(I got mentioned over at Stuff Christians Like today…to find out why, read on)

I grew up in Southeastern MA, as many of you know, and I attended a small little reformed church in Dartmouth, MA called The First Christian Church of Hixville for a good 10 years or so (that’s the actual church pictured on the right). Like any church you’ve ever attended, there’s lots of stuff I could pick on and disagree with about the church. Today’s not the day for that though.

There’s a few things I still love about Hixville. I love many of the people I came to know there. In fact, many of them remain strong influences in my life. I also love the memories that I have. Playing football on the lawn after church, walking to the corner store to buy jolly ranchers after Sunday school despite being told not to, putting kielbasa and dish soap into someone’s coffee cup as a prank, and then realizing it was the wrong cup (sorry Mrs. Gamble!). I could go on and on until the second coming, but I won’t.

Anyway, since today is Halloween, I just HAVE to mention HATCH Night. It was a tradition at Hixville for a handful of years. As kids, instead of trick-or-treating we got HATCH night. You might be wondering why it was called HATCH Night? Well, it’s an acronym of course, and it stood for:

Hixville’s Alternative To Carnal Halloween.

Brilliant. Absolutely Brilliant. Not sure who came up with it, though I think it was one of our elders, Rick. He had all sorts of cleverness in that brain of his (still does, I’m sure). (Ed. Note: My dad said it was our pastor Ken who came up with it. Like Rick, he was pretty clever too.)

HATCH night wasn’t all bad for us kids. We still came home with a bunch of candy. The worst part of it all was explaining to your friends that a) we don’t go trick or treating because it makes the devil happy, b) we go to church instead, and c) I’m dressing up like an old man from the Bible for the 3rd year in a row. (Only biblical costumes allowed at HATCH Night of course.)

I was exchanging emails with my friend Luke yesterday, and we got to talking about HATCH Night since he also grew up at Hixville. The more I thought about HATCH Night, the more I marveled at its brilliance. So on a whim, I shot an email over to my friend Jon who runs the amazingly funny (and wildly popular) Stuff Christians Like blog because I thought he’d get a kick out of it too. He was so amazed by the HATCH Night concept that he included it in his Halloween post today.

I feel so honored. I hope Rick does too (and/or Ken). And for that matter, everyone else who was a part of HATCH Night through the years! Hixville Represent!

(if any of you old Hixville folks read this, I ask, nay, I demand you leave a comment with your favorite HATCH Night memory)

Time for a new game called, “Guess the Knees”.

In this game I give you a picture, and you have to guess who’s knees are being shown. Here we go!

Can you guess who’s knees are barely visible in the middle seat?

Harvest Party at church tonight.

Indiana Jones and Ariel will be there.

A few weeks ago publishing agent Rachelle Gardner held a contest on her blog, asking writers to provide examples of paragraphs that “show” instead of “tell”. She provided a few different “telling” statements like ‘she was in love’, ‘the meal was delicious’, and ‘the outfit was hideous’. She asked writers to take one of those statements and write a few lines that ‘showed’ the emotion as opposed to telling it. Hesitantly, I took the bait.

In total she received 86 entries, and yesterday she announced the 6 finalists in the contest. Honestly, I wasn’t surprised to find my paragraph absent from the list of potential winners. I had only spent about 45 minutes on it, and I wasn’t sure it was any good at all. That’s why I was surprised today when she announced 6 honorable mentions and my entry was among them.

I had chosen the statement “he was in love” and this was what I wrote:

He hated washing the car. Why spend 15 minutes of time and elbow grease cleaning something that would be filthy again tomorrow? But something happened every time he rinsed off the last traces of soapy residue from the hood. As he wiped down the windshield with a towel, he thought of the smile she’d be wearing as she pulled out of the driveway in a pristine vehicle and contentment flooded his heart. What a mystery it was, how her joy could become his joy. On second thought, he loved washing the car.

Here were Rachelle’s thoughts on it:

This one charmed me because of the way it shows a guy in love without too many sappy “feeling” words. It illustrates a specific “male” way of thinking about love and showing love, and shows love in action. When we write about someone being in love, the temptation is to talk about hearts melting and shivery feelings and butterflies in stomachs. It’s refreshing to see is described in a different way.

