Merry Christmas!

Wishing all of you the merriest Christmas and best wishes for a joyous New Year! Rejoice, our Lord and Saviour was born this day!

"For to us a child is born,
to us a son is given;
and the government shall be upon his shoulder,
and his name shall be called
Wonderful Counselor, Mighty God,
Everlasting Father, Prince of Peace."- Isaiah 9:6

Merry Christmas from our family to yours!

Dad, you can quit sending me reminders to post on the blog!

Here's a life update for the Batch and the Holly the last few months.

We're very well settled in our house in Houston and loving it. It has a wide open floor plan and we've thrown some parties already and have two more on the books at the moment- a Baptism party for a friend's son and a Christmas Eve celebration- the Spirits will flow at both (pun intended). A big shout out to Dad and Carolyn for making the all night road trip from Starkville to Houston to be here for the first celebration, a housewarming party in October (they say 70 is the new 20, right dad?).

Holly has been enjoying her work with Christ the King Presbyterian Church and survived her first Capital Campaign which successfully secured funds to build a permanent facility for the congregation. She's in a bit of a lull there at the moment, but expects things to begin to pick up speed as we get closer to beginning construction.

I'm preparing to begin a new position at my company, much different from the consulting work I've done in the past. I'll be directing the front line customer service team for our software business, basically leading the team that is the face to many of our customers.

We had a very busy November, traveling to New Orleans early in the month for a company meeting and service project (pictures here) and at the end of the month making a trek from Houston to Jackson, MS/Birmingham, AL/Fayette, AL/Starkville, MS/Biloxi, MS and back again (not to mention that I-10 was closed between Baton Rouge and Lafayette, LA).

We've got a vacation planned soon to Turks & Caicos with three other couples from college to celebrate one of the couple's 10th anniversary. Then we'll be back home again in time for Christmas and then we're off again for a few days to catch family and friends getting married just before the new year.

Crunchy Cons

Reading a great book at the moment- Crunchy Cons: How Birkenstocked Burkeans, gun-loving organic gardeners, evangelical free-range farmers, hip homeschooling mamas, right-wing nature lovers, and their diverse tribe of countercultural conservatives plan to save America (or at least the Republican Party).

I care little about the Republican Party anymore- in my estimation it is no longer conservative (at least in the traditional sense of the word) and is only substantially different from the Democratic party in rhetoric and little in substance. However, the book does describe a 'sacramental' approach to modern life that I find compelling. Much of what the author, Rod Dreher, describes resonates deeply with me. This is his own "Manifesto" which is an extreme summarization of the points in his book:

1. We are conservatives who stand outside the conservative mainstream; therefore, we can see things that matter more clearly.

2. Modern conservatism has become too focused on money, power, and the accumulation of stuff, and insufficiently concerned with the content of our individual and social character.

3. Big business deserves as much skepticism as big government.

4. Culture is more important than politics and economics.

5. A conservatism that does not practice restraint, humility, and good stewardship—especially of the natural world—is not fundamentally conservative.

6. Small, Local, Old, and Particular are almost always better than Big, Global, New, and Abstract.

7. Beauty is more important than efficiency.

8. The relentlessness of media-driven pop culture deadens our senses to authentic truth, beauty, and wisdom.

9. We share Russell Kirk’s conviction that “the institution most essential to conserve is the family.”

10. Politics and economics won’t save us; if our culture is to be saved at all, it will be by faithfully living by the Permanent Things, conserving these ancient moral truths in the choices we make in our everyday lives.

Read it if you're curious about a flavor of conservatism other than the typical Republican corporatist, moralist blah.

Aftermath

Heard this poem, written by by George Held and read by Garrison Keillor, on The Writer's Almanac on NPR this morning.

It resonated.

Aftermath

It's not the storm itself—wind and rain lashing shore,
uprooting trees, toppling poles and dousing lights,
flooding cellars and roads, capsizing boats—
but the aftermath—the bright calm, the pair
of drowned cats crumpled against the picket fence,
the parlor of Izzy's shack open for inspection,
the walls fallen flat on all sides, your own
roof filling the front yard, covering your car,
and your own twin daughters dazed by Nature's
petulance—that makes you reconsider
your life and weigh your possessions and the cost
of putting down stakes too near the coast
as the globe warms, and storms grow worse.

