It had been eleven years since the last time we were home at Christmas, and we made up for lost time in the two weeks we spent in the desert. I had a busy month or so before our trip, including my church's staging of A Christmas Carol the second week of December and all the…
Micah and I were in a public restroom a couple weeks ago. I was trying to help him wash his hands, which proved to be difficult due to the height of the sink -- we use a stool at home -- and the faucet was one of those push-on varieties, the kind that you have to press every couple of seconds. I had to keep telling him that, no, we weren't done yet: "I still see bubbles. Let's get all the bubbles off."
I'm postponing my normal First Century Pastor post today to tell you about a little Mexican girl I loved in second grade. Her name was Veronica Rodriguez, and she had tan skin and dark hair that ran the length of her back. ... Back then I was no more Mexican than my Gringo mother and stepfather.
Becky and I played together constantly. Sometimes we played with my collection of Hot Wheels, some of which Dad would dig up from the backyard decades later. Other times we played with her Barbies. Yes, I admit I played with Barbies. Cindy thinks that my having played with dolls has made me a more sensitive father. I think it’s made me a better dresser.
Today is our younger daughter Jacque’s birthday. She’s eleven, though well into her teen years. She, not her older sister Lindsay, seems to want to grow up fast, though her idea of growing up doesn’t involve maturity and becoming more responsible. In fact, she’s trying to earn her job at home back, which she lost because she took too many personal days—the laziness bug typical of too many American kids.
Worship isn’t something we add into our calendar as a set appointment or something we put on our checklist. Worship is our calendar. Worship is our to-do list. (It’s also our checkbook … or, debit cards. Who writes checks?) Everywhere we are and in everything we do we can worship God, or we can ignore him. If you need a particular style of music or crosses in view or altars or stained glass, then you’ve missed it.
I love going to and hosting parties. I remember birthday parties as a kid, ones I always shared with my twin sister. My mother used to order a sheet cake from Goldsboro’s Bakery, I think it was, featuring Strawberry Shortcake on one half for Becky and the other with Hot Wheels or the like for me. One childhood birthday party in particular I remember with shame.
I've found myself lately just staring at him, enraptured, with an inerasable smile on my face. He's begun walking. He'd been taking a few unguided steps lately, but just yesterday he really started going, ambling the expanse of our living room. I watch him like I'd watch a trapeze artist, with the sense that eventually he'll fall but wondering how far his momentum will take him.
Today marks the occasion of my dad’s birthday. He would have been 50 today. Coincidentally, my grandma is celebrating her 75th today. Two milestone numbers they’d planned to commemorate together. It’s hard to believe it’s been two months since Dad died. It seems like just yesterday when we were driving back to Arizona to be…
Eleven years ago today Cindy and I awoke in a daze. Had the previous day really happened? Yes, Cindy’s womb was empty. The first of now three, Lindsay joined our family on November 2nd a little earlier than planned—nearly three months prematurely. We’d stayed the night in a hotel, what seemed a world away from our premie, who spent her first night in the NICU at St. Joseph’s in downtown Phoenix. We made the three-hour drive from Yuma the previous morning, just eight hours after Lindsay was born. She’d taken a helicopter ride that first day of her fragile life.
