I wear plaid. I'm a blogger.

Observe the following statement: "Fake it til you make it." Do you believe that it is true? I'll tell you that I didn't for quite some time. Probably more accurate is that I didn't want  it to be true. I wanted to believe in inspired passion alone being the thing that "makes it". I wanted to believe that marriages lasted because it was true love and because there were no conflicts in true love. I wanted to believe that a Christian could be on fire for Jesus 24/7 because of the passion inside of them, fueling them onward toward heaven's calling. I wanted to believe that anyone could become a good musician if they just tapped inside themselves and found that inner musician.  But then I had a realization.  The realization came when I gave my 200th piano lesson (or so) to an aspiring 10 year old musician. The student had been studying with me for a couple years at this point and was somewhere between giving up and becoming a true pianist...

Flying Pig Marathon 2014 recovery is sitting at 12 days, so it is probably time to recap just how exactly the first marathon went down. Below are the highlights, the low lights, the fun lights, and the Christmas lights. The night before Even though I laid everything out ahead of time (including pinning my bib number onto my shorts the night before, I was quite convinced that I was forgetting something. Shoes, socks, something important. But...I guess I wasn't. Went to bed around 10:30p while Katie fabricated coral numbers for Bret and I to be able to sneak into the correct coral. Apparently you need to gestimate your finish time accurately 9 months ahead of time or else be penalized by running with slow runners. 4:30am -Wake up time. Woke up, put on warm up clothes and ate a bagel dry with a couple sips of water. Took care of the pre-race you-know-whats and put on my outfit. Left the house around 5:15a carrying nothing but some packets of gu and a sleepy smile. 5:45am -Ar...

I sit down at the piano to play the same piece I've played a hundred times before but this time my heart races, my pulse quickens, my fingers twitch. What is different? The recorder is listening. It is amazing to see how the human mind reacts differently under pressure compared to free time. Once the record button is pushed, there is no going back, no redos, no fix-it spots. Either you spoil the recording or you nail it. Sure, you can go back and do another take, but the same problem will be true for that take--you've got to nail it then too. Yet, in spite of this added stress, it is far more "fun" to play for a live audience, or a live recorder because of the added pressure of the outcome. The same way it is more enjoyable to play a game with scorekeepers and an umpire compared to a pick-up game in the backyard. This is why a YouTube video consisting of one take is so much more thrilling than multiple camera angles and patching together of various takes. This i...

We've all heard the familiar adage: "Do as I say, not as I do." It's a cover up of our own shortcomings. It's a way of saying, "Look, I know what the right thing to do is here, but I probably won't do it, but you should." At any rate, at some point we all have felt like the victim of this phrase and we have probably all used it, much to our own chagrin. A couple days ago I was reflecting on Jesus challenge to "Go and make disciples of all nations, baptizing them and teaching them everything I have commanded you." ( Matt 28:19-20 ) If we are called to be Jesus' disciples then that means we ought to say and do the things that Jesus says and does. It's only logical, right? Well I have spent much of my life reading through the gospel narratives, listening to weekly sermons, reading Christian literature, and studying the Bible in small groups. While I consistently learn something new every time I read the Word of God and focus on Jesu...

Everyone loves a good story. Most of us read the story from the front to the back, because we enjoy the way the plot unfolds--we love the twists and the turns and the unexpected finale. And the thing that makes a good story good is equal parts predictability and surprise. We have to have some structure to the story--some predictable patterns that we can pick up on in order to fully picture the setting of the character. There need to be expected points in the story where our main character meets someone else; there needs to be a moment of tension and struggle where we see the character wrestle with some inner or outer enemy. But then there also needs to be some surprises planted along the way. Moments where we learn something new about the character that we didn't know before. Moments where the plot takes an unexpected turn that we would not have guessed. Because, after all, if we can predict the whole thing, we might as well not read it to begin with! Katie loves ...

Shock absorbers are wonderful things. You would never know that they are there until they aren't, and you never appreciated them so much until you had the alternative.  Do you remember riding in your favorite Radio Flyer wagon as a kid? Let me take you back to that experience: you and a friend grab the metallic wagon and start heading up the colossal hill in the backyard (which was really only a rise in the pavement when you went back to visit last summer...they must've knocked it down since the last time you were there). You are forced into a shouting match all the way up the hill because the wagon is bouncing and chattering all the way along the rough asphalt driveway. There are likely a couple pebbles in the wagon from the time you were transporting your latest rock and dirt collection from the side yard to the backyard at your father's request and the remnant rock collection is only adding to the din. Once you reach the top of the slope, you both hop in the wagon a...

The other day I was listening to 93.3fm in Cincinnati and a song came on called " The Motions " by Matthew West. If I may add my interpretation, the lyrics represent Matthew West's own challenge to live more passionately and vibrantly for Jesus Christ everyday and not just getting by with second-rate Christianity. The chorus reads like this: I don't wanna go through the motions I don't wanna go one more day Without Your all-consuming passion inside of me I don't wanna spend my whole life asking "What if I had given everything?" Instead of going through the motions Pause. I have been training to run my first marathon, the Cincinnati Flying Pig . It is a fun way for me to push my limits and challenge my body (especially in light of Katie carrying twins right now and experiencing the same challenge of reaching physical limitations in her body...in many ways, the marathon is my twins--metaphorically). Through the training I keep tellin...