Official Houstonians

We closed on the house here in Houston this morning so we're officially Texas residents once again! Yehaw! Unfortunately, the link below to pictures of the house doesn't work anymore now that we've closed and the house isn't in the MLS system. We'll try to get some new pictures posted once our furniture arrives and we get things into place.

More to come soon...for now, praise the Lord for his abundant goodness to us in selling our Biloxi home and purchasing a home here! We are blessed!

Ecstatic

We closed on the sale of the Biloxi house Friday afternoon and drove back to Houston Friday night.

We're in the option period on a house here in H-town (in the middle of inspections and negotiating things to be fixed). To see pictures, click here:

Hopefully, we'll be settled here within the month. We'll keep you posted.

B

The rumors are true...

We have a contract on our house.

We are very thankful.

And cautiously excited.

We'll be ecstatic once closing is final.

Give thanks.

B

Biloxi Blues

Tuesday last week while on my way to work I received an almost tearful phone call from Holly.

Our home in Biloxi has been on the market since November and the realtor had just called to tell us that our A/C was blowing hot air, that water was leaking through the ceiling and onto the floors where it had been soaking for who knows how long.

I flew there Wednesday night to assess the damage and get contractors to begin repairs. All in all the damage turned out to be pretty manageable. The floors were an easy fix and a trusted contractor friend has begun repairing the damage to the ceiling. The A/C guy came and he and I got up in the attic where I showed him what I could see that was wrong and what I expected to be fixed. He apologized profusely. Apparently the crew that was working for him at the time of our install has since been fired for a series of shoddy installs. He is working to make it right.

My friend Matt Forester was able to take off and fly over there with me. We landed in New Orleans late and did an 2AM tour of the coastline destruction on Hwy 90 from Bay St. Louis to Biloxi. In the process, I got pulled over for speeding (60 in a 45) in Long Beach. I had consumed one Scotch on the plane so I had to be interrogated by a bored cop and do the drink test (breathalizer) on the side of the road. I passed. He asked me about my job and what I was doing in town and asked Matt a bunch of random questions too. Thankfully he ended up asking us to slow down and let us go.

We ate mighty fine fried Oyster Po-Boys and had all the sweet tea we could drink at The Ole Biloxi Schooner with friend David Skinner for Thursday lunch. Thursday night we ate Pizza and played the Nintendo Wii with adopted Dad Doug Leavengood and friend Jordan Sikkema. Friday and Saturday were mostly spent managing the A/C contractors and doing other small fixes around the house. I did stay up late Friday night (until 5AM-ish) drinking beer and discussing theology w/ neighbor Kevin Moore and friends Scott/Angela Moore and had to be up again at 8AM w/ the arrival of contractors... I was a little tired.

Finally today, I loaded up and drove to BSL to attend Lagniappe Church on my way to the airport in NoLA. While there i got to see even more old friends- Andy & Cammie Chapman, Curt & Kelly Moore, Ron & Linda Junkin among others.

All in all it was a good, productive weekend. I've attached some pictures of the minor damage as well of some pictures of the maturing landscape.

B

Water Damage.

Water Damage.


Batch's foot through the ceiling damage (a mis-step in the attic).

Maturing Landscapes.

And another view.

The youth from Christ The King Houston (where we are members now) visited Lagniappe this summer for a week of service and this is the very cool sign they left as a rememberance.

Beautiful words...

... from a college acquaintance and certainly words I need to be reminded of daily (and especially so lately).

Is God faithful? Sometimes, Jesus hid himself; he hid himself when the crowds expected, and even demanded, the wrong things, the self-protective things, from him. He is faithful only to his expectations, his demands, his un-self-protecting promises--his own words.

With those words, does he promise redemption? Heartache? Speak into our lives sun and fields and fears and longings and loves? Trucks and sunshine turning on the wheels? I'm not sure. But I am sure that when I shrink into myself, try to protect myself, he doesn't say, "I said, 'Don't mess up'" but "You messed up, and I have promised to love you still; there is a future for us."

So help me, God, help my wife love me still. Help my child love me still. May I say to him not "Don't mess up" but "When you do . . . ." This is labor. The sun is setting. The fields are ripening. We need not protect ourselves. We have a future.

Read the whole entry here.

Low Qual/High Qual

Low quality picture of a high quality fish.

