of the inside of your house so you can see how your taste has changed over the years. Take a photo of anything, just don’t stop.

N.b. It helps if you’ve told your friends about the project and asked them to follow along. Their encouragement will keep you going!

Post early, post often
Plan on going through and posting your photos at least once a week so you don’t get backlogged and feel overwhelmed. Ideally, post every day or two. Again, spend the time up front to make sure it’s quick and easy to post. It’ll make all the difference.

So, I am gonna do it! I am NOT promising great photos, but I will pay attention and look for something that delights me, something beautiful, or something noteworthy to photograph and upload here each day for the next year. In certain instances, I may not upload each day, but I will not neglect taking the photo each and every day for the next 365.

Yay!

2009-06-04T10:26:00.002-05:00

The following posts are from last week; I published them from my phone on the Pause Blog from New Orleans, where I had the pleasure of working with a group of college students from Marvin on a couple of Habitat for Humanity projects. Enjoy!

May 25. Arrival in NOLA

I am writing this on my iPhone because we left the church computer in Tyler. One of the guys brought his own laptop, though, so there’s still hope for a real post soon.

We left the church parking lot at about 6:30 this morning, and made it all the way to the Blue Stone house in St. Bernard parish by 4. The drive down was uneventful, thanks to Daniel’s driving skills.

We are settling in, now, and planning on eating out this evening and retiring relatively early so we’ll be ready to work hard at 7 am.

Thanks to everyone for their prayers and thoughts! More later…

May 26. Day One: Cleanup at Camp Hope

Because of the holiday yesterday, there was some confusion about where we were to work today. Carrie from Habitat arrived at our site and offered us some choices, and we opted to do the work most pressing to Habitat, which is getting Camp Hope ready for destruction.

The work was good, especially if you like cutting up old trusses and dragging piles of refuse lumber to a large container dumpster about 100 yards away. We also cleared and destroyed shelves in several rooms.

I’m pretty certain that Jeremy found a new hobby, using a large sledgehammer to break up refuse lumber. And Galen oversaw the stacking of half trusses in the second container of the day. Daniel, Jeremy, Galen, Sara, Rachel and Katie all broke into an abandoned courthouse on the property; the place is seriously spooky, so much so that a reality TV show–Thirteen–filmed there recently,using it as a haunted house.

Everyone worked really hard. We are all pretty beat. We’ve made it home to Blue Stone, showered, and most everyone is relaxing. We have an amazing group of young people here–beautiful hearts, every one! They all worked with bright smiles, which even the Habitat people noticed.

I’m proud to be with this group.

May 27. Day Two: Walkers St. house and Bourbon St.

We began our work day back at Camp Hope, where we finished cleaning up, Allison learned to drive a Bobcat, and a bunch of us revisited the old courthouse on the property.

After a couple hour’s work, we were through, but Dan was not quite ready for us at Walker st., so we took a mini tour out to a fishing village still in recovery from Katrina. You could see that the area had once been strangely beautiful before so much debris came to be smashed.

We were called back to Walker st. To begin work at lunch time, so we ate before beginning to remove all the nails from the sub floor and pulling up sub floor as we could. It was hard work mostly because of the hot sunshine. Carrie from Habitat continued to be a great sport and asset to our group today, insisting on frequent breaks and even pulling our whole team under the house for a while during the heat of the day to get us out of the sun.

After working, we followed Carrie to a famous shaved ice stand–a snow ball stand, to be NOLA proper.

We ended our day with our first trip into New Orleans itself. We had delicious pizzas at Angelis Pizzaria on Decatur st. (the Lucifer and the Angelis’ special were so good!), before strolling past Jackson Square to enjoy Cafe au Lait and Begnait at Cafe du Monde. Finally, we wandered the shops of the French Quarter and then headed back to Blue Stone for the night.

Our group could not be more delightful–these are bright, enthusiastic young people. I am learning a lot from them!

May 28. Day Three: Walkers St. and the decommissioning of Camp Hope

Our morning began with a quick stop by the Breaux Mart for ice and sunscreen en route to the house on Walker street; we are basically tearing down what other volunteers have built there because of local code issues with the position of the slab. We are attacking the problem, regardless, knowing that George–the homeowner–cannot get back into his house until we get what is there removed so others can come to build there.

