Will the Real Problem Please Stand Up?

You'd have to be living under a rock to have missed what is happening with the states' highest executive here in Illinois the last few weeks. Allegedly, we have Governor who is on audio recordings making statements about what he planned to do and what he planned not to do about filling a vacated US Senate seat here in Illinois. Interestingly enough the seat was made vacant because the current President-elect Barak Obama had to resign the seat in order to eventually take the office of President of the United States.

Now maybe i am just way too cynical but frankly, the whole affair is not all that shocking... not from the sense that it's not a big deal but rather this is one case in which i wonder if the electorate of Illinois is ultimately to blame. Not only that, but is it possible that while we (the people, the press and whomever else) wring our hands, call for impeachment and whatever else... our real problem, the real "enemy" so to speak isn't simply graft, greed or politics as usual... maybe the problem is us.

From not voting, to not caring, to not getting connected with our communities, perhaps the issue is us. It would seem that the threshold, the standard to serve in a public role has been lowered so significantly... we have so grown accustomed to excusing poor behavior... especially the poor behavior of those who have been entrusted with positions of leadership both public officials and private individuals... maybe the problem is really us.

It's ridiculous to think that our leaders are going to live up to a standard that the rest of us pretty much ignore as well... so while we point and wag our fingers, while we cluck our tongues in disgust... i wonder if each of us would do well to take a personal integrity and character inventory.

Do i think the governor of our state is as pure as the driven snow (which is piling up pretty fast outside my window right now)...hmmmm probably not. But one thing for sure, the problem is not all with the governor, i truly think the real problem... just maybe us.

My Christmas Story.....

Our family spent this past Saturday going to out to a Christmas tree farm...looking for the "perfect tree"... The weather did not cooperate... SURPRISE! But we finally did find "the tree"... Is it perfect? Probably not but for our family it will more than do the job! That trip out to Newark, IL got me thinking about Christmas growing up as a kid in the south suburbs of Chicago. i am telling you right now, we did some down right funny stuff at Christmas!

The big thing at our house was....
CHRISTMAS PRESENTS ARE ONLY OPENED ON CHRISTMAS DAY... PERIOD... END OF DISCUSSION... so we figured okay... if that's the rule we'll stay up all night until the stroke of midnight on Christmas eve and then those presents were ours! Er, wrong.... not until about 6 or 7 AM were we allowed to open presents... that was still okay... we'd wait!
The only problem was that as little kids it's real easy to misjudge the impact that trying to stay up for about 24 hours straight might have on your little body! So we (uh i mean, I) came up with a brilliant plan!

Growing up in Park Forest, my mom and her sisters over several years lived together which meant that we often had our cousins living in our home and vice versa. Anyway, one of my favorite cousins when i was a kid was my cousin, Chris. He was about two years younger than me but man he was a funny kid! It just so happened that one Christmas he and i made a decision to stay up together on Christmas eve until we were given the final "all clear" to open the presents. After talking about various methods that we might use i came up with a brilliant (and pretty funny plan). Since caffinated coffee was not on our list of desirable drinks, we settled on something else. In our home there would be various canned goods, (canned the "old-fashoined way... in jars) and often the empty jars were then reused for various things. My idea was that if one of us saw the other one falling asleep we were to take one of the jars and knock the other one on the head with it... what can i say... it worked in the cartoons!
Being the older of the two i didn't care what it took... i wasn't getting bonked on the head and sure enough, Chris began to fall asleep and i got the chance to hit him in the head with a canning jar... i don't know if it helped or not... but he did have a huge knot on his head the next morning which was the source of several angry questions about how we could be so stupid... but we laughed our selves silly about it.

Frankly i don't remember what we got that Christmas but that memory has stayed with me ever since and every single time i think about it, i laugh... i don't know if Chris laughs about it or not but knowing him, probably.

Change happens...