I caught the biggest fish of my life today and all I had to take a pic of it with was my cheap phone. So the quality of the photo is weak, but the fish was awesome.


It weighed in between 17-18 pounds and about 28 inches. I was fishing with cut bait about 20-25 miles off shore in about 90 feet of water south of Freeport, TX.

We (my buddy Matt Forrester and I) also caught some red snapper, mahi-mahi and trigger fish. Good times. We're eating fresh fish tonight.

Big thanks to Matt for the invite.

B

Good Soldier by Mark Driscoll

Compelling take by Mark Driscoll on men's issues facing the church today, especially as related to challenges in planting churches.

When dogs dream

Intriguing Map

Holly B- Triathlon Master

Holly totally rocked it in the triathlon this weekend. Here are the official results:

Overall Rank

Class Rank

Swim

Swim Rank

Trans1

Bike

Bike Rank

MPH

Trans2

Run

Run Rank

Pace

Final

437 of 2601

13 of 389

00:20:44

528

00:03:47

00:44:15

674

17.6

00:02:16

00:29:56

472

00:09:39

01:41:00

In her age group, she came in 81/418 and her swim (1/2 mile) was within a minute of some of the top 10 finishers. She was amazing.

Here she is coming in toward the end of her biking leg (12 miles).


And here she is finishing after her run (3.2 miles).


And here's me after the race being the ever-supportive husband/beer-security-guy.

Housing Not Moving Praying

A few days ago we asked your prayers about a potential buyer for our house.

We didn't get an offer.

So, we still own a beautiful house in Biloxi should you know anyone interested.

Please keep praying that it would sell soon.

Thanks,

B

Housing Moving Praying

I know of at least a few folks who still read this page from time to time. If you're out there today and you're into praying, we'd ask you to pray that our home sells.

We understand that even now it is being considered by a family. We are told they like it, but they just haven't made a decision yet. We would like very much for them to offer to buy it. So, if you're so inclined, please pray that they would decide to offer on our house, that they would offer generously and that we could close the Biloxi chapter of our life soon.

It is a fantastic house that was carefully and lovingly renovated from the frame outward. Everything is new from the plumbing to the plaster. It is in what was once a magnificent neighborhood and will be once again after the wounds inflicted by Katrina heal in a few years. The street is lined with beautiful, old oak trees along the Biloxi Bay and the people who reside in that little stretch of land adjacent to the water are some of the most friendly neighbors we have ever had. We will miss them dearly.

If you'd like to see the virtual tour, you may click here.

Anyhow, enough of the sales pitch. Please pray if you will.

Batch

More on suffering

A friend sent me a Vern Poythress article a while back; you can go to it by clicking the title of this post or by clicking here. I found parts of it instructive, particularly the bit below.

One side note: Proythress is one smart dude; however, he is wrong about where Hurricane Katrina landed and what casued the damage to New Orleans. I doubt I'll ever have another opportunity to correct him, but I digress.

I found this comment of his particularly poignant.

In particular, every disaster is a forerunner of the Last Judgment. It should be used as an occasion to reflect on the transitory character of this life (1 Cor. 7:31), on the fact that God gives us blessings that we do not deserve (Matt. 5:45), and that if we are rebels against him we ourselves deserve the worst of what the victims experienced.

That's good stuff. Our culture (the broader culture as well as church culture) makes every effort to avoid suffering at all costs. Our prayers are laced with pleas for safety, not from the snares of the evil one but safety from suffering or even safety from discomfort. I know I'm guilty.

As Christians, we're called to look at suffering differently, as a blessing. The judgement of God for his people is often loving discipline. His blessings are not always pleasant. He judges, he disciplines, he blesses.

1 Peter 4: 12-13
12Beloved, do not be surprised at the fiery trial when it comes upon you to test you, as though something strange were happening to you. 13But rejoice insofar as you share Christ's sufferings, that you may also rejoice and be glad when his glory is revealed.

Romans 8: 16-17
16The Spirit himself bears witness with our spirit that we are children of God, 17and if children, then heirs--heirs of God and fellow heirs with Christ, provided we suffer with him in order that we may also be glorified with him.

Ron Paul for President

I was first introduced to Ron Paul (not personally, but to his politics) by a good friend. He pointed me to Paul's congressional site a few years ago.

