Yes, yes, I gave in and saw the midnight showing of Harry Potter. In my defense, I had only seen three of the previous movies (none in theaters), and I was entirely peer pressured into it.
SPOILER ALERT: If you haven’t seen the movie and don’t want key plot points revealed, read this later!
I am writing because Dumbledore’s character troubles me. Continue reading
Today I committed murder. Mass murder – Nearly genocide, really. I’m talking about gnats. Little black carcasses strewn over the fatal terrain of my sweat-covered face, neck, and torso. Seriously, it was gross. I went for a long run in the smothering July humidity and came back with more blood on my hands than I care to think about.
It all started with a book called Born To Run that my 
friend Jeff recommended to me. Continue reading
After silence, that which comes closest to expressing the inexpressible is music. –Aldous Huxley
I have what some might call a “musical background.” I grew up playing piano, started playing guitar and bass sometime around middle school, and have suffered from the notion that I am a singer for quite some time now.
Because of its consistent and everlasting presence in my own life, the way I think about music has always contained spiritual undertones. It is healing, it centers me, and it provides an outlet for emotions that I honestly do not think I could express otherwise. One sexy chord pattern from John Mayer does more for my soul than a thousand kind words.
I know I’m not alone in this. Continue reading
In case it seems like my ADD has gotten me off track, I just want to – Oh, man look at that butterfly! Just kidding. I want to clarify that I am using this summer to raise the questions I hope to find some answers to over the next year of travel. It will not always seem to relate directly to the “year of exploration,” but I hope to tie it all back in over the next 12 months.
Today’s question: What does it take to be a family? It’s a valid question, and one that becomes harder to answer the more you think about it. It can be personal; it can be political; it can be spiritual. No matter how you think about it, family is a complex thing to tackle. Continue reading
If anyone could be accused of embodying the rebellious son struggling to become anything but his parents…it’s me. Try as I might, though, one legacy my mother has passed on to me is the Saturday morning thirst for public radio. Wait, Wait, Don’t Tell Me, Car Talk, and This American Life characterized my childhood car rides, and I now find myself returning to them in my adult life (via the more generational-appropriate medium of the Podcast). As the aforementioned maternal unit said upon learning that I now know who Carl Kasell is: “Thank goodness, I have succeeded as a parent!”
While running today, I exercised this new-found hobby and flipped the iPod to one of my favorite NPR shows, On Being. The show aims to “explore meaning, faith, and ethics amidst the political, economic, cultural and technological shifts that define 21st century life.” In other words, right up my alley. Continue reading
You know for yourselves that I worked with my own hands to support myself and my companions. In all this I have given you an example that by such work we must support the weak, remembering the words of the Lord Jesus, for he himself said, “It is more blessed to give than to receive.” –Paul, as quoted in Acts 20:34-35
Few things seem to rile people up quite like a church’s finances. How it generates income, what it does with it when it gets it, and so on. It’s one of the things I want to explore next year: Exactly how does each church view its role in the economy; what is the purpose of tithing; how much should clergy get paid; can I get a Benz as an ordination present? Continue reading
It might be the insomnia, but Ryan Reynolds is a terrific actor. I just finished watching the movie Chaos Theory (2007), and I believe it has sneaked onto my top 5 list.
The Departed, Gladiator, and Inception still take the 
cake of course, but this is a different category of art altogether. It doesn’t betray your expectations with twists like a Scorsese flick and it doesn’t blow your mind like Inception. It’s more subtle: It takes you by the hand and walks you through this plethora of emotions you never knew you had, then it sits you down, looks you in the eye, and speaks truth. I’ll be honest, from the guy who did Van Wilder and Two Guys, a Girl, and a Pizza Place, I was not expecting this. Continue reading
Life Reconciling 