How to Dismantle an Atomic Bomb

I have a hard time spending money. Some would even call me a tight-wad. I agonize over most of my purchases before I buy. The only exclusion to that would possibly be books; when I buy a book I usually know exactly what I want and go get it. And then if it stunk after I read it I regret having spent the money on it. Andrea is sometimes frustrated by having to shop with me. This Christmas already we’ve stood staring at a Christmas present for someone in our family while I wondered whether we really should buy it or not. That is another story for another day.



Today, after agonizing for a while over whether I should; I spent some of my money on U2’s newest How to Dismantle an Atomic Bomb. After the first couple of listens I dig it. I really like music that has a soul and this does. I haven’t been completely enthralled by anything U2 since The Joshua Tree or maybe Rattle and Hum so I hope this one grows on me even more.

So … how do you dismantle an atomic bomb? Bono says “with love.”

Learning

This has been a great week. It started with spending time alone with Andrea; and at Thanksgiving our whole family was able to spend time with my parents, brother, his wife and her family; then this morning I ran. Tomorrow I get to finish the week by doing something I love as well … preaching at Brazos Pointe.

God made me a teacher and I really enjoy it. But before He made me a teacher He made me a learner. One of the main reasons I like to teach is the prep. I learn way more than I am able to give away. And then I think I like it because I get to make people think and ask questions about God’s place in their life and what it means to be a follower of Jesus.

During this time of year when everyone is thinking about what they are thankful for, I am thankful that God made me a learner and I am thankful that He has given me a place to pass what I learned along to others.

Travel, Detours and Adventure

Monday morning Andrea and I left for a couple of days away in New Braunfels. The timing was perfect and the kids were with my mom so it was sure to be a good trip. We were going to stay in some friend’s house (because of their incredible generosity) on the Guadalupe River in New Braunfels.

We left Lake Jackson and it was warm and muggy. By the time we got to Wharton it was raining a little bit. It had already rained enough for there to be road closures. But being the pioneers that we are we pressed on.

As we continued along we got to the turn-off to go toward Garwood (a favorite route of ours taught to us by my dad) and the road was closed due to high water in the Colorado River. So we went through the town of Eagle Lake instead. By the time we got to I-10 in Columbus it was raining so hard it was hard to see and driving was s-l-o-w …

When we got to Sequin we pulled off of the highway to eat at Los Cucos (one of our favorite Mexican food restaurants) and there was deep water flowing over the road. We thought about it for a second or two and then plowed through the water (anything for Mexican food).

After leaving the restaurant with our stomachs extremely full we exited I-10 on 46 to New Braunfels and got a couple of miles down the road and found that the road was closed due to high water. Now we’re kind of worried. Are we going to be able to make it to the house on a river that is probably flooded as well?

Being the pioneers that we still are … we pressed on and took a detour through San Antonio, seeing our trip as yet another adventure in the Stunz marriage. We finally made it to New Braunfels and headed down River Road towards the house. Barely ¼ of a mile down the road there was water flowing over the road enough to keep us from going on. So … we started looking for an alternate route and found one through the town of Gruene (pronounced “green”). As we headed down river road there were places where the water had come off of the hills and washed the road out but our mighty SUV made it through every time.

We made it over the river crossings without and problem even though the Guadalupe was up very high and got to the house. The upstairs of the house is level with the road and the downstairs of the house is level with the river. We went inside and from above there is a balcony and an excellent view of the swollen Guadalupe, which is normally 25 to 50 yards away but is now right out of the back door but receding.

We decided to take a look downstairs and as we walked down the steps there was a weird reflection at the bottom of the stairs. Andrea flipped the light switch on and we saw that the weird reflection was water. After checking to make sure I wouldn’t get electrocuted I stepped into the water which was about calf deep. I went to the back door and opened it and the water rushed out. The good part is that the downstairs of the house has concrete floors and cinderblock walls. The water wasn’t deep enough to get to the mattresses on the beds so really there was not much damage. Andrea and I spent the evening wet-vacing the water out and we had a blast working together. We have always enjoyed working together.

We crashed that evening after a long day of travel, detours and adventure. That pretty much sums up our marriage – travel, detours and adventure. In 16 years we’ve come a long way through some fun stuff and through some hard stuff. And in all of it we have tried to see how good it is.

Tuesday and Wednesday were relaxing days. We sat by the river that went back into its banks, ate at the Grist Mill in Gruene (again by the generosity of others) and Chipotle and spent some time at Starbucks. All of those are favorites of ours.

