Dunk

The blogging has been really intense lately. I am seeing a need to make it even more so. Something that has been on my mind and heart lately is the dunkability of the average cookie. This is the result, for me, of a great deal of Research and Development resources. The following is my list of the top 5 best cookies for dunking in a tall, cold glass of milk:

• #5 - Girl Scout "Thanks-a-Lot" Cookies - this cookie has undergone a number of face changes and different manifestations, but the concept remains the same: shortbread that soaks up the milk, half covered with a fudge that deflects the milk. Mmmmm.
• #4 - The Keebler Fudge Stripe ring cookie - Similar in theme to the above, but with the added fun of being able to put your finger through the middle.
• #3 - The Nilla Wafer - Dunking them until they are soggy and starting to fall apart means that you can throw a number of them in your mouth at one time.
• #2 - The Original Chips Ahoy - It has to be the original, because they now come in sleeves of like 25 cookies, which I could eat in one sitting. Awesome!
• #1 - The Double Stuff Oreo - The absolute KING of dunkability. It is to other cookies what the Star Wars Trilogy is to all other movies.

I am sure some people will have opinions on this list, but I know my list is absolutely true. I suggest getting some cookies and indulging today. I find some alone time with a package of cookies is like a spiritual retreat. Good luck and happy dunking!

AHHHHHHH!!!!

I am such a dumbass. I spend all of this time trying to help people and even counseling people in their marriages. Then, I fall on my face with my wife Teresa, treating her horribly. She was feeling a lot of stuff because of the holidays, because of a great deal of dysfunction and pain from this time of year in her childhood. She was acting out of that, and was complaining. I was tired and crabby, and I was sick of the holiday myself. Rather than listen to her and support her, I got defensive and told her, basically, that she needed to stop her whining. Then I compounded the problem by hiding behind some kind of moral and relational superiority by stating that I was just trying to challenge her, as if it were for her own good. God, who is gracious and merciful, let me know that I am a dumbass.

I have no idea what it will take to retrain myself. I need to reorient my entire thinking process, so that when I am in situations like that, I can make better choices. Afterward, it is easy to see the whole stupid path I took, but in the moment, I do not deal with my wife in some kind of vacuum. She and I are intimately involved in each other's lives, and it is near impossible to break away from that. There has to be a way, though, to be involved emotionally with her, but to still choose to serve my wife lovingly.

The most important thing I can do for her is to help her feel important, safe, and loved. I don't want to do the opposite any longer. I hear people say, Dude, you're just a guy, and that's what guys do. I simply don't accept that. I want to put on the new man and do away with the old. I am tired of settling in my marriage. I want to be an exceptional man and an exceptional husband. Any less would be selling myself short of who God created me to be.

Give It All Up?

Well, tomorrow's my birthday. I am finally turning 21. Okay, I'm a little older than that. Teresa and I went out with Greg and Lora, my mom, and our kids for pizza. It is a tradition for my birthday to go to this one place for pizza every year. I love the place.

I'm getting tired of it all, however. I have done many of the same traditions for many years with my birthday and Christmas, and they are all starting to feel contrived to me. I am going to race to bake cookies, race to buy presents, race to decorate the house, race to work, race to prepare church, and race to find my sanity, as I contemplate going postal. I have some Torah-observant friends who do not do Christmas. I used to think they were nuts, but now I think they are on to something. When I was a kid, this time of year was magical, with my birthday and Christmas all thrown together in a huge cacophony of lights and sounds, hope, magic, and anticipation. Now it feels like something I have to survive.

Tonight was awesome, though, because we were with friends. That was the difference. I really don't care about presents at all, but I love the excuse to connect with friends. I am struggling with balancing all of this stuff with my kids. I want them to have a sense of magic and wonder, without falling into the disillusionment of the darker side of this time of year. I am trying right now to emphasize the people stuff, rather than the stuff...stuff.

I want the awe and wonder back, and I don't want my kids to ever lose it.

Mmmmm......Church.

I have really enjoyed church lately. It wasn't always that way. As a matter of fact, there was a time where I was driving home every Sunday in tears, cussing under my breath because of how much I hated church. I was still the pastor then, too! It wasn't the people, but it was the culture of the church. It felt so corporate and contrived. Everything seemed to feel like a play. We were play-acting for one another, never really connecting with other people or with God. It was extremely difficult. It was difficult to the point of Teresa and I shutting down the plant and taking an entire year to pray about the direction of the church. We changed the whole identity of the church to Adullam Vineyard, and we moved forward.

So here we are, things are going great. We have some of the best friends, very natural friendships, that we have ever had. Most people have no idea how hard it is to have natural friendships as a minister. It is so easy to slip into seeing people as projects, to have strategic relationships in order to try to recruit people to the growing church or to be constantly trying to pastor them.

I have been a professional minister for 17 years, and I have never experienced anything like what I am enjoying now with Adullam. I get to be a person, a fellow adventurer on this journey of faith with many good people. These people are incredible! They love me and relate with me as friends. We are all becoming better people. It is so strange, because we have just recently started this thing, yet it feels like the community and the relationships have existed for years.

There is a part of me that is still resists all of this, because I keep waiting for the other shoe to drop. I love the friendships, yet, in moments of doubt, I expect people to leave en mass. Yet it seems different this time. The lack of control that I have is good, because it keeps me humble. It keeps my pride from taking over, thinking I am some great pastor, bringing all of these people into the church. God has planted a vision in Adullam, and some really great people have risen to the occasion to buy into that vision. I am going to enjoy the ride for however long our visions line up. I have realized that I am a blessed man.

Pressure to Blog

Lora, I don't know what to say.