Hmm. I’ve never purchased a new car or seen the movie Titanic. I’ve got one brilliant brother, a fishing father, and a marvelous mother (without a web presence, so no link.)
On the first day of Survey of Art, which was my first day of college, I noticed a woman in a yellow skirt. We’ve been married now for more than 17 years, and she’s shaped me more than any other person, for which I am grateful and a better person. (Check out the stories from our 2nd honeymoon to Dominica.)
Right smack on her due date, Talli entered our world and made us parents. I remember my first view of the top of her head, her cry with a squeak at the end, and how scared I was walking down the hallway to leave the hospital without the safety net of nurses. Hayley was induced a week early because the doctor was going out of town, and Elaine went from complaining that the pitocin wasn’t doing a thing to holding our daughter in less than two hours. A day and a few hours late, at 2:13 am on my dad’s birthday, our little bundle of Aubrey Joy entered the world at St. Al’s in Boise, Idaho. (More info in the family category.)
I love to fly fish and golf, but don’t do either very much. I dink around on the computer a lot, and I find serious joy in crafting words…but lack the time to put enough together to make a book. Hence this blog.
My online presence began September 3, 1996, with Gregg’s Notebook. I updated that some until 1999, and then it disappeared into the dusty corners of my hard drive. But (for a time, at least) you can still see it all right here.
It looked something like this:
Christmas of 2004 brought a Christmas letter from my friends the Barnhills, and the letter had the address of Jimmy’s blog. Whoa. Blew my doors off. Jimmy and Carla are a part of Solomon’s Porch, an emergent expression of Christian worship in Minneapolis, Minnesota. I think I read every word of Jimmy’s whole archive, and I found something stirring in me. He and others in the Solomon’s Porch community were having these amazing discussions about church and Jesus and life because of their blogs, and I wanted in. Gregg’s Gambles was born because I wanted to comment on Jimmy’s blog, and created an identity and a blog to do it. Version 1 looked like this:
I didn’t tell anyone for 3 or 4 weeks, but I found making myself write was personally very therapeutic. Selfish, attention seeking me wanted MORE, though, so I let the cat out of the bag to a few friends. And then I discovered Quaker blogs. And then I started having these amazing discussions about Jesus and parenting and church and life. Gregg’s Gambles started to dance:
I made the move to Webjive (owned by friends AJ and Jason) last December, and love WordPress!
Let’s see, I’m getting bored with this, so you probably are too. I’m senior pastor at Newberg Friends Church in Newberg, Oregon, and life is good. Thanks for stopping by!