Okay, I’ll admit this is nothing unusual. When I went to a Houston Astros home game at Milwaukee’s Miller Park (1172.02 miles and 19 hours 42 minutes driving time from Houston’s Minute Maid Park according to MapQuest), that was unusual. Being one of a dozen Houston fans sprinkled among the 10,000 Cub fans was not only unusual but downright weird. My Houston gear stood out like a pink tutu at a Hell’s Angels biker rally. Can we say, “Uncomfortable?”

But writing about change and reflection in week one of 2012, not unusual at all.

First, about change. In terms of change of direction, I have the turning radius of a battleship. I need a lot of time and space to maneuver. So whatever changes happen here happen at the speed of a dysfunctional church committee. But, in my case, change will occur.

Second, about reflection. I’ve had time to reflect about my passions and my tendencies. My passion is community—more specifically, community built around our common faith in Jesus Christ. In relation to that passion, my tendency is to use odd connections to illustrate truth (I’d say religious truth but you can’t partition truth off into different categories. Truth is truth. Opinion is opinion. On rare occasion, the two line up.).

I’ll offer two recent examples of odd connections.

No Walk in the Park Let Me Tell You uses a dog park to illustrate conversations at church.

A Christmas Classic? takes the opening of The African Queen to illustrate the heart of the Christmas message.

The beginning of the year is a good time to look back and here are 2011’s Top Half-Dozen Posts.

1)      4 Lessons I Learned from “Heaven Is For Real”

2)     Shall We Gather at the River?

3)     Jet Lag, Fatigue, and Sick Wife

4)      When Does Inspiration Come?

5)      Tough Times Provide Plenty of Reasons to Be Thankful

6)     How Do You Handle Life’s Surprises?

It’s also a good time to look ahead. Here are a few things you can expect:

1)      Guest bloggers. I have two already in the queue (learned to use that phrase while trudging through London Heathrow). As I build relationships with other writers and bloggers, I want to share their talents with you.

2)      New name for website. At the end of 91 Google pages for “the Journey”, I found this statement: In order to show you the most relevant results, we have omitted some entries very similar to the 907 already displayed. 907—and that’s not all of them? Sheesh! One website states, “As soon as you enter The Journey, you will immediately be swept away by the beauty of our contemporary decor designed to enhance your dining experience…” Okay, it doesn’t take a Tolstoy-reading dog to figure out “The Journey” is the blog-title equivalent of ice cream’s vanilla. French vanilla…New York vanilla…homemade vanilla…It’s all vanilla. I want to be anything but vanilla. At the end of this post, I’ll offer possible names and ask for your input.

3)      Change of About page, tag line, etc. I plan on doing some rewriting (an author’s daily recreational activity) to better reflect the distinctive flavor—which is not vanilla—of this blog.

Here are two names I’m considering—A Curious Band of Others and Odd Connections. The two names reflect my earlier stated passion and tendencies. I encourage your input and even your additional suggestions.

Question: any suggestions or comments about the name change?

My recommended reading of the other writer in the house (though she denies it): There is Hope! The Sky’s the Limit

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