Elliot Allen Ames arrived on Earth around 3:20am this past Monday morning. Due to the planet’s gravity, he registered 6 lbs 11 oz and he was 19.5 inches long. His 2 sisters Savannah and Sydney, who had arrived on the planet 2 and 5 years prior, were delighted to finally fulfill their dreams to hold him in their arms.

It’s no secret, Carlos Whitaker loves time lapse video. Last year he recorded his family decorating the tree using an awesome song from August Burns Red. This year, I decided to follow suit.

You can see from the poll results below, that it was a tie. 48% vs. 48%. So enough speculation already. Watch the video for the final word on the matter.

Our church does this thing that is fairly popular with Evangelicals. They facilitate the process for regular attenders to form “small groups”. We meet once a week, usually 3-4 weeks in a row and then we take a week off each month. You’re matched up by age, location, and stage of life.

In our group we do bible studies and read books together. Often, we choose topics related to marriage and child-raising. It’s pretty laid back and it has added tremendous value to our marital relationship and our parenting ability.

One of the unexpected delights (and disappointments) is that we are encouraged to break up every year and a half or so and form a new group. This is usually a sad time at first, but it keeps the cast of characters in our lives fresh and unique. You end up befriending people who have the very basics in common with you, and sometimes little else. If it wasn’t for small group you never would have met.

Our good friends Jody, Jennifer and baby Makenna, who we met via small group, are an excellent example. I don’t golf. I’m not “outdoorsy”. I don’t have a green thumb. On the surface, Jody and I don’t have a great deal in common. Needless to say, we don’t run in the same social circles. But we’re friends now. And we have way more in common that I ever would have imagined in the beginning. He’s the kind of guy you do not want to be around if you have a weak bladder because he is so funny he will make you pee your pants. His dedication to his family and wife is an example to me.

One of the benefits we’ve enjoyed from being his friend is that on the 4th of July we get an all access pass to a well-manicured private golf course. We relax. We let the kids run as fast and (almost) as far as they want. It’s refreshing and beautiful.

While all the well-to-do rich folk are enjoying perfectly grilled filet mignon and salmon on the deck of the clubhouse, we’re lounging about on the back nine, sipping sweet tea and chewing on the Colonel’s extra crispy fried chicken, in our own private Eden.

It’s a tradition I hope we keep for many years to come.

First of all, someone needs to teach that dude how to cuss all right and proper like. I know profanity and that isn’t it! I mean, didn’t God himself have some strong feelings about “He that pisseth against the wall“?

I know I haven’t been in the club very long, but I’m still mystified. I’m assuming if he doesn’t like crap, he certainly doesn’t approve of real profanity. I read the bible roughly 5 or 6 times a week. I actually enjoy it and look forward to it. So I would think that the concerns with cussing would be, you know, obvious to me. So far they are not.

I grew up in a military family from the northern U.S. so I don’t even notice profanity half the time. It was always just a part of the scenery. It’s not even considered profane by the speaker or the recipient in most cases. It’s common dialog.

Ironically, however, I have made it a personal goal not to use profanity and for the most part, I don’t. I have my moments where I slip into old habits, but largely my language is church-appropriate on a daily basis. Here’s the thing though, I don’t do it for Jesus or for any religious conviction. My reasoning is that I want people to understand me and consider my points of view. I want to be seen as credible (don’t we all?). I don’t want my choice of words to interfere with what I have to say. In light of this, I took a look at all people and I realized the following:

A. People who cuss are tolerant of people who do not. For the most part they are understanding and respectful of the culture of the non-profane.

B. People who don’t cuss are not tolerant of people who do. For the most part if you use profanity, they will stop listening to you and avoid you entirely.

Therefore:

C. The path of most effective communication is one without cussing.

I commented in response to the “cussing pastor” post and now I’m wondering if it’s a valid perspective.

Ed has Southern Baptist tunnel vision. And I’m not talking about his theology, I’m talking about his culture. To the majority of the U.S., it’s only the reached people who are offended by “bad language”.

So if you want to save the saved, keep on wasting time on this topic. If you want to introduce unreached people to Jesus, speak to them plainly, in their vernacular.

I’m a hypocrite. I know this. Not only am I wasting more time on this, I’ve invited you to do the same. If I’d have known I was going to write this post, I can assure you I wouldn’t have written that .

