Kaylee, 2013-2025

Not long after we were married, Tara and I started talking about getting a dog.  She wanted a lab of some sort, and I wanted a German Shepherd.  So it seemed like divine confirmation when we were out grocery shopping and just so happened to see a sign on a car window saying, "Ask me about my black lab / German shepherd puppies!"  For that reason, we liked to tell people we got Kaylee from Aldi: we simply followed the sign inside, inquired of the cashier, and from there found ourselves in a private home a few days later, observing a litter of about 15 lab/shepherd puppies all in one massive, wrestling bundle on the kitchen floor...  All except for one sweet little girl off to the side who just sat there, looking up at us, quietly wagging her tiny tail, waiting with such expectancy for us to pick her up.  When I did, and she instantly snuggled into my neck, Tara and I both knew we'd found our girl.

"Lady," as she'd been named, came home with us the next week, when she was old enough to leave her mother.  Naturally, we wanted to give her a name we'd picked out, so we decided to call her "Kaylee."  For the Firefly fans out there, I always intended to find her a "Simon."  But Kaylee (who also went by "K-snaps," "Kayleebean," "Puppernickels," and a wide variety of other affectionate nicknames) was more than enough dog for us, all on her own.  As a matter of fact, she was the reason for both of our moves: when we disclosed her to the apartment management at Forest Creek, they told us we couldn't keep her, but by that point she'd already become part of our family.  The Woodstown bungalow we moved into was a perfect first home (bat infestation notwithstanding), but it only had a tiny little triangle of a yard out back, and Kaylee loved to run.  And so, three years later, we sold that property and moved to Swedesboro, back to the neighborhood in which Tara and I had both been born and raised, knowing we needed a bigger yard for our pup, in addition to a few extra bedrooms since Tara was two months pregnant with Zeke.

Kaylee loved our yard here in Swedesboro.  She was a black, furry missile, streaking from one end to the other, chasing out rabbit intruders and greeting passing neighborhood dogs.  In fact, before we finished fencing in the yard, she gave several passersby near heart attacks by racing up to them when we weren't paying attention.  I did not get off on the right foot with one neighbor for that very reason...  As much as she loved her outdoor spaces and our various chairs and couches, Kaylee also loved going just about anywhere with us.  Of course, her eagerness was always a bit of a trade-off with how nervous she would be en route.  The DNA evidence would be left all over the car seats, dashboard, and windows by the time we reached our destination.  Up until we started traveling with two or three car seats, she would tag along just about everywhere we went -- across town to visit either set of parents, to a local dog park, all the way down to Cape May on family vacations.

 

She had quite a few friends over the years: Apple, Tony, Gus, Rocky, Tinkerbell, Kilikina, Sushi, and Han & Leia to name just a few.  One morning when I was walking her around our Swedesboro neighborhood, a rottweiler leapt clear over his fence and came after us.  Not knowing what else to do, I yelled at him, "Stop!" and pulled Kaylee along (she was very eager to meet him).  Purely by God's grace, the dog halted in his tracks and didn't follow us across the street.  Another rottweiler we used to pass in Woodstown would spin in dizzying circles behind his fence every morning when we'd walk by.

Kaylee spent her very first night with us crying nonstop in our apartment kitchen.  Penning her up in there was part of our efforts to housebreak her.  While she didn't have any accidents, we also ended up with the soft top of our card table shredded (we didn't own a puppy gate), zero sleep, and tons of anxiety that our nextdoor and downstairs neighbors would complain about us to management.  Night number two, Kaylee slept in the bed with us.  In fact, she did so basically from then on, snuggled under my arm, right up until the time Tara was way too pregnant with Zeke for us all to fit comfortably in on a queen mattress during the summer months.  From there, a disgruntled Kaylee moved under the bed on Tara's side -- probably because I was the bad guy who kicked her out.  We used a wooden cradle from Tara's parents for each of our kids during their first few months ex-utero.  Zeke was a heavy sleeper from day one, but Nora was a restless fidgeter whose sudden, thrashing movements and gasps (all while still being fast asleep), rattled the old cradle and terrified Kaylee so that she became too nervous to sleep near her anymore.  She fled to the other side of the room, or out into the adjoining hallway (our playroom) until each baby finally moved upstairs and the cradle moved out.  Melody was a lot more like Zeke when she finally came onto the scene, but Kaylee was so traumatized by the Nora experience that she stayed away from the cradle preemptively.

