If you’re a baseball fan, you simply cannot live without MLB Trade Rumors. The site goes bonkers every July and December, when trade rumors run rampant. MLBTR will have covered on all things Johan, Miguel, Haren, etc. If you’re a diehard baseball junkie like yours truly, you should check it out.
Any other favorite hot stove sites you check out?
So our kids are finally old enough to really get into the whole Santa Claus thing this year. Last week, Scott had a discussion over at his blog that I want to continue here. What do you tell your kids about Santa? They’ve already started asking me how he’s going to get in the house. That has to sound weird to a little kid. “Listen, this big old guy is going to come down the chimney and sneak around the house on Christmas Eve, OK?”
When they ask if he’s real, what do you say? If you go along with the whole thing, isn’t that lying to your kids? I want them to enjoy the season, but I don’t want to lie to them. Am I being too silly here?
I guess I feel like their innocence will be gone soon enough, so we’ll probably play along. Anybody got any advice? Were you totally traumatized when you found out “the truth” about Santa?
Last night’s Boys Night Out was a hit. I picked up Joshua a few minutes early from school. He’s always pretty excited about getting to ride in my truck, so the afternoon got off to a great start. I asked him what he wanted to do that night and after mulling over a few possibilities, he decided he wanted to go rent a movie. So we made a beeline to Blockbuster and picked up a copy of Ratatouille. (It was OK. Definitely not Cars. But then again, what is?) After we picked out our movie, we went next door to Books-A-Million and I let Joshua pick out a calendar to give to Abby Kate for Christmas. With my coaxing, he chose a Disney princess calendar for sis (I had to convince him not to get her the Spider-Man calendar).
After making these stops, we went home to play in the front yard. He wanted to play baseball (atta boy), so I soft-tossed a few while he took some batting practice. Then we moved to the basketball goal and took turns making shots before spending some time riding our bikes. It started to get dark and pretty cold, so we hopped back in the truck a little before 5:00. Neither of us were hungry just yet so, at Joshua’s request, we made a run to the public library. The apple sure doesn’t fall far from the tree, does it? We picked up another video and Daddy checked out a copy of Wilco’s Yankee Hotel Foxtrot. Joshua even sat still for about 10 minutes while he leafed through the latest copy of Sports Illustrated. After a quick stop at McDonald’s, we were back at home. I think we had our pajamas on with Ratatouille in the DVD player by 6:30. We capped the night off with some late night M&M’s and a wrestling match. By 9:00, the little guy was wiped out (so was Daddy!) and I tucked him in.
Last night while we were driving around, Joshua saw a church building outside his window. “What is that, Daddy?” he asked.
“It’s a church,” I told him.
“What do they do there?”
“Well, they probably talk about Jesus.”
“Daddy, you talk about Jesus.”
“Yes, son. I do.”
“When I get big, can I talk about Jesus?”
“Buddy, you can talk about Jesus now, even though you’re little.”
The biggest grin spread across his little face. “Oh. I can talk about Jesus, too!” For Dad, that was the highlight of the evening.
Here’s Joshua’s description of the night and our plans for watching today’s big game:
Last night, all 5 of us loaded up in the van to run a few errands. While we were out, we decided to stop by Burger King for dinner. This is a rare occurrence for us. Since viewing the anti-Mickey-D’s documentary SuperSize Me a few years back, Sunny has taken a virtual vow of abstinence toward all forms of fast food. But it was convenient and we were hungry, so before long we were all enjoying a bountiful feast of processed chicken gizzards and cola. It was great.
On my way back to our table after taking Joshua to potty, I overheard a conversation at another booth. Actually, I only overheard one sentence of the conversation, but that was enough to catch my ear. As we walked by, a big, burly, FSU-parka-wearing guy in his mid-40’s bellowed in a fairly loud voice, “Well, Jesus makes me nervous!” Joshua instinctively looked at the man and, with his classic inquisitive expression, asked, “What?” to no one in particular. We quickly shuffled back to our table and finished our meal. 10 minutes later, we were on our way home.
I guess I was struck by FSU’s comment because I’m not used to thinking of Jesus in those terms. The whole time we were running our errands, we listened to songs that hailed the birth of Jesus, tender and mild with cattle lowing and rumpa-pum-pum. How could this Jesus make anybody nervous, I thought to myself. The juxtaposition of the whole moment was interesting, too. While we were in the bathroom, I asked Joshua our usual series of Bible trivia questions, things like “Who built the ark?” and “Who was in the lion’s den?” and “Who saw the burning bush?” (To watch the whole performance, click here.) It just seems like the Deut. 6 thing to do, you know? Two seconds before we walked by FSU’s table, I had just asked Joshua the question, “Who walked on the water?”, to which he correctly answered, “JESUS!” My three-and-a-half year old son seemed to be infinitely more comfortable with Jesus than FSU did and I took pride in that. I suppose I gave myself an inward pat on the back for being such a good parent, for raising a child in the nurture and admonition of the Lord, or something like that.
But on the way home, I started to reflect even more on FSU’s comment. What if he’s right, I thought. Isn’t Jesus supposed to make us a little nervous? He certainly made his enemies nervous. I mean, you don’t kill a guy for walking around telling people to “Be nice” and “Obey Mommy and Daddy” and all the other things that the flannelgraph Jesus of my childhood used to tell us. Seriously, who would crucify Mr. Rogers? No, the real Jesus made the religious authorities nervous with His declaration of the coming Kingdom of God. He made them nervous because He didn’t play by their rules. He worked on the Sabbath. He didn’t wash His hands before He ate. Worse yet, He dined with sinners. People were more important to Him than issues, and that made them nervous and irate. And for this, they killed him.
