As the middle child of three, I totally get this!Samuel comes to mind. He’s always too excited at our house to go to sleep, even when he’s exhausted.Good one. On the other hand, what do you think all that kicking was about?Raw carrots, yes. Cooked carrots, meh.
Yeah, these are kind of juvenile, but I needed a good laugh today. We did the best we could this past year during Sara’s heart-wrenching illness, and then we did the best we could to support and resource those on the front lines of both her public and private services. (I was happy to take a behind-the-scenes role and let others use their gifts to lead the memorials.) The healing work goes on, though, so we need some relief points along the road ahead.
One of my favorite Sara memories is when I was cracking up during a late-night chew-the-fat session at our house last year, and she started narrating the various sounds and gestures of my laugh while I was in the very act of laughing. That just made me laugh all the more. And the memory of it is making me laugh today, too. So, thank you, Sara! 🙂
Does it really need to be said that pastors are just ordinary people like everybody else? We have our own set of struggles while simultaneously serving as the repository of other people’s pain. It can be unrelenting sometimes. And it hurts.
The last time I led a congregation through the path of deep grief after a similar tragic death, I was soon plunged into the dark world panic attacks and depression myself. Thank God in time he “lifted me out of the slimy pit, out of the mud and mire; he set my feet on a rock and gave me a firm place to stand” (Psalm 40:2). He can do the same for you.
In the meantime, try to laugh a little. It can be medicine for the soul (Proverbs 17:22).
Just a little bit of this and that as I take a brief break from the books.
1. Fall is magical. As Khalil Gibran has said, “Trees are poems that the earth writes upon the sky.” In a similar vein, Ralph Waldo Emerson has said, “The earth laughs in flowers.” (See what I did there? Vein…) 🙂 Anyway, the crisp colors and beauty of this season always refresh my soul.
2. Speaking of laughter, six-year-olds laugh an average of 300 times a day. Adults only laugh 15-100 times a day. Be six again. (O.k., feel free to accuse me of being silly—but only after you read Proverbs 17:22. Life is too short to be curmudgeonly all the time.)
3. Martin Niemöller’s robe and preaching collar are now the property of the seminary where I work. I hope to do a short post on that in the near future. Niemöller is not really a household name, but he should be. (“They came for the Jews, but I was not a Jew….”) See, I can be un-silly, too.
4. “I can’t imagine a man really enjoying a book and reading it only once.” So said C. S. Lewis. Amen to that! Which books do you find yourself re-reading? Oh, you don’t read? As the adage goes (often misattributed to Mark Twain), “A person who won’t read has no advantage over one who can’t.”
5. The Phillies are just two games back. Why do they always get close enough to give us hope but linger far enough behind to break our hearts? Fortunately, it doesn’t sting as much as it used to. While I thoroughly enjoy the game of baseball, I’m no longer a fan of professional sports.
6. On a happier note, SamJam (Samuel James) is just two months away from coming into view. I suppose I’ll be more of a puddle than usual this Christmas, getting to hold a newborn and all. This little guy is just the third blood relative I will have gotten to meet on the planet. What an honor!
7. Speaking of Christmas, I probably won’t be able to write too many original posts this year on the Incarnation—one of the richest, deepest, most profound subjects we could ever ponder. So, I’m thinking of doing some re-posts of the more popular ones I’ve done over the past few years. Since that almost feels like cheating, I’m hoping to write at least one original post this year.
8. My Advent series this year will focus on the history and theology of the carol “O Holy Night.” I did my own translation of it several years ago and discovered that the English version is way off the original French. Nevertheless, the lyrics are still poignant, and the tune is hauntingly beautiful. My favorite line is, “Till he appeared and the soul felt its worth.” This concept is the next unit for two of the seven classes I’m teaching this semester. The Scripture pulsates with the sentiment, though we often try to obscure it. As Karen Salmansohn put it, “When you realize how much you’re worth, you’ll stop giving people discounts.”
9. Finally, here are two songs for your weekend pleasure. The first is Disturb’s cover of “The Sound of Silence,” a song about incommunicability. It’s really a lament about individuals who are physically close to each other but still separated by their inability to communicate. They speak without expressing any substantive content, and they hear without really listening. The realm of silence, into which the noisy nothings of this world often crash, is painful to the author.
The second song is much brighter. It’s the One Voice Children’s Choir performing “A Million Dreams” from The Greatest Showman. I love this group of young people, and I find the musical itself quite entertaining. In fact, my son and I have talked about doing a Friday night sing-along of the whole show. (All recording devices will be confiscated before we push play on the DVD!)
Thanks for reading. And have a lovely weekend!
P.S., Hurricane “Sam” is headed to the East Coast. Yeah, we knew that. (See #6 above.) 🙂
1. One of the benefits of living in Pennsylvania is getting to experience the delightful change of seasons throughout the year. The shifts here are significant enough to be noticeable but not extreme enough to be intolerable. Fall is my favorite—the look, the smell, the colors, the feel—but all of them have their benefits. This week it looks like we’ll emerge from the long, frigid winter, but with PA you never really know. Still, it’ll be nice to take a break from snow duty for a while, although I love snow. Of course, the approach of spring means lawn mowing is right around the corner, right?
2. I saw a great sign at the pool today: “Whatever you’re planning to do today, do it with the confidence of a 4-year-old in a Batman cape.” Yes! That was all the inspiration I needed to swim 2500 meters (100 laps). It probably wasn’t pretty, but I made it. So what if my shoulders feel like melted butter? “I am Batman.” Ha! Speaking of which, I didn’t plan it this way, but I have five different pairs of Speedo jammers—one for each day of the week. So, now I start out with black on Monday and get lighter as the week unfolds. Maybe I should end with dark blue instead of red if I’m going to be Batman.
3. Relatedly, research indicates that six-year-olds laugh an average of 300 times a day. By comparison, adults laugh 15-100 times a day. Be six again.
4. I’m having fun decorating the newly renovated living room, even as renovations begin on the bathroom. Just got a framed print called “Winter Mist,” which works perfectly in the room, along with a set of tiered candle holders and bookends with an oil-rubbed bronze look. Just a few more items to get and/or set out, and the project will be complete.
5. I recently saw a fun screen shot of somebody’s Network Preferences dialog box. Apparently, there’s a feud between two households sending messages to each other by how they name their wi-fi connections. Check out the last two listings. As a bonus, notice how the computer also commits a grammatical boo-boo. It should read, “None of your preferred networks is available.” (Not being snarky; we all make mistakes. I’m just surprised that this got past the editors and showed up on a computer.)
6. I got a kick out of this recent “Brevity” cartoon by Dan Thompson. I see Genghis Khan, Chaka Khan, and (I think) Star Trek Kahn. Nicely done, Dan. I guess we can call it your ComiKhan. (Sorry.)
7. A horse is a horse, of course, but there’s something majestic about this one. I’d love to learn how to ride better—though not while the horse is in this position.
8. Less majestic and far more pompous is the house cat. Mrs. Mosby, my daughter’s cat, is getting bigger and slightly more friendly, but she still cops an attitude on a fairly regular basis. This comic could have been drawn by her.
9. Speaking of animals, “Perhaps the butterfly is a proof that you can go through a great deal of darkness yet still become something beautiful” (B. Taplin).
