My dear friend Edna, now 78, sent me this picture this morning. I laughed for twenty minutes!
Everyone have big fun this weekend!
May 19, 2006
My anaconda don't want none unless you got buns, hun!
One of the immortal lyrics to ever spring forth from the early days of hip-hop. Sir Mix-A-Lot's Baby Got Back, click the title to learn more.
My dear friend Edna, now 78, sent me this picture this morning. I laughed for twenty minutes!
Everyone have big fun this weekend!
My dear friend Edna, now 78, sent me this picture this morning. I laughed for twenty minutes!
Everyone have big fun this weekend!
May 18, 2006
I've been on some other planet. So come pick me up...I've landed.
Lyric/title is from the underrated Ben Folds, song called Landed. Check him out by clicking the title.
Growing up the son of a teacher then administrator and an insurance agent to work in a church I believe has left me with a unique understanding of stupidity. Perhaps that is why this sign spoke to me. Or it could be growing up a sci-fi nerd, always seeing robots, gadets, and gizmos in all my favorite shows and movies. Whatever the hook for me I hope you enjoy
THE WEEKLY INAPPROPRIATE CHURCH SIGN
Those Assemblies of God; so clever, so witty, so Swaggerty.
Well that should be a word, although not for wit.
Growing up the son of a teacher then administrator and an insurance agent to work in a church I believe has left me with a unique understanding of stupidity. Perhaps that is why this sign spoke to me. Or it could be growing up a sci-fi nerd, always seeing robots, gadets, and gizmos in all my favorite shows and movies. Whatever the hook for me I hope you enjoy
THE WEEKLY INAPPROPRIATE CHURCH SIGN
Those Assemblies of God; so clever, so witty, so Swaggerty.Well that should be a word, although not for wit.
May 17, 2006
Drive until you lose the road or break with the ones you've followed.
This is the 100th post on Exposing My Thorns. I needed it to be something meaningful. I apologize for the gap in posts, but I hope you see how important the century mark was for me.
This title is a lyric from The Fray's song How To Save A Life, which both title and meaning seemed significant to this post. Since this is largely a post about two young men finding their way, both blazing trails uncharted, this line seemed to work perfectly. Click the title to visit The Fray's website and listen to this song.
From age several breaths to eleven I had a best friend. Keith Miller. He was my opposite in many ways; scrawny where I was plump, red headed where I was dark, freckled where I was tanned, a basketball player and track star where I was a football player and couch enthusiast. We had some similarities too; we were both smart, popular, known to older kids, looked up to by younger kids, bad baseball players, sons of teachers who were coaches and golfers, Pizza and Laffy Taffy consumers and Flintstone's vitamins horders, He-Man then G.I. Joe reenacters, bully stander-uppers, student council officers, Greek dancers, Greencastle Tiger Cub fans, and similarly tortured with little sisters about the same age. He had it a little worse, he's got an older brother too.
In kindergarten we both fell in love with the same girl, Meredith Greenwald, and I relinquished my claim as a best friend does after losing the I saw her first haggle.
In third grade I lay claim to Lauren Clark (the new girl) after seeing her first, another blond beauty and Meredith's best friend, and the four of us were some kind of grade school royal family.
In fourth grade we had a plan to steal our fathers' riding lawn mowers and drive them to Boston Garden to see Larry Bird play Michael Jordan.
In sixth grade there was no doubt we ran the middle school, which is a feat I'm only slightly exaggerating if at all.
There was a bright future ahead for us of throwing the best parties, dating the best girls, going off to the best college together, and building mansions beside one another as he became a pro-basketball player and I became President.
Then I moved.
Now, I don't want this blog to become psycho-therapy for me, nor some motivational speech gone bad, so I'll simply say this. My moving from Greencastle, Indiana-home of Depauw University, suburb of Indy, community with decent schools and social outlets, miles from all my family and all my history to Milan, Indiana-a cornfield surrounded, stuck in 1954, inbred, Twilight Zoned Mayberry, with one restraunt and crappy schools, prison...remains the definiung moment in my life.
It tested every part of me in almost exhaustive ways. It was there I had my first bout with depression, although we just called it 'sad'. It was there I had my first bout with being UNpopular, though I'd never view popularity the same way again. It was there, that J.D. Rose, the kid they clapped for when he visited Greencastle Middle School a year later, became Mr. Rose's brainy chubby son in the Bugle Boy sweater and turtleneck; the least popular kid in Mr. Wall's sixth grade class at the the elementary school. I would never really be a student again. I would never really be the coolest kid again. I would never really be my daddy's boy again, my mom's innocent baby. I wept. I mourned. And I have never stopped drawing strength from the experience.
