"memorial day is monday, lest we forget"
(or "if you think it's hot outside, try hell")


with all due respect to those that have given their lives for their respective country, that is the crappiest waste of church marquee space that i have seen in a while. how would we forget? i mean, seriously? most of us are off work. or out of school. or planning on a bbq and will be reminded by someone at the bbq that the reason the entire family is together is because it is memorial day. but some church on highway 11 that we passed on the way to our family lunch made sure to remind all passers-by that tomorrow is memorial day, for fear that we forget. great.

maybe i am just upsest that instead of eating ribs or hotdogs or cheeseburgers with family tomorrow, i will be working 14-plus hours. or maybe i am just upset that the church marquee fad of putting up something "clever" or some sort of wisdom imparted by the church's pastor has not passed yet. in the same way that i don't understand where the style of prayer that i mentioned in my previous post came from, non-practical use of the church marquee, also, is beyond me.

let me see. "how could we best use our outdated, plastic letter using marquee/electronic marquee?" "we could post service times?" "check." "we could post sunday school times?" "check." "we could post the names of our pastors?" "umm, useless, but check." "what else?" "we could post something about a ministry of our church that will directly benefit the community that passes us five times a week on their way back and forth to work." "no way, dude. i've got a better idea. why don't i put up some silly cliche'd quote, or a lyric from a song, or something threatening hell and damnation. i'll do that every week. people will look forward to and wonder, each and every monday morning, 'what indispensible nugget will they put up?' and we will be known as 'the church with the clever sign.'" "do you think that will entice people to visit our church?" "who cares. this is brilliant. if we put up something that's really offensive, maybe we'll make the evening news!"

not every church is guilty of ruining the idea behind having a marquee, but too many are. please, joe senior pastor, just ask yourself this one question before you make a joke of your church. does your marquee say something about your church, or does it say something about you? if it's the latter, maybe you should let someone else do it for while. cool?

cool.

what's in a day?
(or two weeks)


let's see. since david blaine wowed us with his "heroics", i feel like i've stayed fairly busy. maybe not, though. since the last post, i've been a "witness" to lebron almost upsetting the pistons, watched the braves play like a real baseball team again and scratch their way back to .500, gone to a wedding with a sick baby flower girl, contracted the sick baby flower girl's illness (and sit here today, sick as a dog), watched the usa lose a warm-up soccer match to moracco (wtf), and worked a lot. throw in there some family time, catching up with an old friend, and dreamland later today and that just about catches us up.

yes, dreamland. so, sick or not, life could be worse.

i do wish that i had the answer to this question of mine, a question that reared it's head to me again over these past two weeks. where did the style of prayer that uses the word "god" every other breath stem from? you've heard this type of prayer.

"dear god, thank you, god, for this day, god, and everything it has brought, god. father god, thank you, god, for family, god, for penguins, god, and teddy ruxpin. father god, thank you for this meal, god, and the hands, god, that prepared this meal. god, you are so good, god, and tomorrow, god, i pray, if it is your will, god, that i break the world record, god, for the number of times, god, i drop your name in a prayer. amen. god. amen."

please don't get me wrong. prayer is intensely personal, and this style is, no doubt, some sort of learned habit. but why? where did it come from? some of the more powerful moments of prayer come in the form of silence, and filling up the pauses with the word "god" as a way of transitioning from one thought to another just distracts me. i start counting "god"'s. i lose all focus on the prayer and it drives me crazy.

on several different occasions, i prepared lessons on prayer style for the students at huffman but ditched them for fear of "causing a brother to stumble". for a student (hell...for anyone), any prayer is a good prayer, and even i do not believe there's a right way to pray. but i did want to ask the question, where did folks in the group or in the congregation pick that up? maybe i'll never know. i know for sure that, in the long run, it doesn't really matter, but still.

dear god. you are listening to me even when i do not want you to. i never have to address you to get your attention, and because of that, every moment of my day is a prayer. for that, i am thankful. for that, i am lucky that you are intentionally vested in me even when i am not returning the favor. for that, i hope that most of my day makes you proud. even when i am picking on other's personal conversations with you. thanks.

amen.

finding aquaman will be a lot easier if you can breathe under water
(don't hold your breath)


monday night when i got home from work, i watched the "highlights" from the david blaine special, drowned alive. david blaine, as everyone knows, is the usa renowned illusionist that can count cards with the best of them, "levitate", and pull his teeth out of your dog's butt and throw them into your mouth. incredible stuff. for a week leading up to his live special on monday night, he floated in a big, human-size fish bowl in the same way the poor, pitiful beta fish float around a plastic cup at work waiting for someone to rescue them from their miserable existence.

