Our Yearly Anniversary Trip

• I have a job! It's only a seasonal position, but it's for a great company. At this point, a job that lasted two weeks would be a huge boost to my self esteem.
• I miss having coworkers and a daily, employed routine.
• Three years ago, my wife and I started a tradition for our anniversary. We head north, try to hit a few places that are photographic, we try to hike, and we find a place to stay for the night. Three years ago, October was still considered part of Autumn with cooler weather.
• Most tourist locations considered October to be the beginning of "the off season." Rooms were cheap and plentifully available. Hiking trails were almost abandoned, free from interuption.
• For the past two years in a row the tempuratures for the first weekend in October have been in the seventies and eighties. Finding a hotel room has proven to be near impossible without reservations. Hiking trails are clogged with people and not the kind that seem to appreciate the setting they are clogging.
• I need my yearly dose of nature and Autumn beauty. The trees appeared to be on fire everywhere we went. This yearly visit resets my eyes, helps me appreciate things I often overlook.
• This past weekend, we were on a beautiful trail in the Sleeping Bear Dunes area of northern Michigan. More than a few things got on my nerves. I should point out, this wasn't a dog-walk specific trail. Dogs were allowed, but it wasn't like it was a designated dog run.
• There were nearly as many dogs on the trail as people.
• Animal people often act as if everyone should be happy to meet and greet their pets.
• Even the people that didn't have dogs were talking about pets… loudly. Most of the natural inhabitants of the hiking areas I was trying to enjoy tend to run away when they hear loud conversations about animal waste management.
• When we arrived at Empire Bluff, we were greeted by an awe inspiring view of the dune filled coast of Lake Michigan. There was a great, beautiful contrast between the fall leaves and the deep blue of the lake. You can see for miles: little towns dotting here and there, endless Fall colors…
• I found it kind of crazy that some of the visitors seemed totally oblivious to all of it. The trail ends in a loop that allows you to quickly exit the scenic area if you choose. Many people would literally stomp around the loop and exit without pausing at all.
• Wow. They missed it.
• At the Dunes Visitor Center, cougars are listed as extinct in Michigan and have been "for decades." When you get to the hiking trails, there are notices telling you that encountering cougars is a possibility, but to avoid trying to interact with them at all costs.
• I thought I understood what the word extinct meant.
• We ended up finding a room about 150 miles farther south than we intended. The Days Inn had a mural on the wall that showed elfish looking leprechans stealing money from some sort of palace.
• ??????
• Nothing makes my hotel staying experience better like theiving elf murals.
• On our way home, we headed for the west side of the state. We ended up in Ludington. What a strange little town. There were a few large hotels right on Lake Michigan. I'm guessing that tourism is a huge factor for the town.
• Their art community was very obviously a huge influence too. We passed many little galleries filled with young people on a Sunday morning.
• Then there were the churches. We parked in their downtown area. All the buildings were very old, but most of them were full and have obviously been updated.
• We were hungry, looking for a place to have lunch. Heidi noticed a group of older, well dressed folks standing outside of what appeared to be a business. It ended up being a Church of Christ. As we walked by, I noticed that pews packed the small space.
• Directly across the street, in a remodeled movie theater, was another church. The people standing outside and sitting inside were much younger. They were all wearing black and grey sweaters - still dressy, but more beatnicky. Instead of pews, they were sitting on chairs in a communal like circle around what appeared to be the pastor. It looked more like a coffee shop. The marquee listed their three service times instead of movies.
• My wife and I love to sample micro-brewed beer, so we tried to visit two breweries while we were up north. They were both a bust.
• The first one was in Traverse City, and they had an hour and a half wait.
• The second was in Ludington, and lunch for the two of us would have ran more than thirty dollars. Craft beer and twenty dollar plates of lobster pasta make for a strange business profile in my opinion, but to each their own. It kind of feels like a mix of football and neck ties.
• The Fleet Foxes make for a great soundtrack to an Autumn roadtrip in Michigan.

Highlights and Thoughts Provoked from Mitch Albom's Have a Little Faith, In Random Form of Course

I wanted to try something new. I read a lot, and I always take notes. I'd love to share some of the points that really stuck out to me, some of the things that I'm still chewing on because of this book.

