the unlikely orange

ed. note:  sorry i haven't been very attentive to the blog this week.  i know that there are many of you who check it daily, and i usually try to make every effort to be daily with new materials, but with the thanksgiving holiday combined with the passing of our beloved family dog, i haven't felt much like doing any more than absolutely necessary.  thank you for your words of sympathy and compassion which we have been so blessed to receive.  last night at our church as we continued our journey through the not a fan study, we had a great conversation about the supposed dichotomy between religion and relationship.  this is a huge cultural epidemic, and while you may think you haven't heard of it, i'm fairly certain that you have.  it is rampant in our culture, and, by result, in our christian subculture.  let me explain. you have heard it said in our culture, if you've been paying attention, that people are choosing to be "spiritual, not religiou...

we had our first snow of the season yesterday, and although i was only expecting a dusting, we woke up to a nice covering of snow, and then it kept snowing pretty hard through the morning.  we ended up with about 3 inches, on a day that was still somewhat on the warmer side.  this, combined with the fact that they haven't seen snow in some 9 months, resulted in what you might call the perfect storm for at least 2/3 of our children.  and so it was on with the layers and oversized snow clothing, gloves that fall off, hats that fall over the eyes, and boots that slip off the feet.  and out into the white wonderland we went.  as i cleaned off the driveway, i piled the snow on the side so that jack could build a snow fort.  he needed help, but he stuck with it, and you can see the results of his work below.  quin didn't play outside, but we took him out and let him touch it and see it.  he was not impressed.  and of course there wer...

  we hope you have a blessed thanksgiving, and that it is more about giving thanks than getting a good deal or gluttonous consumption. 

maximus drake milinovich february 27, 2001 - november 20, 2012 well, as some of you already know from facebook, we lost our beloved dog to cancer yesterday.  as i wrote in his birthday post earlier this year, his health was obviously declining over the last year, but he still had a good quality of life until these last few days when we were forced to make that terrible decision about what to do for him.  it was possibly the hardest thing i had to do in my life, as i held his 65-pound frame in my arms and whispered into his ear as his life slipped away.  what did i whisper?  some things i won't tell you.  but i can tell you that i told him how proud we are of him.  how he was the best dog imaginable.  i told him some of the things i will miss about him, like his insanely loud snoring, and the smell of his paws and the velvet-soft texture of his ears.  i told him he was our first child, and he was an amazing big brother.  i told ...

for the last couple of weeks at catawissa avenue united methodist church, we've been talking about the opposite worldviews of scarcity and abundance.  i have been trying to make the point that the story our culture tells is almost always based on scarcity, while the story of the Gospel is always unexpected, unwarranted, unlikely abundance.  imagine having a meal with Jesus when he was here doing his ministry.  how awesome would that be?  i have the sense that he could at once make you feel completely at home and deeply loved and also challenged and inspired to be a better version of yourself.  exhilarating.  but enough about us.  imagine that you were asking him about him.  you might ask his favorite color, what kind of animal he would be if he was an animal, and so forth, and then imagine that you ask him, "Lord, what is this all about?  i mean, why did you really come here?  what is your mission statement?"  and then listen...

last night shannon and i had our (mostly) monthly date night, and we had the opportunity to head up to bucknell for a little culture.  we got to see maya beiser , a cellist who is incredibly accomplished, do a multimedia concert with video.  it featured modern pieces, and some of it was so experimental as to be nearly devoid of any sense of melody (at least to these ears), but most of it was really beautiful, including a piece by one of my favorite modern composers, arvo part .  for her encore, she did something a little less highbrow, and did this rendition of led zeppelin's kashmir, which was alot of fun.  enjoy. 

not that anyone was really coming to this site looking for it, but i'm sorry that i haven't really been able to get into ravens week this week.  it is sort of hard to get excited about this twice-a-year game when you know your starting quarterback has a rib aimed right at his aorta, and will be spending those three hours just trying not to die.  so, yeah.  it's sort of like trying to look forward to thanksgiving day knowing that there won't be any turkey.  "sorry kids, but our starting turkey is significantly injured and listed as 'out' for this year's thanksgiving meal.  we'll be going with our backup turkey, also known as meatloaf.  we're confident that he'll be able to step in and do the job we need in order to have a fantastic meal.  as we always say around here, 'next entree up.'"  yeah right.  hey, speaking of ben's condition, if you are looking to find out exactly what is wrong with him (hint: it's not jus...