The PostRestoration Podcast

Back in January of 2006, my friend Adam Ellis got it into our heads that we would do a podcast together, talking about issues related to faith, Christianity, and postmodernism (a fancy catchphrase back then). We call ourselves the PostRestorationists.

What's a "postrestorationist," you ask? Well, the name was kind of ripped off from Dallas Willard. Here's what I said 3 years ago...

The term "Post Restorationist" is pretty much stolen from an idea by Dallas Willard, but he uses the term "Post Evangelical" and defines it thusly: "Post-evangelicalism is by no means ex-evangelicalism... post-evangelicals are evangelicals, perhaps tenaciously so. However, post-evangelicals have also been driven to the margins by some aspects of evangelical church culture with which they cannot honestly identify."

Remove Evangelical and insert Restorationist and that's me and Adam. We love the Church of Christ and desire to see the Kingdom work through her. So we identify as participants in the Restoration Movement, but know that it is being shaped and evolving. We recognize a certain futility to trying to revive the 1st Century Church in Palestine and elsewhere as related in Acts and the Epistles in 21st Century America, but we recognize that there was a spirit/Spirit about those men and women that we can take inspiration from, as there has been in saints throughout the history of Christianity.

So that's what we consider a postrestorationist to be, and so we write from that perspective and we've now started recording the podcast again. I uploaded our first one back last night, and you can listen to it here: http://postrestorationist.podomatic.com/entry/eg/2009-03-04T22_01_43-08_00 In this episode, we discuss some of thoughts based on the Christian Chronicle article about Churches of Christ in Decline, found here http://www.christianchronicle.org/article2158685~Church_in_America_marked_by_decline.

If you listen to it, let us know what you think. You can also comment at the Post-Restoration Perspectives blog, where we have many other writers commenting and thinking about things along these lines.

Meet the New Boss, Same as the Old Boss?

Just goes to show that the leaders may change, but a lot of the words can remain the same. Once again, the Daily Show plays court jester, showing the similarity of language between Bush and Obama on Iraq.

The Daily Show With Jon StewartM - Th 11p / 10c

Mess O'Potamia - The Iraq War Is Over

Daily Show Full Episodes
Important Things With Demetri Martin

Political Humor
Joke of the Day

Reading to the Class: In Praise of Kinsey

Friday, I went to Kinsey's school as a part of Read-To-Me week to eat lunch with her and read to her class. It's always interesting to me to go do that because school is one part of her life that I'm not really a part of. Sheryl takes her there almost everyday and picks her up, she goes and helps in the class once a week and is the president of the PTA (no comment about vice-presidential aspirations). I will help Kinsey with her homework when she needs it (which isn't that often, except in Math stuff), but except for that, I'm pretty separated from school, so when I had this opportunity to go and read, I jumped at it. I read Dr. Suess' The Lorax to the class, which was fun because I got them to do sound effects for it as I was reading and that involved them quite a bit.

What was most interesting to me was watching Kinsey interact with her friends and classmates. Like any 2nd grader, well, any child, Kinsey can get pretty hyped up and excited around her friends. But what I also noticed is that there are some kids in the class who act out some. There had apparently been some kind of altercation in a bathroom with some boys before lunch. But what I noticed while there and Sheryl has confirmed this from her visits that even as a 2nd grader, Kinsey has managed to maintain a sense of herself and what she'll allow herself to get into and to be and not cross that line and I think that's wonderful to see from her. I know she's going to meet some challenges to that and constantly be redefining herself over the course of her maturity, but for now, I'm very proud of her and how she's able stay true to herself and to trying to be like Jesus.

And when I told her this Friday when I picked her up from school, she got the sweetest little smile on her face and I hope that even with the frustration that she and I can have with each other, that that will be something that sticks with her.

John 15:18-25

So I thought I would start a new feature on Fridays when I talk about faith issues: troubling Bible verses. Of course, this opens a whole can of worms and even issues within the Old Testament, but we won't get into that now.

So here's the passage for today, John 15:18-25

¹⁸"If the world hates you, keep in mind that it hated me first. ¹⁹If you belonged to the world, it would love you as its own. As it is, you do not belong to the world, but I have chosen you out of the world. That is why the world hates you. ²⁰Remember the words I spoke to you: 'No servant is greater than his master.' If they persecuted me, they will persecute you also. If they obeyed my teaching, they will obey yours also. ²¹They will treat you this way because of my name, for they do not know the One who sent me. ²²If I had not come and spoken to them, they would not be guilty of sin. Now, however, they have no excuse for their sin. ²³He who hates me hates my Father as well. ²⁴If I had not done among them what no one else did, they would not be guilty of sin. But now they have seen these miracles, and yet they have hated both me and my Father. ²⁵But this is to fulfill what is written in their Law: 'They hated me without reason.'

I bolded the passage that I'm really thinking about here, which would seem to indicate that those who opposed Jesus would not be guilty of sin if he hadn't come. So, here's the question I get out of this: If someone never hears the name of Jesus, are they not guilty of sin? And would that correlate to a legal term where being "not guilty" is NOT the same as being "innocent"?

Just some random thoughts that I'm curious to hear others' perspectives on too.

YouTube Thursday: Tokens Show

Last December, Sheryl and I got to go out and see the Tokens Show at Lipscomb University, directed by Lee Camp, of whom I've spoken fondly before. We really had a great time at this Prairie Home Companion meets theology discussion. Here are a couple of videos from it, and one from a previous show.

Joy To the World


Closing Monologue: Silent Night


Class and Grass


Tuesday, March 3, at 7pm, is the next Tokens Show, and it will feature will feature musicians Vince Gill, Sonya Isaacs, Odessa Settles, and Buddy Greene; interviews with Will Campbell (author of Brother to a Dragonfly) and Brad MacLean (on his work on death-row), and much more. Sheryl and I had an absolute blast at it and if you're in the Nashville area and can make it, I can almost guarantee that you won't be disappointed. Tickets are on sale at http://www.ticketmaster.com

PostModernism and the Financial Crisis

I was having a chat with a friend the other night and we got started talking about the differences in generations and especially my generation's tendencies toward cynicism. Tiffany made the point that our generation does not have the same loyalty to concepts that previous generations seem to have and that extends to the idea of American exceptionalism and perhaps even Christian exceptionalism (more on those another day though). We are prone to deconstruction, breaking down ideas an concepts to an almost ridiculous level.

But one of the issues in not having those beliefs is that we tend to focus on the negative, probably partially fueled by media coverage which tends to focus on the negative. And we can tend to get disillusioned easily. We focus on the corruption and the problems without thinking as much about the solutions. Deconstruction without the reconstruction.

