sorry, non-sports fans...this one's about the braves

(is mark teixeira jesus?)

so, what do you get when your favorite team in any sport (let me qualify this...i am an alabama football freak!!! no doubt about it. but, even in their worst of seasons, alabama will leave me pissed and wanting, at most, six times. with the braves, even in their best of seasons, they will leave me pissed and wanting, at least, sixty some-odd times. and how do i measure my favoritism? that's right... it's measured in angst. so, with all due respect to my favorite football team in crimson, the braves supply me with enough gut-churning, "i've got to find something to destroy" type anguish, that they hold the universal key to my heart above all other teams.) adds a hometown college all-american, two time gold glover (best fielding first baseman), two time silver slugger (best hitting first baseman) all-star to replace the ancient one, julio franco, the atrocious one, scott thorman, and the promising one, salty, and puts him in the clean-up spot of your everyday line-up??? you have one (of many, many) ecstatic braves fan.

tex will fit in beautifully in what now becomes the national league's best line-up. a line-up that includes five all-stars (renteria, chipper, tex, andruw, mccann), one definite future all-star in francouer, fast willie leading off most nights and a solid second base platoon with kelly johnson and yunel escobar. i am sorry, folks, but in the history of being a braves fan, there has never been a line-up this awe-inspiring. with a switch-hitting destroyer to hit behind chipper and to take some pressure off andruw, the braves are going to score runs. lots and lots of runs. there is still a rumor floating around that a close-to-dominant reliever may be heading to atlanta later today as well. if all this happens, the braves will have my undivided attention every day they play a game until they lock up a playoff spot or are eliminated from it (which would be a disaster). in my eyes, there are only three reasons they don't catch the mets/phillies or whoever may be in their way to the wild card. one, their starting pitching after smoltz and hudson is a complete crap shoot. if the three, four and five guys don't get better, teams will still be able to outscore the braves. two, wickman keeps closing games. he may have been good in the past. he is not consistently good any more at anything other than eating. wickman has, single-handedly, kept tim hudson from currently leading the nl in wins, and he could lose the postseason for the braves. three, and this is the one that scares me...

andruw goes in the tank. consensus seems to be saying that andruw is leaving after this season. he is just going to be too expensive for the braves to keep. so, what do the braves do? they pick up tex for this year and next and andruw sees the writing on the wall. "ok. so, you don't plan on paying me next year? then i am quitting on you this year." andruw and his effort have never been in question, and so i don't believe the possibility of this happening is great, but it scares the crap out of me anyway. what if he does? what if he quits and all of a sudden men are left on base even more when he's up? even worse, what if the balls that we are used to seeing him dive and take away from the opposing team start falling in front of him? yikes. i am not going to think about this option anymore. it's making me sick.

my last post, i talked (again) about what a beautiful thing hope was. and my god, it certainly is. teixeira, in my garden of eden, is fucking hope defined right now. here's hoping being a franchise's messiah isn't too much for his broad shoulders to carry.

our nation turns it's lonely eyes to you...

(joey harrington?)

((damn))

a couple months back, i worried that my man-crush above all other man-crushes may be lost from his and my field of dreams for an extended period of time. it looks as though, now, those worries have come to fruition. because of his alleged participation in the fighting, beating, body-slamming, drowning and electrocuting of man's best friend, mike vick has been banned from reporting to his team's training camp. according to guys on espn and close to the situation, this seems to only be the first step in removing him from the team and memory of atlanta falcons fans forever. which is a shame, really.

the part that means he may be punished for doing something as mind-boggingly disgusting as some of the acts he's being accused of is not a shame, but the part that removes his hope/potential from my favorite nfl team is. sports, in my mind, is nothing without potential and hope. not that this idea is revolutionary by any means, but the reason a person attaches themself to a team or player or school is because of the garden of eden type feelings he/she/they can renew within that person prior to and sometimes during every season they participate in. why is it that, year after year, i allow myself the freedom to be a twelve year-old and convince myself that "this" will be the braves year? why is that i know, at this very moment, that nick saban will never lose a game as head coach of the university of alabama? why is it that, prior to mike vick taking a snap from center, i hold my breath? because, in some deep, dark, lonely, romantic, delusional part of my mind, the potential and hope held in those scenarios define, in my mind, what perfect could and should be. sports is nothing without potential and hope. neither is life.

i got to sit down with julie holly yesterday morning as part of my humc "tour of diplomacy" which may or may not culminate with a reconciliation between myself and the guy whose name rhymes with "marry me." it was a nice conversation. the kind that we both realized about midway-through that we had never had before. i admitted to her that that was probably my fault. i was already on the staff when julie was appointed to huffman and i carried two things with me and against her for a long time that weren't really her fault. the first was that she was brought into huffman and inherited a position as associate minister that had been eliminated several years prior and deemed "unnecessary" (you can also ask donna godwin to talk to you about being unnecessary to huffman) to our congregation. never mind the fact that it was just another way for huffman to usher "one of it's own", chris perry, out the door because he may have been ruffling too many feathers. and never mind that our congregation's number did not explode during the period between chris leaving and julie arriving. quite the contrary, actually. and never mind that huffman never admitted any error or wrongdoing in quietly reestablishing the position. it just did it. but this wasn't julie's fault. it was huffman's. and my own personal feelings just made it easier for me to hold it against julie. secondly, at one of, if not the, first staff meetings we shared together, julie moaned and groaned about having to attend annual conference events. looking back, she was surrounded by ministers (rick, gerry, charles, jack) with like-minded thoughts, so she was probably just saying out loud what she thought everyone around the table would want to hear. a gaffe? maybe, but i was sensitive at the time and skeptical of her even being there, so why not hold that against her too? and so i did.