There’s actually a lot of “telling” here, and I wonder if this paragraph could be workshopped into a primarily “showing” piece. When you use words like he hated, he loved, he thought…” you’re telling the reader things that could possibly be shown. But we’re inside this guy’s mind, and the paragraph does a great job of conveying the main point (he is in love), so I’m going to let it be and just say, I love it.

The funny thing is, if you know anything about me, you know I really do despise washing our cars. And when I was thinking about a way of “showing” that someone loved someone else, it was the first thing I thought of. Not so sure that Erica sees it the same way, but that’s okay. It’s not about earning points, it’s about finding little ways to make her happy. (although truth be told, i probably only wash the car a few times a year. shame on me.)

So yeah, getting positive feedback from a respected agent like Rachelle pretty much made my day.

I know, I know…it doesn’t take much.

Well, here I am, back at work on a Monday morning with no vacation days in sight. I haven’t worked a full week in about a month, so it will be good to get back into the swing of things here (at least, that’s what I keep telling myself between sips of this rat poison. no i kid…it’s good to be back)

I’ll quickly catch you up on the last 3 days of my life, even though you couldn’t care less.

Friday

+ woke up in Virginia Beach for the 2nd straight day. Spent the morning at the Wave Conference with the other leaders from our church. Heard a great message from Bayless Conley on not believing the lies that can worm their way into our heads. Also listened to some of the Hillsong guys talk about how they organize their worship teams at church, and how they handle different situations. I came away with more of an appreciation for these guys than I had before.

+ Spent the afternoon chilling. Read a little, answered emails, listened to music. Took a walk to the beach, which was 2 blocks from the house we were staying in. It was freezing. Must have been 50 degrees with a stiff wind whipping in off the water. I went down there to get a picture of me in my new shirt. (That might be the most un-manly sentence I’ve ever typed.) I bought the shirt from Carlos Whittaker at RagamuffinSoul.com. He donated all his proceeds to the Global Food Crisis, plus it’s a cool shirt. I took about 20 pictures, and ended up with only a few in which I didn’t look like a complete moron.

+ After the final session at Wave Conference (which was great), I drove home with my friends Dwight and Peggy. We left at 10pm and got back around 3am, but the 5 hours flew by thanks to great company and good conversation. And yes, for the record, I do soap before I shampoo. And anyone who does it differently is abnormal.

Saturday

+ When I got in at 3am on Saturday morning there were 3 handmade cards waiting for me in the kitchen. There must have been some chopped onions lying around or something because my eyes got a bit watery. My fam is the best.

+ Slept in until 10am and spent the day with the kids while Erica went to work. I decided on the spur of the moment to redesign the front page of my website using one of the pictures I took at the beach. That took a few hours, but I’m pretty happy with the result. You can check it out here.

Sunday

+ Had a great time playing guitar on the worship team for both our 9am and 11am services. Can’t really think of a better way to start a day. My bro-in-law Chad does a great job leading the team and the congregation…I’m so thankful to be able to serve under him and to be able to use the sliver of talent I have to help people connect with God by praising Him.

+ Went to Parker’s soccer tournament. It was the final day of the season and all 8 teams played 3 games, after which the top 4 teams advanced to the playoffs. Parker’s team (Argentina) was one of the better ones. They went 2-1 in the round robin and earned a semi-final match-up against Germany. The game was tied after regulation and a 5-minute OT, so they had to go to penalty kicks, and Parker’s team lost 2-1. I don’t think Parker minded too much though, halfway through his last game (his fourth 20-minute game of the day) he said, “I’m tired of playing soccer”.

+ After soccer we watched some football with Than and Kandace, then I played Wii with Parker, then I played living room tackle football with Parker, then I played a board game with Kylie, then we put the kids to bed and Erica and I watched the Phillies and vegged on the couch before crashing.

So that was my weekend in a nutshell. If you’ve made it this far, I’m impressed. Give yourself a pat on the back and get back to work…