Monday, June 22, 2009

Who names their kid Ivan Odor?

My great-grandmother, that's who.

I'm totally wrung out. At the risk of using the blog as a boring tool for introspection and whining, allow me to say I'm closing out the hardest week I've had in a while. Earlier in the week we took what was supposed to be a vacation to Canada, but now I know why families with young kids often vacation at home. I did two weddings yesterday, which was awesome but exhausting (physically and emotionally).

But the weird thing that I still can't wrap my head around is that my grandfather died Friday at 9pm and Judi's grandfather died yesterday (Saturday) at 2pm. Two guys with nothing in common except great grandkids... 17 hours apart. What are the odds of that?

We'd planned for a quiet Father's Day at home to recupe from the week, but decided it made more sense to hang at mom and dad's, since the whole fam is coming to town for the funeral.

On my way from church to the house, I thought "Oh, this will be great. We'll be up at the house, so grandma and grandpa will be able to come over and see Jenna and Liam." And then I remembered that grandpa wouldn't be there.

I think sometimes grief looks like exhaustion. Good thing it's a nice, quiet week coming up at work. I don't have anything on my schedule except something called Summer of Service.

Tuesday, June 9, 2009

Dance Like You're Unstoppable

This is the best thing I've seen all week. One insane (probably drunk) dude having a ball at an outdoor concert/music festival ends up getting over a hundred people to dance.



Imagine if the dude had stopped dancing 30 seconds earlier.
Imagine if the second guy hadn't come, or the third.
Imagine if any of them had the presence of mind to realize "Holy cow, I look like an idiot."

I identify with Mr. Random Anonymous Dancer, and not just because he stole some of my best moves. On my very best days, this is what ministry feels like. The crazy awkward lonely grind at first, but the huge party as time goes on.

The trick is to keep going when you're all by yourself.