along the journey

I feel like I’m at a crossroads of sorts. This happens 3 or 4 times throughout the course of a year…. and I hope that I take the more eventful road this time…

I’ve been reading with much (can’t think of the right word, anticipation, joy, trepidation, all seem to fit, but not quite what I want to say), Matt’s exploration of what he believes and why. It has really prompted me to think about those things as well. Not nearly in the depth that he has. Amy has mentioned her desire to flesh out these very same topics, so we’ll complete the exercise as well, ideally together.

This weeks meeting with “emergent“-type folks was very refreshing. It’s lit a fire deep within me. A desire to grow and learn. To look outside the box of what I’m so used to. A desire to learn about tradition, and to look at the world around me in a different way. I’ve been following links, and reading new blogs, and craving more and more voices around me.

I spoke with Will Sampson briefly on Tuesday about The City. And how I really feel called to be in the city. I live in the city, I work in the city, it really bothers me that I drive to Columbia to worship. I want to worship and serve in the city, but there is so little going on in the city. Will mentioned that he receives email all the time from people in the same position. We’ve been given talents and vision and desires for a reason….. we really need to explore how we’re going to act on them, or grow them.

Our mission? To help others discover and remember that there is a cosmic connection waiting to be made. To help others resonate with the most primal reality of the universe. To make the world a better place for others. Those of you who’ve prayed with me have probably heard me say this: “May everywhere our feet touch the ground become an intersection between heaven and earth. And may everyone who walks with us feel the primal essence of the universe.” Those of you who know me understand that that is one of the ways I speak about Jesus, who makes all things new.
–Alex McManus

I started writing this entry to include this quote…. but it doesn’t seem to flow at this point. I’m leaving it anyway.

Last night I had set the alarm to go off at 5:45 AM…. which is about 1 1/2hrs earlier than usual. For the last 3 weeks I’ve been getting to the Y on Tuesdays and Thursdays to meet up with another local Blogger. I’ve been trying to get there a little before 6 because I want to get at least 20 minutes in on the treadmill, and then my complete circuit of about 8 strength machines. So this morning I set the alarm a bit earlier than I had the last two weeks. I was able to get to the Y and complete the workout and be home before 7:15, just in time to shave and shower before being picked up for work.

Tonight is the first meeting of the Baltimore Emergent Cohort. The BEC is “A gathering of people seeking to follow God in the way of Jesus who meet to consider issues of faith, culture, and ministry. We seek to be missional leaders in our communities who pursue generative friendships with one another.” I’m planning on attending tonights meeting.. There hasn’t been a lot of comments on the blog, so I’m not sure how many people will be attending. If you think you fit in with that statement of what the BEC is about, feel free to attend.

Today I participated in National Teach Children to Save Day. My employer and a local radio station teamed up to teach 5 - Seventh grade classes at a local school. I had plenty of apprehension about teaching anyone to save, especially knowing my personal track record with regards to savings. Amy and I joked about it a bit. It was a good time and I look forward to doing it again in the future. There is an entire curriculum that we’ve developed for Kindergarten through 12th grade that I’m going to be trained on. My employer is actually doing these classes in several schools throughout the area, one of them being the school I went to for 5th Grade, which is the original reason I volunteered to participate. Since I didn’t receive the training, I’m not going to get to go to school this time, but it’s supposed to be an on-going relationship, that hopefully in the future I’ll get to be involved with.

The Violet Burning will be at Nation this Sunday evening at 6pm. If you’re unfimiliar with them, they’re a band that plays some interesting worshipful songs…. not so much “worship songs” but songs with worshipful lyrics…. Here’s their webpage - with some downloadable mp3’s. Brought to us by the folks at National Community Church .

I plan on going, we’ll be leaving our church in Columbia at 5pm. If anyone is interested in joining, feel free to email me or leave a comment.

I’ve been telling this anecdote all morning long, and everytime I had a chance yesterday.

So Caleb and I are on our way to church yesterday morning. Amy and Bo were staying home. As I get on the highway I mention to Caleb that we don’t have a cell phone. He proceeds to put out his pinky and his pointer fingers and say, “Yes we do dad. We have pretend phones. ” “We do, ” I asked. “I’ll show you how to make one dad, you just do this.” “Well how will mom know that we’re calling on our prentend phones, and to answer her pretend phone?”

