I have a love affair with electronics and nothing brings that to light more than the fact that I always want to have the most cutting edge cell phone.

I find it interesting to read people’s status updates on Facebook, especially on Sundays. Perhaps it is because I have a lot of friends that attend church that day but it seems that at times it is Sunday that produces the thought provoking versions of these updates on our lives.

A little bit ago I was scanning the book of faces and one of my friends posted about how American are so self entitled that only we could take a day off because we believe we work too much.

I chuckled a little bit about that not because I believe the same thing but rather how often do we throw out thoughts and not really have a strong understanding of what we are implying or why we even believe that at all. Now do I think that my friends are unintelligent or are trying to say something that can be taken as cruel. . . not really. Just that Facebook and Twitter allow us to make statement so quickly and without thought that it is like sticking the digital foot in our cyber mouths.

For instance, studies show that Americans work longer hours, more days, and take less vacation than almost any other culture in the world. My wife has just chimed in to add that in many cultures new mothers usually take up to a year of maternity leave from their jobs and here in America. . . 6 weeks is pushing it. Good thought babe!!! No wonder the life expectancy of Americans is dropping and the number mental issues are on a staggering incline.

But those are not the kind of statements that make me stop and want to ask the people that flippantly toss out a tweet or status, “Why are you saying that?”

Things that hurt my beliefs or sensibilities are the following: Anyone that talks about how they are going to be a radical christians like it is not a cliche or they underestimate what that really takes. Though they mean well and might really hope to make a change that helps people see Jesus, the reality is giving up coffee for Lent, donating your pocket change for the year to a random charity, or telling people how they are missing out because they don’t go to your church…..these are all great things but they are not radical. The truth is 99% of us are not because we won’t give up our suburban lives, our real money, or our free time to others to really be radical.

The other one is the guilt posts. If I don’t repost, respond, or write a story about you because you asked doesn’t mean that I don’t pay attention. I have been affected by cancer, I do have someone I love died from various disease, and I absolutely love Jesus. . . do need to post a chain status to prove any of those things. Or do you have to threaten to delete our Facebook friendship if I don’t. If I didn’t like you we wouldn’t be friends.

I love the fact that people like to express their opinion and say interesting things. It definitely helps give me things to think about. Facebook can show they best of our thought and it can also be a place we speak before we think. It is not that we are dumb but more likely that we can say something like it truth and not a beginning to a discussion.

Have you ever be guilty of tweeting before thinking. . . . I know I have.

I often think that everything I have ever learned to hope for in this world have been built upon the stories and the whisper of a hope that there are these moments where love changes everything that you have ever known. Perhaps there are a select few that help us find unconditional love in our heart, that kind that we always wanted to unlock, but we could not get there without finding someone to guild us home . . . to where we always wanted to be. I don’t think it is because we choose them but more like they find us when we need to be found. And if we are lucky we hold on them to as long as we can and when the time comes and we part . . . . we know that the love carries on for eternity despite the goodbyes.

For almost 8 months Maya Winnifred Allen helped us find the way home to that love we always needed to find.

I could write all night on the ways that she amazed us or describe all the ways that she defied the odds by being here with us for so long.  Or I can even try to define how her story is life changing for some many.  But right now all I really care to talk about is what this “Angel in baby’s clothes” meant to me and how I witnessed a love that is contagiously transforming.

It is hard not to close my eye and not see little Maya’s face looking back at me.  Her eyes had a light that covered you in a warm glow that made you fall in love with her a little more each time she opened them wide and look into your face.  It wasn’t the fact that she was aware and active that made you hope for her to be awake but it was that light that came from her that you wanted to be around.  And she would smile through her eyes in way.  And I would always get the same feeling as I looked into her deep blue eyes. . . it was like the sun rising over the ocean . . . and all was right in the world.

At times it is like I am still waiting for the sun to rise since thursday.  And I miss looking into her eyes.

For the last months I will dare to say there was no house as full of love as the Allen house was.  As much as we tried to love her, Maya would find ways to love us better.

One thing I will always remember was the first night that JJ and Erin left the house and let Krissie and I watch Maya.  She was still so little and can remember being scared that something would happen while they were gone.  But Maya just cuddled up on my chest and slept so peacefully. Her head laying just over my heart and could I feel her little heart beating against me.  She seem so fragile and I had not idea how strong she would end up being.  I never thought that a baby would fight so hard to stay as long as she could in order to pour love on us. She just knew how to find us and love us the way we needed. . . even if it was just sleeping my chest and letting me know it would be ok.

