RetrophischRaise your hand if you’ve ever seen an entire church moving down the road. Put your hands down; I don’t mean the whole congregation cruising caravan-style. I’m talking about the entire church building.
Well, thanks to the technological miracles of time-lapse photography and YouTube, now you can say you have:
A wave of the phin to Dethroner, and I have to agree with Joel that the video’s soundtrack totally makes it.
A little while ago, I finished watching “The Christmas Show” episode of Studio 60. The show closes with an awesome performance by New Orleans musicians who are supported by the Tipitina’s Foundation. The group performs one of my favorite Christmas songs, “O Holy Night”, and you can still snag a MP3 from Studio 60’s music page.
Yesterday, my wife awoke to find our son still in his bed. Granted, he was awake, but he’s only three and still hasn’t quite figured out the whole Christmas morning, Santa has left presents, thing. So she went to get him up, and moments later he came in to our room.
“Hi, Daddy.”
“Merry Christmas, buddy!” I tell him as Mom helps him up on the bed.
“Merry Christmas, Daddy,” he replies, giving me as big a bear hug as his little arms can muster.
He then proceeds to plop down next to me, still hugging me, and we stay like that for about forty-five seconds before he pops up and says, “Come on, Daddy. Let’s go get presents.”
If nothing else, those sixty seconds made this the best Christmas ever.
On September 25th this year, our church hosted a concert by Derek Webb, of Caedmon’s Call fame, along with his wife, Sandra McCracken.
I had a good seat (thanks, Samantha!), and took a few shots of the couple as they performed, plus of the good-sized crowd before the concert, and in between sets.
Beyond his lyrical abilities, one of the things I admire about Derek is his desire to simply get the message of God’s love out there. At one point during his set, he remarked how he was going to freak out all the lawyers and record executives by telling all of us to share his music with whomever we wanted to. Earlier this year, he had even gone so far as to put his latest album, Mockingbird, online as a free download. He says it was a very successful experiment.
So, fellow dads, how’s your day going? A pretty quiet one for us here at the Phisch Bowl. It was nice to sleep in a little, then off to church, and Mi Cocina for lunch (Sunset Fajitas!). Both the little phisch and the missus crashed for a nap, and in addition to doing some online reading, I’ve enjoyed one of my Father’s Day gifts: the fifth season DVD set of Seinfeld. Season five is notable because it includes my favorite Seinfeld episode, “The Marine Biologist”, which I watched, along with the episode’s extras, a few minutes ago.
A pair of homemade gifts from the little phisch: a framed handprint he made at school, and a pocket-protector card he colored in Sunday School this morning. As usual, these will take prominent spots on the refrigerator and study whiteboard.
I’m usually the one who gets our little guy down for his naps, and today was no exception. As he drifted off, and I looked at his peaceful face, it was one of those Hallmark moments where your heart feels like it’s about to burst. Since becoming a father, I have learned more about how much my own dad loves me than I ever thought I knew.
Likewise, having had those thoughts parents have, since becoming a dad my relationship with God has deepened, as I understand more how wrenching it was for Him to give up His only Son for the world.
My fellow dads, I hope you all have a great day.
Dad, I love you. Thanks for always being there, and setting the example you did.
During the Christmas season, one sees Angel Trees nearly everywhere: at work, in the malls, at church; you can hardly go anywhere without running in to an Angel Tree. Between church and work, we’ve already picked a few angels ourselves, and I’m sure many of you have, too.
There is a group of children that are often overlooked this time of year, and those are the children of prison inmates. Prison Fellowship started its Angel Tree ministry in 1982, and has been going strong ever since. It’s not these kids’ fault their parents are behind bars, and they deserve to get something for Christmas as much as any other child.
This year, a generous donor is matching all Angel Tree contributions up to $100,000, which means a normal donation that would give one child a gift will now serve two kids.
So please consider making a donation that can turn what is often a lonely time for these kids into one of joy.
Hugh notes Kevin McCullough’s campaign to send Christmas cards to the ACLU.
Ever since the little phisch was born, the Christmas cards we’ve sent out have been the kind where a photo of the youngun was part of the card. So we have a few boxes of Christmas cards that will likely never be used. Kevin’s campaign sounds fun, and I have the materials.
So the ACLU can expect a Christmas card from me this year. Probably two. Maybe three.
