never been here before

I stepped off the airplane and moved down the ramp with my luggage. I flew into Grand Island, NE this time, a small town with an even smaller airport. As I walked toward the single gate, I see my dad right in front, looking and waiting for me to get there. He hugs me, grabs my luggage away from me and we head out to the car. After we're buckled in and on the road, his cell rings. He answers and I hear my brother's voice say "Has she landed yet?" I laugh at the tone of his voice. Our plane was 30 minutes late, but I knew Randy was impatient for my arrival. He's always been that way. After a few minutes, my dad hangs up the phone and tells me that Randy has prepared a vehicle for me to drive for the week if I need it; being from a family of farmers we rarely have a shortage of extra pick ups and SUVs around. He asked if I wanted to pick it up on the way or if Randy should take it up to the house. I told him we could simply stop by the shop to pick it up ...

I'm teaching a two-part series on Advent on the 11 and 18th of this month, so I've been studying, writing, and researching about the history of advent, the scriptures associated with advent, and how the church practices (or often, doesn't) it. I write a lot of curriculum. It’s part of my job; it’s what I love and a big part of what I am called to do. But this one has been tough. I’ve had a hard time motivating myself to get it organized. I’m put it off in lieu of other things. I have not been able to sit down and write this one easily. And it took me a while to understand why. On the Meyer’s Briggs personality test, I am an INFJ. When I first tested for this in seminary, I was borderline N/S and F/T. Then when I had to do my family genogram ( http://www.genopro.com/genogram/ ) for my Marriage and Family Counseling class, I discovered something very interesting. I had my immediate family all take the Meyers Briggs and the rest of my family all tested as S’s and as T’s....

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I found myself caught off-guard tonight as I looked at a photo my friend Jim posted on facebook of his new baby boy. The next photo was one of him, his wife and he now oldest son, sweet, smiling and happy. I began to tear up. Three people my second year in St. Louis changed me, and he was one of them. Not because of anything in particular he did, but because of a shared experience we had. These three people mean the world to me, and yet our shared experience was just that: a shared experience. We haven't really been in touch since I moved to Arizona... just a few emails and some ichating, and the occasion twitter convo. I long to be back in that experience with them. I recognized the feeling. The feeling of homesickness. The feeling of love, protection and support you get from being around those who understand you. I know that's rare for many people, and perhaps even a bit more so for me. I've lived a somewhat transient lifestyle. From Nebraska to Kansas to Colo...

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It's been a while since I've posted anything pop culture related, and if you've been a reader for a while, you know it used to be a very common staple around here. But my pop culture tendencies have been satisfied at work in the last year, as I've had the chance to work pop culture into two classes I've taught and two curriculums I wrote. But here I am getting that itch again and had an idea today as I was watching a bad TV show. Often bad TV shows have at least one character that is somewhat likable, and sometimes even very likable. I have my own guilty-pleasure TV shows I watch from time to time and was trying to figure out why... and voila! I realized the show is usually somewhat redeemed by one great chracater that I either love or love to hate. Either way, love is involved. So here we go: 10.) Bruce Van Exel on "Judging Amy" I was a regular watcher of Judging Amy for a couple of seasons back in the day, before A Brenneman began to annoy me and ...

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