Not-so-Jolly Ole’ TJ

The other day, Beth and I were shopping at our local Target for what will only be identified as “clothing” for my wife. In the nearby shoe-section I heard it. What I have longed for so long. It was beautiful and frustrating all at the same time. “What was it?” you ask. Only the thing I would like to have most in the world…

An English accent.

So I stood there in the store looking at “clothes” and wishing I could have that one thing that had eluded me all my life. Suddenly I began to murmur unpleasantries under my breath about the lady I had heard speaking to her child. Then all of the sudden her husband walked up and began speaking in that angelic accent. What are the chances, three people standing in a Target and one of them doesn’t have an English accent, and that one is me.

You must understand, I only missed it by two generations. In fact, my dad lived in England when he was a boy and either my grandmother really is English, as she claims, or she does a heck of a job of faking it. Hmm…faking it…could I...maybe…would anyone notice?

Here’s the problem, as a worship leader, I have to listen to the likes of Matt Redman, Vicky Beeching not to mention Delirious and Hillsong with the even cooler cousin of English accent, Australian Accent. Its torture. These guys and girls (chaps and lasses) don’t even have to bee that great of singers because they have English accents. They hypnotize the audiences with their voices.

What does my accent get me? Nothing. Being from South Alabama means nothing, absolutely nothing. All I get is the occasional; you’re from Texas aren’t you. NO, I’M NOT FROM TEXAS!! I want someone to mistake me for Irish or Scottish, mess up my country and stop trying to guess which backward, bottom five in education, grit eating state I am from. No offense to the South.

The point of this little rant…well there really isn’t one. There’s nothing I can do about it. There’s no magic pill or operation I can undergo, nothing I can buy. I’ve either got to fake it or suck it up. I don’t have an English accent and barring moving across the pond, I doubt I ever will. I just wish my Grandma would tell me how she’s faked it for so long.


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TJ Goff is the Worship Pastor at Bay Hills Community Church in El Sobrante, California. Posted by Picasa


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Baby Jitters

Well, as most of you who read this blog (and that's not many) know, my wife Beth and I are about to have our first baby. She will be named Karoline Belle, and I am very excited about it. I find it very funny though that everyone around me takes so much pleasure in the fact that our lives are about to change forever. They ask me, "how's it goin?" God forbid I mention anything about being a little tired or about my lack of sleep, because then they get this sick grin across their face, look me up and down and then say, "o, just you wait until the baby comes." Well to all of those people out there, I've got something to tell you.
I may be an idiot, but here's a list of reasons why I'm not worried about what it will be like when the baby comes.
1. I don't get enough sleep as it is- I go to bed late every night. My wife wakes up to go to the bathroom, to get me to take the dog out, because its too hot or too cold, and so on. I wake up too early in the morning for the time I go to bed. I have never gotten enough sleep and I LIKE IT!
2. I have a dog who has thunderstorm anxiety. That may not sound like a lot, but in Texas, if it rains, it storms. Sure I've gotten a little soft since I moved out to NorCal but I remember what it was like sleeping on the chair in my office and slamming Whisper's cage every time he started to act the fool.
3. If you can do it, I know I can do it. No more needs to be said on this subject.
4. I pick up my dogs poo with a very thin plastic grocery bag.
5. There is no way a baby with no training can be as demanding as Beth. I mean that in the nicest way, I love my wife and wouldn't change her one iota, but it took some serious work to create such a monst...lovely and beautiful wife. I'll be more worried about Karoline after she hangs out with her mom for a few years.
6. Girls can't shoot pee across the room or up at me.
7. I don't get worried about anything. (But I am taken by surprise quite often.)

Babies are loud, helpless, messy, smelly, and demanding. Welcome to the Goff family.

I would like to end this post with the disclaimer that I am probably dead wrong about everything I just wrote.


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