Now

A brief rundown of what my life looks like these days. Last updated September 1, 2023.

I realize that for a page that’s supposed to be all about what I’m doing “now,” it’s now very now-ish.

I just wrapped up the site’s 7K Giveaway, which I held in order to commemorate the site’s 7,000th post back in July. The winners have all been selected and notified, and I’ll be sending out the prizes shortly.

This giveaway just happened to coincide with a giveaway we were running on Christ and Pop Culture for Kaitlyn Schiess’ new book, The Ballot and the Bible, which I reviewed earlier in August. It’s definitely thought-provoking, particularly some of the insights she brings to bear concerning Jesus’ famous “Render unto Caesar” statement, which has been used to justify all sorts of political viewpoints (e.g., not paying taxes).

All of our kids are back in school. Two of our kids are doing a hybrid of public school and homeschool, and I deeply appreciate my wife’s willingness to shoulder that responsibility. We are, by no means, anti-public school; public education is one of this country’s great assets and yes, teachers should be paid approximately a bajillion times more than what they currently receive. At the same time, we wanted to take advantage of this time during middle school to explore some other avenues.

This is also the first year in a long time where we have no soccer. On the one hand, I don’t miss the expenses, the constant driving around, and the stress of getting kids ready for games and practices. On the other hand, I miss the camaraderie and friendships that we’ve developed over the years.

As I mentioned in the last “Now” page update, I’m now serving as a church elder. There have been some moments of sweetness (e.g., praying with people in the congregation who are in need of spiritual support and visiting shut-ins) as well as moments of darkness and heaviness when you have to help people confront their own sin and brokenness, and try and walk them through it. And there’s also just a lot of mundanity, of handling the everyday business of keeping a church afloat (e.g., budgets).

This page was inspired by Derek Sivers and Canned Dragons.