The three days were great and today on Thanksgiving Day I am grateful. I am grateful for the generosity of others. I am grateful for a wife who is willing to go through the adventure of life with me. I am grateful for so many other things … the list is long.

BTW – If you’d like to rent an excellent house on the Guadalupe this summer, I may be able to hook you up.

Leaving town

Yesterday was a long exhausting day. It started early and ended late. At the end of the day Andrea and I just fell into bed. It was a good tired though because in all of our work some good things happened.

So today we are hitting the road to get away, leave town and rest (and celebrate our previously mentioned anniversary). We are both looking forward to it. I think I will take an electronic fast and not blog again until we get back.

Have a Happy Thanksgiving (my favorite holiday of the year)!

My son, my dad, and working on cars

Today Jakeb and I replaced the brake calipers, balanced and rotated the tires, and changed the oil in my Explorer. It reminded me of being a kid again. My dad is a mechanic and I grew up around a gas station.

Smells trigger memories and when I smell brake cleaner, brake fluid, old oil, or tire rubber I think of growing up around my dad. Mom has a picture of me when I was six or seven with dad teaching me how to weld. I changed my first water pump in a car when I was in seventh grade. Before I could drive in high school I was changing clutches in manual transmissions and rebuilding engines.

My dad taught me more than how to work on a car while I was learning to work on cars. He taught me what it means to have a strong work ethic, how to treat people with respect and about honesty in business. I learned how mean people can be when they think you are their servant and I learn how to stand your ground while treating others fairly.

I hope Jakeb learns how to work on cars, but I hope he doesn’t leave the more important things undone either.

Our marriage could drive ...

Tomorrow Andrea and I will celebrate our 16th wedding anniversary. If our marriage was a kid it could start driving.

I stare at that first sentence and it’s hard to believe. I know everyone says this but it doesn’t seem like it’s been 16 years, and yet I can’t remember what life was like without Andrea. I read a book … (that’s how a lot of my sentences start) … anyway, I read a book called The Alchemist where the hero of the book meets the woman he was to spend the rest of his life with and he said to her “I loved you before I even knew you existed.”

I think that’s why I can’t imagine life without Andrea… because I have never lived life without her. My parents always taught me there was someone out there for me and I loved her before I knew who she was.

Happy Anniversary Andrea! I love you!

Crockerdile Blogger

A couple of months ago I told you about my friend Danny who is starting a church in Tomball called The Way Fellowship Church. It will be a church kind of like ours (but different). Brazos Pointe Fellowship is a sponsor church for The Way.

I tell you all of that because Danny’s wife Lizanne has started blogging. I hope she posts more than her husband has. One thing I can guarantee about Lizanne is that the post and the discussion will be interesting – in a good way – because Lizanne is the kind of person who makes you think.

You can read it here ---> Link

Sleep well

Life has been insanely busy and will continue to be that way for the next couple of days so posting on this blog has not been a top priority. But as I get ready to crash I think about a cool verse I read on Michael Main's blog:

I will lie down in peace and sleep, for you alone, O Lord, will keep me safe. Psalm 4:8

Tall grass and green trees

The weather was a bit cooler this morning. As I ran I noticed that most of the trees are still green. A few of them are losing their leaves but for the most part Oyster Creek Drive looks pretty much like it does in May.

And then I got home and mowed my yard. It’s November and I mowed my yard. It is no secret that I like hot weather a whole lot more than I care for cold weather. But don’t I eventually get a break from having to mow the yard?

Texas weather … I love it.

Yasser Arafat's Burial

I watched this morning as Yasser Arafat was being buried at Ramallah. For some reason all I could think about is the stark contrast between the ways the Palestinians bury a leader as opposed to how American’s bury theirs.

Ronald Reagan’s funeral and memorials were full of reverence, pomp and circumstance. It was “stately”. Yasser Arafat’s burial on the other hand looked like the mosh pit at a rock concert as people emptied the clips of their weapons into the air. Then everyone left to finish the observance of one of their most holy times of the year.

I’m not saying one way was better than the other to bury a leader. Each in its own unique way honored the one being buried. What intrigues me the most is the differences in cultures.

Dangers of running in the dark.

I was running yesterday morning a little after 6a.m. As I ran south on Yaupon just north of Oyster Creek drive I saw two women running in front of me. They were running a little slower than me on the same sidewalk and I knew I would have to pass them. For me this is always an uncomfortable situation because you never want to startle someone in the dark – especially if you are a male and they are female.

A couple of years ago I was running in the winter one evening and this lady was checking her mail. She was shining her flashlight into her mailbox as I ran by and I surprised her by doing nothing but running. If her flashlight would have been a gun I wouldn’t be sitting at my keyboard typing right now. My wife would be husbandless and my kids fatherless because she would have taken me out. Needless to say I am a little gun shy (no pun intended).