This past week we celebrated Thanksgiving with my wife's parents and with my Mom and something struck me in what could be a "throw away" moment... it happened in my mind while helping my wife's folks load up their car with all the stuff they brought with them from their home in Indiana and all the new stuff they bought on "black Friday" (i'm thinking with regard to a certain president-elect that day should have taken on an entirely different meaning this year ;)... anyway i had the strangest sensation at that moment... i realized...."Hmm, there may not be a whole lot more family events like this..."

Not because i don't love my in-laws or my Mom or because all we do is fight at family gatherings about religion, politics or this year's embarrassment-to-the-family-family member... but because everyone is getting "older"...

It seems a bit unreal to me that i have one son who is about to head off to college and another one who will probably do the same thing in just a couple more years after his brother... the holidays like Thanksgiving and Christmas will be different... it's hard to explain but it is profound.

My family is changing...

My in-laws and my Mom are growing older, Ruthie and i are growing older and get this... my children are well on their way to adulthood.... it's weird. It's one of those things where i think i should be like... happy.

And instead, i became all introspective and things....

Anyway, we had a good time, and tomorrow (Saturday) will go on what could be a last current "family configuration" trip to a tree farm and cut down our own Christmas tree... something Ruthie and i first did when we lived in Calgary... that tree cost us 5 bucks Canadian (in US currency about $2)... oh yeah it was a long time ago... i really need to be more careful about those "throw away" moments...

For Cryin' Outloud!?!?

Well, several weeks have passed since i last wrote for my blog and if anything i can say for sure is that i never cease to be amazed by people and the things they say out loud....

Perhaps it's the thought that somehow because we think a certain thing or feel a certain way, we believe that people just have to take whatever we dish out to them... that somehow we can say whatever we want to someone or about someone and that should be perfectly fine.

Well it's not... and if there is one thing every single one of us could learn is how to make sure that what ends up coming out of our "pie-hole", first passes through that thing we loosely refer to as a brain...

By now you are probably thinking... sheesh who ticked Rob off this week... well let's just say, it's not so much a person but an apparent mental and emotional immaturity that's reared it's head again this week in sooooooo many ways, too numerous to count!

Some people say whatever they want no matter how mean because they truly believe that it's best to "speak the truth", the main problem with this approach is that you can speak the "truth" all you want but if haven't gained "the right" to speak the "truth" to someone else, in the end you end up sounding like a really, really mean and ill-mannered, boorish lout!

i also think that some people "spew" their "truth" because it's a really convenient way to hide behind their own "stuff"... you know what i mean... some of us are so busy pointing out where everyone else is a "screw up" that we never deal with where we personally are screwy! And listen, there is nothing wrong with being messed up, the problem is when we choose (even when we know better) to stay messed up!

Anyway, all of that to say, civility is not a lost virtue... c'mon folks that's not so hard... is it? Let me know... maybe you have a different take on this whole subject...

Something completely different....

Wow... the last 24 hours have been truly historical for our nation. And in preparing to write this blog i have gone back and forth with regard with what to say...

See, my problem is that while i strongly disagree with quite a few of the policies that our President-elect Barak Obama indicated he would initiate while on the campaign trail if elected president over the last several months... there is this place inside of me that can't help but...

• Wonder what my uncles feel today... since they were actual participants in the Montgomery bus boycott...

• Wonder what my aunts and mom feel today... since they grew up in a region of our country that it was once said of "sweltered with the heat of oppression and injustice..."

• Wonder what my granddad (if he were still living) would feel today... since he no doubt suffered the repeated indignity of being called "boy" even as a grown man...

• Wonder what my great, great grandfather George, the son of a slave would think... since he lived the reality of being considered a non-human, never laying claim to the self evident truths that this nation's citizens were all "endowed by their Creator with certain inalienable rights"...

If not for any other reason... pondering these things has been (i think) a good thing... my hope is that despite the differences that might continue to divide our nation... we would take a moment to appreciate the historicity of what has just occurred and then collectively "roll up our sleeves" and get back to work doing what God has called each of us to do...