i have come to realize over the last several months that julie (and others, i am sure...including marry me.) never even had an opportunity to play in my garden of eden. she never held any real hope or potential because i didn't allow there to be any. and it's a good place to be in, this place of realization. julie made a comment yesterday that i think, six months ago, i would have taken offense to. we were talking about my natural connection with the group of 18-25 year-olds that i think are absolutely critical to the future of my church. she commented that, because of that connection, she was fearful that if i hitched my wagon to theirs and came away wanting, the same feeling of hopelessness that i once had for huffman would rear it's ugly head again. i appreciated the concern, but i told her that i did not fear hopelessness any more. i have seen the bottom of that barrel, and i don't intend on returning. what i fear is lack of hope, and that is something entirely different altogether.

as soon as news came down that the falcons would be without the most brilliant athletic example of hope i have ever laid eyes on, i convinced myself that their season would be lost because it would be resting on the shoulders of one of the more brilliants athletic examples of mediocrity that the league has seen in the last five years. but i am trying to remember that, five short years ago, joey harrington was the third pick in the nfl draft and made teams drool at the thought of his potential. i am a firm believer that we never lose our potential. we just occasionally lose our way. in the same five year period that harrington has disappointed football fans, humc has disappointed me, itself and it's community. in both cases, potential and hope remain. i hope, in both cases, we can find our way.

the fates of my church and a trivial (in the grand scheme of things, not in my garden of eden) nfl quarterback are not intertwined, but it would be very cool if they paralleled. both rising from the ashes of disappointment and borderline disaster into something good and, once again, hopeful. one has to play better football. our task is more daunting. we have to change a mindset. one that bleeds from our oldest members to a twenty-something associate minister. a mindset that tells us that the only way to "fix" the machine/model/construct is to own it and change it from within. a mindset and a model that is failing us and blowing cannonball-sized holes through our potential. a mindset that will take longer than we have.

in my garden of eden, the model is new, and my church will still be standing in twenty years. and the falcons are not dead yet.

we are an awareness church
(but not in the best of ways)


i'll have to give an assist to donald and tanya richards and sarah (and a damn fine burger from red robin) for this post since it was our conversation that was it's brainstorm.

i think i've finally put my finger on it. my mission moving forward as it relates to my church. for years upon years, huffman has been "doing" things. feeding homeless. taking less-fortunate kids shopping. singing (not loud enough). sunday school-ing. sending out missionaries. handing out bread and water and throwing frisbees. we've knocked on doors. paid for gas. washed windows. painted houses. built houses. prepared worship services. taken worship services on the road. played with kids. prayed with kids. played softball. played basketball. washed cars. baked cookies. made ice cream. all in the name of huffman united methodist church. and all of these things on the surface are good things. even great things. but the key question is this. as far as it concerns our surrounding community (not "regional" community. listen, i've been guilty of calling huffman a regional church too. i have. and at some point, maybe we were. we had a product that people were willing to drive to. that is not the case now. with few exceptions, our members do not live in the community surrounding our church. shoot, many of us don't even live in the same zip code. we drive now out of habit and tradition. we may have lived up to the definition of a regional church before. any one that says that now is rationalizing.), are these good and sometimes great things truly impactful? and by that i mean, do the ministries that we subscribe to, year after year, make a difference in the lives of people living around our church in a way that would make them want to spend extended time with us? my educated opinion to this question would be, "no."

and therein lies our problem in a nutshell. from where i sit, a born again insider that spent enough time on the outside to be able to see the forest and not just the trees, we are a church that has perfected ministries in awareness. and because i've said that i'd like to try and spin things positive when criticizing my church, i propose a new model for us to take a chance on. outside of necessary committees that are vital for the church to function (sprc, trustees, finance...i am sure i am forgetting a couple others...then again, if i am forgetting them, maybe they really aren't that important.) scrap every last committee that we currently have. no exceptions. all three pastors i served under and with could at least agree on the following point. at some point in the life of a church, for something, some ministry, to live and prosper, others may have to be put to sleep. and listen, folks, this is where humc is. we are spread so thin over, seemingly, a thousand different ministries that we can't even remember what our common goal is. and please, please do not say that we are disciples in action, making and growing disciples. let's face it, that was a cute catchphrase, but it didn't do anything that separated us from every other church. so, we should scrap every committee in the church, reinventory our resources (workers), and start over with two.

as i mentioned, we are pretty good at getting our name out there, so our first committee is our "awareness" committee. the mission of this committee will be to continue, with a renewed and fresh intent, what we've been doing for years. "getting our name out there." but we narrow our scope. if we want to "do something good" for god, let's not travel outside of our zip code. if we want to fix a house, ask someone on gene reed road. if we want a work project, let's not travel to bessemer. let's just ask huffman middle how we can serve them. keep doing what we are doing and doing well, but identify and target folks that can easily fall within the reach of the second committee...

and with this committee comes our shift in paradigm. the "follow-up" committee. it's very simple in theory, but something that we have executed more poorly than mike vick has nurtured his public image. our follow-up committee's primary focus would be to what? to follow up with those persons touched by our ministries practiced under the umbrella of our awareness committee. phone calls to huffman middle or high to see what's next on their "need" list. small groups that would be in place so that people that might be interested in discovering huffman outside of sunday morning would have an outlet to explore that interest. prayer teams that focus on the needs and wants of our community. our doors opened to community-help groups (aa, divorce recovery, special-needs children and adults, after school tutoring) so that we can work with and adjacent to other churches in the area that realize huffman doesn't have to be forgotten, just remodeled.

and we go from there. after meeting at our proverbial rendezvous point, we could "attack" with a new and rejuvenated sense of purpose without completely starting from scratch. we celebrate what we are good at and rebuild from that foundation and forget the fact that we have spent years putting on a glorified benefit concert.

it's just one man's idea. and may even suck. but i am going to start putting legs to my idea and see how it evolves. i'd love your input. your feedback as to how we can make this idea better and more practical. or your feedback as to how much you'd rather take your dog on a doggy-date with michael vick and his (can you tell he's on my bad side?) than climb on board with my ill-conceived delusion.

either way is cool. the only bad idea is no idea, right?

hannah and me, part twenty-eight
(it's a girl!!!)


