Lawn Jockeys and Mall Santas

For The Rockstar, here is my photo after he so generously tagged me. Notice my enthusiasm. I like my photographs taken. Just as long as I have had proper time to manufacture what I want it to look like. I usually send Laura pictures of me mixed in with some kids photos to her work. She will get her co-workers to gather around to see the pics, then bam, there is Zombie wearing just a guitar. Or shizam, Zombie just appeared in 80's running shorts and a Jack Tripper tank top with a mustache. So I don't totally dig the candid thing, but this is for Rockstar, so I did it.


So this weekend was interesting. We did a lot of Christmas stuff for the kids and came across some pretty funny memories. I will tell the story with pictures. We took the kids to see Santa at this cool little place about an hour from our house with Laura's brother and his family. The place was really cool, lights everywhere, things you remember from your childhood Christmas'. The kids saw Santa and got their pictures taken. We had a really nice night. But as we left, something caught my eye. This place we went to was a Christian place a little bit out of town in a series of large barns. Well, when we left, my son pointed out this little gem.


What year is it? Are we living in the 50's, the 30's? How could you not know that a black lawn jockey is racist? So Caeden took the picture next to his lovely little discovery so you would believe me that this really was there. The place overall was very nice, we will go back in the fall for the cider mill, but maybe leave a little comment in the comment box about the lawn jockey.

So the next day, Laura takes the kids to this thing for her work at the mall. It was for kids with Santa was there to read stories and meet the kids. Laura went alone and I guess it was a bad day for her to go alone because both kids were monsters. Observe the photo below.


I have never seen a Santa so pissed as to flee from a child before. Look at the very cute, but sinister look she has on her face as he flees at full speed. I swear to you that little girl is going to be my demise.


We went to some friends house for a Christmas movie marathon, then we went out that night with some friends that are home from school and had some fun, then spent Sunday after church sitting around all day. It was a good weekend, but still, we have bought only one small thing on our Christmas shopping list.













Sing.
Migrate.


™Zombiehaven 2008. All ideas and photos are copyrighted under Zombiehaven. Anything used from this site, must have written permission.

Pressure

Semester's over finally. Worst one I have ever had. I thank God it is over. I also thank my wife. Laura has put up with so much crap from me this semester, with my moodiness and my stress. She is awesome, and has shown me I need to learn to handle stress better. I didn't used to feel this way. The other day, I posted a mini blog that said, "I used to be invincible", I used to feel that way. I was a basketball player, a good one. I was known for having the biggest mouth on the court. Half of my game was getting into your head, because most people do not handle pressure very well, they crack and I win.

In my senior year, my coach brought in an ex college player, a good one named Quazy to help coach. Quazy watched me practice and play and saw a weakness in my game, turns out, it is a weakness in my life. He saw how I could get into your head and punch your brain and make you intimidated of me and make you doubt your own abilities. He was better than me and knew it, and so did I. I couldn't get into his head. Instead, one practice he guarded me all night fouling me and running his mouth. He outplayed me and pissed me off to the point of punching walls. I could not hit a shot, I could not guard him even though I was faster and in better shape and could shoot with my eyes closed. He exposed my weakness in front of the whole team and for the first time, at least in basketball, I was in a real fight, and losing it. I was crushed under the weight of the pressure. He grabbed me after practice and explained why he had been beating me down so bad and showed me how to not feel the pressure. The next week, we played the best team in the league who had the best player. Last time we played them, he scored 45 on us. I was intimidated of him, but showed up to the game a different person. I scored 30 on him and held him to 20. I ran my mouth the whole game without doubt in my abilities and beat him. The team lost 115 to 95 though because a lot of people on my team sucked. I say all this not just to relive old glory, but to expose the same weakness in other areas of my life.

I feel pressure to perform at my job, I feel pressure to perform in my family, and I feel pressure to perform at school, and I do not handle it well. I forget that God put all of these things in my life and gave me the tools to succeed. I am able to be a good father and husband because God gave me the ability to, despite never having a father or male influence in my life. God gave me the gifts to lead in my church, even though I have never felt qualified, so with Him I can and will do it. God gave me a brain, so I can achieve at school. The issue is that all of these things are happening at the same time, the perfect storm. So the waves come and the pressure, I have to learn how to stand. I am learning, but learning how to stand in peril always hurts, because it has to.

But I have to.






Sing.
Migrate.


