A Great Day

Have you had one of those recently? A great day? It's nice when they come along.

A combination of activities and factors contributed to the day's greatness:

1. Taking Jess as a family to her new school on the first day...exciting.
2. Going back to bed for a good recovery nap from the weekend's activities.
3. A "Daddy Daughter Date" to the park with Jaquelyn.
4. A long conversation with someone about faith and spirituality
5. A meal together with the family
6. Time with some good friends.

Mondays are typically a day that I reserve for family and/or personal "margin." Often times, the margin in our lives gets hijacked by the urgent, but today was different. The blank space around this page of our lives remained open and available for random and relational notations.

A very difficult conversation I had today was involving my Starbucks affiliation. That will officially end in about a month, but my last scheduled day in the store is this Saturday Sept 1st! Yeah...shocker, eh? (for some of you)

The time has definitely come though to cut loose from the Green Siren and focus my efforts elsewhere...as well as just freeing up some of the margin I mentioned above.

Without enough margin, every area of our lives suffer: emotional, spiritual, financial, and moral. Yet we excuse our crammed schedules because we're being productive, good stewards, efficient, etc. It's just not true. The old saying is true...less is more.

Tennis in Cincinnati

Well, I'm sitting here watching James Blake get blown out by Roger Federer in Cincinnati. Blake just served 3 double faults. Come on!

I like Federer, but I'd love to see the streaky American hope win this one.

It has been a very challenging week of near full-time hours at Starbucks along with a lot of ministry going on. The Sabbath gathering at Lifespring went well with a lot of people stepping up to help. I kind of sabbotaged Mandy's technological contribution while wasting my own all-nighter video project by not bringing the power cord for my camera! But in spite of the frustrations, it was a good morning to worship and fellowship with friends.

My main task this week is to prepare for something we're calling Oasis. It's a time to celebrate the authentic community we're experiencing in our small groups while launching out some new groups. I believe it's becoming more evident that people are desperate for meaningful relationships and community...but not eager to take the risk to get there. No one wants to have just another obligatory religious activity that really bears little or no relevance to life.

August 6th

I meant to post this yesterday for obvious reasons...but was prevented by technical difficulties. Our cable/internet provider has some real quality control issues to deal with.

Anyway, Deb & I got to spend most of the day together yesterday to celebrate anniversary #13. Hard to believe it's already been that long. What a wonderfully supportive and loving woman God has blessed into my life.

Here's what we looked like on August 6th 1994...


We look a little different now. :)