I'm going to try to paraphrase some of these things. I don't think posting these few quotes from the book will diminish the overall reading experience. The book is really about a journey. I don't think you can even say that it's about a journey to faith. The conclusion is really left to the reader in that respect. It's more like a journey through certain revelations for the author.

Most of these lessons I'm about to list are actually from Mitch's rabbi, The Reb.

• Things that grow slowly are more formidable. Things that grow quickly, crumble easily.
• If you're going to lead or teach people spiritually, there is no room for cynicism.
• Life holds a lot more hope when we believe God has chosen to answer our prayers negatively instead of believing He isn't out there listening in the first place, especially when sudden death or illness is concerned. I have atheist friends, and I wonder how they feel about things like this. If life is pointless. We're here by accident for no real reason. We die, and it's done, then how much more pointless is all this suffering?
• "The only tyrant I accept in this world is the still voice within." Mohandas Gandhi
• Olam Habah - the world to come. This sticks out to me because I recently read an argument that the Christian faith is a faith mainly concerned with the future. It's not about what we are, but what we're becoming. That's not to say that we sit back and let the future unfold, or that we're in any way responsible for creating the final outcome. By participating now, we're becoming now.
• The creation story that Judeo Christian traditions follow does not mention the word 'bad.' God did not create bad things. I study the creation story regularly, and this never occurred to me. I think he's talking about inherent goodness or badness here. We all have this choice. We weren't made bad.
• When you worry about God's judgement, you shouldn't worry about you versus the other guy. You should worry about God measuring you against you - how far you've come compared to where you were.
• Start any reconciliation with humility, "I've thought things over, and in some ways, you might be right." Even if you don't believe it. From my experience, this is great advice. I've often been labeled a diplomatic guy. I've helped facilitated a few reconciliations in my day, and I can tell you, humble keeps people listening. Anger does not.
• The take away from the book: Even if you're not actively seeking a faith, God, etc… if you know people that are obviously enamored with God, try to take some time to have a conversation with these people. You might walk away experiencing something beautiful. Ask them some tough questions.
• I'm starting a file of my own, titled simply, "God."

Other Random Thoughts, Non-book Related:

• Sorry salespeople out there, I hate the phrase, "It's a No Brainer." What it implies to me is, don't even bother thinking about all the angles. Just go for it. Living in this economy, no brainers often lead to more jobs for repo men.
• What's acceptable to wear after Labor Day? How about clothes? Don't we have enough to concern ourselves with already without worrying about whether or not white is acceptable? And Acceptable to whom?