™Zombiehaven 2008. All ideas and photos are copyrighted under Zombiehaven. Anything used from this site, must have written permission.

Patriotism?

I pledge allegiance to Christ. I am also an American. But a Christian first. I have never really pledged my allegiance to America, that might sound like I am a communist or un-American or something, but I haven't. When you are young, they make you say the pledge, at least I had to, but never really meant what it is supposed to mean. Before I go on, let me say, I love this country and appreciate my freedom to be writing this or anything else. I was born here, I was raised here and have enjoyed these freedoms my entire life. I would die for my country if the cause were worth the death. However, I am a Christian first. Jesus said in his teaching to give to Caesar, what is Caesars. The point was that we owe God everything and the rest gets what they require. Right now, I am not very proud of the actions of my country. The fact that so many special interest groups are keeping us from getting anywhere. The money holds all of the power. The babes die at alarming rates. Corruption ruins our economy and regular guys suffer the blow and get tossed out of work, just so the government to turn around and bail out the guys that did it in the first place. You sell bad mortgages, the housing market collapses, then we bail you out. That's the story here, that's why other countries are laughing, because America has lost it's luster. This very idea is offensive to a lot of people, including those that I love, so I am trying to tread carefully with what I say, trying not to offend anyone, but I am sick of not having a voice.

The decisions I make will be based on my faith, not based on the fact that I was fortunate enough to be born here. And I WAS fortunate to be born here. I think too many Christians like to make Jesus a Republican, or a Democrat, when He was neither. I am not too sure He would have even voted. He was not concerned with politics or politicians, He was concerned with reaching His hand out to those who were desperate and destitute. He realized that His Father puts governments together, as He did ours. Sometimes He puts people in power to be His hands in the country and sometimes, He has put rulers in to show the people that they need God instead of man. But the point was for all rulers to point the people to God. I think that is the job of Christians too, to point others to God, not ourselves with pomp and arrogance.

I think that over time, the patriotic attitude has led people to not care about those living elsewhere. We drop a bomb and kill thousands and it makes the news here, then people argue over it like it was a football game. What if that happens here? Well, look at 9-11-2001. 9-11 happens all over the world, yet we care for ourselves. A tsunami kills so many and it is in the news for a few weeks, then forgotten about as if those lives meant nothing. Just as easily as I can argue that we bomb too quick and shed so much blood, it can also be argued that Saddam Hussein was called the "Butcher of Baghdad" for a reason. Those lives He took for no reason meant something to God and should have meant something to us. He was a monster and needed to be removed. But a monster also loved by God. And should be loved by us, not so much approved of, but loved.

Love is the very thing that sets us apart from the world. God says you can do all kinds of things, but without love, it will be pointless. We preach without love sometimes and that does not further the Kingdom. We deal with everyday people without love, and they never see God in us. We need to show love in our daily affairs and have integrity in all situations. This points others to God. Especially in a culture that rejects Him and puts Him behind things like money, patriotism, and special interests.

Be in the world, but not of the world. Live as Aliens and strangers here. Be a city on a hill that cannot be hidden. In everything you do, do it for the Glory of God.






Sing.
Migrate.


™Zombiehaven 2008. All ideas and photos are copyrighted under Zombiehaven. Anything used from this site, must have written permission.

Riches

Thinking about the post of my lovely wife, I feel I should explain. I am not very good at speaking to rich people. Never have been. I don't know what to talk about and I have spent so little time around them. I used to work at a country club parking cars and they used to shout and snap their fingers at me to hurry. So I keyed one of their Mercedes' and stole some weed he had hidden in the glove box. I was not asked back to work there again. I went to a friends grad party in which people parked on the lawn at their huge compound. I drove over the wrong grass and went fast, possibly went off road and did a doughnut and wound up getting chased down by the cops and his father and received a citation, a well deserved one.

Well Friday night I was determined to try harder because I have been guilty of not saying much and making me look like a jerk, so I tried to relate. I made the observation about the UM engineering dept. and the Bermuda triangle after the doc. had mentioned attending that school and dept. It was not a good segway due to the fact that the Bermuda Triangle was involved. Well, Laura had no idea that I really did see it on Myth Busters. I left that out because I didn't want to sound too peasanty, like "I saw that on Myth Busters right after Dukes of Hazard and right before Cops and Cheaters" "It was a good one". Laura said that, not so under her breath comment with no knowledge that it was true, and it being in fact true, I could not deny it. The night went pretty par for what happened here, me bumbling around eating my foot at every turn. I vowed to for now on just try not to embarrass her.

