As I sat there, waiting, watching parents cut off other parents, honking horns at each other, picking up their loved ones, I started wondering what each of these kids would become someday. Would the red headed girl laughing with her friends become a business woman, running some kind of successful enterprise? Would the young man sitting off all by himself become the next Bill Gates and start a new technology empire? Would any of these kids end up crashing their lives on the rocks of bad relationships, substance abuse, and fade away before they ever got a chance to live? Would many of them just come out "normal" in society's eyes -- because that is the path of least resistance?

And then I thought about that phrase: "what would they become?" What a strange, permanent sort of phrase that is. As if we as human beings start out young, get educated, and then "become" whatever it is we are trying to be - doctors, lawyers, truck drivers, plumbers ... and then we're done. How tragic life would be if that were really the case. And what a tragedy it is for people who do stop growing, changing, and learning at some point.]]> Fri, 19 Sep 2008 05:20:52 -0700 http://virb.com/atc/posts/text/832323 http://virb.com/atc/posts/text/821819 When After the Chase couldn't fly away
To Shreveport is where they had wished to go
To be with a special group that they know
But blasted Ike reared it's head
And dreams of seeing friends seemed to be dead
And now here we are so sad and blue
St. Paul's EYC we're so lonely without you!]]> Sat, 13 Sep 2008 02:46:10 -0700 http://virb.com/atc/posts/text/821819 http://virb.com/atc/posts/text/770014 here for the article. And if you really want to know what it was like that night, you can watch it here. I'll try to post the other video of our rendition of "La Bamba" soon:)

Jenna]]> Wed, 13 Aug 2008 19:41:17 -0700 http://virb.com/atc/posts/text/770014 http://virb.com/atc/posts/text/688738 I looked back on some old journal entries when I was a teenager -- all I talked about was grandiose dreams: changing the world, inventing time travel, and learning to be more like Christ to people around me. Every once in a while I would stray from these things to writing about whatever girl I thought was going to be my future wife. I haven't invented time travel or changed the world (at least that I know of) -- but I did find a wonderful wife in Jenna. Or rather she found me. Or something like that.

But contrary to popular opinion, the band that we named After the Chase has nothing to do with romance between us. It does come from an old saying the south "He chased her, until she caught him" -- but it's more of how we relate to God. We chase after truth and God, trying to find what's really out there, what made the universe, what made us -- and in the end God catches us. So if you were ever wondering, or didn't catch the meaning on our own website.

I spent my lunch time yesterday with my nieces and nephews, and talked about light sabers, star ships and teleportation. And my niece pretended to be an alien with little ear muffs on her ears. Then they had to work on their school work (they are all home schooled) and I helped them learn how to add and subtract fractions with different denominators. It was a a good day, even the school part. My sister sure has a lot of work on her hands, home schooling four children. I had fun teaching one of them about negative numbers.

I've got to say - lightsabers were definitely more fun than denominators. But lightsabers will probably never really get invented without denominators.

Nathan

Do you ever wonder what your ancestors were like? Your great, great great grandfather? Did he want to be remembered? We are so disconnected from our ancestors in the US. Unless we have an ancestor that was famous for something, then we brag about it. So many years, so many lives going by that nobody remembers. Nobody but God. I'm sure glad He makes this life worth living.

Nathan