the unlikely orange

remember. today, of course, is memorial day, by definition a day of remembering.  and while i certainly hope that your day is happy and full of the best kinds of joys, i also hope that you find some way and time to remember how it is that these joys came to you.  yes, of course i am thinking about the sacrifices of women and men who served our country whose service included the hefty price of their lives.  even if you don't know any of them, i hope you find a way to remember them somehow, and those who grieve them still. but i am also thinking of something even more poignant and powerful, at least for me.  when i think about remembering how it is that we have come to enjoy such blessedness, i am hoping you'll consider that every good and perfect gift comes from above (james 1:17).  i am hoping we might take a lesson from the poetry of the Hebrews, who never failed to take the time to remember what God had done for them (check out psalm 105, as one exampl...

 it's hard to believe it, but this is the 9th year that the boys and i have been making mother's day videos for Shannon.  Cade was only just a year old when we made our first, and he just turned 10 and will soon finish 4th grade!  we've done videos with a variety of themes: springsteen, athletics, wacky costumes, silent film, and moving, just to name some of them.  as we've gotten more familiar with the process, and as the boys get older, we have more fun planning the scenes, the locations, the costumes, the props, and even the camera work and "special effects."  still, it's a ton of work, and the reason we do it is because we know how blessed we are to have a wife and mother like Shannon, and we feel like these 9 music videos (so far) are all slices of time that she will cherish for the rest of her life.  it's about the best present we could think of, and now its a tradition.  we can only hope that she enjoys them as much as we enjoy making them for ...

i just found out that we have the chance to bring Gungor to state college on july 29th of this year for part of their One Wild Life: Acoustic Tour .  we could host them right at St. Paul's!  all i need is $7,000.  no big deal. seriously.  i need $7,000.  i almost sent them an email back to say we won't be able to do it (i mean, we didn't budget for this or anything, and i'm not sure i can convince my church to invest in something that many of them have never heard of), but then i thought, i'd better wait.  i mean, i have until wednesday to let them know for sure. so, anyone in state college want to make this happen?  if so, message me.  call me.  just let me know.