Tonight it happened. That thing every parent dreads the possibility of happened at our go-to Mexican place.

It's the place that on most weeknights you will find several parents with toddlers and teens. It's quick service in putting food on the plate for a reasonable price takes cooking meal off of parents' plates filled with never-ending "to do" lists. We went to El Mezcal-- a great little place in East Memphis.

While there, our three year old got a piece of chip lodged in his throat and vocalized his frustration about having said chip sticking his throat on the way down. In this case he wasn't throwing a fit as children, and my son, are at times prone to do. He was in pain and was vocalizing it. And then that thing all parents dread happened.

"CAN YOU MOVE ME AWAY FROM THAT RIDICULOUS BABY SCREAMING?! I CAME HERE TO EAT A NICE QUIET MEAL AND DON'T WANT TO PAY TO LISTEN TO THAT!" came the jagged words from the woman sitting to my back in the next booth. The middle-aged woman's words were designed to cut hard and fast and they drew blood. 

A few years ago there was a season on the TV show Parenthood which had characters live out nearly this same topic. It felt painful watching actors live through it. It felt deathly being in the realness of it. While she drew first I admit I verbally locked and loaded and released an arsenal of words in retaliation as we went back and forth.

"You realize that's MY child you're talking about! Yes waitress, it'd be a great idea if she moved....or left!" The waitress, who was noticeably pregnant said to us with her eyes was "preach customer" but with her words said to her, "I'll see what I can do" as she was unfortunately caught up in our verbal duel. 

She said ugly things. I returned the favor. My wife kept waiting on John Quinones and a cameraman to pop out from behind an artificial plant to interview the customers about joining the fray or sitting in passivity so he could post it on his news drama. He didn't. This really happened and it was more terrible than it sounds. Barf and ugh.

I feel wretched that it happened and still a little in shock. It was the ultimate scratch at parental insecurity. 

That said, I want to offer those who don't have children or have forgotten what its like to have children some advice about those of us who have toddlers and take them into public spaces. I also wish a younger me had known some of these things more clearly. 

1. If our children are loud we are more aware of it than you. Yep, toddlers are occasionally loud. Sometimes there is no good reason for it and other times there is. Either way, we know. And we will usually do something about it if we can. But let me give perspective on why we may let them, at times, be loud. First, parents of toddlers sometimes starve for adult conversation and will sacrifice having a few decibels in the room to speak to other adults and not break up the conversation. It's not the same as needing water or oxygen. But that need is a close third. We know you may not be used to the loudness this may necessitate and don't expect you to have the same developed immunity to the loudness. However, please try. 

Second, kids are kids. Much like a dam full of pent-up water, eventually that water's got to flow! Kids need to release energy and sometimes the public place is when that river flows. We know it's loud. We wished it wasn't at times. We'll try and keep it down. But still.

2. If you really need quiet, we get that. My wife, who is a bastion of patience compared to me, said after our fiasco, "I don't blame her for wanting to move. I just wish she would've quietly done so." We know how precious peace and quiet is. It's in short supply for parents of toddlers. Our low energy levels and bags under our eyes should clue you in to this awareness. If you want to be away from the crazy, we get it. 

Just remember, we parents already feel slightly sensitive (at least most of us) for our children being born with no volume control. Making a scene about the fact that we can't at all moments control our childrens' impressive voice projection like you control your flatscreen via remote doesn't help them, you, or us with your plight. Quietly ask to be seated in another section. We might've done the same at other points in life.

Also, if you walk into a restaurant and see a few tables in each section o'er taken by moms, dads, and toddlers, take your business to the pub down the street. We won't be there and we won't judge:)

3. We LOVE awesome people who help. Can you guess what happened as soon as Queen Crazy (as I may in my weaker moments refer to her) left for another section? At the table just beside us sat a sixty-something couple and their thirty-something daughter whose own husband and children came a few short minutes later. The older woman, whom I've already mentally marked as Queen Cool, said, "You guys are doing exactly what you're supposed to be doing. Good job, keep it up. We've all been there." They heard the same child Queen Crazy heard and yet said what every parent doubts but hopes to be true. You can speak those words too. You should speak those words too.

This does not mean you should let all chaos go unpunished if a child gets too riled up. We'd like your help, although not harshness, there as well. The whole "It takes a village" thing, you know. 

After all this is said I feel better. I can now entertain the thought that maybe the Queen had a bad day and was off her game. Hopefully this wasn't her normal mode.

Either way, I hope every parent who reads this hears the words of Queen Cool. You guys are doing exactly what you're supposed to be doing. Good job, keep it up. We've all been there!

