I was really proud of them – despite being mostly 7 year olds (10 of the 14 will be back next year), we finished 12-2.

• Friday (my usual day off) – Jennifer and I caught up on all the weeds in our garden and planted pumpkin & cantaloupe, then we did a “field trip” with the boys (miniature golfing) and finished the day with Gavin’s baseball game in Kickapoo, improving our record to 11-1.
• Saturday – big party with friends @ my parents house in the pool.  8 racks of ribs…delicious.  Great people.
• Sunday – I’ve been fearing my July 4th talk for several months.  It took a lot out of me.  Fireworks were great…Peoria does a fantastic job for a smallish city in a budget crisis.
• Monday – I’m no spring chicken anymore.  I was TIRED and LAZY most of the day… then finished the day with Caleb’s 8pm baseball game in Princeville.  We staged a dramatic last inning rally to win 9-5, to move our record up to 5-6.  (In our defense, we’re mostly 9-year olds in a 9-10 year old league.  Next year we should be TOUGH.

Here’s what gets me.  10 years ago, when I was a youth pastor… this kind of activity would have been NORMAL, and it didn’t faze me a bit.  These days, it exhausts me!  I still feel tired today… and for the first time this season, I’m starting to get tired of baseball games every night… but we only have this week for Gavin and about 2 more weeks for Caleb.

I’ve been thinking about this idea of being “busy.”  Here are a series of random thoughts about being “busy.”

• Life is full right now, for sure.  On top of finishing out a budget year at church and budgeting for the new year, hiring a new staff person, doing premarital counseling & weddings, etc…. on top of all that stuff, our two oldest boys are in baseball, and have games 4 nights a week.
• I don’t think I would change anything right now.  I love what’s happening at church, I love baseball, I love coaching the boys’ teams.  What I miss out on during this season is time with friends, time to read, time to write, to exercise… all stuff for me.  And while I miss those things right now, it will all come back when this season is over.
• The paradox of this season is that I’m starting my days earlier, and getting home later.  I think I read about 2 pages of the novel I’m working on right now before I fell asleep.  (This is why I read “non-literary” novels now.)
• The television is hardly on at our house, it seems.  This is probably a good thing.
• I think of “busy” as an inner state of hurriedness.  While my schedule is quite full right now, I don’t feel hurried or rushed on the inside.  I may be sprinting on the outside, but inside, everything is calm, and fairly focused.
• As much as the people-pleaser in me wants to be everything to everyone, it’s just not possible.  I probably just need to get over it.

Obviously, at 16 kids get driver’s licenses and at 18 they get to vote and that sort of thing – but I want more chances to affirm and celebrate that growing up is a good thing.

One of those rights of passage, that we started with our oldest is the first Cubs game on or near the 7th birthday.  So, a couple weeks ago, on a Thursday, I road tripped with Gavin to Chicago for his first game (his birthday was in March, so we picked a late April game).

The Cubs got trounced, we saw Fukudome hit a grand slam, it was a

beautiful day, and we met the new billionaire owner of the Cubs, Tom Ricketts.  Best part of the day – I spent all day with one of my favorite people… my son Gavin.

When it starts to thunder (“dunda”), you preemptively go to his room and bring him back to your bed.  Not because he’s crying, but because we’ll only have a two-year-old in the house for a couple more days (he’s 3 on Sunday), and it’s fun to have him in bed with us for a little while.

When he’s in your bed, you tickle him mercilessly because his laugh is contagious.  Then you send him back to bed.

The result has been that our boys are now in love with karate and are kicking and punching each other even more than the usual amount of kicking and punching that one would expect in a household with four boys.  But this conversation at dinner on Thursday night took the cake:

Son: Do you know who the nicest person in the world is?

Jennifer and I: No, who?

Son:  Well, besides mom and dad and God… Mr. Miyagi.

To borrow a line, “The state of the marriage is strong.”

In 14 years, I’ve gotten chubby.  She’s even more beautiful.

My Grandma Betty’s obituary appeared in the Journal Star today. You can see the online version here.

Today, just after 2pm, Grandma Betty passed away.

She’s been quite sick for some time, and we were warned that the end was coming.  This morning, I got a call from my Aunt informing me that she had slipped into a coma and it didn’t look like she would last the day.  After lunch with a friend, I drove to Glasford.  She breathed her last breath, surrounded by her most of her family, about 10 minutes after I arrived.

All that to say, please forgive me if I don’t return emails, phone calls, messages, etc., for the next couple of days.

Boy, was I nervous that morning.  We really didn’t know how many people would show up, except for the 3o or so on the launch team.  Two years later, we’re over twice the size, we’re twice the staff, and we bring in enough money to pay the bills.  But more than that, we have ministries that are doing good for the poor in Peoria in Jesus’ name.  And there are people who are more connected to other believers, than they’ve ever been in their life.  And there’s an energy and excitement about what we’re doing, that I’ve never been a part of before.

Birthdays and anniversarys for me are usually a time to get a reflective – to look back, think about how I’ve changed over the last year and look ahead to where I’m going.  I won’t bore you with all that stuff, but I do want to say this: I read a book a couple years ago, and it said that the biggest “perk” of being a pastor is relationships.  I’d never thought about that a whole lot,  but after the last two years of leading Imago, I would concur.

I love the people at our church.  We have such interesting people – and by nature of my position – I get to hang out and talk to so many of them.  In the last two years, I’ve met a lot of people that are new to me, and many of my friendships have gone so much deeper – and my life is richer for it.  And it’s good.  And I’m thankful.