For those of you who stumble into the Janus Project, I'd like to direct you to one of my side-hustles located at The Cigar Box. The Cigar Box is a visual display of hand-crafted artwork designed and built from recycled materials. Below are a few examples of my work.
Wednesday, May 12, 2021
Sunday, April 05, 2020
COVID19, 2020
Nothing like a pandemic to provide time and focus enough to get back to neglected pursuits. So - along with jumping back into the blogging world, here is a bit of photo journalism of some things we have witnessed in recent days.
What started off as a laid back spring break . . .
. . . has turned into four weeks of questions and learning.
What exactly is Corona virus? I thought I had already discovered a vaccine in the mid-nineties; make sure to only have two while eating Mexican food and you will never get sick.
Where the heck is Wuhan, China?
What is social distancing?
What is the future of Dollar Stores, Dollar Generals, Dollar Trees, and Hobby Lobby's everywhere? How do I teach online? What is Zoom? How much water should I buy? Where is all the toilet paper? How do I use my knowledge of baseball and football to help continue to train my 14-year-old up and coming soccer scholar athlete? Do masks work?
Do gloves work? How long is this going to last? Will the NBA finish? Will MLB start? Will there be SEC football in the fall? Do dorm students have to pay for room and board for the whole spring semester? Who do I know that is in jeopardy of losing their jobs? How do I help them? How do we have church without going to church? Will we be able to worship together on Easter Sunday?
.
Why the heck are people obsessed with Tiger King?
Do I have enough ammunition?
Nothing like a pandemic to make me feel like a four-year-old again. Full of questions, some of which have answers I can understand, some of which I think I understand, and some still flummox me four weeks in.
What started off as a lot of unexpected extra time has turned into four weeks of heeding Ben Franklin's admonition to not put off for tomorrow what can be done today.
I sanded and painted a bathroom ceiling. I changed a battery in an old watch. I fixed the transmission on my self-propelled mower. I fixed my riding lawn mower that would not crank despite having a new battery and new solenoid. I washed not one, not two, but all three vehicles in our fleet. I don't know that any of those cars have been washed three times total in their collective lives, but they all got a bath in the span of one day. I learned how to transition from face-to-face teaching to 100% on-line teaching. We have deep cleaned the house. We have begun to have our devotions together as a family. I bought a litter grabber and have been picking up trash on our afternoon walks. We have been cooking everyday. We've been washing and putting away dishes - everyday. We have been reading separate books in large chunks of time, all of us on the back porch, while listening to records and the birds.
Nothing like a pandemic to deliver a knock-out punch to the excuse of not having time.
So - along with whatever else you are experiencing out there . . . remember Paul's words to Timothy: "God has not given us the spirit of fear, but of power, and of love, and a sound, sound mind." Stay safe, stay strong.
What started off as a laid back spring break . . .
. . . has turned into four weeks of questions and learning.
What exactly is Corona virus? I thought I had already discovered a vaccine in the mid-nineties; make sure to only have two while eating Mexican food and you will never get sick.
Where the heck is Wuhan, China?
What is social distancing?
What is the future of Dollar Stores, Dollar Generals, Dollar Trees, and Hobby Lobby's everywhere? How do I teach online? What is Zoom? How much water should I buy? Where is all the toilet paper? How do I use my knowledge of baseball and football to help continue to train my 14-year-old up and coming soccer scholar athlete? Do masks work?
Do gloves work? How long is this going to last? Will the NBA finish? Will MLB start? Will there be SEC football in the fall? Do dorm students have to pay for room and board for the whole spring semester? Who do I know that is in jeopardy of losing their jobs? How do I help them? How do we have church without going to church? Will we be able to worship together on Easter Sunday?
.
Why the heck are people obsessed with Tiger King?
Do I have enough ammunition?
Nothing like a pandemic to make me feel like a four-year-old again. Full of questions, some of which have answers I can understand, some of which I think I understand, and some still flummox me four weeks in.