let's face it. as i have stated here before, i firmly believe that once a guy comes to grips with the idea of being a father, that guy starts hoping to have a boy. i say that to you, but i believe that hope can one of the few "hope"s in life that one can pine for without being disappointed at the alternate outcome. i really do. there isn't one thing that i have found to be disappointed in when it comes to hannah being a girl. there isn't one thing i can imagine ever being disappointed in when it comes to my second child also being of the female variety. as far as caroline goes, there is a long time between now and when she decides what kind of girl she wants to be. with hannah, it is decided.

note the picture above as exhibit "a". hannah has been taking gymnastics for five weeks now. tonight will be her sixth. hannah is freaking girly. i am facing that now with a certainty that i had withheld for the longest time. it's not that i wanted her to be a complete and utter tomboy. and believe me, she has some of that in her. she doesn't mind running around the bases or getting dirty at the softball field. she doesn't mind running around outside of the church until she has sweated away her morning cup of applejuice. she doesn't mind getting sand in her bathing suit or dirty feet on the playground. she doesn't mind "the act" of getting gross in any way, which makes a dad proud. it's when she realizes that she's filthy that i understand i have a girly little girl.

if you've never heard her say, "oooh, gross." at herself or something else that she finds disgusting, well, my words are not going to be able to accurately depict how cute and nancypants-y it is all at one time. nana and granddaddy bought her a princess leotard some time ago that she rediscovered over the weekend. she proceeded to pull on the leotard over her pajamas (before rethinking the comfort factor of not being squeezed into two layers), put on some of her high-heel cinderella slippers and ballroom danced around the workout room to a combination of alkaline trio and goldfinger (if you know either of those bands, the image just got funnier). after refusing headwear for the longest time, which also makes a daddy proud, her leaving the house with a ponytail, pig-tails or an elastic headband is much more the rule than the exception now. i told you about "the bribe" at the beach. our coming home from school afternoon routine now includes me wiping off her dirty feet with a wet papertowel. she will not eat her snack with dirty feet. and now, she's taking gymnastics. i guess that's a little more manly (i guess) than tap or some other kind of dancing, but i think those things are coming too.

and so, nearly four years after the official announcement that our first born was going to be a girl, i am 100% sure that is the case. again, i am ok with that. i really am. it must be more fun for sarah this way. every time hannah prances around the house, we share a knowing glance that is her telling me, "it's ok. this is what girls do." and god knows that had it been my boy that jim nix ushered off the softball field last friday, my boy would have already learned and been able to use in the proper context the phrase, "fuck off, old dude, and just pitch the damn ball." so, having my baby girl has been good at my learning the life lesson of restraint.

tonight is parents' night at gymnastics. the first one didn't go so well. there is about a 60-40 chance that she is not going to perform in front of us in spite of the contractual incentives she and her mom have worked out (time on playground and frosty afterwards, among others). and if she doesn't? well, i won't think less of her. i'll be busy trying to keep her mommy from making a scene in front of the other parents and reminding her that "this is what girls do."

update: wow! she did great! after a very slow start that made us worry that the night was going to turn out to be a trainwreck, hannah warmed up, came through and did all of her exercises. very cute. and very proud am i (we).

thanks to people like jim nix, our children live in a safer world

(or a more socially retarded one)

let's forget for a moment that the guy in question is not the father of my child. let's forget for that moment that, even if all you know of my and hannah's relationship is this blog, most everyone i know realizes i would take a bullet for my baby girl, much less a co-ed sized softball. let's also forget that every ground ball hit to me yesterday evening at humc's youth/adult softball game i would have been comfortable laying down on the ground and fielding with my teeth. and let's forget, finally, that the guy in question wears shirts that look like american flags to church. let's forget all of that for a second and know that his intentions were good.

"the road to hell is paved with good intentions." - unknown

"i didn't want to be mean, but we would have felt terrible if something happened to her." three-quarters of the way through the softball "game" yesterday, i invited hannah onto the field with me. she had displayed extraordinary patience for the first hour and a half of the event, playing with james and lena and morgan and being her all-around usual big self. so, as a reward for her patience, i led her out to short with me and we were going to hang out for a minute and let her catch some of the "action" from the field's perspective. pitching for the adult team was the aforementioned jim nix. a player, perhaps, in his past. he showed up to the game with a softball bag full of old bats and balls and, for all intents and purposes, was ready to play. his readiness showed in other ways too. it showed in the way he swung at the ball as mightily as he could, torpedoing it towards youth boys and girls that had never played softball, much less against grown men bent on reliving the glory days of their athletic past. his readiness showed in the way he would not give the youth an out. it showed in the way he proclaimed (maybe with his tongue in cheek. maybe not.) his want to maintain his shutout. it showed in his command of all things on the field. his team. his team's batting order. the score. the pace of the game. and who was allowed on the field and who was not...

...and we are back on point. for when hannah joined me at short, jim stopped the game, absolutely refusing to throw a soft underhanded pitch to a girl that was not going to hit the ball for he "feared" hannah was in too much danger to participate. was she really in danger standing next to her father? i would argue, "no.", unless jackson willis had stepped up to the plate. and while i urged jim to continue and tried to convince him that hannah would be fine, he put his foot down and would. not. have. it. i thought for a second about arguing with him. i thought about asking him to defend this knee-jerk reaction. i thought about calling him out and making him look foolish. i thought about making a scene. but i didn't. and i walked hannah off the field and let her run over to mommy because she didn't understand any more than i did why she couldn't play with daddy.

was hannah in danger? of course not. i can be silly, even stupid, at times, but i am not silly, much less stupid, with hannah. the bigger and more relevant question, though, was where jim's fear even came from. was he honestly concerned for hannah's well-being? maybe. or were his concerns self-serving, ignorant, or even mean? hmm. you see, hannah spends plenty of time at the ballpark. she is not completely aware of how to play softball or what "danger" she may be in at all times, but she knows very well enough to listen to her mommy and daddy when they encourage her in one way or the other. you see, hannah was more safe with me than 95 percent of the youth manning their position when jim, mark rafferty, or jeremy came up to bat because they were swinging away like it was the world series. where was the "concern" then? where were the good intentions? i don't really understand the double-standard. maybe i am wasn't supposed to.

