Opportunities, Options, and Liking Neither

I have sat in the same grey chair with a slightly defective right arm for the last three years.  Everyday I sit and spin out to my left (hence the damage right arm) to and fro where my job leads.  This has been simply a "job", a place to earn a paycheck.  

In recent days my career path has presented two new opportunities.  And for the first time in 3 years I have options.  

The struggle...I can't say that I really like either one.  Nor does staying put in my grey chair excite me anymore.

What all three options lack is the one thing that makes me feel alive.  Like much of the world I live in the tension of provision and passion.  The place where we stay put in order to provide.  But where we find ourselves currently planted has nothing to do with our passions, callings and giftedness.  

As I stand with a small plethora of possibilities, needing to make a choice, I feel that none of the choice equate to choosing me.  Really they are just one more station to provide provisions lacking the fulfillment of passion.  

Trying to unstuck my life to place myself in position to pursue my passions...

You're not alone!

Despite what you may feel like right now, you are not ALONE! 

I think we all have moments when we feel alone in our journey, whether that journey be health and fitness or just part of our walk through life.  It is easy when we get down and discouraged to feel like we our left out their on our own!  There is an old adage that say everyone loves you when your are on the mountain and no one walks with you through the valleys.  What is most interesting is that the valleys are when we need others the most.  

Here are three benefits of walking through your valleys with someone else:

1) Two are stronger than one.  

There is a bible passage the says two are better than one because there is a better reward for their work.  Find someone to journey with you - a workout partner, a running partner, an accountability partner who checks in on you.  If your journey is not health and fitness, find someone who can partner with you in business or even just in your life.

2) Plateaus get broken

It is amazing what happen when you partner yourself with someone else.  The combined energy does not just create double the energy, but has the potential to create synergy.  There is an story that paints this that says if one horse can pull 700 pounds and another horse can pull 800 pounds, what is the total they can pull together?  Most would answer 1500 pounds.  You would be wrong.  The combined efforts created a maximum of 3000 pounds.  If you partner yourself with someone else who is willing to push and give effort as much as you are than your efforts get compounds past what you can do by yourself.  Weight loss plateaus, running plateaus, fitness plateaus will be shattered!

3) You need someone!  

"You know that I can use somebody.  Someone like you!" The King of Leons penned those lyrics, but they are true for all of us.  We all could use somebody.  Somebody to struggle with, someone to celebrate with, someone to overcome with, someone to face the challenge with.  You and I both need a "somebody" to go with us!  Maybe this is a silly question, but what is the point of getting fit and healthy if you don't have any to celebrate the milestones right along side you!  Find a "somebody"!

If you need help finding a someone, I would love to get you connected to some other somebodys with similar health and fitness goals!  Bear this in mind when we are partnered with others in life, when one of us wins, we all win!  I want to win alongside you!

Coach Jeff

First Kiss

Sunday morning sittin in Grandpa's yard
Sippin' lemonade out of a mason jar
I sit and listen to that old guitar
As grandpa sings

He strums and picks songs from his past
Talks of harder times and childhood laughs
But one there's one memory that seems to out last
Every other thing

He stops his song, winks his eye
As his love passes by
He looks at me and says

(chorus)
Boy this may catch you by surprise
Of all the good things in my life
The one thing I will never forget
Is the sweet taste of that first kiss

We were just leavin' Johnson store
Where we been sippin' on cherry cokes
That sweet cherry bliss still on her lips
As I leaned for that first kiss

He goes back to singing them ole songs
Grandma comes smilin' and humming along
You can see how there love is still so strong
As it every been

(chorus)
Says boy this may catch you by surprise
Of all the good things in my life
The one thing I will never forget
Is the sweet taste of that first kiss

We were just leavin' Johnson store
Where we been sippin' on cherry coke
That sweet bliss still on her lips
As I leaned for that first kiss

Middle of Nowhere

Have you ever been to California
Watched water fall off the pallisaides
Stayed all day at the beach
To watch the sun set on Laguna Bay
Sailed the ocean to the middle of nowhere
Girl, I wanna take you there

Have you ever seen the sunrise
Over the a Smokey Mountain range
Spend a drunk Friday night
Singing the blues on Beale Street
Snuggled in the bed of truck in the middle of nowhere
Girl, I want to take you there

I'm California boy, You're Tennessee girl
Two different lives, two different worlds
Loves tangles us in a hot mess
(Chorus in progress)

We could be in an Oklahoma dust storm
Tornado alley on Midwest summer night
We could go from West coast to East
We could end up broke on any  ole' street
Even if it is right there in the middle of nowhere
Girl, I wanna take you there

Lyrics - When You Don't Know Where Home Is

Been a vagabound, homeless
and out on the loose
Been a wanderer, lost
and man with worn out shoes
I've been out here on the fringes
This is where you go,
when you don't know where home is

I've been a drifter, a sailor
lost out at sea
I'm poet, a painter, a writer
lost in a mystery
I've been out here riding fences
This where you go,
when you don't know where home is

Where do you go___
When it's a cold shoulder and turning back
Where do you go___
When your train has jumped the track
When you have burned all your bridges
It's where you are
When you don't know where home is

When the world has left you all alone
When there is no place to call your own
When you can't go back home
Where do you go_____


Where do you go___
When it's a cold shoulder and turning back
Where do you go___
When your train has jumped the track
When you have burned all your bridges
It's where you are
When you don't know where home is

Been a vagabond...

