Ihoppin'

There are these fellas and gals in Kansas City that pray.
That's what they do.
They're prayers.

"What are you doing today?" "I'm praying, how about you?" "Yup, me too"

I had a chance to read a pretty good book titled, "the hour that changed the world" and the whole concept of the book was to build the discipline of talking with God for at least an hour a day (I'm probably completely misrepresenting the author's intent here) I do think to some degree that prayer is a discipline.

In a relationship you could argue that it's a discipline to take time each day and not think so much about yourself, but to instead listen to your spouse (or to one of your 17 roommates -if you're teaching communications, starting a mime ministry and helping to launch a church) and really hear what's going on in their life.
I'm much better at talking than listening (and I'm not that great at either of them). It takes discipline sometimes to not just become one with the couch, fondle the remote control and drift into Sean time. I know that sounds contrived or forced...we should crave our time with our loved ones...and I do...but the reality is that sometimes we're just having a bad day, or are feeling selfish, or want alone time. None of that's bad...but if we don't take the time to communicate...there are going to be problems.
To some degree we need to put some effort into the relationship. It should absolutely be effortless...but we're a bunch of screwballs (see the latest divorce stats) and probably need to throw in a little discipline into the mix.

Right?

sure

So I've been talking with some folks who are familiar with IHOP and trying to get their read on things. I asked a friend if she'd been there (we'll call her "Candy") and she said she loved it. I saw her husband later (we'll call him "Mat") and said, "So, have you ever been to IHOP?"
"Yeah, a few times"
"I didn't know if you had gone with 'candy' or not, but she said she loved it...what did you think"
"I liked it a lot"
"Cool"
"But 'Toni B' hates it."
"really, why?"
"He just really doesn't like the food"

So in my mind I'm picturing this cross country trip to the International House of Prayer where people pray around the clock...and "toni" gets there and doesn't like it because the steaks a little under cooked.

turns out he thought I was talking about the pancake place...you can see the misunderstanding...