says one beta: "what are you doing?"
two beta: "i am sitting in this fucking cup. there is no room to swim. my skin is burning."
one beta: "your skin is burning? why?"
two beta: "my own pee is burning it. the humans call it 'ammonia burn', but the long and short of it is my own pee is burning my skin."
one beta: "wow. that sucks."
two beta: "such is the life of a beta. just wait. one more day, you'll feel it too."
one beta: "that sucks."

so, david blaine floats around like a beta fish in a human-size fish bowl, his skin too shriveled to realize that he, too, is suffering from "ammonia burn". he wants to hold his breath for nine minutes. to break a record. what? you didn't know before monday what the world record for holding your breath was? there's a reason for that. about the seven minute mark, you see his body start revolting against his mind. he shakes, shimmies, pees on himself one last time, and then he his rescued. "rescued". which is kind of funny anyway, isn't it? why didn't he just levitate his ass out of the fish bowl? hmm. maybe it is just an illusion. so, anyway, he's rescued and he cries and tells everyone he loves them and pickpockets a homeless man on his way to the hospital, leaving the cruel taste of irony in the homeless man's mouth (along with your dog's teeth) for him to chew on that night.

all of this shit goes down, and i think to myself. this guy is stupid. if he needed to know he wasn't a fish, i could have written him a note. however many million people watched this are stupid. they are the same people that slow traffic down on the northbound side of the interstate when the wreck's on the southbound side. abc is stupid. if they were going to pour this much money and hype into something, why didn't they just build someone else a house?

maybe david blaine was just pushing the envelope of human willpower for all of us. like climbing the highest mountain. or circling the globe in a sailboat. or maybe he's just more rich and more famous for it. but that's ok. we'll know for sure when he's on his next episode of cribs or true hollywood story. we'll watch that shit too.

how do you define casual?


listen. i'll be the first to own up to the fact that i am guilty of talking out of both sides of my mouth. i will wonder and wish out loud of an ideal world with ideal circumstances and ideal families and ideal this and ideal that. no sooner might i wake up the very next morning to my own very warped reality and live out something completely different. consider me as guilty as the next guy.

sunday night, sarah and i were sitting together and talking during a commercial interrupting grey's anatomy. i can't remember her exact words, but they were something along the lines of, "we have never really known what it's like to be "home" like this, have we?" she was right. for a long, long time, as long as we've know each other, she has known me as an ideal definition of kevin michael o'kelley. sometimes twice a week, sometimes more, i would make scripturally-based arguments to young people on any number of topics. at the root of each topic, though, could be found a lesson in how to love those closest to you. your family. the ones you share a house with. your friends. the ones you share your free time with. both. the ones you share your dreams of the ideal with. after the lesson was over, i would go home, and then leave shortly thereafter to prepare another lesson. those that heard these lessons knew me. they knew that i was not naive. the world had and has slapped me around just as much as anyone, but since sunday night, i have wondered what sort of hypocritical, talk out of both sides of my mouth, poor excuse for a role model did i ever come across as to my family and friends. the ones i often did not have time for.

i think i am more realistic now than i have ever been since the time that my wife and i met. i think it is playing itself out in many ways as my being more cynical and jaded than i have ever been as well. in many ways, sarah is learning to live with a whole new person. it's weird and somewhat satisfying to see how much we are enjoying this new reality.

it is this new reality, now, that shapes our path. it is the old ideal, though, that keeps us from immediately changing part of our summer plans. eventually, the new will overtake the old completely and our family will complement each other and god's beautiful world in a much more healthy way.

depending on how you define casual, though, you may not be along for the ride.

your loss.

since i've got tetris on the brain, i'll try and make this fit
(three weeks in now, and things still feel really weird at "home")


it's been a week again since i've been able to write. i hate when i do this, because i have too many things swirling around in my head to make this coherent. that's ok, i hope.

first of all, the wait is over and emma catherine has arrived. happiness has ensued, as well it should. congratulations to you, rebecca, for making it through. you are going to be wonderful at this. congratulations to you too, andres. you should try hard at being a dad. it will be worth it. i promise. you will need to work hard. that, too, i promise. i think everyone wants to give you the benefit of the doubt. every dad gets to start with a #1 dad ribbon. thanks to the gracious woman you've made cry more than your share of times, you have been allowed that privilege. that privilege. not right. good luck. i am rooting for you. for rebecca. for emma catherine...

...i look forward to meeting you, emma catherine.