What I Remember....

A few things but not everything...


The day Ruthie walked into my office down in the basement of the house that had been converted into our church offices and put a bunch of pamphlets on my desk.....

Being the only guy at the shower for you even though all the other guys told me i didn't have to go...

Being interrupted when "Nobungas's Ambition" with Jim Johnson was just getting good....

Wearing my Met's hat and those goofy glasses in our first picture together...

The first time Uncle Jim and Auntie Andrea met you....

When i drove like an idiot to get to the emergency room at Lougheed hospital because of the intersection of a brick fireplace and a lower lip...

Dr. Cho and a pink cast that ultimately became the cast of the World Champion Chicago Bulls...

Coaching (and not very well either i might add) soccer and basketball games with your teams, i don't think we won a single game in either sport but you were a really good player and a good sport....

How excited you were when you found out you would be a big brother.....

The day you told me that you and your little brother decided that you really wanted to get baptized together....

That the poor and disadvantaged, the neglected and forgotten about were the people that you really wanted to work with for the rest of your life....

When you drove what had been up to that time just your Mom's car for the first time...

i remember when it struck me several years ago that soon you would be moving out of our home to start your own life and frankly i was embarrassed that i had let the time slip away from me...

Siah, you have always heard me say i love you but this week i look at you and i am proud of the man that you have become...

Happy birthday bud....

Dad

Bittersweet....

Well, i have put this off long enough... i sort of hinted at a bittersweet visit to Indianapolis (a great town no matter what you hear otherwise) in a recent Twitter update... but i'd like to explain what i meant.
My family and i lived in Indy for a long time as a matter of fact for all of our children, Indianapolis is really our "home". Don't misunderstand me, we absolutely love being back in the Chicago area but outside of this part of the world, the longest we have ever lived in one place (almost 10 years) was Indy...
i guess the bittersweet part was having an opportunity on Saturday afternoon at a wedding reception (congratulations Christiana & Jason!) to visit with a few people from the church where for seven years i served as one of the pastors... As i fell asleep on Sunday night all i could think of were the missed opportunities to impact the area and the lives of families in that part of Indianapolis. i found myself wondering what in the world we were thinking?

We went into that church and pretty much took a bad situation and made it lots and lots worse. i am complicit because instead of standing up and asking "what in the world are we doing"... i just went along with it all and now it all looks like so much carnage... even as i write this entry i struggle with what i am feeling.... really, really saddened by what i saw this past weekend, but thrilled to be serving where i am serving... very surreal, difficult and embarrassing to explain. Maybe the guilt is just now really catching up to me all these years later or maybe just maybe, i am trying to wrap my mind around how the church in the United States can appear to be so fantastically vibrant on one hand but so incredibly anemic on the other...

Whatever the case i think maybe i have gotten this out of my system, i am thrilled to still be making a difference, my hope is that we will have many more years of being able to touch other people's lives right where we are....

Get the God-Life!

Last week i didn't get a chance to write on my blog due to a couple of factors (all of which are excuses and as Pastor Amado always says about excuses... well you'd need to ask him about that). Anyway, our staff had an annual planning retreat out near Starved Rock here in Illinois (The picture isn't actually where we stayed... the place we were at was much, much nicer, Thanks Mr. D!). i have to tell you... the fact is, i don't know how we manage to accomplish much of anything, we spend the majority of the time laughing! But that is in the end a very good thing because when we were done with this retreat several issues for our growing ministry were raised, discussed and clarified all of this done in a spirit of excited anticipation!

Now the key is how do we articulate what we believe is God's is calling us to do both as leaders and as a church and how we plan to lead over the next season of ministry. This is one of the most exciting things to me in ministry.... the constant call to stay sensitive to what God is saying...