We worked hard there up until lunchtime, when we loaded back onto our trusty people-mover and headed back to Camp Hope to enjoy barbecue at the decommissioning of Camp Hope. It was listening to the speeches of the director of Habitat and other people who have struggled for years in attempts to rebuild St. Bernard Parish that I finally began to see the immense scope of the destruction of this area, and the vast progress that has been made here. There is still so very much left to do here, though….

After a delicious lunch, we headed back to Walker street and got a sizable amount of work done. We only accidentally engaged in water-balloon fights twice after lunch, thanks to Carrie’s foresight in procuring balloons and recruiting Katie and others to help fill them with ice-cold water!

Back at Blue Stone Ministeries, we all cleaned up and settled in for the evening. Some people cooked for the rest of us, some people read or talked or computed, and some of us slept for two hours or so. Okay, by “some of us,” I mean me.

After dinner, we watched a couple of videos that Keith produced for local charaties here to help the with their fund raising and volunteer recruitment, and we heard one survivor’s story–Gary, a good friend and fellow restorer with Keith, survived Katrina, and has finally been able to move back into his house as of last August. He says that returning to “normal” has been bittersweet because of the loss of community with so many of his neighbors passing away or moving on. He told of his personal struggle to survive for the six days without help from the outside world–no food, no water: nothing. He also spoke of the high rate of suicide among survivors, and the sense of despair that many non-Christians struggle with, now. Evidently, stress is really high when you live in a trailer or an unfinished home for years on end…. He also thanks all the faith-based missionaries, as they have been the most effective effort in the restoration of the state.

The need here is staggering. It makes me even more brightened by the enthusiasm of our team.

May 28. Day Four: Walkers St., a crawfish boil and more

Today was our last day working for Habitat for Humanity. We stopped in at the Breaix Mart for ice and more water so we’d have enough to keep the team hydrated. Then, we landed at Walkers St. to try and complete the task we were assigned of completely dismantling the floor of the project house. We are Habitat in reverse.

We actually finished it all, including cleaning the site, by 11:00, and then we waited for Site Supervisor Dan to show back up to inspect our work. After getting the “all clear” from him, we left the site for lunch.

Karri, our Habitat liason, wanted to surprise our team with a crawfish boil for lunch, so she plotted with me and Daniel and Cyndi to take our crew out to a nearby state park to eat our sack lunches in the shade. We arrived just before she did, and enjoyed a crawfish feast!

We spent about an hour and a half at the park, enjoying being outside, chasing a snake, and resting. Then, Karri returned with keys to three other homes that each needed a bit of time to help get them closer to a resident move in.

After dropping us off, Daniel took Sara back to Blue Stone to rest–she hadn’t been feeling well all day.

We split the team in two, with Cyndi, Allison and Daniel mopping the floors of two newly-completed homes and patching drywall in one where the plumber had cut the wall. Me and Jeremy O., Jeremy G., Katie, Rachel and Lacy all worked painting the interior of another house on the same street; Karri said it would be move-in ready in a little over a month.

Afterwards, we returned to our favorite snowball stand for a cool and tasty treat, and Karri joined us, bringing with her a copy of the local paper featuring us on the cover! Thanks to us being presentthe the decommissioning yesterday, we made the paper (at least our photo did).

We came back home and just stayed in for our last night together. Cyndi and Daniel ran to a tracery store and returned with Boudin and gumbo, and Cyndi cooked it all up whilst we played and visited. It was a great night, even without a baseball game or a movie.

We plan to head out about 9 in the morning, after breakfast and packing and cleaning up here. Pray for traveling mercies for our team as we head back to Tyler. ETA 6:00 pm.

2009-05-14T15:50:00.003-05:00

TRIBES

If you haven't read the book Tribes, by Seth Godin, I totally encourage you to do so. It is a little book, but its central idea is key to anyone taking part in any group of people. This video is worth 17 minutes of your time....

2009-05-05T14:02:00.006-05:00

Stuff I'm learning...

This week, I am learning about marriage. I should say I am relearning about marriage, since I've gone through counseling twice before now. Does that mean I am so stupid that counseling didn't take the first two times?! I am Teflon-coated when it comes to marriage counseling, I guess. Anyway, here's three points that have been rattling around in my head since last week, my first session. Let's hope my body doesn't reject this newest attempt at attitude transplant!

Point 1: None of us "deserve" diddly squat.

