Every Day is a Dare

Image: Liquid 2003 (CC BY-SA 3.0)

When I wake up most mornings my first instinct is to go back to sleep. My bed is comfortable, my sheets and blanket are warm, and starting this week the rain is hitting the roof incessantly. Nothing makes me sleepy faster than the sound of rain.

I roll over. I want to go back to sleep. I want to stay warm and safe and cozy. I don’t want to get up, to go outside, to face a day I don’t know.

A day that is a dare.

It could be a good day or a bad one. I could win the lottery (highly unlikely) or get struck by lightning (almost as unlikely). I don’t know what’s going to happen. The only thing I know is that if I lie here and go back to sleep nothing will happen.

I have to dare to get up. To face what the day will bring. To live with all the joys and sorrows and risks that life entails. Never knowing if the next time I walk out the door will be the last time, or the 20,000th to last time.

But to stay here is to sleep. And that’s not living. I’d rather take the chance. I’d rather take the dare

Plus my daughter is standing next to my bed, and she won’t stop nagging me until I get up.

“Dad? Wake up Dad!”

Bloggerhood Etc. 8/11/14

Photo: Spencer Hall/SB Nation

It’s been an eventful week here—and not in a good way. But now that the drama has settled and life is returning to normal, it’s time to get caught up. So here’s some of the best from around the blogosphere from the last two weeks in an extra-large edition of Bloggerhood Etc. …

Best List. “Staff Picks: Worst Highways in America” by Spencer Hall and the SB Nation staff.

Best Demand. “I Want My Christianity Back—Without the Ugly Baggage” by Mark Sandlin at Time.com.

Best Realization. “Your Lifestyle Has Already Been Designed” by David Cain at Films for Action.

Best Correction. “They Call Us the ‘Nones,’ but We’re So Much More” by Courtney E. Martin at On Being with Krista Tippet.

Most Empowering. “Geared Up For Robotics” by Haley Hanson at Huff Post Impact.

Best Dad Post. “Hunting Live Dinos” by Don Jackson at Daddy Newbie.

Worst Examples. “The Lavish Homes of American Archbishops” by Daniel Burke at CNN Belief Blog.

Best Review of a Bad Product. “SPAM” by Spilly at SB Nation.

Best Devotional. “His Glory Appears” by Cara Strickland at Little Did She Know.

Best Comic. “Outbreak” by xkcd.

Outbreak (Panel 1)