Nonsensical Ramblings of Mark

You can't go back, you've booked the band So take your partner by the hand. Baile!  - Cha Cha Loco, Joe Jackson Her great anticipation of my arrival was tamped down only by the ferocity of her preparation. The linen covered tables were set and the centerpieces were perfect. It was almost as if the rulers were out as the place settings varied not one wit from one another. The grandest of halls was rented and the finest of bands was booked.  Outside I stood at a distance wondering what to make of it all.  As the guests arrived in all of their finery she greeted each one of them with all the warmth she had within her as her smile masked the nervousness wrought by the great anticipation of my arrival. As couple after couple entered the venue I wondered why anyone, let alone her, would do such a thing for me. I doubted of my worthiness to set foot on the floor of such a grand stage. My best was flawed. My brow deeply grooved. My face marked with imperfections. My attire less t

You got to move; you got to move You got to move child; you got to move When the Lord gets ready You gotta move - You Got To Move,  The Lost Dogs It was already one of the most awesome Sunday services I had ever been a part of and it was hard to hold back my tears and impossible not to celebrate. One by one, members of my church family (most of whom I did not know) were plunged into the water and brought back out again going public with their faith in Jesus Christ and their desire to follow him for the rest of their lives. But God was still getting ready. During the sermon one of our pastors laid out the theological significance of baptism and why we as Baptists perform it the way we do. We follow the pattern explicitly laid out in the Bible where someone is fully submerged under water and brought back out again as a picture of Jesus' death, burial, and resurrection and their commitment to a full and undivided trust in Christ. He also issued an invitation for anyone who hadn&

The big joke about the beginning of our relationship, if you can call it that, is that my wife had to ask me out a total of three times before I said yes. Now there are a couple of different interpretations of why that was the case, but needless to say I was a bit more passive than she was in seeking a relationship with her. Once I realized who she was then it was obvious that I needed to put a ring on her finger. Anyone in my place would have done the same. Recently, though, I realized that she pursues me still. Last week I was on a plane heading back from a week long trip to Switzerland and France for some work-related activity and I was reading a book called The King of the Earth by Erich Sauer and there he relayed a story about a neophyte philosopher in the presence of Socrates. As he walked in stunned silence next to the great thinker Socrates finally broke the silence with the admonition, "Speak...so that I may know thee."  And how much like him she is.  As we spo

There was a lot of snow on the roof last Saturday and we knew that the thaw was coming. We have had a bit of water staining on the ceiling in our bedroom (not a lot and it looks like it is just about over) but I knew that I needed to get up to the upper roof for some maintenance. After banging on the ice dam with a hammer and failing to make much progress on it I decided to do what I could and shovel the snow off of the top roof. I was already up there after all. Well, when I got to the back roof and began to clear the snow off I noticed that much too much water had been pooling beneath a layer of ice and I knew that it needed to go. And I needed her to help. And that is when it became much more than just a chore. I needed to carve a channel into the ice dam down to the roof itself and I needed buckets of hot water (close to 10 I thought) to get the job done. I had a hammer, shop vac, and shovel to help but, most importantly, I had her. She agreed to haul the buckets of water from th

I've been looking so long at these pictures of you That I almost believe that they're real I've been living so long with my pictures of you That I almost believe that the pictures are All I can feel - Pictures of You, The Cure I know this song does not have to do with what I am going to write about, but when I heard these lyrics for the 20th, maybe 50th time I got to thinking about my pictures of God. To me a picture is a bit of captured reality that, less rather than more, allows me to recall the place, people, feelings...all of the everything associated with the time that I remember when it was taken. I get so sure about what I recall and the longer I stare at the pictures, the farther I get from the actual event, I remember less specifics but I am sure of so much more; sure of much more than I should be. And what of the pictures of God that I have? For sure he has plainly revealed himself to me in the Bible, but what of the spaces that the Bible doesn't occup