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My wife recently washed a glass mason jar in the sink and set it on the counter.

“Do you know where that jar came from?” she asked me.

The answer didn’t come to me right away.

“No. Who?”

“This was the jar of strawberry jam that Andi gave us. Didn’t her mom make that?”

* * * * *

I am not a fan of sultry summer days, but in the dead of winter, when whisps of stale snow blow across the street, and every pond has a thick skin of ice, there is something appealing about walking around in shorts and feeling the sun hot against your face. I find myself thinking about summer.

This past summer my kids went on a toast-for-breakfast kick.  And their jam of choice? The fresh strawberry jam which Andi gave to us, the jam that her mother made from scratch.

* * * * *

We traveled to Rochester the week of Thanksgiving this year, but I kept an eye on Andi’s blog. Her mom was dying of cancer. Then I went a few days without getting on line, too caught up in our own celebrations and late-night revelry to pay attention to the outside world. Black Friday at Target was a storm. Finally, Saturday the 27th, I made the rounds to my favorite blogs.

I read Andi’s Thanksgiving Day post:

Mom passed away at 4:30 this morning. Dad woke me, and I rushed to her. I laid one hand on her chest and one on her face. She was not there…

Yet, on this day of Thanksgiving, I am grateful for the healing that will, inevitably, come. I am grateful for the complete healing and perfection that Mom now lives in…I am grateful in this massive grief that there is something – something amazing – beyond it.

Now, to walk through the shards of pain that pierce my heart, to absorb them into myself, to build scar tissue that will heal and strengthen my flesh.

I thought that this was perhaps one of the bravest things I had ever read.

* * * * *

I stare at the empty mason jar. In the summer it was messy and sticky from the kids attempts to make their own toast. Now, in the winter, it is clean as crystal. The glass is smooth and unwavering.

I think about this small gift that Andi and her mother gave to us.

I think that we will be remembered by what we give.

Today I’m guest posting over at Jason Boyett’s blog for his Friday “Voices of Doubt.” The link to head on over there is at the bottom of the page. Jason’s got an awesome blog, one I recommend checking out on a regular basis. Especially today. Now back to your regularly scheduled blogram.

* * * * *

A few of my friends who also read the blog suggested I do a better job of helping people get to know me. So here are a few random facts about me:

These are my kids:

From left to right:

Lucy loves to read and is a 2nd mother to the younger two

Abra is rarely this pensive. She’s usually rather goofy.

Cade says some funny stuff, and in this photo is wrestling with

Sammy, who is a general trouble maker and the life of our family party. His favorite thing to do these days is select a weapon from the bottom drawer (wooden spoon, pizza cutter) and chase Abra around the house.

This is my wife:

I chose this picture because it’s pretty typical of us – me acting goofy while she just shakes her head. The look she currently has on her face is usually followed by a “but-what-can-I-do” look. If the brownies in the teeth and general disheveled nature of my own self don’t give it away, I feel obligated to tell you that I married way out of my league.

We met in college as English majors during a semester when we had 5 classes together. She got 100% on a midterm, and I scored in the low 70s. This was on purpose, as it gave me the perfect excuse to ask her to study with me.

I’ve always loved her quite a bit, but even more so now that she’s pretty much followed me around the world, first to Florida, then to England (that story is HERE), then to Virginia, and finally on a hair-brained adventure to my hometown in Pennsylvania where we decided I should try to make a living as a writer (that story is HERE).

Three questions for you folks out there:

What is your name?

Where have you lived?

What do you do to embarrass the ones that you love?

* * * * *

Now head on over to Jason Boyett’s blog, O Me of Little Faith. You won’t regret it. Well, today you might, but most of the time, when I’m not guest posting, you’ll love it.

When I was a kid, probably after the third or fourth time I went to the front of the church to recommit my life to Christ and ensure my entrance into heaven, I started to feel kind of guilty. What if God found out that the only reason I loved him was because he had the big book with all the names, and I had the secret knowledge that, if my name wasn’t in that book, I’d end up with a serious sunburn? What if he wasn’t cool with me using him as an eternal thermostat – believe in him and the temperature remains a balmy 68 degrees, FOREVER; forsake him and you’re looking at lakes of molten ore?

