Reflecting

Before I get to my thoughts about Thinspace last weekend I just have to share a quick story. Lisa, the girls and I went to a Lenten Fish Fry sponsored by the Church of the Resurrection Catholic church. As we were enjoying our dinner Lisa made a profound observation. Here we were, a new young family, not members of this church and nobody tried to talk us in to joining their church or coming to their service. Everyone was very friendly. Several people stopped by to comment on Clare. The pastor was there having dinner with some people. It was a church community event done for the sake of having a community event & not a covert outreach program. Imagine that.

It's been a week since my trip up north for the feast of St. Patrick. All week. So much was crammed into such a small time I'm still trying to unpack it all in my head (and unpack my suitcase). I think the the most powerful result has been a rekindling of some of the vision & passion that Lisa & I have had for the kind of church we want to build. Over the years we've been so buffeted and banged up by life that we slowly lost sight of the vision God gave us. Seeing the community at Vineyard Central living out a similar calling reminded us of what we once held so dear. Being able to taste & see what God is doing there jogged our memories.

The other big thing I took away from the weekend was a real sense of belonging. It's easy to feel alone & isolated sometimes when you don't have a connection with many others on the same journey going through the same experiences. It's one thing to rely on keeping up with blogs, but it's really something else to gather in one place with fellow sojuorners and share our stories.

The guys at VC recorded all of the sessions and made them available as podcasts. My personal favorite for the weekend was Todd Hunter on Friday night.

Others have had some time to blog about their experiences:

• Alan
• KRains
• Bishops
• Peter White

good weekend

I'm sitting in the living room at the Brownhouse in Cincy. We've wrapped up Thinspace and it was a great time. I've enjoyed meeting the people behind the blogs I read and reconnecting with other good friends. It's always refreshing to gather with other people who are traveling along the same journey. It'll take some time to digest the discussion we've had and I'll have to come back to those soon.

Please don't molest the gators!

Just got back from our community's camping trip at Hillsborough River State Park (click here for pictures). I think everyone had a really good time. I held up pretty well dispite some lingering back pain from my accident. Last night one of the adults took the kids on a flashlight hike. The went down to an overlook are by the river. My Mary noticed two glowing eyeballs in the water as she scanned the surface with her flashlight. Sooon they were all lighting up the gator & watching it swim back & forth as it moved closer to the shore. Then all of the sudden it made a loud splashing noise as if it was lunging out of the river. Everyone screamed & took off running. Fortunately, no one became a gator snack. I guess that's why they put up signs like this one...

Ouch!

I was in a car accident yesterday afternoon. I guess it was only a matter of time when I have 100 mile roundtrip commute everyday for work. I was taking a short cut on some surface streets in Tampa because the interstate was backed up. A woman in a small Toyota Tacoma pickup truck pulled out from a side street right in front of me. I was going about 30 mph & barely had time to hit the brakes. I hit my knees on the dash and had neck/back pain. I also got a nice seatbelt burn on my neck. EMS put a c-collar on me, strapped me to a backboard & took me to the ER. Backboards are NOT comfortable. My xrays checked out & I was realsed after 4 hrs in the hospital. Today I am sore all over & most of my neck, back, shoulder & chest muscles are very tense. Fortunately my airbags did not deploy because my front end nosed down when I hit the brakes. Now I've got to deal with all the hassles of getting the car repaired, getting a rental & dealing with her insurance company (Infinity) which has been less than helpful so far. My insurance company (State Farm) has been great--you get what you pay for. Of course the irony here is that I am a Claims Manager for Personal Injury auto claims for another insurance company (Mercury).