you've been maxlucadoed

i'm that guy.  i like to try and impress my family with my vocabulary.  really, even though i know you won't believe me, it's not that i want to try and impress them so much as sometimes i feel it is more dramatic to use a stronger, lesser known word when a more familiar word would almost certainly do.  its all part of the drama of me being  me.  which is the beginning of this story. 

we were at the dinner table.  i was being dramatic about something (which is to say that everything was about as normal as it gets at our house).  i was trying to explain something about why my jaw made the noise of a large zambelli brothers firecracker, and i said, referring to a bit of food, that "i masticated it."  shannon misheard this, thinking that i had said i "maxlucado-ed it." 

it instantly caught on. 

but rather than being a synonym for chewing, we decided to assign a new, more appropriate meaning for maxlucado as a verb.  john acuff, the hilarious writer of stuff christians like, already has a term called a jesus juke, and our new word "maxlucado" is somewhat similar. 

to maxlucado something is to turn an ordinary event into a concise "devotion" which immediately induces head nods and deep grunts of agreement.  it is, for example,  to look at a piece of ice and instead of seeing it as an object to cool your drink, see it as a metaphor for the trinity. 

now, don't get me wrong: this isn't a bad thing, necessarily.  i do this all the time.  here is an example of me maxlucadoing the concept of facebook friends.  go back through this blog and you'll find that i'm constantly maxlucadoing the heck out of things.  in fact, if you can figure out how to properly maxlucado something concisely, find a short scripture that applies and a one-sentence prayer to go along, you've got a career with the upper room or our daily bread.  or maybe even as a preacher.  because, to be honest, preaching is really just looking at the ordinary stuff of life and maxlucadoing it until someone - please somebody! - sees the sacred right there in the mundane.  part of my job as a preacher is to demonstrate that the presence of God is shouted out by the very trees, so that when you're cutting onions or watchig reruns of everybody loves raymond you are discovering truth and life and beauty and hope and gospel. 

and if you thought this was going to be a post about a silly family story or a new word we created, you just got maxlucadoed.  as rob bell likes to say "this is really about that."  or was that Jesus?  he often said, "the kingdom of God is like" and then he would talk about mustard seeds or farmers discovering treasure or a shepherd losing his sheep, or any number of other totally mundane bits of life that he maxlucadoed into something profound, lifechanging, and meaningful for his followers for centuries to come. 

so stop looking at ice merely as a cause for a brainfreeze.  stop thinking about facebook friends as a status symbol.  stop thinking about mustard seeds as, well, who thinks about mustard seeds?  anyway, start seeing all of life as God's domain!  start seeing even the most simple and mundane parts of life as pieces of God's great love story to you, little reflectors and refractors of the great glorious good news: there is a God and this God loves you! 

consider yourselves maxlucadoed.  now go and do likewise. 

ps.  i really like max lucado, and this is not meant to ridicule him.  we just did a book study on his book "fearless" a few months ago and really enjoyed it.  it just so happens that shannon thought i used his name as a verb, and it caught on.  no hard feelings, max.  also, are you wearing a palm leaf in that picture, or did you just walk through a spider web?  speaking of spider webs, it makes me think about the way we're all connected....

hipster caedmon

going on a field trip today with this hipster.  headed to lake tobias with caedmon's kindergarten class!  should be fun!

i am david: an unlikely candidate

i am convinced that the stories we tell - the ones we read on our kindle fires and the ones we pay a monthly fee to watch on all our devices - are rarely merely for our entertainment.  of course there is entertainment value in most stories, but that is neither their only purpose, nor their greatest.  there's something else that stories do, and that is that they offer us a glimpse of the world - and us - from a particular point of view.  good stories find a way to show you a kind of mirror of yourself, how you would be if you made certain decisions.  i have, at various times of my life, seen myself in huck finn, atticus finch, the cowardly lion, frodo baggins, edmund pevensie, and many more, including david, that would-be king of israel.

yes, i believe the same is true of the bible.  when we read these stories, they are never first and foremost about being able to be translated into a two-paragraph, two-minute devotion.  they are, above all, stories, and as such they are about humans trying to figure this life thing out, and they are surprisingly good at showing us ourselves. 

david was a shepherd.  he was the youngest of his 7 brothers, so i assume he drew the short straw and had to spend his time tending to the family animals, making sure they didn't roam or get attacked or stolen.  it was pastoral; it was rich in aroma only, and it was about as far as one could get from being a part of national politics.  but if david could have known what was going on, he would have learned that king saul was a shell or a shadow of himself, and had become completely inept as a king.  samuel had been sent by God to find the one-who-would-be-king.  but only samuel knew that God had led him to the sons of jesse, david's father. 