In her early years, we oscillated between crating and leaving her to free-roam while we were out.  She never had many accidents, but she often got into things.  Stray hair clips and pens were the primary targets of her boredom.  As a puppy, she chewed through the patch cables on my guitar pedalboard once.  Another time, we came home to the entire (and I mean ENTIRE) apartment floor covered in a layer of plastic shopping bags.  I can only imagine her discovering the pile of them in the corner by the microwave and excitedly zipping back and forth and spreading them everywhere.  Thankfully, they were all intact -- if she ate any of them, we never saw evidence at the other end!

The Woodstown season was a sweet one for us, being a young couple with a furry plus one.  While we lived there, Kaylee would play hide and seek with Tara when we'd both come home at the end of the day.  Tara would hide in a closet while I'd let Kaylee out to use the yard.  Once back inside, she'd tear around the whole house sniffing and wagging until she found whichever closet "Mommy" was hiding in.  A retaining wall ran behind that house at a diagonal, creating our triangle property, and Kaylee would often hop up onto the wall and sit there, haunches deep in ivy, daring the landscape workers who parked their trucks in the gravel lot behind us to come closer.  Sometimes she'd jump down and bark her head off at them, running back and forth as far as her lead would allow.  She also got to ride in the back of a pickup truck in the Woodstown 4th of July parade one year, when Tara worked for a local CPA who featured his business in the event.  One of our bedsheets still has stains on it from the time she put her paw in wet tar while we were walking around the block near where the township was resealing the streets.

How Kaylee adjusted over time to the kids was a special thing to watch.  Before we had any children, she was always nervous around any of the small humans our friends had the audacity to bring into her realm.  It was partly in her Shepherd nature to be hyper alert and quick to defend, so anything loud and unpredictable that violated the quiet sanctity of our home was a potential danger.  Over time, however, she warmed up to Zeke taking the bones she was chewing on right out of her mouth and Nora trying to climb on her (sort of).  By the time Melody came along, she'd mellowed into a mostly unflappable old age and had to be coerced to get up and move, even when a child was trying to step over her.  As soon as Mel would be in the high chair though, Kaylee was up in the blink of an eye, eager to clean up after her.

Kaylee was a kisser.  We had a ton of incentive early on to train her not to nip, since she had those razor sharp puppy teeth that made tug of war, wrestling, and fetch serious dangers to the digits. So kissing was our replacement mechanism.  "No bite!  Give kisses!"  Instead of nipping, she would lick unabashedly, jumping up to get your face if she could, and would coat your hands, arms, and legs with affection if you allowed her.  On the day we had to say goodby to her, it had been a while since she'd given any of us kisses, probably in part because she'd become so stationary and the five of us weren't practicing much stillness with her.  But when the time came, she had one final kiss in store for Tara, some precious licks that reminded us of better days.

I feel so grateful that Kaylee was a such a healthy dog throughout her years with us.  Aside from visits to pet clinics for rabies boosters and Frontline treatments, she really only made four visits to the vet for health-related issues.  One trip came when she managed to pull out a few stitches following her spay.  Another time she had to be sedated, following some kind of panic attack in her crate where she managed to break a few of the metal bars and also bite through her upper lip, getting the tooth stuck in the inside of her mouth, and we couldn't help her get it out ourselves.  Legend has it she had to be given enough sedative to calm a Great Dane before the vet could perform the five-minute operation.  In the spring of this year, she had to see the vet for pneumonia.  At the time, I thought she had something stuck in her throat, but X-rays revealed pneumonia in her lungs, and also an enlarged liver that probably was a sign of something cancerous.  Although the medication cleared up her breathing, she never fully recovered from the illness, and her appetite dwindled away to nothing.  Her last visit to St. Francis was on Monday, September 22nd, 2025, the day we knew her quality of life had deteriorated, both because whatever was going on in her belly had caused her to rapidly lose weight and stop eating, and the hip dysplasia was making it impossible for her to go up and down our steps or even to stand up by herself on the hardwood floors of our home.