Anyway, yesterday morning at mile 1.5 of a seven miler as I ran up behind these two women in the dark I started coughing and scraping my shoes on the sidewalk and generally trying to make enough noise to let them know I was there. As I got close they still hadn’t looked back so I stepped off in the grass and tried to give them wide berth (I probably should have gone all the way to the other side of the street). One of them looked back at me nonchalantly and when she did the other one looked back and jumped and said “Oh MY GOSH!” I prepared myself to be blinded by the spray of mace – but thankfully this morning they didn’t have any. And come to find out one of them goes to our church.

I write all of that to ask a simple question. What’s the etiquette? When I approach another runner at night from behind traveling faster than them and they never acknowledge that I am there. Should I start screaming at about 100 yards out, “Hi up there?!?! My name is Tommy and I am a runner! I am not a serial killer! Please don’t mace me … or shoot me … or stun gun me … or beat me up with your cane!”

??????

How Would Jesus Vote?

As I was getting ready to crash a couple of nights ago, I was setting the time and volume of my radio alarm clock and I heard a southern drawl from the voice of a radio preacher as he exhorted listeners. “The victorious result of this election, leading to the second term of the president George dubya Bush is a diiiirect result of the prayers of Christians and I want to thank all of the listeners to this radio program for those prayers.”

There is a lot wrapped up in that statement that troubles me in a way I can’t quite put my finger on. Sometimes I think “Christians” believe that God is an American and that if Jesus were here he today he would be a middle-class white Republican who would agree and endorse even the smallest detail of the Christian sub-culture.

Brian McLaren in his book, A Generous Orthodoxy asks, “Has he (Jesus) become less our Lord and more our Mascot?”

Jesus called us to a life as one of his followers. I think Jesus rather than being our Lord who we should follow has at times become the banner we hold up to justify our way of thinking and acting. Which is sad because you know what? I have some godly friends who are no less Christian than you or I and they made a very prayerful decision to vote for John Kerry…

David's Dance Party USA

Last night at High Pointe I read a poem written by Jarrett Stevens. Jarrett is a teaching pastor for Axis at Willow Creek. Axis is a gathering for twenty-somethings. The poem is Jarrett's reflection of 1 Chronicles 15 and 2 Samuel 6. It's called "David's Dance Party USA". You can read it here ----> Link

The simple in the world of the complex

I’m reading a book by Paulo Coelho called The Pilgrimage. It is about a man (Coelho) who takes a pilgrimage and walks The Road to San Tiago in Spain which ends at the mortal remains of the apostle James. Along the road he learns some “practices” from his spiritual director, Petrus. Petrus tells him:

“The … practices are so simple that people like you, who are used to making life too complicated, ascribe little value to them.”

Although Petrus isn't teaching Coelho traditional spiritual disciplines, I wonder how often I have ascribed little value to the spiritual disciplines of Christianity because I think life should be way more complicated? Sometimes the disciplines of the Christian faith are so simple that in the world where everything else is complicated I have to ask myself “how could this possibly be doing me any good?”

But when I neglect “Being still and knowing God is God”, it’s then I realize how the simple can be so profound.

A Prayer for Today from Scott Williams

This is a prayer Scott Williams posted on his blog for his readers that I thought I should pray for you:

a prayer for today
May God bless you with discomfort at easy answers, half truths, superficial relationships, so that you will live deep within your heart.
May God bless you with anger at injustice, oppression and exploitation of people so that you will work for justice, equality and peace.
May God bless you with tears to shed for those who suffer from pain, rejection, starvation and war, so that you will reach out your hand to comfort them and change their pain into joy.
And may God bless you with the foolishness to think that you can make a difference in the world, so that you will do the things which others tell you cannot be done.

Voting

I just got back from voting. As I walked up to the school where I vote, there was a man there who gave me a pencil and a fingernail file with the name of the candidate he supports printed on them. Are my fingernails not round enough or smooth enough already? And then there was this lady who desperately shoved a red piece of paper in my hands giving me detailed instructions about how to write in the name of the candidate she supports.

As I went into the voting "booth", I looked at the names on the paper in front of me and thought about the enormous amount of effort even local candidates and their election team put forth to get elected. For what? To have your life placed under a microscope and be criticized by everyone? I don't know if they all shouldn’t have their head examined for subjecting themselves to the process of just making on the ballot.

I know ... they do it for a noble cause - public service. I guess all of them must want to be in office pretty bad to put up with what it takes to get there.