I’m not advocating that people who do not use cuss words start using them in order to artificially impress others. Unless of course someone has a video camera rolling because as that scene plays out in my mind it is awkward and hilarious. What I am advocating, or at least questioning, is whether or not we should be judging Christians who already use cuss words as a natural part of their vocabulary. If I am a Christian and I’m hanging out with my friends who use cuss words as a part of everyday language, and I am fluent in the same vernacular, is it right or wrong for me to speak the common tongue?

And so, a paradox. On the one hand, I don’t want my girls to grow up with potty-mouths. On the other, I don’t want them to feel awkward or uncomfortable around people that choose to be different than them.

It seems to me that we Christians are artisan wall-builders. And the tragedy is that all of the walls we erect just so happen to be strategically positioned between nonbelievers and Jesus.

Is it only the reached people that are offended by profanity? If so, does that say something? Is profanity in the ear of the beholder? I’m searching, here. So bust out your bibles and liquor me up with some religion already. Clearly, I need it.

Happy Anniversary my love! You’re my favorite!

I am sitting in a large, comfortable bus as we take a day-long tour of London. It’s December now and the contrast of the cold outside upon the heat inside has created a perpetually thick matte of condensation on my window. I reach up and write with large, friendly letters the words “Stupid American” into the fog, followed by an arrow that points down and ends where my face begins. The words are written backwards inside the bus so that spectators outside the bus can read them in the right direction. My girlfriend of 4 years is sitting beside me and my family, who lives here in England, is with us taking in the sights and history of the city. My Mom shares with me, “In England a hundred miles is a long distance, but in America a hundred years is a long time.” It is my love’s first trip here, but not mine, and I am beside myself with excitement to show it to her.

I should stop here and say that it has been no secret through most of our courtship that we are going to be married. As we have made our way through college, dating and living separately, we have passed the time by planning our future life together. I have made it a point to tell my love throughout this courtship that she will never know when I am about to ask for her hand in marriage. On several occasions I have told her, “You are going to think you will know when I am about to ask you, but you will be wrong. I promise you will never see it coming.” I am hoping that this will be my brilliantly played victory in psychological warfare.

And so it is not by accident that today is a few days after Christmas, but not quite New Years Eve, and that we are traveling London. My love does not notice one of my hands spending an unscrupulous amount of time in its corresponding pocket. She is far too distracted with everything to suspect that I am guarding a secret in the shape of a diamond engagement ring. She should be curious as to why, as we approach Westminster Abbey, my family has decided to sit outside the historic church instead of accompany us inside, but just as I planned, she is not taking notice.

Together we drink our fill of the 1400 year old abbey which is shaped like a giant cross. This, we learn, is a place where kings were crowned, royal families were sewn together, and national treasures were laid to rest. We meander through the hallways marveling at the names of historic figures entombed in the very floors and walls around us. The anticipation of the impending moment is circling the rim of my heart like a twister circles the chain-link fence of a trailer park, just before leveling it completely. This grand Gothic masterpiece is the final resting place to monarchs and scientists and poets. From Henry V to Elizabeth I. From Geoffrey Chaucer to Charles Dickens. From Sir Isaac Newton to Charles Darwin. We stand in awe, again and again, that surely one hundred years is a mere drop in the bucket of time for a place such as this.

My love and I have reached the center of the abbey, in front of the altar. I looked around, breath in the moment through all my senses, and say…

“This place is beautiful.”

“Yes,” she replies.

“This is the place where kings have been crowned and royalty has been married for hundreds and hundreds of years,” I remark with purpose.

She doesn’t respond.

“This would be a romantic place for someone to propose, don’t you think?” I offer casually.

“Yes,” she agrees softly, admiring something off in the distance.

And then, in the heart of Westminster Abbey, with my would-be wife half distracted and not paying me much attention, I get down on one knee, in front of God and Charles Darwin’s bones, and I cast an anchor into to sea of time that will be ours forever.

Because there are some conversations you just won’t see coming.

My nephew has a black Daddy that he hasn’t seen in over a decade and a white Mama, my sister, that he has known his whole life. He is a young teenager now, but when he was five years old he taught me a lesson at the Sam’s Club food court I will never forget. The rest of the family (read: the women) were off doing the hard work of shopping. So it was just he and I sitting there, hanging out. I didn’t have children at the time and I remember something peaceful came over me. Here I was sitting with a five year old kid doing absolutely nothing, and it felt very, I don’t know, right I guess. I should have been in one of my world famous, shopping-induced, foul moods, but I wasn’t. This is how it should be, I thought. Man and boy, eating hot dogs, bonding together in spite of age and a complete lack of words.