What you find when all you know is ripped from you, is who you really are.
I would go to college after sleeping through much of high school to the first place I gathered the energy to apply to, The University of Southern Indiana, to major in Radio/TV Broadcast though it would be shortlived. Keith would go to Depauw to major in Biology, a Pre-med track. We had stayed in touch, even flirted with real friendship a few times, especially the important times, but ultimately had taken different paths. Keith was still walking the one that had been ours, ruling Greencastle, dating beautiful intelligent women, going to a first-rate school on a basketball scholarship, pledging a fraternity, moving into the frat house. I'd be so bored of drinking and superficial conversation by the end of year one of college I'd convince myself to go into ministry.
And then something weird happened; Keith went to Australia, realized how boring his path was and began to start living without expectations. Always being the most loved, well respected, highly touted is as limiting a position as any. He began to start acting on his every impulse. He chased a warthog and then was chased by it. He swam in a river with crocodiles. He stayed out in the bush alone for a month through monsoons, getting only one break for a few days to worship with aborigines he'd come to know. He shut out all of the plans he'd made for himself and had been made for him...and he discovered who he really was.
I'd have put earlier lessons to work by this time, carving out a nice chunk of contribution to the world as a youth leader, putting college on hold because I didn't feel called to it. We reconnected. We were once again on similar paths. There'd be no Boston Garden or New Hampshire Primary in our futures. We were going to live the lives we wanted to live, doing what we felt we were called to do-similarly-we wanted to save people's lives, well, we wanted their lives to be better.
In Keith I have found someone I truly believe a peer, and for all my false humility, I believe I've found very few. He sees people who are sick and dying, in need of medicine. Much of my life has been spent preparing people for their bouts with sickness and death of another sort. I am awed by his life. He is awed by mine. There are only a few people I trust as much. We have this notion built into us that our lives should be filled with actions that land us in history books, not because of our ambition, but because of our contributions.
So Sunday I made a trip I was proud to make. I sat alone in the RCA Dome, where they played th Final Four and Presidential candidates have spoken, and waited for these words.
I present Dr. Keith Miller!!!
Before he made the stage he saw me sitting in the crowd, uninvited, unexpected, and as we subtlely pointed to one another, tears glistened in two sets of eyes. When I made it to him on the floor following commencement he said I 'didn't need to come' and I replied, 'There's only one friend I've got, that I've had my whole life.'
I'd see his big brother, who I'm a collosus next to, and his little sister, who still seems six to me even thought she's a bright grown woman. I'd hug his dad and mother and favorite aunt. I'd tell him how impressed I was and he'd tell me later that what I did was impressive.
In a few years or a few decades at my pace, they're gonna slap Reverend on the front of my name. I may need more time to get ready for that than Keith Miller did for Doctor, but I know at least one uninvited guest I'll not be surprised to see that day.
There have been many days I have wondered who it is I continue to become, but occasionally it is clear to me.
Tell me whom you love and I will tell you who you are. -Houssaye
This title is a lyric from The Fray's song How To Save A Life, which both title and meaning seemed significant to this post. Since this is largely a post about two young men finding their way, both blazing trails uncharted, this line seemed to work perfectly. Click the title to visit The Fray's website and listen to this song.
From age several breaths to eleven I had a best friend. Keith Miller. He was my opposite in many ways; scrawny where I was plump, red headed where I was dark, freckled where I was tanned, a basketball player and track star where I was a football player and couch enthusiast. We had some similarities too; we were both smart, popular, known to older kids, looked up to by younger kids, bad baseball players, sons of teachers who were coaches and golfers, Pizza and Laffy Taffy consumers and Flintstone's vitamins horders, He-Man then G.I. Joe reenacters, bully stander-uppers, student council officers, Greek dancers, Greencastle Tiger Cub fans, and similarly tortured with little sisters about the same age. He had it a little worse, he's got an older brother too.
In kindergarten we both fell in love with the same girl, Meredith Greenwald, and I relinquished my claim as a best friend does after losing the I saw her first haggle.
In third grade I lay claim to Lauren Clark (the new girl) after seeing her first, another blond beauty and Meredith's best friend, and the four of us were some kind of grade school royal family.
