Category: Christianity

Persona Non Bloggus

There is a time for everything, a season for every activity under heaven:

…a time to be silent, and a time to speak.

Ecclesiastes 3, v.1 and v.7

Two years ago yesterday, I launched out onto the “bloggy cybersea.” Somehow I managed to survive the use of that horrible turn of phrase and go on to write 526 other posts in 64 categories which generated 4,195 comments. Some of those comments came from me, a good deal of them from pesky spammers hawking everything from cheap, cheesy porn to counterfeit Nike shoes (those have been fried for the most part by my Super-Duper Askimet Spam Zapper and don’t figure into the total count), but most came from the likes of you, my beloved Fusioneers, whom I have come to appreciate very much.… Read the rest

Pray for Lamar

I realize that very few of you know Lamar Jackson, but take my word for it: He’s a great guy. Lamar played club and high school soccer with Number One Son, and he is a sophomore pharmacy student at Ole Miss. Like many college kids in town, he had come back to Huntsville to rendezvous with friends at Big Spring Jam. On his way back to Oxford, he apparently fell asleep at the wheel and was injured badly in a single car accident near Tupelo Sunday evening.

Things were touch and go for a while and he was on a respirator, but he is now able to breathe on his own.… Read the rest

Thank God for Incarnation–and iPods

People cross this world
Over and then back again
Never even one time lift their eyes
Or think of what they say

But I hear it in your voice, love
Like someone sweetly willing
The hope of all these years,
the prayer of a time
that we don’t even know

But it’s a hard road that we follow
The saddest cities, and the darkest hollows

But I hear it in your voice, love
The strongest sound
I’ve ever heard
Like water from a well
so deep in the ground
I’ll never thirst again

–“Hollow” from Hem’s “Eveningland”

And if God doesn’t get your attention with a good joke, them maybe some music will do the trick.… Read the rest

I’m the Dog on the Right

dog-joke.jpg

–Bunny Hoest and John Reiner

I know it’s probably not that funny, but for some reason it struck me so. The laugh that ensued–a soul-cleansing guffaw– sprang from a deep, wounded place, and the tears flowed freely like a baptism of mirth, washing away my weekend woes (and no, they had nothing to do with football).

Sometimes God uses a burning bush, and sometime He just comes along and whacks you up side the head with a good joke.

In case you don’t recognize me, I’m the dog on the right. And yes, I do occasionally play dead. But I tell you one thing–under no circumstances will I ever roll over.… Read the rest

The Measures of a Good Life

Barbara died a few days ago. She lived two doors down and had been sick for about a year. It wasn’t Alzheimer’s, but something similar, another heartless, wasting disease that took her away, bit by bit, to the horror and disappointment of her husband and family who could do little but simply love her and try to ease her passage to the other side. It was not an easy death.

I did not know her well, beyond an occasional casual conversation on the sidewalk or a friendly wave as she made her way out to retrieve her morning paper while I stumbled by at the conclusion of one of my morning runs.… Read the rest

Man’s Best Friend–It’s Not Just a Phrase

And God said, “Let the land produce living creatures according to their kinds: livestock, creatures that move along the ground, and wild animals, each according to its kind.” And it was so. God made the wild animals according to their kinds, the livestock according to their kinds, and all the creatures that move along the ground according to their kinds. And God saw that it was good.

–Genesis 1:24-25

We had all wondered if Amazing Gracie the Wonderdog would remember Number One Son when he came home from college for the first time. On Friday evening, that question was answered in dramatic fashion.… Read the rest

It’s a Good Weekend When…

It’s a good weekend when…

  • The two soccer teams that your sons play for go a combined 4-1 for the weekend…
  • When you oldest son manages to travel from Tuscaloosa to Huntsville for a brief visit, then on to Atlanta for a Dave Matthews/Allman Brothers concert and then back to Tuscaloosa without getting into yet another wreck…
  • The Crimson Tide beats the so-called “experts'” 3 1/2 point spread against Vanderbilt and wins by a margin much closer to what you predicted…
  • You become a full-fledged convert to the Crimson Way by staying up late watching Auburn lose in OT to South Florida and then high-fiving it with Number Two Son, the former Vols fan…
  • You step on the scales and learn that you’ve actually lost 2 lbs over the past week and a half despite the fact that you haven’t run a single step…
  • You get to teach a class at church that you’re actually excited about (Richard Foster’s Celebration of Discipline)
  • Your friend who moved to Egypt shows up unexpectedly for a visit bringing with him his friend Akhmed who is visiting a Christian church for the first time in his life…
  • Akhmed enjoys your class and you get to visit with him for a while and make a new friend from a faraway place…
  • You get to teach Akhmed the all-purpose, always-appropriate phrase, “Roll Tide, Roll!”
… Read the rest

Each Moment Is, and Always Has Been, a Gift

I knew that drop off day last Thursday would be busy and unpredictable, so I took Number One Son out to lunch at Little Rosie’s on Wednesday to serve up a little fatherly wisdom along with some steak fajitas, chips and gaucomole on the side. So far so good: no apparent E. coli poisoning.

I started off by saying that if I were to tell him everything that I know that he needed to know as a college freshman starting out, that I would flat-out fry his brain. Instead, I promised to keep it simple.

First, I wanted him to know how I “backended” into my career as an optometrist, having never even thought about that profession during college, but instead seeking it out after my first choice of clinical psychology “didn’t work out.”… Read the rest

The Naked Dream

“The man and his wife were both naked, and they felt no shame.”

–Genesis 2:25

“Then the eyes of both of them were opened, and they realized they were naked; so they sewed fig leaves together and made coverings for themselves.”

–Genesis 3:7

Yesterday was Number Three Son’s first day of public high school. Like his brothers, he was homeschooled for the first eight years (oh my, the poor barefoot, sheltered, undersocialized, top-buttoned-up little thing!) and now we’re turning throwing him into the deep end of the pool. Sink or swim, son. That’s life.

He woke up considerably earlier than usual yesterday and made the necessary ablutions and preparations (including turning on the early edition of Sports Center).… Read the rest

Archives

One of my favorite parts about visiting my Mom in Virginia is exploring the museum that is her house and searching among the archives and exhibits for long lost treasures.

Among the items that I’ve found (and rescued) in the past:

  • My collection of Matchbox and Hot Wheels cars (unfortunately, I couldn’t locate the Hot Wheels Supercharger Sprint Set)
  • My baseball and sports card collection (and it is a very good one if I have to say so myself)
  • My scrapbooks from elementary, junior high and high school which contain old class pictures and portraits, 4-H and church camp ribbons, newspaper clippings containing my super-amazing, jaw-dropping feats on the tennis courts and cross country trails (heh), my acceptance letter to Duke University and goofy letters from an old high school girlfriend which still hold the slightest hint of perfume.
… Read the rest

Let’s Hear It For The Little Guy

Among all the things that Pope Benedict XVI has stated recently, it’s important to remember one thing that he did not say: that those believers outside the Roman Catholic Church are not true Christians.

And I don’t believe that he would say that, because that’s not the official teaching of the Catholic Church (although there are many Catholics still today who might say that). What he did say is that those “ecclesial communities” formed by those other Christians are not churches in the “proper sense” because they do not have apostolic succession and are therefore “defective.” That has always been the view of the Catholic Church and the Pope is, for whatever reasons, basically stating what has always been official teaching.… Read the rest