Random Stuff on God, Faith, and My Kids

• If you were to start a file titled 'God,' what would you put in it?
• I should write a sermon on that one. Would you guys read my sermons?
• Have you ever had a week that seems to have a theme, like God is shouting something at you? For about a week now, my theme, the word that keeps being repeated over and over again in differing forms is: ritual.
• I'm reading more than one book right now. One is about the ways that we should approach Bible study. The other is about finding faith. They're actually, on the surface at least, oceans away from one another. One is more instructional. The other is more of a memior. They're both bringing me back to this idea of ritual, or habit.
• My own local pastor mentioned something very similar in his sermon last Sunday. He was talking more about habits that keep you growing spiritually, but to me, that's the same thing. Here's a link to that sermon - click here.
• Ritual. Ritual. Ritual.
• In the more memoir oriented book, the author asks a great question: If you wanted to connect yourself to anyone in the past through ritual, who would it be? Would it be a group? The idea being, you would mimic their behavior or rituals in hopes of seeing some truth that they obviously knew. In a way, ritual can be like time travel, you can connect with people that are no longer among the living.
• Ponder that for a month.
• In the same book, the author stopped running from God around the year 2000, the basic same timeline that I stopped running from God.
• Thinking this over, it's staggering to think about where I was then, at the beginning of faith, and where I am now. How many books have I read on the subject since then? How many articles? Not to mention all the things that have come and gone in my life: A house, two kids, a dream job gained and lost, a community of people I'm now connected with, friends come and gone.
• Staggering.
• The other book, the one that's just trying to lead to a more open minded reading of Scripture, it's a dense book. Full of tons of ideas and tangents, but they're all great fun and somewhat revelatory. It's hard to put down, but full of things that I could ponder for hours and hours on their own.
• One of the big ideas I think the author is trying to get at is the idea that we should take care not to make more of the Bible than we do God. Don't let the Bible itself become an idol to the point that we ignore what we know about God.
• If we know and experience God in a positive, loving way, why are we so easily convinced that God isn't loving when we encounter Scripture that appears to portray him as less so?
• He highly recommends further study, especially in regards to context, history, culture, and even possible problems with translation errors when we're talking about the English language.
• None of this is exactly new to me, but he does have some amazing illustrations that he uses to make his points.
• If curiosity has gotten the better of you, the authors I'm currently reading are Peter Gomes and Mitch Albom - again, in many ways, oceans apart. The books, The Good Book, Reading with Mind and Heart and Have a Little Fatih, A True Story. The latter is available right now at a local, going out of business, Borders store near you at a very reasonable price.
• I've gotten back in to some of my rituals this week.
• I may do another random post soon based on the Albom book. I'm only about a quarter of the way through the Gomes tomes, they're going to be a while.
• I like to face my fears. I don't want my life to be ruled by fear. Here's the thing though… I'm terrified of whales. I don't think I can face that fear. They're down there in the deep, big enough to swallow a person whole.
• My kids ask for broccoli when we're grocery shopping. I'm proud, but it's also weird. I'm sure it's our fault too.
• Has anyone else experienced this? We've bought about a hundred ink pens in the past two years. Do you think I can ever find one? My kids love to draw, so they're always snatching the pens, but what are they doing with them? Are they somehow falling into the foundation of my house? Is the upholstery of our couch packed with pens?

Our Social Self, Irony, Batman and The Matrix

Material Faith from Peter Rollins on Vimeo.

Ed's Story: Hope when Facing Death

Snipe. Snipe. Snipe.

• We arrived Sunday afternoon to Harrisville State Park which opens up onto beautiful Lake Huron. It had been rainy that day, so the white caps were coming in strong. It made for fun swimming.
• We weren't at the campground more than twenty minutes, and Owen's glasses were swept out to sea never to be seen again. We were so tired from traveling and so excited about the waves, we neglected to take the precaution of removing them before he went in the water.
• He was devastated.
• I, was not. I was already in full vacation mode. Nothing could remove my level of relaxation. They were gone. Let's not ruin the rest of the trip.
• He screamed at the water, "I need those to read!"
• My wife kept asking me if I was "really angry." As if I was hiding it well or something.
• Nope.
• Skunks. Skunks everywhere!
• Our first morning in camp was greeted with a tiny neighbor girl trying to get us to look at a jar. Her father asked, "Would you like your kids to come over and see our bat? We found him on our tent this morning. He's been acting kind of sickly, so we put him in a jar."
• Let me interject this tidbit: I'm paranoid and deathly afraid of the idea of rabies. Bats and Skunks are two of the most common animals to carry said disease.
• I shook my head in a negative manner, but I think the expression on my face conveyed much more. Shortly thereafter, the little girl returned. In a rather crestfallen voice she told us that the bat had been let go. I think the father realized handling bats, especially those "acting kind of sickly," was not a great idea for anyone.
• I actually felt a bit guilty for conveying so much with my face.
• My camping trip seemed to have a theme emerging - me facing my fears without ruining the vacation with fits of anxiety. I'm happy to say I conquered from beginning to end.
• I don't sleep well in strange places. It takes me a few days to settle in. So, I often don't sleep well when on vacation. The first night in camp wasn't too bad as far as noise was concerned.
• The second night, trains started going through. There are tracks in the front of the park, so we're talking less than a block or so from our site. I can't relay in words how loud their cautionary horns were. There were multiple trains that second night. Good times.
• You can successfully cook chicken noodle soup over a campfire. It was great!
• Those huge marshmallows that they sell now, you better have a good cooking fork. Once those things go molten, it's near impossible to keep them on a stick. They are perfect for smores though.
• Another tip: if they go molten and start to fall, DON'T TRY TO CATCH THEM WITH YOUR BARE HAND!
• When you get into small towns, like Harrisville, it's fun to visit their grocery stores. They're very different than the stores I'm used to. Their selection is small on most things. Harrisville has one grocery store, and I don't believe there's another grocer for at least thirty miles. Even in the neighboring towns, the stores are pretty basic.
• This IGA in Harrisville, they had a huge Michigan-based, micro-brewed beer selection. How very surprising. My wife and I love to sample micro-brewed beer. We drink about two bottles a week, and we share those two bottles. So, it's not about the buzz. It's about the flavor. We generally hate most big chain beers.
• They also had this rootbeer called Frostop everywhere I went up there. It's hard to find down this way, but I highly recommend it. They also make a Carmel Cream Soda that is like nothing I've ever drank before. 99¢ gets you a 40 oz.
• The first 40 I ever drank was a Cream Soda.
• The best part of my whole three-night camping experience: Taking Owen on a Snipe Hunt, just the two of us. Harrisville State Park has a great, semi-paved nature trail perfect for Snipe hunting in the dark. I told him that snipes were small, elf-like creatures with bright red noses. We walked about a block into the woods saying, "Snipe. Snipe. Snipe." After a while, I asked Owen if he'd remembered the cheese? Snipes won't come out if there's no cheese. We turned around, toward camp when the flashlight started to flicker. Did I mention the bats and skunks?
• Praying on a deserted beach with a full moon overhead, waves crashing just a few feet away - great experience!

