Like and Love, Ramblings of a Theologian in Progress

I just dropped off 5 boxes of books to be sold back to Half-Price Books. This is the first installment of "EEK! We're moving and have too much stuff!" frantic need to clear things out trips. My car can comfortably hold 5 boxes and an extra passenger. Looking through 27 years worth of books, well maybe 20- the earliest book I think I found was from a garage sale in Iowa when I was 7, made me stop to reassess how we flow through our lives (my mind wanders into existential thought a lot, btw). The common saying is that we close a chapter in our lives and move on, but I'm not overly fond of that sentiment. Chapters mark such a brief period. I'd rather think of my life as a series of books. I was apt to get rid of either entire series (sorry Baby-Sitters Club) or single books (sorry/notsorry Toni Morrison), but the good series I held onto. The most cumbersome being Harry Potter. I can't break up an entire story. Sure there are parts of that series I don't car...

The summer in Houston can be best described as being a season that is demonically possessed by heat and humidity. It's the girl in the Exorcist controlling the weather. It's hot. H-O-T. All too soon a high of 104 will be normal, and like birth pains, most of us will endure through the summer swearing that it's too terrible and we won't endure it another year. Most of us will be complaining about this again next summer. Others will be relocated to northern Scotland where the high this week is 59.  At the same time, my guess is that almost everyone who is reading this has a cool place to be. We have homes with some amount of insulation and air-conditioning to battle the Texas summer. And as I was outside for an hour this morning, at Manna, thinking about how hot it was going to be today, I looked and saw the faces of many who don't have that luxury. Texas summers are particularly brutal for those without a safe place. One young man, Jefferson, who was hobbling aroun...

Inspired by the fabulous Sarah Dodson , I decided to try my hand at processing some pictures. This last weekend Jack and I were in Las Vegas with his side for a family vacation. I think the number of lights in Las Vegas rival the number of stars in the sky. That's probably an overestimate, but close. Many of the neon signs of yesteryear have been retired in favor of LEDs. And like Bing Crosby asked, "What do you do with a general, when he stops being a general?" in White Christmas, "what do you do with all those old neon signs?" The answer in Las Vegas is the Neon Museum . It's a walk-through neon boneyard of the signs. We went during the day (it was the last day for a day tour since the summer weather started early). The day gives the luxury of seeing all the signs, but unfortunately they aren't lit up. I'd like to go back and see the rave that must be it at night. Below are some of the cool relics I photographed, jazzed up a bit in iPhoto. ...

Prince’s classic “1999” begins with “I was dreaming when I wrote this forgive me if it goes astray,” and I’m going to make the same disclaimer. At 2:34 am I woke up to the sounds of a lovely lightning storm, but being the insomniac that I am, I did not fall back asleep. Most of this was composed at that time, so forgive me if it goes a bit astray as well. It has been a rough couple of weeks as anyone around me can attest. If things continue on their current trajectory, I’m just going to declare it a bad month since we’re almost half-way through May. I say it’s been a rough couple of weeks with the understanding, that 90% of the things of the things that have happened are not terrible things in any great sense. I realize that over the same period of days: The world finally caught on to the story that 200 girls in Nigeria were kidnapped from school and are being held hostage   The Ukraine   MERS   Tornado season has caused multiple deaths and millions of dollars...

My friend Emily led the Children's Message at church yesterday. I love the children's message because it's usually a nice summary of whatever Steve is going to preach about. I'm a big fan of putting things into understandable contexts. Emily teaches first grade and told the children about a question she poses to her class at the end of each day, "Did you fill someone's bucket today and did someone fill yours?" It's essentially asking if you did an act of kindness that day and did someone do an act of kindness for you. But over the past day, I've been pondering this metaphor and how aptly it is tied to our self-worth. I always hated our yearly "love yourself/self-esteem" units in school. If you aren't completely tuning them out, you end up with one of two messages: 1) Wow, I already knew how amazing I am, I definitely need to keep thinking this or, 2) Wow, I actually know that xyz are faults of mine, I'm really failing at thi...

I almost started crying on the drive home this afternoon. This is probably caffeine induced for the most part. Jack will be the first to tell you that I tend to be more prone to wilder emotions when I'm heavily caffeinated. This may also be because the amount of caffeine I've ingested is directly related to how tired I am and I am much more prone to being emotional when I'm tired, which I am (btw, did you know that at Starbucks a dark roast + espresso shot is known as a "redeye"? I apparently now drink something with a cool code name. In hindsight, that may be a bit depressing, but I digress). Caffeine aside, the tears were prompted by an overwhelming sense of nostalgia. Working in a high school and listening to your S Club 7 pandora station trigger emotions. Especially the "working in a high school" bit when graduation is soon upon you. Yesterday the juniors received their class rings in a special Mass. This is a much more important thing than getting...