shawnw

Shane Claiborne  has written a fantastic article on how we can take care of each other this Independence Day. Here’s a snippet:

23) Visit a worship service where you will be a minority. Invite someone to dinner at your house, or have dinner with someone there if they invite you.

24) Confess something you have done wrong to someone and ask forgiveness.

25) Serve in a homeless shelter. For extra credit, go back to that shelter and eat or sleep there and allow yourself to be served.

26) Go through a local thrift store and drop $1 bills in random pockets of clothing being sold.

You can find his whole list here.

Click here to post some of your ideas in the comments. Go!

My wife and I try to get away once a year to Chicago for at least a couple days. It’s like our home away from home. We spend as much time as we can downtown, taking in the sights and sounds, hoping it’ll hold us over until our next visit.

It rarely does.

If someone offered me a job in Chicago, I’d take it in a heartbeat. There’s just something about that city!

Anyway, we’ll be staying at Aloft and visiting Gordon Biersch Brewery, IKEA (of course), Giordano’s, The Bongo Room and more. We also plan on doing the Chicago Championship Gowalla trip on Saturday.

A quick note about Giordano’s… we’d love for you to join us! Brad and Scott will be there so feel free to stop by. We’ll be eating at 6pm CDT at the Giordano’s on W. Jackson Blvd.

So, how can you keep up or connect with Wendy and I?

• Follow her or I on Twitter
• Watch my Posterous and Twitpic for pics
• Friend her or I on Facebook

Have a great holiday weekend!

Raise your hand if you’re a gadget junkie.

Yeah, me too.

Remember when you got that awesome new gadget that you just couldn’t get enough of? You know the one. You ran the battery down by noon every day because you just couldn’t put it down.

Everyone you knew heard about (and probably saw) your new gadget. How many times did you say, "dude (or dudette), you gotta get one of these?" Too many times to count, right?

It didn’t take long before everyone you knew – friends, family members, coworkers – heard about your new favorite toy.

Why is it, then, that we can share all about our newest little obsession but we can’t share about the saving power of Jesus? Isn’t he more valuable than anything we can own or hold in this world?

Thanks to Lend Me Your Eyes for the image.

Refute it. I dare you.

Not that I was ever in doubt, mind you.

But she graduated high school.

Kelsie has had her fair share of ups and downs.

Some by chance.
Some self inflicted.

But she’s growing. And her mom and I are seeing it, watching it unfold in real time, right before our eyes.

It’s times like these where I wish time would slow to a crawl.

Just so we could sit in it, before she’s fully a woman, and enjoy the last light of innocence that immediate post-high school offers.

Your mom and I love you, kid.

-Dad