My 25 Things (Revised)

25 Things About Me

1. Even though I spend the better part of my time around people, in front of people, leading people, teaching people, and working with people.... I am very much in favor of spending most of my time away from people and alone with my family. I have the best friend I could ever ask for in a wife, and four pretty cool and diverse kids. I wish I could be with them 24-7.

2. I am motivated to work with teenagers because of all the stupid things I did when I was younger. I’m not talking about the run of the mill kind of things that make being a teenager a glamorous time. I am talking about the kinds of things that can destroy your life or lives of those around you.

3. I have the brain of a 20 year old in the body of a 45 year-old. And, this body has a few extra miles on it. I have broken eight of my toes, one finger, one vertebrae, my nose four times, separated one shoulder, dislocated both knees and cracked six teeth.... All before the age of 27. I am not even mentioning all the stitches! In the last three years, I have dislocated the other shoulder, torn the cartilage clean off the bone, had surgery to reattach it and clean up the tears in the rotator cuff and bicep. After that, I broke the radius my other arm in four places. No surgery, but lost enough mobility to be labeled “permanently-partially disabled.” Yeesh!

4. I am not afraid of needles or sutures. Just evil clowns. Creepy!

5. I had the privilege of catching my two oldest kids as they were being born. The doctors did not show up in time when Candace was given the green light to push. Six minutes, according to Candace, is more than enough time to deliver a baby. Thwack!

6. Not a day goes by that I do not think of walking the shoreline where I grew up. If I could create a perfect world in which to live, it would involve my family living on the shore of Good Harbor Bay, with a barn back in the woods for my wife and my daughter’s arabians and a kennel for my dogs. We’d have a coffee roaster too, I guess...

7. I learned the love of words from my father. Poetry and lyrics and the crafting of words is something I admire in a person. I wish I could paint the pictures that I see in my soul with a more flair and passion and giftedness than I now possess. I have toyed with writing, but am cowed when I come across a piece that is on a topic I would choose to espouse, but is better crafted than I could present.

8. It took seven years for me to earn a 5-year degree. My Bachelor of Theology degree involves one year of study that could be considered Masters level, thus it is a real 5-year degree. My last semester took two years. Studying Hebrew is not conducive to a full-time job and a full-time marriage with full-time daddying to four full-time kids. Actually, Hebrew is not really conducive to anything except the Old Testament and living in Israel. That, and spitting like a camel.

9. Between my wife and I, it will always be me who cries first during a chick flick.

10. I once sold one of my recipes for $500 to the restaurant I was working in. My version of crab-stuffed shrimp won the day at The Cove in Leland on Mother’s Day weekend. It also won my wife over... She called her mom the day after I made it for dinner on one of our first dates to tell her she had found the man she wanted to marry. I still make it from time to time, especially around our anniversary. She didn’t have to pay the $500, by the way....

11. I can read and translate Socrates from the original Greek. O.K. So I am a bit rusty, but once upon a time, I could do it at will. Nothing to me is funnier than learning that the Philistines were big beer drinkers.... And people say that a theology degree is a waste of time!

12. I have a brown belt in Judo. I have always wanted to continue on to get my black belt (just two more to go), but the injuries are a bit difficult to overcome. Especially that back injury. I had the fortune to win the Northern Michigan Championship sometime back in the late eighties (1988, I think). Then I dropped off the face of the judo planet. I would rather play whiffle ball with my kids than beat up some Steven Segal wannabe....

13. After spending the first 23 years of my life running from God, I met His grace face to face and became His son. I had a hard time accepting the moniker “Christian”, because it held negative connotations to me. And now I am a pastor, with the title Rev. before my name if I choose to make that public. I am just as much in need of his grace today as I was the day I accepted His forgiveness. So are you, by the way....

14. I have the kind of face that draws to me animals and people with Downs syndrome. I heard a report on this once, so look it up, it is real. If we go anywhere there is a person with Downs, or if there is a dog, cat, horse or elephant, they want to come and play with me. If you want to see all of the animals at the zoo, take me with you. Everybody in the animal kingdom comes out when I am around... and Downs people. Oh. Except llamas. I almost forgot about that. My face must evoke some kind of llama-antichrist image to domestic llamas. They tend to go crazy when I am around them, threatening to tear down their corrals to attack me. Not too sure about alpacas....