In fourth grade we had a plan to steal our fathers' riding lawn mowers and drive them to Boston Garden to see Larry Bird play Michael Jordan.
In sixth grade there was no doubt we ran the middle school, which is a feat I'm only slightly exaggerating if at all.
There was a bright future ahead for us of throwing the best parties, dating the best girls, going off to the best college together, and building mansions beside one another as he became a pro-basketball player and I became President.
Then I moved.
Now, I don't want this blog to become psycho-therapy for me, nor some motivational speech gone bad, so I'll simply say this. My moving from Greencastle, Indiana-home of Depauw University, suburb of Indy, community with decent schools and social outlets, miles from all my family and all my history to Milan, Indiana-a cornfield surrounded, stuck in 1954, inbred, Twilight Zoned Mayberry, with one restraunt and crappy schools, prison...remains the definiung moment in my life.
It tested every part of me in almost exhaustive ways. It was there I had my first bout with depression, although we just called it 'sad'. It was there I had my first bout with being UNpopular, though I'd never view popularity the same way again. It was there, that J.D. Rose, the kid they clapped for when he visited Greencastle Middle School a year later, became Mr. Rose's brainy chubby son in the Bugle Boy sweater and turtleneck; the least popular kid in Mr. Wall's sixth grade class at the the elementary school. I would never really be a student again. I would never really be the coolest kid again. I would never really be my daddy's boy again, my mom's innocent baby. I wept. I mourned. And I have never stopped drawing strength from the experience.
What you find when all you know is ripped from you, is who you really are.
I would go to college after sleeping through much of high school to the first place I gathered the energy to apply to, The University of Southern Indiana, to major in Radio/TV Broadcast though it would be shortlived. Keith would go to Depauw to major in Biology, a Pre-med track. We had stayed in touch, even flirted with real friendship a few times, especially the important times, but ultimately had taken different paths. Keith was still walking the one that had been ours, ruling Greencastle, dating beautiful intelligent women, going to a first-rate school on a basketball scholarship, pledging a fraternity, moving into the frat house. I'd be so bored of drinking and superficial conversation by the end of year one of college I'd convince myself to go into ministry.
And then something weird happened; Keith went to Australia, realized how boring his path was and began to start living without expectations. Always being the most loved, well respected, highly touted is as limiting a position as any. He began to start acting on his every impulse. He chased a warthog and then was chased by it. He swam in a river with crocodiles. He stayed out in the bush alone for a month through monsoons, getting only one break for a few days to worship with aborigines he'd come to know. He shut out all of the plans he'd made for himself and had been made for him...and he discovered who he really was.
I'd have put earlier lessons to work by this time, carving out a nice chunk of contribution to the world as a youth leader, putting college on hold because I didn't feel called to it. We reconnected. We were once again on similar paths. There'd be no Boston Garden or New Hampshire Primary in our futures. We were going to live the lives we wanted to live, doing what we felt we were called to do-similarly-we wanted to save people's lives, well, we wanted their lives to be better.
In Keith I have found someone I truly believe a peer, and for all my false humility, I believe I've found very few. He sees people who are sick and dying, in need of medicine. Much of my life has been spent preparing people for their bouts with sickness and death of another sort. I am awed by his life. He is awed by mine. There are only a few people I trust as much. We have this notion built into us that our lives should be filled with actions that land us in history books, not because of our ambition, but because of our contributions.
So Sunday I made a trip I was proud to make. I sat alone in the RCA Dome, where they played th Final Four and Presidential candidates have spoken, and waited for these words.
I present Dr. Keith Miller!!!Before he made the stage he saw me sitting in the crowd, uninvited, unexpected, and as we subtlely pointed to one another, tears glistened in two sets of eyes. When I made it to him on the floor following commencement he said I 'didn't need to come' and I replied, 'There's only one friend I've got, that I've had my whole life.'
I'd see his big brother, who I'm a collosus next to, and his little sister, who still seems six to me even thought she's a bright grown woman. I'd hug his dad and mother and favorite aunt. I'd tell him how impressed I was and he'd tell me later that what I did was impressive.
In a few years or a few decades at my pace, they're gonna slap Reverend on the front of my name. I may need more time to get ready for that than Keith Miller did for Doctor, but I know at least one uninvited guest I'll not be surprised to see that day.
There have been many days I have wondered who it is I continue to become, but occasionally it is clear to me.
Tell me whom you love and I will tell you who you are. -Houssaye
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