I spoke with a friend about it and his advice was to just ask questions. Avoid talking about myself and let them talk about themselves, because they like to do that anyways. I will try this technique next time, hit me up with more suggestions on how to speak with those that are rich.








Sing.
Migrate.


™Zombiehaven 2008. All ideas and photos are copyrighted under Zombiehaven. Anything used from this site, must have written permission.

Invincible

I was once invincible.






Sing.
Migrate.


™Zombiehaven 2008. All ideas and photos are copyrighted under Zombiehaven. Anything used from this site, must have written permission.

Rouge

James 1:27 Religion that God our Father accepts as pure and faultless is this: to look after orphans and widows in their distress and to keep oneself from being polluted by the world.

If we do not practice these things, our religion is flawed.

A lot of Christians do not like the word "Religion". It brings visions of pharisees and church pews and hymnals. Of halls filled with the smell of bake sale and quilt. Little old ladies who hold a Kleenex for hours. Preachers who shout and sweat from the armpits (I sweat from there I must admit). It brings thoughts of rules and ceremonies and stain glass. Of baptismals behind the stage with paintings of Jesus standing among sheep. I grew up in these churches. Hated them. Now miss them sometimes.

My mom used to drive a broken down Ghetto Van to River Rouge (Little Detroit) just picking up shoeless kids and taking them to church and to children's activities at church, which is funny because imagine if a person in a big van with no back seats at all pulled up in front of your house and let your child in to the back of a van where they would sit on the floor and go God knows where. It was a different time then. She did this 3 times a week. She also bought a clown suit and practiced some tricks for the kids, just because she loved Jesus. I used to hate these memories. Not now. What a servant she is. Today, she puts on church services for the elderly confined to nursing homes. This is true religion. This is the face and hands of Jesus.

It isn't about getting bigger buildings, or drawing more people to fill enough seats to justify building a bigger building. It isn't about church dogma or denominations. It is about getting your hands dirty for the sake of Loving our God. The God that makes the stars also hears our hearts break and uses others to show us just how much He loves us.

I needed to be excited today. I didn't sleep last night which is usually a precursor to a bad day. I got up, took Caeden to school and went to school. On the way I was listening to this song called "Hold My Heart' by Tenth Avenue North and the Chorus says:
Could the maker of the stars, hear the sound of my breaking heart
One life is all I am, right now I can barely stand,
If your everything you say you are, will you come close and hold my heart

I heard it before, in fact a hundred times, but this time it drew blood. My eyes filled with tears and I cried all the way to school. For some, you may think this is lame. That's OK, I never minded being lame. I hope you get lame someday too. But I needed it because it was a reminder that there are times that God seems to be on the other side of the galaxy. But the same God that made all things is so in tune with how we feel and hurt and rejoice, and He is here to hold us up. Like a doctor who puts his hands inside the chest of a heart patient and pumps his heart for him, God repairs us.

Sometimes I need some tears to remind me what my religion and job as a pastor is all about. It is about my hands, not my mouth.






Sing.
Migrate.


™Zombiehaven 2008. All ideas and photos are copyrighted under Zombiehaven. Anything used from this site, must have written permission.

A Baby's Kiss

Kids are weird.



I often crouch down and kiss my daughter on her lips, just to experience the surprise of having touched my lips to a wet and cold nose that is covered and caked with snot. A string of it forms as I pull away stretching a full foot between us.



But I love it.




But only if she does it. If I kiss my wife and that happens, I WILL be pissed.






Sing.
Migrate.


™Zombiehaven 2008. All ideas and photos are copyrighted under Zombiehaven. Anything used from this site, must have written permission.

The American Dream

"What am I doing in my life right now that requires faith?" Francis Chan





Really tough question isn't it.



What comforts can I eliminate to be forced to practice faith? How do you jump, when He says so, and how do you hear Him telling you for sure?

Faith is a risk in every aspect. No fear of consequence requires no faith, so what are we living for? We need risks. We need to stop tirelessly pursuing the American Dream, and pursue the vision of Christ. To condemn the world to gain eternity.

But what does it look like. I want to hear from you.








Sing.
Migrate.


™Zombiehaven 2008. All ideas and photos are copyrighted under Zombiehaven. Anything used from this site, must have written permission.

