Brief Blog Break

Working on an issue that's bugging me. Taking a few days off, Thanks for understanding. It's still a wonderful life, just trying to tune myself up inside a bit.

Desert Life

Years ago, a slightly heavier version of me got caught in a rain storm during a hike.

Threats of rain for the golf tourney. Seems like this particular week goes loony every year. Last week was idyllic. My son stayed overnight at the Hotel during the storm in NYC which turned out to not be the disaster they predicted.

That's the good thing, you can always talk about the weather when politics gets looney.

Exquisite pain

Still one of the best views on the planet, the top of the Napali coastline in Kauai.

Showed a picture of a Muslim woman in the full head gear and eye slit. It was painful. In my heart of hearts I know God created man and woman and beauty, and whatever twisted religious tenet that declares this woman's face off limits to all in public but her master sickens me to my core. But I do not hate her or the system. I just know it needs enlightenment from somewhere.

I feel pain when I hear someone whose false beliefs create a false worldview. I know that sounds cocky, how can I be sure they are wrong and I am right in the new world of thought.

Well, I believe religious and spiritual ideas can be tested and examined and critiqued....if we have just the tiniest bit of an open mind, and a questioning heart.

And, I believe, the first people who have the tiniest bit of an open mind and heart....are those who have been victimized by false ideas. That why I listen to victims...a lot.

Late to the streaming party

This is the tree where Indiana Jones consulted his map in the first movie.

So, I took the Sony Blu Ray player back and bought a Toshiba, and it works, so I have one more week of my Netflix trial month. We have enjoyed two movies, and I can see why the Netflix fortunes are soaring.

There are lots of smaller pictures that are quite good, and the old series you can watch. I have been enjoying my Amazon prime movies on the small tablet and now I can use the Amazon Account for those as well.

Not to mention watching Blu Ray quality movies. BTW Safe Haven was enjoyable as a romance built upon healing and loss.

Disclaimer: sounds like I am a movie nut, but in recent years we just have stopped renting and watching even our own. So this is a bit of a fun thing.

Ya'll Come See Us Now

It's almost here, the crazy Phoenix Open made crazier by the Tiger and friends visit, made crazier by the Super Bowl super hype. We will be on the stage and I hope we have a great weather week for everyone to feel good about adding to our local economy.

Since I played the Palmer Course in Palm Springs I have a special enjoyment of both this weeks and next weeks tournament having played at the Scottsdale course as well. However there is a whole course redo being unveiled this week. Can't wait to see if they can lower the score from the usual course massacre of 20 plus under.

On a personal level I am OK, but wrestling with some deep understandings and transforming paradigms. I have no idea why I am desiring these things to come full course...its just the way I am made. Will the changes in me help others to change? Does it matter? For me the answers are yes, and yes.

Men's Breakfast

Just Finished out ninth annual Men's Breakfast. Good singin, good testyfyin. Lots of cereal to help families feed the children.

Spin

There is strange migration of buzzards every winter when they hang out for a week or two in certain types of trees.

Do we all spin the truth to make ourselves look good? I think so. Can spin be hurtful when it is so close to falsehood as to be questionable? I think so. Is it always possible to tell spin and truth? No. Should we try? Yes. Are we told to speak the truth in love? Yes. Does that mean we try to put the best spin on what we say and hear to be edifying in our speech. Yes. Is there such a thing as a white lie? Probably, but not as many as most would think.

Is political speech mostly about spin? Yes.

Do lies hurt the truth. Yes.

Will caution and humility and being slow to speak help? Yes.

Thus endeth the rant.

Weird Facebook interchange

An old high school friend notes me on Facebook, says he saw my name on the list of those who would receive a $50,000 dollar gift and a new Apple laptop from Facebook to stimulate the economy.

The friends page listed his age as 10 years younger than it should be?

Suspicious?

If I did get the money, I would take Ms Laura to Hawaii again.

Why is God waking me at 4 am lately?

We lost our parents long ago, but cherish our times with them and they joy they had in our wedding.

Three days in a row. I think, offer a willingness to pray, hope for a revelatory insight, and watch the clock till coffee time.

Back in the present, enjoying a present wifey

Lots of movies use this place as a backdrop in Manhattan.

Nice noon meal at Oakwood where we enjoyed watching an after wedding party with a couple sharing our date. Dinner at a mostly football empty pizza place.

Anniversary Memories

Thanks Cheri, Kathy, Carlen, Lieshen for making the day special. It was a cold and rainy day, the groomsmens and grooms tuxes fit poorly, the duet for our music turned into a solo when one of the singers forgot the day,I was stuck in a stuffy book moldy closet with Pastor Scneider while we waited for the special music to show up..... but all the beautiful memories remain shining above the little boo boos. Laura said yes, Don said yes, and we are still saying Good night and good morning four decades later, and it's good. Oh yeah, one of my cousin in laws discharged a rifle in a crowded after party at Laura's home. No one was injured, but what a memory.

