House on the Rock

My original title was “Measuring How Much Longer Your Conversation Will Continue By The Amount of Burnability Left in Bonfire Logs.” For the sake of brevity, we’ll call that the abstract. I remember working as a student ministries intern at Rock Point. We had a weekly Bible Study which was typically well-attended but seldom fronted much depth of conversation. Pastor Jeff suggested hosting a meeting at my house, hinting that maybe a bonfire would instigate better conversation than weeks prior. I wasn’t totally sure what he meant, until sixteen sweaty students encircled an inferno that would miraculously externalize the hills and valleys of their young lives. Something about staring into flames broke down barriers: kids began to talk about sin and struggles, loneliness and loss, and we blazed (not literally) through pages of Scripture as the Holy Spirit consumed us.  All of a sudden, I was sold. I still don’t know what it is about bonfires that allow the deepest parts of our souls to...

I think in order to combat the looming despair that I can’t actually ascribe measurable value to this list, maybe I’ll conclude with a thorough justification of why certain items beat out others. Or maybe I won’t, and that will have to be okay with you.  That is what I say to myself a lot when composing Sticky Note To-Do Lists. My school laptop has a perfectly suitable place for such a list, so I can keep it on hand at all times and regularly celebrate both the triumphant victory of crossed-off items and also acutely aware of the items yet to accomplish. I love to-do lists. I get it from my mom. It’s surely genetic that we both will write things that we’ve already done simply for the pleasure of crossing it off. You wouldn’t believe the mundane and meticulous tasks I have written simply because I know that once they’re crossed off, I’ll feel like a champion: Shower Play Wordle Read paper Wash stain  And the list goes on. I love lists. But the specificity of sticky note to do l...

Joe (the crushing but cute statistical analyst I married) has found a flaw - not fatal but probably close - in my method. How are these rankings legitimate? How can I prove that Friday Night Lights truly are better than Olive Garden Breadsticks? And my answer to that is that I can’t. Not really, anyway. Subjectively, with words, I can probably try. But there’s no mathematical algorithm to express why one surpasses the other. Much to the dismay of my number-loving husband, you’re just gonna have to take my word for it.  The sixth-place item is a 27-mile rail trail that extends from downtown Indianapolis to the cornfields and horse farms of Sheridan, Indiana. It is a paved trail that crosses creeks, subscends highways, and traces walkers and bikers from the bustle of Broad Ripple to the serenity of golden-grass plans up north. It’s a path that Joe and I have regularly traversed -- to Chipotle in our dating days, multiple runs during our wed-shred engagement, and now (farther north) a...

  I’ll not deny it: I suffer from seasonal depression. Winter brings the blues and I struggle with the early darkness, constant coldness, and overwhelming trapped-insideness that consumes the winter months. January was especially hard as it was accompanied by not only a stressful start of the semester, but also the Whole30. Any joy I might have found from baking cookies or going out to eat was pretty much reduced to dates and green peppers. So it was a beautiful gift, one dreary winter night, to be walking on our apartment complex treadmill (the only treadmill, mind you, which had to be shared by every exercise-striving resident) and to stumble across the TV show Friday Night Lights. I had the place to myself -- it was so cold and slushy that I didn’t anticipate having to hammer out a 20-minute sprint before having to share with the next person in line. I hit play. I had time. 30 minutes in, I couldn’t have been more thankful to be the only person in that workout room. (Spoiler ale...