But then an unexpected heaviness invited itself to our crummy, fiberglass table and sat down beside us in one of our crummy, fiberglass seats. I realized in a split moment that I was not the man who was supposed to be doing this. This boy had a father and I knew that my nephew would never be able to have his dad in the way a boy needs. I was Uncle Chris. I wasn’t Dad and I never would be. My heart became lethargic as my peaceful mood was buried beneath this data, this… tangle of information.

So I looked at him and I said, “You know what? I’m lucky I get to be your Uncle.”

He smiled.

I continued, “It’s true, you’re pretty terrific. Did you know that?”

Then his face softened and he got, well, almost contemplative. “Really?” he asked as he made eye contact with me.

“Well DUH,” I responded incredulously, and then I added, “When your Aunt and I have kids one day, I hope I have a son. And I hope he turns out to be just like you.”

He studied me as I finished. He looked straight into my eyes and positively studied my face, even after I stopped talking. The silence was almost awkward, just short of unnerving, and finally he spoke.

“You want him to be just like me?” he searched. ”Even my same color?”

And there it was. The moment. The kind of moment that, as a parent, you both long for and fear at the same time. But as an Uncle, you get utterly blindsided by its very existence. One second I’m sucking down a hot dog twice as long as my large intestine, the next I’m staring down a once in a lifetime opportunity to validate this boy’s very existence. This five year old embodiment of self worth was looking up at me and asking a question as old as history itself, “Am I acceptable?”

I met his gaze without hesitation and I lowered my face to be even with his. In a soft, confident tone I said to him, “Christian, I wouldn’t change a single thing about you. If your Aunt and I had a baby that looked exactly like you, I’d be the happiest Daddy on the planet.” I stopped there and let it sink in. I went back to my hot dog.

After a few moments had passed I added casually, while licking my lips and chewing my food, “You realize that won’t happen, though, right? Since I’m a cream colored guy and your Aunt is a cream colored girl, we can’t make little brown babies. We’re stuck with little creamy ones.”

He looked dubious.

“Let’s take you for example. Your skin is brown because your Mommy is cream colored like me. But your Daddy, the one that lives far away, is a darker brown color like that man over there, see him? That’s why your skin is light brown. You got some color from your Mommy and some color from your Daddy.”

He sat there, expressionless, for a full two seconds. Then he shot up unexpectedly, and raised one arm over his head before bringing it down swiftly, pounding his fist into the palm of his open hand while exclaiming loudly, through a triumphant, goofy-looking grin, “I KNEW IT!” I almost choked on my food from laughing. He thought this was some kind of deep, dark family secret or something, and he had finally cracked the case!

So I say again, do not make assumptions about what your kids understand. Talk to them early, and plainly, and often. And get really good at mastering that relaxed, calm, and confident disposition. You never know when a teaching moment will present itself.

But most of all, validate the young ones in your life. Answer the visible questions, but also seek out and answer the ones that lie beneath the surface. Because if you don’t, I promise that someone else will. And they will not necessarily have your kids best interests at heart.

These are my concluding thoughts to a series of posts that begin here.

I believe that I am incapable of executing my life without the presence of sin. What I mean is, I feel as though a universal code of conduct exists that creates peace within me when I follow it and creates distress within me when I do not. Furthermore, I have projected this belief about myself onto all people. Onto you, even. It is accurate to suggest that it forms a load bearing wall in my worldview.

One of the things I respect about the Christians is that they are acutely sensitive to the tension between justice and mercy. Because of their belief in the “sinful nature” of all men, including themselves, this issue gets more than mere depthless, fleeting consideration. This tension is thoroughly pillaged and crops are routinely harvested. It should be noted, however, that it can look foolish to the rest of the world if they happen to peek in during the sowing season.

One of these crops is compassion.

Right now you’re probably thinking that I’m talking about the compassion that you, and I mean you specifically, feel on a regular basis. But I am not. Oh sure, some of you know what I mean, but I’d wager that the rest of you are clueless now in exactly the same way that I was clueless before. The kind of compassion I’m talking about does not tug at your heart and captivate your attention. It is not the soft compassion reserved for poverty-stricken orphans or leukemia patients or quadriplegics. No, the compassion I’m talking about smells like beer and hasn’t shaved in weeks. It is hard and calloused and abrasive to your sensibilities. If you don’t look for it, you will not find it.

Some of the most rewarding experiences available to us in this life will not come naturally. They will carry risk and have personal cost. Pardon me for a moment while I talk to my children.

