Scattershooting Wondering Whatever Happened To The Last 370 or So Days....

- Hard to believe, but last Sunday marked one year since Mom passed.  It seems that it took most of the year just to process what happened.  The anniversary was easier due to the amazing amount of emails, texts and notes I received.  Don't know that I can thank you all enough for your thoughtfulness.  I don't think I have ever thought about the anniversaries of deaths and what that means to the family members prior to last week.  I will now.

-  Vanessa came up with a great idea to commemorate the one-year mark.  Instead of mourning, we got up, ate a big southern breakfast (complete with grits!) and then spent the day a the beach.  We set aside some time to remember Mamaw, and celebrate her life, and to celebrate our lives.  Again, Vanessa comes through and proves she's too smart to be married to me.  (Please don't tell her though....)

- Of course the Mavs Winning the NBA Championship on Sunday went a long way in easing the pain....

- Last year, Em wrote a hit song titled Cop Got Arrested.  It was a long epic tale with 19 verses that rivaled Wreck of The Edmund Fitzgerald in length.  She followed that with Cop's Son Got Arrested (It Runs In The Family)*.  As many sophomoric efforts, it didn't measure up to the original.  But this summer she has revealed her latest song Nurse Got Infected, and let me tell you, it's gold.  A pretty good melody plus lyrics that show that she's matured, including;

The Nurse got an infection

Cause she made to close of a connection,

oh, won't you have some affection

for the Nurse who got the infection,

it's enough to make you sing

'what the heck son?'

cause the nurse got an infection..

We'll upload a video to YouTube soon.

-  Vanessa and I just finished Love Wins; A Book About Heaven, Hell, and the Fate of Every Person Who Ever Lived by Rob Bell.  The same book that caused such a stir and controversy.  Many claimed that Rob Bell is a Universalist.  There have been articles and books written to contradict Bell.  I don't think Bell is a universlist.  I do think that he asks questions for which there are no easy answers in the current American culture landscape.  I think he makes us question some of the conventional wisdom that we just repeat without ever really thinking about.  I think he has, as a result, shown that what passes for apologetics theses days is nothing but sound bites and hyperbole.  Apologetics shouldn't reflect the "debates" that take place on Fox, CNN or MSNBC - name calling, style over substance, one upsmanship - but that's what it has become.  I wonder if the same people who are screaming today against Bell would have the same criticisms of C.S. Lewis' The Great Divorce.  Because in the end, Love Wins reaches the same conclusions, just in a less articulate, hipster kind of way.  My over all impression was "meh", but I don't think I am the target audience. 

-  I'll be running (read: walking) in the Camp Pendelton Mud Run tomorrow.  Not sure how I got talked into it, but if you don't hear from me by 2PM, call a search party....



*I'm not making this up