It's so hard to let an animal go.  Growing up, I remember being sad about family pets passing, but I didn't quite experience those losses the same way.  For Tara and me, Kaylee has been a part of our family almost from the very beginning.  It's weird to go around corners and not trip over her, to feel crumbs on the floor under my bare feet while walking through the kitchen or dining room, to come in the door and not be greeted by a wagging tail, to not get down on the floor next to her and give her belly pats.

In many ways, our still-young family has experienced a charmed life to this point.  By God's providence, loss and grief have as yet been removed from us.  Kaylee's passing is a bit of a practice in sad affairs with our kids, who prior to this had only ever lost a hermit crab before (and even he lived way past his life expectancy).  It gave us a window to carry something together, to rehearse good memories, and to be reminded that life this side of heaven is precious and very, very temporary.  But also that death is not the end.

We buried Kaylee behind the house, no more than 15 feet removed from where she used to sleep under Tara's side of the bed.  As we laid her to rest, I was thankful to read the words from Every Moment Holy Vol II, "Loss of a Living Thing."  I'll close this already-way-too-long eulogy with an excerpt.

Here was your good creature,
and here were the spaces and the days we
shared, enjoying the glad company
and cheerful fellowship of a fellow creature.

We made room in our lives,
room in our home, room in our hearts,
to welcome your unique creation.
And we gave your good creature the name
Kaylee.

We were filled with a right and fond affection
for another living thing your hands had made,
delighting daily in its presence.

Now this season of our shared lives
is ended by death.
Our hearts are unprepared for such loss,
and we are deeply grieved.

We are thankful for the many blessings
of knowing this creature,
and for the lingering imprint
of such a cherished presence in our lives.
We are grateful for these good memories of sweeter times... 

We know that the final working of your redemption
will be far-reaching,
encompassing all things in heaven and on earth,
so that no good thing will be lost forever,
so that even our sorrow at the loss
of this beloved creature will somehow,
someday, be met and filled,
and, in joy, made forever complete.

Comfort us in this meantime, O Lord,
for the ache of these days is real.

Amen. 

 

 

Stop reducing your statement of faith to fit on your front marquee

There are many legitimate reasons to leave an organization.  Where I've been planted for over a decade, it would take quite a change of culture, ministry philosophy, or vision -- or a specific calling from the Lord -- for me to uproot.  However, I have made it clear to the team with whom I serve that there is one hypothetical situation that would unquestionably send me packing...

One of my biggest pet peeves is church marquees.  To borrow a friend's analogy, they are like the worst of Twitter (X).  The example included here (courtesy of ChatGPT) is far less offensive than some actual ones I've seen in my area recently.  But even this attempt at wordplay, though adopting a humorous posture, is nevertheless offering commentary about this imaginary congregation's not-so-generous view of other faith traditions.

Digital, screen-printed, or old-school plastic, marquees come in a variety of distasteful flavors.  In no particular order, here are just a few types of content that especially make me cringe, groan, and/or low-key rage every time I drive by:

• Dad jokes
• Political commentary or patriotic slogans
• Clunky attempts to make faith pithy
• Sappy invitations that presume to know the audience
• Out-of-context Bible verses or phrases
• Inflammatory or mean-spirited statements presenting one-dimensional theology
• Sadly out-of-touch attempts to be culturally relevant
• Weak efforts to de-legitimize other churches, faiths, or denominations

Who doesn't love a good dad joke, right?  I'm a dad.  It's like my emotional currency with my kids.  But is the church marquee where I want to unload those classic groaners, particularly in association with ideas that I believe are sourced from divine and timeless truth?