Many of you who read this blog are folks who are trying to walk what i like to refer to as the "God-life" and that is a challenge and it's even more difficult when you are in a position of influence in a church... because it is often from this vantage point we often see just how "broken" all of us are... but everyday (at least for me) i get a chance to be with people who are committed to the God-life to the point of making significant personal sacrifice, who make me laugh and with whom i am excited to face the future with... all of which makes the God-life a joyful journey!

A very special year....

What year did a second woman join the United States Supreme Court?



This was the same year that the World Trade Center was attacked for the first time...


Professional Canadian sports team franchises won both the World Series (first for a Canadian team) and the Stanley Cup (24th time for this franchise)....



Despite what former vice-president Al Gore says, this was the year in which the Internet was offered for "free of charge"....




i watched at Greg & Laura Bruno's house as John Paxson scored a three point basket in game six of the NBA finals to give the Chicago Bulls a victory over the Phoenix Suns for their third consecutive NBA championship... the first three-peat in their franchise history!


And on the first Friday of October of that year in a hospital here in the western suburbs a wide-eyed baby boy was born into my family... he would gain legendary status as the one kid who absolutely refused, often at the top of his lungs ;) to stay with anyone other than his dear mother. He was the biggest one at birth and is the biggest one in our house to this day...

Every since he was a baby, he has had a heart as big as Texas... in all these years he has only grown sweeter... he's a good boy and i love him.

Happy Birthday Jonah!

That's $700 billion... with a "B"!

There has been a lot of talk lately about the financial meltdown taking place in our nation's financial sectors... i am just wondering if the vast majority of folks are really taking notice of the whole deal? A $700 BILLION dollar "bail-out"?!? Whoa!

i don't pretend to have any real great knowledge of the issues that have caused what has happened to happen but i do know this... the continual pointing of fingers is getting pretty darn old. At some point don't we ALL just sort of roll up our sleeves and collectively say let's fix this?!?

i subscribe to a book summary deal, where get regular emails with book summaries attached and one i received not too long ago had this book attached to it, The Post-American World by Zakaria Fareed.

In this book Fareed makes the following astounding but accurate observation...
"The…American political system seems to have lost its ability to create broad coalitions that solve complex issues. The economic dysfunctions…are the consequences of specific government policies." "The American political system has lost the ability for large-scale compromise, and it has lost the ability to accept some pain now for much gain later on." "The United States…has developed a highly dysfunctional politics." "[It] has been captured by money, special interests, a sensationalist media, and ideological attack groups."
Now don't get me wrong there is a ton of other stuff i read in the book summary that i have a few problems with but in this regard... this inability to create "broad coalitions and solve complex issues" within our own nation... should be a "Houston... we have a problem..." wake up call!

What is our problem? Why can't we disagree without getting all nasty and stuff? Or why can't we drop labels and do the right thing, when it's time to do the right thing? i know what many of you are probably thinking... Hey that's what being an American is all about!!! i am not too sure about that but i do know if ever there was a time to try our very level best to be ONE nation... i think this may be it.

Never Forget....

i have to admit, it always catches me a bit off guard... as i sit here this morning at Starbucks and listen to the reading of the names... i get very emotional... it's not embarrassing it really hurts... a lot.

All i remember is eating a bowl of cereal rather quickly trying to get out of the door for the start of what was a cool, bright, sunny, fall-ish day. By the end of that day almost 200 people would come together in the worship center of where i served in ministry, trying to make sense of what had occurred that morning as i finished a bowl of corn flakes....

Even now, as i hear these names read aloud all i can think of is, in fact, the terror of the day. Maybe that is a sign of weakness or whatever but that day caused me and countless millions to weep tears that still sting our cheeks to this day.

Many people and pundits talked then and still today (seven years later) of how for that brief moment we (the US) had the sympathy of the world and how we ultimately squandered that by prosecuting questionable military actions around the world, blah, blah, blah.... all i know is that looking at the television screen that morning September 11th, 2001, the only thing that mattered was finding out if my mother, brother and sister- in-law who lived and worked in New York City at the time were alright. i didn't want sympathy, i wanted answers.