​If you need an adult with whom you can have adult conversation while your six and three year old yell at unnecessary and unstoppable levels go on ahead and call up someone from your village, grab some chips and salsa, and have yourself some adult conversation!

My last blog was forever and a few days ago. So it goes. A lot has happened and is continuing to happen this year. Writing, working, wondering, and wandering. 

For now, though, here is my first attempt at the very cool app 1 Second Everyday. You should all drop all other plans for your evening to download it and begin using it. Its simple and brilliant. Simply brilliant!

I plan to post a new video extending from and building on the previous quarter at each quarter's end this 2016. Here is Quarter 1 of the 2016 Woods Chronicles.

I don't know how 2015 could possibly be gone but she left yesterday and isn't coming back! Its time to start 2016. Start writing that date on your checks and homework and plan how to change that "5" into a "6" when you mess up!

Now to the resolution. A few years ago I heard a poem called "The Grandeur of God" that has struck me and reframed the world. It speaks of a world full of glory. I don't want to miss any of that glory. However, I tend to look for it in the sensational when it is found with much more frequency in the mundane. You can't have extra-ordinary without the ordinary.

This year I want to pay more attention. I want to look for God's creative glory in the places where it most abundant: the everyday, ordinary, routine life you and I live.

That said, as with everything these days, "There's an app for that!"

A fellow Hutchmoot/Rabbit Roomer (http://www.hutchmoot.com/; ​https://www.rabbitroom.com/) posted a video today she composed using an app called "1 Second a Day." The idea is you take one 10 second video a day and condense each video into a second of life for each of your 365 days. You can check it out here: http://www.1secondeveryday.com/

When I saw the 1 Second a Day video I was drawn in by how it captures the essence of 365 mostly mundane moments and reveals the glory and magic of them seen from the bird's eye video. This will be my high tech spiritual discipline for 2016. I believe it will be worshipful experience as I train my eyes and phone lens to see moments in a different light as I commit to my resolution for more video resolution. I pass it along in case you might enjoy and benefit from the experience. 

Happy New Year friends and family. 

P.S. I also plan on writing a great bit more again in 2016:)

This may be my favorite poem from Luci Shaw. Its everything a poem and Advent should be. I leave it here.

​"Mary's Song"

Blue homespun and the bend of my breast
keep warm this small hot naked star
fallen to my arms. (Rest …
you who have had so far to come.)
Now nearness satisfies
the body of God sweetly. Quiet he lies
whose vigor hurled a universe. He sleeps
whose eyelids have not closed before.
His breath (so slight it seems
no breath at all) once ruffled the dark deeps
to sprout a world. Charmed by doves’ voices,
the whisper of straw, he dreams,
hearing no music from his other spheres.
Breath, mouth, ears, eyes
he is curtailed who overflowed all skies,
all years. Older than eternity, now he
is new. Now native to earth as I am, nailed
to my poor planet, caught
that I might be free, blind in my womb
to know my darkness ended,
brought to this birth for me to be new-born,
and for him to see me mended
I must see him torn.

It's November 29th in Memphis...and probably where you are. Its been raining here for two full days and will continue well into tomorrow. The rain is steady, constant, thorough in its effect on these grey Autumn days.

In Memphis, summer occasionally slips back into view well into November. But rain now falls with resolve to say summer is no more. The rain falls with resolve to wash away what has been this year to pave the way for what will be after the cold breath of Winter comes and inevitably gives way to the breezes of budding Spring. 

Yet Spring is distant in the moment of this grey, cold spell.

We wait. We hope.

There was a time when Jews could felt the grey they dreamed would give way to green. The rain of oppression poured heavy on them. The ache of oppression all too familiar. False hope would rise and fall in would be Messiahs and revolutionaries.

They waited. They hoped.

Oppression this day bears down on so many. Sadly, sinfully, those pressing down in ignorant or intentional ways are do so in the rhetoric of faith and objectivity. In the shadows of this faulted social system we see dimly--perhaps by choice.

For safety's sake we'd walk by or, perhaps better said, ask our nomadic neighbors to walk by our states as they seek a friend, refuge, and rescue.

Our own lesser desires hold us captive to technology and tangible lesser gods more often than we'd like to admit. Our possessions become our possessors in the endless trek toward suitable affluence. 

We wait. We hope. 

The rain bears down on so many at the birth of this Advent. Yet Advent reminds us grace is slowly finding its way through the cracks of our personal or systemic brokenness like water through worn roofs. Days like the last few misty Memphis one says through its constant pitter-patter the rain is baptizing this recent season of world events. It keeps showering stains of recent history.