Dunch

One of my good friends is in from out of town today, and I am supposed to hook up with him and some of my other friends later. Laura has a friend from out of town here too, so tonight we part ways. Thanksgiving was really good. We did Meals on Wheels in the morn. then went to my moms house for dunch. I say dunch because Thanksgiving is the only day of the year, where your feast may be at noon and you can call it dinner, really it's dunch.


On that same vein, I could not pry my wedding ring off yesterday because of all of the salt from the ham, and maybe the fat too. My mother has an interesting way of cooking. The grease from everything is poured back into everything and added to a pound of butter and bacon. You really could die just from looking at it.

After dunch, we parted ways and Laura went to her aunt's, and I went home to put up the outside lights. Laura's aunt has cats, that means I cannot be there. I hate putting the lights up, but it is necessary, I want the kids to remember we did that every year.



All the Christmas stuff, puts a lump in my throat.



Does anyone else have a problem typing the word "From"? I always type "Form"






Sing.
Migrate.


™Zombiehaven 2008. All ideas and photos are copyrighted under Zombiehaven. Anything used from this site, must have written permission.

1 Year Blogiversary

It has been one year since I started this blog. One of the reasons I decided to blog was to easily go back and see where I have come from and how I've grown over the year. I believe that if a year does not bring about any positive change in me, than something is off with my relationship with God. A lot of weird things have happened this year and I think I have grown so much in my relationship with God and with those that love me. Last year, I was distant from so many, I was so negative that I had a hard time seeing the positive in anything. This year, I am still negative, but a little better. I no longer look at people like they are trying to hurt me, which was something I really was dealing with. I am blessed more than ever. It has been a year of hard work for me, with tasks I have never had to stand up to until now. God has picked me up every time I have fallen. He has helped me out of the wilderness, starving and broken. I am not ashamed to live my life for Him, and to tell everyone that He is my comfort, He is my only strength, He is the reason I breathe. I have made new friends on here, which is really nice, because I can relate to so much that other people are going through and brave enough to write about. God bless you, the reader, and your families and have a nice year.

In honor of my 1 year blogging anniversary, here is my first post.











Sing.
Migrate.


™Zombiehaven 2008. All ideas and photos are copyrighted under Zombiehaven. Anything used from this site, must have written permission.

Burial Cake

Anyone ever heard of burial cake? I performed a burial service for a close friend Saturday and after the service at the reception, they had cake. I have heard of wedding cake, birthday cake, graduation cake, and retirement cake, but burial cake is a new one for me. I guess it is because the women who was buried was deeply in love with Jesus and everyone knew she really was happier now, so it was a celebration. For whatever reason, I like the idea of burial cake. So here is a short list of suggestions on how to expand this cake tradition.

Divorce Cake- Chocolate cake, with chocolate frosting filled with radishes in the filling.

Grizzly Bear Cake- For those who have become grizzly bears through their hard work. This one is made of meat and frosting. With a touch of an angels feather.

Constipation Cake- Filled with castor oil and topped with the Olestra stuff they put in the light potato chips.

Menopause Cake- Made purely from hormone supplements, hairnets, and Omega 3 fish oil (For the joints)

Last Place Cake- This one is sweeter than the rest (For added consolation) and filled with the blood of every person that did better.







Sing.
Migrate.


™Zombiehaven 2008. All ideas and photos are copyrighted under Zombiehaven. Anything used from this site, must have written permission.

Legacy

Who am I?



Am I a Christian?
Am I an athlete?
Am I a father?
A Husband?
A friend?
An employee?
A son?
A brother?
A philanthropist?


I think the legacy we leave behind is the purpose of our existence. It is the way, we glorify God while we are here. There is a quote from a Dirt song that says "The rest is the mess you leave as you pass through." True. I think we all would love to make up our legacy filled with noble causes and devotion to that which is important to us, such as Christ for me. But am not as sure that our eulogies would say the same. Not sure I would love mine.

The issue I have with priorities is that our actual lives seldom match the priorities we have decided to be. A Christian, A family man, a friend. If I take some time and write down all I do, I do not think it often matches those priorities. Especially when I give God the not so lucid minutes of the day as I fall alseep in prayer. Am I putting God first in all things? No. Am I putting the family second? No. Friends third? Sometimes, but to often, no. It takes practice to live your priorities, to be sure that what you have done here is more than just the mess you leave. More than your negative impact on the world. I want people so say about me what I am about to say about a grandmother tomorrow at her burial. That I loved God more than anything in this world. That Heaven would not be Heaven without Jesus, and life is not worth it without him.