To be blunt, i am still a bit angry as well, for as upset as i get every single time i think about 9/11, i believe it would do us good as a nation to see the images of the World Trade Center engulfed in smoke and flames, with greater frequency than simply on the "anniversary" date... perhaps we would with greater consistency remember that evil is very real and very deadly.

We Need to Get A Grip!

Have you ever found yourself wanting to see one particular team lose a game but knowing that everything would still be "okay"even if they ended up winning?

That's how i felt... about the Super Bowl a few years back.

It was an historic day... for the first time in the history of the NFL the two head coaches (best of friends actually) on opposite sides of the field were men of color (black to be exact)! The two teams were both teams that I had an strong fondness for... one team had been the team of my "youth"... i grew up watching Bob Avelini, Bob Thomas, Vince Evans and an assortment of head coaches deal with the never ending frustration of not being able to win in the playoffs! i did however, love the Bears Shufflin' Crew most of all.

The other team on the field that night had earned a very special place in my heart too! i had watched this team go from winning a grand total of six games in the first two years of my living in Indianapolis to a record of 13 and 3 and winning their division under their second year quarterback Peyton Manning.... to their rightly earned spot in THE championship game!

So when "Super Bowl Sunday" arrived i can confidently say it would have been totally alright no matter who won the game that night...

• Would the world have ended as we know it? Probably not...

• Would football fans from all around the world joined hands and sang a rousing chorus of Kum Bah Ya? In all likelihood uh... No.

• Would the game itself have morphed into something completely unrecognizable as NFL football? i doubt it.

My "head" told me which team to cheer for while my "heart" tugged in a different direction...

All the while the game was truly exciting, at the end of the game i knew, i knew... everything would be just fine... my confidence and trust in the things of life were not so wrapped up in this "contest" that i found myself wondering if the fate of the entire universe depended on who won... crazy huh?

Hmmm, i wonder if there are a few things we could learn from my "Super Bowl" experience in light of our current cultural and political climate... i think so... we really need to get a grip!

On the Threshold of History...

Last night i watched American history being made..... and while i must admit i do not agree with most of the policies of either of the remaining candidates for President of the United States, last night was an evening for the history books. For the first time ever, one of our nation's main political party's placed into nomination for the highest office in the land, the name of a person of color, Barak Obama.

As someone who has a great affection and appreciation (and literally has family "skin" in the game) for all of the struggles of those who have gone before me, those whose blood flowed in the streets of our nation, those who were mauled and attacked by police dogs, those who refused to give up their seats at lunch counter or on a bus, those who toiled in cotton fields but knew the day would come when the bitterness of slavery would be wiped out by the sweetness of freedom... what i witnessed last night in many ways is what is one of the things i consider truly amazing about our nation. This undeniable ability to, even in the face of continuous self condemnation, self-doubt, internal rancor and disagreement do that which seems implausible, impossible and unthinkable.

Please do not misunderstand me, i do not think for one minute that the nomination of Barak Obama as the Democratic candidate for president has made (or will make) our long history and ugly struggle with regard to racial issues and racial justice simply disappear (i do have some ideas on that issue but that is for an other blog) ... but for this one moment we can and should celebrate this victory that is yes symbolic but it is also very, very real.

More Flags.... More Fun?!?

This past week i didn't write for my blog because my family took a couple of days and went to Six Flags Great America in Gurnee, Illinois. And except for a couple of minor inconveniences, we had a lot of fun! Of course the one who was most excited and couldn't stop talking about going to Great America for about a month leading up to it was our youngest, Levi.

The most interesting thing to me was the difference between Great America and a trip we took as a family a little over a year ago to Disney World... Now don't get me wrong, Great America was a ton of fun, and Disney was simply fantastic but in many ways the differences were pretty startling. For one, Great America is a place that a typical family could basically afford... my understanding is that the prices for Disney were increased this year... while the prices at Great America decreased! As a matter of fact you could purchase Great America tickets on-line for the typical admission price for a child! Which we did! Very nice!