there are people in society, in all walks and levels of authority, that peddle fear because it furthers their own agenda. because it enhances their authority. because it makes them look important. or feel important. there are people like this in society, ergo, there are obviously people like this in church. in my church. people that would rather make rules and enforce rules without having an intelligent conversation on why those rules exist. a rule without reason is a bad rule. a rule enforced because you think it's right, debate be damned, is a rule i am going to have issue with. and i'll be honest, people in church, in my church, that enforce these types of rules because "it's the right thing to do" are the biggest reason i questioned coming back to my church in the first place.

now, let's not read me as a complete anarchist. i am not talking about murder. i am not talking about stealing. shooting people in the foot for the fun of it. there are rules, commandments even, that are in place because the evolution of society has discovered that certain things are just bad if you are in the business of being human. but i am talking about being "fearful" and having no idea why. spilling words of "good intent" with one breath, and playing the game (of life, if you will) outside of those constraints.

it may, in fact, "take a village" to raise hannah into a responsible adult, but in the night club that is her rearing, jim nix is no longer on "the list".

week 4
(settling in)


ah, yes. this is the feeling of the spiritual and emotional high wearing off. it had been a while since i had felt it, but this is it. we'd all like to be able to live in the rare air of promise and potential forever, but that wouldn't allow us to know what makes getting excited about something worth getting excited about, now would it?

and so, i re-enter the chris denson era at service number 4. i missed the previous two weeks out of obligation to beach and work, and i was ready to get back into the swing of things yesterday. i will admit. it felt very...normal. not that normal is in any way a bad thing, mind you. but gone was the pomp and circumstance that comes with introducing a new pastor. gone were the long-winded, audio-challenged introductions. gone were the expectations of hearing "the new guy" for the very first time. gone was the (pastor) crying. and the (pastor) singing (thank goodness). and gone was that feeling of adrenaline from moving "out of the balcony" and back into the lifeblood of the church.

it's a weird feeling. coming off of a high. whether it's life, drug or alcohol induced, it's all the same. whether the means were constructed at a desk, grapevine or some dude's backyard, it doesn't matter. it's still a weird and, in some ways, unwelcome feeling. there's a part of you that always wants to be in "that place". that place that motivates you to send out a group e-mail or write a "call to arms" type blog because you want your friends and church family to believe in the promise of your church. that place called being "in love". where you do stupid things because stupid makes sense. where you drop everything and don't do homework and don't go to bed and run up your cell phone bill because the irrational juices in your brain tell you that you can deal with the consequences later. today is "love", and "love" is all that matters. what is life if you don't have love? what is life if you can't find "that place" as often as possible? and then you come down and realize it's all bullshit.

well, not all bullshit, but most of it. the feeling part of it. when it comes right down to it, emotions and feelings don't make disciples. people do. emotions and feelings don't make good boyfriends and girlfriends and husbands and wives and brothers and sisters. people do. when it comes right down to it, it's a matter of putting your hands and feet where your emotions are. putting those feelings into action. making the emotion mean something to someone else and not just you.

because i am good at talking and thinking. i can talk all day to jacob and alex and joe c. about us doing something big at the church. but, i've got to do it, right? and what does that even mean?

i got to have a sit down conversation with chris denson last thursday afternoon. i told him a little about me and he told me a little about himself. i came away feeling pretty good about things. guess what? it's a shocker, but he actually wants to be at huffman. no disrespect to anyone that wants to train leaders or play the piano, but the previous two administrations did not want to be at huffman. they had good hearts. and they sweated a lot. but they didn't want it bad enough. maybe they didn't know how. i think our pastor does. on both counts. now the question remains,though, and it remains in two parts. part one, will humc follow a leader that asks them to sacrifice everything they've known for the last however many years they've been there and do something different? and by "do something", i mean just do something. do whatever you can in your own mind and according to your own gifts to make god and huffman an attractive enough idea to bring an outsider in. part two, who is humc? is it those of us that worship within her walls on sunday? absolutely. is it those of us that can only make it a couple times a month or year but still call her home? yes. but can it be something more? can we? a thought? a theory? a moment? a dream? a vision? a kick in the balls to those that think we are past our prime? i hope.

sunday's service was normal, because the new car smell is already gone. it was a good service, but now what? chris mentioned that those that use church as only a one week feel-good stop are missing the best part. so, the logical follow-up is, what's our best part?

one of my favorite parts of one of my favorite movies is the scene in trainspotting where a baby born and bred in a heroin house dies and the presumed father, sickboy, at a loss for words, yells at his friend to "FUCKING SAY SOMETHING!!!", anything to break the tension of the moment. at his own loss, the friend decides that he will slip back into what he knows best and shoots up.

i feel like our church is at that moment in our history. when i walk in, i see friendly faces but blank stares. the weight of our last ten years weighing so heavy that we can't move out of the muck. i have dreamed of walking into the pulpit and screaming, "FUCKING SAY SOMETHING!!!", anything to get a reaction and break the monotony of where we are.

the new car smell is gone and the emotional high is past.

it's time to fucking do.

god bless america
(and by america, i mean optimus prime)
((and by optimus prime, i mean jesus))

today is a day that we as americans are meant to celebrate being american, and what better way to celebrate being american than to pay homage to the self-sacrificing savior to all human beings, optimus prime. not really. what with the movie opening today (well, technically today, but really last night or monday), though, i truly wanted an excuse to put a badass picture of one of my childhood heroes up on my page. ergo, happy 4th of optimus prime everyone!!! eat a lot of bbq and ice cream, but leave an open spot at the table just in case the "reluctant warrior" is in your neighborhood.

for the rest of the post, i thought it might be interesting to take a look back at my new year's resolutions and see what kind of standing i am in now that half of the year is behind me. self-accountability. that's what it's about, folks!!! on we go...

1) don't get fat. so far, so good. returning from the beach has been somewhat freeing, considering i now know that i won't be taking my shirt off in public for at least another year. i no longer am shying away from the urban legend known as "trans-fat" and i am eating exactly what i want again. sarah helps me keep some of my wants in check considering most of what she cooks is at least semi-healthy, and i am still working out and playing sports too, so that helps. i am not fat...yet.