January 1975

Promises made, single life over, heading out the door to a new life, a party at home for family, a night at the Broadwater
Beach in Biloxi, a couple of days in New Orleans, back to Prattville Ala. for my sabbatical year of ministry.

Friends of the Groom

My groomsman were all college friends whose relationship lasted into Seminary training years. Alex, my buddy, died of a heart aneurism at age 28. Sweet Tommy died in a car wreck after he married a woman and was helping raise her children, John, my buddy in college and seminary passed away in his mid 50s, and Johhny, the class clown and funniest man I have ever known, became a builder in Jackson where he still lives. Each of these men meant a great deal to me and I was so honored to have them at our wedding.

Celebrate the genea of marriage

January 1975, was the beginning of not being alone. And she was and is a breathtaking beauty inside and out.

Life together approaching 40 years

Laura has always loved seeing and learning about new things. We love to experience life and beauty. We are a good team, even though she stops to read every caption in the museam and I am breezing through at a fast pace, we both were glad to be there.

Brain on mush

I love waterfalls and my wife.

Not much content lately, its a lull before my new year gets in gear. I am being pulled in too many directions as we get organized to go forward in a pivotal year at our church, and for me as I cross the big 65.

Busy Sunday

Crazy camera setting on the big island last year.

Board Dinner in the evening and Church business meeting in the morning, a fun day with lovely folks. We will see what the week ahead holds as Laura and I thank the Lord for our four decades of life together.

Francisco Grande Resort

Years ago in Kauai, on the bridge at Hanapepe.

Built in the 60s for baseball practice for the Giants and the Angels, they left in the early 70s and the resort has been marketed and upgraded as a sort of cheap golf resort with a seven story tower and 100 rooms. It is outside of the city of Casa Grande which is 30 miles south on the way to Tucson. Quite a winter visitor town as well.

We played there Thursday and it was windy and fun. Having fun with my friend Marvin from out of town.

Friday was a day to get my broken smart phone fixed, try to get my laptops fixed, and enjoy a quite dinner out with Laura.

Short Term Memory Fail

After two weeks without regularly scheduled meetings, I have had two colossal memory fails. It is frankly disturbing that the inner reminder bell in my mind has not functioned.

I mean, two places I knew I was supposed to be, places I was expected, just completely left my mind, and the realization that I had forgotten them did not even enter my conscious brain unto hours later when the remorse and shock and guilt set in.

Going to have to share my schedule with staff, program my phone more faithfully, and have my to do list clearly in sight. This cannot continue.

Years ago with my wife in Kauai...sweet memory.

Laptops in the shop

I popped a key off my old laptop keyboard by dropping something on it yesterday. I took my main laptop as well to try to repair a damaged but working enter key.

Back in the swing of my normal schedule this week. Bible studies are interesting beasts in times like these with so much theological confusion and political dissatisfaction.

The book of Revelation is painful for me to read because of the craziness with with it has been interpreted, but we are going to take a scholar's look at reading it this semester in our adult study with the help of Great Courses.

Back working hard at healthy eating and some more weight loss.

Blessings

An extra day of vacation

A Golfsmith in Times Square, very cool.


My very special golfing buddy Marvin is in town so we spent a day catching up on is recent long trip across the country and enjoyed a round of golf.

Hanging around with 90 year old friends

It's a new year, time to get living.

How many folks can make such a claim, that they have a goodly number of friends in there 90s? Retired people with retired children? I heard a son share him life memories with his mother about all the dinners, and sports activities, and church functions, and vacations they had shared and the sweet women I knew whose life was lived in one room of a care center took on a longer and more fulfilling view.

Daily our life seems routine, but looking back, really had a wonderful life. Now would'nt that make for a great movie?

The Flatiron Building

Circa winter 1903, summer 2014

For some reason the Madison Square Park area and the Flatiron Building completely won my heart last summer vacation. It was all so pleasant to see this building and its history amidst the relaxed joy of an active park full of dogs and people enjoying the perfect summer weather.

My Genea Year

Genea is the greek word for generation, which in bible thinking is the 40 years when you are in the prime of life.

I was 24 when I married Laura. 24 years of moving, growing, learning, preparing, and launching into adult life. In a few weeks Laura and I will mark four decades of life together.

I plan to spend my personal blog time celebrating the joyous fact that I did not go that way alone, but with my friend, who is as familiar as ever, and as mysterious as ever. The one I know and don't know in the mystery of marriage. We are different and we are one. It's very cool to celebrate.

I do not hold my marriage to be the greatest or the worst example of a good marriage, just to proclaim from the rooftops that it has been a good journey together as we continued to make contributions to those places and people we shared, and the common life of our times.

So, Happy New Year to all.