A clip from my favorite movie of all time.

Mateo is Dying Scene from In America Movie (2002) | MOVIECLIPS

Gratitude

The steadfast love of the Lord never ceases
His mercies never come to an end
They are new every morning
New every morning
Great is Thy faithfulness O Lord
Great is Thy faithfulness.

BIG 12

Happy Birthday to my sweet Nat Lou who turns 12 today! What a blessing and gift she is in my life. Her laugh can make my worst moods go away. Her caring heart for others inspires me to do the same. And her love for music and doing things right makes me proud as proud can be to be her dad! Love you Roonie.

Keep breathing

I like the movie Cast Away. There is a lot to think about in this movie. This scene generates a lot of questions and good stuff worth thinking about: how there is still hope when you feel hopeless; how to acknowledge loss yet balance it with thankfulness; how to utilize past coping skills with present grief; and how to keep breathing and remain alive when it defies logic. On a walk last night with my family I asked everybody what gets them out of bed in the morning. Their answers were surface level at best - "My alarm clock." "My dog licking my face." My sister-in-law asked me the same question this morning. I said, "Because I never know what the tide will bring in today." Everyday has the potential to bring in a sail - just when you need it. Yes, life is full of loss. That is guaranteed. But, life is full of gain as well. Also guaranteed. Kinda gives you a reason to get up everyday, eh?

Who can you tell?

I am re-reading this great book called Prayer by Philip Yancey. I love it that it has little vignettes every chapter that are written by everyday people. This excerpt is from someone named John. His writing makes a lot of sense to me. It reminds me of how important it is to simply let people tell their story. Let them share their hurts, worries, passions, triumphs and bare their soul. Here are two parts of what John wrote:

"I have a theory that both street people and fundamentalists suffer from attachment disorders. Somehow in childhood they never learned to bond with parents an n ever learned to bond with God either. How can you trust another person with who you are, much less God?"

"We all bear secrets. Those of us fortunate enough to have a spouse, a friend, or someone we can trust, have someone to share our secrets with. If not, at least we have God, who knows our secrets before we spill them. The fact that we're still alive show that God has more tolerance for whatever those secrets represent than we may give God credit for."

"If I'm right about attachment disorders, the best ministry I can offer is a long-term relationship. I tell people that I hand with the poor all day, and that sums it up. I hope that over he years and decades they learn to trust me as someone who can handle their secrets. I hope that trust will gradually spill over to God. And I tell people who encounter the homeless on the streets and are confused at how to respond, that eye contact and a listening ear may be more important than food or money or Bible verses. They need to connect in some small way with another human being."

I think that this applies to all of us - not just the poor. We need people in our life like that. People that can sit and hold our stories no matter what comes out. People that can listen and not fix. People, who by their very presence are saying that "No matter what, I am with you." This doesn't mean that there is never confrontation, accountability, or correction. Quite the opposite. That comes at the appropriate time and in the appropriate context and it should always come from a place of love and humility knowing that as others expose their stories to us we are becoming part of that story and they are becoming part of ours.

The party was a success...

Where to go from here...

So far so good. You've made it this far and you must think you are pretty smart. Maybe even as smart as Indiana Jones. Well, don't get too proud of yourselves because this is where it gets tough. Each letter of the alphabet can be assigned a number. For example, A=1, B = 2, C= 3 and so on. Solve the following riddle by using your incredible math skills and find out what to do next. Fill in each blank in order by solving the math problem and figuring out what letter it represents. Remember your order of operations you silly little 6th graders.

Destination: _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _

1. 9 x 9 divided by 9 +9
2. 100 divided by 4 divided by 5
3. One less than the last answer
4. 36 minus 30 plus 12
5. Half of 90 minus thirty
6. 1,234,998 minus 1,234,996
7. The number on the jersey hanging on the wall.
8. 2 + 2 + 2 + 2 + 2 + 2 + 2

When you get to your destination, wait to be seated. When you are asked for your party's name you must use the secret code name:

"_ _ _ _ _"

1. 100 divided by 2 divided by 2 divided by 5 minus 3
2. 3,224 x 23 x 0 + 12 + 3
3. The first letter in the name of the African animal with black and white stripes that looks like a horse.
4. 27 divided by 3 plus 17
5. 3 squared

When seated wait for your next clue and try not to draw attention to yourselves. This mission is top secret.