"sometimes you wanna go where everybody knows your name." and then sometimes, you don't. there's still something very off with the idea of going back to huffman to worship, and i can't put my finger on it just yet. i am sure a lot of it is me and is in my head, but things are weird. don't get me wrong. pre-church, after-church, seeing the people that i have missed so much, getting hugs and handshakes and smiles from folks that have missed me, all of that makes it worth it. something is still off, though.

lebron moves on. next round, pistons. uh-oh. so long to you, kobe bryant. my admiration for you has come to an end after watching you give up on your team last night. i will now root against you every time i can in the same way i root against the mets anytime pedro's not pitching. you suck. raja bell should've taken your head off, smirk and all. enjoy the offseason.

i think i am going to like my job, but this much is true. i freakin' hate crickets. i thought i hated big people ordering too much ice cream, but dude, i freakin' hate crickets.

so if next sunday is mother's day, does that make every other day hannah's day? yes, yes it does.

man crush of the week? eddie vedder.

anthony vanslambrouck in fatigues? that makes me very sad. good luck, anthony.

to kimberly and jane-ann and gary and beth and anthony. congratulations. i missed you this morning. seniors? how?

last week means nothing if this week means dreamland. andy? kiker? word?

it's lebron's world. we're all just squirrels, tryin' to get a nut.


we all have things that we are inherently good at. at least one thing. maybe more than one, but we all have that one thing. could be sewing. could be eating. could be blowing smoke circles. could be writing. could be speaking without saying "uh" and "like". could be fixing cars. could be surgery. could be having babies. could be listening. i think that's mine. but that is beside my point tonight.

we all aren't lucky enough to have our one thing be some thing that society cares about. like sports. like basketball. like lebron james. lebron james is really, really good at basketball. too good. and he knows it. nike knows it. "we are all witnesses." what a great ad. it's spot on. teams that play lebron know it...

...and use it to their advantage.

what? to their advantage? that doesn't make sense. but it does. over the course of my sports-watching life, i've seen people that play their sport as well as lebron does his. take tonight for example. he scores 20 of his team's first 25 points. he's unstoppable. and he knows it. but so do the wizards. in the second half, they goad him and his teammates into playing one on five, and as good as lebron is, he is only as good as he can also make his teammates, and his teammates were all standing around watching him instead of playing. it was a train wreck.

i am feeling pulled toward talking about gifts and many parts, one body and things of that nature, but that's not where i want to go. where i want to go is to say that we are all more likely to have our one thing used against us more often than we are to use it to the advantage of our team. because like lebron, some times we are just too selfish not to.

dammit. if you are good at something, what the fuck good does it do if you keep it all for yourself? or use it to step on or over someone to get where you need to go. if you can sing, sing somewhere other than your car so it makes someone's day better. if you can write, type out a letter to someone that needs to hear from you. if you can talk, pray out loud for those that are too shy for their own good. if you can listen, shut the fuck up and listen. but if you find yourself double-teamed, pass the damn ball.

we are only as good in this short, short life as the person next to us. we may know that person next to us. we may not. who cares. it doesn't have to be lonely at the top. i swear it doesn't. but it can be if we let it.

trust.

every.

one.

hannah and me (part ten)
a matter of tract


i wrote a few months ago about how i wished that i had a place like sarah's grandfather's house to take hannah in order to engage in the same type of trip down memory lane that her family experiences everytime they travel to cartersville, ga. if i have a place close to that, it may be east lake park. my mother's father took my brother brian and i there every time we went to his and granny's house. either to walk around the track, to fish, to play on the the playground, to feed the ducks, to fly kites, to watch flag-football games, to football practice, to eat push-up pops, etc. it was a special place.

on a whim, we took hannah to east lake park today and it revved up my dysfunctional memory banks into as close to working order as they now get when i remember back when. the park and lake had changed since i last patronized them. the grass around the lake wasn't well kept. the gravel on the sidewalk wasn't as smooth. the concession stand wasn't open. no flag football. i don't fish.

but there were ducks. the main reason for our going didn't let us down. hannah had no idea what was in store for her when we asked if she wanted to go feed the ducks. but feed the ducks she did. big ducks, baby ducks, and every duck in between tickled her as we threw them bread.

a funny thing happened to us, though, on our way around the lake. about halfway around, we were encountered by an elderly man that stopped us and asked if we were going to heaven. we told him that we hoped so, and he used the moment as an excuse to pray for us. we held hands with him and repeated his simple prayer asking god to allow us into heaven after we died. the prayer was no more complex than "now i lay me down to sleep...", but the gesture strikes me as much more now that i sit here. i imagine the man, widowed (which may or may not be the case), going home at night and waking up tomorrow, if he's lucky, to suit up and make his way back to the park to do what he feels like he can for the lord for as long as he's here.

as we left the tract carrying, praying for strangers, nice as he could be old man, sarah said, "we probably didn't need that, but i bet we just made his day." she may be right. we may not have needed that prayer and that tract, but the more sweet people that are praying for my daughter, well, i will take.

i am so tired today. this day, very well, could have come and passed without me having anything to remember it by. how quickly i have already taken for granted being home with sarah and hannah full-time. but now i have my ducks, hannah's ducks, and the old man to remind me that every day has the potential to be a great day.

thank you, sir.

