Archives for June 2006

I’m teaching at a conference this next week and I was searching the web at one of my favorite random news sites and oh boy did I find a gold mine. What youth ministry couldn’t use this book? I’m gonna order mine today and watch my gut expand and my teeth rot and oh I think I’ll submit some recipes of my own.

if a pictures’ worth a thousand words…. I’ll shut up and let these 3 speak for themselves.

The wife and I celebrated 12 years of marriage with dinner under the sunset at Ocean Beach last Sunday.

Grandma and Grandpa bought the boys 5000 gallons of water and big bucket for the backyard. It’s been 100+ here the last few days… a big puddle is nice to jump in.

Tyler- age 6 lost his first tooth. Magically he made a buck fifty too.

I have officially sold my first craigs list item. 4 old patio chairs no longer in my side yard. $15. BOING!

Based on my new rating system yesterday, the United States gets a SPLAT for soccer. Mostly because of lack of enthusiasm stateside. I think the players played hard and well for the most part. We got beat badly in game 1. That was embarassing. We did very well against Italy playing a man down most of the second half. We didn’t have what it takes to beat Ghana today- though it really should have been a tie- the penalty kick foul was laughable, ridiculous, and lame. But so what.

Ghana gets a BOING. Mostly because of their countries pride. In honor of soccer, their entire country took a half day off to view it on TV.

I got to thinking, I wonder what it’s like to live in a country with a national passion. We don’t have one in the US that I could think of. I can’t imagine the entire country taking a day off or supporting the president’s decision to shut down the country for any reason other than a tragedy. We simply don’t have a national hobby, love, or even focus minus something threatening the name of freedom. I was in Israel several years ago when Yasser Arafat’s chief aid died of a heart attack and almost instantly, the entire Palestinian quarter shut down and people closed up shot for 3 days of mourning.

I’d like to be in a country when the streets get flooded with people headed home to watch soccer. That’s awesome. I wish I was in Ghana to see it and watch it with a small family in their house in the outskirts somewhere with a dirt floor and a television and cheer with them. That sounds like fun. Instead, I cheered and jeered in my home this am with a bowl of cereal and some java.

I was supposed to do a devotion in our staff today at 9am. But the game went till 9:05am. So I called in and postponed my devotion 15 minutes. Which seemed really lame when Ghana took off a half day. Made me wonder what passion I have in my life that I would take a day off for just because I could that wasn’t surrounding a day of tragedy or need. I took some time off this week to help my injured bride- but that doesn’t seem the same.

I thought maybe I’d do it for soccer, a chance to go to a baseball game with sweet seats, a great concert, some event for my kids… but maybe I need to do more. Maybe I need to be ready to drop my day to play more often. Maybe I’d get less done. Maybe in 10 years in wouldn’t matter. Maybe my play time would. Maybe that would make a day a BOING for sure.

Ever have that feeling in your gut you can only describe as something that if you dropped it on the floor it would go “THUD”. That’s my day today. THUD. It might be an unfair assessment cuz my day’s not over, but up to this point. THUD is accurate.

It’s one step up from a SPLAT and not as nice as BOING. Here’s the chart of emotions I just invented.

BOING-enjoyed my day. would do it again if I could.
THUD- just lived. would rather not repeat it.
SPLAT- that hurt. now I need prayer.

maybe I should add pictures to that chart and patent it.

To the 5 of you who read this blog, I hope your day has more BOING than THUD and certainly less SPLAT than you were prepared to endure…. no one likes SPLAT.