Posts by Alan

“Tinker is a good bird, good bird.  Tinker is a very good bird.  Chirp.” I grew up in a multi-pet household.  In my childhood there was a parade of parakeets, fish, frogs, hamsters, a cat, ducks, rabbits, doves, and 2 pigs . . . well, they were actually black razorback boars, but that is the subject for another time.    Quite the farm living, but it wasn’t a farm.   I should probably mention that all of this was while we lived in a small house in the suburbs. One pet of particular note was a parakeet named Tinker.   He was a budgie with alternating bands of blue and white, almost making him look like a Popsicle.  He loved to cuddle, crawl under blankets like a cat, and was well, generally feisty. We taught him to say a few words, such as teaching...

10.  I am sure there will be something there the kids will eat. 9. You ARE the sack race king. 8.   Nothing like a home cooked meal after all those TV dinners. 7.   You look good in gravy. 6.  If green beans with crispy onions isn’t a little slice of heaven, I don’t know what is. 5.   That leftover thing in the fridge isn’t going to get eaten any other way. 4.   Beats having to invite them over to your house for dinner. 3.   Where else can you get three varieties of jello with fruit in it? 2.  “Because that’s the way we have always done it . . .” 1.   To find your casserole dish from the last potluck.

10.  The “I Don’t Have Anything Better To Do” Group. 9.  The Accountability Nazis. 8.  The Ginormous Time Commitment Group.  (And we will judge you as spiritually deficient if you miss a single minute.  And if you don’t sign up for it?  Also spiritually deficient.) 7.  A Time to Whine. 6.  Spill The Dirt On Your Spouse Group. 5.   The Small Group To Affirm the Leader’s Need for Control. 4.  The Excuse to Snack Gathering. 3. “Please Oh Please Anything To Give Me An Hour Away From My Kids” Group. 2.  The Associate Pastor’s Small Group for Physically Affectionate Single Women. And number one is  . . . 1.   Fixing You. Photo Credit: Susan...

It is no secret that there are some awful things in the Bible. There is no need to detail them all here, but the question arises, “What to do with all this stuff?” What can God possibly want to communicate through it, or, how do you preach on it? It would be much easier to avoid it and give another sermon on Jesus’ love. Yet, the awful stuff still sits there needing to be dealt with. In my former life counseling addicts, I was once assigned to preach a particularly difficult passage: the story of the rape of Dinah. Found in Genesis 34, it is a story of rape and vengeance. In a nutshell, a prince named Shechem rapes a woman named Dinah, the daughter of Jacob, one of the great fathers of Israel. Things continue to get complicated in that Shechem finds that he...

Last week I introduced the fact that my family was having a mushroom tasting.  I now leave my report here so you can see what I and my wife thought of these different varieties of fungus.   I encourage you to try some of these yourself –  but store bought please.  Only those who are highly trained should find them in the wild, else you might get a bad case of the writhing death. Wood Ear Mushroom – This is the very first mushroom I prepared and I learned the hard way, that if not approached properly, the wood ear is highly dangerous.  It is not poisonous, rather, it is explosive.  This little brown guy contains air pockets, and when he is sautéed, these pockets heat up, causing the mushroom to blow apart in the pan, flinging little bits of hot,...

With a title like this, you probably suspected a blog on edible fungus, and you would be right.   My wife and I have been on a mission lately, a mission to taste all possible varieties of mushrooms – well, the edible ones, not those that will give you a bad case of the writhing death. What, me write a food blog?  I consider myself more of a food barbarian.  My pinkie is not extended when I drink the glass of milk I usually have with dinner.  You won’t find me using phrases like “delicate notes of” and the only really good beverage pairing I can suggest is that Cherry Pepsi is excellent with steak but doesn’t pack the same sugary goodness when served with chicken. Am I even qualified to do a food blog?   I do have a good palate – a fancy word for...

There is a scene in the movie CitySlickers where Mitch, a man dealing poorly with a mid-life crisis, asks an old cowboy Curly about the meaning of life. Curly (while holding up one finger): “Do you know what the secret of life is?  This.” Mitch: “Your finger?” Curly: “One thing.  Just one thing.” Mitch: “But what is the one thing?” Curly: “That’s what you have to find out.” City Slickers is often how Christians think of God’s plan for one’s life.  God is the heavenly Curly, holding up a finger while telling people, “It’s one thing.  One thing.  And you have to figure it out.”  How often do we work ourselves into a wad trying to do just that? What is God’s plan for my life?  What if I get it wrong?  If I take a wrong turn...

It is a great day for football here at the Kingdome as we prepare for the Millennium Bowl.  It is only a few minutes until kickoff and the fans are making their way back from the Loaves and Fishes concession stands.  A little goes a long way there.  You can hear the vendors in the stands, “Get your water here!  Water!  Come get your water . . . no, wine!  We got wine now!  Get your wine here!”  The crowd is holding up a ton of John 3:16 signs.  They are getting pretty pumped up. In today’s game we have coaches Gideon vs. Solomon.  Now Solomon is known for his wise strategy but can also lose it when things seem to be going well.  Vanity can get the better of him.  Gideon, however, is known for being able to pull off a victory against all odds,...