You’ve probably imagined which superpower you’d choose if ever the option presented itself. For me it would be flying. I can’t even imagine how cool that would be to experience, let alone how efficient it would make travel.
You may not know that Superman originally could NOT fly. When he was created in 1938 this wasn’t on his original roster of skills. Evidently he wasn’t even all that good at jumping.
Fall is in the air… finally. If you live somewhere that has seasons, you’re likely enjoying the beauty of the leaves changing all around you. Where I live in Arizona I can finally walk my dog in the morning and not die of sweat.
Here are the books I’ve read since January of 2021 with my rating for them (5 being the best) along with a brief review. Any book without a number rating has been given to me by the author or publisher.
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Our family is back in Arizona after spending the last few weeks in Oregon. Before we left we stopped by a Starbucks that had a path into the forest behind it. Naturally, I had to take the kids on a little exploration walk to find out where the path went. Much to our enjoyment, we got to walk across a super cool bridge over a river and through a meandering forest. There were a few signs along the way and one of them caught my attention.
On it I read these words:
“Sweek Pond is one of several small wetlands nestled within Tualatin’s urbanized landscape. Often dismissed as ‘useless’ lands, these pockets of natural vegetation provide critical habitat for many animal species.”
The phrase “useless lands” stood out to me after the beauty I had just walked through. Who on earth would call this beauty useless? Yet the more I thought of it, the more I realized why someone would say that. There isn’t a lot you can do in the middle of wetlands.
(more…)When I was younger I remember clearly thinking that people who spent a lot on vacations were wasting their money. The reason for my thinking was that after a vacation, you had nothing to ‘show’ for the money spent. You may have the memories—and likely photos—but nothing else to show for the vast amounts of money spent. It seemed better to spend that money on physical items that would be around long after the vacation.
But I’ve noticed a shift in my thinking in this area over the years. Now I’m far less interested in physical items and far more interested in making memories and creating moments with the people in my life. I think part of this is the result of getting older and raising kids (even though some people seem to have never struggled with this type of thinking no matter their age). I think in different terms now: I have six more summers until my oldest is an adult. This causes me to view the time I have with them with a sense of focus.
The Psychologist Tim Kasser has argued that the enrichment of time will lead directly to happiness. Conversely, he suggests that the enrichment of material objects will not.
(more…)My eleven-year-old son recently started playing baseball again. I realized this weekend that I’ve become the dad that explains baseball nuance and rules to the parents around me. I can’t help it. Even as an introvert, I have to respond when a parent randomly asks out loud (to no one in particular), “Why did that kid just run to first base on a strikeout?”
But this last weekend I saw something I didn’t have an explanation for. If you look at the photo below, my son’s team was on the field in green. And if you look closer, the kid playing right field is wearing a bright orange jersey (look in the red circle).
That’s because he was on the other team.
Our team was short two players, which also explains why there were only two outfielders. Evidently, they went to the other team and got someone to play the field. I couldn’t help thinking how challenging this must be for this kid. How hard should he try to play defense against his own team? Were his parents rooting for him to play amazing defense too? What if his team lost because of an amazing play he made against them?
It’s a bit of a tricky situation which leads to confusing motivations. But this is actually more common than we may realize.
(more…)On Monday of this week we hosted another one of our tasting nights for Communion Wine Co. At the event, we’ve been doing a Q&A about wine/Jesus/the Bible/Christianity/the Church, etc. We received twenty questions and one of them was voted on as the number one question by a long shot. Here was the question:
Why were the women in Corinth not allowed to speak in church? Is it due to false prophets taking advantage of women not being taught to read or write?
I’m guessing this question comes from a place of personal pain and struggle. In my two decades in church ministry, I’ve noticed that sometimes this can be a very difficult subject for church leadership to tackle. They may want to empower women, but the pushback you get on this can be surprising.
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