What started off as a lot of unexpected extra time has turned into four weeks of heeding Ben Franklin's admonition to not put off for tomorrow what can be done today.
I sanded and painted a bathroom ceiling. I changed a battery in an old watch. I fixed the transmission on my self-propelled mower. I fixed my riding lawn mower that would not crank despite having a new battery and new solenoid. I washed not one, not two, but all three vehicles in our fleet. I don't know that any of those cars have been washed three times total in their collective lives, but they all got a bath in the span of one day. I learned how to transition from face-to-face teaching to 100% on-line teaching. We have deep cleaned the house. We have begun to have our devotions together as a family. I bought a litter grabber and have been picking up trash on our afternoon walks. We have been cooking everyday. We've been washing and putting away dishes - everyday. We have been reading separate books in large chunks of time, all of us on the back porch, while listening to records and the birds.
Nothing like a pandemic to deliver a knock-out punch to the excuse of not having time.
So - along with whatever else you are experiencing out there . . . remember Paul's words to Timothy: "God has not given us the spirit of fear, but of power, and of love, and a sound, sound mind." Stay safe, stay strong.
Friday, December 08, 2017
Tuesday, November 07, 2017
Eulogy For Tom Thoms, Nov 6th 2017
I met Tom in a faculty-reading group in the late 1990’s at
Pearl River Community College. I was a young,
new faculty member and was more than a little in awe of Tom. Tom was a cool, veteran teacher whose classes
immediately filled up when open registration began. Tom was the old-school guy with the stacks of
big yellow legal pads. He was the guy
who used chalk and hand wrote his notes long hand every day on the board for
his classes. Tom was the larger than
life guy with a mustache that gave Tom Selleck a run for the money. He was the guy with an infectious grin who
loved talking about politics, the stock market, and Mississippi State football. Tom was the guy everyone wanted to hang out with at lunch. Tom had a lunch posse that was legendary; they
were so cool, they ate lunch off campus on Fridays. I was not a part of that lunch posse early on,
but through the faculty reading group, Tom became my friend.
For almost two decades, we worked together and played together; we celebrated happy times with and for each other; we shared some tough and even sad times with each other, both professionally and personally. I’d like to think that I’ve become a better person from having a friend like Tom. I know I’ve become a better football fan through discussing the highs and lows of Mississippi State and Auburn football with my friend Tom. I am grateful that Tom was a part of my life.
For almost two decades, we worked together and played together; we celebrated happy times with and for each other; we shared some tough and even sad times with each other, both professionally and personally. I’d like to think that I’ve become a better person from having a friend like Tom. I know I’ve become a better football fan through discussing the highs and lows of Mississippi State and Auburn football with my friend Tom. I am grateful that Tom was a part of my life.
I’m an English teacher, so I like metaphors. I’d like to tell you a bit about my friend
and colleague, Tom, through a sports metaphor.
Early on in our friendship, one of the ways our relationship developed
was through the game of golf. Neither of
us was very good at golf. In fact, most
folks would probably consider us duffers.
But we were graceful duffers. And
I’m not talking about “graceful” in the physical sense. I’m talking about being “graceful” in the
spiritual sense. We had graceful rules
like, “You can take two tee shots off the first hole,” and “A bad lie is your
own fault.” Between us both there were
so many foot wedges and hand mashies, and mulligans and “do overs” that I’m
convinced the grace of our Lord Jesus Christ was right there in the midst of every
single round that Tom and I ever played together.