Just as hope was birthed in the darkness of Mary's womb my prayer in this grey, rainy season is we have eyes to see and participate in hope's incarnation. May we allow it to wash over our frayed souls in preparation for the whispering of Spring winds shifting the this direction.

I'm listening to a conversation right next to me. Yep, I'm straight up eavesdropping at Starbucks. Creepy right?! Sorry two guys whom I don't yet know but really want to. In fact, I may introduce myself in just a bit if I can find a non-creepy way to but into said conversation.

What I'm hearing is a normal conversation between two Christians who are not being sensational. They are not being arrogant. They aren't saying or doing what they are to be seen or heard...as I said, I conversation creepin'.

What I'm hearing is two guys talk calmly, lovingly, raionally, and relationally about serving the refugee population of Memphis. They are not discussing political parties and slants. They are not discussing serving refugees with judgement on them or those who fear them. They aren't spending any time discussing how their platform is superior to another.

One of them just pulled out a phone to show a picture of their family gathering with Muslim refugees whom they prayed with, shared a meal with, hugged, blessed, loved.

They are using words like "love" and "kingdom of God" and "sacrifice other opportunities to focus on hospitality to this community." They won't be on TV this evening talking through threats threats of danger yet they are the kind of people who many of us Christ lovin' types wish actually got air time--the kind whom won't make good TV but will live a good story.

As I've read through scriptures in the Old and New Testament which discuss hospitality to the alien and then heard the all caps yelling matches on social media regarding the topic this is the conversation I've been thirsty to hear. Thought I'd share it with you. These Christians exist and they are brokenly beautiful. They can't be sensational but they can be servants. They can't be safe but they can be submissive to the call to love.

Like many Memphians, I never intended to find myself here. I grew up in the cotton fields of farm town West Tennessee. Memphis was bad news so when we moved here the mission was to get in, get my seminary degree, and get out.

However, Memphis had other plans. God had other plans.

My wife and I moved back to the States from Japan in 2006 and found ourselves going to a church in town which had a heart of gold. While in seminary, I was saturating myself with big theological ideas but missing a practical outlet through which to channel the redemptive principles I kept studying. Then came two things: Sunday Samaritans and the "kingdom of God." 

The Sunday Samaritans was a group of folks who would spend their afternoons fixing door handles, building ramps, and doing dry wall for widows and handicapped people. This was happening in the neighborhoods I grew up watching on the news. Those "evil neighborhoods" turned out to be full of beautiful and broken people. 

The "kingdom of God" was a phrase I'd hear in Bible classes but never given much attention. The preacher at the church began discussing how much Jesus wanted to give sight to the blind, freedom to the prisoner, healing for the sick, and good news to all of us. How beautiful. How gritty. I realized in that season of life the neighborhoods many middle and upper class friends and strangers spent a great deal of time escaping and avoiding here in the 901 are the neighborhoods Jesus would be spending time serving. It made me love Jesus and this city more.

To top it off, we've got Bar-B-Que that'll make you smack your mamma's mamma. We've got fried chicken that'll drop kick your taste buds. Snow cones, Chinese subs, the guacamole of all guacamoles, and more Bar-B-Que. And did I mention the food here is good?

On top of what I've already dropped on top are the Tigers and Grizzlies. I also work at a school whose mascot if a Lion thus completing the "Lion, Tiger, and Bear, Oh My" trifecta!

We have world class children's hospitals, refugee centers, ministries and non-profits who are pouring love into the Bluff City.

And the parks! The parks here are take my breath away with bike and jogging trails running out from them into the city like arteries carrying life blood from a heart to limbs.

More than anything in our city is the Grit and Grind are visible, real, everyday struggles. Some are struggling to make it, some struggling to help those struggling to make it. 

My talented Memphis-born friend Brandy Richardson created the print posted at the top of the blog. Its a quote from Bob Crawfor of The Avett Brothers who spent time in Memphis letting St. Jude Children's Research Hospital love on his daughter Hallie (You can read the story here.). But I love the truth he speaks about our city, "If you're here long enough you get to the gold beneath the grit, and then you fall in love with the grit itself."

I am thankful for our years thus far in this city. I understand the vitality of light by dwelling in our city's dark places. What has been staggering is realizing the light is coming from places and people I had once assumed dark. God has flipped my idea of where light and dark reside through the kingdom of God and the 901.

​For this, I'm thankful.

Last week our house broke. 