Sing.
Migrate.


™Zombiehaven 2008. All ideas and photos are copyrighted under Zombiehaven. Anything used from this site, must have written permission.

A Lesson In Tolerance

I have the crappiest luck ever.

Yesterday, my toothache became unbearable due to infection, so I was forced to go to the ER. I looked particularly stupid too because I found that the only even slight relief I got was when I was putting cold on it, but not too cold. So I was walking around with a straw in my mouth sucking in the cold air directly onto the tooth. I did not have the fortune of having a regular straw handy, so I had to use this Halloween one that whistled, so I went to the ER with a whistling straw. Obnoxious. I get there at 1 AM after being turned away by another ER due to long waits. This one had no one in the waiting room at all, so I was happy about that, except, I ended up waiting 2 hours in agony after passing out twice before ever even being triaged. I inquired, but got no answers. I was finally let in to the room and was treated by the doctor whom cleaned out the area by giving me 20 or so shots directly into the hurt gum and then sent home with Penicillin and Vicodin. All in all, the process took 3 and a half hours.



So then the drug store at 4:30 AM. 2 cars in the lot. 2 workers present. 1 crusty old man and 1 old woman. Once again, no wait, so yay. I turned in the script and the old man says, "Ok, be done in a half an hour." "What! A half an hour, why?" I inquire. "Got 16 people before you." I look around the ghost drugstore and see a tumbleweed blowing by. "Ok."




What is it about my luck? It was almost like someone wanted me to be in the most pain I have ever felt for the longest period of time I could handle. I could not for the life of me figure out whether God was trying to teach me patience, or pain tolerance. Anyways, the tooth is killing me, I got an emergency Root Canal today that the dentist assured would kill the pain, but here I am throbbing, and hungry, but cannot eat.








Sing.
Migrate.


™Zombiehaven 2008. All ideas and photos are copyrighted under Zombiehaven. Anything used from this site, must have written permission.

The Gift Of Opening Up One's Stupid Mouth

I have a wonderful habit of making a fool out of myself in most situations. I don't know if it is a talent, a curse, or a Spiritual Gift from God, but it exists. Ask my wife. I am the guy that she cannot take anywhere. I have already told you about the "I like him so much, I want to fight him incident." There are so many stories of me saying the oddest thing that could be said in that particular moment. The other day, I was eating with my wife in a restaurant and we were talking about going on a diet. Laura said, "Does 20 pounds each sound good?" I said, "For you, not for me." I did not mean it how it sounds. I meant that if 20 pounds was what she wanted, I did not want the same. 20 pounds is too much for me because I do not want to reverse the last 2 years of work at the gym. I am not trying to be an idiot I assure you. My brain is an idiot. "I didn't say it, my brain said it" is what Caeden says when he says something similar. Like when he describes African Americans as chocolate people. I do that stuff too, so I am afraid this little "Gift" is hereditary.



On a side note, my tooth hurts. I had to miss church. Sorry Jesus.











Sing.
Migrate.


™Zombiehaven 2008. All ideas and photos are copyrighted under Zombiehaven. Anything used from this site, must have written permission.

I Want You More Than Life

I am at peace today. I had a rough day yesterday. I felt lonely all day, then kinda down. Last night I was laying in my bed praying and it felt good. It doesn't always feel good to pray. Sometimes it hurts. It isn't always comfortable to express yourself to an all knowing God. To try to explain experimentially what He already knows. Not easy always to admit what a complete underachieving idiot I have been. But other times, when I really need it, He feels there to me. I prayed and read some, then off to sleep.

I awoke a couple of hours later with this overwhelming feeling of peace. The house was quiet, my wife was sleeping next to me, the kids off in some dreamland somewhere I wish I could access. I opened my eyes and I thought, "I want you more than life." Probably because I heard it n a song earlier talking about some girl he later found out he needed like a hole in the head. But I meant it to God. Those words meant something. They carried weight for me. I have told God that a million times and meant it every time, but this time I meant it in a different way. Like when you are hungry after not eating for a few hours: You say, "I'm hungry." But the phrase has a whole new meaning if you haven't eaten for a week. It occurred to me in some spiritual way that I want God more than anything. I lay there awake for some time, not at all frustrated at not being able to sleep. If God wants to wake me up like this, and feel this way, do so every night. If He wants to speak louder than I can ignore Him, let Him talk my ear off, even if the things He is saying isn't what I want to hear because the feeling of hearing anything God has to say to me is joy to me.