Sydney and Savannah:

As you make your way through this life I hope you recognize two forms of compassion exist. The first kind will seek you out unexpectedly and come easy to your heart, the second is the kind you have to seek out for yourself and work for once you’ve found it. I believe that if you feed either of these they will grow and if you starve them they will wither. I also believe that the greater of these two is the one you have to earn. Inherent in the process of chasing down and working through the hard compassion is an undeniable truth. While pursuing either may afford you the opportunity to change the heart of the world, focusing on the hard compassion carries the added benefit changing the heart of you.

You can’t force yourself to feel compassion, but you can earn the privilege.

I love you both,

Daddy

Here I am, a man in his early 30s with 2 young daughters writing letters and sending books to a confessed pedophile. When I stand back and look at it in those terms I think to myself, “To whom, exactly, does this make sense?” But when I look at it the other way, my doubts scurry. The folks at Deadly Viper have a campaign called People of a Second Chance and they believe that a second chance is a human right. I’m a little divergent about the wording but I am 100% behind the spirit of the message.

Are some crimes, and consequently some people, beyond compassion? Do you believe that compassion can be earned, and if so, to what benefit or folly?

Next: My Arrest Was The Best Thing That Could Have Happened To Me

Hello People:

As some of you know, I was contacted by North Point Community Church concerning an upcoming sermon series. Andy is using personal stories to lead into each sermon, and he requested to use my story as I described it during my baptism for one of the Sundays. If you could throw excitement, anxiety, and humility into a blender and set it to puree… this is pretty much how I am feeling right now.

If you skipped out on witnessing Chris via jumbotrons the first time, this is your distinct opportunity to make it up. I’m told my portion will last ~4 minutes. Listening to the preacher directly following is optional .

So I wrote my story down. It was sent to an editor. I had a photo shoot. I narrated it at a sound studio. Then, the production team went to work on bringing it all together. And boy did they ever.

It’s Personal – A Former Atheist Speaks from dewde on Vimeo.

That is the short version but I wrote so much more. The editor, Jon from Stuff Christians Like, did terrific and helped me summarize a few areas where I was wordy, redundant, or extraneous. I was given the opportunity to change, approve, or deny anything I wanted. I remember sitting in the studio and asking if I could make changes during recording and Brad saying, “Change whatever you like.” The truth is, though, I didn’t want to change anything.

Actually, here. See for yourself. This was my initial rough draft. Think of it as an extended version of the video.

My Story

I grew up as the oldest of 3 in a patriotic Air Force family. We traveled the U.S. and the world. In the years leading up to High School we were stationed in the United Kingdom where we did not attend church. When my family was finally stationed back states-side, I found myself a High School sophomore in deep south Georgia.

I had moved from one foreign country to another.

Within a week of moving into our new home it seemed we had been invited to a different church by every family in the neighborhood. We came from northern roots where, culturally, you didn’t invite someone to church until after you had developed a relationship with them, and not the other way around. Consequently, my parents were completely turned off to even exploring the area for a church home.

I went to school where I met many, many Christians. I attended a few churches with friends. I was “witnessed at” frequently, but I had questions and they were not answered to my satisfaction. By the time I was 17, I’d had enough! I’d had enough of all of these self-professed God followers, with messy, imperfect lives, telling me that I needed God! So what… my life could be an imperfect mess, too? Thanks but no thanks. Or else I’d go to Hell when I died? Nice theory. Prove it. I remember hearing about a scandal in one church where the youth pastor had an affair with one of my classmates. The man did the noblest thing he knew how, I guess. He confessed to his wife, and the girl’s parents, and the entire congregation… all on Sunday morning.

How efficient.

If Jesus was real, and He was present in the lives of these pushy, dysfunctional people, then I wanted no part of it.

Apart from the observable behavior of Christians in my life, another thing stood as a barrier to believing in God and/or Jesus. Reason. This all-powerful, all-knowing, all-loving God had never given me the time of day. I reasoned that if such a being existed, and He was keen to send me to Hell for not believing in His invisible son, then He should at least have the courtesy of warning me in advance, and to my face thank-you-very-much. If “God” had given me 5 senses, surely He could appeal to one of them on His own behalf and clear this misunderstanding up about His existing and what-not. Not only that, but every time I asked one of his followers to prove to me God exists, they would refer to the Bible. THAT’s your proof? Puh-lease. That translation is like what… a copy of a copy of a copy or something? Hello… haven’t you ever heard of the telephone game? NEWSFLASH: The message always changes! God just didn’t make sense. Why would God allow 4 year old little girls to be run over by school buses? Or millions of children to die of starvation? If I were God I would do so many things differently.