STP moments...

We all have them. Moments we'd rather forget. Moments that make you want to rent a bulldozer with a backhoe and dig a huge hole so you can jump in and hide for a while.

The summer after my 9th grade year I had one of those moments. I was playing summer baseball for an all-star team and we were in some sort of tournament. It was a loser out game and I was pitching in the bottom of the last inning. The score was tied and there was a runner on second base so our coach told me to intentionally walk the batter. OK. Fine. No problem, right? Wrong. I remember not feeling real comfortable with the catcher jumping out to catch the lobbed balls I was throwing out of the strike zone in order to walk the guy. However, the third pitch was a little off target. Lobbed, right down the middle. I have to give the guy credit. It's actually harder to hit a lobbed ball for any distance then it is to hit a ball with some velocity behind it. Well, it didn't really matter because he hit it off the right field wall and the guy from second scored easily and we lost the game. Not cool. I think I came home and stayed in my room the rest of the weekend.

Fast forward to last Tuesday night. I was on-call and was the back up for a new chaplain student. Everything was good...we did a practice run to one of the local hospitals and I explained some stuff and showed her around. She called a little before midnight to ask my opinion on a call she got. She expressed how she was nervous to respond to a trauma in the ER and I said that those are rare and if that happened I would be right there to support and back her up. No problem, right? Wrong. At some point during the night the battery in my phone went dead. So, I wake up figuring that it was a quiet night. Do my workout at 5. Take my daughter to school. All the while, having my dead phone in my pocket unaware that it is dead until my daughter wants to call into a trivia question on the radio. I flip open my phone and see that the screen is OFF. SWEET MOTHER OF ALL THAT IS GOOD AND HOLY. I try turning it on and it only has enough power to tell me that I have a new voicemail and then shuts off. OH #(!#%. Drop my daughter off, speed home, and check my other phone (which I had conveniently left in my kitchen drawer on vibrate) and find texts and voicemails on that phone as well. Long story short the student ended up getting a call to the other hospital in town to their ER. Nice. Thankfully, she was able to get a hold of her mentor chaplain (who is apparently much more reliable) and she was able to walk her through it. The part that bugs me the most is that she called me at 5:15am. I WAS IN MY GARAGE WORKING OUT!!!!! DUFUS.

Sadly, as the two stories illustrate, this is probably not the last time this will happen. I hate those moments when you know you have let someone down. Intentional or not, it sucks. But that happens right? We all have those STP moments when we "screw the pooch" and simply fall flat on our face. I am thankful for the understanding, forgiveness, and grace when I have those moments. It is humbling and a reminder that I need to extend that understanding, forgiveness, and grace when others need it too.

Words of Wisdom

A gift Cade received today for his birthday was a poem entitled "IF" by Rudyard Kipling. I like it.

If

If you can keep your head when all about you
Are losing theirs and blaming it on you;
If you can trust yourself when all men doubt you,
But make allowance for their doubting too:
If you can wait and not be tired by waiting,
Or, being lied about, don't deal in lies,
Or being hated don't give way to hating,
And yet don't look too good, nor talk too wise;

If you can dream---and not make dreams your master;
If you can think---and not make thoughts your aim,
If you can meet with Triumph and Disaster
And treat those two impostors just the same:.
If you can bear to hear the truth you've spoken
Twisted by knaves to make a trap for fools,
Or watch the things you gave your life to, broken,
And stoop and build'em up with worn-out tools;

If you can make one heap of all your winnings
And risk it on one turn of pitch-and-toss,
And lose, and start again at your beginnings,
And never breathe a word about your loss:
If you can force your heart and nerve and sinew
To serve your turn long after they are gone,
And so hold on when there is nothing in you
Except the Will which says to them: "Hold on!"

