Interrogations Have Begun

This is fun.

Having drained my brain onto 60+ pages of raw notes (yes--it was messy), it occurred to me that my experience as a single man may or may not have been typical. I have no idea.

Solution: inquire, query, and otherwise question my peers for further information on the life of a single man of God. ("Enhanced" interrogation techniques optional). So far, I've initiated contact with over a dozen men. Hopefully, that number will grow to over a hundred interviews.

If you are/have been a single man who has spent time in some sort of ministry, I would love to interrogate you. Please email me your address to start the process ( dannyvellekoop@gmail.com).

Thanks and good luck!

dv

Osama isn’t the only one with a journal

Yesterday, I dusted off some old journals dating back to my early days in California and found an entry that gave me chills.

On September 22, 1999, I discuss an emotional conversation with God that included an impassioned plea for a wife. I had no idea at the time I penned that entry that in exactly eight years to the day, I would stand trembling in the front of the church, watching my bride walk toward me down the aisle .

The skeptic can dismiss such coincidences as pure chance–and maybe it is. But as I read my sappy and inconsistent journal entries, I can’t help seeing Psalm 23 in action. Each one tells of some trial or triumph the Shepherd saw me through. Even some of the most trivial entries relate an experience that completely changed my understanding of God and myself.

I highly recommend journaling if you don’t do it already. For a writer, it’s just good practice to take regular snapshots of your thoughts and experience. And as a follower of Christ, an occasional reading of your old entries can be very encouraging, and you might see trends in you life that you might miss just living day-to-day.

I Destroy Bookstores

The brick-and-mortar bookstores are closing down one by one, and it's my fault.

Well, partly my fault.

I love going into bookstores. I'll browse for hours, wandering from section to section, pulling book after book of the shelf. Then I'll put them back. I rarely buy anything except a coffee.

When I do buy, I buy online. Meanwhile, the local bookstore has to pay its lease and employees with revenue I'm not giving it. No wonder they're going away.

It's like the airlines: we moan about horrible food and and that we're being treated like cattle instead of passengers. Yet we buy the rock-bottom cheapest tickets that we can find online with little regard for anything but price.

What are the airlines supposed to do? To stay in business, they have to cut services so they can compete on price. If we passengers truly cared about service, we'd fork over the extra coins for the extra perks.

I expect that the large bookstores will slowly disappear, while smaller stores with low overhead and maybe an inventory consisting of used books might survive a little longer at least on coffee revenue. We'll wistfully recall the old days when we could leaf through books before buying--while clicking the "Add to cart" button on Amazon.