The premise is one I have heard before, but never embraced—it was too "Baptist" for me. It's just this: marriage is supposed to mirror Jesus' relationship to us, His church-bride. It had never occurred to me, before hearing Francis Chan speak last Saturday, that Jesus loves me despite the fact that I don't deserve it, and that's how I am supposed to love Stacy. I usually just resent her for “getting” me (the absolute treat that being with me is, no doubt!), but not "deserving" me. I have always been fully aware that I am pretty severely flawed and all, and that I don't deserve everything that I have in my life, but it is really hitting home, this time. I mean, none of us technically deserve more than a punch in the eye. Thinking that my job is to be graceful to Stacy helps keep me from being so freaking resentful whenever she is grumpy.

Point two: "Be the change you wish to see in the world" (apologies to Gandhi).

I have heard this idea so often before that I began to believe that I made it up, myself! We cannot change our spouses, but CAN change ourselves. It’s almost cliché to include this point, but like all clichés, there is a subtle truth to it: I know that, at different moments in my marriage, I have been waiting for Stacy to change—to mellow, or to learn to appreciate our life together, rather than always criticizing it all. Maybe my focus should always have been to work on myself and to purify the ways I deal with her and with everything.

Point three: Problems of the heart.

Evidently, marriage problems are, at their core, problems of the individuals’ hearts brought into the marriage. Since our marriage problems live in Stacy’s heart and in my own, and I cannot change Stacy’s heart, my only choice is to look within my own heart and find the darkness there that needs to be released. In counseling last week I learned that I am “addicted” to approval and regard, which I mistake for Love. When I don’t get Stacy’s approval, I feel rejected and resentful, and I turn to whomever I can feel regard and appreciation from…. I crave connection and approval. When I don’t feel connection with Stacy, the people I do feel connection with, whose approval I get naturally, seem all the more attractive to me. Though I don't generally pursue other people, it's pretty crappy of me to freely give attention and energy to others while resentfully shutting down around my bride.

2009-04-24T11:27:00.002-05:00

I really want to blog today. My friend Robert reminds me to update this blog every time I see him, and he manages to write almost every day. I just feel like my well is dry somewhere between this un-updated blog and the other one I manage (also un-updated, mostly).

I don't know if it is Spring fever, a mid-life crisis, or some combination of the two, but I am having a terrible time being focused and thinking past this week. So, forgive me for not being a faithful blogger lately--

Have a great weekend!

2009-04-13T08:12:00.002-05:00

What's up with April 13?

Today is the birthday of the Third President of these United States of America, Thomas Jefferson (b. 1743). It is also the birthday of writers Samuel Beckett (b. 1906), Eudora Welty (b. 1909), and poet Seamus Heaney (b. 1939). The pithy Christopher Hitchens (b. 1949) of God is Not Great infamy, also share this date.

I wish some writers could have been born today....

2009-04-03T13:52:00.001-05:00

see more pwn and owned pictures

2009-04-01T10:13:00.000-05:00

Happy Palm Sunday!

Vintage21 Jesus Video 4

2009-03-16T13:10:00.001-05:00

2009-02-24T15:58:00.004-06:00

My friend, Robert, has a very interesting blog. He is recounting the events that led up tot he siege at the Alamo in 1836. It is totally worth a peek--he updates it daily with a play-by-play of what was going on 176 years ago.

In honor of his work, here's another poem:

Within the Alamo

He drew a straight line
Across the dirt floor:
Within, it was death-still--
Without, was a roar
And a scream of the trumpets:
Within, was a Word--
And a line drawn clean
By the sweep of a sword.
No help was coming, now--
That hope was done.
No more the free air,
no more the sun
Bright on the blue leagues
Of buffalo-clover.
Travis drew a line
And they all crossed over.
Travis had a wife at home,
Travis was young;
Travis had a little boy
Whose tight arms clung,
But Travis saw a far light
Shining before:
Travis drew a sword-cut
Across the dirt floor.

And now the old fort stands
Placid and dim,
Blinking and dreaming
Of them and of him;
And now past the Plaza
Other tides roar,
since Travis wrote "Valor"
Across the sand floor,
And the guns they will rust,
And the captains will go,
And an end come at last
To the wars that we know,
But as long as there travails
A Spirit in man,
In a war that was ancient
Before Time began,
Here will the brave come
To read a high Word--
Cut clean in the dust
By the stroke of a sword.

Karle Wilson Baker

2009-02-23T16:44:00.004-06:00

Here's a little poetry for you, if you are into that sort of thing.... I shared this one with the college group at Brady's last Monday night.