On the other hand the difference in the parks was very obvious as well. While bands of pre-teens and teen-agers freely roamed Great America, unfettered from parents... at Disney, everywhere you looked it was family after family after family. Not only did you see tons and tons of roaming bands of young people at Great America... but the cleanliness factor was stark. Ask anyone in the church office, i am a freak about bathrooms being clean. i am absolutely convinced that the level of cleanliness of the bathrooms in a public place (like Great America or Disneyland or a library, school or a church) can tell you a whooooole lot about a place! And frankly in the bathrooms at Disneyworld the operative word was "spotless"... at Great America... mmmmm, not so much.

It was sort of weird to me... going to Great America brought me back to my High School days here in northern Illinois. Getting a chance to go to Great America was what you lived for! Back then it was a place of wonder and amazement... but i have to admit i sort of accidentally slipped into my evaluation mode and felt a bit sad that it seemed to have lost a lot of that luster in the intervening years...

It was still fun to go, ride the coasters (it was definitely affirmed *again* that i am too old for wooden roller coasters) and watch my kids have a blast! So maybe there slogan is really true... more flags... is more fun!

The New "Evil Empire"?!?

In a lot of ways it's back to the "bad guys" versus the world....

You remember don't you? i do! i recall vividly sitting in my living room in the winter of 1980 watching the US Olympic hockey team do the unthinkable... beat the dreaded U.S.S.R! It was sweet! i remember jumping up and down as Al Michaels asked..."Do you believe in miracles?!?" The US didn't win the medal that night but did a few days later after defeating Finland.




What about Mary Decker Slaney at the 1984 Olympics in Los Angeles? She was attempting to win her first ever (and best chance for a) gold medal in the 3,000 meter final. That is, until Zola Budd, who many Americans disliked simply because she represented the apartheid (at the time) nation of South Africa, crowded in on her causing her to fall. When Mary Decker fell, her race was over and she was not physically able to finish the race. We were not a happy nation that night.




Then, of course, there were the East German female(?) swimmers. Yikes!



Now as we prepare for these summer games in Beijing... it is quite obvious to me, that in the intervening years since the fall of the Berlin Wall and the eastern bloc nation Soviet satellite nation-states... the world needs a "new bad guy". Ta-da... Hello mainland China!


The news of the repressive, ultra controlling, communist Chinese government has been pretty steady over the past few weeks and days. i have really liked in particular how they have recently indicated that they can deny a visa to whoever they want to (can you say Joey Cheeks?), for whatever reason they want, so shut up!

Or how they have indicated that speaking out about basic human rights is really none of President Bush's business... so he should just shut up too!

i honestly can't remember a time in the last twenty years when i was more attuned to what was happening with the Olympic games than i am with these Games! i guess the thing that really continues to pull me toward paying attention to the Games is my stupification (is that a word?) with just what the communist government of China can do and face little to no "outrage" from the rest of the world. They must have a great PR firm working this Olympics for them.

Well i just hope i don't have to apologize for writing this little blog like several of our Olympic cyclist had to a few days ago for taking precautionary measures with regard to the incredible smog and pollution that fills the air of Beijing.

Dude, this should be fun!

Beyond family, there is the staff....

For the last week we have welcomed a new staff member to our church staff. It has been great having this newest member of our staff come aboard. Marc has been tasked to serve in a supervisory administrative role with our Children's and Student ministries at Westbrook. The really funny thing is the one person in our office who is really best able to help this guy settle into this position has been called to jury duty and not able to be around to help smooth and guide his transition. The strangest part for me has been that I did most of the interviewing of this position! The ultimate decision to bring him onto our ministry team was not mine to make alone, which was and is a good thing...

Marc made a remark this week that helped me to see that what I have felt and thought of our ministry staff for a very long, long time is true...