How imperative is it that passersby know that the unborn right to life is the capstone of your church's statement of faith, and why does that precede the gospel as the thing of first importance for the community to know about your belief system?

Is it truly helpful to encapsulate in simple catchphrases complex Scriptural teachings that entire volumes have been written to address and expound?

While the inspired words of the Bible have great power, and even an excerpt can be a mechanism the Holy Spirit might use to open eyes to the truth of the gospel, should we continue to feed into soundbyte culture that wants everything condensed into pill form?  Or should we instead make it our practice to be inviting them to participate in a much larger, longer, and richer conversation?

I'm just asking questions.  I may, in fact, share a church's viewpoint on a particular issue, and yet I cannot align myself with their manner of communication.

As far as I'm concerned, there is only one reason for a church to have a marquee, and that is to communicate relevant information about times for gathering.  Even then, I'd still be a proponent of ripping that thing out of the ground and planting a shrubbery instead.

Now that I've complained, let me do some explaining.

Everything communicates, and first impressions are often the most enduring (not the most endearing).  The Church's purpose -- being salt and light, a city on a hill, a redeemed and anointed priesthood to the nations -- does not mean we have to take an aggressively outspoken and public stand on every divisive cultural issue.  How helpful is it to proclaim what we stand against?  Shouldn't we strive to be known only by our love for the simple, uncluttered gospel of Jesus Christ: God Himself freely offered for sinners?  Those outside our gatherings need only the invitation to come.  There, they will hear from us -- personally and over time! -- our particular views on and practices of all other matter of ethics, faith, and theology, where they can be more fully treated and understood.

There is no possible way to encapsulate a rich and nuanced theological point in the amount of characters available on a marquee.  One-liners are a butchers knife or a cudgel while truly pastoral teaching requires a scalpel, wielded with laser-focused precision.  Churches should never prefer bluntness over carefulness, especially not in their most forward and exposed statements to the community around them.  It's easier than ever to be misunderstood in a TikTok-trained, media-saturated, ADHD soundbyte culture, so why feed into the trend?

Attempts at cleverness directly undermine compassion and care.  Is it really a good thing for people to get the sense that your church is "down-to-earth" and "doesn't take itself too seriously?"  Do we not cheapen or tarnish something precious and of infinite value by making light of it?  Are not the things pertaining to following Christ of eternal importance?  Is not the gospel a message of hope and rescue to hurting and needy people?  We should adopt the Apostle Paul's sincerity: he insisted that believers must not be like street peddlers of worthless trinkets, just trying to make a buck for themselves, but rather present ourselves as ambassadors of the New Covenant, proclaiming the triumph of Christ over sin and death, and inviting the lost into an eternal Kingdom of healing and hope (2 Cor 2.17).

Loud political opinions reflect poorly examined and badly applied theology.  It's worth remembering that there are genuine, grace-covered followers of Jesus Christ on both sides of almost every single issue that divides us.  After all, Jesus called both Matthew (a tax-collecting stooge for Rome) and Simon (an anti-imperialist Jewish zealot) to walk together with Him in their shared ministry to the lost sheep of the house of Israel.  Even if you can argue your view from Scripture as the "right" one, truth cannot be properly articulated without grace, because our beliefs are not isolated or disconnected from our conduct.  Our manner of speech, verbal or in print, should always reflect Christ's heart of compassion for those who are lost, and a willingness to pursue unity even in our various perspectives.  Broadcasted marquee opinions are, by their very nature, devoid of tact and opposed to the spiritual discipline of good listening (Jas 1.19).

