September 2010

A Fixed Salary Versus Absolute Freedom

by Shawn September 30, 2010

Have you ever read something and thought, “Wow, that person has just seen right into my soul?” This happened to me yesterday, when Maile read a portion of Roald Dahl’s “Boy: Tales of Childhood.” She just finished reading it to our kids.  This is the portion that caught my attention. “I enjoyed [working for a [...]

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Rescuing a Bag of Candy, And the Church

by Shawn September 29, 2010

I wasn’t quite sure what to say when the man walked up and asked if we had seen his bag of candy. It was Sunday morning. The Great Frederick Fair’s last day was Saturday. All we had left to do was gather everything from our 40×40 foot tent, shoehorn it into our trailer and be [...]

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Tuesday’s Top 10: Carnival Food

by Shawn September 28, 2010

Before I get into the meat (pun intended) of today’s topic, I’ve got two very important announcements: 1 – We’re still raising money for charity:water. Click HERE to track our progress, or to give.  Maile and I are matching the first $100 in gifts today – just go to the site, donate money, and put [...]

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My Third Favorite Day of the Year

by Shawn September 27, 2010

There’s Thanksgiving Day, with its turkey and candied sweet potatoes and parades on television. There’s Christmas Eve, with its serene sense of anticipation, and hope. Then there’s the Monday after The Great Frederick Fair ends. * * * * * 54 years ago my grandparents, young and Amish and looking to start a new business, [...]

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Where Have All the Candles Gone?

by Shawn September 17, 2010

There seems to be so much anger in our country these days. Some folks in the Midwest seem to think that a man whose primary message was “Love your enemies” would have walked around proclaiming “Death to _______” (fill in the blank there with anyone they disagree with). Then there was the misguided man in [...]

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Doing More Than We Can Do

by Shawn September 16, 2010

Back when I was a runner (it seems a thousand years ago), I learned that the only to way to get faster was to, each day, do a little more than I thought I could do. Life is no different. “We are all asked to do more than we can do,” writes Madeleine L’Engle in [...]

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Please Throw That Thing In the Trash, And Slowly Back Away

by Shawn September 15, 2010

“Several delusions weaken the writer’s resolve to throw away work. If he has read his pages too often, those pages will have a necessary quality, the ring of the inevitable, like poetry known by heart” – The Writing Life, Annie Dillard Likewise, several things keep us from moving on in life. Familiarity. Comfort. The effort [...]

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