Walking Down A Dream

My wife and I had a very short courting period before we were engaged (no sense in beating around the bush, right?). Anyway, after we had been engaged for some time, she told me that the one thing that turned her off on me when we were first getting to know each other was that I told her I had no ambition in life. Now I suppose that wasn't an entirely true statement; I do have ambitions, I just set the bar really low. All I've ever wanted out of life was to get married, buy a little house, have a job where I could provide for my family, and to own a dog or three. Anything else that comes along is just icing on the cake.

I know my stance on ambition runs contrary to that of most younger people in our country. When I was in Bible College, the unspoken assumption was that everyone who was there was going to go out and set the world on fire and be the next pop-Christian celebrity by virtue of their wisdom and great feats of social justice. I have to admit that in my pride and delusion, I entertained such thoughts as well. But those thoughts were so graciously dashed to pieces after I spent a couple months interning in a small church. In my short experience with ministry, it seems to me that this job will either quickly humble a person or will pour fuel on the fires of their delusion and turn them into more of a tyrant than a minister of the good news of Jesus Christ.

Don't get me wrong, I long for the coming of the Kingdom. As often as I pray, I pray for God's Kingdom to come and His will to be done on earth as it is in heaven (italics mine). I know He uses the Church to accomplish that will and I know that it is in the Church where we find the fullest expression of the Kingdom here on earth. To that end, I will do my work to the best of my abilities and I will seek to foster a sense of expectancy both in myself and in those to whom I minister, knowing that the Holy Spirit works through us, unworthy as we might be.

But at the end of the day, it's His Kingdom I seek, not my own. So I make it a discipline to check my ambitions at the door. I have a wonderful wife, I own a house, I have more than one dog, hopefully come Monday I will have a garden planted. I already consume and have so much more than I would ever need that to aspire to more would be gluttony. Will God use my work and bless it to the advancement of His Kingdom? I believe He will. Am I going to be fool enough to tell Him how best to do that? Well that's what makes beating down my ambitions a discipline, doesn't it?

Anyway, all that is to say I do have a dream, a grand goal I aspire to in my life. I've had this goal for a long time now. It's probably started as a seed planted deep in my spirit and that seed was watered and began to grow after I learned about Ramblin' Jack Elliott and watched the documentary movie about his life.

Before I die, I hope to walk across the country from the Atlantic Ocean to the Pacific Ocean, just for the experience of it. This morning I read about someone who just a year or so older than me who is doing this! Too cool! Here's his blog: http://imjustwalkin.com/

Who knows, maybe I'll bump into you on the road some day :)

A Haiku: Upon Picking Up Dog Poo In The Yard

Diligently I
Pace back and forth through my yard
Seeking brown treasures

Meet Rosie

Some people collect baseball cards, some people collect tea sets, my wife and I collect puppies. The house next to our friends in Royalton had three dogs tied up out in the yard and one of those dogs had four cute little puppies. Every time we would go visit our friends, these little puppies would run out and say hi to us. Now we had a bad experience with trying to add a third dog to our pack last fall (we'll call that the Gracie incident) so for a while I was pretty strong about refusing my wife's request that we bring one of those puppies home (even though I really wanted to!). But then my wife got a job interview up the road so I told her that if she got the job then we'd get one of the puppies. So say hello to Rosie!



She's a Heinz 57 mutt but she sure is cute! And as you can see, she gets along great with our two boys.





I can't help but wonder that if we find our calling by looking for the place where our passions meet our gifts then maybe someday I'll will open "Shotgun Willie's Ranch for Free Range, Unwanted Dogs" where I will live out my days throwing frisbees till my arms are sore and rolling around on the ground being licked by 45 dogs :)

I always heard ministry could be dangerous...

Despite the stereotype of the minister in 21st century North America as an overweight man with soft hands and a bad comb-over, driving around in a Cadillac, Scripture and the history of the Church paints ministry as a dangerous calling. All but one of the 12 Apostles met violent deaths. Saint Paul was beheaded. Jeremiah the prophet is said to have been sawn in two. The faithful have been burned alive, fed to lions, and generally abused in all sorts of ways. So when I got into ministry, I knew there was a chance it could turn out to be dangerous

(which is why I don't understand all the evangelical whining about those mean atheists trying to "take God out" of the public square: first, that's ontologically impossible, and second, whatever happened to "all men will hate you because of Me"? but that's another story for another day)

But I didn't realize just how dangerous it could be until yesterday...



So I guess I was sharing my office with a brown recluse spider. Now it's just a smudge on my carpet, but I can't help but thinking that where there was one brown recluse, there are probably more nearby. So now ever time I feel (or think I feel) anything tickle my leg, or neck, or back, or head, I get the heeby jeebies :)