After a moment of thinking, “I know,” he says, “we’ll email her!”

That’s my boy!

Last week I got this mouse. I hooked it up on Friday and didn’t reboot until just before I left. This morning I started noticing that when I’d middle-click in Firefox, it’d switch windows. Apparently Microsoft has taken it upon itself to reconfigure the default action of a middle-click, such that it does something similar to the Alt+Tab behavior of windows. For those that use middle-click you need to go into the software and re-assign the middle-mouse button to be auto-scroll. This will then allow you to open new tabs with a middle click in Firefox.

During our vacation I spent a good 45 minutes, maybe an hour, standing in the Christian bookstore, with headphones on, listening to whatever caught my eye on the shelves labled rock. I was, and still am, in search of some good straight-up hard rock. I don’t even know who in the secular scene, would fit the bill. But most of what I heard was either pop-punk sounding, or screaming-hardcore. Now I really enjoy punk and the pop-punk genre but I’m on a mission to find the Rock Album of All Time, but it doesn’t seem to exist. My buddy Jason recently discovered Thousand Foot Krutch, and they’re close to filling the shoes, but not quite. I did walk out with two cds.

The first mewithoutyou’s Catch for Us the Foxes. It’s not what I was looking for, but it has some nice hard hitting sounds, and the screaming is comprehensible. I’m really enjoying it, it seems to have some White Stripes, garage band sounds, and maybe some Killers synth-pop happening, under spoken-word poetic lyrics. You can hear some of their songs on their PureVolume page.

The other cd I got was the Mono vs. Stereo compilation, The Revolution Will Begin in the Blink of an Eye. It features one my new favorite bands, Anathallo, and their song, Don’t Kid Yourself you need a Physician. Other bands on the cd that stand out to me that I want more of are The Wedding and The Human Flight Committee.

If you know of any other bands that I might like, please leave me a comment, or email me, I’ll check them out, and if I really like them, I’ll give you a prize!

What can be an 8 hour drive, between Cincinatti and Baltimore, can easily turn into a 10 hour drive with stops for lunch and dinner and bathroom breaks and needing to sit and feed the infant. Tack on 2 hours sitting on the PA Turnpike at a dead stop, with 4″ of snow and still falling…. it’s 12. An 8 hour drive now 12. Something like that ALWAYS happens to us. It makes me not want to make that drive any more. But we had a great stay.

Brianna is better and out of the hospital. As of yesterday, she still had the clot, but is being treated with anti-coagulent shots twice daily. We got some great pictures…. and had excellent time with family. Mom and Dad both had to work during the week, we didn’t spend as much time with them as we would’ve liked to. The whole visitation thing at the hospital really broke our days up as visiting hours are only 5 to 7pm, and the hospital is 45 minutes away. To make it to the hospital by 5 we’d have to leave around 4. And then while we’re visiting it’s dinner time, what do we do for dinner? Or we could wait to get home and eat around 8. And what do we do with the kids who aren’t allowed to visit. It was tough.

Podcasts kept us entertained for a large portion of our trips…. Specifically Dan Klass’ Bitterest Pill. I called and left him a message on his Pill Phone yesterday on our way home. Other ‘casts we listened to - Wired Jesus, created by Tom Lyberg, and Lance Andersons Verge of the Fringe. I downloaded ICM Raw and The Christian Music Podcast, but neither of them really struck me as very interesting… in fact were pretty boring. The Christian and the Atheist was great conversation starters… my only complaint is that they’re not long enough and seem to want to keep them shorter. Amy and I both have some ideas for doing our own podcasts, it’s just another bandwagon, but we’re jumpers from wayback!

We’ve had an interesting vacation. We’ve been in Ohio for a week. There have been two days during the last week that we’ve not had to drive 45 minutes to the hospital. Here I sit, again. My 9 month old neice started having seizures last Thursday, and was in ICU until Monday, she was released from the hospital late Tuesday night. She had RSV and pneumonia. There’s more to the story…. but yesterday my sister , her Aunt, was watching her and we noticed her leg was swelling. This morning my sister woke me up at 7 to tell me that she was back in the hospital. So I got up and dressed and am now waiting for them to come back to their room. My brother has been here since 1am. He doesn’t know I’m here….

For the praying folks out there- say a prayer for Baby Brianna.