Echoes and Stars

1. What a week. I started teaching. My wife started driving a school bus. My daughter started High School. My son started Middle School. And now all three kids are at three different schools.

2.  Love your (political) enemies.

3. When I was in college, for a number of years (it takes awhile when you pay for it yourself) I was a secondary education major. But then I decided to pursue a call to ministry. Now I do both of those. This all feels like I’ve been guided along.

4.  One sign that you may need to try a new place is when the waitress knows which sushi roll you ordered the week before.

5. Related to the first point above, I am learning the value of Sabbath rest in a fresh way.

6. The last time the Cardinals had a run like this was 2011. The last time they had a rally animal was 2011. The last time I quit a job and started a new career was 2011. They won it all in 2011.

7. (Waits for new War on Drugs album impatiently)

8. Yesterday I told Bethany that I could not believe I get paid to do this. She asked if I felt like that when I was doing youth ministry. I don’t think I ever thought that way back then because I had not yet walked through the valley of the shadow of banking for six years. Being thankful for those six years will take time and effort, but I can catch a whiff of what that thanksgiving looks like.

9. After watching the video of Tim Tebow making that autistic kid’s day (year?), he may be my favorite ballplayer. Some things go beyond stats and success.

10. I am so proud of my wife. She is seriously the most competent person I know. There were zero doubts she would be able to get through all the training to drive a school bus. I had no doubt she would do a good job driving it. But what you need to hear is how she talks about the kids. If she was your kid’s driver, you’d be very fortunate.