If you can talk with crowds and keep your virtue,
Or walk with Kings---nor lose the common touch,
If neither foes nor loving friends can hurt you,
If all men count with you, but none too much:
If you can fill the unforgiving minute
With sixty seconds' worth of distance run,
Yours is the Earth and everything that's in it,
And---which is more---you'll be a Man, my son!

My Boy

Fourteen. 14. FOUR TEEN. Tomorrow my son turns 14. I am a proud papa. I love you Cade. Happy Birthday.....tomorrow.

God talking to me

Part of the reason that I want to continue to do this little thing called blogging is that it is a way for me to record stories so that my kids (and other family/friends/whoever) can know some of the experiences I've had, thoughts I've thought, things I'm going through, and convictions I hold.

Tonight's story happened to me about 4 months ago - give or take a couple weeks. I was driving to work on a frosty morning and noticed a guy on the side of the road with a bike and a flat tire. He was obviously riding his bike into work because he had his pack of business stuff there with him as he looked from side to side. I drove past and felt the nudge (a gentle way of saying that I felt God ask me) to go back and see if he needed to call someone or needed a ride or whatever. I got all the way to work, pulled into a parking spot, and had a little conversation in my head. "Somebody else probably already stopped." "What a cool story this could make at morning devotions about how I helped somebody on the side of the road." "He's probably already gone." And on and on and on....

So I decided to turn the car around, go back down the road, and see if the guy was still there. He was. I pulled up and asked him if everything was ok and if he needed to call someone or needed a ride. He assured me that he had called his wife and that she was on her way. We exchanged some small talk and I was on my way.

Driving back to the office I had another type of conversation. "Why would You nudge me so much if the guy didn't need any help?" We often hear stories about some guy hearing God say to him, "Bring groceries to this house and it just so happens that the house is home to a family who doesn't have the money that month to buy groceries." Not so in my case. God said to me - "Go see if that guy needs help." He didn't. The more I thought and prayed about that nudging the more I heard God say to me - "What makes you think I had you go to help him? Maybe he was helping you." You see, at that time God was showing me the importance of obedience to him - no matter what was asked of me. The lesson for me was not in what I could "do" for God through helping this other guy, but God asking me to do something and simply doing it because I love Him and obedience is how I show that love for Him.

Who knew flat tires could be a way for God to speak to someone?

Cut the cheese

Poets have been mysteriously silent on the subject of cheese.

G. K. Chesterton

The power of story

I am continually reminded and blessed by the ability of some people to simply share their story. People live incredibly interesting lives and if not given the chance to share those experiences with others they miss out on not only "rediscovering" themselves through the story as Henri Nouwen would say, but the hearers of the story miss out too.

I got the chance to talk with someone today who recounted some pretty horrible experiences and still questions why someone would have to live through such trauma for such a long period of time. I've often wondered too if we are simply supposed to respond to circumstances that come across our path as if we have no control or say in the future but are simply responders to the world around us. After much reflection, I have come to the conclusion that it is our responses that influence the future. We have the choice to react both positively and negatively to things that happen to us that are out of our control. All of us have both positive and negative things that happen to us. That is reality. Some things come our way as consequences of our own actions (both positive and negative) and some things come our way as consequences of others actions (both positive and negative). We have the choice in how we react. We can choose to take something good that comes our way and diminish the goodness by not properly appreciating the gift. Likewise, we can take something bad that comes our way and redeem it by choosing the higher road that brings healing instead of harm; forgiveness instead of revenge; love instead of hate.

I'm thankful everyday I get to meet people that have chosen to take the bad experiences in their life and have refused to be defined by them but instead have integrated those experiences into something redeemed.

One step at a time

Seasonal depression

I can feel with the change of the weather the "heaviness" of winter leaving. With daylight savings just around the corner things are looking brighter and feeling warmer by the day.

Ahhhh

Spring training games have started. How nice it is to watch baseball again. In our house we are hoping this guy makes the Red Sox roster. It is always fun to follow former players you knew before they were famous.

Amazing post on grief and ethical integrity

I'd like to meet this woman and learn from her how to better serve the people I get the honor of working with.

http://drjoanne.blogspot.com/2012/03/relativity-applies-to-physics-not.html

Foot fetish

My sweeties' feeties...although they've grown a bit since then.