Manifesto: The Mad Farmer Liberation Front

by Wendell Berry

Love the quick profit, the annual raise,
vacation with pay. Want more
of everything ready-made. Be afraid
to know your neighbors and to die.
And you will have a window in your head.
Not even your future will be a mystery
any more. Your mind will be punched in a card
and shut away in a little drawer.
When they want you to buy something
they will call you. When they want you
to die for profit they will let you know.

So, friends, every day do something
that won’t compute. Love the Lord.
Love the world. Work for nothing.
Take all that you have and be poor.
Love someone who does not deserve it.
Denounce the government and embrace
the flag. Hope to live in that free
republic for which it stands.
Give your approval to all you cannot
understand. Praise ignorance, for what man
has not encountered he has not destroyed.

Ask the questions that have no answers.
Invest in the millennium. Plant sequoias.
Say that your main crop is the forest
that you did not plant,
that you will not live to harvest.
Say that the leaves are harvested
when they have rotted into the mold.
Call that profit. Prophesy such returns.

Put your faith in the two inches of humus
that will build under the trees
every thousand years.
Listen to carrion - put your ear
close, and hear the faint chattering
of the songs that are to come.
Expect the end of the world. Laugh.
Laughter is immeasurable. Be joyful
though you have considered all the facts.
So long as women do not go cheap
for power, please women more than men.
Ask yourself: Will this satisfy
a woman satisfied to bear a child?
Will this disturb the sleep
of a woman near to giving birth?

Go with your love to the fields.
Lie down in the shade. Rest your head
in her lap. Swear allegiance
to what is nighest your thoughts.
As soon as the generals and the politicos
can predict the motions of your mind,
lose it. Leave it as a sign
to mark the false trail, the way
you didn’t go. Be like the fox
who makes more tracks than necessary,
some in the wrong direction.
Practice resurrection.

2009-01-22T13:57:00.001-06:00

Searching for God Knows What...

If you ask me, the way to tell if a person knows God for real, I mean knows the real God, is that they will fear Him. They wouldn't go around making absurd political assertions and drop God's name like an ace card, and they wouldn't be making absurd statements about how God wants you to be rich and how if you send in some money to the ministry God will bless you. It seems like, if you really knew the God who understands the physics of our existence, you would operate a little more cautiously, a little more compassionately, a little less like you are the center of the universe.

Donald Miller, Searching for God Knows What. p. 38.

2009-01-20T15:45:00.001-06:00

Sunday's Pre-inauguration festivities were kicked off with an invocation by Right Reverend Gene V. Robinson. A rather controversial figure in American religious circles today, Rev. Robinson had this to say to God:

Welcome to Washington! The fun is about to begin, but first, please
join me in pausing for a moment, to ask God's blessing upon our nation
and our next president.

O God of our many understandings, we pray that you will…

Bless us with tears – for a world in which over a billion people exist
on less than a dollar a day, where young women from many lands are
beaten and raped for wanting an education, and thousands die daily
from malnutrition, malaria, and AIDS.

Bless us with anger – at discrimination, at home and abroad, against
refugees and immigrants, women, people of color, gay, lesbian,
bisexual and transgender people.

Bless us with discomfort – at the easy, simplistic "answers" we've
preferred to hear from our politicians, instead of the truth, about
ourselves and the world, which we need to face if we are going to rise
to the challenges of the future.

Bless us with patience – and the knowledge that none of what ails us
will be "fixed" anytime soon, and the understanding that our new
president is a human being, not a messiah.

Bless us with humility – open to understanding that our own needs must
always be balanced with those of the world.

Bless us with freedom from mere tolerance – replacing it with a
genuine respect and warm embrace of our differences, and an
understanding that in our diversity, we are stronger.

Bless us with compassion and generosity – remembering that every
religion's God judges us by the way we care for the most vulnerable in
the human community, whether across town or across the world.

And God, we give you thanks for your child Barack, as he assumes the
office of President of the United States.

2009-01-15T14:33:00.001-06:00

Star Wars: Retold (by someone who hasn't seen it) from Joe Nicolosi on Vimeo.

2008-12-23T14:44:00.003-06:00

Taking Christmas to Orphans, 2008

Once again, I am part of a team of people who are heading to Russia to play with and love orphan children, who are usually under loved. This time, though, we are heading there in the dead of winter! The past three times I have gone, we have played outside and really enjoyed Siberia--it looks and feels like East Texas on a warm Spring day when you are there is June. This trip, I get to meet the Siberia of Dr. Zhivago and feel her punishment. I am strangely excited at the prospect of real, god-honest cold.

