Happy Halloween!

I have never dressed up in a costume for Halloween. Never. Growing up, my family was a little closer to the "conservative" side of Christianity, but not to the point where I wasn't allowed to dress up. My church was pretty against the holiday in general, but my parents were a little more progressive about it. It wasn't that I couldn't dress up, I just never did. There was one year in the 80's when we still lived in Germany when my sister dressed up as a hobo, but for some reason, I never dressed up. I have heard a lot of the religious arguments about why we shouldn't celebrate Halloween but I simply don't buy it. What harm could come from my kids dressing in a $10 costume from Kmart and walking around to collect free candy?

People in my office are "celebrators." They like to get together and order in or do potluck style meals for pretty much any reason. Apparently they also like to dress up for Halloween as a group. Last year, they all played Flinstone characters, and this year, they decided to do the Peanuts gang. Somehow in this whole decision making process, I was suckered...I mean tricked...I mean convinced that I needed to also dress up, and I was going to be Charlie Brown. I bought the shirt which was actually a Wyoming Cowboys shirt, so I guess you could say I was technically Charlie Brown & Gold! Sandra cut out the black zig zag thing and attached it for me, and actually pushed for the hair. Now I think I sort of like it and want to keep it, but she's backpedaling. How did we do?

Of course we dress our own kids up every year. This year, Emerson was a fairy and Braeden was a dinosaur. Landen defaulted to our little ghost hat that both the other kids wore. Unfortunately, we aren't good planners or something because all the Halloween stuff happened on Friday here, except for Walmart. So we ventured the cold for another trip to Wallyworld, only this time for free candy.

Another little girl at Walmart made Emerson's night when she walked past and told her parents, "Look at that little girl! She's a fairy and she's beautiful!"

Thanks for all your help Kristin. I love how comfortable you are with our kids.

Braeden loved being a "Dime-o-sore"

Braeden with his buddy Eli. See Dinosaurs and Monkeys can co-exist!

Happy trails and Happy Halloween!

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A Picture is Worth 1000 Words

Check out this link! It's a story about an autistic artist who takes a 20 minute helicopter flight over New York City and recreates it from memory! To think of what we really don't know about how the mind works and how this happens is astonishing. Some might say this man has a disability, but the ability to do this is beyond pretty much anything I've accomplished.

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Social Media Fast

Do you have rituals you perform when you first sit down at your desk at work? Looking around at my co-workers, I see people who always check the stack of junk they left on their desk. I see others who always jump in with work email (after loading up their Pandora stations). Others jump in where they left off with no particular method of attack. I have some rituals too.

I sit down at a computer anywhere and I do the same thing everyone does at work...check my Facebook. Of course, I needed to also check out my online Twitter updates to see which tweets I missed because they aren't sent to my phone. Then there's my Gmail account, my Google Reader, Blogger and work email too. Then I'm ready to plow on.

For some reason, it hit me yesterday that I'm literally wasting my life away. I hate that I spend so much time wanting to know the status updates of my friends. I live within a two or three minute walk of two of my best friends and I never see them in "real life." See while I was stressing over all these internet things, "real life" was passing me by. I miss time with my wife. I miss time with my kids. I miss time with my friends. None of those things happen often enough. At least not with any sort of quality. I usually feel as though I'm getting mediocre interaction because I'm typing while it happens, or I'm racing from one thing to the next. Needless to say, I felt it was time for a break.

Last night, I disconnected my cell phone from the Twitter account and I deactivated my Facebook. In short, I'm taking something of a Social Media Fast. I realize as I write this, I'm still using social media to communicate it. However, spending time writing my thoughts and wrestling with things for more than 140 characters is one of those good things that I want to keep doing. I will keep using my email and probably try to update my blog a little more often. When will I return to the world of Twitter and Facebook is a mystery. I might enjoy my time away so much that I don't want to return. In the meantime, feel free to give me a call or shoot me an email so we can get together.

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Don't Leave Alcohol Near Your Pumpkins

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#619. Offering grace and forgiveness exclusively to people named

If you are one of the four people who read this blog, you know Emmaus has multiple teachers up front on a rotating schedule. This week, it was Matt Coulter (also known as my best friend) or PIC. We're working our way through the themes found in Luke and we're going to spend most of a year to accomplish that. This week, he taught on the passage in Luke where Jesus is "run out" of his hometown, and looked at the theme of grace. These people loved all that Jesus was teaching until they realized He was talking about giving grace to people they didn't think were worthy of grace. It was one of the best teachings and I'm sad the recording didn't work. I ran PowerPoint and kept the transcript - maybe I'll get his permission to post the whole thing.

Anyway, part of the sermon included a Twitter update from ProdigalJohn about the Kanye West interruption of Taylor Swift's speech at the MTV awards. This comment made a lot of people upset for some reason and it's been making me think about how I really view grace today. I went back to read the tweet and the blog he wrote about it and I think it's worth sharing. Please read it using the link below...it will give you a lot to think about. We sang "How He Loves" also which is a great song - one of the lines says, "If His grace is an ocean, we're all sinking." Only after the sermon, I'm not sure I can sing that if I'm being honest with myself, because I don't show grace like I should. I don't live grace like I should. Somewhere along the way, I earned my grace and decided I no longer needed to show it. I have a lot to wrestle with.

#619. Offering grace and forgiveness exclusively to people named "me."

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