when samuel arrived, he immediately laid eyes on eliab, the oldest of jesse's brood of sons, and the most likely candidate for king.  he was tall and stately, well-mannered, and he knew enough to at least act like a king.  "surely this is our new king," thought samuel.  but God had other ideas.  God had not chosen eliab. God said, "look, i know that eliab looks regal, but here's what i need you to know: i don't see the way you see.  you see only so deep - clothes and skin and facades, but i see inside, into the very essence of a person.  eliab is not the one." 

so, one by one, samuel looks at each of jesse's sons, in a kind of parade of hopeful kings, with hair spit-styled down, and hands folded properly, but none of them pass the "God-looks-at-the-heart test."  so, still in shock that eliab wasn't chosen, jesse finally remembers that he was one more son, who is out in the fields with the sheep, probably playing with that blasted slingshot again. 

king arthur had to remove an impossibly stuck sword from a stone, david just had to show up.  as soon as he samuel laid eyes on him, as dirty and ruddy and stinky as he must have been, samuel knew that God had chosen this boy.  a most unlikely candidate.  too young.  too small.  too simple.  too uncouth.  too rough-around-the-edges.  too unlearned.  too unambitious.  but the Scripture says that God's spirit came upon him in power from that day forward.  in this pentecost moment, the spirit of God descends upon this simple shepherd and says, "i am choosing you - i am calling you - to something you have not yet imagined, and i will give you everything you need to fulfill this calling." 

sound familiar?

it should.  because God is calling you, too.  and, let's be honest, you're an unlikely candidate.  you really aren't the right person for the job.  you don't have the experience.  you don't have the formal training.  you're too young or too old.  you're too busy (everyone is too busy).  you're too thin-skinned, or too distracted, or too racked by guilt.  God is calling you to follow more closely, to attend that Bible study, to help teach a sunday school class, to go on that missions trip, to knock on your neighbor's door, but you are willing yourself to be the last kid picked on the kickball team because you have yourself convinced that you are not (something) enough. 

and God laughs.  God laughs at your "not enoughs."  if God could turn the aromatic ruddy runt of a kid called david into the ruler of God's people, what can God do with you?  i realize that you are inadequate.  believe me, i do.  because i know myself and my own failings and squanderings and complete lack of trustworthyness.  and yet, God keeps believing in me, keeps calling me.  God keeps telling me that God looks deeper than my facades and masks.  God sees into our hearts, and the one who designed us and made us with wonder and delight says, "what i made is good, and i have something new for you to do." 

so, you unlikely one, what will you do?  will you say thank God for the compliment, and then return to the sheep messes in the field, essentially calling God a liar?  or will you dare to believe in what God is telling you, in this story and in a thousand others: that you are loved, that you are called, and that you are meant for more? 

goodbye to my scranton friends

i hate saying goodbye. 

it's never something that seems to happen gracefully.  it always seems to be marked by awkward gestures and broken sentences that strive, but always fail, to encapsulate all that proceeded.   so we lower our expectations and try to convince ourselves that we are content with a hug/back pat combo, and some trite cliches. 

i have a feeling that's what tonight will look like. 

to be fair, we've been saying goodbye for a couple of years now, as things have obviously changed in our relationship.  but we've hung on, hoping that something might change, might click and make things different.  still, just because we've had a couple of years to prepare doesn't make this any easier.  if anything, the slow and inevitable glacier-crawl of this goodbye has made it more difficult. 

regardless, however difficult it may be, tonight is time to say goodbye.  at 9:00 we will say goodbye to what was, for several years, my favorite television show.  gosh, just writing that sounds stupid, but, like every human being before me, i am connected to story in deep and profound ways, and to the characters that help tell those stories.  so tonight isn't so much a goodbye to a tv program, complete with commercials and product placement.  rather, it is a goodbye to some of my friends.  it is goodbye to jim and pam, to erin and oscar and dwight and toby, and many more.

since starting in 2005, the office has been must-see-TV in our house.  2005 was the year my oldest son was born, which helps explain to me why it feels like i am losing part of my family tonight.  how will i experience vicarious awkwardness that causes me to laugh nervously and sweat profusely anymore? 

but i will do my best to offer my most awkward lean-in hug and poorly-worded goodbyes possible. 

