Update: Mariano Rivera declares he will come back – perhaps this season . Yesterday the great, sublime, surreal… Mariano Rivera, the great, sublime, surreal… relief pitcher of the New York Yankees tore his ACL in a freak accident while catching fly balls in the outfield before the game. Almost as bracing as the injury itself was watching Alex Rodriguez’s horrified reaction, saying, “Oh my God. Oh my God” from some 300 feet away. In Psalm 30, David wrote: “As for me,... Read more
His next soccer game is in a couple of hours. This morning he said he hated soccer – something that predates my assiness of last weekend. Part of it is that he doesn’t understand it. So this morning we had a tutorial, Candy Land style. For those among you who have forgotten, Candy Land is a race up to a supremely delectable candy castle. It’s his favorite game. Kim and I objectively love it too. Whenever he suggests playing a... Read more
You know those days that are ruined by chance encounters with asses of the human variety? They appear with stunning unpredictability — at Starbucks, a doctor’s office, your office, your son’s soccer game. If it was the latter and you were in Charlotte, North Carolina this past Saturday around 11am at the field by 277 and Kenilworth, I was that kind of ass. If you bumped into me and I ruined your day, I’m sorry. My nearly 5-year-old son started... Read more
In late 1992, Queen Elizabeth II gave a speech in which she concluded that year – in which Diana wrote a tell-all book, Sarah was photographed topless with a guy sucking on her toes, Windsor Castle burned and various other indignities were suffered – was annus horribilis, literally, the ‘year of horrors.’ I remembered that phrase at various points during the last year… during 2011 specifically. It was a year in which I went through radiation, chemo, steroids, and more... Read more
Yesterday, my daughter, Livvy and I headed to Build-a-Bear Workshop to get a small bear for my four-year-old son, Aidan. All members of the Kuo clan have a bear with a little speaker in it that holds a short personalized message from me. All except Aidan. So after snatching Livvy from school we ended up at the shop. The bear building process, for those who haven’t been, involves grabbing an empty bear shell – kinda creepy – getting it stuffed... Read more
I know very, very little about almost anything. My earthly dad would be proud of that sentence. I could hear him saying, at nearly 90, “Ahhhhh Da-wei [my Chinese name], now you really know something.” Maybe my heavenly Dad would feel the same way. The truth is though, I’m not really sure. I don’t know him well enough to say. Perhaps it is a sign of maturity, of sanctification, of bubbling wisdom to finally conclude how blatheringly ignorant I am... Read more
I’ve got till 3/16 to do 2,000 pages of reading – bad year not to have entered that reading contest some friends put on – write three papers and generally be introduced to the first 1500 years of church history. I think that’s right. But then, next week two other courses start, each with 2,000 pages or so of reading and papers. And all of this really is just a part time gig. My texts: The Early Church: History and... Read more
So, if all this happened in May 2011, if I enrolled in seminary and started taking a couple classes in September 2011, if I talked to my dear friend Patton F. Dodd about this blog in September, why is it now January 30, 2012 and nary a thing’s been written? Well, sometimes the long obedience is delayed. In my case, the toll from brain surgery, radiation, chemo and such took a greater toll on my head than I expected. I... Read more
Twenty years ago I had to make a choice – the CIA or seminary. During a week in May 1991 Gordon Conwell Theological Seminary and the Central Intelligence Agency were both interested in me. I had two days to decide – spy or seminarian? Bond, James or Barth, Karl? Libraries and research or martinis and bikinis? Greek and Hebrew or dead drops and black ops? I was a kid, not yet 22, so the choice wasn’t exactly a head scratcher. I... Read more
The Long Obedience
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