The Back Table

I have a confession to make. At my wedding, when I was told to repeat the vows, I wasn't fully there. It was all kind of hazy, weird - not like I thought it was going to be. Maybe it had something to do with all the booze I was drinking a couple hours before (just kidding, Honey...and Jake [father-in-law]). Seriously though, the only thing that was going through my mind was my voice not cracking, not throwing up and wanting to check my zipper for the hundredth time. I remember feeling white. I don't even know if that's possible, but it was for me that day. I just knew I was the whitest dude in the room. I could have been used as a night light. I'm sure people were thinking that too. I could almost hear the whispers in the ears from one spouse to another - "Honey, he would be great in the hallway by the bathroom." These aren't the kind of thoughts a groom should be having when he's about to make the most important promises to his almost-wife in front of...

I'm going to share something really personal. I can't find a deodorant that's nice... you know, to my pits. At first when I try one it's fine, at least for the first few hours, but then itching and then burning follow. It's horrible really. A sad story. A man who can't find a reliable deodorant - one that won't keep burning him. So there you have it, a window into my dark, red places. You'll never look at my under arms the same way again. At least now that it's out in the open I might get some help from others who've been through this same struggle. One day as I was itching and burning - at the same time - a thought came to me. How many people tried the "stick o' church" and ended up getting burnt? How many people have I personally affected in this way? It's an important question to enter into. Now I know and realize that we can't beat ourselves up over what we did "back there," in the past. And we can't blame ...

Many of you know that I can't stand bananas. I can smell one from a mile away. I blame this banana hatred on my mother. She would pack one in my lunch nearly every day through elementary and middle school, and it would make everything else in my lunch taste like - you guessed it - banana. To this day, if I pass someone eating one I sometimes gag. One night I made the big mistake of eating one in front of my wife. She made fun of me the entire time I was eating it - all 45 minutes of it - laughing, moaning. Her face was red. At one point she couldn't even breathe. I'm serious! I have to admit, it probably was pretty funny watching a grown, bearded man painfully forcing a banana into his mouth gagging and dry heaving over a 45-minute timespan. But this whole banana thing got me thinking. Is this how we treat the Bible sometimes...like a food that we get tired of? I've caught myself and others kind of mocking scriptures in the Bible. Maybe not intentionally, but sometimes ...

There is this balance that i'm trying to live in - a balance I wish others would try to live in as well. It's the balance of caring and not caring and knowing what we should be caring about in the first place. I tend to care too much about what others think. I would admit to you that I am closer to one side of the scale...not good. But there are others who would fall on the complete opposite side of the scale. These would be people who have this underlying arrogance about themselves...not good either. Most times the over-confidence is a cover up to something they don't want people to see. Many people are drawn to this type of person or personality but usually only for a season. At first their strong opinions and social class seemed desirable but after hanging around them for a while you just want to say, "Who are you? Who put the crown on your head...did I miss the ceremony?" Here's my plea for all of us who find ourselves on one side or the other. Seek God an...

I have this issue, chances are you have it as well...one way or another. It's the issue of everybody else and the impact they have on how we act, what we say, how we think, and what we do. For me it's the most annoying thing i deal with as a human. It's annoying because i wrestle with it constantly. I care way too much about what other people think and say about me. Right now, writing this blog, there are faces flashing before my eyes. And all the faces are you and i'm predicting in my mind how you'll react and what you'll say. I've written and erased, written and erased and written and erased some more. It's enough to drive a man crazy. I know i'm not a polished, established, famous writer and so i can't worry about what everyone is going to say- i'm just trying it out and seeing what happens. If it sucks, no one will read it. If its good or half decent people will read it. I've learned enough to know that i will never do anything, never...

It was so cold, no one wanted to get out their camera to snap photos…but we did (a few anyway). As we were planning our young adult Christmas event, we just knew a part of the night had to be dedicated to helping those who weren’t going to have as nice of a Christmas as we were going to have. So we decided to go out and buy $550 worth of gifts for kids and have a gift wrapping station that would be available for people to wrap a gift or two throughout the night. All 100 gifts were wrapped by 9pm with two hours to spare before we all headed home…that was awesome! The plan was to head over to Chelsea Village Saturday morning at around 9:30am and hand them out along with coffee and donuts. To my surprise, around 15 of you showed up that morning- did I say it was Saturday morning and it was really cold? To me, getting 15 twenty-something’s out of bed, on the only day many of you can sleep in is a miracle... slightly behind the water from the rock event. Upon arriving, we picked out our spo...