Our church staff is different... In a good way.

It's hard to explain but it's a group of people who truly like each other and are always in each others corners. We compliment one another's temperaments and personalities...

We can hold one another accountable and not for one minute question one another's motives or heart. We are fiercely loyal to each other and to the ministry of our church.

It's nice to know that even the newest member of our staff has been able to see that this is true even after being here for just a couple of weeks!

Pretty cool.

Bullies...

i'll never forget Dave Nardi...

He was a new kid, pretty big for his age but word was he ended up at Rich East because he had been expelled from Bloom Trail... and let me tell you... if you got expelled from Bloom Trail... you had to be a head case! The rumor was that he got caught dealing and somehow worked out some sort of deal to avoid going to "juvie" (juvenile detention or young offender jail).

Anyway, i was minding my own business one day during my second year of high school and the next thing i knew one of the football coaches was busting Dave Nardi's chops over something... exactly what it was i still don't know to this day but from that point on i was Nardi's target. i found out later that he accused me of being the "narc" that got him in trouble and i think the fact that i was simply in the room when it happened was enough for him to conclude that i was the one that turned him in.

Our high school boys locker room was on the second level above the gym bleachers and was basically a series of caged in rooms with lockers. It resembled a labyrinth and could be difficult to get out of at times. One day after football practice i was running a bit late leaving the locker room, but unbeknown to me one of Nardi's toadies was shadowing me as i got ready to leave... being on the football team at the time it was understandable that i might be taking longer to leave but when one of the coaches showed up and found Nardi's "lookout" man, a series of questions directed at him ensued. With no idea of what was going on, i pushed pass them both and left for home.

The next day that same coach pulled me aside and told me i needed to be careful because Nardi's plan the previous day had been thwarted. Nardi's plan had been to get me cornered in one of the locker rooms upstairs and along with his little henchman beat me senseless. This would be payback for my getting him in trouble several months previous.

For the next several weeks, every single day, i walked home a different way or doubled back toward the high school just to make sure he never knew where i lived. I remember looking over my shoulders hoping i would never see his ugly mug. That was not a fun couple of months.

Dave Nardi was a bully, the worst kind... a sneaky bully. The kind of person who creates a scheme to inflict harm on others just to make themselves feel better with a certain stealth. Sometimes we run into bullies even in adulthood. People who speak loudly for the purposes of intimidation or maybe use silence to keep you guessing what they want. Sometimes adult bullies have a considerable amount of control over our very livelihoods. At other times we may not have to see them very often but when we do, we find ourselves flinching at their every word.

Can i leave you with an encouraging word?

Most bullies will only stop bullying you, when you tell them, "Enough is enough!". It may be hard and it may be scary but stand face to face with who ever is trying to bully you and tell them to beat it, your days of being pushed around are over!

That's one thing the Dave Nardi's of the world completely understand.

South of the Border...

For the second year in a row my wife is going to Mexico... without me. She is also leaving behind the children... now before you start laughing or anything like that just understand i am a big believer in stuff like cake for breakfast.... and lunch.... and dinner. It's a lot easier.

Ruthie and the rest of the team from our church will be helping to build something... last year it was a fire house that several villages in the region of Mexico they went to shared with one another. This year my understanding is that they may be helping to build a school! Very cool!

Now, my wife tells me it is back breaking work... and looking at the pictures she showed me, it looks pretty tough but hey she's a pretty tough chick! Several of the others who will be on this trip with her are veterans of these trips into Mexico while a few are first timers. For the past 11 years we have been sending groups to Mexico... and they have built 27 homes in that time! This group has been working at raising their own funds and attending informational meetings since the beginning of the year... this past Sunday they prepared huge duffel bags of all the things they planned to bring to Mexico and brought them at the church to be weighed (50 pounds is the limit).

Ruthie went last year and grew tired of taking cold showers out in the cow pasture that was home for several days in Mexico and asked for a Sun Shower for Mother's Day.... so that was what she got... Exciting huh?!? Sleeping in a tent on the ground in another country for several days... now that's pretty cool stuff.

