Simple Pleasures

Being the net-cruising, blog-writing, website-building, geek that I am, I find that the moments in life that I enjoy the most are the simple pleasures that have nothing to do with high tech gadgets or anything I do while I’m sitting at my computer.

Don’t get me wrong, I love my computer.  Built her myself (yes, it’s a “she”) part by hand-picked part.  Although my computer is an awesome tool, the substance of life is found in the simple pleasures of real life.  Here are some of the simple pleasures that grabbed my attention today:

0.  Losing my cell phone in the console of our fancy-schmancy car. Okay, this wasn’t fun at all, but I managed somehow let my cell phone slide under the fancy-shmancy retractable cover of our car console.  Guess what… you can’t remove the center console or its cover.  No screws to even mess with.  Just wonderfully molded plastic.  It was time upgrade the phone anyway, right?

That’s how the day started.  It got better.  Way better.

1.  Playing baseball and duck-duck-goose with my boys in the school gym. It’s been windy and cold for the past several weeks, so playing outside is pretty much out of the question.  Fortunately, I have keys to the school, so Brody, Brock and I can go run ’til we’re all tired (me more than them) in the school gym.

2.  Watching my boys as I turned on the Christmas tree lights. All three gave oohs and aahhs.

3.  Cutting Wood. I took my pups and my Husky chainsaw out to restock the family heat supply.  The brisk wind, my two wolf-dogs, the whirr of the chainsaw, sawdust flying everywhere, and a full pickup load of wood will make any guy glad to be alive.

4.  “Mommy, let’s do that right now.” I got home kinda late from cutting wood expecting to be in mid-level trouble with my wife… but instead she was glowing.  It turns out she and Brody were reading a book about the birth of Jesus.  Brody started asking questions about the other books advertised on the back cover when Jodi felt prompted to ask him a few questions.

Jodi: Brody, have you ever asked Jesus into your heart?

Brody: No.  Mommy let’s do that right now.

As a Jesus-follower, I can’t ask for anything more than to see my four-and-a-half year old son want to have Jesus in his life.  Sure, there’s a lot for him to learn.  There’s tons he doesn’t understand and won’t for a while.  The amazingly simple truth is that his journey has begun.

5 Things Worth Waiting For

My kids are waiting for Santa to show up.  People are waiting for Christmas carols to stop playing on the radio.  Here are the five things I’m waiting for in no particular order.

1. The season premier of Lost. They got off the island last season, now they have to get back?!  This show keeps me guessing every week.
2. Weather that lets you cut more firewood. It’s really cold and windy here right now.  Something happens when the temperature dips below “Holy-Cats-Its-Cold” that makes you instinctually want to get more firewood.  You could have three metric tons of wood stored up and still feel the need to get more when one of our cold winds catches you just right.
3. Quality moments with family. It seems like just about everyone hustles around to make it to every relative’s home within a 200 mile radius to get some good family time in.  We seem to amass a huge quantity of memories and polaroid snap-shots, but how many of those moments are quality moments?  How many of those memories will be rolling around in our heads in 20, 40, 60 years?   Take a little time for a quality conversation with a loved one this week.  Let someone know how much you appreciate them.  That’s a memory that will stick with them for 40 years.
4. Christmas cookies. There’s no need to expand on this one.  Let’s just say I’m glad I have an extra hole in my belt this time of the year.
5. Change. Change in myself.  Change in others.  Change in hearts.  All of these things take time.  I can’t force change in any of these things.  God won’t force us to do anything, but he is constantly working in us, constantly changing and growing us.  Most of the time, it’s at a very slow pace.  Much slower than my microwave-internet-everything-on-demand mindset is used to.  The important lessons I’ve begun to learn in the last several years have taken a long time to get to where they are now.  I’m sure it’s the same for you.  Here’s the funny part: change takes years in us, but when it doesn’t happen overnight in others, we get frustrated at them.  How crazy!

The Millennium Falcon Cat or 6 Signs That Life is Awesome

1.  Your 2 boys put Luke Skywalker and Batman on your cat’s back and push the cat around the hardwood floor yelling “The Millennium Falcon Cat!”

After that, Jodi has to start liking the cat.

2.  The Nuggets traded Allen Iverson to Detroit for CHAUNCEY BILLUPS and Antonio McDyess.

Yep, that’s two, count ’em, two championship trophies he’s holding.  Man, it’s time to wash off my old Nugs cap.

3.  Taking part in election day as an election judge is pretty cool. Branson is a pretty small voting precinct, so we only saw 50 voters.  But hey, every vote counts!

4.  If you can’t have fun with a chain saw, you just can’t have fun.

Yep, I got the OK to pull the trigger on a new Husky chainsaw.  It rocks.

5.  God ties very interesting things together. I’m preaching through the Sermon on the Mount, which was preached to everyday people.  I’ve also been doing lots of thinking about how church should be done in our community, which is full of everyday people.  Some friends and I have been working through a Life Together by Dietrich Bonhoeffer, which talks about how Christians in community are everyday people.  Its funny how more and more of life seems to be just about trusting God and enjoying the wonderful things he’s placed around us, and less and less about expectations.

6.  Getting all teary-eyed after holding my baby boy, watching the big boys play, and reading a Baxter Black article in the Arkansas Valley Journal.