Tom and I were both convinced that life was a lot like golf. Life, like golf takes place somewhere between
the ridiculous and the sublime. When my
golf game was not going well and things on the course were at their most
absurd, my friend Tom was right there beside me, a witness to my shortcomings
and my plights, always the listener, ever the encourager, ready with advice and
positive feedback. One of his favorite
sayings when a round was going poorly was, “Well, Eric, sometimes you just
gotta grind through it.” In the
classroom, Tom was the same way with his students. No matter what a student was going though, he
was right there beside them, encouraging them to grind through the challenges
of both their academic and their personal lives. Tom’s office was next to mine. When he was in his office, the door was
always wide open. When he wasn’t there,
his door was rarely locked. Over the
years I have heard Tom counsel, tutor, and mentor students semester after semester,
year after year. There are reasons Tom was
one of the most popular instructors on campus.
He was one of the best in the classroom, making the world of psychology
come to life for his students. If you
want proof go to YOUTUBE and type in “Tom Thoms and His Elephant Impression.” You are in for a 15 second treat of what life
in class with Mr. Thoms was all about.
Tom had the ability to connect with the individual student both in and
out of the classroom and help them through the tough parts of life both on and
off campus. The highlight of my academic
year was getting to team teach the Leadership Honors Forum each spring with my
friend, Tom. I got to work with Tom week
in and week out, preparing and then teaching with him in the same
classroom. I got to witness the joy he
brought to students’ lives as he taught.
I got to learn how to be a better teacher and a better person by
watching Tom in front of the students. I
got to see first hand why Tom was an excellent choice for the Pearl River
Community College Mississippi Humanities Counsel Teacher of the Year
award. The words of our colleague Genny
Kemp sum it up best, “Tom was a difference maker.”
On the rare occasions when my golf game actually went well,
my friend Tom was right there in those few sublime moments, celebrating
joyously my successes and achievements, with high fives, fist bumps, and his
unmistakable and infectious million dollar grin that we all know and love. Tom brought this same enthusiasm and joy to
my life off the course. I will never forget
the day Kate, my daughter, was born. I
got to introduce her to my friend, Tom Thoms.
That ranked right up there with getting to show Kate off to my own dad. I’ve seen Tom celebrate just as
enthusiastically with students as they succeeded on assignments, barely passed
exams, or came back to campus to let him know what had been going on in their
lives after they left Pearl River.
M. Scott Peck says that love is an activity, an
investment. And I think this is what
made Tom a true friend and a great teacher.
Tom had a special connection to people because he took an active role in
our lives and invested in us as individuals.
One quick golf story about Tom precisely illustrates what Peck was
getting at. Tom loved new golf
clubs. He always chased the illusive
“new” club that would immediately take three strokes off his score. For Christmas one year, Linda gave Tom a very
nice fairway wood. Tom was so excited
about this club he could hardly stand it.
The problem was that after several rounds of playing with this new club,
Tom figured out he couldn’t hit it a lick.
So – for the next several rounds it just sat in his bag. At some point, Tom offered to let me swing
the club. And I did. And it was AWESOME! It took three strokes off MY score. The next time we played, I asked to borrow
the club and Tom said without any hesitation, “Sure.” It worked so well for me that I kept
borrowing it out of his bag until one day he said, “Eric, why don’t you just
keep it in your bag awhile.” That club
is still in my bag.
Since Tom was a chemical engineer before he became a
psychologist and later a teacher of psychology, I thought it almost a necessity
to invoke Carl Jung’s quote about relationships. Jung said, “The meeting of two personalities
is like the contact of two chemical substances:
if there is any reaction, both are transformed.” If you were a part of Tom’s life – a family
member, a student, a colleague, a friend – you know what kind of a reaction and
transformation Tom had on your life. I am confident that Tom’s ability to touch our
lives in the ways that he did was largely due to the love and grace he had for
each of us. I am also confident that
Tom’s love and grace flowed from the transforming relationship he had with his
Lord and Savior Jesus Christ. And I am confident that because of the
transforming power of grace, fellow believers in Jesus will one day sit down at
the Lord’s lunch table. And at that lunch
table will be our friend Tom, grinning ear to ear. And we will celebrate together Christ’s
victory over death.
Thursday, November 02, 2017
Tuesday, November 01, 2016
Monday, October 26, 2015
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