15. I once took 20 of the Lost Boys from Sudan to a camp with one other guy counselor. These “kids” were in their early to mid teens, and they had already seen enough horror and tragedy in their lives to warrant them a status of adulthood and beyond. I spent the weekend being called the Big White Man, and commanded little authority until I hooked them up with an opportunity to go horseback riding. At first, they thought I was crazy, because, “only kings and princes ride horses.” When I was able to come through for them, I was suddenly on par with a world leader or Jesus himself.... Watching them ride and display the nobility of humanity made me cry. They were princes and kings that day. Weeks later, when I happened into the public school where some of them attended, I was mobbed by them and pulled in to dance one of the war dances they tried to teach me at camp. I had, I learned, been accepted as one of their tribesmen.

16. I have read The Lord of the RIngs trilogy seven times (almost). Twice as a kid (before high school) once in high school, once after high school, once to my wife while she was pregnant with our first child, once to my two oldest children, and now to my two youngest. We should finish it in the next two or three weeks. Then, I will not say “almost” any longer. We finished it about two weeks after I first posted this, and now my youngest son is now beginning a solo run through The Hobbit. The tradition continues...

17. One of the greatest things about being ordained is that I can help people celebrate their marriages. First, it was Scott and Lisa Davis. Then it was Amy (Richardson) and Ken Ellison, and most recently, Roger & Lori. I love doing weddings. I love helping the bride make her day just the way she envisioned it to be, and helping the family celebrate in such a way that that is not rote religiousness. I am convinced from Scripture that Jesus thought marriages were an awesome time, and I am committed to doing my part. Anybody out there want me to do their wedding?

18. I can spot a petoskey stone on the beach before anybody I know. Period. Wet or dry, partial or full, I will be the first to find one. It was always a fun challenge for my kids whenever we went to the beach in Michigan to find a petoskey before I could. I am still undefeated. If you want to challenge me, then buy me a plane ticket and put me up for a week. You’re toast.

19. My dad shared more of his memories with me than he ought to have. I know the horrors he saw as a Korean War vet and as a cop. I saw them second-hand as a child growing up. I am surprised that my dad was not insane after all he went through. The impact of his therapy sessions, however, paid a toll on my own lost innocence. Too much info for a boy in his pre- to early teens to know.

20. I have performed CPR on someone, but it was unsuccessful. He was a resident in the adult foster care home that Candace and I worked in together while I was attending college. During the night, he had had a grand mall seizure which killed the remainder of the brain tissue he had that kept him alive. Josh, the part-time help who was on duty at the time, found Dan warm and unconscious, and not breathing. We spent 20 minutes trying to revive him until the paramedics arrived. Josh, who was just a kid in his early 20’s, could not bring himself to doing mouth to mouth with our victim, who had vomited during his seizure, so I did all the yucky stuff. I will never forget that moment as long as I live. Dan was not just a resident to us... He was a friend, and almost a family member. When he was pronounced dead on the scene, I cleaned him up and removed the tube they had inserted in his nose and down his throat to deliver oxygen. I wanted his family’s last memories of their beloved son and brother to be ones of peace and rest, not convulsions, blood and tragedy. I cried a lot that day.

21. I love great tastes. Food, beer, wine, coffee.... You name it, I love to try it. Cooking is like painting and music and sculpture: It is an art form. I am better at appreciating art than I am at creating it, but I have my moments. I would rather eat one of my meals than go to a four-star restaurant. I am better than they are, and just conceited enough to not acknowledge when I am wrong..... :) I have cooked dinner for REO Speedwagon (when they were cool), Winton Marsailis, Bob James, Tim Kazurinski, Judas Priest, Bon Jovi, and some senior senator from Illinois... I can’t remember who else, but there have been a few other famous ones in the list.

22. I am biblically conservative and graciously liberal. I take the Bible literally, and as a whole. God wants us to have life, and to be able to live it to the full. He makes it clear that it involves having Him in our lives in all things. Too often, the good news of Christ’s love has been turned into the bad news of legalism. God’s table is big..... Pull up a chair.

23. I think that brussels sprouts are the forbidden fruit that Adam and Eve ate in the garden. It has to be. I think that is why they taste so rotten. Sure, they LOOKED good, but YUCK! The only way I can eat them is when I make this really sweet cream of brussels sprout soup with carrots and cheddar and chicken base and a little white wine; seasoned to perfection with lime pepper, basil, rosemary and..... Hmmm..... I guess it could have been lima beans. I can’t do jack with lima beans.

24. The most dangerous part of a woman’s anatomy is her eyes. Yes, all the parts together can cause a stir, but her eyes have the power to captivate and ensnare.... My wife has gorgeous eyes.... Sigh. The rest of her is pretty sweet, too.

