A Bakers Dozen of Sentence Statements

1. I am in St. Louis and it is so, so hot here.

2. David Crowder writes strange books.

3. One of my best friends who I've not seen in ages was here Friday, I was even in the lobby of his hotel, but we didn't know each other was here.

4. Thinking about #3 makes me sick.

5. I got angry last night, I was grateful for the company and wisdom of another of my best friends whose wisdom is always a gift.

6. Cincinnati has a downtown that is infinitely more enjoyable than St. Louis.

7. I am resigning myself to finishing second in fantasy baseball this year and relinquishing the champions trophy.

8. I think the Cubs may finish ahead of the Cardinals this year.

9. I feel somewhat like a wet cardboard box today.

10. Why does a bakers dozen have 13?

11. Midway through the writing of this post, my internet connection was lost and when I went to post this here post, much of it was lost (the remaining 4) which means what you will read from here on out was not the original thinking and I feel badly because I felt as though those were the real gems of this post and now it lacks anything good or profound or worthwhile but nonetheless I will press on with the remaining 2 statements I owe you.

12. That last sentence was very long and left me little room to tell you of other things of importance such as the discussion we had last night on how best to move on after a summer of eating out and cafeteria food to which our best solution to date is a 2 month fast.

13. I am grateful that blogger now saves my drafts automatically though I wish they'd saved it one more time before all my brilliance was lost and you were left with this.

5,000 Words

Currently Listening To: Saviour King by Hillsong from All of the Above

So it's been another good week. Tomorrow we load up trucks and begin the journey back west towards Joplin. Our final stops will be Mountain View and St. Louis and I will find myself tomorrow night reunited with the gray team. It has been good to be with the blue team. They are a hard working crew and the 3 weeks of Know Sweat with them have been a lot of fun.

One of my "jobs" for the past 3 weeks has been to snap some pictures of the groups as they serve each day. I confess that I'm no photo journalism major but I found myself tonight going through some photos to see a quick re-run of the summer to date.

Back in Joplin, I have some cork boards on one wall in my office. I've put some pictures from my trips with CIY, pictures that have a story behind them. I've taken better pictures, there are a number of shots I love but those are the ones that each time I look at them, they take me back to a specific thought or moment on my own journey.

Tonight I pulled 5 pictures I'm considering for the wall. Each has a story, too long to tell here but fun to look at nonetheless. So I submit to you a quick and scattered look at what I've seen in the last 6 weeks....

Talk To The Hand

Many months ago I was at the National Missionary Convention in Indy. It was a very good time, complete with all the fun that comes with travel. I always come away from those things feeling small which is quite cool.

On this particular trip I was able to teach an elective for the Indiana Christian Teen Convention dealy-o in this facinating little room. <>

Right before my little shindig, an adult session had occured in the room which was taught by and attended entirely by hearing impaired people. Obviously they used sign language and since the class ran a little long and I showed up a little early, I "listened in" on the last few minutes of the class and then watched all the customary post-class conversation.

Tonight in the midst of the singing at Know Sweat I noticed a girl who was using sign language as she sang. I find myself finding sign language mysterious and beautiful.

I remember when Ang and I lived in Quincy and the church was signing all the services and a good friend of ours would do all the signing and I would find myself watching this happen out of curiosity and facination.

It got me to thinking about something we tell students at Know Sweat all the time, that you can speak without using your mouth or your voice. Both literally with your hands or literally, with your hands.

Today I saw a group painting the home of a muslim woman, a group serving the city of Cincy by repairing and rebuilding a city park, a group serving a woman who's not liked by her community because her house is a mess--and the city is literally driving by thanking them and watching.

A local TV station is filming at a couple sites this week and have done some interviews because they are doing a series on teens and money and can't get over the fact that kids would pay money to serve in a city other than the one they live in.

So I guess I'm sitting in this subpar dorm with a nice internet connection wondering why we don't shut up and start talking more often. I wonder why it is so amazing when students do it and so unremarkable when adults stop.

No Way

What? The NBA is fixed? No way, shut up. That is crazy talk.

Next thing you know they'll start saying that colleges are slipping their athletes cash to play. Do they really think I'm so dumb as to believe that?

Back in the 'Nati

I'm back from Memphis and ready for 2 more weeks in Cincy before heading to St. Louis. Ang and the kids will head up here tomorrow which will mark the first time I've seen them since I left for the summer. I guess you could say I'm looking forward to seeing my family.

The "trade" of interns went quite well and Memphis was an amazing week. The projects turned out great and the blending of our team went quite well. We had some extra hands on deck thanks to the finest OCC camp team one could imagine and some old friends from Rocky who flew to help the band and pitch in on projects. Nathan Head threw down as only Nathan can and spent much of the week in the truck or on work sites with us which is always a meaningful thing. I feel confident saying he is good people.

Yesterday was my next to last trip in a box truck for the summer and the trip included a pit stop in Nashville to eat lunch with Shaver.

This weekend the blue team will get some well earned rest and enjoy some of the finer things in Cincinnati. Well, we'll at least have fun. Well check out UCC tomorrow and I'll get to do some long awaited reading while waiting for the family to arrive.

Remind me to tell you about Memphis at some point, right now I need to go fold my clean laundry and find a band for one of our interns who had his debit card stolen.