Non-Camping Randomness:

• How can I put this nicely? Who loved the G.I.Joe movie? I was never a big fan, so this isn't a fanboy whine fest, but I watched the cartoon when I was a kid. I found the recent live-action movie comical on many levels, and I'm pretty sure it wasn't supposed to be. They're now making a sequel, and they've attracted some huge action-star names: Bruce Willis and The Rock. I guess it's a good sign. Maybe part 2 will be infinitely better.
• We were playing Apples to Apples with some friends the other day. Someone made the euphemism between coconuts and breasts. It wasn't me.
• The very next day we're driving on Miller Road, and for whatever reason, Gage points out Hooters. I think it was the owl that caught his attention. The boys wanted to know what kind of restaurant it was. I jokingly said they have coconuts. Owen replied, "They have milk in them!" Heidi and I laughed. The kids were puzzled.
• I never thought I'd do a post mentioning Hooters.
• I'm sure I'm guilty of not hearing the words coming from my mouth. Sitting at the play area in Genesee Valley Mall recently with the kids, a mom sits down near me. As her barefoot son runs up she says, "I sure wish you had socks to wear so you didn't have to walk around on this dirty flooring filled with the fungus of all these other barefooted kids here."
• Wow. So, my kids and the other children present were apparently quite dirty in her estimation, and she didn't feel ashamed at all to share that with the rest of us.
• She did leave pretty quickly after that, so maybe her words finally sunk in to her own ears.
• Before anyone points it out, I know, they're supposed to be wearing socks. I've also noticed that very few kids ever do in the Summer. Too many kids are wearing sandals.
• Socks and Summer do not go hand-in-hand.
• I like fish. I love pizza. I hate anchovies. Nasty.
• On a related, tongue-in-cheek note: I'm in mourning. My favorite pizza place in Davison, Rocco's Pizza, was sold last week. It's gone. Gone.
• I took the kids to a Vacation Bible School a few weeks back. I wore a t-shirt that says, "I don't go to church…" on the front, and "I am the church." on the back. It didn't wear it because I wanted to make a statement. It was really the only t-shirt I had clean that day. Every day there was this one lady that insisted I stay long enough to hear the opening worship songs. She said it was because she feared Gage would be more comfortable with me there, but I think she just missed the back of my shirt.
• Snipe. Snipe. Snipe.