I've been vaguely familiar lately with his pursuit of the 2008 presidential nomination. Another good friend has been preaching the merits of Paul for President as well in an email discussion group.

I've just spent the last hour or so watching clips of Paul in debates and on both the Daily Show with Jon Stewart and on Real Time with Bill Maher. If you watch them you'll see a television rarity- a republican candidate being received warmly, even greeted with a measure of glee on each of these two shows with decidedly non-republican hosts and audiences.

Color me impressed.

He is intelligent, articulate and truly principled. He actually answers questions- he doesn't do the typical sidestep on the tough ones. And he offers his opinions warmly and graciously, without the typical self-righteous sneer of many of today's politicians.

As I soaked up his responses, I actually felt excitement about the political process, an emotion I've probably not felt since I was a sheepish child "campaigning" for my preferred candidate back in high school.

Here is an excerpt on Paul from his wikipedia entry.

Paul advocates a limited role for the federal government, low taxes, free markets, a non-interventionist foreign policy, and a return to monetary policies based on commodity-backed currency. He has earned the nickname "Dr. No" because he is a medical doctor who votes against the bills he believes to be unconstitutional.[1] In the words of former Treasury Secretary William Simon, Paul is the "one exception to the Gang of 535" on Capitol Hill.[2] He has never voted to raise taxes or congressional pay, and refuses to participate in the congressional pension system.[3] He has consistently voted against the USA PATRIOT Act, the Military Commissions Act of 2006, and the Iraq War.

And here is an excerpt from his campaign website.

He has never voted to raise taxes.
He has never voted for an unbalanced budget.
He has never voted for a federal restriction on gun ownership.
He has never voted to raise congressional pay.
He has never taken a government-paid junket.
He has never voted to increase the power of the executive branch.

He voted against the Patriot Act.
He voted against regulating the Internet.
He voted against the Iraq war.

He does not participate in the lucrative congressional pension program.
He returns a portion of his annual congressional office budget to the U.S. treasury every year.

I highly recommend investigating Mr. Paul and his campaign. If you want to see more clips of him engaging hosts, opponents, etc... you can go to his site on YouTube.

MUST READ: Breaking Free of Suburbia's Stranglehold

Families Simplify Lifestyles in Quest for Meaning That Constant Hustle Obscured

By Annie Gowen
Washington Post Staff Writer
Sunday, June 3, 2007; Page A01

Jennifer McNelley's life felt like one big errand -- an endless series of Target runs and school drop-offs and commuting to two jobs from her Loudoun County home.

McNelley, a single mother of a 6-year-old, was feeling "overwhelmed and hopeless" when a flier appeared in her mailbox announcing a sermon series at her church called "Death by Suburb." The congregation would spend five weeks talking about the suburban lifestyle -- the consumerism and the overcaffeinated schedules, and how it all can choke the life out of you if you're not careful.

Click here for the rest of the article.

Mr. I'll do anything for the company guy

Priceless

Context- This was created by one of my best friends (well, at least prior to this posting) whom I also work with to promote an annual company meeting within our firm.

Links, Federeral Vision, etc...

Couple of interesting links (well at least if you're a presby):

Covenant Radio-Covenant Radio is a joint venture of the Reformed Theology Resource Center and The Apologia Book Shoppe designed to address the issues of the covenant as it pertains to various topics in the life of our modern Church. These issues are related closely to our approach to baptism, communion, eschatology, and worship.

Reformed News- An independent news source covering the small (but growing), conservative world of Reformed Christianity.

Also, the PCA came out with its report on the Federal Vision a few weeks ago. It seems like the committee was pretty well stacked to come out against. I understand there was not a single FV friendly man on the committee. I can't really even articulate exactly what the FV is, but I know enough about Christian charity and basic right and wrong to know that these men should get a fair hearing. Also, the report was not completed in time to be distributed to the attendees of the PCA general assembly in advance. It all seems fishy.

I've found very little discussion about it online until this was offered by Jeff Meyers, a PCA pastor in St. Louis. As you can probably tell, I tend to be sympathetic to many of his assertions (not necessarily sympathetic to the FV, but to his reasons for not acting on this report right now) and am wary of a subset of men with very particular theological bias determining what is and is not acceptable, especially when many other courts in the denomination have investigated and found no wrong. I've experienced the some of the less admirable aspects of Southern Presbyterianism and it would be unfortunate if the PCA were to execute a theological cleansing that demanded that every man held to a precise SP theology.