2) don't die. also, not yet.

3) be a better husband and father. you would have to ask sarah and hannah about this one, but i think i am doing pretty good. sarah and i have celebrated our fifth anniversary and seem very content and certain that we are in as good of a place, together, as we've ever been. hannah is also the line leader more times than not at school, which by my count, reflects my awesomeness in the ways of parenting. i am counting this one as successful too. three for three.

4) make you smile. the ball is not in my court with this call, but i feel pretty good most days about this one. i'll keep tracking it, though, and give you the final verdict at the end of the year.

5) decide on what i am going to do to with the whole church thing. that's been decided.

6) try and write more. this is going well too. i am averaging just over 7 posts a month and in the last week have made good on my promise to add some visual aids to go along with the words and links. still having a lot of fun with it. this will continue.

7) buy good music. uh-oh. my first slip-up. on my count, i've only bought seven records thus far in 2007. wow. just, wow. and my favorite so far? the format's 'dog problems'...that came out in late 2006. ugh. i haven't even purchased a large enough sample size to write a good mid-year in review post, which is really, really sad. there's plenty on the horizon, so my want for 25 buys is still within reach but looks very questionable.

8) go back to an alabama football game. just under three months away from college football season. this one's going to happen. it's a lock.

9) keep bad mouthing alabama basketball. has happened. will continue to happen. bank on it.

10) fool myself into thinking the braves will be back in post-season this year in order to enjoy baseball. you caught me on the wrong day since they've dropped three straight. since john smoltz is overrated. since bob wickman sucks and should freaking stop eating and giving up home runs to miguel freakin' olivo. since neither mccann or smoltz should be going to the all-star game. since tim hudson and the bullpen must hate each other because the bullpen doesn't care about his giving them leads. since andruw jones, in his flipping contract year, is good for one hit every two and a half games. other than that, i am fooled.

11) go back to a falcons game. bobby petrino...meet michael vick. love him. use him. he is the most wonderful toy you will ever be able to play with. i include the comments from january with this one because i can't figure out if i should laugh or cry at the first thing that entered my mind when i read this one. unless michael vick is in jail or suspended for killing dogs.

12) take a vacation. done.

13) see lebron. and steve nash. tracking.

so, what's the count six months in? seven "yays", one "nay", and five pending positive. not bad if i say so myself. i won't pat myself on the back too hard. they are called new year's resolutions. not new six month's resolutions, but i like the positive feelings looking back on them so far.

so, happy 4th of optimus prime to you all. do me a favor. when you are laid out on the couch from too many ribs and too much ice cream, think about that other self-sacrificing, reluctant warrior that can occasionally become repressed around this time of year.

god bless(es) everyone.

"i wish i knew how to quit you."
(why i just can't hate barry)



an interesting development in the land of baseball happened yesterday when the fan-voted all-star game starters were announced. the league's pariah, one barry bonds, leapfrogged the cubs alfonso soriano and made it into the line-up as the nl's third most popular outfielder. the fact that bonds is included in the game is really interesting on a lot of different levels.

one, barry is the 500 lb. gorilla in the league. everyone in the mainstream sports media is so convinced that barry has cheated the integrity of the game that they haven't been able to write a kind word about him for months. ever since he announced that he'd return to the giants this year, thus ensuring that he would break hank aaron's home run record if he stayed healthy, sportswriters have been ripping him apart. wishing that he would injure himself. quit. anything that would prevent him from "tarnishing" baseball's legacy by breaking the one record that most defines the sport. and there is a part of me that understands this treatment. in every sport i have played, i have just assumed that my opponents were playing fair, "doing it the right way" if you will. i didn't even "get" or start to wrap my head around the fact that people cheated until i was 22 or 23. it didn't even cross my mind. so, had someone told me that joe q. pitcher was doctoring his balls while i was in high school so that his curve would have a better chance of making me swing and miss, i'd have been pissed. the feelings toward barry are in this same vein times a million. so, i "get" it now, but do i care?

two, the all-star game is being played at barry's home park in san francisco. the game will be called by joe buck and tim mccarver, two of barry's biggest detractors since hints of his cheating started to surface. i will record the game (since i'll be playing a double-header of softball that night), if for no other reason than, to listen to the pair try and convince the nation that barry breaking aaron's record is a bad thing while his hometown fans cheer wildly the entire time. it will be classic television. just wait for his first at-bat and listen to buck painfully talk nice about barry's still out of this world on-base percentage. i can't wait. the hate will be obvious. i promise you. but if the folks in san fran. don't hate barry, why should i?

three, barry is a freaking rock star, and who doesn't want to watch a rock star in what could be his last concert before a national audience? honestly? you don't? yes, you do. why don't you? if it's because you don't like baseball anyway, fine, i'll give you that. but if you do, and you choose to turn the channel because you don't want to participate in the greatness that is a barry bonds at bat due to all the rumors, innuendo and circumstantial evidence, then you, my friend, are a moron. just watch and you'll see one of the best pitchers (probably sabathia or haren or beckett) on the planet nibble away in the first inning as they pitch to him because he's still the greatest hitter in the game as a 42 year-old. i love rock stars. and i love rock music, even if the means to writing that song or playing that show included hard drugs. if this in my stance on music, then why should it be different with sports?

the fact is, for me, it isn't. sure, i'll admit, i get swept away at times when all of the talking heads on espn are exploding with vitriolic statements aimed at punching holes in barry's armor. i think to myself, "yeah, screw that guy. him and his cheating, swollen-headed magnificence. screw him." but that's just silly. i love watching barry. for all the wrong reasons i guess. but i love watching him, and i will be happy the day he breaks the record. i really will. god bless hank aaron, but i never saw him in person. i never embraced him as one of my favorites. i don't have any loyalty to him. i don't have anything against him, but barry i'll remember and celebrate that i got to see him hit a home run in person off john smoltz. that's just the way it is.

and for all the negativity, barry, himself, insists he never knowingly took anything that would unnaturally enhance his body or performance. and if barry says it, well, it's good enough for me (wink, wink).