25. Most people I know who are not Christians are shocked to learn that I am one. Double the coronary damage when they learn that I am an ordained minister. That could be a compliment, or a conviction upon me from on High. I take this seriously, so I often feel convicted that I am a poor example of a Believer. But I still love Jesus, and I know he still loves me.

In Accord with The Law

A couple mornings ago, I took my two youngest (we refer to them as “The Little Ones”, even though they both are now many inches taller than their mother) to their weekly piano lesson, I noticed there was something stuck to the hood of the car belonging to my oldest son (one of whom we refer to as “The Big Ones. Again, both of whom stand many inches taller than their mother). It had been a couple weeks since I had driven the car myself, as it is a secondary vehicle to the big Ford Expedition family car. The thing on the hood really stood out.

After dropping them off at the piano teacher’s house (a small mobile home owned by a diminutive grandmotherly type with the heart of a lion and an iron fist teaching style), I headed off to the local Barnes & Noble to get some study done for my Sunday lesson. After reaching the parking lot, I inspected the hood to determine the identity of the foreign object on the hood of the four-door go cart that resides about 28 days a month in the same footprint since its last trip to the grocery store.

At first, I thought it was a rare earth magnet. It had a ring of rust around it as though it had been there for a winter in the Rust Belt, or a week in the Pacific Northwest. I barely cloaked my irritation with whichever of my kids (Little Ones: Member #2) that put it there... until I realized that the reason I couldn’t pull it off of the hood was because it wasn’t on the hood. It was partially imbedded in the hood. It was a bullet. “Now, there’s something you don’t see every day!” I said to myself aloud...

After I got back from my kid-shuttling duties, I dropped by the Shoreline Police Department to file a report. My dad told me it was often the small tips that lead to the big arrests, and sometimes the most seemingly inconsequential piece of evidence sometimes was the key that brought a case together. Who knows? Maybe what I thought to be a late night of Cinco de Mayo afterglow was, in fact, the missing link to Al Capone’s vaults (your ability to get this is dependent upon: 1) Whether you read my blog, and 2) Your age.)

The officer who stopped by the house to fill out the report was very nice. Seattle is a great big small town, so imagine Barney Fife with a new squad car, and you will have a pretty good lead for where this is going, as well as the general theme for the story. Or is it mood? Regardless...

“You the guy whose car got shot?”

“That would be me...”

“Seriously?”

“Yep...”

“You sure?”

“Pretty sure!” says I, pointing at the bullet in the hood.

“Wow. That’s pretty rude,” says Officer Fife. Crime, in Seattle, seems to be based more upon etiquette than upon actual laws... unless, of course, a salmon is involved. “Wow.” (got that the first time)

“So,” says I, trying to strike up a bit of conversation that takes us beyond three-letter exclamations, “Do you think that’s a 9mm, or a .32 caliber? It’s definitely not a .45, right?”

“Your guess is as good as mine!”

Really? Seriously? What if I guessed it as a Shoshone tomahawk* from the time of Lewis & Clark...? Would that give me a chance at a prize bigger than, “Wow!”?

*the more astute readers among you most likely jumped with immediacy upon the reference to a Shoshone tomahawk with disdain. Alright... pukamoggran, then!

“Do you mind if I take it with me?” Officer Fife asked. At this point, I wasn’t really sure if it was for himself, or for “back at the lab” where the deeper mysteries of the Shoreline Police Department were discussed. “That’s fine,” I answered.

“Got anything to get that thing out? Pair of pliers? Hammer? Vice grips?” Something was telling me about now that ballistics had no chance of seeing my hood ornament make it back to the home base. “Uh... Sure.”

After I pounded the copper projectile into an orb-like lump, Officer Fife produced a single, professional, black latex-free glove from his right breast pocket (they must be professional: The ones at Costco are blue, the ones in my physician’s office are not nearly as smooth) and gingerly took the prize from my cold, not-so-dead-hands. “Thanks!”

“I wonder how it got there?” Instead of reply with “Maybe someone used a gun?”, I suggested that a party reveler may have joyfully let loose with a skyward round, as that the bullet itself did not pass through the hood, but merely lodged in it, seemingly falling from the sky. “Got anybody who might want to hurt you?” he asked, eyes narrowing into calculating slits. Pointing at the sky, I offered a meek explanation of, “This seems to have fallen from the sky. I’m pretty sure I am safe from any malice in that department.”

“O.K.” He seemed satisfied. “We’ll be in touch if we hear anything.”

I am not planning on leaving town any time soon. One never knows. Especially now that my fingerprints are now safely locked away in somebody’s pocket... I mean, forensics lab.