That is a little dramatic but that is what it felt like. Our plumbing lines backed up into our shower, bathtub, and toilets. It smelt as bad as you think. What also stinks is the the estimate to fix the significant plumbing line issues below our house and into our yard. While I was spending a great deal of time considering how to have a "bigger barn" (house) bigger my current one was almost literally spoiling that plan right below my feet. Crappy situation indeed. 

What has been a perfectly timed correlation (read: God helping my hard head absorb a lesson) is what I've been reading and teaching about from Acts of the Apostles in the Bible in my 11th grade Bible class. 

Acts 4:32 
"32 Now the full number of those who believed were of one heart and soul, and no one said that any of the things that belonged to him was his own, but they had everything in common. 33 And with great power the apostles were giving their testimony to the resurrection of the Lord Jesus, and great grace was upon them all. 34 There was not a needy person among them, for as many as were owners of lands or houses sold them and brought the proceeds of what was sold 35 and laid it at the apostles' feet, and it was distributed to each as any had need. 36 Thus Joseph, who was also called by the apostles Barnabas (which means son of encouragement), a Levite, a native of Cyprus, 37 sold a field that belonged to him and brought the money and laid it at the apostles' feet.

What is fascinating and, if I'm honest, convicting to me is the attitude God's Spirit created amongst the community of The Way in those early days after the church's inauguration at Pentecost. 

You and I live in a world of iPhones, iPads, and other iThings. They are personalized things for me. More apps, more books, more music. We amore more things. Things = happy, correct? We each need our own individual item and we will then have arrived. We will then be successful, affluent Americans and we'll have our own 6 cylinder lawnmower to prove it. 

Not according to the Acts 4 church. Their hearts and minds were focused on living with less to do more good. In this God's grace was tangible. They asked, "what can we share to free up more blessings?"

Right now my wife is down the road at our neighbors' house. They heard of our plumbing problems and decided to "have all things in common with us" by letting us use their washer until we save enough to fix our pipes. They also have a community garden planted in their backyard to share food. They live in a modest sized homes so that over the last few decades they can do jobs which pay less but bless more. 

Today I'm thankful for my Acts 4 neighbors who teach us each day by their actions bigger blessing is better than bigger barns. This is not common. Its not the American dream. But when the people of God began unfolding God's dream it looked a great deal more like my neighbors than my former ambitions. 

So, the question for the day: What can you and I give up to give more this holiday season?

Today, on my 37th birthday and third on my ThanksLiving series, I'm thankful for nothing in particular. 

I used to think Ecclesiastes was the Adelle album of the Biblical catalog: nice prose, smooth sound, but, for the love of life, more depressing than Wuthering Heights times Old Yeller. 

However, as I've aged I've come to understand and see the comfort in the book.

"Vapor, vapor, all is vapor" Qoheleth ponders. "What gain is there in toil?" he inquires. 

Yet, in a turn that is raucous against the potential, and perhaps in the case of Ecclesiastes, acceptable negativity of futile ambitions, there is a turn toward the value of what is core to worthwhile reality. The last breath of the book asks the young man to "Respect the Lord and keep his commandments." 

He has spent miles of ink laying out the futility of grand ambition for men and their desires for power, women, wealth, and even wisdom. They won't fill the cup of his greatest desires. Those thirsts are wearisome and never quench quenchable.

The answer to joy is much simpler. Rest in relation to God. Rest in the world he has given. It is so simple and yet so...well, not simple.

In chapter 2 of the same chapter he writes:  "A person can do nothing better than to eat and drink and find satisfaction in their own toil. This too, I see, is from the hand of God, for without him, who can eat or find enjoyment? To the person who pleases him, God gives wisdom, knowledge and happiness, but to the sinner he gives the task of gathering and storing up wealth to hand it over to the one who pleases God."

I still have goals, things I believe truly important to attempt accomplishing. However, at the end of the day its the joy of "nothing at all really," mundane things, that birth joy and meaning. 

Playing chase and dinosaurs each day with my son is a gift. Watching Frozen with my daughter 20 times a week pleases God...and may still be slightly toilsome. 

The last few years have made the mundane magical. Every breath, taste of Trolley Stop Pizza, sip of Tennessee's finest sweet tea, stealing glances at my wife's emerald green eyes which still stun me, and bedtime with my children are God's simplest and clearest gestures of joy toward me. In Ecclesiastes, to those who pursue simplicity God gives wisdom. To those who pursue gathering and storing up wealth he gives the sorrow of handing those things over to others.

My friend Matt Conner told me about this song linked at the top. Its "Joy of Nothing" by Foy Vance. I think if Qoheleth had an acoustic guitar and nice recording studio he might have just written this song and produced this video. It captures nicely why I'm thankful for "nothing at all really."