things that i will buy if i am lucky enough to make it into the lottery
(hannah and me, part twenty-seven)


as some of you may know, the nba draft is tonight. i have taken all the formal steps to put my name in the hat. i have not signed with an agent, therefore if i do not agree with the basketball philosophy of the team that picks me, i may opt for another year of development with my humc basketball team in the competitive 19 and up division of the birmingham baptist association's basketball league. i cannot remember how many scouts were at the last game of our season in february when i took our shorthanded team on my back and carried them to a near upset of the second best team in the league. the legend of that game has grown significantly (in my mind) and while i have no delusions of unseating oden or durant as one of the top two picks, i would love to play close to home and would have no qualms about playing in atlanta (they have the third pick). if they want to take me 11th, that's cool too. i keep hearing about my lack of "upside", and it's starting to annoy me. sure, i am 30 and most of the other prospects are 10 years younger, but who cares!!! i, today, pronounce 30 the new 20, and offer my services to any team worthy of my skills.


moving on, the most important part of draft night is prioritizing my outlandish material wants depending on my draft slot. here are some highlights as to what new additions casa and family o'kelley can look forward to after i sign on the dotted line.


1) an exact replica of this pool...

this was the pool that we spent most of our time in this weekend. the entire left-hand side of it is no deeper than a foot and a half and hannah had a blast playing, floating and following around older girls. we need this pool.

2) this woman...

before you go thinking anything weird, let me explain. i begged, pleaded with hannah all weekend to come into the ocean with me. for me, personally, i would rather be in the ocean and waves than the pool. it feels more relaxing. when the waves are choppy, you actually have to "work out" just to stay afloat. so i love the ocean. so far, though, hannah is not into it at all. we were able to coax her in to the water only one time the entire trip and you can guess now what the bribe included. mommy told her that if she went into the water with daddy, we could go up to the room and paint her fingernails and toenails (if kimberly is reading this, i know you are laughing). and it worked!!! granted, she kicked, screamed and cried the entire time, but it was worth it to me. so, knowing how well that bribe worked for me and for hannah, i will just buy (or hire) a full time manicurist/pedicurist and keep her on hand at all times for those special moments when hannah's feeling ornery. (also, thanks to google images for not spitting out an asian man/woman when i typed in 'manicurist' and keeping me from having to explain away being racist.)

3) a huge bed...

since hannah and we are satisfied with our beds at home, this king-size bed will be purchased solely to put away until we take a vacation that calls for hannah to sleep with us because marie and rebecca and emma and joseph are taking up all the other beds. one of our lasting memories from the trip will be hannah's refusal to sleep in her section of the bed and burrowing into the sides of her mommy and daddy. kicking her legs. slapping our faces. stealing the cover, etc. maybe putting her in the middle was an error on our parts. maybe. but damn, we gave her plenty of room. nevermind, though, with the new, huge bed, room will no longer be an issue.

4) otterpops. lots and lots of otterpops.

this one's easy and doesn't necessarily relate only to our trip, but hannah loves popsicles. and loved them on the trip. so, my final crazy purchase will be every otterpop i can get my hand on.

if you notice a trend with my outlandish, material wants, you are very keen indeed. i mentioned a couple days ago that it wouldn't take long for the marvelous memories of our very first, real family vacation to rise above the bad ones. i love thinking back and remembering sarah smiling, hannah cracking us up, hannah trying crab claws like a big girl, hannah and emma making rebecca laugh her big, glorious laugh, all-you-can-eating fried shrimp with joseph and talking my way out of walking on the beach (i hate long walks on the beach, whatareyougonnado?).

when you become a parent, though, everything comes back to your kid. sure, i'd buy sarah a new camry and some new sunglasses after coming to terms with my nba team, but i think we would both want to spoil the baby girl first and foremost.

you all can say you knew me back when. when i wasn't an nba superstar. because tonight's the night. oden. durant. o'kelley. it's got a nice ring to it.

sarah, will you hit the snooze button, please?

how do you spell vacation?
(S-E-I-Z-U-R-E)
((hannah and me, part twenty-six))


it's a phone call a parent never wants to receive. one that i surely wasn't aware of how much i didn't want to receive it until i became a parent. a phone call alerting you to your child being in danger. a phone call that comes out of nowhere. a phone call telling you that you need to come...fast.

it's a phone call that i didn't ask for, that no parent does, but i got anyway thursday morning. i dropped off hannah at school that morning and all was fine. normal. routine in every way. we talked about the beach. we talked about it so much that she didn't want to go to school and i didn't want to go to work. i left her thinking the next time i would see her would be around 3:00 and we'd head home to pack up the truck and go. well, it wasn't. at about 10:15, my phone rang and i was busy with a customer so i didn't pick it up. about two minutes later, the same number rang again and i answered the call. on the other end was a frantic interim children's place director telling me that hannah had suffered a seizure on the playground...

WHAT!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

i was told that she was ok. that she had stopped shaking. that her eyes were no longer in the back of her head. that at this point, she was just without color and scared. and i was out the door.

i have no idea what i told jason and muffley as i headed out of the store and toward hannah. i remember calling heath and telling him i was leaving the store. i remember trying to get in touch with sarah and failing, and i remember trying to process the information i had just received without throwing up all over myself. the two previous times hannah had been rushed to children's were under sarah's watch. one of the times i was in freaking huntsville. this time, it was sarah that was stuck an hour away and nowhere near reachable. it would've helped had i tried calling tuscaloosa instead of the uab numbers i was blowing up, but like i mentioned, my mind was all over the place.

i made it to the church to find hannah in the warm arms of her favorite teacher, ms. malinda. at first glance at both of their faces, i couldn't tell who was more scared. hannah immediately came to me and i got the full story of the events on the playground from malinda and donna and proceeded to take hannah to the doctor. never having done this before and not being able to get in touch with sarah, i called marie and she pointed me toward's children's hospital. i got confirmation from hannah's pediatrician that this was the right call and we were off. the tribute is pretty fast when i push the pedal down hard. all the while, hannah was coming back to her usual self. she knew something weird had happened. she knew that this wasn't how the day was supposed to go. more than anything else, she really just wanted to know if we could go to the beach.