Here's a copy of the guide that our church produced to let people know where we are, what we are doing, and what they can have in mind when they pray for us. Please keep us in your thoughts for the week we are going:

27-28 December - multiple flights to Tomsk
Pray for safe travel of the whole team.
Psalm 143 “Teach me to do your will, for you are my God. Let your good spirit lead me on a level path.”

29 December - sharing the Christmas story at Orphanage #4
Pray for the orphans.
Psalm 8 “From the lips of children and infants, you have ordained praise.”

30 December - sharing the Christmas story at the Preschool Orphanage
Pray for Tomsk UMC and their members.
Psalm 133 “How very good and pleasant it is when kindred live together in unity!”

31 December - sharing the Christmas story at the Blind Orphanage
Pray for the leaders of the Russia Peace Foundation.
Psalm 122 “For the sake of my relatives and friends I will say „Peace be with you.‟”

1 January - sharing the Christmas story at the Deaf Orphanage
Pray for greater awareness of the global needs of children.
Psalm 125 “Do good, O Lord, to those who are good, and to those who are upright in their
hearts.”

2 January - sharing the Christmas story at Eagles Nest Orphanage
Pray for children’s health during the intense winter months.
Psalm 30 “O Lord my God, I cried to you for help, and you have healed me.”

3 January - multiple flights to the US
Pray for our future partnership with the people and children in Tomsk.
Psalm 103 “But the steadfast love of the Lord is from everlasting to everlasting…”

TEAM MEMBERS
George Brigman, Team Leader

Fay Adams + Mitzie Avera + Claire Brown + Sheila Brown + Becky Canter + Jacob Canter + Zack Canter + David Dickerson + John Hilliard + Penelope Loughhead + David Thacker + Paula Wallace

2008-11-20T09:56:00.010-06:00

Happy Birthday number FIVE, Mia!

I have been thinking a lot the past couple of days about this morning in 2003. Stacy was complaining that she felt pain in her back and sides--pain that we might have recognized as labor pains, except that this was three months early, and we had been to our "how-to-be-pregnant" class only once, thanks to a November thunderstorm. I went on to campus to teach my eight a.m. Freshman Comp. class (the best class of students I ever had, thus far!) betting that Stacy would feel better later. She did feel better later, but "later" was after delivering Mia via emergency c-section, and getting and recovering from the flu.

Mia was so terribly tiny. She was bright red, and I watched the doctors (who were pretty freaked out, in my opinion) cover her with saran wrap to help keep her warm. About then, my mom and Suzy showed up, and Nana, too. I was in a daze, but I remember other people coming up to the nursery window to coo at their new baby. After showing off her new nephew, one lady asked me which one was mine; her face changed when I told her my daughter was the tiny one surrounded by doctors.

Mia and I took our first trip to Dallas together that day on a fixed-wing care-flight plane. Before I left Methodist Hospital that night with Dianne Betts (the coolest lady I know, to this day!), I got to touch Mia for the first time. All I touched was her toe--I kissed it before I left and I told her that I loved her and asked her to fight.

The day after she arrived, Jason took off work and drove up to Dallas to take care of me. Evidently, I was a little freaked out! He took this photo to show Shannon how small Mia was.

I am so glad she is a fighter! I don't even mind her being a little stubborn now that she is a big girl! She blesses me every single day, and has done so, now, for five years straight. Her birthday is more to me than any other.

2008-11-20T09:55:00.002-06:00

David took the free ColorQuiz.com personality test!

"Seeks affectionate, satisfying and harmonious rela..."

Click here to read the rest of the results.

2008-10-06T11:09:00.015-05:00

ADVENTURES IN THE PUMPKIN PATCH

Check out Moore Farms in Bullard for your own Pumpkin-Patch, Corn-maze fun.

This Tin Man stands guard over a haystack near the main barn

Emily, Mia and me in the Maize Maze

Kathy, Stacy, Mia and Emily

Kathy and Emily navigate the corn labyrinth

Emily likes to help Mia walk. They are really sweet friends.

Mia contemplates the existential experience of "hayride." She is smart like that!

This hayride could be called a "hay train," or "city bus" in many parts of the world

Stacy tolerates our usual silliness pretty well; she's a good sport!

From the look on Mia's face, the whole situation is disturbing

She got pretty tired from walking the maze and waling all over the pumpkin patch, but daddy is always good for a ride, if you need it! :o)

Sunset over the Pumpkin Patch

Stacy and Mia playing in the corn bin