And as Tiffany pointed out in our conversation, this is going to be one of the biggest problems in getting the economy back on track. Because we might not necessarily hold to the ideas that an unfettered free market and capitalism are the best ways to run an economy (as the last 8 years seem to have indicated), we deconstruct those ideas and in the best cases, reconstruct around them. And that seems to be what Obama is looking at doing. Now, obviously people with ties to the older systems are going to be put off by this, and more "postmodern" observers will be suspicious about just about anything, perhaps even especially something coming from the government, because even with all the talk about hope and change, Obama is still a politician and on the trust level, politicians are about on the level of pond algae these days.

Ok, I think I've rambled enough.

Fun Pictures

Friday night, Sheryl and Kinsey headed out for a girls night together and Connor and I hung out at home and watched Cars. But Sheryl snapped a couple of pictures before they left.

I thought when we had Kinsey that I'd never really be able to love a child as much as her, but I was so, so wrong. Love gets multiplied as we've had kids, not divided. Attention? That can get divided, but not love.

Sunday, we put Connor in an outfit, that my mom made. Now, I'll brag. My mom is quite the seamstress. There are pictures of me around somewhere in clothes that she made back when I was a kid and Kinsey wore dresses that Mom made all the time.

However, it can be hard to make boys' clothes that don't look... girly sometimes. But Mom really pulled it off with this train outfit that she made.







Yep, that's his name on the overalls.

And yes, Kinsey lost her other front tooth on Friday night when out with Sheryl.


Of course we had to get Sheryl into these pictures too.

Doug Sanders

Over the last few years, I've mentioned Doug Sanders a few of times on this blog. He used to be the Vice-President of Ice Cream at Purity Dairies and left that to become a minister on staff at Otter Creek. As a part of that, he began doing a lot of work in benevolence and helping the people who can't help themselves. I think he's done some incredible things for people and for helping Otter Creek see what can and needs to be done.

But the truth is that not many people know about what he does. And so to help with that, Doug's started a blog called A Day in the Life of a Creative Radical. He's going to talk about the people that he works with on a regular basis and how he deals with the situations that come up from dealing with "the least of these." And hopefully, people will see an opportunity where they can help as well.

Take a look. Add it to you bookmarks/favorites and/or your RSS Readers. If you go to Otter Creek, take some time to read and see what Doug does and thank him for the work he does in our community and ask where he needs help. If you don't, take some inspiration from him. He's not perfect but he has been someone who is putting the words of Jesus into action to help bring a little bit more of God's Kingdom to fruition.

Phil's Faith

It's been an interesting week in the life of my faith in the blogoverse and Facebook. From last week's post on the phrase Intellectual Agnostic, Experiential Believer through Facebook/Twitter statuses, I've been questioned a lot on what I believe and why I believe it. It's almost felt like that while my faith hasn't been on trial, the reasons that I give for my faith are on trial and for some, those answers have been lacking in substance or a firm foundation.

I guess I've found it interesting that it seems like if I had said that I experienced a profound moment of God's love and grace in my life and accepted that love and grace, that that might have been a more plausible answer than saying that in the face of no empirical evidence I've made a decision to have faith. So I guess I should explain one of the answers I gave.

Do I believe that my faith is based on where and how I've grown up? To a great extent, yes. Now, does that make my faith greater or less than someone who converts from another religion? I don't think so. I believe that God can use a person's background to bring them to faith whether brought up in another religion or in Christianity. But from a sociological level, I don't think I'm off base to say that a reason that I have faith is because I grew up in the United States into a Christian home to parents that got divorced while attending the church that I have attended for 31 of my 37 years of life. I think God has used all of that to bring me to faith.

Do I believe in Jesus and rest in the Grace provided through Him? Yes. Do I understand it? No. Do I sometimes think it's unfair (at least how grace is typically understood from an orthodox Christian perspective)? Yes. Does that sometimes make me feel like God is unfair? Yes, sometimes it does, and so sometimes I wonder if God will make a special disposition for those "righteous sinners," and to be perfectly honest, I hope God will. Do I KNOW that? No, I don't. Do I KNOW that God has provided for me and other Christians through Christ's sacrificial and victorious death and resurrection? No, I don't know that from any intellectual sense, but I believe it to be true.

Which leads to another question... do I believe that faith and intellect are separate? NO. I do not. I have read too much and listened and studied to people much smarter than I am to believe that I have to turn off my brain to have faith.

BUT...

There are certain leaps of faith that have to be made that cannot be confirmed from a scientific or empirical standpoint in order to believe in a Supernatural being that loves us more than we will ever understand and sent Jesus the Son to be the example of what it truly means to be human and to die and rise again, leaving the Holy Spirit to guide us in paths of truth. That requires a leap of faith and if I have a straight intellectual conversation with an atheist, I don't think I can prove any of that to him or her. It doesn't mean that I don't believe it or try to live my life as though that were true. But as the Hebrews writer astutely pointed out, "Faith is the substance of things hoped for and the evidence of things unseen."

But realizing all of that and also recognizing the tenuous nature of my faith at times (like perhaps now), it makes me resonate and identify with a song by Caedmon's Call back in 1999 off their 40 Acres CD.

Sometimes I believe all the lies
So I can do the things I should despise
And every day I am swayed
By whatever is on my mind

I hear it all depends on my faith
So I'm feeling precarious
The only problem I have with these mysteries
Is they're so mysterious

And like a consumer I've been thinking
If I could just get a bit more
More than my 15 minutes of faith,
Then I'd be secure

(Chorus)
My faith is like shifting sand
Changed by every wave
My faith is like shifting sand
So I stand on grace

I've begged you for some proof
For my Thomas eyes to see
A slithering staff, a leprous hand
And lions resting lazily

A glimpse of your back-side glory
And this soaked altar going ablaze
But you know I've seen so much
I explained it away

Chorus

Waters rose as my doubts reigned
My sand-castle faith, it slipped away
Found myself standing on your grace
It'd been there all the time

(Chorus repeated)

I don't know if any of those answers are going to be satisfying to people. What I will say is that this conversation has caused me to think deeper about my faith than I have in a while and for that, I'm grateful. If you feel my answers don't show enough faith, pray that my faith will be strengthened. If my answers have helped in anyway or you identify with them, I pray that God walks with you and brings you faith.

Peace

A Slight Thursday Departure

Guys don't have as many choices as ladies when it comes to a change in visual style. We typically do our hair the same way for years, mainly because it's harder to change that without a trip to the barber/haircutter/stylist. So one of the few things that we can that women can't is grow facial hair, which I have done. Now typically I haven't been able to keep my facial hair that I've grown because Sheryl didn't like it and let's face it, she has to look at my face a lot more than I do. But for some reason this time, she's liked and so I've kept it.