I am not a big fan of the beach, or sunscreen. I had trouble enjoying Las Vegas because of the 110 degree weather.

I knew that hell would not suit me.

* * * * *

Christians have convinced people that everything is all about what happens after you die. You’ve seen the signs, listing out those who have fallen short and are “going to hell.” The most quoted Bible verses are those having to do with what gets you in to heaven (or not).

Avoiding hell seems to be the primary reason for being a Christian.

In some ways this works out well: when faith is eternity based, and the result of that can never be confirmed on this side of death, then you can wield that thing pretty recklessly. In other words, it’s easy to say “if you don’t do this and stop doing that, you can’t get into heaven,” because you can’t be proven wrong.

It’s much more difficult to say, “Live like this and you’ll be happy and peaceful and content,” because someone can try it and find out it’s not exactly true.

* * * * *

Pretty early on in his teaching, Jesus begins saying, “Repent, for the kingdom of heaven is at hand!”

Not, “repent, for that will get you into the kingdom of heaven.”

Not, “repent, and then after you die things will be good for you.”

No, the kingdom of heaven is at hand. It’s right in front of you.

Then, in one of his most well-known series of teachings, he blesses the poor in spirit and those who are persecuted for doing good things, saying that the Kingdom of Heaven is theirs. IS theirs. Not “will be” theirs after they die. IS theirs.

My favorite translation says “The kingdom of the heavens is among us!” The kingdom of heaven is here! Look around! Open your eyes!

* * * * *

What if being a Christian meant more than just believing the right things, but had more to do with the tangible results of the life being lived?

What if being a Christian was less about avoiding hell and more about bringing as much of heaven to earth as is possible?

* * * * *

This is what I love about the story of Christmas: God put heaven in his rear view mirror and came to earth to bless the marginalized, the rejected, the hurting.

Would that more of us Christians could do the same.

“What’s a soft pretzel?”

“When will they be ready?”

“Who are you?”

Others stood back, watching for their train to be announced, staring at us in the way that only British people can stare: quietly, properly, imperceptibly.

Then we rolled our first pretzels, put them in the oven. The smell caught the attention of some passersby. They stopped, asked a few questions, went to their train.

The first pretzels came out of the oven. And before we knew what happened, someone approached the counter.

“I’ll take one,” she said. Then someone else came up. Then another customer. I was rolling pretzels, and people were buying them. Ben was selling them. We kept looking at each other, wide-eyed, disbelieving.

I ducked down under the counter and made a very long distance call to my parents. It was early in the morning there. I didn’t care.

“Mom, Dad,” I said, my voice shaking with emotion. “We’re selling pretzels. People are actually buying pretzels. Can you believe it?”

The picture is of me, almost ten years ago, looking very nervous, very happy and very young. And I think I was probably up to no good.

* * * * *

(to read the first installment about our move to England, click HERE)

I’ve discovered that, as a parent, I feel much the same about cleaning out our minivan as I do about going in search of something in my wife’s purse. I’m overwhelmed before I even begin, I’d rather not be doing it, and I’m very worried about what I might find. I’m also obsessed with the possibility of inadvertently stabbing myself with something.

* * * * *

About two months ago, just before the cold weather permanently settled in for the winter, my wife was driving home from the dairy. This incident may or may not have been told previously on Facebook, Twitter or other social media sites. One of the glass half-gallon jugs of milk toppled and smashed. The milk ran throughout the van and soaked into the carpet.

I wearily trudged to the van after hearing of this disaster, trying to keep a good attitude toward the love of my life, armed with some sort of carpet cleaner, an endless supply of paper towels, and a tub of hot soapy water. My cleaning efforts were weak, at best.

How smelly can old milk really get, anyway? I asked myself, opting not to pull out the carpets.

Two months later, I can tell you.

Very smelly. So smelly it takes four of those little green trees to drown out the stench. I arrive at meetings smelling like pine needles soaked in Pine-Sol.

