The Most Embarrasing Thing My Wife's Ever Seen Me Do...

As my Aunt Mary so perfectly put, God has a sense of humor.

As the older of two in my family, I have the supreme honor of being able to tell embarrassing stores about my younger brother without any fear of retribution. I often share, when the subject comes up, how terrified my little bro is of any kind of flying bug. Flies, bees, even mosquitoes. I stretch out and then demonstrate the "Andrew Flail." I'm sure you've seen me do it before, and if not, just ask.

After telling the story and doing the move for my Aunt & Uncle, I headed home after a long day. As is our routine, I let the dogs out the back door to relieve themselves. When I opened the door, several moths were startled and flew around our exterior floodlights. I didn't want to have to round them up later, so I reached for the screen door, and then it happened.

Have you ever seen a cicada killer? If the hairs on your neck aren't standing up right now, you definitely haven't. They look like this. Bugs are definitely biggest in the south. Well as I was closing the screen door, one buzzed past my head and into my house.

As it turns out, I am not scared of flying insects. Instead, I am mortally terrified of huge flying insects. That is the only explanation I can offer for the reactions that followed.

I started screaming. I might have swore a few times. Rachel, who was changing in the bedroom asked what happened. I screamed back at her to stay in the bedroom. She asked why. I yelled "A Cicada Killer just flew in our house!". So she came out to investigate. Did I ever mention my wife is fearless? She grew up in Indiana, so it figures...

I had lost sight of the monster and immediately found the biggest magazine I could and rolled it up to defend myself. This, as it turns out, was a terrible, terrible mistake.

So we moved slowly around the living room trying to find it before it found us. And then it took flight. It flew from the couch, up to the ceiling and over the fan. I backed up against the wall and immediately started to panic and scream. Rachel asked "Where is it" and I immediately shouted back "ARE YOU SERIOUS? IT'S ENORMOUS!!!"

Well it flew down between the blades of the ceiling fan, hovered about a foot off the ground, and then made a B-Line (no pun intended) for me. I swatted as hard as I could ... One ... Two ... Three times, never connecting once. And then it landed. On me. More specifically, on my ... zipper area.

I backed up into the wall and shouted at the top of my lungs, tried to brush it off, and then I swung again ... One ... Two ... Three times (breaking the standing lamp next to me in the process), never connecting with the insect once. I did, however, connect all three times ... with my zipper area. The pain caused me to drop the unfortunately heavy magazine on the ground. The wasp flew down to the carpet and landed. My fearless wife ran over, grabbed the magazine, and then pounded the critter into the carpet. She then dropped the magazine, picked up her sandal and continued to beat the bug until she was sure it was dead.

I hope that you, the reader, take the following lessons away from this tragic and painful story:

1) Be nice to your siblings.
2) Don't make fun of the fears of others.
3) Only grab the lightest periodical available when dispatching household insects.

What Disc Golf Taught Me About Christianity this Week...

I play disc golf. Yes, it's a sport. No, you may not judge me.

There are some pretty amazing courses here in Charlotte, so I get to play without having to travel too far. This year, I decided I wanted to get more distance out of my drives, so I practiced a different grip. Yes, there are different grips. Shut up.

Ever since I started playing, I have used a control grip for everything ... drives, mid-range and putts. That resulted in more control, but less distance. So this year, I'm changing to a power grip. As the name implies, there is more power, but less control.

So I went out to Killborne Park here in Charlotte, and I made the decision to switch to the power grip. And something odd happened...

The third time I went to drive off the tee, mid throw, MY HAND switched from a power grip to the control grip. At first I was surprised, then confused, and then angry. How dare my own hand disobey ME! It's MY hand!

The problem is, that's what I trained it to do. Out of sheer muscle memory, my hand simply did what it has always done. Regardless what I wanted it to do, it was going to try to go on auto-pilot and throw the way I learned to throw. Unlearning is a frustrating process.

I'm convinced the soul has a "muscle memory" too. It's in this place that Christian disciplines like prayer, personal worship and devotional time become essential. If you teach your soul to live with them, eventually they will become auto-pilot. But if you teach your soul to live without them, don't be surprised when your soul argues with you to do something different. And the thing of it is, you can't even really get mad, because it's just doing what you trained it to do...

A Bit of Honesty

I don't blog very often. It's for a variety of reasons, but it's something I want to change. I happen to like blogging. I've run into a few roadblocks, so this post is an attempt to clear the air and move right past them.

First of all, I spend too much time deliberating about how I should come across in each post. "What do I want these readers to think about me?" Well, I'm sorry to disappoint you, but despite how I try, I'm not a philosopher. I'm not a political analyst. I'm not a successful businessman.

What I am is a 30 year old pastor and husband who went through some very trying times (including a church split), lost all interest in the church as a whole, went through a period of depression, and then came out of it with the help of an amazing wife and a loving, gracious, and patient church. So when I write, that's what you're going to get. That's my filter. That's my history. And if I live as though it never happened, then the lessons I learned during that time would be wasted. So no more denial. I hope that's cool with you.

Moving on.

Also, because I'm a perfectionist, long blogs are exhausting. Revising. Linking. Fact-checking. I have 10 great blog ideas, but the thought of them is completely debilitating, because I feel like I have to get them perfect. Well I don't. So my blogs are going to be shorter and to the point.

So here's to short & to the point...