i love jelly...

I love jelly. Strawberry, grape, apple. I love it. I could eat fresh peanut butter and jelly sandwiches every day forever. I have taught my sons to sing of its goodness. Peanut, peanut butter, and jelly! They sing it over and over, shouting the praises of peanut butter and jelly. But you know what I don't like? When the jelly has been on the bread too long. Like in your pigs in space lunch box at school. It's kind of warm and the jelly has sunk deep into the pores of the bread. What was once good is now spoiled. But what choice do we have? We eat it anyway. We remember what it was when it was new, but it seems there is nothing that we can do now. So we suffer through its dryness as it sticks to the roof of our mouth. We have lost the definition of bread and jelly and peanut butter, they soak together into a dry and difficult to eat substance we hardly recognize. The void between what we once new and what we are now experiencing is so vast it's hard to imagine that they are the same object. I never complained about it when I was a kid. I never said to my Mom, "there has to be a better way to prepare my sandwich so that when it is time for me to eat it it is not in this wretched state." I don't think I would have used the word wretched even if I wanted to make that statement. I am not entirely sure that I would use that word out loud today, but the deed is done. It never occurred to me that there was an alternative to soggy PB&J's, soggy PB&J's are a fact of life, that's how it is, and there is no way around it... But there is. It's simply a matter of whether or not we are willing to think creatively. Would the planet roll off its axis if we were to keep the peanut butter and jelly and bread separate until it was time to eat it? Sure, it would be more work to put the jelly in its own container as well as the peanut butter, not to mention the added expense of the plastic knives and the containers you would most certainly accidentally throw away. But the effort would be worth it and before long no one would even notice the fact that it was extra effort at all. After all, wouldn't it be easier to not prepare lunch at all? But the effort is worth it. It will be extra work, but the results? Everything we always wanted.

Sammy as Bumblebee

The Pic Says It All...

Need I say more?

Optimash Prime

I AM OPTIMASH PRIME!!!
At this moment, the Patriots are winning 35-7; the Red Sox forced a seventh game; and I have a copy of Transformers on DVD waiting for the end of the Patriots game to be viewed. I guess on a scale of 1 to 10 I am Optimash Prime!

Today I am just an ordinary potato

A friend of mine challenged me last week to answer the question "where am I?" every day in a journal. It has been an interesting exercise so far but as with everything I write it always ends up with more of a dark chocolate taste rather than a lighter milk chocolate. Well instead of getting into the rut of blogging my mostly depressing thoughts I thought i would try a little harder and create the "POTATO HEAD SCALE!" Given the extreme diversity of Mr. Potato Head's costumes, I have found that there is a different Mr. Potato Head for just about every mood one could be in. So today I am just an ordinary potato, but if things go south today I might be apt to switch to "Darth Potato."
Kann and I are leaving the kids with her mom today and going to Peabody, Mass to the Eastern Regional Convention, it's gathering of Pastors and representatives from all of the different Advent Christian churches in New England, parts of New York and parts of Canada. I think it's mostly a Berkshire Christian College reunion, but we go anyway. After all going means two nights in a nice hotel with good friends and no kids! The downside is that I usually end up feeling a little bit more like a nameless storm trooper. I guess that's ok, but I hate being reminded that I am an officially non-ordained non-seminary grad college drop-out. Oh well, impressing those guys isn't in my job description. I'm bringing "Lappy" with me so maybe I'll get to post from the convention, maybe even from the hot tub! (where I'll prolly feel a little more like a boiled potato!)

I guess it's time to post...

One of the struggles I have had with blogging is writing too much about too much so I am going to attempt to not do that anymore.

We are working hard to get settled in at our new post and that is going pretty well so far. I am starting to feel like we are getting a little bit of traction here and that is a good thing. I am still missing my friends back in Meredith* (*fighting hard to not write "back home":.\ ) I am, however looking forward to watching the Pats game with my pals back there on Sunday though! A good recovery practice from preaching!

I am preaching this Sunday. My sermon is entitled "Worship - Let's get it right!"
It's mostly about leaving behind our assumptions about worship and looking for the best Biblical example on authentic worship. we'll see how it goes. I started writing what I thought was a real good one until my new mentor Mr. Friedrich showed me how I was just looking to establish a new moral code. We're all about making rules, aren't we?!? The moral codes that God has established are just fine, after all He wrote them!

Anyway, we are working hard to make friends and find our place in our new community. It's more work that I had anticipated but anything worth having is worth working for.

This picture just helps remind me where I am.

Post one...

This is a post, this is only a post...