June 25 Update

• I'm enjoying the travelogue posted by my buddy Geoff, who is in Europe with the choir from Menlo Park Pres. Geoff and I met 29 years ago on a music tour with "Song of Praise", a ministry of Artists in Christian Testimony.

Geoff is the shy one on the right; Gordon is the amused one on the left; Lauren is the embarrassed one in front; and Susan is the quiet one in the middle, in this re-creation of "The Sound of Music". I can't wait for the DVD!

• Scot McKnight has a wonderful essay today on the theology soundbyte "Love the sinner, Hate the sin". He offers a much more satisfying alternative. It's something after which he titled both his book and his blog: The Jesus Creed - Love God and love your neighbor as yourself.

• I led worship yesterday and we had a great time recreating the Newsboys' song "Wherever we Go". I was playing that reggae-influenced offbeat strat guitar - albeit on a keyboard. The theme - the Christian life is a life of letting joy and celebration go on display, and the blessings God pours into the life that follows Him. Sort of an updated Isaiah 55. Trees of the field clapping their hands isn't that different from squirrels smiling and waving, I guess. we had fun and the congregation were very delighted with the result - people had great joy at the end of the service as we concluded with Paul Baloche's "All the Earth will Sing Your Praises". (Paul wrote a great second verse that isn't on this linked recording, but we always do it):

No one, no name can rise above You Lord,

One hope, one light that shines forevermore,

Your kingdom in heaven and on earth,

Your children stand to sing of Your great worth.

We also taught our congregation, for the seond week, a new (to us) Chris Tomlin song called "How can I keep from singing?" It's the lead song right now on his website. We enjoyed hearing His song "Indescribable" on the evening news last week - when it was used to wake up the crew of the space station. Pretty amazing to hear that declaration of faith in the creator who placed the starts in the sky and knows them by name, when you're a little closer to them, I should think.

• Today is workday #1 for ElenaClaire and the rest of the kids and adults at the Valdosta workcamp. I bet she's hot and sweaty right about now, but probably just got off the worksite.

• Yesterday we had the fun of reconnecting via email with her Kindergarten teacher, Lynn Willis. He and his wife were delightful people. The exchange of emails made me miss their friendship.

• Finally, spent a couple hours last night picking fresh blueberries with Alicia, Miles, Tamara and Zach. Sweet and delicious - the fruit, and company and the activity

June 21 Update

• The Houston Theater District is ranked second, only behind New York City, for the number of theater seats in a concentrated downtown area, and Houston is one of only five cities in the United States with permanent professional resident companies in all of the major performing arts disciplines of opera, ballet, music, and theater.

In this second-only-to-Broadway district, one of the most significant facilities is the Hobby Center for the Performing Arts. Our family was there a few months back to see "Seven Bride for Seven Brothers". Alicia and I will be there on July 1 to see "Sweet Charity" with friends Andy and Lanetta. But we may be back again on the other side of the curtain next year. "How to Succeed" had such a successful run that we may be reprising it next June, onstage at the Hobby Center. I did have a friend tape three production numbers at Final Dress Rehearsal, which you can watch here: The opening number; "A Secretary is not a Toy", and the smash closer, "Brotherhood of Man".

• I've just tried something that is absolutely cool & being the geek that I am. I've got it all set up, it's called SpinVox & it turns voicemail left at my cell phone into email that come to me in my inbox. You gotta try this thing.

(By the way, I didn't type any of the preceding paragraph. I left it as voice mail for myself and then copied it out of the resulting email and pasted it here. It even interpreted "gotta" accurately!)

• ElenaClaire will be among nearly 80 who leave on Saturday for the annual youth trip. This year it's a mission and rebuilding trip to Valdosta, Georgia. For the last 3 years, she's been part of these trips, and one of us has gone along as an adult leader. This year, her final trip, she makes without us. She'll be fine...we all will.

Valdosta, the birthplace of Doc Holliday, is a modern Southern town with a big heart-in a world where too many people just look the other way. The citizens of Valdosta are determined to fix the homes of their less fortunate neighbors. The entire community has made a commitment to eliminate all substandard housing by the year 2020. It's an amazing opportunity to help with this, tackling projects like…replacing rotten siding for an elderly widow, giving a disabled man the gift of mobility with a wheelchair ramp, fixing rickety front steps for a single parent with low income. Or, boosting a struggling family's self-esteem by making their house look like a million bucks with a bright new coat of paint. The City of Valdosta and Group Workcamps received the Community Development National Achievement Award for the Workcamp here in 2006!

June 9 Update

June 9

Last night was opening night for "How to Succeed..." By almost any measure it was a smash success. There were a few gaffes, but they were minor, minor, minor. Alicia and the kids attended and LOVED it, as did the whole packed house.

This shot is from the end of the show stopping production number "Brotherhood of Man". I had a friend videotape the final dress rehearsal of this and two other numbers, which I'll edit and put up later this week.

I forgot to mention in my post about the Grad party that between songs, I announced that the event had special significance for me because it was the eve of a momentous anniversary: the next day represented 10,000 days of marriage for myself and Alicia. (A simple excel spreadsheet makes it very easy to track such things and surprise Alicia with dates of unexpected significance because they count days instead of years. There are two more surprising dates coming up this year, but I won't reveal them yet). I then sang Van Morrison's song "Have I told you lately that I love you".

We've begun plans to spend a three day vacation in Corpus Christi - a place the kids and I have never been and Alicia hasn't seen since childhood. We're told it's a delightful beach town. That will probably be July 9-11, after ElenaClaire's opera. If you know Corpus and can suggest places to go, stay, eat, etc. we'd love your feedback.