our world seems so broken sometimes …

(Probably it should seem that way more often.)

In preparation for an upcoming CCC worship service, I’ve been researching orphans.  According to Saddleback Pastor, Rick Warren (and other sources he sites), there will be 40 million orphans in Africa alone by the year 2015.  Worldwide, between 150-160 million children (that’s more than 1/2 of the US-population!) will grow up without a mother or father.  115,000 children in America are currently awaiting adoption.

Even as I consider the stats, I can’t help but to think of my newest nephew, Sam.  (I’ve been burping him, holding him, rocking him quite a bit in recent days.  He needs a lot.  And I love him so much already!)  I grieve to think that millions of children around the world–just like sweet Sam–have neither care nor love around them.  It can only be the backside of a very great Fall …

m-i-a no mo’

Yes, it’s been awhile.

No, I wasn’t kidnapped.  No, I didn’t elope.  No, I haven’t fled the country to escape political rhetoric.  (Even if — I confess — I’ve been indulging in a bit of levity while wrestling with “the issues” and assessing this political campaign.)

Short-story long?

I moved (sort of) the last weekend of July, only to pack up again and travel for 10 days during the first part of August upon which, returning to KC (buried alive under a pile of work & correspondence) I proceeded to host out-of-town family for a long weekend of fun up until we joined together for travel to Des Moines (where I reunited with long-lost cousins), then returned back to KC (buried alive under a pile of work & correspondence) in order to launch (kind of) the start of (yet another) ministry year which meant working long hours and returning late in the evening to my (quasi) new home until a week ago when I hired two (very mediocre) men and a truck to (try to) help me move-in and damage personal belongings & valuables such that I was free to spend the next few days holed up in my (newly established) home organizing all my stuff in order to justify an entire “girls day out” with my (very pregnant) sis so we could have some fun together before (lo and behold) my beautiful (perfectly healthy, seemingly perfect) new nephew — Samuel David — arrived (nearly three weeks early!) onto the scene of this wide world such that all I could do was to dote and feel my heart swell until I remembered and (then) was forced to begin (again) the more menial (and, yes, necessary) task of arranging things in my home and life so as to create some semblance of order (in no particular order).  Order like knives in the kitchen.  Toilet paper in the bathroom.  Wireless on the router.  At which point, having all such matters utterly & totally resolved (yesterday evening), I decided it might be okay to start blogging again.

For those who may have found my long short-story less than compelling (or for those who just couldn’t stomach the whole thing): I conclude (in terrible literary-style) with (once again) the most important point …

Samuel David Majernik.  6 lbs.  1 oz.  Just after noon on September 2, 2008.

I’m back to “heart swelling” …

an oldie but a goodie

the blueberries were just a start

(Eat your heart out Martha Stewart.)  I haven’t had a weekend this domestic in a long while.

In addition to trying my hand at a brand new recipe (i.e. Double-Berry Butter Cake with Vanilla Rum Custard or [the second option] Lemon Whip), I finally made a start at commemorating last summer’s beach trip (via photo-album).

I’ve only completed a fourth of the book, but I’m loving the album already!  Here are a few of my favorite pics:

props to my buddy, josh

So … my all-time favorite album commemorating unrequited love is a little-known freshman project entitled About A Boy.  It just so happens I was suffering through my own season of prolonged & traumatic heartbreak when introduced to classmate/song-writer, Josh Bales (who told me such raw materials had been the inspiration for his first album).  Of course, I prefer to forget the fact that he was wrestling with (and writing songs about) such themes at age 16, while I was merely sulking in the company of his reflections … at age 28.  But catharsis, thank you very much, was had by all.  And yes (take this, ex-loves-of-our-lives), we’re the better for it!

Now, though, it seems we’ve both turned a happier-corner.  Just today, I uncovered Josh’s latest project –which (though-country) showcases his style & finesse in a way that’s distinct and (let’s go ahead & say it) more accomplished than his other stuff.  (Though my favorite song may still be a number from his album just prior: Hymn for All the World, a ditty Josh performed on graduation day in the company of a few hundred church leaders … commissioned to serve across the globe.  I cried.)  

In any case, I’m giddy to think I get to enjoy this old companionship (and now) in some brighter (more countrified) spaces!

celebrating mamma’s homecoming (six years ago today)

But missing her deeply (still).

With my mother’s death, all settled happiness, all that was tranquil and reliable, disappeared from my life. There was to be much fun, many pleasures, many stabs of Joy; but no more of the old security. It was sea and islands, now; the great continent had sunk like Atlantis …

–CS Lewis, Surprised by Joy

bo diddley on songwriting

But Diddley said that while rhythm was important, the secret to good songwriting lay in something else.

“A story with some funny lyrics, or some serious lyrics, or some love-type lyrics,” Diddley said. “But you gotta think in terms of what people’s lives is based on.”

—NPR, All Things Considered

 

from my (long-lost) friend

great fortunes i seek
so far away draw distant against my horizon
my back to you as my hope falls through
and further away
to imagine
by the time i get back
the efforts you have put to the edges
of all we own
how the grass has grown and faded
i will have never known
except by the eyes of you
the dew that slipped gently to the soil
and your lips having sipped the rains
–all passing
left to mist the clouded skies
–to taunt
the memories of all i’ve missed
forgive the abandon
should the leaves turn
darken, dampen and ache
falling only to nurture the foot of their making
returned green at the point of rebirth

—jlk

how cool is this place?

Browsing through some old trip pics; loving Venice all over again …

it’s holy week and i see bones, but i believe and minister (no matter what) by telling the basic story

“…There may be times when we come to you as a committee or delegation and demand that you tell us something else than what we are telling you now. Promise right now that you won’t give in to what we demand of you. You are not the minister of our changing desires, or our time conditioned understanding of our needs, or our secularized hopes for something better. With these vows of ordination we are lashing you fast to the mast of word and sacrament so that you will be unable to respond to the siren voices. There are a lot of other things to be done in this wrecked world and we are going to be doing at least some of them, but if we don’t know the basic terms with which we are working, the foundational realities with which we are dealing—God, kingdom, gospel—we are going to end up living futile, fantasy lives. Your task is to keep telling the basic story, representing the presence of the Spirit, insisting on the priority of God, speaking the biblical words of command and promise and invitation.” 

That, or something very much like that, is what I understand the church to say to the people whom it ordains to be its pastors.

—Eugene Peterson, Working the Angles