I've had these two scenes from movies in my mind (for some reason), and I cannot for the life of me figure out what movies they come from.

1. Someone is threatening a man that they are going to kill his wife and children. The man kills his entire family himself, shocking the others and taking their leverage away. I seem to remember this taking place in an apartment with some orangish/red lighting.

2. A man walks into a security booth of some kind, which requires him to pass through a metal detector. The man places his cup of coffee on top of the metal detector, walks through without arousing suspicion, then reaches into the cup of coffee, from which he pulls out a weapon of some kind (I think it was a tiny gun).

Any help?

That is one of the first words that comes to mind when I think about my wife, Kari. She is so hospitable to others, so caring for Braden and me. There is no one like her. Over the course of our life together, my insecurity has slowly melted away as I rest in her warm embrace. She is my beloved, and I hers.

She makes me laugh. What a gift.

Happy 3rd Anniversary, Sweetheart. I love you.

...and that's why I'd love for you to visit this site and vote for the t-shirt my friend designed, the one that says "Everbody Loves Ramen."

Thanks.

Oh yeah, and this is what a bumper sticker that I saw today said: "I'm pretty sure when Jesus said to love your enemies he meant 'Don't kill them.'"

So, to celebrate the Cardinals' 10th World Series championship, Kari has given me two choices: I either have to dye my soul patch red, a la Scott Spiezio, or dye all the hair on my head blonde, in honor of MVP David Eckstein.

I decided I'd do whatever you all thought I should do.

...Capital Punishment?

I just returned from Kansas City, where I reconnected with some great friends. The purpose for my trip there was to hear Len Sweet in a one-day seminar at MNU, and to meet with Debi Nixon, the small groups pastor at the Church of the Resurrection. Debi gave me some meaningful insights, but the time with Len was...well...Sweet.

I'm going to post the notes I took on here, under the comments section on this post. This is either some sadistic way to get people to comment on my blog, or the kind way of my not making you read all the way through it on this front page (I took six pages of notes). Anyway, they'll be there for your perusing. I hope you can understand my disjointed note-taking method.

The Cardinals series with the Mets is all tied at 2, and it looks like rain in the forecast for tonight. All things considered, I'm really happy the Cardinals made it this far yet again.

Please say a prayer today for some dear friends who have unthinkable memories associated with October 15.

Last night in a church van the clock said 11:11, and a friend tapped it and made a wish. Hilarious. It reminded me of one of my favorite Caedmon's lyrics, and it got me to thinking about all of my other favorite Caedmon's lyrics. Here's a brief list:

It seems I've misplaced my faith, 'cause it's 11:12, and still nothin's changed.

The only problem I have with these mysteries is they're so mysterious.

I'm so scared of being alone that I forgot what house I live in.

Give me purity and give me continence...But, oh no, not yet.

All things considered, we're both certifiably insane.

You are no more than a piece of glass.

I get turned around, and I mistake my happiness for blessing.

It's like I ripped my arm right off and left it, and now I guess it wasn't mine at all.

You can read all about it, about boy-meets-girl, and then he screws the whole thing up, just like always.

When everything looks pretty, it's easy to think you've found the way, but it's all just a big masquerade.

For better or for worse, we both know I'm the wrong man for the job.

I've done the work of Sisyphus, thinking that I could get over this hill.

I may never find the sleep I've lost all feeling in my hands and feet may touch the ground but my mind's somewhere north of here.

I spent the last three days of last week in Chicago, at Willow's Small Groups conference. There were five keynote speakers, and three of them were mediocre at best. But the other two...well, they were Donald Miller and Erwin McManus. And that was fine by me. One of my favorite thoughts from Erwin is the fact that we shouldn't be trying to get people into church, get them into our programs, etc. What we really should be trying to do is give people life. This was my favorite quote from Miller: "Sometimes God says to me, 'You make a peanut butter and jelly sandwich, and I'll run the cosmos.'" Both men said things I needed to hear and things that reminded me of my vision for small groups ministry. I truly long for BCN to experience authentic, genuine, biblical community. It's going to be tough.

Jason went along on the trip with me, which was a lot of fun. He reads this, so I'm really just kissing up to him, but it was great spending some time with him and getting to know him a little better.

I recommend reading this article, which was published in Time magazine a couple weeks ago. Dave B. linked an article on his blog which alluded to this article. I concur with his analysis. Jason's message yesterday in EPIC was on materialism, and it included the scary quote from Terrell Owens' publicist last week in the wake of his pseudo-suicide attempt: "Terrell has twenty five million reasons for living." Wow.

There's also something interesting happening on October 15. We're looking into the possibility of organizing a Dayton gathering here at BCN that day. There are two gatherings scheduled in Ohio, one in Cincinnati and one in Columbus. An interesting method of going after a worthy cause, to be sure.

And the focus of Nazarene Compassionate Ministry Magazine's last issue was social justice. It contains some interesting stuff. You can subscrube to this magazine (I think it's free) here.

And the Cardinals ended up making the postseason after all. Baseball is a great game of hope. And hope is a good thing...

Hope things are going well for all of you. Really interesting reading today at James', Corbin's, Brandon's, and the Whartons' blogs, all linked to the right, not to mention some great fun pictures of my sister and her husband (notice the evil eyebrow look!) at her blog. Peace to all...

...is a meltdown of epic proportions.

Well, having kicked most of the sickness, Kari and I hopped in the car and headed to St. Louis last week to see our first game in the new Busch Stadium. It's a very nice facility. And, as Mike Shannon would say, old Abner was right on duty that night. Pujols came to bat with two outs in the bottom of the ninth against Brad Lidge, whom he victimized in the playoffs last year, and the Cardinals trailing by one. Two runners were on. Pujols doubled down the left field line, scoring both runs, and giving the Cards a walk off winner. Kari had the presence of mind to take this fantastic picture during the excitement:

What a great first experience at the new ball park. I only wish my dad could have joined me!

I also ran across this beautiful tidbit: Pujols has struck out fewer times this entire season than Adam Dunn has struck out in his last 115 at bats. Ouch.

Had a very enjoyable lunch with Obadiah yesterday, and even got a brief phone call from Doug. (Their blogs are both over there ---->) Obadiah and his wife, Alesha, have a three month old baby named Aurora. He had recently posted how well things were going with Aurora until he bragged on her, at which point she returned to her yelling and screaming and crying incessantly at night. Well, I (the ever experienced father) encouraged him yesterday, telling him things would only get better, and bragging on how rare those times are with Braden these days. You can guess what happened next. Right on cue, Braden woke up four times last night with long, loud cries. Amazing.

Not much more of depth today, just wanted to post some updates. Hope things are well for all of you who make your way to read this every now and then...