You bring out the hurt in me.

You're silence is deafening as you pass me by
Your eyes cold and distant, never meeting mine
It is like we never met, never shared this bed

The distance is great in our king size life
Somehow you cut me without words like knives,
Girl is there anything of this love left

We don't fight, we don't speak
We don't shout, we don't scream
Then why all this space in between...

No broken picture frames
There are no holes in the wall
As a matter of fact,
We don't talk at all,
But everything about you
Brings out the hurt in me

I look at the image of you in white
On that day we were all smiles
I never guessed this is where we would be

Is there a chance that our love lives on
Can we find what we once had
Girl can you ever again love me


No broken picture frames
There are no holes in the wall
As a matter of fact,
We don't talk at all,
But everything about you
Brings out the hurt in me

Eastwood

Dirty Harry on a Friday night
Delivery pizza, cold Bud Light
Just you and me at your place

You get a funny look on your face
Point your finger start to say
Boy, go ahead and make my day

I've been waiting for oh so long
For the right moment to come along
Just so girl I could say

Make your day, make your night
Make it last the rest of our lives
Make love, make it right
Girl, I wanna make you my wife
So every morning I can hear you say
Go ahead and make my day.

I think I caught her by surprise
Tears well up in baby blue eyes
And left her without a word to say

Finally when she caught her breath
She looked at me and she said
Boy, go ahead and make my day


Make my day, make my night
Make it last the rest of our lives
Make love, make it right
Boy I wanna be your wife
So every morning I can  say
Boy, go ahead and make my day.

Point that 44 at my heart
Pull the trigger, blow it apart


Make your day, make your night
Make it last the rest of our lives
Make love, make it right
Girl, I wanna make you my wife
So every morning I can hear you say
Go ahead and make my day.

The Songs of My Life

The songs of my life...

Encapsulated in the my time capsule buried in my heart is music.  Each song telling a story of a time and a place and usually a face.  The way "Lady in Red" takes me back to a sorority formal with my date who would become my wife.  Or "Can't Touch This" moves to back to a junior high dance with my moves that totally lacked any kind of rhythm.  Music marks moments.  It's MotownPhilly and Detroit Rock City.  It's Two Pina Coladas  and Margaritaville.  The smell of teen spirit is shared with all my friends in low places...music tells our stories.

I have often found it amusing and amazing how a three and half minutes can last so long in our lives.  It's comes in the burned image of the first slow dance.  It is the long highway of Bon Jovi's Lost Highway.  Somehow the melody creates a memory.  I was Livin' on a Prayer on my BMX bike through the neighborhood.  It was the Eye of the Tiger marking my underdog story of life.  I can't explain the process but somehow our heart connects to pulsing melodic tones captured by our ears.  The perfect blend of beat, melody and lyrics is like a branding iron on our soul so that every time that song plays we are instantly transported to a place in our past.

We ride the roller coaster of emotions of the music...the laughter and joy of girls just wanting to have fun to the tears of my heart going on.  It is the toe tapping fact that I wanna dance with somebody to the heart stopping tear jerking break up song.  It is the moment our song plays when there is no longer an "our" to have a song.  The music doesn't know you are heart broken, but it plays on like the first cut was the deepest and the realization that I can't make you love me and love don't live here anymore.

We are the champions, we are the champions...takes you back to that moment in a high school gym.  It is the way louie, louie was played by the pep band that launches a rocket man into a trip down memory lane.  And yesterday was just a game we played...and one of your friends says there goes my life.  Crate paper filled the  a darkened gym where you built up the courage to save the last dance for her.  It is the smell of the lake air where you realized it's so hard to say goodbye and knew it was the end of the road.

Although your glory days are gone, the music lives on...in the songs of my life!

