Handfuls of Doxology

Everyone has them and everyone gives them. Labels are a funny.   Not funny “ha ha” but funny as in they make no sense for the most part.   Some folks obtain labels because they have earned them through a series of bad choices or natural characteristics that just seem to merit them.   Other labels are just given because man is by nature a creature who enjoys giving them out. Let me see if I can give an example using my own life. Example #1: “Tracy?   You mean the dude who almost screwed up his entire life? Tracy, the screw up.”   Van Gogh went through a dark period that helped define him as an artist.   I went through an Idiot period that helped define a large portion of my life.   I made terrible and selfish choices and now there are those, who when they think of me, are reminded of my many faults and ultimate failures.   I did something to merit that label. Example #2: “Tracy? You mean the fat sweaty guy?”   I have what doctors call a slight weight problem.   Even my most blissful ef

Last night I was trying to get Ryleigh to bed for about the fourth time.   She always wants to watch Barney, which is only thirty minutes long.   If you ask me that is thirty minutes is thirty too long, nevertheless, still not long enough for her to fall asleep watching it.   So after several attempts to get her down, I found the longest movie she had.   Wizard of Oz, One hour and forty-six minutes.   My precious four-year-old has learned well from her brother of how to come up with some impressive excuses to get out of about anything, and the Wizard of Oz is no exception.   First, she says the witch is scary- now I know she isn’t afraid of it because she once acted like her and laughed at how funny she thought her own impression was.   So I told her, “It ain't gonna work babe, lay down!”   She looks at me and says something, that at the time didn’t click but would later bother me greatly.   She said, “But Daddy, the Wizard of Oz doesn’t teach me any lessons!” After a little hel

As I sit in my office today, I can look at the front door and see the grandeur of Lookout Mountain.   I see a speckle of color spread lightly through the tree line right about the Waffle House.   Just beyond the Tennessee American Water tower there is a cloud that looks a little like Abe Lincoln.    At the end of the parking lot a gaggle of geese are strutting around what grass is left from the summer heat wave.   In the distance the sound of the Wal-Mart buggy pushers as the clang together buggies left around the parking lot.   At the Dollar Tree, a truck driver pulls up to unload today’s shipment of overstocks and misprinted Halloween candy.   They hang a sign that says “Stock Up For Halloween With Candee Kurn”. The police have the driver of a camouflage RV stopped at the end of the drive, and are either doing a field sobriety test or an impromptu version of Father Abraham, “right foot, left foot, turn around..”   Behind me my boss, who by the way is one of my favorite people, but un