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“Running shoes on but I walk. Turn right out the drive because I am feeling dangerous and left leads out of the neighborhood; I can feel myself, I might not return. So I go right. But I go far. Choose new turns to make the longest way back home.”

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“Here’s how I see it: I think Pinterest is screwing with our psyches even if we don’t spend oodles of time in its labyrinth. It doesn’t matter if you seek it out; now it’s showing up in your reader every.single.day. It’s the villain of the blogosphere.”

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“Tony’s post overlooks the fact that “human beings and all creation and the world” aren’t only out there. The world is right here at home, too. Men and women who choose to stay home to raise their children are just as missional as men and women who move to the inner city or to tent cities in Haiti or the garbage dumps in Africa. Jesus said that whatever you do to the least of these, you do to Him. He didn’t say “the least of these (except your own family).” “Other human beings” includes our children and our parents, our neighbors, the congregants in our church, the librarian who helps find age-level books, and anyone else with whom we rub shoulders. Jesus tells us to be faithful in the little things.”

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“On August 16, our daughter’s number on the high school waiting list opened.”

“On August 17, she began attending Tulsa School of Arts and Sciences as a freshman.”

“On September 5, the school building was in flames, and we were riveted to the TV as we saw it burn.”

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“The silver fox on the grass clearly had no time for convention. He would run in the grass if he darn well pleased. I was kind of jealous. He was having fun, and I was being all serious and intent on my stupid path.”

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“It’s Wednesday night. I should finish packing for a long weekend out of town. Instead, I rationalize other activities. Like Twitter. And eating more Brach’s Autumn Mix candy corn (it’s back, y’all!) And reading a book. Heck, I might even start cleaning.”

“I don’t know why I procrastinate when it comes to good things in my life.”

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“If it’s that bitter edge of indignation that leaves the bad taste in my mouth, it’s the richness of having a voice that keeps me coming back for another helping. I’m thinking that as long as I include helpings of wisdom and grace, I should be able to balance these complex flavors. But what do you think? What should we do with our indignation?”

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“I read their status updates and their tweets and I’m genuinely happy for them. It is exciting to see a dream realized and they are my friends, after all. I read their writing, it’s good, and I want more people to have the opportunity to soak in their words. Any time you seek to make a living doing something creative, it’s a risk and it’s a joy to know that risk is working out for people who I like.”

“Sometimes I worry that my congratulatory comments don’t sound as sincere as I intend for them to be. Because let’s be honest, while I’m happy for my friends, I a little bit hate reading those updates.”

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“It explains why I have to send him to his room, where he flings himself angrily against his door again and again. I lie on my bed, watching the ceiling fan go round and round murmuring over and over again, I can’t do it God. Help me, help me, help me. I cannot do it.”

It’s a strange transition, going from a week in Sri Lanka to my family’s annual week at the Frederick Fair in Maryland. The mornings are chilly here, and there are no palm trees. No Indian Ocean. No mosquitoes carrying malaria or Dengue fever.

We sell ham and cheese sandwiches from our food tent just off the midway. A lot of people walk away with five at a time because for every four sandwiches you buy you get one free. That costs $19.80.

Or a week’s wages for someone in Sri Lanka.

We also sell a lot of soda under our tent (or “pop” for you Midwesterners). In order to stock up our tent at the beginning of the week, we bought a pallet of water and a lot of cases of Coke. In fact, our first order cost us $766.00.

Or 153 days wages for someone in Sri Lanka.

It’s a strange world, where the equivalent of one person’s six months of hard labor can be consumed on the other side of the planet in three or four days by people having fun. Drinking sugary drinks.

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For about the first week after I got back from Sri Lanka, my body clock was so screwed up that I was wide awake by 3:30am. I got a lot of work done on those early mornings, but it was also kind of fun because many of my fellow Sri Lanka bloggers were awake at that time.

We’d send each other early morning messages on Facebook while most of the rest of our world was sleeping. We unofficially debriefed our experiences. We laughed about the old inside jokes and threatened reunions.

Then, one morning towards the end of the week, I woke up and groggily picked up my phone to check the time. 6:30am. No more jet lag. No more middle-of-the-night conversations with my Sri Lanka blogger buddies. It felt like the trip had finally ended.

It was the saddest morning I’ve had for quite some time.

