the unlikely orange

    well, we finished our first full day of work in atlantic city yesterday, and we had an amazing day.  we got to work on the house of a man named Anthony, who's home was flooded by the ocean and bay waters, in addition to the damage on the roof.  the electric in the house was completely ruined, and, in the end, the house had to be gutted.  there has been a bit of work done by contractors so far, but currently the house has no electricity, and is basically just a skeleton inside.  anthony and his wife, children, and grandchildrden have been living in someone else's home for the last 10 months.  so when we got there yesterday morning we got right to work.  some of us starting building framing around the ductwork, while others got busy cleaning mildew growth on the ceiling, and treating it.  a bit later there was priming and painting of windows, and cleaning out the mudroom and framing it with studs.  we stopped for a peanut...

good morning from the jersey shore.  i am writing from my cot in the social hall of the bethany st. john's umc church in pleasantville, nj, where 8 of us from our church are staying for the next few days as part of our mission project here to help out with some of the hurricane sandy relief.  we had a wonderful commissioning service yesterday in church, in which the church pledged their support of us, and recognized us as extensions of them, all of us ambassadors for Christ.  we made the 3 hour 15 minute drive without any issues, and arrived here in pleasantville around 5pm.  after meeting some folks from the church, we got settled in, got a tour of the building, ate a homemade dinner of pulled pork sandwiches and played a couple of games before bedtime.  after a very competitive version of apples to apples, we all did some reading and our devotions for the night, and then hit the sack.  this morning we will be meeting our construction coordinator, w...

    - i can't wait to witness this sharpening process first hand sometime this week, and see that scripture-quoting, wisdom-dispensing guru of a coach (i call him the warrior poet) continue to refine this team into what they will become.  part of my annual pilgrimage.  -iron sharpens iron.  that's not something tomlin made up, of course.  you can find it in proverbs 27:17.  it says, "as iron sharpens iron, so one person sharpens another."  its a statement about conflict and resolution, as i see it.  its not merely a proverb about war, or football, or even arguing all the time.  its saying that when we try and exist in a vacuum, we become very dull indeed.  but when we live our story, when we are authentic and genuine and find ourselves bumping up against others who are also living theirs, we inevitably experience a bit of friction.  and friction, when it exists in a constructive context, is a sharpening agent.  -...

i know that there are some who are going to call me a fair-weather fan, or a bandwagonner, and that is fine.  truth is, i finally did lose interest in the buccos.  living in new jersey during the dryest of the dry years, it was especially hard to follow the team, since sportscenter never even showed a highlight, and the newspaper only ever gave a sentence description of each game.  i've been to several games at PNC over those lean years, and have always considered myself a pirates fan, but i certainly stopped following the team closely.  until 2010.  when we moved to central pennsylvania in 2010 and my cable package suddenly included ROOT sports Pittsburgh, i started watching the buccos.  and since then it has been a (mostly upwards) journey.  this year has been awesome.  now before anyone protests too loudly, of course i'm still a yankees fan! i love the yankees, and i'm still following them daily, despite their awfulness.  but i am jus...

-hey there, monday!  happy rain day!  don't know what rain day is?  well, its a famous day in the town of my birth, waynesburg, pennsylvania.  on july 29th every year they celebrate something called rain day because, according to local records, it has rained on july 29th on 113 of the last 138 years.  the radar can be as clear as a newly cleaned window, but there will always seem to be one little green dot over that corner of southwestern pennsylvania where waynesburg is nestled into the hills of greene county.  and when life gives you rain, what do you do?  well, make a festival out of it, of course.  so waynesburgians have long had a festival/carnival on july 29th, complete with games, food, a beauty pageant, live music, and anything else you can imagine.  i remember walking up high street, right through the heart of the festival, as a child, and going to a kind of general store (was it called McCrory's?), and buying my first gobots....

in case the poster i made isn't enough; in case you need me to pile up my words to demonstrate the inane level of my fanaticism, here goes: today is a holiday (literally: holy day)!  and, boy, do i love holidays!  today is the 46th year of a special annual tradition in which the football team from pittsburgh makes the drive down to latrobe, pennsylvania, and onto the campus of saint vincent college, passing the fred rogers center on the way in (yes, that mr. rogers), and making their way to rooney hall.  eventually they will all gather at chuck noll field (just listen to these names...it's like a who's who of the historical greats) and begin to practice together in the hot august sun, another step in their quest for an unprecedented seventh lombardi trophy.  this is a sacred day.  if nothing else, it is a day of hope.  in training camp, there are no losses on the record.  there is only potential and prognostication, and depending on who you l...

two years ago today, our youngest son was born to the strains of grieg's "peer gynt," bent on making a dramatic entrance and then sleeping off the euphoria.  he's been dramatic ever since.  and he's been a ridiculous joy, too.  it's hard to believe its been two years since that day, but what isn't hard to believe is just how packed those years are with smiles and laughter, with uncountable kisses on the head.  these 730 days or so have been chock-full of rubbing his soft cheeks and smelling the nape of his neck and looking into his blue eyes.  and today we stop all that just long enough to say with words and song and cake and presents, just how much we rejoice that you happened to us.  happy birthday, little man!  we are full of love for you.