Giant, Over Complicated Looking, Explody Robot Destructo Machines

• Dear Summer, I'm sorry. You and I are just not going to make it. I'll still bring the kids around once in a while. They deserve their time with you. I just can't stand the constant sweating, the way the sun effects my skin. We need some time apart. Let's just try to get through the next few months existing together as best as possible.
• I'm reading a book right now that acknowledges the hardships of parenting, and gives the advice of just being consistent and staying the course even if things appear to be in vain.
• It also acknowledges a lot of the specific hardships I've encountered: wife and husband disagreeing on things, kids appearing to ignore certain lessons… I could keep going.
• Gage is a never ending stream of words lately. His grammatical skills are surely lacking, but he gets the points across most of the time.
• When he can't see, he makes it painfully obvious. One night we were at our local school playground. The sun was setting and had blinded him a bit. He shouted, "I can't see my eyes! I can't see my eyes!" Likely there should have been a comma or pause in there, but…
• He has eagle eyes for fast food restaurants. Which might make you think we eat out a lot, but that's really not the case. He just has a great memory. As we pass just about any restaurant, he identifies what type of food they sell and adds, "I gotta get some."
• Bob Evans is known as "Pancakes." If you try to explain that it's called Bob Evans, he gets a bit angry.
• Owen is obsessed with the clock, telling time. A good thing to be constantly concerned about in some ways. A bit annoying in other ways.
• The main reason for his obsession is a show called Wild Kratts on PBS. The show starts at 5:00 p.m. Monday through Thursday. It is educational. He does absorb every second of it. His life seems to revolve around it lately.
• He's doing that fact finding thing kids his age do. "What would happen if you took a bath in fire? What if you tried to eat 100 cheese tacos? How come you only kiss me on the top of my head instead of on the mouth?"
• What I'm about to say will shock you: I liked the Land of the Lost movie. I had avoided it like the plague because so many people hated it, but I borrowed it from the library last week. I liked it. It was funny and fantastical. I was never a huge fan of the TV show. I caught it in syndication, but the TV show never endeared itself to me.
• I'm sure I just lost a bunch of credibility in the movie review department.
• The new Transformers movie is out. I really wish they would have just made up a new franchise. I know. I know. I'm an annoying fan boy that just wants things to be the way they were when I was eight years old. The thing is, I might enjoy these movies if they just changed the names of the characters. That would remove my expectations.
• Maybe they could release a dubbed over version that replaces all the characters' names. They could call the movies, Giant, Over Complicated Looking, Explody Robot Destructo Machines. I'd pay to see that.
• They finally made a Simon Pegg movie I didn't like, How to Lose Friends and Alienate People. It wasn't totally terrible, but it was too long or poorly edited. I'm not sure. I just didn't get the same enjoyment out of the flick.
• Can someone clone Desmond Tutu please?
• I'm officially a year older this week. I don't really care for birthdays anymore. My hair has been grey for years now. No one cards me anymore. It's been a while since someone called me, "Young Man."
• We have a tent that claims it will sleep nine people. We put four air mattresses inside which left room for two people to sleep at our feet. If nine people slept together in that tent, it would be an intimate, lack of personal space, uncomfortable evening.
• My favorite headlines lately: "Police Say Drunk Man Tried to Operate on Dog" and "Monkey Steals Camera, Takes Self Portraits." Some would say they both contain the best parts of the story in the headlines, but I want to know what type of operation we were talking here. Was it brain surgery? Did the dog have a bowel obstruction?
• I don't like to judge other people's parenting skills, but when you go out to watch fireworks in public, you see things that you can't help but judge. If a kid throws a lit sparkler in the air toward a stranger holding a baby, you just don't hand him firecrackers ten minutes later for him to light by himself. It's like saying, "Here. You almost burned a stranger's baby, now go blow off your hands."
• A few years back the local TV news started running stories about what types of fireworks were legal in Michigan and which weren't. Basically, if it leaves the ground or explodes, it's illegal. Here's the catch. I was working at a newspaper at the time, and we were running ads for a local fireworks dealer that advertised bottle rockets and firecrackers (flying, exploding). We called the local police to see if the advertisement was promoting something illegal.
• Their response was this: Dealers can sell any type of fireworks. Consumers can buy any type of fireworks. Consumers can not legally set off any type of fireworks in Michigan just because they can legally purchase them here.
• Of course, no one really cares because you see huge displays flying and exploding in most Michigan suburbs all the time.
• I think I've stated this before: I'm not very nostalgic for actual eighties music. I do, however, enjoy modern music that is clearly heavily influenced by the eighties.