So here's the before...


And here's the after/Evil Twin/Mirror Universe one...




Both devilishly handsome, of course, just one more hirsute than the other...

Here ends the update on Phil's facial hair.

Random Pic

One quick note for those interested. The conversation from Friday's blogpost has continued in the comments, mainly between myself and Father Thomas McKenzie, although Dr. Lee Camp has made a cameo appearance as well.

Friday night, we went to a wedding. Yes, on Friday the 13th. And the couple was married at 6:13. They are obviously not the superstitious sort.

At any rate, it was on the east side of Nashville and since Connor had had a late nap and a good nap, we decided to go downtown and walk on the pedestrian bridge that crosses the Cumberland River. And I got a couple of pictures with my iPhone (hence the middling quality).

Here is Connor with one of our favorite people, Melody.

Here are the kids on the pedestrian bridge with Nashville in the background.

I thought this was the best one that I got that night. This is a shot of the river with the bottom of the bridge reflected in it. I just thought it was a cool look.

Interesting Posts

Over the last two years or so, I've taken a little of a sabbatical from deep theological reading and some of the engagement of such ideas. Partially because I got a bit burnt out from how deep I got into it in the early 2000s (Aughts? Zeros?), but also because I've been pretty busy. If you've been a regular reader, you might have felt that somewhat in my Friday posts.

I'm starting to get back into it some and doing some thinking so here are a couple of blog posts I read today that got me thinking.

Scot McKnight: Who are the NeoReformed?

This one might need a little explaining. People who subscribe to Reform theology (also called Calvinism [mainly by people who aren't Reformed]) are growing in numbers and in voice in the wider Christendom conversation. Scot McKnight talks about a section of that group that he dubs NeoReformed. I wonder if he's intending the thought bridge between NeoReformed and NeoConservative that I'm seeing the positive and negative associations that can come from that.

Thoughts on Mark Driscoll...While I'm Knitting

Mark Driscoll is someone that I would consider within that NeoReformed movement. He's abrasive, extremely orthodox, and also runs a strong and growing church in Seattle (he's Mark the cussing Pastor in Donald Miller's Blue Like Jazz). Richard Beck, head of the Psychology department at Abiliene Christian University, has written some interesting thoughts on Driscoll and what Driscoll calls the "chickifying" of church leaders. It's long (as most of Beck's posts are), but really has some very good thoughts.

Intellectual Agnostic, Experiential Believer

On Monday, I mentioned that Lee Camp, who taught at Otter Creek on Sunday morning, had described himself as an intellectual agnostic, but an experiential believer. That was something that I found to be a very comforting admission, because I also find myself in a place like that more often than I care to admit. Faith for me can often come down to a choice. With no empirical reasons for believing in the existence of God, I have to rely on what I can only call the experiences of my life so far to continue in that belief. Now, what does that mean if I'd been born into a family that had no belief or into a Muslim family or Buddhist one? I don't know.

What I do know is that in spite of the lack of empirical evidence, I do believe in God. I do believe in and try to follow Jesus. I try to bear the fruit with strength from the Spirit. And I try to live out the Good News and talk about what that means when the situation arises. If that's all being raised a certain way and the threads of coincidence weaving its way through my life, so be it. I'm willing to accept that.

But if it's something more and I can help be a part of the continuation of God's plan and the work that Jesus did during His time on Earth, that's where I want to be.

Caption This Picture

As a Red Sox fan, I'm legally and morally obligated to take advantage of the A-Rod steroid scandal (conveniently ignoring the fact that A-Rod almost came to the Sox in 04).

So, caption this picture and be funny, but when you do, please don't use humor enhancers.

Simple Joys

There are some very simple joys in my life right now.

• Goodbye kisses from Sheryl, Kinsey, and Connor
• Getting to go outside and play kick/throw the ball with the kids when I get home from work.
  
• Reading in Kinsey's room at bedtime while she's reading her latest "Magic Treehouse" book.
• A kiss from Connor at night and hearing him say, "I awake" in the morning (although I also can hear "Go 'way")
• Saying, "Good Night, I love you, I'll see you in the morning" to Kinsey.
• Hearing Connor say, "Wook at dat!" when he's showing something to us.
• Getting to do this with Connor (thanks for the pic, Amy)
  
  
• Holding Sheryl's hand
• Sharing a look with her where neither of us have to speak but we just know what each other is thinking

And the truth is, that those simple joys are really the best ones in my life right now.

Self-Description

I'm starting to feel like a broken record, but we've been really blessed/fortunate/etc. at Otter Creek for the last little while with our guest speakers and yesterday was no exception. Lee Camp spoke again, this time on Evil Days and our response to them. It was thought-provoking and challenging, as Lee is most times that I hear him. You can listen to it here: http://ottercreek.podomatic.com/entry/eg/2009-02-08T09_39_00-08_00

One of the many interesting things that Lee said in the sermon was a self-description that he's come up, but is still uncomfortable with: an intellectual agnostic, but an experiential believer. How does that strike you? Does that description fit you at times? Is Lee putting an over emphasis on the intellectual side of life (as academics can sometimes do) vs. the spiritual side of life? Or is Lee acknowledging the intellectual side of the life that doesn't often get paid attention to in our houses of faith very often. Just wondering how that strikes people.

God in the White House

Last night on the Daily Show, Jon Stewart hosted author Randall Balmer, author of the book God in the White House, in a very interesting interview, that you can watch here.

The Daily Show With Jon StewartM - Th 11p / 10c

Randall Balmer

There was a really fascinating point about 5 minutes in. Balmer states that Americans want to know about their presidents' faith because for many

"religion is a proxy for morality. So what we really want to know is 'Are they moral? Are they good people?' And the only way we can frame the question is to ask, 'Do they go to church? Are you a religious person?' And I think the problem is that we as the voters take those kind of blithe responses at face value and we should interrogate those claims. I thought many times over the last eight years, as we've been dealing with our travails as a nation, what if someone had followed up with George W. Bush, when he declared that Jesus was his favorite philosopher, and said, 'Governor Bush, your favorite philosopher calls on his followers to be peacemakers, to turn the other cheek, to love their enemies, to care for the least of these. How will that affect your policies as president?'"

It's a really interesting thought and it goes a little back to my idea that no nation can truly be a Christian nation. A nation's primary concern has to be for self-preservation and the protection of its own citizens. A Christian's primary concern has to be about others' well-being and bringing people into a reconciling relationship with God through Jesus, as well as self-denial and the other virtues. Can a Christian be in a political office? I think so, but there has to be a recognition that many of the ways that we try to preserve this nation go against what Jesus taught and exemplified for us. Former Vice-President Dick Cheney basically stated this explicitly in a recent interview with Politico.com: "Protecting the country’s security is 'a tough, mean, dirty, nasty business,'" he said. “These are evil people. And we’re not going to win this fight by turning the other cheek.'" It's almost like we want His salvation but not his life.

