Anybody out there?

Just a quick question? Has anyone read this in "oh say the last 2 weeks"? If so just leave a post so I know someone is out there acutally reading this.

I love my team

I just wanted to put out there officially that God has blessed me with a stellar set of teamates at Turpin. It all starts with my home team of Becky, Lily, and Sydney who love, support, and pray for me and the work at Turpin high school as I leave our house to be in the high school world. Without them I would be a shell of the man I am today.

I also want to say I am so blessed to have Andrew and Celina as teamates on the high school turf. They are such and encouragement to me and they also challenge me daily with their vigor for the students at our school. They are great! It's awesome to see what God is doing in our midst.

By the way Ellis put together that fun picture up top. He's truly an artist!

F L A B A L A N C H E (fla-buh-lanche)

Today I was reading a devotional book that talked about CS Lewis and his book "The Screwtape Lettters".

First make humans flabby, with small passions and desires, then offer a sop to those dimished passions so that their experience is one of contentment. They know nothing of great joy or great sorrow. They are merely nice. CS Lewis

Lily is a 2 year old. Lily knows daily "great joy and great sorrow". She spends much of her time dancing and singing because Dora came on, she sees potato chips, or the best of all for me; Daddy came home but just as quickly she'll throw herself to the floor wailing because Dora went off, she cannot have another potato chip, or the hardest for me; Daddy or Mommy is leaving.

She is like a human rainbow of emotions. She lets herself dare to be amazed by the small things that fill her tiny heart with joy but she is also willing to throw herself to the floor in a tantrum that makes me think of Biblical times where people would tear at their clothes in anguish.

Faith like a child eh?

Why can't I do this anymore?

I think as we grow we learn to temper our hopes, dreams, and emotions. Some of this is good or else I would often find myself wailing on the floor of an electronics store because I cannot buy the HDTV that I so much desire, but far much more of it is bad. We learn that life is about settling, about waking up, eating (way too much), about an occasional vacation (or Bengals game, or trip, or party, or whatever floats your boat), about just being.

I too often relate with this quote:

Most men lead lives of quiet desperation and go to the grave with the song still in them.

Henry David Thoreau

I do not want this to be me and without Christ that's all I could hope for. I am praying for a new found passion, the great joy, and also the great sorrows in my daily walk with Jesus.

The greatest enemy of holiness is not passion; it is apathy - John Eldrege