dwight, i will miss your ugly shirt/tie combinations, your over-zealous commitment to management, and your desperate, misguided attempts at acceptance. 

oscar, i will miss your snotty elitism, and your exasperated sighs at your coworkers. 

erin, i will miss your cluelessness, your innocence, your musical projects, and your utter ineptitude. 

meredith, i will miss your sarcasm.  that's about it.

angela, i will miss your holier-than-thou hypocrisy, and your secret life as crazy cat woman.  also, i will miss your little work breaks with dwight in the warehouse. 

toby, i will miss your crazy passion for local murder trials.  i will miss the quiet way you took the constant barrage of hits life gave you, and how you just hung in there through it.  and i will miss the pathetic way you failed to act on your dreams.  i'm hoping for better things for you in the future. 

kevin, i will miss your idiocy, your childlikeness, your childishness, and your smelly feet. 

stanley, i will miss your detachment.  i will miss your crossword puzzle addiction, your love of pretzel day, and the way you stood up for yourself in an office blanketed by ignorance.

creed, you are weird.  i'm not sure i'm really going to miss you.  at all.

michael, i've been missing you for two years.  i really hope to see you tonight.  i wish you the best and that, most of all, you are loved.

andy,  i will miss your music.  i will miss your hare-brained ideas.  i will miss your anger issues, your desperate attempts for attention, and your misguided self-awareness. 

jim and pam, i will miss you most of all.  to be honest, you two are the only reason i've continued hanging out with the whole gang these last two years.  i've been pulling for you like crazy, as i have since i first knew you.  i know that life hasn't turned out for you exactly the way you thought it might, but i admire the way you've hung in there, for better and for worse, and have embraced these new challenges as part of your story.  i will miss your playfulness, the way you antagonized dwight, and the way you brought a genuine kind of humanity to the office.  i have no idea what your story is going to show me tonight, but, whatever happens, just know that i'm pulling for you. 

(insert awkward half-hug here). 

and, at around 10:00 tonight i will walk away.  sadly.  probably awkwardly.  but that will be fitting for a show that so clearly shined the light on all the awkward moments that mark our lives together, whether at work or play, at the office or at home.  ultimately, as the show made clear, what really matters is the relationships we make, even if the people we make them with are different, ignorant, hurt, hiding, afraid, desperate, or crushingly lonely.  these people who may seem like the "extras" in the story of our lives, are really all an important part of our story. 

goodbye. 

random tuesday: vampires and pentecost cake

-hello spring.  feeling ornery, aren't we?  high today somewhere in the 50's (it's 32 as i write this), but a high of 79 two days from now?  really? 

 

today is field day.  lots of layers for the school boys. 

-i'm helping my sister and brother-in-;law move into their new home today...excited for them in this new chapter of their journey as a family, and glad to be able to help out. 

-two words: vampire weekend.  i'll let you know.

-caedmon finished his flag football season this week.  i'm pretty sure he now knows the difference between offense and defense.  it was a productive season.

-this:

-have a great tuesday!

happy mothers day, 2013

well, the countdown is over and mothers day has arrived.  today i share with you the latest installment in our annual family mothers day video. 

before you watch it, though, know this:  there are a host of factors that contribute to us having the family we have, but there is none more critical, graceful and steadfast as Shannon.  without her, i am a buoy on the sea, bobbing up and down with the circumstances of the moment, lifted up by the highs of cute comments and good spelling tests, then immediately brought down by the lows of bickering and a diaper filled with some sort of toxic waste.  but shannon is solid.  she is consistent and she holds us all together.  without her, we'd be a little crazy. 

well, as you can see from the video, we're a little crazy with her and about her, but it's a good crazy.  this music video is simply meant to capture some of the energy and expression and joy that she inspires in us.  it is my hope that it represents a moment in time, a season of our lives with three little boys at various ages who are learning what it means to be alive - learning, in their own way, just how broken this world is - and are finding a way to dance and rejoice anyway.  thanks for helping teach them that.  here's to you, shannon. 

mothers day, episode 4

today, as we have reached the day before mother's day, i offer you the most recent installment of our mothers day series.  this one isn't my best work, as i was working with some faulty equipment and making do with it the best i could.  i had a great vision in my head of what i wanted, but the implementation wasn't stellar.  nonetheless, it still captures the boys being their goofy selves at a particular moment in our family journey, and as far as that goes, it is precious.  they had a great deal of fun with this one, and enjoyed going "on location" for some of the shooting.  enjoy! 



tune back in tomorrow for a brand new episode!  same mom time, same mom channel!