I'm On My Way

I left a girl in the music city
For a show in Little Rock
Down a two lane road to Biloxi
For 2 night gig at the Hard Rock

I hit the road chasing a dream
In hopes of finding my heart's peace
Making music of the melodies in my mind
In every little bar in the South

(pre-chorus)
They say my stock is rising
They say I'm gonna hit the chart
Girl this is just the start

(Chorus)
They are calling my name.
    I'm on my way
They need me on the stage
   I'm on my way
Girl, can't you just see me on that walk of fame
   I'm on my way



The road gets cold and lonely
One more night, one more stage
Another smoke filled tavern
Not sure they even know my name

Above the noise of the bar
I still her voice saying
    Come home, boy come home (female vocal)
                                  (I'm on my way)

You Carry On

When I'm too heavy,

When life is too much to take

You carry me on

When I'm too much for us both

Your patience is long

You carry me on

You carry all my sins and still love

To move me past my past

You carry all my weakness

To make me stronger than I could ever be
Without YOU

When my love comes and goes

When I am cold as stone
You carry me on

When you love and I leave
When I come back heart in hand
You carry me on

You carry all my sins and still love
To move me past my past
You carry all my weaknesses
To make me stronger than I could ever be
Without YOU

It's not fair to ask you to bear all this load
I would leave, never come back, ask me to go
So Girl you can carry on, carry on
Without Me

The Invisible Man

I walk on this stage every day
Just in hopes of capturing your gaze
But you look right through me

I pause, I walk, I move your direction
You stare in the looking glass, but miss my reflection
You only see you and never me


You're in the spotlight
I am in the background
Your star shines bright
I am the one making the sound

Your voice brings joy and pain
While I am a man in the band
You live and die off all the fame
And I remain the invisible man

Like fragile China you're easily broken
The tabloid voices all have spoken
And once again you shatter


You may walk head held high
But I know your dying inside
You crumbling under all the glamour


You're in the spotlight
I am in the background
Your star shines bright
I am the one making the sound

Your voice brings joy and pain
While I am a man in the band
You live and die off all the fame
And I will stay the invisible man

Small Towns, Big Lives, Two Worlds (Part 1)

For a stretch of 181 schools days in little community in central Illinois I exchanged my stylish semi-ripped up blues jeans and cool graphic t-shirts that proclaimed me as "Pastor Jeff" for some khaki pants, collared shirt and the title of Mr. Pitts, substitute teacher.  It was an insiders look at a place most grown ups do not want to go, the everyday lives of small town teenagers.

It is a paradoxical planet with lives steeped in irony and complication.  Yet at the same time the world is incredibly simple.  It is world of big dreams in a small town.  It is Friday night basketball games and school pride blended into an explosive mix of discontent for the zip code listed on every piece of mail from universities near and far wooing them away.  It is all the freedom of youth while being saddled with chains of small town living.  For many it is home and it is Hell.

For many of those 181 days I roamed the halls as outsider to their world.  I was there to take attendance, start the video, hand out the worksheet and yell "quiet" a couple hundred times a day.  I was there to fulfill a role and collect a paycheck, they were there many just trying to survive until lunch just to suffer through the rest of the day.  What I never expected was to become someone they liked.

Youth pastoring gives you authority to speak to matters of the heart and life.  Students have entered into your "space" knowing that you are going to say something about God, life and somewhere down the line SEX!  As a youth pastor, you have a level of permission - permission from the powers that be to preach, permission from the students to a certain degree to challenge them and the way they are living.  But when you enter "their" world wearing a blue and white name badge that is the substitute teacher equivalent of a Hello My Name Is...they know that you don't belong.  They smell the fear in your heart, the sense the quiver in your voice and what they know is that you don't in their savanna.  You are a wounded zebra and they are the pride of lions just itching to tear you apart and feast on your dead carcass.  Fresh meat...and somewhere day after day in your khakis and collared shirts they realize that chase as they wish, wounded as you may be they are not going to chase you out of the field.

What I never expected to happen is to see what I saw, hear what I heard and learn what I learned.  Students openly admitted drug use, sexual partners, big dreams and broken hearts.  I never expected students to find me on my prep hour just to sit and talk.  I never expected of all things a Facebook group dedicated to me as a substitute teacher.

What I learned from those days teaching math, science, culinary arts, chemistry, and the occasional P.E. class amounts to more than anything I could teach them.  I learned a lesson in small town and dreams.  If I was Malcolm Gladwell I would scientifically and eloquently dissect the differences in the two varying factions in a small town.  But all I have to work with is my days in the classroom.

These groups were not so neatly divided into those with BIG dreams and those that will never leave this small town.  While groups may not be neatly divided, the lines oftentimes are clearly drawn.  What this blog will not answer is why?  Why one group will go one way and the another the others.  All I am saying is the line is there.

One group will venture off to schools with University and College neatly tagged in the title.  From there they will set up residence in neighborhoods in cities that are larger than the town they grew up in.  The other group will stay...stay in this small town, raise kids in this small town, make a life in this small town.  This is not an statement on one choice being more right than the other.  It is simply an observation. The recognition of a dividing line that sets course for the lives of students in this one small town.  But if I were a betting man, I would bet the house on the fact that this one little small community is much like every other Small Town, USA.

to be continued....