11-25-08

Well, since I made the decision to start using proper punctuation in my  blog posts (specifically capitalization), and also due to the fact that the biographical info here had been obsolete (AND poorly punctuated) for quite some time, I decided to update…

I was born and raised in the tiny village of Jersey City, NJ.  Wow.  First sentence, and I lied already.  We aren’t off to a good start, are we.  Jersey City is actually one of the most densely populated cities in the country, but I was born and raised there nonetheless.  At the tender age of 17, I had a black hood thrown over my head and I was stuffed into the trunk of a car and driven at over 90 MPH down winding dirt roads for 8 days until I was pushed from that speeding vehicle in front of an empty house in Jackson, MS.  Haha.  You caught me in another one.  But I’ll tell you, they couldn’t have traumatized me any more than they did had it gone down just like that.  They being my parents.  My parents were not mean people, they did what they had to do.  My dad was offered a promotion that he couldn’t turn down.  And quite frankly, I honestly believe that had I not been uprooted and moved to the buckle of the Bible Belt at the beginning of my senior year of high school, I don’t believe I would have ever become a Christian, or lived as long as I have.  My Calvinist friends would vehemently disagree with that last statement… if I actually had any Calvinist friends.

After living in Jackson for about 8 years, I moved to Mandeville, Louisiana, which began a love affair with south Louisiana that endures to this very day.  I returned to Jackson 6 years later, and after a year of that mess, I got married (for the second time… we won’t even go into the first one) and we returned to my beloved New Orleans, where I graduated from Seminary in the Spring of 1994.  I served at 4 different churches as a youth minister all across southeast LA, and started my own paint contracting business.  For reasons that remain a mystery to me to this very day, I made a third foray back to the Magnolia State, where I served for the very last time on staff at a local church.  In 2002 we picked up stakes (and all the rest of the junk we’d accumulated) and moved to Monticello, AR to work at the Arkansas Baptist Home for Children, a place that I felt pretty sure I would never leave.  I had no grand illusions of retirement, as I don’t think the money would hold out through the first 6 months.  The plan was, and continues to be, to die on the job.  That will probably be kind of traumatic for the kids, but it is what it is.  I envisioned being buried out in the horse pasture on the back side of the Children’s Home property, right next to 3 of our cats who have preceded us in death, but God had other plans (well, I’m pretty sure His plan is still for us to die and all…)

In July of 2008, we were called away from Monticello to the Louisiana Baptist Children’s Home in Monroe.  I cannot divulge the details of our assignment here, but just know it’s pretty awesome… and more than a little chaotic.  We’re surrounded by majestic oak trees and a bevy (or maybe even a passel.. whichever one is bigger) of pecan trees.  Walking across campus and getting bonked on the head by acorns and pecans is a way of life that is something you would have to experience to fully grasp the scope and magnitude of it all.

If you never get any further updates on this biographical sketch, just know that the whole dying on the job thing worked out for me.

The blog: It deals mostly with issues social, political and spiritual, as seen through the lens of my relationship with Jesus Christ. Other times, its just plain dopey. Enjoy the ride, keep your arms and head inside the vehicle when moving, and no littering, please.  The fines in this state are unbelievable.