we made it to an empty children's emergency room and almost immediately went back. by this time, it was about 10:50 and hannah was fine. she was checked by a resident and the doctor in charge and given a clean bill of health. she had not been sick prior to whatever happened on the playground. she regained use of her faculties almost immediately. thus, they decided that no further testing would be needed that morning. i was surprised to learn that, evidently, kids hannah's age are allowed one "freebie", however weird that sounds, when it comes to seizures. they told me that it could very easily be a stand-alone event. we are just to watch her. not leave her alone in the bath. not leave her unattended on the monkey bars or anything else high. things that we shouldn't do anyway but that we may have taken for granted had thursday morning not happened.

poor hannah, her little three year-old mind was completely one track. she asked the doctors four separate times, "so, we can't go to the beach?" they assured her and me that we could and we went. for the most part, we had a wonderful time. hannah had a blast and was a very helpful big cousin. she is going to be a marvelous big sister. this morning, as i reflect once again on last thursday morning, it makes me even more disappointed that the last twelve hours of our trip were rendered uncomfortable and awkward due to hurt feelings of some sort.

those last twelve hours are easiest to taste, now, one day removed. for the greater part, though, we had a marvelous time. and those marvelous memories will rise to the surface soon.

the beach was fine. more importantly, hannah is fine. i am crossing my fingers for her that the events of thursday morning are, indeed, stand-alone. i am thankful that somehow, i took care of her that morning in a way that made her mom proud.

it's a phone call that no parent ever wants. a phone call that alerts you that your child is in danger. a phone call that, as a parent, i am sure to have again.

but i don't want it. you're the best, baby girl.

vacation?


so, for the first time since our honeymoon, sarah and i edit: and hannah (and marie and joseph and rebecca and emma) will be taking an extended trip that does not involve a wedding or visiting family. holy cow!!! to say that my head is already at the beach is an understatement, and i told the guys at softball last night that i am certain the trip will be the fastest five days of my life.

obviously, i'll be away from TWALBTMLE for a while, but i think it's a good time to let the last few posts settle.

i'll see you next week with all the tales of hannah and me from the beach that you can stand!!!

D-R-A-M-A-T-I-C
(the anatomy of "the serious voice")


in my head, i've teased and thought about this "children's place post" so much that i think i've burned myself out on it. so, when it comes, it'll come. you'll see it. you won't hear about it anymore. on to my monday morning quarterbacking of yesterday's service...

as i've said before, i've been cleansing my palate for months now, ever since rick announced his impending departure, so that i could start recommitting and reinvesting myself into my church. on father's day, with the official arrival of a new minister, i would step down from the balcony and start stirring the pot. in a literal and figurative way, step down from the balcony sarah and i (and joseph) did yesterday. it was a weird feeling to be quite honest. i don't think we bumped anybody out of their normal seats, but moving from the almost empty balcony to the half-filled lower section was not without anxiety. would people read anything into the move? would anyone even notice? would i feel out of place? to be honest, i don't really know how noticed sarah and i are anymore. there, of course, was a part of me that hoped people would see us and wonder where we've been, but i doubt that was the case. i have kept myself on the periphery of things for so long now that my guess is i've fallen curse to "out of sight, out of mind." no difference, though. that won't be the case for long. i did not feel out of place, which helped my mood. it was nice to be able to hear other folks singing along with us during the hymns and doxology. it was nice that we weren't the only stop the offering plate would have to make on our pew. it was nice to have more than one person to shake hands with during the christian greetings portion of the service. and so, the literal move went fairly smoothly. the figurative one? well, that'll take more time to figure out.

on to the service. the one that would introduce our new "leader". the one that would carry us into the next era of our church. first impressions are everything. for everything that rick lacked, he made a good first impression with his first service. sarah and i talked about how one could literally feel the congregation breathe a huge sigh of relief during rick's first service and know that there would be a chance to heal after charles lee dug a hole for us and threw us in. i'll cover the first impression that was chris denson's first service by looking at the pros and cons. let's start with the cons. like everything post-yesterday, i am going to make an intentional effort to end positive even if there are crappy things to mention.

the cons:

* why is it that we can't get through a whole service anymore without a technical glitch? joe crump, noted techno-wizard and old guy, struggled through the ENTIRE introduction of the denson family with either a faulty microphone, a faulty soundguy, or a little bit of both. granted, chris denson had nothing to do with this, whatsoever, but it makes the church look stupid. not a good start.

* joe crump, also known in some circles as "the only guy that could suck the joy out of the fact that we have a god that loves us so much he sent his son to die for us", tells the congregation and the new pastor that he hopes that rev. denson can be successful in "sustaining the vitality" of the church. WTF? did i miss something? obviously, no one has given joe crump a copy of my last post. being optimistic is one thing. being unaware or not true to your church's situation is another. of course, he might have been talking about sustaining vitality kind of like an emergency room doctor might want to sustain the vitality of a person that had spent the last half-hour underwater but miraculously started breathing again when they got him to the hospital. "ok!!! we've got a pulse, people!!! let's sustain that vitality!" i mean, i guess our church does still have a pulse, right?

* during his sermon, dude cried. those that know me know that i am not a big fan of tears. so, he starts the story with how we are raised by imperfect people and i anticipate him spinning it towards a perfect god, yada, yada, yada. nope. he starts talking about his dad painting a picture for him and feeding the homeless (or the "untouchables"), both of which are awesome, but a little hokey for a first sermon. at least for me. and then he choked up and told his dad thanks. not a huge point against him, but the crying stuck out to me.

