Loring Jewelers redesign
Loring Jewelers approached Interweave Technologies about redeveloping their website. They wanted a simple website that showcased the images. Anthony Cavins did a wonderful job delivering a classic design. I added a custom post type for their events and aided in the HTML/PHP/Javascript.
The Event custom post type utilizes date fields and a custom jQuery UI datepicker to add custom fields to the posts. Events are sorted by date on the Events page. There is also a custom field for the Facebook event URL.
The Designers page displays iframe content through a Colorbox modal.
We are currently discussing adding some custom functionality to tie in Facebook, a Lookbook and concierge service.
Claborn Specialties
Claborn Specialties specializes in clothing, shoes, and fashion accessories for women, men, and children. Working with Anthony Cavins and Joni Miles Grounds, we built this site from the ground up.
Anthony designed the custom theme and logo. The site is powered by five custom post types that work in conjunction with the eShop plugin. The site also has a custom post type for events.
Missing the conversation
So…I’ve been reading a book with a group of guys for a few months now – The Naked Gospel (Buy it on Amazon; Review coming soon).
Well, not so much as reading, but discussing. I think most of us were finished reading the book sometime last year.
One of the big points that it makes is that Christians shouldn’t be holding themselves to the yardstick that is the law. We should be waiting and listening for the Holy Spirit.
I missed an opportunity to do that tonight. (Edit: Actually, it was a few weeks ago, but I wasn’t able to complete the post that night.)
I was walking from Books-A-Million, having just purchased a book about Jesus, when a man called for me as I reached my car.
“Sir…sir, I’m trying to find a way to eat some dinner tonight,” he said.
I know that I’m not perfect, and one reason that I know this is because I have little empathy and grace for those whom I see as having a choice to their condition. It’s hard to choose to be a widow or an orphan. You don’t select cancer or autoimmune disease or heart disorders for yourself. But a reasonably healthy man can find work. He chooses to live on the street and be…homeless.
But the human race was given grace, and none of us deserved it. So I pray for a softening of my heart.
Anyway, upon hearing this, I automatically think to the fact that there is a lonely $5 bill in my wallet. Yes, I could be a good person this time and give this man something to use to buy solid and/or liquid dinner.
“Hey, I do have some paper in here. Good luck finding dinner.” I said. Then, because I wanted him to know that I maybe could be doing this for the fame of Jesus, “Have a blessed night.”
And he walked away, pushing his 10-speed bike.
After I had gotten into my car, put on my seatbelt and drove away, I looked over at two restaurants within easy walking distance of where the exchange had taken place.
It was like the Holy Spirit was showing where I could have offered to take the man to eat. There, I could have taken the time to ask him about his story, maybe tell him mine, but definitely tell him why I felt compelled to buy him dinner while there’s a part of me that would prefer telling him to get a job.
Alas, there are future opportunities to listen. And grace.
Man Card Challenge status: failure
In my last published post, I talked about how I was starting a 90-day challenge. Though it hasn’t quite yet been 90 days, I’m calling the contest.
The result? I failed.
I started strong, but then I was slammed at work – 12 and 16 hour days – and I lost focus on the contest, and even in being the leader of the house.
But that’s okay. Grace abounds. I will do better in the future.
###
Since my last posting, there have been some cool things going on:
- We met John Asher (8lbs 6oz, 20in) on March 30.
- …
- Okay, so it was the coolest thing that happened, but it counts multiple times, right?
###
I guess that’s enough for right now. It’s almost time to get up and take John Asher from sleeping on my chest to his mother for his 8:30 breakfast.
A Challenge to Validate my Man Card
The Family Leadership Challenge Ninety Day Challenge
I am far from a perfect person, and one of the biggest areas in which I need to improve is my leadership/discipleship in the home. Do we read the Bible? Do we pray? Together? Yes.
Do we do so in a regular and strategic basis? No.
We do have the desire to. That’s why I’m embarking on a 90-day challenge to help me better be the spiritual leader of my household. The goals are simple:
- Pray with my wife every day.