Maybe I could try to find some profound words to describe the sadness of losing her . . . or try to find a meaning to it all.  But in the end we miss her yet we are so blessed to have every had her at all.

I was lucky to be her uncle and I know she gave me more than I could ever give her. And we have loved every moment we had with her.

So on August 3rd when I held her for the last time she quietly said goodbye but I know that the love remains and it is beautiful.

Angel in Baby’s Clothes

Into your sea of blue the sun will rise,

even when you’ve closed your eyes,

hold me in your love’s pure light,

so I can see you when you are out of sight,

stay in my dreams all the night long,

find me in the melody of your songs,

keep your heart in the beat of mine,

until I see you again when it is time,

shed your clothes and with your wings fly home,

to that place where only love is know,

thank you for the life that came,

and for all the beauty that remains.

It is hard to get the old creative juices flowing. Writing can become cumbersome when you are trying to force something to make it appealing to people or over express yourself in order to find equalibrium. Perhaps I was just trying to force an expressed equalibrium.

So here I am typing away again and wondering to myself, “How will this be different this time?” For the first time in a long time the clicking of the keyboard seems to be soothing rather than a slave to the machine  and the thoughts that are in my head seem less pointent but more valuable to share. I am not sure if I really want to make a invaluable statement or try to portray myself as the intellectual. I think I just want people to know the truth of me and what makes the world worth talking about.

For almost a year know I have been away . . . watching, reading . . . .disengaging from the “hey everyone, look at me!” social media. It made me realize something. I hated what I have become. A slave, devoted to being noticed and a person that was so secretly crafted by the social media maker. . . . no, not Mark Zuckerburg, the altruistic creation of me by me.

It am not going to vilify social media and write it off but there is change that i have to make for the good of my soul and soundness of my mind. I have to believe and be determine that this place, this blog is about being relational and conversational and mostly an extension of what really lies inside the dark squishly places inside me.

My life is not meant for display, it did not come into being because people need to friend me or follow my tweets, and I was not created to be a celebrity in my own small cyber world. For 30 years I waited to arrive, to be somebody, and to have people desire to hear my thoughts or want me to be their mentor, peer, or mostly just their friend. I made a world in cyber space to feel important . . . . but in the end I hated myself for it. I despised the lack of acknowledgement or relationships but I was bitter because I had expectations that I deserved people’s love and respect. And bitterness make a sour bedfellow. Worse of all it makes a even less desirable friend.

It seems strange to confess such things on a blog in the very world wide web that I made myself self a righteous victim of selfish exposure. But yet this place that was once a temple is now a sanctuary. Interesting choice of words, don’t you think?

There is peace here at the keyboard now. No attempts to vail my beefs with peers or friends and hoping they see the writing on the proverbial blogging wall, no pontification on righteousness, and no attempts to out shine the rest with wit and charm (maybe I will try that later because I am pretty witty and charming.  Just ask my wife). I am just trying for a bit of openness and we will see where it goes. It think this time it will be fun.

You can thank my awesome wife for the shift of mindset. She is my grounding rod. Without her I am just a crazy storm that would shock or burn those around me.

I have just accidently forgotten that I have a blog for about ….. oh a year or so, but I recently have been reminded that I need to keep the peeps in the loop especially with the fact that I had been talking about our precious little niece, Maya.  It is easy to just ignore the fact that Maya has a genetic disorder because she is here and present and seems to being doing well most days.

She is now over 2 months old and weighs a bit more than 7 pounds.  Not too bad for little girl that started out 3 lb 14 ounces.  Her cheeks are so chubby and she has filled out nicely in since she was born.  But in the last few weeks I have noticed more and more how she just struggles to be here.   Her energy is mostly focused on her breathing and trying to look around at the world around her.  She does not kick or move her arms around much like most 2 month olds.  Mostly her movement reminds me of a baby that is half asleep.  She moves around in slow, deliberate moves and then rests again.   But I think what is heartbreaking for many of us is that she struggles to find the energy to cry.  She tries and sometime succeeds but most times she can only force out a few noises. But when you do hear a little cry . . . .well, you struggle between finding it incredibly cute and wanting to comfort her.

Regardless she is still well loved and taken care of. We are so glad she is here.

I am sure in the weeks and few months ahead the road is going to get tougher.  Yet in the end it will be worth it.

Christmas is almost 24 hours away. It is going to be my first Christmas as married man and the first Christmas I spend with the Allens/ Buellers. But what I am most excited about is that fact that we will get to celebrate our own little miracle come December 25th. Maya has continue to fight and stay with us. (In fact we celebrated her 2 week birthday on tuesday.)  When she was born two and a half weeks ago I don’t think many of us believe we would be celebrating this holy day with her as part of our earthly family.

