What is Real?

I read The Velveteen Rabbit for the umpteenth time the other day. It has been a favorite of mine since childhood, and now Special K loves to read it too. C. S. Lewis was right: some day we do get old enough to read fairy tales again. Margery Williams’ story is about a stuffed toy bunny who arrives in a young boy’s stocking at Christmas. Over a period of time, the toy bunny embarks on a journey of transformation from merely a synthetic stuffed animal into a real, living, breathing rabbit. This change is brought about through the power of the boy’s transforming love for the Velveteen Rabbit.

It strikes me that the transformation from being a stuffed toy bunny to becoming a real rabbit is not unlike our transformations from broken and fallen creations of God to the new creatures we become through the love of Christ. Or should we say, the new creatures we are becoming through the love of Christ?

One of the paradoxes of Christianity that I constantly overlook surrounds the mystery of our transformation through faith in the love of Christ as an ongoing and never ending process rather than a one time event. Billy Graham has said that “Being a Christian is more than just an instantaneous conversion – it is a daily process whereby you grow to be more and more like Christ.” The process of transformation, then, is an ongoing attempt to give up ourselves, to “continue to work out our salvation” as Paul exhorts us in Philippians.

C. S. Lewis observed that “Until (we) have given up (our)selves to Him, (we) will not have a real self.” And while this perpetual process is often uncomfortable, Augustine reminds us that “Salvation is God’s way of making us real people.” Like the protagonist of The Velveteen Rabbit, sometimes it is difficult for us to know when we become Real people of Christ, transformed by his love.

“’What is Real?’ asked the Velveteen Rabbit one day. . . . ‘Does it mean having things that buzz inside you and a stick-out handle?’”

The Skin Horse, the oldest and the wisest of the playthings in the nursery replied, “‘Real isn’t how you are made. It’s a thing that happens to you. When a child loves you for a long, long time, not just to play with, but REALLY loves you, then you become Real.’

‘Does it hurt?’ asked the Rabbit.

‘Sometimes,’ said the Skin Horse, for he was always truthful. ‘When you are Real you don’t mind being hurt.’

‘Does it happen all at once, like being wound up?’ the Rabbit asked, ‘or bit by bit?’

‘It doesn’t happen all at once,’ said the Skin Horse. ‘You become. It takes a long time. . . . Generally, by the time you are Real most of your hair has been loved off, and your eyes drop out and you get loose in the joints and very shabby. But these things don’t matter at all because once you are Real you can’t become unreal again. It lasts for always.’” (Williams)

May the love of Christ continue to make us Real in a world that longs to become transformed.

If R. Reagan and M. Friedman had a love child, he might be Allen West

There are no easy answers' but there are simple answers. We must have the courage to do what we know is morally right.
Ronald Reagan

A society that puts equality before freedom will get neither. A society that puts freedom before equality will get a high degree of both.
Milton Friedman

Happy Halloween 2011

sometimes nothin' is a real cool hand

Halloween 2011

As most of you know, Halloween is a special time at our house.

As a kid, I loved dressing up in costume (old school Casper the Friendly Ghost, Tonto, The Lone Ranger, a Pirate) and going to trick-or-treat. As a teen, I liked going to the local Haunted Houses (the ones where you would reach blindly into a bowl of pasta while your guide told you about the victim's guts, or felt peeled grapes in a jar while you heard about the collection of victims' eyeballs).

My first official date with Big Al was to a Haunted Forest Charity Fundraiser (complete with an all too real Leatherface chasing us with what sounded and smelled like a fully functional chainsaw).

Even as an adult, there's a special feeling unique to late October when the cool air hits my wet face as I slosh up from a filled bucket, apple clenched in my teeth, acidic sweetness on my tongue and the smell of a faraway orchard in my nostrils, hoots of laughter and giggles flying away, like happy witches and pleasant ghosts, into the night sky.

And inevitably, I can't help but to think of Snookie, my grandmother, who used to recite James Whitcomb Riley's poem about Little Orphan Annie. It's always been one of my favorite memories of her that seems just right for the Halloween season. After all, it seems truly bizarre to go around telling children a poem about how if they don't behave the "goblins will get you if you don't watch out!" Sorta like how we tend to teach little kids the story of Noah and the Ark without really thinking about how terrifying it might come off for audience members under ten (but that's a blog for another day).

Anyway - enjoy Anne Hills version of Little Orphan Annie and have a Happy Halloween!

Soccer 2011

"Love the game. Love the game for the pure joy of accomplishment. Love the game for everything it can teach you about yourself. Love the game for the feeling of belonging to a group endeavoring to do its best. Love the game for being involved in a team whose members can't wait to see you do your best. Love the game for the challenge of working harder than you ever have at something and then harder than that. Love the game because it takes all team members to give it life. Love the game because at its best, the game tradition will include your contributions. Love the game because you belong to a long line of fine athletes who have loved it. It is now your legacy. Love the game so much that you will pass on your love of the game to another athlete who has seen your dedication, your work, your challenges, your triumphs... and then that athlete will, because of you, love the game."