Anyone with half a heart would.

But as I look back now, I see evidence of something I didn’t see then. In spite of all those feelings I did have a tension in my heart about the question of God. It was mostly negative, and I credited it to the pushy Christians, but a tension was there. You might call it a bit of a turmoil. And eventually this turmoil, and the pushy people, wore me down. So I did it. I guess you could call it a prayer. I was alone in my room and I had a conversation with “God”. I told Him that I did not believe He existed and that this was His chance to prove to me, once and for all, that He did.

I waited.

I listened hard.

And when the silence was over I had the proof that I needed, that I had been right all along, and I became an Atheist with a clean conscience.

I met my wife in college. She was beautiful. She was intelligent. She was funny. She had but one itty bitty imperfection. She was a Christian. We were too much in love to let our religious differences end our relationship, but she did let me know very early that she expected her future husband, whoever it may be, to attend church with her after marriage. I did the math in my head and two hours on Sunday seemed like pennies to pay in exchange for the rest of our hours together. We dated for 5 years, completed college, got married and moved to Atlanta. On the topic of religion, we agreed to disagree. Neither of us wavered. Following 2 years of marriage my wife was ready for me to make good on my promise to attend church with her.

You don’t have to be a Christian to be a man of your word, you know.

I complied. We went church shopping! *groan*. We stopped searching for a church once we found North Point. This place made taking my medicine easy. You mean I’m getting brownie points for this? Sweet! Remove the hocus pocus and some of this stuff is even relevant! Is that really in the bible? I’m not even a Christian and I agree with that. Wait a minute… Jesus hated hypocritical religious leaders too? What a coincidence!

If He were real, I might even like Him.

We rarely missed a Sunday. We joined starting point, and then a married couples small group. You don’t have to be a Christian to desire to build a healthy marriage, you know. I could see value in doing stuff together and focusing on our relationship. So we did it. Apparently it’s not common to show up the first night to one of those things and declare to everyone that they shouldn’t expect you to pray because you don’t believe in Jesus. But it was true, and our new-found friends were understanding and respectful. Even when I wasn’t.

I went to church, I heard the bible. I went to small group, I read the bible. Time passed and the knowledge I gained bore fruit in my life and my marriage. Along the way I learned that quite a few of my assumptions about Christianity and the bible were way off.

Inevitably, an old tension returned.

But this time I couldn’t pin it on pushy, judgmental Christians. At least I still had logic on my side, right? I mean God wasn’t exactly manifesting Himself before me. But old tensions don’t always listen to reason.

One of the things I came to appreciate about the Christian God was that people who were suffering, grieving, or hurting would find hope and inspiration in the idea of Him. The concept that God had compassion for them, and forgave them if they had wronged Him, and wanted to bend the world in favor of them, did indeed seem to fill a void that those people needed filling. But this did me no good. I was not downtrodden. I was not desperate for love or attention. I was making more money than I ever had in my life. I was fulfilled by my wife. I had the respect of my peers. I watched baptisms on Sunday morning and I would think, “I’m glad that they were able to break their addictions and find happiness through belief in Jesus.” But my needs were more than met. I was happy. I was satisfied. And yet the tension grew.

Everyone knows that once you make your mind up about something significant, you don’t just change it. Debating with others only accomplishes a strengthening within you of the side you are already on, and not a winning over to the other side. So I didn’t expect what happened next to happen next. I had a disturbing realization. While deep in thought about spiritual matters it occurred to me that I was 27 years old and that I was basically taking spiritual advice from a 17 year old boy.

And not just any 17 year old boy, but the 17 year old version of myself.

This thought bothered me tremendously. It exacerbated the tension. I couldn’t shake it. I had changed my position on a great many things since then. I mean, at 17 you make decisions largely based on theories. At 27 you factor in a little thing called experience. This realization did not make me a Christian. But it played a huge role in moving me from one side of an issue towards the center. Once you’ve had the opportunity to actually, truly be “open-minded” about an issue, you gain a certain appreciation and respect for the word. And you stop using it so carelessly. I came to a point of humility that cannot be faked or, I believe, even earned on my own. I reasoned that if God did exist, it is possible that He may not follow my exact template for revealing Himself to each of His created creatures. I had this gnawing tension within me in spite of logic and a fulfilled life. I was more than a little frustrated. I just wanted to know the truth, you know? Is God and/or Jesus real or not? I got to a place where I just didn’t care if I had been wrong or right. Deep, deep down I just wanted to know the truth. I decided to pray again.