Personal invitation is always more gospel-centric than enticement or provocation.  By their messaging, some churches seem to favor luring the spiritually curious into their services.  The marquee is like a movie teaser for the jaw-dropping blockbuster release of the sermon.  Others use intentionally divisive language as a challenge to outsiders, daring them to react.  Either approach reeks of arrogance.  If our goal is to be mysterious and coy, we reveal our pride over our own spiritual insight and imply that we delight to make theologically uneducated people feel small.  Faithful preaching is neither entertainment, nor should it be an opportunity to flex our spiritual muscles.  On the other hand, if our intent is to use our marquee to spout fire and brimstone, it may as well be a bullet-riddled "No Trespassing" sign, declaring to the community that anyone holding a different viewpoint is unwelcome and beyond the saving hope of the gospel.

Bottom line: it's problematic for a church to misrepresent Christ, the gospel, and God's intent for His people.  As churches, God's people should strive to be as clear, thoughtful, and intentional as possible in all of their communication efforts, especially those targeting the community outside, who have no context to understand our levity or passion.  As individual followers of Christ, it's likewise critical that we be purposeful and winsome in how we communicate.  Everything from bumper stickers to t-shirts to social media posts must be weighed carefully.  These things don't nearly point to Christ as much as we might think they do.  More often, they just serve to highlight our own ideas and opinions, not the gospel.

So!  I'm routinely grateful that our church doesn't have a marquee out front.  If we ever do get one, well...

You can't have your cake and eat it too

I think I've put my finger on one of the most terrible effects of the Fall.  I'm sure I'm not the first.

I sense it on a long holiday weekend, when the enjoyment of anticipated rest time is overshadowed by the knowledge that the next day will be a return to routine.

I sense it when I'm sitting in my home library, looking at all my unread books, and all the books I've read but want to re-read, and also the 7 or so I'm currently in the middle of, and find myself paralyzed by the options and by the needling sense that I really only have 20 minutes to sit, and the seconds are ticking even as I peruse the titles.  I find myself wondering if it's even worth opening a volume, because by the time I'm engrossed in the subject matter, it will be time to move on to the next task.

I sense it when the glorious quiet of a Friday afternoon has arrived, when Zeke is at school and the girls are down for naps, and an hour's worth of productivity or rest is before us... and yet there is this acute awareness of the seconds passing even as we try to enjoy them, this persistent sense of the finite nature of the moment.  With or without interruptions, it often feels like those minutes have passed before we've even had the opportunity to enjoy them.

I sense it when, for whatever reason, I find myself awake in the middle of the night (usually because a child has made an unscheduled visit to our room).  I first check the time, let out a deep, relieved breath that there are still hours until dawn, but then immediately start doing the math: "Even if I fall asleep right now, that still only gives me x hours until the alarm goes off..."  The next day's weariness sets in right then and there, before the sun has even had the opportunity to rise.

I feel it in the conflicted desires I feel to run screaming and wild with the kids, but also sit with Tara and listen to our records and sip our coffee and talk... but what about the stack of books I want to get through (see above)?  And what about all the house stuff that has to get done, that we've been putting off because it isn't urgent?  And when are we ever going to clean out the cars and the garage?  And what about exercising (pfft!)?  There is simply not enough time to do all of these things.  Tara and I complain about our energy and productivity levels, and the frustration we experience of wanting to be home and resting on the days when our schedules are exploding, and of feeling productive and motivated on the days when all of our plans are falling through.  I desire to sit and write daily, but typically when I have time to actually do some uninterrupted typing, that cursed muse just doesn't want to provide any creative juices.  On the other hand, when we're scrambling to get out the door by a certain time, I am chock full of ideas that will all get lost in everyday errand-running and calendar-keeping.  Our desires resist our attempts to schedule them.

I sense it during the seasons when I have a full ministry calendar, chocked with great opportunities to preach, study, disciple, and meet with other believers.  And yet there's always a home I'm leaving to accomplish these things.  I am so energized by worship rehearsals and conferences and weekends away with brothers in Christ, but all of these things represent late nights, travel, and things that keep me from precious time with the kids.  Home with my family is my absolute favorite place to be.  And yet, I have a privileged calling to serve God's people, and I am truly fulfilled in carrying out that role to the best of my abilities, even if it means sacrificing much time to do so.