hannah and me (part nine)
dear diary


damn. tonight was kind of tough. as far as nights home with the family go, tonight was stressful. and who, pray tell, was pubic enemy number one? the baby girl. the apple of my eye. the light of my world. little miss, little miss, little miss can't be wrong (for all you spin doctors fans out there). the sweet, precious baby girl. the same baby girl that this time yesterday was still limping around on her tip-toes milking everything she could out of her freshly skinned knee.

the afternoon and evening were pleasant enough. picking her up from school is always a highlight. only parents can understand the joy that is seeing your child's eye explode with excitement when they see you peek your head into their room. we came home, watched pardon the interruption, went to the playground, and then welcomed mommy home.

then all went wrong.

not really, the bungee jump that was tonight left the bridge when we headed to the store. we were all on different pages, and chasing hannah in the parking lot wasn't the best capper for the outing. came home, dinner was fine. sweet even. then came the time-out. for hitting. the time-out, admittedly, was not executed "by the book", but my guess is that the author was not wrestling with a strong-like-bull two year old as she typed her sage advice. after time-out, bath went pretty good, but hannah's playful attitude as we tucked her in fell on the tense shoulders of her mommy and daddy.

the bounce back came with the nightly hug and kiss that has become bedtime tradition. with the two hugs and two kisses, the stress seemed silly and the tension seemed unwarranted. and thus is a night with you, baby girl. even the hardest night always ends with love i do not understand but cannot now live without. sleep good.

see you in the morning.

"the people's revolution is gonna be a podcast." - Nofx


i was encountered by a friend who is going through a difficult and disconcerting situation earlier this week. the situation calls into question their beliefs, morals, convictions, and integrity. standing behind their beliefs, morals, convictions, and integrity, if the worst case scenario were to play out, would not come cheap. the dilemma includes choices that could and would affect their family's financial comfort, home, and spiritual headquarters. i pray that the worst case scenario might not play out. i pray that ignorance, in this circumstance, is defeated at the hands of enlightenment. i pray that my friend is not put in a position that would ask them to take a measured and calculated leap away from their current comfort zone. i pray that all their hard work to reach this comfort is not lost on a group of people that do not understand the gospel as it is intended. i pray, and i wonder...

i don't wonder the cliche' "what would jesus do", because that answer is easy. of course jesus would do the right thing. stand up for what he believes. take the ignorant to task. but i am not jesus. a far cry from it am i. i fully believe that jesus, god himself, has had a significant hand in helping me build the house of cards that is my life, but i also know that i am significantly more likely to knock the tower down than He is. a shortsighted decision here. a temptation not resisted there. and there it goes. a beautiful structure that was built with the help of The Man comes crashing down in a pile of regret, "why's", and "how did this happen to me's".

there's will come a point in all of our lives, maybe more than one if we are unlucky, where we will face a crossroad. and the choice of which way to turn will always be simple, but it will never be easy. i fear for my friend that may be coming to one, and i fear for myself because i am not 100 percent certain i would be able to follow my own advice...

...so what does this mean? any time i start to question my own advice, it usually means i am heading for a crossroad of my own. another fucking crossroad. but wisdom always (not usually) comes with understanding, and i understand that things are different now.

Which way will you go, Kevin?

a) left
b) right
c) straight ahead
d) turn tail and run...

how about, e) i'll just sit down right here and think about it for a while. ?

"i'd carve out my lungs, and it's all just to see you again..."
the last last
(note: quote doesn't really have anything to do with the blog. it's just a line from a saves the day song i can't get out of my head and don't want to at this point.)


barring one final trip to clean up a little and turn in my apartment keys, my time in huntsville is now over. i am still a little surprised at the range of emotions that i am currently going through. happy to be home. sad to not have a service to lead next week. happy for no more commute. sad for the loss of quality cd time back and forth on 65. happy that things are back to normal for my family. sad not to have an excuse to play and sing for the forseeable future. happy for easter. sad for the same.

it's a little misleading. easter. the celebrating doesn't last long. just an hour. a day if your lucky. the shine definitely wears off in a week when the sanctuary isn't nearly as full the following week. what happened to all the people? what happened to the happy? what happened was the same as any coat of wax. in time, the weather reveals the greasy, faded, scratched up surface underneath and things are back to normal. normal is what i am good at. what we are good at. right? the same cup of coffee. the same walk around the block. the same route to work. the same disgust for the co-worker that breathes too loud in the next cubicle. the same being pissed-off at the person next to you that "can't drive". the same tv shows. the same worry. the same bills. the same customers. second verse. same as the first. sing if you'd like. sit if you'd rather. don't rock the boat. don't make eye contact. don't say you're sorry. you're never wrong anyway.

so what?


character is revealed in "the same". the more your life doesn't change, the more it doesn't matter. the more it stays the same, the more you have to regret. the more you stay the same, the more boring you become.

and that's why i went to huntsville. that's why, even though it was only eight months, my life will never be the same.