I have felt my God closer than my skin all day.


May God touch you.


Sing.
Migrate.









™Zombiehaven 2008. All ideas and photos are copyrighted under Zombiehaven. Anything used from this site, must have written permission.

Migration

I was watching Heroes last night and one of the characters said something that I had learned in Biology, and based the name of this blog on. It is this really interesting fact about whales. Scientists were having such a hard time figuring out how these whales keep finding each other for mass migration in such a huge ocean. It was discovered when a biologist recorded the whales singing to each other in the wild and it occurred to them that the whales were not singing in captivity. I think this is interesting because it is universal. If you are doing bad in your walk with God, by bad, I mean, you are not making much effort in seeking Him. When we are struggling and living in rebellion, we fail to sing. It is because, we were not made to sin and rebel. It was sin and death that made that a constant struggle for us. When the Israelites felt distant from God, they made idols. We don't do much different, and it makes us feel far from God. In fact, when we live in rebellion, God isn't listening to us.

Is. 1:15 When you spread out your hands in prayer, I will hide my eyes from you; even if you offer many prayers, I will not listen. Your hands are full of blood;

Prov. 28:9 If anyone turns a deaf ear to the law, even his prayers are detestable.

When we make the choice to rebel from God, we get to learn what it is like to do things our way. That is the human condition, thus why we really need Jesus, with every cell in your bodies.

So when we rebel, we become unhappy. We fail to sing, because we are apart from what we were intended to be. It is when we come to God in dust and ashes and willing to submit, that He turns his face to us again. I struggle because I am so stubborn and proud sometimes. I want what I want and too often those things are not what God wants. So I throw myself a pity party and try to get back at God for not giving me what I wanted. The catch is, I am hurting myself when I do this.


I go through these bouts with depression that tempt me to get lazy and comfort myself with things that are not good for my Spirit, and leave out the things that are. Compound this depression now with the loss of clear communication with the fabric of my very being, and I cannot sing. I look at stories of how these terrible things happen to those that are faithful, yet they get on their faces and praise God. I need to practice this often because it is easy to fall into the trap of thinking that God owes you something for choosing to follow Him. But the Bible says, He chose us. He died. He sacrificed. He had his flesh torn from His body. He was rejected. He rose again. He gave us His Spirit. God owes me nothing. If everything I love were taken from me. I deserve it. It is God that blesses us and takes things away and who are we to raise our fists to the air.

God desires us to sing though. And that is why the gifts, and the salvation, and the happiness and joy. Because of His desire to listen to us sing together and follow Him in migration to Himself.


Sing.
Migrate.










™Zombiehaven 2008. All ideas and photos are copyrighted under Zombiehaven. Anything used from this site, must have written permission.

Wilderness

My biggest hope is that this is not the way I go out. Laying there posing dead for a picture with two cow poke yokels standing over me grinning. I am not an anti-hunter, however, why would you want to kill a Grizzly Bear. Really. As a Grizzly Bear, I am appalled, as a human, I am pissed. I feel like the Caveman in the Geicko commercials. I do see the beauty in being there though. Not so much with the dead bear, but out in the woods hunting. I am planning a trip to Upper Canada in February with some friends to go winter camping. I can't wait. The website has a moose on the front page. I would love to see a moose in the wild. I want to get out of here for a minute and collect my thoughts, regroup. My life has been so busy that I feel like I can't breathe most days with stress and dread for the next day coming. It will be nice to go sleep outside in the cold and explore the wilderness.

Everyone needs a time in the wilderness I think. Jesus went to be tempted. To show the people and maybe himself at least on an experiential basis that we need God more than food, more than water, more than air. He threw off all He did not need, which was everything and submitted himself to His Father's Creation and the temptations of the evil one. I want that. I could do without the temptations, but need the wilderness. It is true that through suffering, we grow closer to Jesus. When we fast, our hunger and prayer brings us closer to Christ. When we sacrifice, we share in the sacrifice God made for us. When we dance, we dance for Christ without boundaries and inhibitions like David did. We become undignified and do not care, because of Christ. Living in constant chaos sometimes clouds my vision of Jesus and I need the wilderness to give me clarity, to remind me why I dance, and draw me to become even more undignified with every day.


For the poachers in the above picture. I will leave you with a warning below.










™Zombiehaven 2008. All ideas and photos are copyrighted under Zombiehaven. Anything used from this site, must have written permission.