I feel it when I consider the places I would love to visit -- Greece, England, Israel, the national parks, etc -- and (cost notwithstanding) realize the unlikelihood that I will ever be able to put my feet on any of those soils and also be a financially responsible adult.  Even if we started planning yearly trips now, we will reach but a small fraction of the globe before our lifetime expires.

Maybe all of this strikes you as cushy and simple.  Selfish, even.  It feels that way to me too.  And doubtless, lots of privilege is being exposed here.  Maybe it's just the product of getting older or being a parent, or maybe I've lost my ability to be truly and fully present in any given moment.  Whatever the root cause, I sense such a heaviness around time passing that I don't remember feeling in years past.  And so, I keep coming back to that tired old adage that it's impossible to hold on to the things we want to enjoy, and that by trying to hold onto them so tightly we make it impossible to truly enjoy them.  We shouldn't cling to what is meant to be enjoyed in the present.  Cake is meant to be eaten, savored even, but consumed soon after the baking -- not stored in a poorly ventilated English basement for 6 decades (see Seinfeld, S9 E18).  Display cases keep us from meaningful appreciation, and are ultimately just one more thing to be dusted.

I was also recently reacquainted with the famous journal entry by missionary Jim Elliot, who would give his life in Ecuador for the sake of the gospel: "He is no fool who gives what he cannot keep to gain that which he cannot lose."  Jesus' words clearly meant much to this faithful disciple (compare Matt 16.26; Mark 8.36; Luke 9.25; John 12.25).  It yields no benefit for a man to lose his soul to gain the whole world, in all of its temporary glory, when surrendering the best this life has to offer is the route taken by those who have entrusted their souls to the Lifegiver for eternal safe-keeping.  There is rich and abiding wisdom in differentiating the myriad things we can't keep anyway from the one singular thing that can't be taken: that one thing which we could never do anything to earn, and which is not ours not because of our power to hold it.

Further, there's ancient truth in the realization that God has put eternity into the hearts of His image-bearers (Ecc 3.11).  With sin in the picture, that means we will constantly experience the tension between what is eternal and what is transitive, what is passing and what is yet to be.  To have both this current minute and to anticipate the next one, but to know from the evidence of the minute past just how fleeting is the present one...  This is the problem of being finite.  Of being temporary and knowing it.  It's the desire to relish each and every grain of sand falling through the hourglass, to pause the flow, to reverse it.

I started by calling this knowledge one of the worst effects of the fall.  Other disastrous effects of sin in the world are nothing to diminish.  I can't say from experience what carrying a cancer diagnosis or severe bodily impairment is like.  I also can't personally describe the depths of loneliness and isolation that have defined the lives of others.  For some in these positions, the brevity of time might seem like a blessing, or perhaps their perception of time is that, in the suffering, it slows to an unbearable crawl.  When things like grief, sickness, guilt, and fear are all rampant in the fabric of our existence, it's difficult to seriously quantify any other negative experience as being more terrible.  And yet, when I consider this subtle undercurrent that gives an inescapable context to all mortal experience, it feels like a heavy, sorrowful thing that manifests in every small moment.

In the end, these persistent things are intended to point our affections and hopes toward New Heavens and New Earth, where moth and rust and time and all other corrosive forces have been permanently barred from touching the Lord's Beloved or anything that is theirs by virtue of the atonement and a new birthright.  What peace to know that we stand in the ranks of the redeemed, the unworthy ones elevated to sons and daughters of the Holy King of Righteousness and lifted above the power of the curse!  Therefore, instead of the thorn, we may enjoy the myrtle and the cypress, and trade all empty, temporary substitutes for bread and wine and living water that truly satisfy. 

Maranatha!