easter is the same every year. the same service. the same message. and the comfort in knowing what to expect is exactly why everyone wakes up early and puts on the fancy clothes. next week, though, could be different.

if i let it.

i will.

will you?

a month full of "last's" slowly comes to an end
buried under satan's yardstick


the last couple of weeks have been filled with many "last's". my last schedule to be made. my last customer to serve. my last day at cold stone. my last night spent in huntsville. today marks the last day of my unofficial spring break. soon enough, this coming easter sunday actually, i will participate in my last service at common ground. shortly after that, i will drive up to and back from huntsville for the last time (thank god). that is, until hannah is old enough to enjoy the space and rocket center.

all of these "last's" beg the question, "what now"? i am thankful to say that with all of these things coming to an end, and inevitably being faced to deal with extra time on my hands, i do not have plans to immediately start something new just for the sake of it. just for the hell of it. hell being the operative word. there's a cheesy e-mail forward that makes it way into my inbox from time to time. it's message is that the devil intentionally puts things in our life to keep us busy therefore taking time away from our focusing on god. there's an acronym for B-U-S-Y in the e-mail like buried under satan's yardstick (or something like that) that i cannot remember. now, whether "a" or "the" devil puts busy-ness into our lives or we do it ourselves is for another theological post and the bottom line is it's just semantics anyway. to the point of the e-mail, though, today i say amen.

for a long, long time now, beginning the day i accepted a job at HUMC, i have been busy. there has never been enough time in my day to accomplish what i wanted or thought needed to be done. this path continued through my time in huntsville. forget my family. forget my friends. i have to stay busy. don't bother me. "i am doing god's work". well, maybe i was. but i don't think that god was signing off on all the things i was forgetting or lowering on my priority list. for the short term, i will co-manage a pet supplies plus. i will work and then i will come home. if, on my off days i find too much time on my hands, so be it. we'll go get ice cream. or krispy kreme. go see a movie. to a braves game. to the playground. i'll just sit around and blog. and i'll be better for it. a better man. a better husband. a better dad. a better servant.

what's the use in being driven by a career when that career, that job, that "doing god's work" asks you to relegate the important things in your life to "i'll try and fit you in to my schedule."? the answer is there is no use. none. nada.

the next time i am buried under satan's yardstick will be the day my cats start losing weight.

the older i get, the more i think the braves suck


not really. what i really have noticed, the last couple years in particular, is the older i get, the more into sports i have become. which is scary. i have always considered myself a sports guy. watch a lot of sports. go to see my share live and in person. live on espn.com, si.com, mlb.com, nfl.com, etc. so that i can have an educated conversation on whatever sport happens to be your favorite. but it's getting worse. i never used to pay attention to recruiting. i just didn't care about that part of college football. whoever ended up playing at alabama i would root for. now, i already dislike a high school senior named tim tebow because he spurned alabama and i want another high school senior (andre "the giant", anyone?...ridiculous) from huffman high school to be the second coming of chris samuels. it's absurd. recruiting. now i pay attention, though. i've always liked the braves. dale murphy's always been my favorite player and always will. i want jeff francouer to be the next dale murphy. i love when they win. the difference, recently, has been that if the braves are sucking it up, i am sick. i am an ogre to be around. it's horrible. so far this season, all six games, every braves starter has either been rocked or pulled a hammy. not good. and it's killing me. absolutely killing me. the same kind of examples could be culled from any sport that i pay attention to nowadays. god help sarah and hannah during the upcoming world cup. i should go ahead and reserve a hotel room for the first week so i don't break anything here when the us gives up a goal.

i don't know what to make of this, but i do like it. sports, religion, politics...none are any fun unless you feel like you have some sort of vested interest.

maybe that's what i was missing. maybe i was into all of these things, but maybe it wasn't fun. it is now. for all of them. sports, religion, politics.

what changed? a lot. a little. who knows. something did and some things will.

god help me.

god help you.

go braves.

hannah and me (part eight)
dateline: our house


i think history, as i now move forward, will tell me the most ridiculous part of my last eight months will have been rationalizing my time away from my two year-old. the part with sarah i can deal with. we missed each other more and more with each passing month, but we knew what i was taking on was for a larger purpose than us and knew that we would see each other even more than when i was at huffman. it turned out almost to be a blessing in many ways, to our future and the promise of our family's future. this part of my decision i can handle. the part of it that i never could make right in my head and still cannot was the hannah part. i have had so much support from my friends that it's made it easier to get through, and i also know that as smart as she is, in ten years she will have no true memories of this time in her life. but i will.

yesterday, as hannah and i were driving down to have lunch with mommy she told me that she wanted to go to daddy's house (the way she identified my apartment in huntsville). it was cute, of course, but it also stung in a way that i know she did not intend or will not understand for some time. for her, it was just a want for adventure. to see the "rocket" off the interstate or the "fountain" by my place. for me, it was a reminder of an incredibly unhappy time in my life where there was always a distinct and sometimes disturbing difference between mom and dad's house.