I could be wrong about all that and am willing to consider it, but that's where I'm thinking right now.

YouTube Thursday: Scrubs Safety Dance

I've stated before my love for the show Scrubs (especially the first 3-4 seasons), as you can see evidenced here.

This video takes one of my favorite snippets and adds many if not all of Turk's dances to it. Completely hysterical.

Too Much Obama?

President Obama has been in office for 2 weeks now and is already fighting an uphill battle with Congress and the American people on the economic stimulus/spending package, not to mention having at least three of his Cabinet level nominees hit with tax problems, causing two of them to step down. And in the last two weeks, it seems like President Obama has given more interviews than President Bush did in his entire eight-year tenure. But I wonder if Obama is swinging to the other extreme than Bush, making himself TOO seen. I appreciate the interviews that he did last night, admitting basically what was his mistake about not vetting his candidates properly, which is also something we heard too little of from the previous administration. But I think he has to be careful in being seen too much.

As Shakespeare wrote in Act 3, Scene 2 of Henry IV, Part One concerning the previous king Richard II

God pardon thee! yet let me wonder, Harry,
At thy affections, which do hold a wing
Quite from the flight of all thy ancestors.
Thy place in council thou hast rudely lost.
Which by thy younger brother is supplied,
And art almost an alien to the hearts
Of all the court and princes of my blood:
The hope and expectation of thy time
Is ruin'd, and the soul of every man
Prophetically doth forethink thy fall.
Had I so lavish of my presence been,
So common-hackney'd in the eyes of men,
So stale and cheap to vulgar company,
Opinion, that did help me to the crown,
Had still kept loyal to possession
And left me in reputeless banishment,
A fellow of no mark nor likelihood.
By being seldom seen, I could not stir
But like a comet I was wonder'd at;
That men would tell their children 'This is he;'
Others would say 'Where, which is Bolingbroke?'
And then I stole all courtesy from heaven,
And dress'd myself in such humility
That I did pluck allegiance from men's hearts,
Loud shouts and salutations from their mouths,
Even in the presence of the crowned king.
Thus did I keep my person fresh and new;
My presence, like a robe pontifical,
Ne'er seen but wonder'd at: and so my state,
Seldom but sumptuous, showed like a feast
And won by rareness such solemnity.
The skipping king, he ambled up and down
With shallow jesters and rash bavin wits,
Soon kindled and soon burnt; carded his state,
Mingled his royalty with capering fools,
Had his great name profaned with their scorns
And gave his countenance, against his name,
To laugh at gibing boys and stand the push
Of every beardless vain comparative,
Grew a companion to the common streets,
Enfeoff'd himself to popularity;
That, being daily swallow'd by men's eyes,
They surfeited with honey and began
To loathe the taste of sweetness, whereof a little
More than a little is by much too much.
So when he had occasion to be seen,
He was but as the cuckoo is in June,
Heard, not regarded; seen, but with such eyes
As, sick and blunted with community,
Afford no extraordinary gaze,
Such as is bent on sun-like majesty
When it shines seldom in admiring eyes;
But rather drowzed and hung their eyelids down,
Slept in his face and render'd such aspect
As cloudy men use to their adversaries,
Being with his presence glutted, gorged and full.
And in that very line, Harry, standest thou;
For thou has lost thy princely privilege
With vile participation: not an eye
But is a-weary of thy common sight,
Save mine, which hath desired to see thee more;
Which now doth that I would not have it do,
Make blind itself with foolish tenderness.

And I know that probably won't mean much to many of you, but Henry is basically telling his son, Hal/Prince Henry that if you're TOO common, people won't respect you or the position. That's what happened to Richard, and while I welcome the openness that President Obama brings to the role of President, I hope that we don't get so used to seeing him that hearing from the President becomes habit rather than an important event.

25 Random Things About Myself

There's a thing going around Facebook where you list 25 things about yourself. So I'm double posting it here.

1) I have lived my entire life in Nashville. I was born in the old Saint Thomas hospital and have lived my entire life in the southern and eastern part of Nashville. I love this city, the size, the general feel of the people here, just about everything about it. And as a result I've never really wanted to move. I think I could live in a big city and were I younger, I might give New York City a shot, but as it is, I love living here.

2) I have attended Otter Creek Church of Christ for 31 of my 37 years of life. Except for 6 years where I either didn't attend church or attended Belmont Church, I've gone to Otter Creek the entire time. One of the things that I really love about it is the sense of tradition that I have from going there. My great-grandfather was the first preacher in the Granny White building and my grandparents went there, as well as my parents for a time. I love how we honor tradition while still pushing the envelopes of what it means to be Church of Christ and a Christian.

3) I taught high school English for 6 years at Martin Luther King Jr. Magnet High School for the Health Sciences and Engineering. I loved this job. I got to teach some of the best kids in one of the best schools in the city. We talked about literature, of course, but talking about that led us into discussions of race and life and politics and religion and all that other stuff you're not supposed to talk to your students about, but that's what they want to talk about. I had a great time doing it (except for grading papers) and miss it on occasion.

4) I'm married to my best friend. I know that sounds cliched but the honest truth is that Sheryl is the person that I want to spend most of my time with/person with whom I want to spend most of my time. When something good or bad happens, she's the first one I want to talk with about it. We were friends before we dated and that blossomed into the love we share today. I don't find myself missing the fluttery feelings of first love because as important as those are at the beginning of a relationship, they fade. And if that's what we lock into as love, then we're just fooling ourselves. So I love being married to my best friend.

5) I have a bad temper. When I was a teenager and adolescent, I used to lose my temper all the time. Got into fights, argued, all that stuff. As I got older, that fuse became longer and longer, but I find that it gotten shorter with my kids as I have pretty high expectations for them and their behavior. I'm working on controlling it as much as I can, but some days it's very, very hard.

6) My parents are divorced. When I was 11, my parents got divorced and 6 months later, my mom remarried. Now, my mom and dad's relationship had been over a long time before the divorce was finalized, but that was obviously a difficult time. As a result, my mom was also disfellowshipped from Otter Creek, because the divorce was not Scriptural (because of marital infidelity on my dad's part).

7) After leaving teaching, I was a technical writer. What that really means is that I helped write frequently asked questions for websites, as well as help files and such. It was a great way to get into the business world and honestly it was a place where my experience as a teacher gave me a great amount of credibility. It was also something I didn't like a lot, because it was very formalized in the writing and grammar, things that I really didn't like even when I was teaching.