It's even all the more amazing to me because i remember quite clearly what my wife's feelings were back before we were married about leaving the United States... let's just say, she wasn't a real "fan" of international travel. But after twenty plus years of hiking all around the US, living in western Canada, spending time while in college in eastern Canada... she does quite well with not being in the US all the time.

Well, i better get going... i am going to need to continue to plan our "real" menu while Ruthie is gone. i mean she made up a menu list for the next several days but i can make pancakes as easily as i can make macaroni and cheese... By the way, is it possible to make cornbread on the grill?

Test driving the "vacated" nest....

This past week, we have had a taste of life without our "big" boys at home and just our two "little" ones around. i guess you could say a partially vacated (not even "empty) nest experience! i must admit it's a ton quieter and quite a bit less rushed. In many ways it's a bit of a preview to life with a couple of older kids out on their own and a couple of younger ones waiting in the queue for their day to "launch".

This has caused me to think about my older boys quite a bit... they have both been for the most part "lab rats"... sorry there really is no other way to describe them! We have tried a bunch of stuff out on them just to see how they would react or how it would work and i'm happy to report that after all these years and multiple mis-steps, they are still alive!

We think (and i stress think) for the most part they are fairly well adjusted kids... of course, every parent thinks that of their kids right? You know the old... He-seemed-like-such-a normal kid-until.... Our guys love their parents, their grand-parents, their siblings, their church and of course and most importantly their God. They look out for one another (sometimes to a fault), they back one another up and they will blow the whistle on one another (to trustworthy adults) if need be. All this is good, i think... however, i am still amazed that fairly normal children would result from my input (their mother is normal, i on the other hand... well, talk to my wife).

Still, i look forward to their coming home late this week, they will no doubt have very funny and very serious stories to tell about their time away and it will get sort of "nutty" around here all over again but that's okay, not having everyday be "nutty" seemed so far away all those years ago...

Down in a hole...

Ever been stuck? Stuck not struck... not like the song "Stuck on You" or General Honore's famous stuck on stupid... line in the midst of Hurricane Rita...the stuck i experienced was really sort of funny (in a weird and twisted way)...

Once upon a time i lived in the foothills of the Canadian Rockies and Spelunking or caving out in western Canada is big deal. There were several leaders in my youth ministry who did this and were quite accomplished. i being the dork that i was, agreed to give it a try.

So one sunny day we drove out to mountains, they were (as usual) simply gorgeous. Down we went down into the cave. Damp... cold and musty. I don't know how long we spent crawling through holes in complete darkness with very minimal light... but it seemed like forever. The openings in the rocks tended to be very, very small and honestly i was not. Several of these holes i managed to successfully crawl through on my stomach but several of them required crawling through on your back.

At one point i tried the crawl-on-your-back technique on a particular hole and got stuck.... in a hole, in the ground... in a hole!!!!

And folks... in that hole, it was completely dark especially on my side because i was the last one through! Everyone else was already on other side, seeing my lower torso in the light of multiple flashlights!

The things that run through your mind in a situation like that are pretty horrifying... i wondered if i would ever get free... i recall thinking at the time "great i'm gonna' be stuck here forever!". I also remember wondering how would i ever get unstuck?

Well, obviously it all worked out in the end... somehow in the end, things turned out much better than my overactive imagination allowed for. It took a little work and determination but i would venture to guess that many of you who are reading this, are maybe stuck too but in a different way.

Are you stuck...

• in a rough season in your marriage?
• with unresolved issues with siblings?
• in a pattern of addictive behaviors?
• with an anger that boils over at the slightest provocation?
• with resentments that you will not let go of?
• because someone let you down and forgiveness is not in your vocabulary?

You don't have to be stuck you know.... do like i did.... calm down, stop fighting with yourself and amazing freedom can be yours too.