Wednesday, November 21, 2007

Ed and the Age to Come

I went to pick up the kids from school today. I pulled into my parking spot, got out of the car, yelled for them to get in the car, got the kids loaded up, and started backing out, when I heard my oldest son Nick say, "Dad, stop you're gonna hit Ed."

I put on the brakes, looked through the rear window to see Ed Hackett walking his daughter to his car, completely unaware that he could have been tagged by a Subaru.

My son yelled out, "Dad, you can't hit Ed Hackett. If you hit Ed Hackett, you'll really end up low on the totem pole in the Millenial Kingdom. You think your ice cream truck job would be really bad, if you hit Ed Hackett, you'll end up shoveling holy horse poop for a thousand years!"

Now for those of you that don't know Ed, let me try to describe him by giving you this analogy. If the Lord himself came down and visited me in a dream, and said, "Son, you've kind of been an idiot most of your life, but I'm going to extend grace to you one more time. I'm going allow you to morph into anyone you want to. Choose wisely. You will take on their characteristics and live as they would."

Without hesitation folks, Ed Hackett would be in my top 5, possibly even my top 2. Simply said, Ed is one of the most kind, caring, compassionate, Holy Spirit filled, Christ-like people on the planet. He's one of those people you look at and say "I'm not sure if I'm one of God's favorite, but I'm pretty sure Ed is one of God's favorite."

Anyway, I'm glad my son got my attention today. I could just picture myself years from now shoveling horse poo poo and a big ole' angel comes up to me and says, "What did you do to deserve that?"

"I hit Ed Hackett with my Subaru."

Thursday, November 15, 2007

Random Things People Have Said to Me This Week

Have you ever had someone you know say something to you to encourage you or show that they care, but it ends up coming out all wrong?

Here are some random quotes from this week:

1. "Hey John, How are ya? Have you lost weight? You look skinnier than normal."
(to some of you that might be a compliment, but to a guy who has tried to bulk up all his life and get away from the whole Anorexic Gandhi vibe, it wasn't a huge confidence boost.)

2. This one came after I had just finished playing a set. "Hey, I really like what you play on the guitar. Well actually, what I meant to say was 'I like your moves', you move like a famous 70's rock star. Your guitar playing is good though."

I've actually gotten the "moves" compliment before. Someone told me once "Man you were just up there rockin'. You look just like John Mellencamp. That was cool, 'cause I like Mellencamp, but a 70's rock star??? All I could picture was Styx in glam band spandex.

Leave it to Squirrely

This past Tuesday was a beautiful, warm Autumn day. I was driving on the back roads behind the Prayer Room, making my way to Grandview Road with the windows down. It was a picture perfect day. The sun was shining through the brilliant colors in the trees. A warm breeze was blowing. It couldn't get any better than that.

As I was driving, I saw two squirrels playing in the road up ahead. They too were enjoying this incredible day. All I can tell you is that it was like a Disney movie, everything was brilliant in color and in slow motion. The squirrels seemed to be part of some new wonderful talking-animal kids movie. You know the kind that just sucks you in, where the girl dog comes running over the hills with a bow in her hair, ears flopping, and the boy dog sees the girl dog and does a double take, runs toward her, drooling out the side of his mouth, and they both spend the afternoon running through a field of daisies.

The squirrels just seemed to be dancing in mid air. I was totally mesmerized. So mesmerized in fact that I ran them over. I'm not kidding!

I've never been in a car, whether driving or riding where a squirrel was run over. Every single time, even though they seem to wait until the last second, they always, always, always get out of the way! Not this time. I was shocked and horrified at the sound of the thud. I looked in my rear view mirror to see that I had totally wiped out not one, but two squirrel lovers, who were not dancing, but mating in the middle of 113th Street.

But hey, at least they died happy.