Witty Witness

My wife and I went on our first date in January of 1996. Culture sure has changed a lot since my mom drove us to see Grumpier Old Men at the Grove Theater in Oak Ridge. Nervous and armed with only a learners permit, mom was the necessary but appreciated third wheel. Culture sure has changed since then, indeed. Perhaps in some ways our culture has changed for the better, and arguably in countless ways it's changed for the worse. One thing I am personally glad to see an end to...Glamour Shots. Amber, like a lot of girls at the time, rushed to the franchise store to be transformed and to have her photo taken. When Amber showed me the photos from a Glamour Shots shoot taken on her birthday a few years prior to our first date, I remember thinking how over the top the wardrobes were, but how grown up and beautiful she looked. Sporting big hair, makeup, and a denim studded jacket she tugged on at the collar, she looked like an 80's movie star. Glamour Shots opened its first sto...

I very much enjoy writing. Thinking back on my childhood, I suppose I always have. It wasn't until the last couple of years however that I've actually put pen to paper, and fingers to keyboard, to formally share my thoughts with others. I think my hesitation has always been that I was never a great English student. I always felt inadequate and inept in that regard. Some may say for good reason. I misspelled words, my penmanship was horrific, and I couldn't properly conjugate a sentence, even if my life depended on it.  I've come to learn though that words both spoken and typed, even if imperfect in structure, if genuinely coming from the heart, are powerful. As words are often used on social media, they can degrade and demean, but words lovingly spoken and shared can also lift up and give hope to others as well. I would argue that's what conjunctions often do in the Bible. Thank God for conjunctions. "Coordinating conjunctions," as I understan...

As I parked my car outside the polling place, I saw him out of the corner of my eye. There's no telling how many elections he's seen come and go. Crossing the street, his feet inched along beneath his walker, bit by bit. His feet never left the ground, instead he shuffled them forward and backwards like a cross country skier. A cross country skier moving in slow motion. His once tall and healthy frame was doubled over at the waist. After all, life is hard on the body. The grimace on his face proved to onlookers just how painful the process was, at least for a man his age. Finally reaching his car, he began the process of returning home. He pulled the driver's door closed and away he went. I stopped by the early voting location that day around 12:30pm. I had just finished eating the two fish/two chicken combo at Captain Ds, and my stomach was already angry with me for my dining decision. For the older gentleman above however, casting a vote that day was more than running...