8) My technical writing led to my work now as a usability engineer/user interface designer. One of the things you do as a technical writer is look for problems that people might have with software and anticipate the problems they'll have with it and write solutions around it. What I do now is design the software to not have those problems in the first place. It's a great job that feeds both my creative side and geeky side. Plus, I'm pretty good at it and enjoy it, both of which are nice bonuses.

9) I've been out of the US 3 times. Once to Canada on a brief business trip, and twice to Great Britain. The first time was in 2000 when Sheryl and I decided that we were going to do a trip like this before we had kids and just had a blast doing it. We spent 2 weeks going from London to Dover/Canterbury to Oxford to Edinburgh (Scotland) to Aberdeen (Scotland) to Inverness (Scotland) and back to London. It is literally in the top 5 memories of my entire life, behind our wedding and the births of our kids. The 2nd time to England was on a mission trip to Loughborough in 2004. We took Kinsey with us to go work with a church there, and Connor came along too, but he was in utero. This was also good, but very different in feel obviously. Through it, we came to know many people that are very close friends with us today and who are in our Life group/small group.

10) I love Jesus. Again, I know that's a cliche kind of thing to say, but I really do. Not just because of the salvation aspects in which I firmly believe, but also the example of his life. Too often it's easy for us to focus on the sacrificial atoning nature of his death and resurrection and the cute "golden fleece diapers" aspect of his birth, and forgetting that there was a life of 33 years in between those two where Jesus said some really important things. I love how Jesus tweaked the noses of the established authority while still loving people and still getting frustrated as all heck with them.

11) My favorite Old Testament verse is 1 Samuel 6:7 "But the LORD said to Samuel, "Do not consider his appearance or his height, for I have rejected him. The LORD does not look at the things human beings look at. People look at the outward appearance, but the LORD looks at the heart." I had this one read at my baptism and it was a theme verse for me. I had horrible self-esteem as a child, and so it gave me comfort that God didn't look at my unattractive outside, but what was inside.

12) My favorite New Testament verses are Philippians 2:5-11: 5 In your relationships with one another, have the same attitude of mind Christ Jesus had:

6 Who, being in very nature [a] God,
did not consider equality with God something to be used to his own advantage;

7 rather, he made himself nothing
by taking the very nature [b] of a servant,
being made in human likeness.

8 And being found in appearance as a human being,
he humbled himself
by becoming obedient to death—
even death on a cross!

9 Therefore God exalted him to the highest place
and gave him the name that is above every name,

10 that at the name of Jesus every knee should bow,
in heaven and on earth and under the earth,

11 and every tongue acknowledge that Jesus Christ is Lord,
to the glory of God the Father.

13) Sheryl and I have lived in the same house for the last 12 years. We moved in just before our first anniversary and rented from my parents for the first year, then bought. Several times, I've really wanted to move and get something with just a bit more space, particularly in the master bedroom and master bath area, but it's not too bad right now.

14) I can quote about 90% of the original Star Wars movie and probably 75% of the Princess Bride. My movie-going childhood was defined by Star Wars and the original trilogy. I also had an LP called the Story of Star Wars that had most of the dialogue, music, and sound effects and I listened to that over and over. My quotability of the Princess Bride comes just from loving that movie and loving the complete over the top cheesiness of it being done with complete seriousness. "Let me esplain.... No, there is too much, let me sum up."

15) My ability to hold vast amounts of useless knowledge in my brain makes me very annoying at trivia games. I don't have a photographic memory, but I can hold weird bits of knowledge in my head for a long time. Like, I can remember that John McTiernan was the director of Die Hard 1 & 3 and the directory of Predator, while Renny Harlin directed Die Hard 2, the Long Kiss Goodnight, and Cutthroat Island, the latter two starred his wife Geena Davis with Samuel Jackson and Matthew Modine (respectively). I don't know why I know that. But I do and when I play trivia games, it can be annoying, but my competitive drive makes me want to win every time. Hence, I don't play trivia games that often.

16) I'm a gadget/electronics nut. I love grown up toys. I love the cool iPhones and big screen TVs and the whiz bag things that we can do with gadgets now that would have seemed like science fiction 20 years ago. I like those things, but that can also get expensive so I try not to indulge that often, but on occasion I'm weak and give in.

17) I love snowboarding. For the last several years, I've gone out to Colorado with my parents and Kinsey to go skiing, but 2 years ago, I was introduced to snowboarding and I don't see myself returning to skiing anytime soon. For one the boots are much more comfortable. Secondly, it's an amazing amount of fun. I was never a skateboarder, but snowboarding is an incredible amount of fun. I never had to take formal lessons. My mom and dad showed me how to heel and toe turns, but beyond that, it's just been really natural for me. And I'm looking forward to going back soon.

18) I've always wanted to write fiction. Blogging and design work feeds a certain part of my creativity, but from a very early age I wanted to write fiction. The problem again goes back to my self-esteem about what I can do. A lot of the fiction that I've written has felt trite and pedestrian and so I haven't really devoted much time or effort to it. It's a confidence issue, as well as pushing past the crap that I would have to write before I get to something that might be decent.

19) I do tech/audio-visual work at Otter Creek and occasionally for the Zoe Group. About 6 and a half years ago, I started to doing tech work for Otter Creek as a part time job. It's something that I mostly enjoy, but I get a little tired of it sometimes. It can be a little more stressful than I would like it to be, but that's because I hold myself to such a high standard when it comes to mistakes. I coordinate and run both the sound board and the MediaShout (visual) work for Otter Creek. Honestly, while I'm good at both, I enjoy running MediaShout more than sound. Running sound can still occasionally feel like I'm in someone else's shoes, while I feel right at home running MediaShout, behind a computer doing visuals.

20) I've run sound at the Ryman Auditorium. A few years back, the Zoe Group partnered with the Temple Church praise team to do a Thanksgiving service at the Ryman Auditorium and because Brandon Scott Thomas felt comfortable with me, I ended up running the sound for the night. It was a very scary, but really cool experience.

21) My favorite literature writer is William Faulkner. I discovered Faulkner in 10th grade English when we read As I Lay Dying which I didn't understand at all. Stream of consciousness... point of view... perspective... My mother is a fish... None of it made sense. Then we read The Unvanquished in 11th grade and I got him quite a bit more. Then in 12th grade, I read Light in August, The Sound and the Fury, and Absalom, Absalom, as well as many of his short stories, and I discovered someone who finally didn't make me feel like an idiot for claiming to be a Southern. He was honest about the racism, and unflinching in his depiction, while also not condone it, but recognized it as a part of the Southern Heritage, never to be re-enacted. As a result, I had my students read him too.

