"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 "how could we best use our outdated, plastic letter using marquee/electronic marquee?"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?