* the last con. and this one's kind of a biggie. dude sang. yes, he sang. and he has a beautiful voice. but he sang several, if not all (i kind of tuned out), the verses of he touched me. i got the point. "listen to the words. listen to god." but in the same way rick did not realize that "song of my heart" may have resonated in a negative way due to the poor memories of heartsong, i am not sure rev. denson understood that charles lee left us all feeling like we could use a little less singing and show, and a little more memorizing his sermon. the only thing i kept waiting for during the solo was for the guy to go into the choir loft, sit down at the piano and begin swaying side to side like stevie wonder. thankfully, that didn't happen, but the moment was lacking, again, in awareness, and you could feel how uncomfortable the congregation was at the time. maybe that was the point. if so, though, it was an ill-advised point.

now that i am through drinking my hater-ade, the pros:

* there was only ONE joke. just one. and it was kind of crappy. but that's awesome. you are not funny. and that is just fine. the era of stand-up routine followed by the "serious voice" is over. just a message. a very...

* scripturally-driven and centered message. one of the things that rick suffered from was starting with scripture and then losing himself in all sorts of tangential stories and bad jokes. this meant he had to use "the serious voice" to remind us that we were actually talking about god and kind of lost his audience along the way. at least for one sunday, rev. chris denson's delivery was different. he gave us some context help with the passage and preached on the passage. it was kind of foreign-feeling, but it worked ok.

* speaking of his delivery, it was, in a word, dramatic. where rick usually closed with "the serious voice" yesterday was all "serious voice". beginning to end. dramatic pauses. squinted eyes. eye contact with as many folks as possible. all of it. the new pastor has a very big voice and a good presence (and great hair!!!...a plus in any walk of life) in the pulpit and used both of those to his advantage. what i felt in D-R-A-M-A, though, i was able to forgive for the most part, because i felt like he meant what he was saying. even when he was crying about his dad, i still got the feeling he meant it. maybe he's just a crier. maybe he likes fried green tomatoes and doesn't care who knows, but i did get the impression he was genuine in almost every word and phrase he used yesterday. that, also, could be a huge and positive change from my (and others) perception of the previous two administrations.

if i were grading, i'd give yesterday's first impression a "B-". there was room for improvement but it definitely could have been worse.

there were rumors circulating yesterday that he's never been in a church with a daycare and humc will be his biggest church. both of those things bode poorly for the situation he's inheriting. but it will be several weeks before we know if he's in over his head or not.

i did leave yesterday feeling pretty good about, at the very least, yesterday. the guy seems interested in the challenge. that will help.

and so, i am back on board. for any of you that may read my thoughts here and consider huffman home, i encourage you to leap with me, one last time, into the idea that we can still have a home in huffman ten to fifteen years from now. no one is more cynical than i am. i'll admit that. but i am trying to remember what made me love huffman in the first place. i am going to try and be a part of a movement that will allow hannah to create those same memories here. not clearbranch. or trussville. or somewhere that doesn't seem to suck as bad as we do and have. this isn't a call to arms. it's just a request.

to those of you that i've been lucky enough to be in your lives and share humc with in some capacity, i am going to start annoying you soon.

and asking for your help.

i hope you consider it.

more on the church


sarah stumbled upon this (set date range from 2000 to 2006, click 'find church by name', type huffman and press enter) yesterday evening as she was trolling around the internet and happened to wonder if the folks in our techno-ministry had updated huffman's site in the recent past. we were both surprised to see that someone was at least on the ball enough to update the staff page removing rick and donna and adding rev. denson and lindsey hull, our new part-time children's director. as sarah continued to peruse the site, most of it terribly dated (unless youth choir has re-started at 530 on sunday evening and i had not heard), she clicked on the conference link and followed her interest to the link i provide you above.

i am going to do my best to post my long awaited, long-hyped children's place entry tomorrow before i go in and close the store. but before i did so, i thought it might be of interest to those of you that pay relatively frequent attention to this site (and by product of your interest, you being privy to my internal skepticism about my church's future) to point you in the direction of some cold, hard facts and not just my opinion on the matter.

it does not, in any way, shape or form, take a statistics geek to analyze our charts. 400 fewer members in our fold by the end of 2006 as compared to the end of 2000. 200 fewer in combined worship. and keep in mind that the years in question contain the end of not one, not two, but three alternative worship services "designed" to attract un-churched or de-churched persons. drops in professions of faith and baptisms are seen next, but both of those numbers were pretty weak even back in 2000. the first four charts are bad. real bad. but the most defining chart is the last one. our apportionments. most of you readers are aware of this, but apportionments are the portion of each united methodist church's budget that are pledged towards the conference whole. in other words, apportionments are a church's tithe toward the sum of our conference's parts, god's church and god's kingdom. only once in the six years charted did we even meet half of our pledge and in 2003 (charles lee's only full year), we didn't even reach 15 percent of our goal. as i look at this and reflect on the figures, am i the only one that feels uneasy? we do not, as a church, tone down our stewardship campaign and efforts when it's time to get ready for the next year's budget. but how can we expect our congregation to fully buy in (financially) to what we at huffman are doing if we cannot fully buy in (financially) to what our conference and god's greater kingdom has in store for our monetary gifts? we tell our congregation that what we give of ourselves god will return several fold. we tell our congregation that we should consider god first with our finances because he considers us first in all walks of life. we tell our members to not be afraid to tithe "your ten percent", because god will provide. but we, as a church, are not committed to this idea. if we, on the whole, are not convicted, then why should we be as individuals?

is there a direct link between the failure to meet our apportionment and our congregation fading away at an alarming rate? maybe not directly, but what i see is this. rather than recommitting as a church and saying, "ok. we are going to come at this from another direction. we will give god his first and work from there. we are trusting ourselves to fix this and it is not working. it is time to, literally, give this over to god and ask him for the wisdom to save our church.", we have developed a bunker mentality. instead we are saying, "shit. we are dying off way faster than we are reaching new people. so, let's see how long we can drag this out. we'll cut full-time staff to part-time. we will not readjust our apportionment because we can't afford to. and we will all sit indian-style with our fingers crossed and hope something happens."

that's just not how it works, folks. for all my gloom and doom, if you are inclined to trust the context of scripture, we see that god trusts and puts faith in persons and groups that trust and put faith in him. huffman is not holding up our end of the deal. and we are paying for it.

i am glad i happened upon some numbers that say that in a way that doesn't just come across as me whining.