- Pray for my wife and son every day.
- Both of us read a day’s worth of Bible every day. We’re starting out with a 30-day New Testament plan.
- Discuss the reading every day.
Why do I want to do this? Aren’t I setting up myself for failure? Maybe. But vision without goals is just a dream, and these are my goals.
Pray for me.
My face got jacked up
The day after Thanksgiving, I was helping to move a piano for my wife. We rented a covered trailer for the move.
I was standing in the back of a rented trailer, just starting to lift up on the piano when the trailer came off of the truck’s hitch. The top of the trailer slammed into the back of my head, propelling my jaw into a concrete porch.
For about 30 seconds. I thought that the trauma was going to kill me. That 30 seconds was a long time.
—
I thought about not being able to provide for Martha.
—
I thought about not being able to provide for, and teach and protect John Asher.
—
I’m not going to lie. Thinking about that really sucked.
—
It didn’t kill me, though. It did break my jaw in two places, displacing the majority of the mass of bone and teeth below the “blood line” that had formed in my mouth. They were able to set me on the path to healing by implanting a metal plate in my jaw and sending me home with way more pills than I wanted to take.
Although it took longer than I really wanted it to, the recovery process was good for me. Since we wanted to stay close to the surgeon’s office, we crashed with my paternal grandparents for about a week. That gave us a chance to hang out with them (and Martha got a few of Grandmother’s cooking secrets). We were also able to spend time with our parents and other family members when they would drop by.
The most important part of the recovery process, though, was that it gave me time to reflect on the accident. It’s amazing how the absence of persistent email, twitter, feed reader, business phone calls and internet access can clear your head and allow you to focus on the big picture.
- Humans are fragile creatures. That trailer snapped my jaw like I crumble dry pine straw. When the impact broke the skin in my mouth, large globules of blood pumped out with every beat of my heart. It could very easily have been worse.
- I love my family. You’re thinking, “Of course you love your family, Captain Obvious. What kind of schmuck does not love his family?” True enough. I was just happy that when I thought that I would be DOA, my thoughts did not go to my bank account or my job or my flat-screen tv or even the University of Alabama football game that I would be missing that day. They went to my wife and soon-to-be-born son.
- My family does not need me to take care of them. I really want to do my part to help, but if my life were extinguished today, their ability to thrive would not really be changed all that much. In the grand scheme of things, I’m really not that important. Martha is a strong woman. We have amazing family and amazing friends. God is good.
- I have already lived a blessed life. The author of the universe has allowed me to be a part of a truly wonderful family, group of friends, church, community, business, nation…The list continues. There aren’t many things with which I haven’t been blessed, musical talent being one of them.
- The best time to do something is yesterday. I too often don’t realize the fleeting nature of life. Sure, I have head knowledge, but do my actions line up with what’s up there? Do I act in the way I would if tomorrow were my last day?
- God is good.
What makes a biblical friendship?
“Day 294/365 – Friendship,” by Tiago Ribeiro available under the Creative Commons Attribution 2.0 Generic license.
Recently, I had the pleasure of talking with someone who I would consider a good friend on the topic of (biblical) friendship.
My view is that if absolute love and absolute respect is observed by both parties, it’s a biblical friendship. Everything else falls into those buckets.
Honesty? Yes. Selflessness? Yep. Reproach? You betcha. And the list goes on.
His argument was that if you’re not in someone’s life all the time, it’s no a biblical friendship, that to qualify, it must be a mile wide and a mile deep.
While I can see this as the case with friendships that are an inch deep, what about those friendships that have over the years become an inch wide and a mile deep?
For instance, I have one friend from college whom I get the opportunity to see, but every time we do get the chance, we press in.
What do you think?
The Santa Clausification of Jesus
A few weeks ago, I heard Eric Morgan, a pastor at Sojourn Church of Huntsville, Alabama, use the phrase “Santa Clausification of Jesus” in his sermon on Numbers 25. He used the term around the 43 minute mark when referring to the tendency to pray only a list of wants, needs and desire, thereby turning Jesus into Santa Claus.
