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Who doesn't have a blog these days? Well, up until this week, my wife didn't. She does now. Her blog is called "Sum of the Parts." The first entry is still at the top.

Jeanene and I met in 1982 at Baylor University. It was a chance meeting. We were paired together to lead a freshmen orientation group. Whoever shuffled the files that day shuffled our marriage and the lives of the three sisters into existence. That's weird to think about.

We married in 1985. August 10th, to be precise. In eight days we will celebrate or 21st anniversary. How time flies.

Jeanene juggles a lot of things in her life. She is an ordained minister. We went to seminary together. She has been a chaplain in the Baptist Health Care System of San Antonio since 1989 and is currently head of pastoral care at one of their hospitals. She is a wife, a friend, and a mother of three. She's a busy girl.

I'm grateful that she has been patient with me as I've tried to build a writing career over the last year or so. I had to drop out of web designing to do so, and that's a risk. But she was and is willing to take that risk. But just to be safe, she has started to sell some unusual items online. That adds another facet to her life, but she's game to try it. Currently she is selling natural soap made by a friend of ours in Tennessee, and Anglican prayer beads made by a woman in an Episcopal hermitage in central Texas.

If you want to see what she has to say, drop by SumOfTheParts.us

rlp

What I remember about Milton is he was always the coolest, edgiest minister in the world. Seriously, there was no competing with him. You thought you were hip until you saw Milton in his high-top Chuck Taylor's, wearing a batman mask and cramming an entire hamburger in his mouth, a la John Belushi, while hundreds of kids pounded on the church camp lunch tables to show their appreciation.

And I don't mean to suggest that he is trendy. NO! He is Milton. He's been wearing Converse Chuck Taylors since they first came out in the sixties or whenever. These shoes go in and out of style about every ten years, but Milton keeps wearing them. Some decades he is hip; others he is just...Milton.

True story: Milton got married in his Converse tennis shoes. Tux and tennis. And I don't mean to suggest that the wedding was some outdoor, silly affair. Church wedding, serious, everyone dressed up, and Milton in his tennis shoes.

Of course Milton would be the one to move to Boston with his equally cool wife, decide that ministry was best done by teaching English to inner city kids, get rid of his cars, let troubled kids live with them in their cool, 1865 row house, adore schnauzers, make candles by the beach, and become a serious cook and writer.

The only time I got to Boston I remember Milton making his own spaghetti noodles one at a time, disdaining those who would buy their noodles at a store. About every 10th noodle he threw on the floor for his dog, who was getting a little chubby as I recall.

Milton and I seem to connect every few years, for whatever reason. And I wish that my commitment to life and truth could be as courageous as his. But there is only one Milton. Accept no substitutions.

And now Uncle Milty has a blog. A cooking blog, to be exact. It's brand new, just a few entries. Knowing Milton, it's going to be something I won't want to miss.

Milton, you always were the man.

rlp