I started thinking about my relationship with Jesus. And I started to wonder if maybe I’m a little too comfortable with Him sometimes. Maybe I gloss over the parts of his character that make me nervous, selectively focusing on the aspects of his teaching and life that are congruent with who I think he should be. Maybe by emphasizing Him as an ever-present friend I’ve sold myself an incomplete image of Him as Messiah. The more I thought about it, the more I realized that there’s plenty about Him that makes me nervous.
Consider the following points from His Sermon on the Mount:
I guess what I’m saying here is that I have to guard myself against a complacent attitude when it comes to Jesus. I’m certainly thankful for the relationship I have with Him, the relationship He initiated and sustains. But in that relationship, there needs to be room for Him to still surprise me. To make me nervous.
Otherwise, I’m not sure I’m seeing the real Jesus.
And I don’t want to see any other kind.
Tomorrow, Sunny and Abby Kate and Jackson will be going up to Nashville for the night. Sunny and Abby Kate will be joining my sister and her daughter to go see the Rockettes at Opryland. So that leaves Joshua and me here at the ol’ homestead. We’re looking forward to a Boys Weekend together. On Saturday, we’ll definitely make time to watch the SEC Championship Game. But we’re wide open on Friday night? Any ideas? I’m thinking of taking him to see a movie. I hear The Golden Compass is good.
Seriously, I thought about Bee Movie. Anybody seen it? Is it good? Any other suggestions? If it were summer time, I’d take him to a Stars game.
Either way, I’m looking forward to a fun night with the little guy!
I’m something of a Christmas music connoisseur. Before I married Sunny I was pretty much an Ebeneezer Scrooge come Christmas time. But she always gets the Christmas music out in October and somewhere along the way, I just learned to start enjoying it. We’ve been spinning the Christmas tunes for a few weeks now, and I’ve compiled my favorite playlist. I think you can find most of these on iTunes. I limited myself to one song per artist.
One of my assignments for this semester’s Stone Campbell Theology class was to write a paper about the future of churches of Christ. Specifically, we were charged with making some well-informed estimations of what churches of Christ will look like in 50 years. I have some of my own ideas about this, but I’m curious to know what you think. Generally speaking, when you think about the future in churches of Christ, is the outlook positive or negative? And what do we mean by those terms? What will be the effect of postmodernity in our churches? We’re already seeing some of this, but what will a full-blown postmodern orthopraxy look like in churches of Christ?
What do you think the church of Christ will look like in 50 years? I’d like to know what you think.
Over the past few months, I’ve been blessed to spend some time with some dear saints here at Mayfair, Paul Kendrick and his sweet wife Ozella. Paul is in poor health, but his mind is still nimble and sharp. His quick jokes and warm smiles spring from a place where cancer and disease cannot afflict. Miss Ozella faithfully cares for Paul with great grace and warmth. She wrote the following poem after reading Psalm 46. I share it here with you that you might be encouraged, as I was, by the words of this faithful, loving woman.
God Is Our Refuge
God is our refuge and strength what ever our troubles be.
We need not fear even if the earth crumble in the sea.
Let the mountains tremble and the oceans foam.
There is a river of joy flowing through God’s sacred home.God himself is living in that city so wonderfully fair,
It stands unmoved despite the turmoil everywhere.
He loves and lives with us and keeps us from harm,
If we will just trust him, love him and lean on his arm.The nations in anger might rant and rave,
When God speaks he does his children save.
the commander of the armies of heaven is he,
The God of Jacob has come to rescue you and me.Come see this glorious thing, our God does the world overturn,
He causes all wars to end, does all weapons burn.
He wants everyone to know, He is their God , Him you must heed!
The commander is among us, He will out of bondage lead.
I just wanted to follow up and thank all of you who made a contribution to this year’s St. Jude’s Campaign for a Cure. Because of your donations, Sunny and I were able to TRIPLE our fundraising goal. Thank you for your kindness and your generosity. I hope you know that your contribution will make the difference in the life of a cancer-stricken child. I know several of you also chose to contribute online and I’m personally grateful for your help, too.
If you didn’t get a chance to make a donation last month, you can click here to make an donation at the St. Jude website. You can choose to make a one-time donation, or sponsor a child through a monthly gift. If you’re more comfortable, you can mail your donation directly to St. Jude at P.O. Box 187, Memphis, TN 38101-0187. If you’d like more information before making your donation, visit www.stjude.org or call 1 800 822 6344. If you’re unable to contribute financially, please continue to pray for these children suffering with cancer as well as their families.
Thanks again for your help. God bless.
Left for dead after a 41-17 drubbing by the Crimson Tide six weeks ago, my beloved Vols miraculously resurrected their season and, following today’s quadruple-overtime victory over the Kentucky Wildcats, are poised to represent the Eastern Division in next weekend’s Southeastern Conference Championship Game. It’s a testament to what a zany year it’s been that we could lose to Florida by 39 and Bama by 24 and still make it to Atlanta. I’m sure all the prognosticators will pick LSU to completely demolish us, but tonight, we’re simply savoring a 9-3 regular season and a shot at the SEC crown. Now if I could just get my hands on a couple of tickets for next week’s game…
It’s great to be a Tennessee Vol…
already & not yet 