* * * * *

I miss jet lag. I miss being ravenously hungry at 3:30am. I miss the new friends I made during that week. I miss feeling connected to a country on the other side of the world that I never thought I’d visit.

Then I see the photo of the little boy in Sri Lanka my family is sponsoring. And it’s such a little thing. Such a miniscule thing. $35 a month. I wish I could do more.

Will you join me in supporting World Vision by sponsoring a child? Click HERE for more information. And watch this awesome video put together by Matthew Paul Turner with pics of the kids we met on our trip:

One of the first people I look for when I arrive at the fair each year is the old man who reminds me of my grandfather. He guides a golf cart through the sprawling tents, buildings, carnival rides and food trailers. He stops beside each trash can and aches his way out of his seat. He loads up the garbage. He takes a sip of Coke. Lights a cigarette.

Sometimes he stops to talk, and I try to figure out what it is about him that reminds me of my grandfather. The tan, leathery skin? The slick, gray hair?

He mumbles and smiles and pretends not to recognize me, then laughs and laughs when I pretend to be offended. He rubs his stubble with a calloused hand and complains that this will probably be his last year. I think about how he told me about his family, and his stint in the war, and why preachers are all a bunch of fools. I learned more about him in that ten minute conversation last year than I had in the previous twenty years of seeing him at the fair.

He drives past the tent again, and peers inside, but doesn’t see me through the clear plastic window. But I see him, my grandfather, and I realize that it’s the fact that he rarely smiles with his mouth, but his eyes are almost always smiling. That’s it. That’s my grandfather.

And I think we probably all remind each other of someone else, and perhaps that’s reason alone to be kind and to live a good life, because you never know which long-gone person you are resurrecting. There’s honor in being a living reminder of the best of someone, and not the worst.

Clay Morgan’s new book, Undead, explores the relationship between Christianity, life and death. Here’s a story from his book about how an encounter with death changed the way he viewed life:

I never thought I would see anybody die at work. I’m a college teacher, so it’s not like I’m a doctor or a cop or anything. But on student survey day, I found myself in a life-and-death situation.

We administer surveys of student opinions one day out of every semester. On these days, I have to stop lecturing fifteen minutes early and leave the room so students won’t be embarrassed when they write all about how I’m the greatest professor they’ve ever had or something. It was because of this uncommon event on this particular day that I walked out of my classroom early and into an almost empty hallway.

With my bag slung over my shoulder, I closed the door behind me. That’s when I heard a coworker calling for help and pointing at a fellow teacher standing frozen at the door to his office. I didn’t understand what was happening at first, but I dropped my bag and ran to where he was. I thought his hand was stuck in the door but as I reached him I realized the situation was much worse.

He couldn’t move. I half-carried him into his office and got him into a chair, and because of the way I was positioned I ended up kneeling with this stricken man in a sort of half hug. There was commotion and some panic around us as we waited for emergency medical responders.

The man was unable to verbalize anything, so I asked the colleague who called for help what his name was. I tried to communicate with him, but nothing worked. His eyes were open with awareness, but his body was betraying him. He squeezed at my shoulder as his only form of communication. Then his eyes went wide and distant. His face paled and his skin chilled. I grabbed his face in both my palms and called for him, tried to bring him back to focus. I steadied his head from rolling and heard gasps behind me. I didn’t know what to do. He wore a bracelet with a saint on it, Simon or Jude I think, and I whispered prayers for him that I hoped he could hear.

He never recovered. The medics arrived and rushed him to the hospital, but he succumbed that evening. What at first had seemed to be stroke-like symptoms were actually a powerful heart attack.

I did a lot of thinking about life and death after that. I thought about the man who lived so many decades, had so many experiences, yet he spent some of his final moments in the arms of a person he had never met.

When you watch someone die you suddenly realize how very much alive you are.

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It shouldn’t always be such a challenge for me to appreciate life

I guess in a nutshell, the point is that the more we recognize death, the more we appreciate life. We all have to decide which of those two things will occupy our focus.

Clay Morgan is a writer, teacher, and speaker from Pittsburgh, PA who blogs about pop culture, history, and the meaning of life at ClayWrites.com. He is the author of Undead: Revived, Resuscitated, and Reborn about zombies, God, and what it means to be truly alive, from which this post is adapted.