But God is curious to say the least.

Because of her Trisomy, her heart has a defect that is not allowing the a chamber to develop. When babies are born there is one compartment that has not yet developed to lessen the stress on their tiny bodies for the first week or so. The heart then develops a heart wall and the one ventrical becomes two. For little Maya this has not and may never happen. The fact that a heart defect is keeping her with us a bit longer than we planned is baffling and beautiful. Where we see imperfection, God has seen a way to prolong this precious little girl.

Talk about awe inspiring. What can God not do?

I hope Maya will always bring us to remember that God works in the impossible. I am overjoyed to have this baby in my life to remind me of another impossible child that came to us just as small and just as fragile.

But this year I am going to enjoy Maya in her little Christmas outfits and take in the gift that she is.

She is beautiful. And she is every ounce of the nickname she was given before she was born, Lil’ Bit. Tiny as can be but has everyone wrapped around her finger and her heart. As lovely as she was ever imagined to be and more real than anything that was hope for. She’s every bit of her mom and whole lot of bits of her dad . . . . she is perfect.

Little fingers, little toes, big blue eyes and head full of dark hair. And that doesn’t even mention the little heart shaped mouth that make her impossible not to fall in love with.

But for us that are madly in love with Maya Winnifred Allen there is also another thought, We need more time.

Maya was born into this world with a lot of love waiting for her, literally. In one room was baby being born and in the room directly next to the delivery room was about 20 (give or take) family members anxiously waiting. You see we found out about a week before she was born that Maya appeared to have a genetic disorder called Trisomy 18 so we were not sure if we would ever see her face or hear her cry or get to spend a moment in this life getting to love on her. Yet there, in an instant, she was with us and fighting the good fight because she knew we needed her to be there to love us.

There are times I thought I have witnessed joy and then there was Maya’s birthday. Pure joy and it was so tangible and exciting . . . and scary.

It wasn’t long before we knew that our time with Maya would not be as much as we prayed for. Trisomy will eventually take her from us in a week or a few weeks or , God willing, a couple months.

But for right now she is everything this family could hope for and worth have hope in. She making a family love more than families can love on their own and it comes in the form of a Lil’ Bit of love. Not for all the years we want or that she deserves but only for a days that we can hold on to the purest form of love.

It would be easy to sit here and write about all the heartbreak that comes from watching JJ and Erin go through this. But it is easier to sit here and write about how Maya is taking all the strings of love from each of our hearts, that just happen to be wrapped around her fragile finger, and her love is weaving them into a chord that can not be broken.

I will never understand the whys and I don’t want to dwell on them. She is here and she is loved. Amen.

Perhaps some of you were avid readers for my blog and wonder where I disappeared to for the last half a year. Well, I have been wondering the same thing for the last few weeks and felt I better explain the disappearance.

Since my last post I have moved to Kansas City, spent several weeks nodding in agreement as my fiance planned our wedding, and then she became my wife in August. And since then there has been more sad and heart breaking incidents than can be fully detailed in any blog. So I have intentionally avoided going into depth about those because there was no way to write about these situations without just being hurt or angry but I am planning of writing a series on thoughts and reflection on the past few months.

I think where the blog is about to go is going to be intriguing and different from the writings of the past. Perhaps they take in the idea of “other people” more than ever before.

Maybe it is because I am married and she is training me well. . . . or maybe it is time to focus off of what we want to project and being to talk honestly about what we are.

When I left college I swore that by 25 I would be married and have a family started.  I met the a girl and everything was on track. I was a living prophet of my own marital bliss.  Then she dumped me.  Huh who saw that coming?  All the sudden I felt more like Miss Cleo (the tv psychic) more than Elijah. . . .total failure.

Then I knew that I was going to be married by 28 because I mean come on I was a great catch. . . all my friend told me this so I am not being egotistical. (Lord grant me humility!!)  But then I made a few bad choices and then before I knew it was 30, single, and one of only a few of my friends that hadn’t figured it out.  I was the “single friend”.  What….. NOOOOOOO!!!

But a day came that I didn’t expect.  I realized that you can’t control love.  Perhaps I should have learned that by now but there is a difference between “knowing” that and believing that.  There were times that I thought I knew who I was going to marry and did what could to make that happen for a couple years but that never took or I wanted every new relationship to be the “one”.  Ok, so desperate times cause I man to act . . . .emotional and stupid.  And still with all that scratching and clawing to be loved, God was able to slowly strip my bad expectations away to be ready for who he had waiting for me.   It wasn’t ready to be married until now and until I was much older than I expected.  I had to wait 31 years to understand that love is not a movie or a love song or even the solution to all my imperfections and mistakes.  It was finding the person I wanted to spend with experiencing life and that complimented and challenge who I am in those moments.