Ooh, Listen To That

So my little brother Andy found my blog and commented on the Deathstone band we made when we were kids and it got we to thinking about when we were little. I thought I would give you a brief history over our shared experiences:

1. We were almost abducted in a video store parking lot. The burglar was thwarted by my heads up rolling up of the window on his arm which he barely got free.
2. We ruled the "Balls" area of Chucky Cheese by holding other kids under for long periods of time.
3. I broke a kid's arm who picked on him when I was 12.
4. We ran away together to the woods overnight while sleeping in a tent in the backyard.
5. I had a crush on his mom, as did every other kid on the block.
6. We demolished his parents newly finished bathroom.
7. Made pee snow cones from his Snoopy Snow Cone machine and gave them to his sister and friends.
8. We made a back yard child fight club, and cornered the little kids as they beat each other up. (We were just kids too, so don't call the cops yet)
9. We started a neighborhood thug street gang, called The Brat Patrol, named after the movie.
10. We opened a fraudulent ninja training school, charging kids from the block $5 dollars for training. The training included them getting beat up and not being allowed to cry. Walking across the top beam of the swing set without falling. Pulling a knife on another kid. Saying bad words into a tape recorder (This was in case the kid tried to tell on us, we could show their parents their bad word tape). They would also have to endure a really bad day. This day was the day that everyone would be mean to them and exclude them from all fun activities. If they survived the day without crying, they would move up a belt. We taught them moves we made up and holds to put people in that were based off of WWF. We made money, they got training, it was a win/win for everyone.


Oh and I forgot to mention the song we had in Deathstone called "Listen to That." In the song, one solitary note would be plucked on the guitar, and we would say after a dramatic pause, "Ooh, listen to that." That was the whole song.











™Zombiehaven 2008. All ideas and photos are copyrighted under Zombiehaven. Anything used from this site, must have written permission.

Amish Furniture

One of those days. You wake up and the world hates that you exist. There was more traffic than usual and I hit all of the red lights. My son took forever to get ready for school. I decided that I was not going to let my running a little late give me a bad day, so I stopped at Starbucks thinking I had enough time, however, after I paid it took 15 minutes for the coffee to get made because the forgot to make it or something. So I was late. I just felt lonely today. One of the challenges of working outside of an office is the amount of time I spend working in solitude. It wears on you sometimes and makes me want to answer sales calls just to talk to someone. I bet I could hear a lot more people wish they had my gig because of all of the annoying people they work with, but for now, this is my blog. You go write your own about that stuff. On the upside I got to talk online to a friend who is overseas in Afghanistan fighting Al Quada. It was nice, I haven't heard from him in a while and have been praying for his safety. God has kept him alive, so I am happy. Turned my day around. Now I have to study for an exam which sucks.

I leave you with a verse.

Jeremiah 23:28 "The prophet who has a dream, let him tell a dream; And he who has my word, let him speak my word faithfully. What is the chaff to the wheat?" Says the Lord. "Is not My word like a fire?" Says the Lord. "And a hammer that breaks the rocks to pieces."



Whatever God has given you, do it in the name of Christ for His glory. He are a gifted people all over this country, give those gifts in service for God. The Amish believe that in everything they do with their hands, any work that they do so before God. They are right, thats why we buy their furniture. Let's be like the Amish










™Zombiehaven 2008. All ideas and photos are copyrighted under Zombiehaven. Anything used from this site, must have written permission.

Time For The Apologies

My tantrum is over now. Whatever. Here are the positives about Barack Obama:
1. I like that he is African American. I think it speaks volumes about the racial state of our country, it is not as bad as it sometimes seems, and it is a huge advancement in the stereotype that racist whites have against black people, being he is a successful, intelligent, and powerful minority. 2. I like that he did not come from a super rich, elitist family that has no real idea what it means to be a real live average human living in tough times. 3. He has an incredible PR team. (Ok the last one was a bit backhanded)


Death count in Zombies tirade:
2 crusty old women who took too long to put their change away after they finished their transaction at the bank drive-thru.
1 Horse who gave me the stink eye
17 Canadian mounties, one of whom were riding the horse that gave me the stink-eye.
1 sheep
2 goats
1,000 cats, just because.

To all the of the families of those I harm. I AM SORRY.













™Zombiehaven 2008. All ideas and photos are copyrighted under Zombiehaven. Anything used from this site, must have written permission.