as you know, i have lived in the south. in texas. the red river kind of south. not the south-south.

in the red river south, we have our own breed of rednecks. but alas, i am learning the south-south has yet another breed of rednecks altogether.

(by the way, i love rednecks. this is by no means an anti-redneck post. the ceiling of my car is coming unglued, i have a gravel driveway, and i shot my first rifle at the tender age of nine, so obviously i am somewhat born of this breed as well).

now, my friend shaun has talked about his redneck neighbor before. and his redneck neighbor even has a blog. one day, i hope to meet redneck neighbor. but until then, i have my own redneck neighbor to deal with, and i have a question to propose to y’all.

here’s the skinny.

my redneck neighbor’s driveway is next to my driveway. i see it when i leave. when i come home. when i go on my deck. when i take out the trash.

my redneck neighbor has a little planter wall. on this planter wall are several cans of budweiser…some askew, some crushed, some full of cigarette butts, and all piled up into a replica of pike’s peak.

[at one point, he had creatively made a budweiser-duct tape-sticks-cigarette butts effigy using a button with obama's face on it for the head. it was like a little budweiser obama stick figure. which was held up by a rusted folger's coffee can. this has now disappeared, leaving me a little disappointed.]

i am all about respecting other people’s property, but when his strewn bud cans and cigarette butts are in my line of sight, oh, forty-seven times a day, the OCD in me comes out and desperately wants to clean up this budweiser-duct tape-sticks-cigarette butts mountain the next time i take out the trash.

[using heavy duty yellow rubber gloves and a gallon of purell, of course.]

so my question to you is this…would cleaning up this nasty redneck trash pile be rude of me? or helpful to him? because you see, i of course am only doing this to love my neighbor. right?

ahem. right?

ht: indexed

my friend, the friendly atheist, wanted to ask you guys a question:

What are the biggest obstacles you have to becoming an atheist?

I know you’re not trying to become atheists, but I guess I’m looking for things like “Something must have created the Universe, and if God didn’t do it, then what?” or “Atheists have no meaning in their life”… something that’s NOT “I believe what the Bible says.”

i’m curious, too…

chris and i recently watched a great documentary called ABC Africa, which was filmed in uganda

after watching it, chris said,

“i don’t mind living in america. i just don’t want to live an american life.”

pretty smart, huh?

discuss…

tomorrow.

you will want to make sure to check back here tomorrow.

in the spirit of it being 8/13, i will schedule the post to go up at 8:13 am central time.

what’s this post about?

it’s about you.

you have done something incredible and i don’t think you even realize it.

8:13 tomorrow.

i can’t wait to see your faces.

last night, i asked you what you’d like to hear if you were attending a breakout session or workshop about burnout.

“how do i say no?” was probably one of the most answered responses.

so…now i get to ask you, why can’t we say no? should we say no? how can we discern when to say no?