“God, if You actually exist, I recognize that You may do things differently than I would do them, if I were God. I am open to You proving to me that You exist, on Your terms.”

This was the best my prideful heart could muster. I prayed it. I believed it. And I didn’t care how long it took. That was the turning point for me. I let go of a small piece of my pride that day, and I have never regretted a moment of it. In fact, I wish I could export it and share it with the world.

In spite of all these words, I feel like so much is left unsaid. When I was an Atheist I never once thought of it as a phase I was going through. It was just my life. Now that I am a Christian, I feel the same way. This is me, now.

For those interested in the sermons, or the other stories (which I highly recommend), they are available here on YouTube.

The bugs, which had been partying in my tonsils (infection) on either side of my throat the preceding night, decided to meet in the middle, at my beloved uvula, for one big blowout super-party. I was in deep sleep and unbeknown to me the raging infection/party caused my uvula to swell and grow and swell and grow. When I awoke and sat up this behemoth of a uvula, which had been laying dormant covertly on the back of my nasal passage disguised as standard run-of-the-mill phlegm, made its ugly presence known.

Reflexively, I swallowed it. It was so elongated that it stretched down into my throat, below my gag reflex. In trying to swallow, my throat was able to catch a healthy grip and give an impressive, albeit painful, tug because it was so far down. Half lucid and not fully prepared to start swallowing parts of my anatomy so early in the morning, I bolted to the sink. After gasping for air and a few vomitous heaves… I managed to cough it up into my mouth. To which my mouth reflexes said, “More phlegm? Swallow!” *Gulp*. I went back and forth in this cycle of cough! swallow! cough! swallow! a few times while I tried to collect my wits. Eventually I managed to control the mouth reflex by treating my uvula like a giant wad of gum, holding it between my tongue and bottom teeth.

At this point it occurred to me that I am now unable to swallow, eat, drink, articulate words, or take medication. I had to concentrate just to keep it up out of my throat at all times. The last thought scared me because I knew I had a date with a fever in about an hour. I had been rotating in and out at regular intervals all week and only medication had been able to break it. But now I couldn’t take medicine.

I ran to the upstairs balcony and yelled down to my wife, “Sumthids wahn! Sumthids Wahn! Cah suhb-wuhb thoo wath Thydney” (Something’s wrong! Something’s wrong! Call someone to watch Sydney). My sister was just the suhb-wuhb we were looking for. She arrived in what seemed like minutes, and Dewdette rushed me to the ER. All the while I focused on keeping my wad of “gum” tucked under my tongue and concentrated on each breath, reminding my body not to swallow because a uvula, it turns out, is attached to every moving part in your throat responsible for ingestion.

I now hold the record for largest uvula admitted into North Fulton Medical Center. Go me. The nurse says, “You don’t mind if I show the other nurses, do you?” to which I reply, “Not at all, I’m a social butterfly and love the attention.” But of course it comes out, “Nob ab ahh, Ib ah thoboo buhwuhfwuh an wub the athenthuhn.” Drool, drool, grin. Realizing my impairment, I nodded my head no-problem style and gave a smile. She exited and quickly returned with a spectator.

It’s a lot less dramatic after the oglings. The doc arrived and, after a quick exam, joked about how I reminded him of that guy from Wayne’s World. Pardon me if I don’t laugh at your jokes, bro, my uvula is the size of Texas. They hooked me up to an IV, gave me a strong antibiotic, and also a steroid to reduce the swelling. A little over an hour later and it had shrunk enough so that it was above my gag reflex (yay). That meant I could choose to flop it in my throat or keep it on my tongue. It was still freakishly long, but not life-threatening. I could eat watery foods, breath, drink, breath, take liquid medicine, cough, clear my throat, breath, interject witticisms, and yes, breath. You know, the good stuff you take for granted most days.

For you twisted folks, I have included my freakshow pictures below. Remember, these are the post-ER, he-is-well-enough-to-go-home-now, road-to-recovery pictures. I was in no frame of mind to take pictures when my life was seemingly in peril. So as ugly as these are… it was much, much worse before I went to the ER.

I don’t have any words of wisdom or penetrating questions for you this post. It’s more along the lines of “This sucked but I lived and now it’s funny. Gawk at my gross pictures.”