Anyhow, please pray for the leaders of the PCA- that they would have charity, wisdom, mercy, fairness, gentleness and self-control as they consider and debate the merits of this report.

B

Holly comes through again

I turned 32 today.

Celebrate (ahem) paying your taxes and my birthday all at once. I'm sure there are some folks out there who can't decide which annual event they're more excited to commemorate.

None-the-less, Holly put together an absolutely fantastic day of golf with the boys here in Houston yesterday. I along with 12 buddies teed off beginning at 2PM at Clear Creek Golf Club, just south of Houston. It was a brilliant idea that was only tarnished by the weather- cool, cloudy, 20 mph sustained winds with gusts that felt like 30+. I played 6 holes with each group of 4 guys.


We capped off the day by gathering at a great pub here in the Montrose District, The Black Labrador. I enjoyed the company of great friends, an excellent Steak and Kidney Pie, Smithwick's (one of my favorite beers), some fine scotch and a few rounds of darts.


Thanks to all who were able to be a part of this birthday celebration. And many, many thanks to Holly for putting all of this together.

Maundy Thursday

The 2007 lenten season coming to a close as today is Maundy Thursday, a day when Christians celebrate Jesus' last supper with the Apostles.

"Its annual commemoration thus begins the three-day period or triduum of Good Friday, Holy Saturday and Easter Sunday, days of special devotion that celebrate as a single action the death and resurrection of Christ, the central events of Christianity."

That is excerpted from an informative description from wikipedia: read it in its entirety here.

And below is an excerpt describing Maundy Thursday from John Armstrong's blog.

Today is a church day called Maundy Thursday. The term is derived from the Latin mandatum, which means "command." The origin of this particular day is found in the footwashing ceremony that the Gospel of John describes as a part of passion week.

You may read the entire post here.

Pearls Before Swine: Unified Theory of Existence = Beer

Easter Sunday

Mixing Jackass, lighter fluid and genitals causes trouble

I'm not making this up.

Associated Press

EAU CLAIRE, Wis. — Attempts to duplicate a movie stunt landed one man in the hospital with burned genitals and another facing criminal charges.

The men were trying to do a stunt from one of the Jackass movies, in which a character lights his genitals on fire.

Jared W. Anderson, 20, suffered serious burns to his hands and genitals, according to the criminal complaint. Randell D. Peterson, 43, who sprayed lighter fluid on Anderson and lit him on fire, was charged with felony battery and first-degree reckless endangerment Tuesday in Eau Claire County Court.

Witnesses told police that Anderson, who was drunk, volunteered to do the stunt Sunday after watching the movie, the complaint said.

After Peterson ignited Anderson, he ran into the bathroom, jumped into the tub and put the flames out, according to the complaint. He was taken to Luther Hospital, and eventually treated at the Regions Hospital Burn Unit in St. Paul, Minn., for second-degree burns.

Anderson told police that he didn't want anyone to get in trouble because of the stunt.

Peterson was freed on a $2,000 bond. He has a hearing scheduled April 16. If convicted, he faces up to 10 years in prison.

Ouch.

TR, BR, CR?

If you're presbyterian/reformed and reading here, among the following three categories (defined below), how would you classify yourself? Please leave a comment and if you're comfortable doing so, identify yourself enough that I'll know who you are as you respond. Also, comment on how you perceive others in your circle of influence/observation to be.

• TRULY REFORMED
• BARELY REFORMED
• CATHOLIC REFORMED

And if you're not presbyterian/reformed and reading here, let me know what your impressions are of these different categories and how they relate to your own beliefs.

THE TRULY REFORMED (TRs)

The TRs are conservatives of the most intense sort; and they are fervently committed to the scholastic, Reformed orthodoxy of the 16th and 17th centuries. Almost all are “strict subscriptionists,” holding that statements of faith like the Westminster Confession, the Heidelberg Catechism, the Canons and Decrees of the Synod of Dordt, the Belgic Confession, or the London Baptist Confession are virtually summary duplications of Biblical teaching. They are strongly committed to the scholastic formulation of Calvinist doctrine as it comes to the fore, to take an example, in the Westminster Larger and Shorter Catechisms.