* * * * *

Last week my family got sick. It started with Sam projectile vomiting at the end of the tour of the Hershey’s Chocolate Factory.

“He was probably just car sick,” we said. “Or maybe that little ride in the factory upset his stomach. Or maybe it’s that pine smell in the van.”

The next day his sister threw up, same van, right on the seat. Which is right above where most of the milk had pooled two months prior. I wasn’t home at the time, but my wife, very considerately I might add, left the vomit-covered seat for me to clean up. So, on Saturday, at the end of a week during which 5 of the 6 of us  shared Sammy’s little belly virus, I found myself cleaning out the van.

* * * * *

I started with the vacuum, and this really is the crux of my story. I’ve often marveled at how, now that I’m a parent, nothing really grosses me out anymore. I eat stuff off the floor, I let my kids slobber and drool all over me – I almost licked some poop off of my hand while changing a diaper because I didn’t know what it was. After watching four kids stick everything and anything into their mouths, I now find myself doing exactly that.

What’s this? I don’t know. How should I examine it? I think I’ll stick it in my mouth.

* * * * *

While I was vacuuming the overwhelmingly piney, sour-milk smelling, vomitty stench that is now our van carpets, I noticed a little M&M on the floor. I’m not a big M&M fan, so I vacuumed it up. But just as it was going into the nozzle, I realized it was not an M&M.

It was a grape Skittle. It had that beautiful little Helvetica “S” on the side.

And for a split second I had to admit something to myself, something I’m now admitting to the world.

If I would have known that was a grape Skittle, I would have eaten it.

* * * * *

Is there anything in the world that you would eat, if you found it on a similar van floor in similar circumstances? Be honest now.

And for one of my most argued-over posts (a top 10 candy ranking), read THIS

Let me tell you about my experience with rockets.

When I was in 1st grade I joined this group called the Royal Rangers – the church equivalent of Boy Scouts. We spent many weekends camping in the rain, drinking Tang and having pancake eating contests (during which I distinctly remember a guy by the name of John Reihl eating 37 pancakes – the passing of 27 years MAY have caused that number to inflate, but not by more than 10%).

Anyway, as I look back on my days in the RR, there are a few activities that stick out in my mind: the Pinewood Derby Car races (where you could easily tell the dads were more involved than the boys due to the Lamborghini-like designs and wheel alterations and weight changes made after the weigh-in); memorizing the various creeds (which I can still spit out by heart); and the rockets.

Yes, the rockets.

* * * * *

I never actually built a rocket – it was an activity solely for the over-12 year old age bracket. But those things were awesome. They put these toilet-paper roll-like tubes together, pasted some fins on the outside, stuck some explosives up the tail end, sat the rocket on this wiry launch pad. Step back. Press the ignition button.

A whistling whoosh, and the rocket flew up in the air, too high to see. A chute popped out and us younger kids would chase it across the fields, trying to catch it before it smashed into the field and broke.

* * * * *

Sometimes we stuck a little army man in the rocket, attached to the parachute. Occasionally he returned to earth unscathed. More often than not he arrived a melted lump of plastic, 3rd-degree plastic burns. We buried those guys in a small army graveyard beside the church (ironically, most of the attendants of that particular church had grown up anabaptist, and pacifist – I’m not sure about their stance on having a military graveyard on church property).

* * * * *
Since I wasn’t old enough to launch a rocket, sometimes I would ball an army man up in a parachute and try to toss him high in the air, but I just couldn’t throw him high enough to get the chute to open up. Sometimes, you just need a rocket.

* * * * *

Having trouble getting your blog to take off? Feel like you need to inject some life and new ideas and perhaps a little rocket fuel up the tail end? Check out Bryan Allain’s new blog-coaching website: Blogrocket. He’s got some great tips, an amazing e-book about blogging, and you can even check out an option to have him personally coach your blog to higher levels. He’s been blogging for almost 10 years, has over 1000 subscribers and 6,000 – 8,000 unique readers every month.

It’s time to hitch your blog to a rocket.