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For the family vacation this year, we loaded up the family truckster (metallic pea with the optional rally fun-pack) and headed to Orlando. We scraped some money we had been saving and handed it all to the mouse. Since we travel as much as we can and as cheap as we can, we look for every opportunity to save a few coins with the whole Disney experience. Sidebar: free ice water at counter service mixed with some cheap single-serve lemon aid powder packets snuck in and you can enjoy a cool cup of lemon aid. It’s all part of my mission of sticking it to the mouse.

Don’t get me wrong, it’s not that I hate the mouse, I just don’t want to give him anymore money than I have to. Anyhow, on our third day at the parks, we headed to EPCOT and started the day. When I say “started the day,” what I should say is “deployment of operation Stick Mick.” My wife Stephanie is our travel guru and resident Disney expert. With some intense planning we watch the crowds zig and we zag. While others are standing in line, we are riding the most popular attractions for a second time; again, stickin’ it to the mouse. On with the story. On Monday, we went to EPCOT and were one of the first 500 people in line (of course). We walked thought the gates and headed to a fountain just beyond Spaceship Earth (the giant ball at EPCOT). At the fountain we were stopped by a rope as well as several employees (cast members) from Disney. An expected barrier. Cast members hold the crowds so that there is not a mad stampede to the most popular places. We strategically located ourselves at a pre-determined point at the rope for maximum zagging.

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So my pal Shawn Wallace (pictured here spinnin’ the wax at our Easter gathering) IMs me with this question: What are 5 top suggestions you would give worship leaders? I must have been a little hyped up that day. Here is what I responded with:

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I’m not a big fan of funerals, but then again, who is? Friday morning, I found myself at Faith Wesleyan Church for the funeral of Ruby Gormong. She was the grandmother of one of my best friends, Jeff Gormong. I sat near the back with another favorite traveling companion and friend, Jack the Fox. Somewhere in the middle of the songs they were singing at the funeral this image hit me. This image thing happens every now and then. Call it a spiritual thing, a distinct impression, an overactive creative gland, ADD, whatever. Anyway, it was the image of a person scooping a child from a crib, as if moving them from one place to another, from aloneness to a place of safety and comfort. There was some kind of calmness once the child was taken up, and why not? There is safety in the arms of a parent. It reminded me of a conversation a few years earlier . . .

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Every once in a while we have these experiences where we know that the moment is surreal. Cataclysmic. It could be good, bad, or ugly, but we know that whatever happens in that moment, history (even in a small way), will change us. I love those moments. It’s something that makes us feel alive. Especially when there are times when more than anything, we just want to . . . feel.

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. . .so David inquired of the Lord, and he answered, “Do not go straight up, but circle around behind them and attack them in front of the balsam trees. [24] As soon as you hear the sound of marching in the tops of the balsam trees, move quickly, because that will mean the Lord has gone out in front of you to strike the Philistine army.”   2 Samuel 5:23-24 (NIV)

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