THE BARELY REFORMED (BRs)

This group within the Reformed camp is much more committed to a broad evangelicalism than the confessional form of the Reformed Faith. The BRs are pragmatists (and sometimes admittedly so). They are strongly committed to reaching the unsaved, and therefore the evangel, the gospel, means a great deal to them. They often pastor or attend the largest conservative Reformed or Presbyterian congregations in the United States, and they are tireless in their efforts to win souls and increase the size of the congregation. They tend to be less concerned with what they consider secondary doctrinal disputes over literal, six-day creation; women in the ministry or in other church leadership roles; the inroads of Arminianism; evangelistic strategies; the nature of the sacraments; and so forth.

THE CATHOLIC REFORMED (CRs)

Catholic Reformed does not denote Roman (or Eastern) Catholicism, but the manifestly Biblical notion of the universality of the Faith and church (Eph. 4:4) and their description in the Nicene Creed and among the patristic church as “one, holy, catholic and apostolic.” CRs agree with the TRs in identifying three main problems in the modern church as evangelical Arminianism, Protestant liberalism, and Roman Catholicism. We agree that evangelical Arminianism has undermined the gracious character of the gospel; that the European Enlightenment, joining later with Romanticism to produce Protestant liberalism, precipitated a great crisis in the Western church; and that Roman Catholicism undermined the catholicity of the church by insisting on its hegemony and subverts a gratuitous soteriology by insisting that man in some way merit salvation. CRs agree with the BRs, however, in wanting to focus attention on the preaching of the evangel, the gospel of our Lord and Savior Jesus Christ. We agree that incessant dispute over comparatively secondary doctrines to the exclusion of the energetic preaching of the gospel has things just backwards, though CRs by no means consider any Biblical doctrine unimportant.

The author is in the 3rd of these categories and is making a case for it. I am curious to know how each of you might classify yourself.

These categories are excerpted from an article I'm reading right now and I'm curious where different people I know fit into or respond to these ideas. You can read the article in its entirety here:

Disclaimer- Links to Internet sites are provided for informational purposes only and do not imply endorsement of the content of those sites or organizations.

We castrate and bid the geldings be fruitful.

And all the time—such is the tragi-comedy of our situation—we continue to clamour for those very qualities we are rendering impossible. You can hardly open a periodical without coming across the statement that what our civilization needs is more 'drive', or dynamism, or self-sacrifice, or 'creativity'. In a sort of ghastly simplicity we remove the organ and demand the function. We make men without chests and expect of them virtue and enterprise. We laugh at honour and are shocked to find traitors in our midst. We castrate and bid the geldings be fruitful.

C.S. Lewis- The Abolition of Man

On Keeping a Holy Lent

Excerpt from a paper by Craig Higgins, Trinity Presbyterian (Rye, NY) on Lenten observance.

Appendix: Questions for Self-Examination
1. Have I been fervent in prayer? Was there warmth? access?
2. Have I prayed at my stated times? with my family?
3. Have I practiced God’s presence, at least every hour?
4. Have I, before every deliberate action or conversation, considered how it might be turned to God’s glory?
5. Have I sought to center conversations on the other person’s interests and needs and ultimately toward God, or did I turn them toward my own interests?
6. Have I given thanks to God after every pleasant occurrence or time?
7. Have I thought or spoken unkindly of anyone?
8. Have I been careful to avoid proud thoughts or comparing myself to others? Have I done things just for appearance? Have I mused on my own fame or acclaim?
9. Have I been sensitive, warm, and cheerful toward everyone?
10. Have I been impure in my thoughts or glances?
11. Have I confessed sins toward God and others swiftly?
12. Have I over- or under-eaten, -slept, -worked?
13. Have I twisted the truth to look good?
14. Have I been leading in my home, or only reacting to situations?

In his set of questions for self-examination, the late Jack Miller gets right to the point: *
1. Is God working in your life?
2. Have you been repenting of your sin lately?
3. Are you building your life on Christ’s free justification or are you insecure and guilt-ridden?
4. Have you done anything simply because you love Jesus?
5. Have you stopped anything simply because you love Jesus?

If we are honest, the answer to all these questions is no.
This simply helps us name what we tend to ignore.

