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My Adventure with Flat Stanley

It’s been a fun two days, I got to hang out with my MLB beat reporter bro, have full access to roam behind the scenes and on the field at a major league ball park, hang with Frank Thomas in person, but BAH… the highlight, was spending a day with Flat Stanley! What?!? You’ve never heard of Flat Stanley? Well, I’ll get back to him… Major League Grass! These are my feet on the grass at Comerica Park, home of the almost-world-series-champs Detroit Tigers, the day after their opening day against the Blue Jays, who my little brother covers for MLB.com. (look for his name right on bluejays.com) I drove to Detroit to hang with my bro for a few days and watch him “in action.” Karl and Jordan in the Dug Out My one day media pass gave me access to the whole park. I entered the stadium via the “tunnel” on the visitor side after passing through the clubhouse. Sorry, but no pictures were allowed in the clubhouse. This was a day off, between opening day and a game today, so the park was empty but there were players there to practice, work out, etc. Among several Blue…

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One Year Ago Today

It was one year ago today… a day that came “out of the blue” and changed my life forever, in more ways than I could ever have anticipated… I became a Dad. My fist Father’s Day at Lake Geneva Being a Dad has been my dream since I was a boy. Why? Well, I had a wonderful Dad, and he was my favorite person in the whole world, and I couldn’t wait to get to BE a Dad and be on the other end of the fun… inventing the adventures… creating the laughter… teaching the lessons of life. And while my dad was not perfect, he was real, and that was good enough for me. I hope that I too can be a real follower of Christ for my son, if not a perfect one. Me with Luke, the day he was Given to me. If I had been asked a year ago today what changes this little life would bring into my life, I would have never guessed how dramatically my life would change. I thought I could simply add “being a Dad” to an already critically over-loaded life. I was wrong. But I have learned my lesson, and…

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CLEAN THAT ROOM OR ELSE!

OK, enough serious poems for now. You may not know that I was once known as the “White Boy Rapper” and could hold my own in rap fights with the ‘brothers’ in high school. I was the new kid, having just moved to Chicago in time to start 11th grade. I was surprised when I arrived to see how separate the whites and blacks were in my Chicago south suburban high school, when in my previous high school in California there did not seem to be the obvious racial separation. I made a bold move to sit in the “black section” at lunch and it began an adventure that turned out to be a highlight for me in high school. Persecution? Some, but I made some great friends, and after telling these ‘brothers’ for weeks about a “white boy rapper” I knew who could whoop ’em all in a rap fight… I finally set a day for them to meet him on a lunch break (we had open campus at lunch) and after waiting and waiting, when there was only 15 minutes left to lunch, I pulled out a pair of black 80’s style shades (well, it was the 80’s!)…

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Through a Mother’s Eyes

Tonight a father and son came over to watch the The Passion of the Christ at my house as part of their Easter preparation. (I have a pretty sweet home theater in my basement that they wanted to ‘borrow’) It is a movie that I can handle watching about once a year. It is a powerful experience. If you have not seen it, you really should. (Read my review on Kidology.org) It is a very fitting film for Easter time as you can no longer be flipant or casual about Jesus’ death after seeing this film. Anyway, as I continue to post my long-lost poetry, (torture to some I’m sure!), I was moved by the film to post a poem I wrote about the Crucifiction titled “Through a Mother’s Eyes.” It also is a song written in B minor, bu you’ll have to use your imagination for that. Through a Mother’s Eyes She stood there looking at her son, She said, “I thought you were the one, The Scriptures promised so long ago, Who’d come to make us finally whole.” But now He hung there on a tree, Bleeding, dying, in misery, She saw the wounds, she heard his cries,…

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All I Need

One of the reasons I highly encourage journaling is that you may find that years from now you can be your own best encourager! When you read words you wrote yourself long ago, you are more open to them because, well, you wrote them. The words of others can be hard to accept at times, but when your own words are exactly what you need, it’s kinda hard to argue. Such was the case with the discovery of this poem, written eighteen years ago. (am I that old?) At a time in my life when so much is new, and when letting go and saying good bye to many people and things that I loved and took for granted as a part of my daily and weekly life are gone – it was nice to read the words of a much younger version of me saying through this poem, “be content, all you need is God. But He’s given you so much more.” Enjoy! ALL I NEED Make yourself, Lord, all I need, In all I say and do, May my dependance be on nothing else, Let me only lean on you.   I want to need nothing else, Than…

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