the Eclectic Soul

Why I Love This Man...

Back in the early nineties I was introduced to the writings of Brennan Manning when someone gave me a copy of the Ragamuffin Gospel.  Needless to say, that book transformed my life to such a degree that when my first son was born, I named him Brennan.

If you haven't ever read anything by Brennan Manning, I suggest with everything that I am that you go and buy everything that he's ever read!

Listen to what he writes in his latest book, The Furious Longing of God:

"Jesus said you are to love one another as I have loved you, a love that will probably lead to the bloody, anguished gift of yourself; a love that forgives seventy times seven, that keeps no score of wrongdoing. Jesus said this, this love, is the one criterion, the sole norm, the standard of discipleship in the New Israel of God.  He said you're going to be identified as his disciples, not because of your church-going, Bible-toting, or song-singing.  No, you'll be identified as his by one sign only: the deep and delicate respect for one another, the cordial love impregnated with reverence for the sacred dimension of the human personality of the mysterious substitution of Christ for the Christian...if we as a Christian community took seriously that the sign of our love for Jesus is our love for one another, I am convinced it would change the world.  We're denying to the world the one witness Jesus asked for: Love  one another as I've loved  you (John 15.12)."

--Brennan Manning, The Furious Longing of God, pp. 86, 89

I Love My Wife...

My wife is red hot! I mean it steaming. And it's not just her smokin' good looks.

Yesterday being the premier hallmark holiday that we call Valentines Day, my wife, as Emril would say, "turned it up a notch [OK, OK get your minds out of the gutter].

She planned such a special day for me.

When I called her earlier in the day she said that she was planning something special for dinner. Now, we've been goin' organic and primarily vegetarian so I wasn't quite sure what "special" meant. Eggplant surprise? Tofurky?

Well, I got home late [which is an all too usual occurrence] and the kids were in bed, the table was set, the candles were lit and on the table was a big ol' steak, baked potato and beans...a real mans meal. It was sooo awesome just to sit across the table from the beautiful woman who I don't deserve.

Now that would have been amazing enough, but today, I went to the chiropractor and the receptionist says to me, "I have a note for you." She hands me a baby blue envelope that says "honey" on the front, to which I reply, "I hope this is from my wife!"

Relax, it was. She had made an appointment for me to receive at 45 minute masssage....45 MINUTES!!!.

Tonight we were eating a meager meal of beans and rice, and as I was dabbing on my favorite condiment, yes, you guessed it, Franks Redhot, I looked across the table at my beautiful wife and thought...

She is so awesome and yes she is also...