Blog

Airports are strange places.

You stand in huge crowds of people, and no one says a word.

A McDonald’s hamburger outside the airport? 99 cents. Inside the airport? $19.25.

Airports are so big now that you often walk further than you end up flying.

Strangely enough, these are not the things that I dislike the most about the airport – that would be security. I don’t like how they look at you like you are a terrorist. I don’t like how they shine that little penlight on your license. I don’t like how the line to go through security, if laid out flat, would stretch from here to Mars.

What I dislike the most is that airport security gives me no feeling of security: they check for metal, check for liquids, make you take off your shoes.  And don’t get me wrong, they do a great job.  But all the things they check for have to do with incidents that have already happened. So while evil people are out there devising new and even more maniacal ways of blowing us up, airport security insists on me taking off my belt and my flip flops.

I would be much more encouraged if airport security made me do something totally inexplicable.

Like cutting one inch of hair off of my head and looking at it under a microscope.

Or making me have a dental x-ray before I can board the plane.

What about forcing me to perform the presidential fitness test from high school?

At least then I would feel like they had an inside scoop on the next terror plot, and not like they were stuck on trying to prevent the boring old repeats.

I know there is a life lesson hiding in here somewhere. It probably has to do with the negatives of living a reactionary life style, instead of deliberately plotting new courses and trying strange, exciting, crazy things. Or maybe it’s just that we should all start taking the bus.

I don’t think the weather could get any more beautiful than it has been for the last week. This is both exhilarating and depressing: exhilarating because I work at home and can cut out early to play soccer with the kids or just sit in a chair outside and read; depressing because, well, it can’t get any better.

Who am I kidding? This is not depressing at all – the fact that the beginning of summer is still 9 1/2 months away is enough to keep me happy for, well, 9 1/2 months.

Anyway, as we head closer and closer to the first official day of autumn (the best season), here are three things to be REALLY excited about:

1) The Fireside Writer’s Conference is only 43 days away. Find out more about it HERE.

HUGE FAVOR TO ASK: If you work somewhere that you wouldn’t mind posting a Fireside Writer’s Conference flyer (you know, somewhere in the lunch room or toilet stall or on your boss’s glass door), please email me at shawnsmucker (at) yahoo (dot) com and I will email one to you (a flyer, not a glass door).

THING TO BE REALLY EXCITED ABOUT #2)

It’s still not too late to donate to charity:water and support our “30 Bloggers, 30 Days, $30,000” initiative.  Read more about it HERE or check out how much we’ve raised so far HERE ($4,785 as of yesterday at 4:17pm)

***as of this morning, Bryan Allain is matching any gift, dollar for dollar – to have your gift matched, go HERE

#3 Football!

So what are you enjoying about life these days?

If you didn’t see it yesterday, go on over to The House Studio and check out my guest post for their ongoing “Monday is for the Random” segment. It involves a combination of the Jackson 5/Nirvana (Smells Like Rockin’ Robin) as well as a very scary Mary Poppins.

Now for today’s regularly scheduled programming.

* * * * *

Picture this: we are driving down the road in my 1990 GMC Safari minivan.  That’s right, much like the one pictured here, but gray instead of blue, and without the big house in the background.  Also, ours does not have a/c, and the windows won’t go down.  And the radio shouts at you like a large cat dying of colic, even when you turn the volume all the way down.  Cade and Lucy are in the back seat.

Cade: Dad, what’s wrong with your radio?

Lucy: It’s broken.

Me: Yeah, it doesn’t work.

Cade: Why not?

Me: I don’t know, it’s old.

Cade: Why don’t you fix it?

Me: I can’t do it myself, and I don’t want to spend the money to fix it.

Cade: Why not?

Me: Because it would probably cost like a hundred dollars (I always use this amount because to them, the need to come up with $100 is an insurmountable obstacle)

Silence for a moment.

Cade: I bet if you ask Mimi (his grandma) she’d give it to you.

* * * * *

Previous episodes of “Stuff Cade Says” include:

– the one when Cade suggested I breastfeed our baby

– the one about why God gave us clothes

– the one about superheroes, and the power of Home Depot

I spent last week hanging out with Lily Isaacs, finishing the latest (and hopefully almost the last) draft of her book.  If you remember, last winter I blogged about how traveling on the bus with her band made me feel like a rock star.  Anyway we pretty much got through it by Thursday afternoon, at which point I sat in her living room and thought about stories.

Specifically, life stories.

I used to think these things called life stories were so straightforward – you know, sit down and write about your life, right?  Aren’t our stories just time lines, one event after another?  And if so, isn’t writing a life story just about taking those points on the line and writing about them?

It’s just not that easy.

What I’ve come to realize, while trying to wrap up Lily’s story, is that our lives couldn’t be any further from simple lines with dots.  I think they’re more like the tiny, individual strands of a very thick rope.  Our lives are so entwined with the stories of the people around us that there is no way to cut them all off and get down to that single strand without ruining the whole thing.

This made me think about the compilation of a life, how some of the strands (people) in our rope are stories that we invite in, and others are strangers who force or find their way in.

What was the life of Jesus like? What sort of strands or stories or people did he intentionally wrap around himself?  What sort of rope did he form?  Is my rope like his, full of broken strands and frayed strands and weak strands, held together through relationship and community?  Or do I protect my sterile rope of a life and only allow myself to become intertwined with other “perfect” threads?

That seems a silly, futile way to spend a life.

If you get a chance, go over to Inkling Media today and check out my guest post on changing the world.  Seriously.  Changing. the. world.  In the mean time, here are some folks who can help you expand your horizons (the good, the bad, and the funny):

On Twitter?  Here are 5 people you should be following:

@bryanallain @kmueller62 @andilit @tylerstanton @donmilleris

On Facebook? Here are 5 pages you should like:

Ben Halvorsen Tennis, The House Studio, Stacy Barton Stories, Kim Walker, The FreshPod

Reading blogs?  Add these to your Google Reader:

Chip MacGregor ; Seth Godin ; Mai Time in the Kitchen ; Shawna Lewis ; 3 Men and Their Ladies

Looking for something to read? Here are my three most popular blog posts in the last month or so:

Democracy: An American Christian’s Prop?

Words the Church Should Stop Using: Sin

Tuesday’s Top 10: Types of Candy

Now go back and read my guest post at Ken Mueller’s blog.  Seriously.  You could change the world.