Two to One

Ephesians 5:31- "Therefore a man shall leave his father and mother and hold fast to his wife, and the two shall become one flesh."

Recently, I converted the blog to use Blogger's new software. In that process, all of the previous posts were attributed to me (Batch).

In truth, many of them are Holly's. Just know that as you read anything prior to 2007 that it may say I wrote it, but it could well belong to Holly.

In a sense, I guess two have become one flesh blog.

Happy Pancake Day

From wikipedia.com

Shrove Tuesday is the term used in the English-speaking countries of the United Kingdom^[1], Ireland^[2], and Australia^[3] to refer to the day after Collop Monday and before Ash Wednesday (the liturgical season of Lent begins on Ash Wednesday). In these countries, and amongst Anglicans in Canada, this day is also known as Pancake Day, because it is customary to eat pancakes on this day.^[4][5][6] In other parts of the world—for example, in historically Catholic and French-speaking parts of the United States and elsewhere—this day is called Mardi Gras, and in areas with large Polish-immigrant populations (for example, Chicago and Detroit) it is known as Paczki Day.

Click here for the full explanation. Thanks to Barlow for the heads up.

She doesn’t always love you back

Southern authors such as William Faulkner, Thomas Wolfe, and Willie Morris often wrote of the ambivalence that native Southerners feel for the South. We Mississippians, perhaps more than other Southerners, feel for our state a tension between love and hate, fascination and rejection.

William Faulkner spoke for many Mississippians when he wrote: “Home again, his native land; he was born of it and his bones will sleep in it. . . . Loving all of it even while he had to hate some of it. . . . He knows now that you don’t love because; you love despite; not for the virtues, but despite the faults.” As Willie Morris said, “You can love Mississippi but she doesn’t always love you back.”

• Charles Sallis: Mississippi as a Prodigal Daughter

Those words penned by Charles Sallis, a Mississippi Native & professor at Millsaps College in Jackson, MS, quote two of the more famous literary Mississippians. I couldn’t find a better way to summarize my thoughts and feelings about leaving (again) the place I’ve always thought of as home.

I first moved away from Mississippi in January of 1998 upon graduation from Mississippi State. Driving the big yellow truck, I wept from the time I left 1712 Lisa Lane until I arrived in Atlanta, GA. Everything significant I’d ever known was there; my future wife, my friends, my family, high school, college and a lifetime of memories. I loved Mississippi dearly and was determined to move back again some day.

After a series of moves around the Southern United States and one stay abroad (Atlanta, Birmingham, Houston, London, Houston), I accomplished that goal in November 2003. A confluence of family events seemed to necessitate our being nearer to family so we packed up and left friends, work and church in Houston, TX, put our belongings in storage and split time between Starkville, MS with my family and Hammond, LA with Holly’s family. Around that same time we had dear friends who lived on the Mississippi Gulf coast and after spending many weekends crashed on their floor, decided that we would give coastal Mississippi life a try.

Our experiences there over the past three plus years have been diverse to say the least; frequently challenging, sometimes joyful, often maddening, occasionally frightening, usually instructive. Now that we are leaving Mississippi again, my prevailing emotions regarding ‘home’ now include sorrow, anger and disappointment.

In retrospect, we likely didn’t need to relocate to be with the family. I was eager to get ‘home’ and am afraid I used those circumstances for my own selfish devices to expedite getting back to the Magnolia State. Don’t get me wrong, it is not that I regret the move as we really have learned a tremendous amount; but my perspective about Mississippi has changed. Again, Willie Morris captured it very well:

There is much of the South, I unhesitatingly confess …, that I wish I could escape forever. I wish I could escape the smoldering malevolence behind a … prolonged racial tirade …. Escape the tenacious righteousness of the "seg academies." … Escape every manifestation of institutionalized, right-wing, fundamentalist religion, richer and more pervasive than it ever was. Escape the ennui of the morgue-like Sundays….

• Willie Morris- Is There A South Anymore?

Yesterday, I wept again as I crossed over the Pearl River on Interstate-10 from Mississippi to Louisiana, unsure if I’ll ever live in my home state again. The “tension between love and hate, fascination and rejection” for Mississippi is somewhat new for me and I am just beginning to understand it. It is clear to me though that you can indeed love her, but she doesn’t always love you back.