Special K with her buddy from another team.

"When all is said and done, it's not the shots that won the championship that you remember, but the friendships you made along the way."




Special K finished her first season of team sport this past Saturday. In six weekends, her team, the Fluorescent Peaches, played eleven games. In a three on three format, playing two of four periods a game, Special K ended up with a grand total of 24 goals scored. In the final match of the season, she took over the pitch with five goals in about as many minutes. We are proud of our budding athlete.

Watching how the Rangers win is like watching a Fellini film. It's not immediately apparent that it makes sense, but somehow it adds up to something that works, especially in an entertaining sense.
Tom Verducci

special k after scoring her 5th goal in two games

To look backward for a while is to refresh the eye, to restore it, and to render it the more fit for its prime function of looking forward.
~Margaret Fairless Barber, The Roadmender

a proud papa's pictures of special k's first soccer practice

It is not how big you are, it's how big you play.

my new favorite commercial . . .

long live the 'stache ~~

Real Leadership on Display in 2011

Wow. In a world where leadership is often lacking, Michael Nutter's speech illustrates that it can be done. This clip runs about 30 minutes; if you only have 15 minutes, watch the last 15. If you only have 5, watch the last 5.





"This assumption of Negro leadership in the ghetto, then, must not be confined to matters of religion, education, and social uplift; it must deal with such fundamental forces in life as make these things possible."
Carter G. Woodson, 1875-1950

Leadership Honors Forum 2011

One of the highlights of my academic year is co-teaching the Phi Theta Kappa Leadership Honors forum at Pearl River Community College. In 2004, the Leadership Honors Forum (LHF) class at PRCC’s Poplarville Campus began to use the semester’s end to put theory into practice. After fourteen weeks of learning about leadership, students of the LHF use the last two weeks of class to imagine, design, create, and implement a service project or fundraiser to benefit a cause or a part of the community of the class’s choice.

Since 2004, eight classes worked hard toward the common vision of servant leadership through projects such as: working to raise handicap accessibility awareness on campus, beautifing the campus grounds, and volunteering at the local nursing home; students have sponsored charity softball games, sold catfish and BBQ plates, and have hosted dog trial events to raise funds for those in need. Over the past eight years, the students of Poplarville’s LHF have raised, in aggregate, nearly $10,000 for organizations such as Brothers’ Keepers Ministries, St. Jude’s Children’s Hospital, and the American Diabetes Association, as well as for individuals needing assistance offsetting medical costs.

This year, the 2011 class of the LHF conceived and implemented (in just under three weeks) a bake-sale, crawfish raffle, and catfish fry in conjunction with Cuevas Fish House and Coca-Cola. The students chose to donate their proceeds of $2323.76 to Mrs. Sabina Brown,an English Instructor at Pearl River Community College, who is fighting breast cancer. The thoughts and prayers of the class are with Mrs. Brown as she fights cancer. The 2011 class worked diligently throughout the semester and has demonstrated in no small way these last two weeks their leadership skills.


The 2011 class of the LHF embodies James C. Hunter’s observations that “(t)here is great joy in leading with authority, which is serving others by meeting their legitimate needs.”

night music

hands play together
laughing and dancing fireflies
of evening’s chorale

Salvation is not some felicitous state to which we can lift ourselves by our own bootstraps after the contemplation of sufficiently good examples. It is an utterly new creation into which we are brought by our death in Jesus' death and our resurrection in his. It comes not out of our own best efforts, however well-inspired or successfully pursued, but out of the shipwreck of all human efforts whatsoever.
~Robert Farrer Capon

And the Spirit of Jonathan Swift Award Goes To . . .

the National Republican Senatorial Committee.

And the Grammy Goes To . . .

AXIS OF AWESOME!


(PARENTAL WARNING . . . F- BOMB ALERT)





What has been will be again, what has been done will be done again; there is nothing new under the sun. Ecclesiastes 1:9

WAR EAGLE!!!

Congrats to the 2010 Auburn Tigers and to all the die-hard fans and alumni in my wife's family. Thanks for letting me be part of the "all in" family.

there are more things in heaven and earth than are dreamt of in your philosophy . . .

sometimes it’s hard not to strike back. lord knows i want to. with every fiber. which is part of what they want, i think. so – i’ll refrain.

instead, i’ll simply ask – why in the world do folks who think religion is a joke care so much about what others think about religion? the party line of militant atheists is that the ad is aimed at letting other "closet" atheist know "they are not alone."

i don’t believe in martians; i don’t believe in man-made global warming; i don’t believe in getting cancer via using deodorant. there are lots of folks who do. and yet, i don't feel alone, nor do i feel the compulsion to offend or pick a fight with folks who fall prey to what seems to be, from my perspective, faulty logic. it's what they believe. they have the right to have faith in what seems to me to be clear idiocy. great. go for it. i have no desire to impede their thought process.

so what's up with the full frontal on folks of faith? if there are any non-religious folks who are interested in a serious discussion of this question, please inform me. cause it’s driving me nuts.