the unlikely orange

Halloween: Trick or Treat? from 10ofthose.com on Vimeo . i was asked recently by an acquaintance if our family goes trick-or-treating.  the question was asked with all the crushing weight of evangelical guilt, as if my whole christian witness relied on my correctly answering this loaded question.  i, of course, answered with a robust "of course we do!," because i refuse to be painted into a cultural box by my Christian comrades, and i even went on to explain my rationale, that i think Christians would do much better by being present with our culture, rather than cutting ourselves off from it while pointing at it and calling it all sorts of horrible names.  i want to be a light in the darkness!  and i want to teach my children the same.  i said all of that, more or less.  but i wish i had seen this video at that time, because i would have instantly pulled it up on my phone and showed it to my guilt-laden conversation partner, who finally admitted to ...

    on monday i finished leading a seven week study on the book of psalms called "songs of life."  in this study we looked at different types or genres of psalms, including thanksgiving psalms, liturgical psalms, lament psalms, royal psalms, and others.  all together, we read some 60 psalms, studying a few them closely, and only reading or taking a brief look at others.  we had some 30 people participate over the course of the 7 weeks, and while i hope that everyone learned some things, my most pronounced desire is that some of the folks who looked at these psalms in the last two months have been inspired by the poetry therein.  it is my prayer that as they read these ancient words, they discovered that the words are pointing to something beyond the words themselves, and even beyond whatever theological meaning we can contrive.  these profound poems and songs sing of something deeper and truer and higher and more solid and more alive.  they ...

on saturday night, shannon and i had the immense privilege to (finally) see emmylou harris live in concert.  i say finally because we were supposed to see her 7 or 8 years ago, when she unfortunately broke her wrist a few days before the show, and it was cancelled.  we've been sort of sad about that all these years, and so we were so excited to have this opportunity to see her as she tours with rodney crowell, a former member of her hot band, and great songwriter himself, in support of their collaborative album which came out earlier this year called "old yellow moon."  i don't get to go to nearly as many concerts as i'd like to, so i was pretty excited about this opportunity to see a living legend, and so was shannon.  we pretended that emmylou had joined us for dinner: homemade cheddar broccoli soup and freshly made applesauce.  not long after, i donned my cowboy hat and we headed up to lewisburg to the weis center at bucknell university, found our s...

today is my blog's birthday.  i've been doing this now for 7 years, and over 1,700 posts.  and it has been seven years of....what?  i don't know.  musings.  laughter.  wrestlings.  hopes.  songs.  art.  change.  movement from birth to childhood, in all its messy joy.  speaking of my children, here is an interesting fact that i didn't realize until today.  well, i knew this first part of course: all of my children were born on the 25th of their month.  and each one is a quarter away from the other.  january 25th, april 25th, and july 25th.  the pediatrician thought we should try for a 4th child on october 25th.  we will not be.  but, and this is the part i just realized today, my blog's birthday is october 25th!  i wrote my very first post on october 25th, 2006.  kinda crazy.  and in that time, you have clicked in some 200,000 times.  from all over the world.  you'...

my oldest (or is it eldest?) son went to his first sleepover at a friends house a few weeks ago.  while it was at a good friend's house, and a family that we trust, that didn't stop me from looking at shannon at some point that evening and feeling aghast as i stated the obvious:  our child is growing up.  first a sleepover, next is prom.  boom.  like that.  he had a soccer game to play the next morning, so we warned him over and over that he needed to get some sleep.  he said he understood, and would do his best to rest up.  but i think his "resting up" looked something like this: he says he tried to sleep, but one of his friends woke him after one hour.  this coming from the kid who has no concept of time.  none.  30 minutes and 3 hours are very much the same thing in his time-warped world in which, so far, he really hasn't felt the need to differentiate between the two.  so, i really have no idea how long he slept...

as shannon and i prepare to go and see a favorite of ours in concert this weekend - emmylou harris - i was thinking about all the concerts i've been able to attend so far in my life.  and i've been to many!  you can see them in word cloud above, and here is a list of the ones i can remember:  Harrod and Funck (got to see 5 or 6 times) Over the Rhine (seen at least 10 times) Coldplay (amazing....viva la vida tour) Willie Nelson (legendary) Taylor Swift (fun) Shania Twain U2 (one of the most worshipful experiences of my life) MuteMath (best live show, hands down) OC Supertones (seen 4 or 5 times...always entertaining) The Myriad Carman (i'm not proud of it) Mylon Lefevre and Broken Heart (c'mon and crack the sky with me) Livingston Taylor (james taylor's brother.  sounds like him) Audio Adrenaline Newsboys (too many times) Phil Keaggy Jennifer Knapp Whiteheart David Crowder Band Hoi Polloi Ca...

yesterday was part 1 of the annual 2-part headmashing festival that is the pittsburgh steelers/baltimore ravens rivalry.  despite starting the season with their first start since 1968 (!), the steelers felt pretty good going into this matchup, and their confidence was clear.  right from the beginning, with clint hurdle and andrew mccutchen waving terrible towels and wearing steelers jerseys, there was a feeling that this was pittsburgh's game.  and if there was any doubt at all that this was, at the very least, going to be a game in which the steelers were going to present a problem for the ravens, any such doubt was eliminated by the way the steelers rookie running back, le'veon bell, ran the ball.  it was such a relief for steelers' fans to see his hard running, his obviously good vision, his intelligent cutbacks, and his ability to hold onto the ball, not to mention his near 100-yard performance, against haloti ngata and the orcs of baltimore.  cred...