The term really struck me. It’s so easy to see that played out in culture, all the way from the way some little kids say grace before the meal (“…thank you for my puppy and my birthday cake and Martha and Kyle coming to see me…”) to old, gray-bearded pastors/football team chaplains (“…and give us strength and endurance and victory…”).
Do I want to talk to Jesus or Santa Claus?
I don’t want to only pray to receive or for others to receive, even if what I’m praying for is “good.” But all-too-often I do.
When I pray, I often ask for those traits to be given to myself or others. I “need” the ability to focus on my day job and my wife and taking out the trash and more. John and Anthony and I “need” a never-ceasing endurance to be able to build our startup company. Husbands “need” the knowledge of how to show love to their wives. Fathers “need” a peace when their newborn babies aren’t quiet at home. Pastors “need” discernment. Friends “need” to sharpen each other. Families “need” to know how to show grace and love.
And it’s not that I think that there’s anything wrong with asking God for things, but the problem is when we just ask for those things, or when our asking is the bulk of the conversation, followed by a “standard disclaimer.”
The Model Prayer
In chapter 6 of Matthew/chapter 11 of Luke, the disciples ask Jesus how they should pray. He responds with the following:
9“ Pray, then, in this way:
‘Our Father who is in heaven,
Hallowed be Your name.
10‘ Your kingdom come
Your will be done,
On earth as it is in heaven.
11‘ Give us this day our daily bread.
12‘ And forgive us our debts, as we also have forgiven our debtors.
13‘ And do not lead us into temptation, but deliver us from evil. [For Yours is the kingdom and the power and the glory forever. Amen.]‘-Luke 11:9-13 (NASB)
I know that I’m not the first to notice it, but I believe that Jesus is talking in inverted pyramid style here. (Inverted pyramid is a journalism style where the most important facts to understanding the story are presented first, followed by the second most important facts, and so on.)
If we look at the main points, we can see this pattern.
- Praise and Adoration of God.
- Desire for the will of God to be done.
- Desire for what we want.
- Reiteration of bullet #1.
But it’s not about the words
It’s about recognizing who God is and who we are. It’s about understanding how we fit into His plan. It’s about letting our hearts and words reflect that.
45 ‘The good person out of the good treasure of his heart produces good, and the evil person out of his evil treasure produces evil, for out of the abundance of the heart his mouth speaks.’
-Luke 6:45 (ESV) (emphasis mine)
This weekend, we let our family in on a big secret – Martha and I are having a baby boy and his name will be John Asher.We’re going to try the double name thing, but if he becomes a John or an Asher or a J or even a Pepe, that will be okay.
Family and friends have known for months that we were having a baby, but it wasn’t until this weekend that they learned that it was a boy and his name. My sisters and some of Martha’s friends threw us a “Gender Revealing Party.” We made the announcement by cutting into a cake with (blue) food coloring on the inside. There were appetizers and cookies. They even had Martha’s single craving from the pregnancy – grits. We had a great time and are very appreciative of all that they did.
What excites me more than the party is the fact that we can now all start calling him by his name to all our family and friends, and hopefully that will help it stick. I heard someone a whole lot smarter than me say that parenting is all about creating teachable moments.
Invariably, little J.A. is going to ask us why we named him that, and we will get the chance to create a teachable moment by saying that the meaning for John is, “The Lord is gracious,” and the meaning of Asher in Hebrew is, “Happiness.” Then, we’re going to get to affirm those qualities in him. We’re going to get to tell him how his happiness isn’t always linked to his present circumstances, how he can be sad or mad, but at the same time be full of joy, that he can be happy because of God’s goodness and grace.
I am very excited about that day.
ReBlog: First World vs. Real Problems
Originally found at: http://thisisindexed.com/2010/11/poor-things-2/
