the unlikely orange

merry Christmas, yinz guys.  we've been marking our advent journeys with an annual video now for the last twelve years!  for this latest installment, we used the Tractors' version of "Run, Run Rudolph," as a metaphor for all of our running around, and i hope it shows that we've had a real blast this year, preparing for Christmas.  you'll see scenes from getting our tree, making cookies, concerts, impromptu dance sessions, making snowflakes, and much more.  enjoy. 

happy thanksgiving, everyone.  i have so much to be thankful for.  so, much, in fact, that it's almost overwhelming and embarrassing.  but one of the things i am most thankful for this year is my health.  at the beginning of 2019, my weight had reached an all-time high, and i was about as physically unhealthy as i had ever been.  i decided that i needed to do something about it, but it took me several months to get started.  i started in earnest around the beginning of June, and since then i've been running regularly and eating better.  and since the beginning of the year i have lost over 50 pounds.  this picture of me shows me in the same t-shirt back in march, and yesterday.  you can see the difference.  today, as part of my ongoing journey, i ran a half marathon.  13.1 miles.  #thanksgivingthirteenpointone.  it feels so good to have gotten that active and to feel better in my joints and in my energy level.  ...

"What if it doesn't hold me?" I didn't ask it out loud, but this was the question bouncing around my brain as I stood on top of the Fraser building a week ago, with the wind whipping furiously, my toes on the ledge, and my heels hanging off the edge. I stood there thirteen stories up, with a tangle of ropes and equipment attached both to me and, by an intricate web, to a network of pulleys and structures all intended to keep me completely safe. I listened carefully, with the wind whistling through the holes in my helmet, as my instructor said, "now just lean back, and it will hold you." Yeah, but what if it doesn't?!? This "what if" question has a great deal to do with trust. I recognize this question from my life. I find myself asking it, sometimes unconsciously, about all sorts of things. What if my kids get hurt? What if my loved one gets really sick? What if our safety net isn't substantial enough? What if we can't affo...

“Leftovers again?” It’s a refrain that is sometimes heard in our house, especially after Shannon has prepared several great meals in a row. In those times, we often have a collage of containers in the refrigerator, filled with various elements from the dinners of the last few days: broccoli in the glass container with the red lid, brown rice in the green tupperware, and some pork chops wrapped in foil, just to name a few. Sometimes there is enough of this mishmosh of food to last us for several meals, which is when the complaining usually begins, “Leftovers, again?” I was thinking about this on Sunday as we thought about God’s abundance. We remembered story after story in the Bible in which we discover a God of abundance and overflowing goodness. One of the stories was the feeding of the 5,000, in which a huge crowd (some estimate it was as many as 15,000, since women and children wouldn’t have made the count) was fed by a meager 2 fish and 5 loaves of bread. Perhaps the m...

back in early june, as part of an overall effort to get more healthy, i started jogging.  i was just kind of walking and running a couple of miles to start off, but over the last 4 months i've been staying consistent, which has helped me to run faster and further, lose some weight, and just generally be healthier.  on fridays, which are my day off, i try to run a longer distance, and i've been adding a mile every other week or so, which meant that today i ran 9 miles in about 99 minutes, which isn't great, but it isn't terrible, either.  mostly, it just feels good to be doing it, and to feel healthier in a general sense, physically, spiritually, emotionally, and so on.  but there is one area that i haven't felt great about.  professionally, these last 8 months have been, without doubt, some of the most difficult in my 21+ years of full-time ministry.  now don't get me wrong: i love my job.  i really do.  it is so much more than just a job f...

so, i haven't written about football for a long time.  i used to write about the best team in the national football league (the pittsburgh steelers, duh) all the time, but in recent years, it's been somewhat harder for me to be an 'all-in' football fan (at least publically).  there are a number of reasons for this, paramount among them, i think, is my own maturing, and recognizing the terrible weight of things beyond this silly game.  on a somewhat related note, there was all the news about the terrible brain damage inflicted on players who play this game.  additionally, i have been as busy in these last few years as i have ever been in my life, and while i still have plenty of time to follow this team, it has been in a more limited, somewhat less intense way.  and then there is one more thing: the team i love, the steelers, have had more drama than an episode of the real housewives of wherever.  i've actually never seen those shows, but i can only im...