22) I love video games, particularly shooters and driving games, and most especially, music games. When I got my Xbox, I made a pact that I wouldn't play while the kids were awake. I've gotten a little bit away from that and I'll play some driving games with them, and especially Rock Band where Kinsey and Sheryl will play drums and bass as well. It's incredibly fun. Plus we play it when our Life group comes over, after we get done with the Bible study and prayer time.

23) I do the laundry in our household. When Sheryl and I got married, we divided up the household chores. I took the outside of the house (excluding the garden) and she took the inside (excluding the laundry). Now you might think, "Why the laundry, Phil?" Because I can sit on my butt and watch TV while I fold clothes. It was a pretty easy decision. Now, that of course is not to say that I don't help out with cleaning the house, or Sheryl doesn't help with the laundry, but that's where the responsibilities tend to lay.

24) I would like to preach one sermon at Otter Creek. It sounds dumb, but I almost feel this "genetic" imperative to preach a sermon at Otter Creek, because of my great-grandfather preaching there. Now, I of course would like to be asked to speak on my own merits and not as a "pity" preacher, so it's not likely to happen, but I think it would be really neat to do that.

25) I don't know for certain what the afterlife will bring. I'm placing my faith that what Jesus said is true and that my desire to be as much like him as I can will put me in a place to be with him in eternity, saved by his grace. I don't know what that means for everyone else in the world, past, present, and future. But I feel like my calling is to show love to others and allow myself to be loved by them and by God. If I can somehow pull that off here on earth, perhaps God can show a little bit through me to them.

So that's 25 things. If you've lasted this long, I'd buy you a drink (non-alcoholic) but with the economy the way it is... well, you'll just have to be happy with a hearty congratulations.

Dry Bones

Once again, I find myself in the position of wanting to recommend a sermon at Otter Creek. This one was by Lee Camp on the Exekiel passage about dry bones. http://ottercreek.podomatic.com/entry/eg/2009-02-01T09_27_11-08_00 As with David Rubio's sermon last week and John York's the previous two weeks, this one was also excellent and thought-provoking.

You can also get the book Night by Elie Weisel that Lee mentioned here: http://www.amazon.com/Night-Oprahs-Book-Club-Wiesel/dp/0374500010/ref=pd_bbs_sr_1?ie=UTF8&s=books&qid=1233519989&sr=8-1 I really need to read this one at some point.

Lee has also written a great book called Mere Discipleship that you can get at http://www.amazon.com/Mere-Discipleship-Radical-Christianity-Rebellious/dp/1587432307/ref=sr_1_1?ie=UTF8&s=books&qid=1233520118&sr=1-1 You really need to read this one if you haven't.

Numbers

Within Church of Christ circles recently, there has been much sturm und drang about a recent report by the Christian Chronicle (a Church of Christ publication) about the decline of numbers within Churches of Christ (80,000 within the last 6 years). I'm not going to rehash what others have said; you yourself can read John Dobbs, Matt Dabbs, and Mike Cope. Those three and several others have had good thoughts and perspectives on this.

What I will say is that while a focus on numbers of adherents/attendees/whatever is something that every church thinks about, it really does miss the point. Sure, on one hand, having a lot of people attend your church can make you feel better about the "popularity" of your congregation, but the truth is that all of that is just a facade. Just because a congregation might have a lot of attendees doesn't mean it has a lot of people trying to be like Jesus. It might just mean that people have found the new "cool" church (and I say that as someone who attended a "cool" church in my teen years).

What should be the judge and what is much harder to objectively quantify is how much people are looking like Jesus, whether in a congregation of 1300 or 30. And it's hard because we can't judge a person's heart. We can only be the people that prod and poke and encourage and pray that people come to exemplify the Fruit of the Spirit: love, joy, peace, patience, kindness, goodness, faithfulness, gentleness and self-control. And that they come to exemplify Christ.

Worry about numbers doesn't do us any good, in my mind. What should worry us is if we have huge numbers of people in our congregations, but very few of them look like followers of Jesus. That would be a much more significant problem.

YouTube Thursday: The WTF Blanket (Snuggie Parody)

Every now and then, I have these moments, just before I do something that I think, "I might regret that, but I'm going to do it anyway." This is one of those moments. Warning: This video contains adult language, a spoiler for the 6th Harry Potter book, and humor. Lots and lots of humor.

The Upside of a Recession/Zombie War

I've been reading a book called World War Z: An Oral History of the Zombie War recently as a fun book. I'm not typically a fan of the horror or zombie genre, so this was an odd choice for me, but it doesn't get into the typical gore or viscera that I associate with zombies, so that's something in the plus column. I won't go into the plot of it, but one of the outcomes is that the survivors of the onslaught are forced to do what they have to to survive. In some cases, this involves very hard choices, but in others, people who are in places of power are forced to abandon those to do what's best for society to survive. Lawyers, movie executives, politicians are forced to learn trades and skills from their former gardeners and carpenters. They have to choose to do things they consider beneath them. But it also forces the community together and people (mostly) stop worrying about their petty concerns and take care of each other.

It got me thinking about this recession that we're experiencing now. For so long, we've been deluded by the idea that we are what we have from 401(k)'s to cars and houses and toys. But as those things get taken from us, we realize that we have to be more than that. And it's easy for me to say that probably, since I haven't lost a job or a car or a house. But I have been unemployed. I've had to scrape to provide for my family, and I've had to learn that what I have is not who I am. What I have are entertainments for my downtimes or tools to use for tasks. It's why I don't really care about the car I drive. I want it functional and I want it safe. Admittedly, I'm worse about gadgets and tech stuff, but I also don't let the fact that I won't be watching the Super Bowl on a super hi-def 72" inch screen drive me into a depression.

I'm not defined by stuff. I'm defined by being an imperfect follower of Jesus, trying daily to be better at it, resting in God's grace provided through Christ. The other stuff is just window dressing. And maybe the upside of a recession is to stop defining ourselves by the window dressing.

Separation Anxiety

A funny thing has happened with Connor over the last two months or so. He has developed an almost pathological need to be around me or Sheryl, mainly Sheryl. We used to be able to drop him off in class at church and he'd rush in to play; last Sunday, though, he went into a crying and clutching fit in my attempt to drop him off. A couple of weeks ago, at the Y, when we dropped him off in childcare, he got himself so upset that he made himself throw up. And last night, when Kinsey and Sheryl went to a PTO meeting, he laid down in front of the door gate and cried for "Mom-ma! Mom-ma!" for 30 minutes until I was finally able to distract him.

