WOW!

Go here, read this!

HT: Tony Jones

Thinking

“Whatever course you decide upon, there is always someone to tell you that you are wrong. There are always difficulties arising which tempt you to believe that your critics are right. To map out a course of action and follow it to an end requires courage.”

Ralph Waldo Emerson

Recent Happenings...

Ok so it's be a while, and I hold a loose definition of "a while"

First and foremost we welcomed the newest addition to our clan on May 31He is a wonderful little guy. We have been graced with great kids and I love them dearly.
Christy is radiant when she is a mom and I love to watch her love my kids.
I added his name to the roster on my arm and got a little something else on my other arm. If you want to see those head on over to my Facebook page.

We have been crazy busy this year. Obviously waiting for the new guy to show up. Surgery on my hand again. Work. School (including one class I am taking this summer...argh). And all those pesky animals Christy likes to let hang around (in fact I get to stack hay tonight when I get home from class...woo hoo!) Big garden.
Pics coming.

Hope you all are doing well, please drop me a line.
Peace

Lyrical Addiction

Check this interview with Bill Mallonee over at Homebrewed Christianity.

To Ryan and Holly

Wow

It's extraordinary to me that the United States can find $700 billion to
save Wall Street and the entire G8 can't find $25 billion dollars to saved
25,000 children who die every day from preventable diseases. - Bono

Yellow and Blue

I experienced pride and cowardice simultaneously. Maybe that is not so rare. Maybe cowardice is born from a sense of pride, a sense of protecting what is yours to the point of running away with it.
I did not want to talk about it with her because she seems so smug and certain that I am not safe to say my thoughts without a feeling of condemnation. Why do we have to protect our ideas so vehemently, so violently? I felt that if I didn’t come away converted to her idea there wouldn’t be any satisfaction unless I at least felt like I was guilty for holding to my idea. So I refrained from uttering a syllable of my thoughts other than the refrain, “I don’t really want to talk about this.”
I am tired of the two-side systems of our societies that cannot seem to operate unless they have some perceived threat of the other who is always out to undermine or destroy what is theirs. And yet, isn’t that what I am making of her, and her, and him, and them?

Um...

My wife and I have worked with kids for years who are considered severely emotionally disturbed in the highest non-corrective, restrictive environments in the state of California.
We have experienced a lot of violence.
But NEVER on the scale and organization as this

damn!

Wow

All I can definitively say is that it did not look like this before my daughter got a hold of it!

This was a "rah-rah" for my nephew's Cub Scout and Weblos troops that she has made some sort of statement with

Why I love my wife

Yesterday when I redeived some frustrating news at the Mayo, I called Christy with the raged confusion clogging my throat and burning my eyes, she calmly and lovingly held me close to her on the phone and helped me to start over. Thank you my love.

Since then I have been gaining perspective:

the woman in the Mayo lobby with an inoperable tumor in her spine cheerfully encouraging me even when I had said nothing.

Christy reminding me of our power of adaptability to date.

the mass of people in Rochester who have the tell-tale hairless signs of chemotherapy.

and the list goes on...

Through Tony I was able to hook up with some guys here for wonderful conversation.
Thoughts for further reflection:
what is the purpose of church as an entity and the church as the body;
the cult of personality;
politics and voter issues;
cussing in a mid-western accent...donchano!

COLD, COLD, COLD

peace