There's Nothing To See Here

Things I've enjoyed in the last few days:
-A drive to Milligan in a box truck. Especially when the engine died and the steering locked. Going downhill.
-Sweet tea and the Canadian Mounty at Poor Richard's (Ryan, I tried to eat at Makado's but they were closed, I really tried to get the sweet carrots, I hope we can still be friends)
-A divine appointment with a hero/friend. He's more hero than friend because I really have nothing to offer back.
-Getting to see my friends the Hedgers, Hills,Snows and others.
-Some amazing Rob Bell sermons.
-A smooth flight to Memphis with the man the myth, the Allmoschlecher.
-Some amazing Memphis BBQ(with more sweet tea), a stroll down Beale Street and hanging out with the new crew of interns, my buddy Golubski and all that is the blue team.
-A reunion with my friends the Coghills.
-Inside Afghanistan, an amazing read.
-Stripped--a book you have to read just to figure out what you think about a few things.
-Currently, some great Elton John and Paul McCartney, Derek Webb and John Mayer and the fact that I'm about to crack open a book I've been waiting for: Simply Christian.

Things I'm looking forward to:
-Seeing my family
-This week in Memphis with a lof of old friends, our old student ministry band and some freaking awesome service projects
-Returning to Cincinnati
-Listening to Nate Head preach for a week
-Sunday morning at Community Bible Church in Memphis, the church I would attend every week if I could
-The things I'm not aware of yet that will make this another fabulous week.
-A Memphis Redbirds game tomorrow afternoon.

I leave you with a quote: "The failure of Christians is not primarily a loss of love for God but loss of love for people."

Or maybe two: "A sense of entitlement robs us of our joy when it comes to serving others."

Goodbye Norma Jean.

Cincinnati in July

God really does have a sense of humor.

Tomorrow marks the end of my first 3 weeks in Cincinnati. It will be a full 21 days since I've seen my family and another 11 or 12 before I see them, that time will hopefully go faster now that I'll be changing cities on Friday.

Cincinnati has been really, really good. The projects have been great, working with and seeing old friends has been a lot of fun. Shaver continues to be a good man, the band continues to rock and we've had 3 unique and amazing in their own way guys come drop the Word on the students. There was some stuff that happened last night with one of our interactive elements that I wish you could have seen. It was cool.

And in the midst of it, it rains at least every other or 3rd day here, but never when we work. Right before, right after all the time but when the kids at the work site, it "miraculously" happens to not rain. We sure are fortunate. and Lucky. ha.

Friday I roll to Milligan to meet up with the blue team and say goodbye to my friends that have been the gray team. Saturday I'll be in Memphis to say hello to my new friends and start the last 4 weeks of the summer.

In the midst of it, I currently find myself immersed in a book that is really teaching me--stripped. I continue to search out my theology and develop my understanding of who God is and the stuff I'm supposed to understand. And all the while, I watch kids live out their faith in a way I didn't at that age.

So I hope you saw fireworks, it seems Cincinnati has a show every night and each morning the city greets us not with the crowing of roosters but the familiar sound of police sirens. Ahh, urban life. Much like what I enjoy on the mean streets of Oronogo.

Why I Hug Trees

I finished Serve God, Save the Planet today. I sat on the edge of "the hill" here in Cincinnati overlooking downtown. CCU has a nice little gazebo with a swing which was my vantage point and it offered a unique perspective as I read.

I won't say it was the best book I've ever read. I did thoroughly enjoy it but it awakened my understanding to something. Sitting there swinging, I realized I hug trees not because I necessarily give a rip about them or because I truly think we share the same mother. Sure, we come from the same Father, but it isn't really a spiritual issue to me in the way I might have expected.

The thing Sleeth does in the book is drive the thought of enviornmentalism back repeatedly to something I do give more than a rip about: missions. Though the reality that the fossil fuels I don't use acutally help my friends in the Sahara out, is the thought that what I do and don't do echoes back to materialism, greed, selfishness and a connectedness to the dark side of my only-childness: selfishness. I give a rip about the environment to care about others, because if I could get this under control, I could actually use that money to support actual things of value. I care about it because I think it sucks to be an average American. I hug trees because as much as I love an air conditioned stadium and a good game, as much as I love sitting in my family room and watching a great movie, I feel so much more alive in a park around nature, even if I am a mosquito magnet. (Sidelight, if you come see me in Cincinnati, I'll blow your mind with beauty and peace in some parks that even people who've lived here for years didn't know about).

The last few pages of the book summarize what I am not explaining well with one word. Love.
Love of God and nature and others create this cycle that affects so much of where I am at and frees me to care about things that matter and provide a life worth living.

Environmentalism, much like service and the poor, is a pretty popular i.e. cool subject right now. That sucks because it is on a course to be antiquated in a few years. It will go the way of all the other fads in Christianity.

A number of years ago I heard a sermon by Leonard Sweet. I find that if I read or listen to something he did about 3 years previously, it makes a lot more sense. He, like my friend Lowery, is too prophetic and sees things much earlier than the rest of us. Anyway, Sweet went through this sermon about all the things the church was too ashamed to admit or acknowledge that society has taken and championed and then the church has come back much like the punk playground kid saying something along the lines of "hey, that was mine first". Societies response? "Uh, when I found it, you'd left it laying in the gutter for the past few days so I figured you didn't care about it anymore."

What hacks me off isn't that we want back in on these ideas, its that we don't care about them until they become popular. If we would spend as much time "marketing" what God had written thousands of years ago instead of trying to chase down society and make it fit some verse, I think we might actually make a difference.

Okay, I'm done for now.