So on the last night of April of 2010 I took a beautiful woman on a walk through a picturesque field to look up at the stars.  And while we stood there our eyes traced through the heavens searching for a new understanding of love and oneness with God and each other.  Finally as we stared at the horizon a shooting stare came within arms reach.  I reached up and grabbed that one wishing star and as I pulled it down it became a promise.  That is when I proposed and that is when love made sense.  Just like the stars that open our eyes to know that God is bigger than anything we can fathom yet He still cares for us more than the heavens,  this diamond on a ring helps Krista and I to know that our love, that comes together with the Fathers, is bigger than any love we have known.

There was never a worry that I wouldn’t find the “one” but rather I was left to wait a bit longer for it so I would know it when I saw it.

I am still as flawed as I was. Every moment of being committed is not bliss and peace.  And I am clueless how it works most of the time.  But I look forward to the journey with Krista and that was worth the wait.  I am the Luckiest.

It never fails that every time we open the sport page, well, we just want to shut it again. It is either some collegiate athlete was dismissed from the team for going to jail or the wild behavior of professional players.  Or just any story about A-Rod pretty much makes you wish you had a time machine and could go back and convince his child self to become a professional ballet dancer or stock broker or something other than a baseball player.

It is never surprising to hear about drug suspensions or players complaining about pay. It seems to be the current tone of the sports world and something we just have to come to grips with (especially with the LeBron sweepstakes about to begin). Yet there is one area of sports I refuse to accept as a changing of the times.  In the last 15 years we have also come to witness the rise of the prima dona head coaches unlike ever before.  There have always been the superstar gentlemen on the sidelines in the suits or uniforms leading the way for our teams. Tom Landry, Red Auerbach, Casey Stengel, and Joe Paterno are great professionals that jump to mind. But those men always respect the game and their players.

Yet in the last few years I have wanted to scream at how we let coaches act however they want because they win.  Fans blindly claim their coaches as classy or “good guys” because they win championships.  And worst these are the coaches we beg and pray that our children get to play for.  What kind of messed up world is that?

Two cases in point: Over the last month Phil Jackson has performed his calculated manipulation and lack of social grace from the interview chair. So lets look at Phil Jackson for moment.  He called the Zen master yet he causes unrest and stirs up a lot of malcontent.  He verbally and political (sports politics) throws his players under the bus (refer to the Kobe vs Shaq vs Jackson saga). Last week Jackson anger the latino polutation by supporting new Arizona “immigration” laws that profiles “illegal immigrants”. But the most frustrating thing to watch is how a man that claims to follow the 8 fold path of Buddhism is constantly insulting players, referees, the league, and sportcasters and the league and fans turn a blind eye and allow it.  Not only does the NBA allow it but they are afraid to punish him. Maybe a fine here or there but what is 10,000 dollars when you make 12 million a year.  Glad that the NBA commissioner, David Stern, took away Phil’s pocket spending money. Instead they  just praise the championship and ignore that he is an awful role model.

The other case in point: Urban Meyer.  Without a doubt I will hear about how wrong I am about Urban but the truth of it is that he is a self absorbed, egomaniacal man that lies without a conscious.  I can remember  watching 2006 National Championship game and seeing Urban Meyer ignore a player that was injured right in front him on the sideline.  The player blew out his knee and Urban walk right OVER him and began to call the next play.  This is man that promises parents to look out for their kids.  Then this past season Urban retired, then unretired, the took a leave of absence, and then returned to work. All that drama came from apparent “health problems” and pleas from his daughter to stop coaching. His retirement statement read that he want to leave to “focus on family and faith” . . . . that lasted 12 hours and I guess family and faith were not important after all.  The truth was the Urban was caught having an affair with a 23 year old co-ed and was going to retire to cover it up but somehow it was covered up without him needing to leave the University of Florida.  And we defend him and hold him up as a champion.

Our teachers of young men are becoming monsters and we are living in a society that finds solace in glory and not in moral fiber.  Tim Tebow was a good kid because of his family and not because of Urban Meyer. But for every Tebow there are dozens of young men cast aside.  Do you want your children to be like most of the Florida Gators or like Kobe Bryant or Lamar Odom?  Because these men help create these individuals.  Many blame the student. . . . I think the teacher needs to start owning up too. Think about who is teaching your kids and what they are really teaching.

Send your kids to Iowa and Kirk Ferentz instead.