It's weird because we didn't really have to deal with this with Kinsey, but we were also in a slightly different situation with Kinsey. At this age, Sheryl was working 3-5 days a week outside the house and my parents and Sheryl's parents were watching her regularly, so we were dropping her off somewhere all the time. With Connor, we're fortunate that Sheryl's able to be at home with him everyday and so they get a lot more time together.

It's just a funky phase that he's going through, but one that Sheryl and I agree that we hope will pass very quickly.

Another Sermon Recommendation

When I told a friend of mine that David Rubio was speaking at Otter Creek after John York's two weeks, he said, "You guys have the best substitutes!" I don't know about the "best" but both of York's were great and David Rubio's yesterday continued that string of excellent, excellent sermons, particularly as he talked about a way that we as Christians should deal with homosexuals.

What did he say? I guess you'll have to listen to it and find out... http://ottercreek.podomatic.com/entry/eg/2009-01-25T09_35_11-08_00

Know-It-All Phil

In a Facebook exchange last night, I was called a newshound and I mentioned that I just liked to be informed, but as I was going through my night time process, I started to think about that.

I do like to be well-informed and I read a lot of different news sites through the course of the day, FoxNews, MSNBC, CNN, and even sometimes WorldNetDaily and the Nation. I like to know what people are thinking and why they are thinking it. I don't know how this started but I always liked being the smartest/best-informed guy in the room. I was reading at a fairly early age and people were always coming to me with questions about what was in the book or what an answer was and that was how I derived a lot of my identity. This was even true in Sunday school, as I was always one of the first to get to a particular book of the Bible, or knowing that Jael was the woman that put the tent stake through Sisera's head in Judges (I didn't remember that one today, thanks Google).

This continued into high school, but to a lesser extent as I was going to an academic magnet school and was no longer the smartest guy in the room. In fact, at my high school, I was the lower third of my class and so started compensating by remembering minutiae of pop culture: people in movies, directors, years of release, song lyrics, movie lines, TV Shows, how to pull of the 6 degrees of Kevin Bacon, etc etc (all bits of knowledge useful for Scene It: Box Office Smash).

And it's continued today. I like it when people ask me questions and I know the answer to it. It's a good feeling to be able to explain things that can help people out and it puffs up my ego some as well.

"So, Phil," you might ask, "what's the purpose of this besides a little self-ego stroking on your blog for all of us to see?"

Well, here's the answer. I like some level of certainty in life. I like knowing things. Which makes God extremely frustrating. For most of my life, I've been a part of a movement that exults in having what amounts to complete, rational knowledge of God. The Bible is God's Word and His complete revelation and anything outside of that is not of God. But one of the things that we see as we read Scripture is that God doesn't usually stay in the boxes that we like. He brings in Gentiles when people don't think they should be involved. Uses women as judges and queens to save people. Uses a heathen Samaritan as the hero of a story about love.

I wonder if while God was wants His children to know Him, He doesn't want us to know EVERYTHING about Him. That we have to wonder things about God. Why certain things happen, why He chooses to act in certain ways. Things we have to take on faith. And faith flies in the face of the rational explanation and understanding.

And it requires a know-it-all like me to say that there are things that I'm not going to understand or have the answers for, and I have to continue to learn to be ok with that.

Caption This Picture

Be Funny, because really, there's a lot of opportunity with this one.

Bush Rhetoric From Obama

And this, ladies and gentlemen, is why I don't think the Daily Show will lose any of its humor with Bush now out of office.

The Daily Show With Jon StewartM - Th 11p / 10c

Changefest '09 - Obama's Inaugural Speech

Barack Obama Interview
John McCain Interview

Sarah Palin Video
Funny Election Video

New Beginnings

Kinsey supported Obama in the election. She didn't really know why, of course (not unlike people who support candidates from both sides of the aisle), but she knew that she liked him.

I know that there are a lot of people who either dislike Obama or Democrats or whoever, people who are more than ready for the inauguration to be over so that they can get on with criticizing him and his decisions or whatever.

As for me, I'll laud Obama when I think he does well, and criticize when I disagree. I can't predict one way or another which one I'll do more of than the other.

What I can say is that I'm tremendously grateful that my kids are going to grow up in a world where a member of a minority has achieved the highest office in this land, where being of a certain color doesn't present an automatic barrier, that they'll have no excuses to accomplish anything they want to dream. Is Obama the culmination of Dr. Martin Luther King's dream? To some extent, but I think that dream was for all Americans, not just the ones of African descent.

But I'm glad for this new beginning, and while I'm positive that Obama will not be as good as his most fervent supporters seem to think nor as bad as his most vociferous detractors think, I'm looking forward to see how he does.

Finally, I'll say this. I still believe that politics is an imperfect way to achieve the goals of the Kingdom of God. As Jesus himself said in John 18:36, His Kingdom is not achieved in the ways that the kingdoms of this world achieve power ("My Kingdom is not of this world"). And so while I'll admire Obama and his journey to the presidency, I'll still expect him to be a politician and use the tools that politicians use to achieve their goals. And I'll work with my family and community in the way of Jesus to achieve His Kingdom and His will on earth as it is in heaven. Can government help in some of those things? To some extent, maybe. But I know it's best achieved in little pockets of the Kingdom where neighbor cares for neighbor and friend for friend and not by executive fiat.

So congratulations to President Obama and his family. I hope the best for them and pray for their safety. I pray for this country that God would bless us, even if we don't always like what that blessing looks like, but I also pray more importantly that God would bless His world with His presence.

"Miracle on the Hudson"

Yesterday, the term "miracle" got thrown around a lot as we read and listen to and watched the stories of the US Air flight that landed in the Hudson River. Maybe it's because 9/11 is still such a prominent scar on the American psyche, that to see a plane crashing in NYC brings back the flood of emotions that we dealt with that day.

Was what happened yesterday a miracle? Perhaps it wasn't. Perhaps it was "just luck" that allowed the pilot to land on the water just right.

But perhaps it was. Perhaps God orchestrated the conditions so that even if the crash with the geese happened, the pilot was the right man to be flying that day on that flight, the weather conditions were just right, and landing in the river was infinitely preferable to landing in the ocean. Of course, that leads to questions about why God would protect these people and not people in the Gaza Strip or people who might have died of AIDS or starvation around the world or those who died of exposure last night in the cold. But we also don't know the people still alive that might have died throughout the world. We just don't know.

I don't have any answers to those questions and outside a strict predeterminism/predestination mindset, I don't think we can. What I can do is thank God for the lives of those who were spared and mourn those who were lost, and even question God about those who weren't. Whether or not we get the answers we seek, I believe that God is big enough for our questions.

