SteelerDirtFreak :: 21st Century Missional Redneck Geek   A reformational renaissance redneck who likes football, dirt car racing, and photography tries to figure out what it means to follow after the path of Jesus in this post-Christian world we find ourselves in.

Tim Challies takes an interesting look at the worlds of J.R.R. Tolkien’s Middle-earth and C.S. Lewis‘ Narnia, and explains why he prefers Middle-earth.

I personally enjoy both worlds about equally, and probably for the very reasons he lists for each. One of my favorite classes in college was The Oxford Christians, taught by one of my favorite professors - Dr. Kay Ludwigson. Dr. Kay is the one who first really introduced me to both of these great authors, and for that alone I am forever grateful.

I’m still around, and I still plan to share the story of our trip to Texas. But I’ve been extremely sick for the last 2 weeks. Probably sicker than I have been in a very long time. It was a weird kind of flu that just would not go away and literally had every muscle in my body in intense pain.

I think I’m finally on the upswing, and hopefully I will be able to return to our trip story next week.

I’ll be posting several installments on this, as our Christmas was one of the coolest we have had in a long time.

To put it short and sweet - Deb and I drove to Texas (near Houston) to surprise my Mom for Christmas. She had no idea we were coming and on Christmas morning we showed up on her door step. Yeah, the surprise was excellent! My step-father helped co-ordinate everything and it was probably the perfect Christmas surprise.

But the surprise wasn’t over yet. The day after Christmas my brother and his oldest daughter came down from Chicago. Deb and I picked them up after their flight got in, and when we went back to Mom’s, she was once again surprised speechless!

Over the next few days I’ll be posting photos and stories of our trip.

But for tonight, I’m going to post this youtube video of a 1958 “one-hit wonder” called “Little Space Girl” sung by Jesse Lee Turner. “Why”, you might ask? Because while we were down there, Jesse Lee Turner came over to my Mom’s house and we all had dinner with him. (More on that later) For now, here’s Jesse Lee Turner…