The Holidays

Seeing as how we’re now officially into the season known “the holidays,” I thought I’d put up a couple of polls inquiring as to my readership’s Christmas tendencies. The first two are below (with comments available to elaborate on your responses).
 
 

Black Friday on the Farm

I’m doubtful many folks are checking blogs today, but if you are:

We had a great Thanksgiving here on the farm – fun with family, amazing food, some basketball, a star-filled evening hayride, a couple of naps
No one has so much as even mentioned doing a little Black Friday shopping
Megan and the girls are going to [...]

Is the Unexamined Friend Not Worth Friending?

About six months ago, I reached the point where the people whom Facebook thought I might know were ones I didn’t. This bothered me then, and still does now.
According to Facebook, I have 369 “friends.” Yes, yes, I know most of these people, but I only really know a handful of them. My overall list [...]

Walking the Line Between Loss and Hope

You may not know it (I didn’t), but on July 27th of 2005, Congress proclaimed October 15th Stillbirth Remembrance Day, also sometimes called Stillbirth and Infant Loss Remembrance Day. Though you might not know it, today is a hard day for many.
It may sound like a gigantic exaggeration, but almost every couple Megan and I know [...]

It’s Up

I’m still figuring out the color changes in CSS (anybody know how to do this easily and without purchasing an upgrade for WordPress?), but kudos to Kent Needler for coming up with such a cool new header for Second Drafts.

Hurricane Ike Hits…St. Louis?

The remains of Hurricane Ike blew through the Midwest late last night and early this morning, downing a tree limb in our backyard, taking out power at our church (we worshipped by candlelight), and flooding the basement of the building that houses the More Than Carpentry ministry our church helps support in Wellston (to answer [...]

Saying Thanks

As part of my Sabbath today, I wrote thank you notes all afternoon – to family who helped us buy and furnish our house; to friends who watched our kids and helped us move; to new neighbors who have been, well, pretty darn neighborly. In doing so, I realized I hadn’t really offered any thanks to you, [...]

In the Air Tonight

Brian Rutland, my first drummer (no, he didn’t die the death of a Spinal Tap drummer) is now a pastor in Littleton, CO, and sent me this clip. We used to “cover” Phil Collins’s “In the Air Tonight” using lyrics I rewrote from more of an eschatological perspective (”I can feel [...]

Summer Plans

My friend, Ed, asked for a post on what summer holds. Here it is.
1. I’m one of seven Westminster teachers taking 28 high school students on Summer Seminar to South Dakota for two weeks in June. Over the course of a 12-day trip to and through the Badlands and Black Hills of South Dakota, students will explore [...]

Danny and Chaz

It’s been a heavy couple of days on the blog this week. While I know I still owe a post on Bible hermeneutics, between today being the last day of school and me trying to grade 105 final exams, it’s just not going to happen until next week. I’m sorry. This is not meant as [...]

Five Things of Late

1. I can’t remember where I read it, but I’ve been thinking a lot about the idea that, with the proliferation of so many news/infotainment sites, headlines tend to be more and more alarmist in nature so as to capture (and re-capture) readership. No wonder the world feels like it’s falling apart at such a [...]

Bittersweet Break

Due to either brilliant planning or pathetic procrastination, my Westminster Spring Break is turning out to be more about remembering what it’s like to be a full-time student than what it’s like to be a teacher with a week off. On the docket:

Listen to seven 45-minute lectures, read five chapters, complete a study guide, and [...]

Things That Made Me Smile Today

Rumor has it that I’m hard to please, but it really doesn’t take all that much to make me smile. To prove my point, here’s what did it today (and I’m not making these up):

My new office in the Pit of Despair (our unfinished basement) after a weekend of swapping workspaces with Megan’s crafts
Homemade whole [...]

Introducing

As an unofficial ambassador for the blogosphere, let me introduce you to three new blogs (and the people behind them) worth your reading time in the future:

My Life in Sweat Pants – a good friend from my old Navigator days, Leura is a freelance editor and terrific writer (and I say that not just because [...]

Maybe We’re Becoming a Little Too Close

Larry Hughes (on the left) is my Biblical Ethics co-teacher/mentor at Westminster, as well as the most widely-read person I’ve ever met. Larry speaks as easily about the Bible or ancient philosophy as the ideas and issues of our day. Best of all, he speaks in a fun Tennessee twang, and has a heart for [...]

Weekend Extrovert

So this weekend I spent Friday, Saturday, and Sunday afternoon with about 1,500 NavStaff in downtown St. Louis. Believe it or not, I was almost mistaken for an extrovert.

On Saturday, we had a few folks over to the house for lunch (my 4-year-old and I took the pic). Back row: Jess, Natalie (holding Amelia), Derek, [...]

The Navigators in St. Louis

It’s going to be a strange mixing of worlds this weekend as The Navigators’ national staff conference is in town. Over 1,200 folks from all over the Nav world are descending on St. Louis and the Millennium Hotel, and though we don’t know everybody, we know a fair amount and hope to see many of [...]

Welcome Home, Moore Family

This is my friend, Mitchell, who gets back into the States today after taking his pregnant wife, Lisa, and their three small children to Uganda for most of the summer to do mission work in Kampala.
As you can perhaps tell from the picture, Mitchell is a wild hair (yes, that’s magic marker all over his [...]

Fish

My sophomore year (1990) at Mizzou was quite a “friend year” for me. In addition to someone at the University randomly assigning Doug Serven (he of TwentySomeone fame) as my roommate, he or she also put us on the first floor of Wolpers Hall, two doors down from one John Gillman (pictured with me above). [...]