Random Thoughts

Today is a great day. Free burrito day at Chipotle if you wear some foil. The World Series ended rather abruptly. So when does spring training start?UNC is unanimously ranked #1 in basketball to start the season - is it too early to switch allegiance?I may be getting a new phone number soon. Hopefully it accompanies an iphone if my lovely wife will give the OK for my birthday.Today is also halloween - and the first time I will be at home doing nothing for a decade or so. I used to help run Harvest Festival at my church and now - well, I get to hand out candy. So nice.Durham is absolutely beautiful in the fall. Seriously.My mom is flying in to...

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Picking sides

Anyone else tired of all the political banter yet? The commercials are killing me. It's finger pointing, blaming, vilifying, scaring, etc. The candidates can't stop talking about each other, and it seems like many voters are boiling over as well - ready to explode on each other at the drop of a hat. I've recently been reading comments from a couple of friends as they go back and forth against one another, one even accusing the other of not being a Christian because of his political views. It's crazy isn't it?I was thinking about this need to pick sides. Are you with us, or are you with them? Are you in, or are you out? We want to box people in, identify them, and either bring them into the fold or ostracize them. All the while, both sides are claiming that God is on their side. Have you noticed...

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Five

I can't believe it, but my little girl is five years old now. These past five years have gone so fast. She amazes me more and more each day. The thing I love the most about her is her sweet spirit and compassionate heart. She is so much like her mom. Her heart beats for the poor and the ones that are suffering. She has a heart for the orphan. Every time she gets money, she immediately puts it in a jar "for the kids". She saves it in order to send it to help with world hunger. For her birthday we got her a hamster. She loves it. She named it Chocolate. Chocolate doesn't do much yet, but she sits there and stares at it anyway. When we got it she...

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Michigan

We've been in Michigan since Thursday. My wife's grandmother died and so we drove out to Grand Haven for the funeral. It's been a good trip so far. We drove all night Wednesday in order to take advantage of the hours our kids were sleeping. It's the only way to go, but quite tiring. I drove from about 8pm to 4:30am before my brother in law took over for a while. Anyway, the funeral was Friday and it went well. Grandma Kleist was a great woman who loved Jesus. It's always a different feeling when you go to a funeral of someone who loved the Lord. While there is still grief, there is great hope and celebration as well. We've had a fun time sharing stories, looking through old pictures and spending time with family. Tomorrow we'll be driving in to Grand Rapids to attend Mars Hill Bible Church,...

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What's a bomb?

I was listening the other day to my daughter play with another friend. They were pretending all kinds of things. I don't really know the context of how it came up, but the other kid wanted to pretend that a bomb fell and things were blowing up. It was at this point that my daughter dropped the bomb of a question and asked "What's a bomb?" Can you imagine a world where you didn't know what a bomb was? What if there was peace - real peace all over the world? Many will say that day won't ever come until Jesus returns. That may be true, but shouldn't we long for and work toward that day anyway? Think about the innocence of that question that Hannah asked. She has no understanding of a weapon that is made to wipe out hundreds or thousands of lives at one time. She doesn't understand something like...

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Citizens of Virtue

Ok, so I got a weird email the other day about this website called Citizens of Virtue. It was actually an invitation to some sort of game revolved around this website. Some how it was connected to Rob Bell's new book. Thus, my introduction to the world of ARGs (Alternate Reality Games). I don't really know how to explain this whole thing. It's basically like living in a movie like National Treasure - where everything is a clue. The object of this story is to find a guy named Xander Greene, the nephew of one Lila Greene who is concerned about her son's involvement with the Citizens of Virtue. He has gone missing and no one seems to have heard from him. So there's this whole group of people online who are contributing by figuring out the puzzle pieces. Clues have come from a phone number, from...

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Don Miller

I got to meet Don Miller today. He's a guy I look up to quite a bit. His books have meant a great deal to me and my own spiritual growth. He's a guy who doesn't just talk about faith, but is seeking to live out the way of Jesus in every way. He recently completed a bike trip across America in which he and a team raised tons of money for Blood:Water Mission - an organization that builds well in Africa. He is also the founder of the Belmont Foundation, which is an organization that seeks to partner with the church in mentoring kids that grow up without fathers. Anyway, he was in Chapel Hill at UNC as part of the Obama campaign. He led a forum where...

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Reading Binge

I'm going through this phase right now where I am reading a ton. I like these times. I just finished Rob Bell's newest book which is called Jesus Wants to Save Christians. Now I'm back to Shane Claiborne, and his latest Jesus for President. A couple of people commented before about Shane's book, so I'm looking forward to getting into this more and maybe seeing what kind of dialogue we can get going. Anyone read Bell's latest yet? I'd love to hear your thoughts. I'll share mine soon.What about you, what are you readi...

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