fortunately, although that period has obviously scarred me, it has passed. now, it only provides motivation. motivation for me to make sure that from this point forward, mommy's and daddy's house will be one and the same for our little girl.

andy and i spoke after lunch tuesday about fatherhood for a short amount of time. we agreed that we had failed at certain things in life and would inevitably fall short of certain goals in the future, but the exception to that rule would be how we rated as fathers. there are good fathers and there are bad. there are exceptional fathers, and there are the downright poor to non-existant. ultimately, hannah will be my judge in where within those categories i fall. and i am ok with that.

she will know that she is loved absolutely and unconditionally every day for the rest of my life. i have to believe that this plays in my favor.

in the land of humans


retired abc news anchor peter jennings once said that every time he picked up a coin he instinctually wanted to turn it over. i think this is just another way of saying the old cliche', the grass is always greener on the other side. was the eagle on the back of the quarter any more intriguing, any more beautiful than george washington's face? no, but the anticipation or want for it to be so was enough that he wanted to turn it over anyway. so i imagine, there he sat as i sit here now, able to see both sides of the quarter, sure now that there are, indeed, two sides to every coin, but also sure that it's still worth 25 cents in the end.

for eight months i succumbed to the same temptation. i saw one chapter of my life coming to an end, and looked for another field where the grass might be greener. a path that contained fewer footsteps. i told myself that the new adventure of helping to build a foundation from the ground up would contain fewer frustrations than the old, broken home i was leaving behind. it was a challenge. and at times it was fun. but i was missing the point. in the land of humans, you are building with bricks that have holes in them, flaws that people will bring to the party no matter if they are "church people" or not. and thus, after eight months, i return home today with a new lease on life. i am lucky to feel this way at 29. had i not followed my heart, who knows when i would have felt this alive. i thank chris for providing the means to this end and sarah and hannah for supporting me along the way.

i always "knew" the grass wasn't really greener on the other side, but now i know it. and i plan to use that knowledge as God would lead me to. who knows what that means. i am certain, though, that it will not always be comfortable. but it shouldn't be, right andy? again, i thank you for allowing me to feel that i am working for the right team even if "church people" won't always make eye contact with me or my family.

in the land of humans, by God's grace, we are all coins that have many different sides, opinions, experiences, traditions, and flaws, but in the end no life is worth more than the next.

let the games begin.

five days left working for the devil...


i've said this out loud to a few people, but during my time at coldstone, i've often felt like i've been working for the darkside. why? on a given day, if i pay attention, way more people who don't need ice cream (especially gotta have it's...almost one pound (!) of ice cream) come in the store than "healthy" folks looking for a small snack or dessert. what's worse, part of the whole franchise agreement includes trying to upsize a person's order, no matter where they start on the menu. "for only forty cents more, you can get a waffle...for only a dollar you can get this and this and this..." even if you start with the pounder, there are things that cold stone wants you to ask the customer. "have you ever tried a cold stone cake?" eat more. be happy. die younger. i know all of this is a little dramatic. the same things and complaints could be applied to any fast food restaurant or franchise where the idea is to sell something cheap at really high prices. it just makes me feel bad or wrong, and so i don't do it. the upselling that is. i'll do it when i am working with the high-school and college-age staff that i am leaving behind to set a good "example" as their boss for them, but not when i work by myself. this, in and of itself, probably makes me a poor employee and even poorer rationalizer, but it's how i've coped. only five more days 'til i don't have to worry about it anymore. what good news that is.

speaking of good news, in a beautifully ironic twist of fate, the same team in george mason that i thought ruined my bracket by taking out north carolina also ruined everyone else's favorite, uconn, and sealed my victory in my tournament pool this year. hooray for me. hooray for florida. and hooray for the sec that the "experts" proclaimed having a down year. idiots.

softball season opens tonight. this time next week, i'll be home for good. life, ladies and gentlemen, is good.

no offense, punkin', but i am glad our consecutive days streak has come to an end.


