Chris's Musings

Last Fall, on the way to preparing for the half marathon that I would set my under 2 hour personal record within, I signed up for this year's Publix Half Marathon at an Adventure Run event.  They were offering a really good rate and I was feeling good at the time, so why not? Fast forward to November... I had just finished my best half marathon (time-wise) with a fun group of people and was looking ahead to competing in a couple of races as 2014 began.  Then, in San Francisco the day before Dreamforce, I re-injure my right Achilles tendon on a run on the Embarcaderro. Oh yeah, awesome (Not!).  I have had these injuries flare up before and I figured I would be out for a month or so and back to it, but this injury just kept nagging me (and it turns out I probably got it because of some issues with my footwear that day).   I begrudgingly deferred my enrollment in the Houston Half Marathon in January, and planned to make my comeback today at the Publix Half Marat...

As you are waking up this morning. And if you are waking up alone and don't have a date with a "special someone." I'm certain that in some way, you and I (Yes, I'm in your shoes this year) are tempted to get down, to believe that we are unloved, or say something insanely crazy on Facebook (wha? wha?) So, as you are reading this (and you are reading this), let me put a few things in your mind, especially if you are a Christ-follower. Jesus COMMANDS for us not to be miserable and wallowing in self-pity. He has come that we have life to the full, and that includes when we are single.  In Philippians, Paul writes that we are to "Rejoice in the Lord always, and again I say Rejoice."   If you belong to Christ, these are not options, so live out of joy and not out of emotional scarcity. Single doesn't mean "alone."  Be with friends and invest in them. Barricading yourself in your house to avoid the sea of pink and Russell Stover ...

Over the past couple of months, I have had a bunch of conversations with friends about what our "type" is... You know, what type of girl (or guy in the case of the girls I talked to) attracts you?  What type of person makes you stop and say.... (cue the Keaneu Reeves from Bill & Ted's)... Whoa! If I were an alien coming down to observe humanity and spent any time observing singles, I think I would scratch my head at how different humans will look at certain members of the opposite sex and say "Whoa!" while others of us would look at that exact same HOT person and say "Yeah, she's attractive, but I'm just not attracted to her."  I think the aliens would look at this apparently, uber-pickiness we have and conclude "No wonder they're all still single!"  (as if our parents and married friends don't) I wonder (and have wondered aloud in these conversations), are our "types" something that we constructed for ou...

One of my favorite movies of all time (I probably shouldn't confess to this, since I haven't watched it in a long time) is the movie Dead Poets Society.  In this movie, a prep school teacher played by Robin Williams motivates and expands the worlds of a group of boys to pursue their dreams and to truly live. It all started with a motivational speech in the hall of students past gone by... in which he whispered. Car-pe-Di-em. Make your lives, extraordinary.   Carpe Diem... Sieze the day.  It is a motto that many of us hold to.  We don't want to merely exist.  We want to live and make our mark on the world we have been placed in.  We want to make a difference. And we pursue what "making a difference" means for us.  Many of these things are great things - projects to be tackled, organizations to be built, deals to be won, ladders to be climbed, experiences to be had. As a result, many of us our busy... and I mean very busy.  Busyness is...

It is day 3 of the "hostage crisis" more affectionately known as the "government shutdown" (or government "slimdown" if you read FoxNews).  The hostages of this leadership debacle centered in Washington D.C. are the jobs of 800,000 Federal employees whose jobs have been furloughed as a result of this process.  I have a few friends in this group. I will leave my opinions about who's right and who's wrong to myself.  Okay - maybe.  I wish that this childishness in our government would come to an end, and perhaps it may with a change of leadership.  However, people have families to feed, mortgages to pay, and jobs to do (such as my friends at the CDC), so I thought I would offer some "real solutions" to help motivate our leaders to take action.  And to be honest, I'm not going to be too partisan with this list so I'm sure that you'll equally laugh or be offended at some of these suggestions.  That said, here are my top ten. ...

This was too good not to share. Tonight in small group, we talked about deep friendships, especially friendships among guys, and used the story of Jonathan and David from 1 Samuel 20 as our launching point.  This is a story from David's life in which he confides in Jonathan about what he's learned of Saul, and Jonathan goes to bat for David (and risking his life in the process). There were two things that really caught our attention (I originally had about 20 things brainstormed and five large bullet items to discuss) and occupied our time. First, was that Jonathan got involved in David's situation instead of merely giving advice.  See Jonathan's response to David's complaint: Jonathan said to David, “Whatever you want me to do, I’ll do for you.” - 1 Sam 20:4 This is not a normal response in most of our worlds, especially in 21st century white collar America.  Generally, when a friend confides in us about a problem, our first response (as guys) is to give...

Yesterday, after a long work week, I took off out of the city and away from the busyness of life and technology to go hike the Panther Creek Falls trail with a group of friends.  I have been looking forward to this hike for a while because a.) Panther Creek has been on my "really want to do" hikes for a while, and b.) I hadn't had the opportunity to get up to the mountains much this summer and had organized this day trip to do just that. I love hiking; I think I like getting out into nature in general but there's something about hiking that makes me feel happy.  Perhaps it's from my Boy Scout days and memories of treks to Philmont and camping trips; who knows? And I mean, I love hiking (not just walking).  If there isn't some adventure to where we're going then I'm not all that into it.  Panther Creek Falls was that kind of adventure.  Rumor is that it's one of the most fantastic waterfalls in Georgia and I couldn't wait to get to it. And...