YouTube Thursday: Battlestar Galactica - The Final Episodes

For the last three years, I've been extolling the virtues of Battlestar Galactica. I won't go through all those reasons; you can click the link to read those.

The final episodes of Battlestar Galactica are starting up tomorrow. And it will be the end of one of the most literary, well-written shows, not just sci-fi of this decade. There is a great place for pop sci fi, like Lost and Heroes, but I'm also glad there's been a place for sci-fi like Battlestar Galactica as well, especially this re-imagining. Here is a preview of the upcoming season, continuing from last season where they landed on Earth, but it wasn't quite what they expected.

A Willing Participant in Madness

Connor is getting ready to start preschool, in six months. And so we started investigating the ones we would like him go into and discovered that the one associated with our church was accepting applications today, starting at 9 am. And then in talking with some other of our friends, we discovered that people wanting to apply started getting there the night before to ensure that their kids got a spot.

Now then, we want Connor to go to the school, but we're not just DYING to have him there. But we were also committed enough to get there a little early. So, last night, I went to bed at 10pm to get up at 4am to get to the building at 5am. And even getting there at 5am, on the sign-in sheet, I was #10. Ten people had gotten there before me. Three were there before 9pm the night before, two others were there at midnight.

Naturally, I had some time to think about this. Was I becoming one the people I used to laugh at for standing in line for something? The last time I stood in line for something like this was to see Star Wars I: The Phantom Menace (yes, I did, unfortunately). But what was ultimately driving it was the idea that we did want Connor to be in the school and knowing that there were people ahead of us, and that that would lessen Connor's ability to get in, we wanted to be there. As a part of this too, we want to support our church and one of its most important ministries. But is it also becoming like a Black Friday kind of thing where we just get there earlier and earlier and earlier.

I honestly don't know the answers to that. All I do know is that this morning, I became a willing participant in the madness. And while I think Connor would do very well at the school, I feel a little weird about it...

Another Lost Tooth

I can't believe that it's really been a year since Kinsey lost her first tooth.

Several of her teeth have been loose for a while, but yesterday at lunch, one of her front teeth got very loose. So loose that it was barely hanging on. So I wanted to get one last full mouthed picture.


And then today, during art class, she wiggled it right out and here she is with her adoring Mommy.

John York at Otter Creek

A lot going on today so not much time to post, but I would highly recommend listening to John York's sermon that he preached at Otter Creek yesterday entitled Revival Begins in the Wilderness. Very, very good stuff.

And I know you didn't ask, but if you were to ask, I would think some kind of regular rotation between David Rubio and John York would be a pretty amazing combination in Otter Creek's pulpit for the next few years.

If anyone were to ask...

Living Like Jesus

One of the interesting things about watching the video I posted yesterday is that I'm also reading The Shack right now. I'm finding it an interesting read on many levels and I can definitely understand some more "orthodox" Christians issues with it.

However, one of the most interesting things about it is one of the things that the author has Jesus say: "Seriously, my life was not meant to be an example to copy, being my follower is not trying to ‘be like Jesus,’ it means for your independence to be killed." - The Jesus character, pg149 One of Young's ideologies that he espouses in this book is that our desire for independence from God is what causes our greatest separation from God when God gives us the independence we desire.

But I disagree with what the Jesus character says there and that's why I admire what Dr. Dobson did. I don't think Dr. Dobson became an itinerant homeless preacher but what it appears he did was try to have the mind of Christ and took some physical steps to help him get into that mindset. I truly believe as followers of Jesus, we are to imitate Jesus what Jesus does, trying to live out the life of Christ in 21st century America. And I think that can look different for different people. Some people may feel called like Shane Claiborne to live in the forgotten corners of the empire. Others might do ministry in the suburbs.

The truth of the matter is that when we give ourselves permission to not imitate Christ that opens the door to many other issues of greed and selfishness and then we become fans of Jesus and not his followers and these days, he needs more followers/imitators, not more fans.

YouTube Thursday: Year of Living Like Jesus

Former pastor Ed Dobson spent 2008 trying live like Jesus and was interviewed by ABC News this last weekend.



What surprised you the most about the interview? Just curious.

Is Your Refrigerator Running? Better Go Catch It!

You know, it's always the unexpected things that bite you in the behind. For the last month or so, the freezer in our refrigerator has been incrementally not freezing things, to the point where it wasn't making ice or freezing stuff in the door. This was in addition to our dryer spitting oil and/or grease all over our clothes, necessitating weekly trips to the laundromat.

So yesterday we had a repairman come out to look at our ailing machines. And it turns out that both of them are shot. For the frig, it was a condenser and compressor and several other things that would cost as much as a new frig to fix, and the dryer had issues with seals and gaskets and enough other things that would cost as much as a new dryer to fix. They'd both had good long lives. The frig came from my parents' house, which they'd bought when they gave us their other refrigerator when we moved into our house, so it was over 10 years old. The dryer had been purchased at the Sears Outlet (because that's how we roll) at least 7 or 8 years ago, so it was getting older as well.

So at lunch yesterday, Sheryl and I met at the Sears Outlet once again and picked out a new (slightly banged up) refrigerator. We'll stick with the laundromat for the time being or see if someone at church has one they want to sell inexpensively, or we might check Craigslist or even Freecycle.

The nice thing was that we had some money saved up to be able to do the frig without dipping into our savings. The bad thing was that it was Christmas money and money that I'd been saving to get a hi-def TV. However, while being an adult is definitely not always as cool as I thought it would when I was a kid (with all the bills and responsibility and such), this is what I signed up for. And I would much rather have the new frig paid for free and clear, rather than have the money and do payments. Which means that I'll just have to start from scratch to save for the TV again.

So that's the appliance saga. Hopefully we'll be in a long ride with few or no problems with the new frig.

Christmas Pics

Here are some pics of the kids from Christmas Day.

Kinsey finding the Harry Potter dolls Santa left for her.

Connor finding his Thomas the Tank Engine playset.

Kinsey opening a Barbie cruise ship of some sort.

Connor opening his Diego set.

Thomas and Diego

The kids were very happy with what they got and they were even willing to give away some of their old toys to Goodwill.

Break

Well, I'm back.

After taking a 2 week break from both work and blogging, I've rejoined the world. It was definitely good to take a break and get away for a while to be with my family and just kind of be. As crazy as the holiday season is, I really enjoyed it and getting to see everyone that I did. I'll be getting back to a somewhat normal blogging schedule, perhaps a little lighter than in past years. Of course I've said that before and just gotten sucked back in like always so we'll see what happens this time.

I hope you had a good Christmas and a Happy New Year. Peace to you.