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This pastor has it going on. Check out his creative and impassioned use of the phrase “F you!”

Thanks to my uncle for pointing this out. He and I wrote a book about forgiveness in the wake of the Amish schoolhouse shooting (which did not include the aforementioned phrase). Check out our book HERE (scroll down after arriving at that page).

And then there’s this. For you non-football fans attending Super Bowl parties, you’ll want to check out the latest Tripp and Tyler video for all of the important etiquette:

I especially took to heart the advice about not playing a banjo while wearing a Speedo. Enough said.

So where will you be watching the Super Bowl? Will you be watching the Super Bowl? If not, what much more productive thing will you do on Sunday night?

We all want to belong. We all want to be an insider.

We all want to walk into a place billowing with people and noise and distraction, and then somewhere in that storm we want someone to turn and notice us. We want to see their eyes light up and we want them to forget what they were talking about and we want them to pull up a chair or make a spot at the bar for us. We want them to want to get to know us. We want to know that we matter.

I want you to want me
I need you to need me
I’d love you to love me
I’m beggin’ you to beg me

This desire for friendship and community and intimacy is a beautiful thing. It serves a purpose in the perpetuation of our species by leading to the creation of little people and also to the formation of communities that provide for and protect the individual. We are not all Bear Grylls-types, able to forage on pine cones and various species of moss. Continue reading “In Which I Call Out Myself and My Home Town”

The foundation of a marriage forms long before two people stand at the front of a church and say, “I do.”

The foundation of a marriage forms in a little boy’s heart, when his alcoholic father tells him, “You’ll never amount to anything.” The foundation of a marriage forms in the soul of a little girl, when three neighbor boys sexually abuse her in the dark corner of a barn.

And, so often, the foundations upon which marriages are built are not strong enough to weather the storms that come after “I do”: tragedies, depression, and infidelity send shivers through the already cracked foundation, and too often the structure collapses.

But it doesn’t have to.

This is the true story of a marriage, told in alternating perspectives from the man and woman who lived it, felt it, and fought to keep it together. Continue reading “My Latest Project: a Grace-Filled Book About Marriage”

At dusk, the sound of a cricket lurches out from the heavy green grass that must soon be cut. The boy knows it’s time to mow because it was soft and warm under his feet that day. When it’s not time to mow it sticks up scratchy and straight like the stubble of his father’s weekend face.

The sky looms gray and blue and dark in the east. He presses against the window screen. It leaves the imprinted feeling of small hash marks on the tip of his nose. He can smell the stinging sweet smell of metal. Continue reading “He Wonders Why There Were No Survivors”