"in a one and out format, all it takes is the better team having a bad day, and the lesser team having a good one and your bracket is ruined."

see: bradley
see: george mason

is it pretentious to quote yourself? probably, but screw it. i haven't been able to write in over a week because i've been closing the store for over a week. counting today...eight days 'til i return home. the first weekend of the tournament (and last night) was ridiculous as it always is. close games. buzzer-beaters. upsets. ill-timed upsets that throw office/internet pools upside down on their heads. i'll admit it. one of the cinderella teams beat my national champion pick, north carolina. sure, they were likely underdogs if they hooked up with everyone's favorite, uconn, but what's the fun of picking chalk all the way through? what's worse is that the rest of my bracket has been stellar this year. i called wichita st. over tennessee. i called georgetown over ohio state. i called lsu over duke. as of this morning, i am winning my pool on espn.com and scoring higher than 99.7 percent of the brackets registered on espn. amazing. now all of this will change when uconn starts scoring and i don't have them, but i am resting high on my laurels through tonight. real high. and if u-dub can pull an upset? i am back in it. rock'n'roll.

here's my pet peave, though. over the last few days, i've had no less than four people tell me how great their bracket is. "what do you mean? i am kicking the crap out of you on espn." "no, my other bracket." "ohhh...you're other bracket." i don't get the whole filling out five different brackets thing. i mean, i guess if you're gambling, it makes sense. you make five different brackets to try and increase your chance of winning by playing out several different scenarios, but doesn't that take the fun out of it? be a man. or a woman. pick a bracket and go with it. if it's educated, then you have as good a chance as anyone else. if you're picking teams by how cute their mascot is, well, fill out one or fifty, if you win it's going to be pure luck anyway.

this is my call to arms. don't tell me how great you would have done with your "other" bracket, because you should only have one bracket.

go huskies. not uconn.

march madness...
nobody knows what they are talking about


the ncaa tournament is here. the men's tournament that is. god bless the women, but i just can't get fired up about them. alabama is in. uab is in. they both have good to very good chances of winning their first round games, so that will be a lot of fun. of course, until the first game tips tomorrow morning, no one really cares about the actual games. it's all about the brackets. i am the same. ever since the pairings were released, i have been a maniac. i can't get enough of the talking heads talking about the match-ups, the favorites, the underdogs, the cinderellas. i eat it up like hannah does a fudgepop. there are those that i favor their opinions, and there are those that i listen to just because i know i will disagree with them. over the last several years, there is one lesson i have learned when it comes to filling out your bracket. a lesson that anyone filling out a bracket hoping to win a pool would do well to learn from also...

don't listen to anyone.

not jay bilas. not dick vitale. definitely not digger phelps, or jim nantz or billy packer. not me. not your mom. not my mom. no one knows anything. jay bilas ripped uab all sunday afternoon calling them a "half-way decent team". never once did he complain about the alabama selection. now i watch more than my share of college basketball. way more than my share of alabama basketball. and all the uab that tv offers. in my heart of hearts, i know that uab would beat the crap out of alabama. in one game. in a best of seven. however you wanted to do it. i didn't necessarily disagree with jay bilas. uab is half-way decent. but so are between 45 and 55 teams in the tournament. the other 10-20 are either really crappy or all-the-way-decent. the nba and the temptation of the nba has lured away all of the quality star power from the college game. so, you may have teams with talent, but it'll be incredibly young talent. and you might have mid-major or major teams with experience, but it'll be all white guys with teammates not good enough to play in the nba. so, which way wins out? neither. both. who knows. no one knows anything.

in a one and out format, all it takes is the better team having a bad day, and the lesser team having a good one and your bracket is ruined. the "experts" should know this. but everyone and their mother is still picking a team in UConn that lost to the 9th(!!!) best team in their own conference just a week ago. go ahead. pick UConn. pick 3 out of 4 number one seeds to make it to your final four. it may in fact happen. but know this, if it does you will have only been lucky, not good.

here's to my wife beating me again this year.

not that i am bitter.

ribs: the cure for what ails you
(that and good friends)


in the huffman-centric part of my world, the last three days have been trying. a combination of emotions ranging from complete and utter shock, to confusion, to sadness, to anger, to frustration and back to sadness has enveloped my world. mine and countless others. how does one react? what should one do? why did all this happen?

it's frustrating to know, too, that had these three young men not included one that i held dear to me, my interest in the entire story would fade as soon as my intrigue and wonder about their motives had been satisfied. a lesson in perspective? not one that i asked for. but yes.

then comes the ribs. i have had several people tell me the last couple days that they cannot even fathom small talking or worrying about what now seems trivial in their lives compared to having a friend's future hanging in the balance. i understand that feeling. i have had it myself. what i have been able to convince myself of, though, is that the trivial is relative and abso-freakin'-lutely necessary in times of trial. if it weren't for my ribs, my softball, my baseball, my friends with boys that make me want one of my own talking about little league, my pardon the interruption, my march madness, my hope that alabama beats kentucky today, my hope that team usa beats the mess out of south africa...if it weren't for these things and others my head would explode.

three young men's lives have changed in a dramatic way this week. people's lives change everyday, though, oftentimes for worse. this time, i just happen to know one of them and hold him very close to my heart. it is the trivial that keeps me unaware and sane. it is my friends and family that remind me that that is ok. i am thankful for both.

ben, i am praying for you, your family, your friends. i love you.