Alright, four.
Let’s just say, when I get tired of signing them and filling out the address info on the envelopes, okay?
Despite the financial hardships and the extended family dysfunctional, I have an incredible amount of things to be thankful for again this year. I pray you do, too.
“It is the duty of all Nations to acknowledge the providence of Almighty God, to obey his will, to be grateful for his benefits, and humbly to implore his protection and favors.” –George Washington, Thanksgiving Proclamation, 3 October 1789
(Yes, I know “threesey” isn’t a real word, but I was attempting a rhyme.)
Today was game three of our fall season, and I must confess I have never before been embarrassed to wear the jersey of my team as I was today.
Oh, we won, 15-10. The embarrassment was due to the conduct of a few of our teammates.
The ump behind the plate was being very inconsistent with his pitch calling. Wildly inconsistent, with regard to what constituted a ball for one team versus the other. You can intuit the inconsistency was not in our team’s favor.
As I have gotten older, I have mellowed with regard to sports officials. For the most part. These are guys and ladies who have to make a decision in a nanosecond, including times when the call could honestly go either way. Umpires, referrees, they’re not perfect. They’re human, and like all of us are prone to mistakes. I understand that, and respect their authority.
The remaining issue I have with sports officials is a lack of consistency. If pitch A is a ball, and pitch B comes across in exactly the same spot, it should be called a ball, too. Today’s umpire was not being consistent. By the fourth inning, the ire of the team had been raised to a fever pitch. We were on our third pitcher, and not necessarily because the first two were throwing junk. Mind you, there were balls being thrown, but as I murmured to one of my teammates on the bench (I switched off every other inning with Dave at 3d), the law of averages dictates that some of these pitches had to be strikes.
In the top of the fifth, some words were shared from the dugout by one of our teammates, loud enough for the umpire to hear. This was after an exchange while this player was at the plate. The umpire called our coach over, and the team was informed, via this conversation, that if anyone uttered another such comment, they would be ejected. It was a sad moment, I feel, for our team.
After the game, our coach informed us that while she was catching in the fourth, she had asked for some consistency in the pitch calling from the umpire. His reply was a simple nod. The only failing I see here was that our coach should have informed the entire team of this at the end of the inning. The unpleasantness might have then be avoided.
I’m sure some of you are thinking, so what’s the big deal? The big deal is that this is a church league. Yes, we are out there to play, have fun, and yes again, to win. However, we should be doing so in a manner worthy of the God we call Lord. We failed to do so today.
It has been said on more than one occasion and by more than one person that Christians are their own worst enemies. More often than not, our words bear no witness for us to the world. Rather, it is our conduct which bears that witness, and we failed in that regard. Our opposition, which was losing, showed what good sportsmanship should look like.
Our league’s games are not the only ones in progress. At the park we play at, there are two other fields in operation. There are spectators, and kids playing on the jungle gym. Sometimes, you may get only one chance to witness to another human being, and you may not even know it. Again, the witness may be through your conduct and never through your words. Who may have been watching our game today, and saw what happened? Who may have thought about checking our church out, but now won’t set foot inside of it? Who may have thought, Gee, if those Christians are just like everyone else, what’s the point? Playing softball is fun, yes, and we play to win, but we should keep in mind we are playing to witness, too, and today, we blew it. Personally, I would rather lose with dignity, with our witness to the world intact.
The cliché goes, “Christians aren’t perfect, just forgiven.” It’s true; we’re still human, though we work to emulate the one Who’s name we bear, the one Who called us to follow Him. People will lose their tempers; that happened today. But we should always be mindful of the consequences of losing that temper.
For the record, I went three for three at the plate, with two RBIs. My defense could have been better; I had a guy cold at first, and my throw is four feet off my baseman’s stretch. The team won.
And we lost.
Congratulations to Michael Hyatt, who is going to have to change the graphic on his blog after his promotion yesterday.
(What Mr. Hyatt doesn’t know, is that when I finally get around to writing my Christian-worldview technothriller, I will relentlessly harass him to publish it. So keep that between us, okay?)
Seriously, though, Mr. Hyatt has big shoes to fill, and we wish him the best and will keep him in our prayers. Sure, all businesses exist to make money, but my view is that Christian businesses, and notably in this case, a publishing house, exist for a higher purpose as well.