the unlikely orange

after our great day of getting to the d.c. area (alexandria, va), and getting acquainted with our surroundings, we settled in for a night of sleep to be well rested for our first day in the city.  the only problem is that the air mattress that shannon and i brought for ourselves wasn't holding air, and i slept horribly.  i was up by 3am and didn't really sleep much after that.  even though i was tired, we had a fantastic first day of sightseeing. we got to hunterdon station, took the yellow line of the metro to l'enfant station, and walked to the smithsonian visitor center, and then walked across the mall to the museum of natural history.  what a great museum! we saw lots of bugs (and got to watch a tarantula attack a live cricket, which the boys loved), some pretty cool egyptian stuff, and a stunning exhibit of nature photography.  We also saw exhibits dealing with the ocean, with mammals, and with rocks and gems (in which we saw the hope...

This is our last week in sunbury, and we are crazy with packing and sorting and cleaning and getting ready to move, and because we are just that insane, we thought that taking a week-long vacation right before we move would be a great idea.  so, last week we decided to head down to our nation's capital, to see some of the sights and just enjoy some time away from the towers of cardboard boxes lining the perimeter of every room in our house. we headed out last sunday, taking John Coffey to a kennel, and then heading south at a leisurely pace, which is a different vacation technique for us.  along the way, just before gettysburg, we saw a roadside sign for what seemed like a unique establishment: mr. ed's elephant museum and candy emporium. even though it was a few miles out of our way, we knew we had to stop.  so we drove through gettysburg to mr. ed's, and it delivered.  just as the title suggests, it is an elephant museum, with thousands upon thousands of ele...

as we continue our gauntlet-run through a series of "lasts" we came upon a pretty big one at the end of last week:  the last day of school for all three boys.  it was q's last day of preschool: his "graduation" (he says he's going to college now), the last day of 3rd grade for c, and 5th grade for j. it is difficult for us to wrap our heads around the fact that we will have a 6th grader, a 4th grader, and a kindergartner next year, and that we will be in a new town in new schools.  i so distinctly remember 6 years ago, when we had just moved back to pennsylvania from new jersey, and our oldest child was just starting kindergarten.  i remember walking home from school that first morning after dropping him off.  i remember crying.  i remember the emotion of entrusting the care of your child to other human beings for several hours each day.  it was a hard thing for me to do. and now, as i think about my youngest little munchkin, and his own journey...

happy memorial day, a day we set apart to remember specifically that the freedoms and liberties we enjoy were bought at a price, and that price was paid in the currency of human lives.  even today, as we think about our way of life, we should recognize that when we abuse our freedoms, or take them for granted, we are devaluing that price and dishonoring that memory.  when we choose greed over commonwealth; when we choose comfort over justice for all; when we choose personal gain over public health; when we choose self over community and country; we forget the great gift we've been given and we shame ourselves. this land was never just for me.  it was always for us .  it was always about freedom from monarchy, freedom from legislated religion.  it left room for differences.  we seem to have forgotten that in our country today, when instead of welcoming the tired, the poor, and the hungry, we want to build walls and deport those who are different. ...

we have one month.  one more month of putting all of our earthly possessions into cardboard boxes so we can move 60 miles west.  one more month of ministry in this place where we've been serving and sharing hope for the last 6 years.  one more month. and now that we are down to so few weeks left, we find ourselves in a season of "lasts:"  the last day of school is next week; i sang my last anthem with the choir; last piano lesson; last prayer gathering; last board meeting; and on tuesday, we had our last soccer game.  caedmon scored two goals and played a bit of keeper in the loss. it is weird living in a land of so many lasts.   everything has an emotional heaviness, like the next tearful goodbye is just around the corner.  and yet there is a relief to it, too.  it is good medicine in this busy season to know that we'll have our tuesdays, thursdays, and saturdays back.  that we don't have to study history cards anymore.  that we ...

To the Good People at Apple, Hi.  It’s greg.  You remember me, of course.  I’ve owned several of your devices and spent a small fortune in acquiring them over the years.  We’ve owned at least 4 different ipods, and an assortment of iphones and ipads.  It’s like we are family now.  So, anyway, how’ve you been?  I’ve been okay. Well, actually, not so much.  See, I’ve lost my best mate.  He was always there for me, and seemed to have just what I needed at any particular moment.  When I was happy, he would feed off of that and make me dance.  When I was sad, he would softly whisper and give me space for my sadness to slowly spill out.  He listened to me, and I listened to him.  A lot.  I loved him deeply.  In fact, we once celebrated his arrival with a cake.    see? I also once wrote an ode to him, and put it on my blog for the whole world to see.  It went like this: ...

for the last seven years, my boys and i have put together a little family video each may as a tribute to their mom, and as a snapshot - a kind of video scrapbook page - to capture them at that particular moment of their lives.  as we look back now to the very first one in 2009, it is amazing to see how they've grown and changed. this year, i didn't get to make our annual mother's day video in time for mother's day, which was very disappointing to me, although Shannon was extremely gracious about it, saying that it isn't something i need  to do.  still, whether that is true or not, it is something i really want  to do, and i was frustrated that i wasn't able to get to it in time for mother's day, but the reality of our lives right now is that we are moving in 6 weeks, and the perfect storm of packing, saying goodbyes, having yard sales, planning a good beginning in our new church, along with all the emotions involved in all of that, has just been too mu...