"a human walgreens, a grotesque and insulting example of better baseball through chemistry."


this was one of the many descriptors for barry bonds used in an espn.com story this morning. yesterday, the story and excerpts from a book hitting shelves on march 27th called game of shadows found the internet and with it, the shit hit the fan. barry bonds, possibly the greatest baseball player of the the last fifty years and arguably ever has been one of my favorites for a while now. his superhuman efforts at the plate are well documented. passing mark mcgwire for the single season home run mark. approaching babe ruth and hank aaron on the all-time list. only member of the 500 home run and 500 steals club. multiple mvp trophies. the man. equal to all of these accomplishments, though, is the cloud that has followed him for over five years now that rains questions of steroid and performance enhancer use down upon him each and every day.

i didn't want to believe it. i still don't. never mind the visual evidence. si.com has a great picture gallery up right now that details the way his body has changed since college. i knew he looked different. different now compared to when his pirates tormented my braves. bigger. badder. stronger. forehead version 2.0. i saw it all, but i didn't want to hear any of the haters. i don't know why. i guess part of it was because he was so great before any of the steroids. he could do everything. run, hit for average, hit for power, play d. he was going to be a hall of famer anyway. he knew he was the man. everyone did. until everyone else started juicing up. the new book alleges that when all of mark mcgwire's and sammy sosa's and brady anderson's (??? red flag ???) homers started pushing him to the back page, barry got jealous. now, whether or not this is true we will never know. unless barry comes out and says it. and he won't. so instead of just being the best player, barry picked up needles, creams, clears, whatever he could get his hands on to pump up. get bigger. hit more home runs. and he did. a lot more. he was back on the front pages. he was the best ever. until today.

today he is called a cheater. a fraud. tainted. all of which are probably true. above all else, though, i think barry is just human. it's hard to see heroes broken down. i admit it. i liked my barry super-sized. i liked all the home runs. i liked pitchers being afraid of him. there's part of me that doesn't want to see him play if he can't still do all those things. and that's horrible of me. maybe i just picked the wrong hero. i know i do that a lot. i know we all do. i like my heroes capabable of doing things i can't. but i do want them to accomplish those things using the gifts God afforded them. not some drug cocktail that includes, among other things, stuff that makes women more fertile and gives cows stronger bones.

dang it, barry.

paging verbal kint
the best trick the devil ever pulled;
convinced the world he didn't exist - link 80


it's been too long since i've been able to write. too many things are going through my head at the moment. some sports. some serious. some not. too much. maybe i can get it out now. more likely is that this will come out a jumbled mess.

my life is about to change. again. what i thought was going to be a year-long experiment/venture/challenge/leap of faith has transformed into eight months. eight short months of unrealized expectations, disappointments, struggles and closure versus the excitement of meeting difficult expectations, finding the lessons is disappointments, working through the struggles and new beginnings. at this point, today, it feels like the former four have won the battle, although i am confident time will allow me to see otherwise.

silvers linings abound, though. in one very short month, i will see my wife and daughter every day again. i have learned in my eight months how i took them for granted, and i wonder how that knowledge will translate to the next chapter of our lives. i will get to see my friends again, much more than i did for eight months. i will start a new job. another job in retail (who knew?). i do love people. maybe retail will be the way to go for me. time will tell. a new softball season is on the horizon. it will take me 10 minutes to get to the field. not 105. that's good. i will get to have ribs with andy and kiker again. soon. i want ribs. lots of ribs. and we have to get 'nana pudding. even if we are full.

i have decisions to make as it relates to my god. for the first time in over six years, i will not be on a church staff. what does that mean? how do i plug in? where do i plug in? back to huffman? do they want me? do i want them? it's my church, right? but i don't want to rock the boat. if i go back, it can't be like it was. time will tell.

my cake decorator at cold stone is the wife of a freewill baptist church pastor. incredibly nice lady. we were talking about teenagers the other day and she was waxing theological. she was telling me, in so many words, that their church would not allow their youth to fellowship with groups that were not like-minded in the way their church viewed the bible, the faith, the like. she started talking about how there were so many "bad kids" in this world, in huntsville. how their youth group, her children included, would benefit from being around the "bad ones" as little as possible. i felt sorry for her. i didn't have the heart or the time to disagree with her. she believed with every ounce of her what she was saying. she wasn't being malicious. she was just wrong. the devil resides in all of us. in huntville freewill baptist churches. in huffman united methodist churches. in every denomination's churches. we are all verbal kint's. limping around. hiding from the world. disguising who we really are.

not until we come to Church broken. open. real. honest. not until then can we make a difference again. not until then will we do anything other than tread water, occasionally picking up two, four, ten, four hundred other verbal kint's along the way that are treading water as well.

i am coming home broken. frustrated. excited. anxious. broken, but in the best way. what will it mean? will it make a difference? time will tell.

it will be scary. then again, most things are.

turning the page. on to chapter whatever.