Fun with Fitness

A couple of weeks ago Laura began using a Jawbone fitness tracker that was gifted by a friend. It's been fun for us both to watch her make daily goals. Anyhow, I got the bug for joining her and purchased a Fitbit HR, four days ago. I really need to know my heart rate for a number of reasons when I am moving, and with all the other great information that it tracks I really am learning a lot about how my body used energy and the relationship between workout intensity and fitness and weight loss. Fun to see the stats on waking activity and sleeping patterns being formed into patterns and trends that can be improved or changed. Today was my first 10,000 step day.

Music and Memory

Here's my beach loving surfer girl...or more honestly, snorkeler girl.

"They say there was a secret chord that David loved and it pleased the Lord..."

I always knew when the baby boomers got older we would get the same special treatment we have gotten all our lives. The latest thing I have recently enjoyed is the nationwide phenomenon of "Tribute Bands". These are groups of talented younger people who preserve and play the greatest hits of aging rock legends.

Last weekend it was The Eagles heavy and loud rock sound from the 70s and 80s, and last night we enjoyed a band from LA that did the Beach Boys in the 60s and 70s. Very authentic sound and very entertaining.

Seeing how that room full of seniors were transported to their dating and young love period was quite enchanting. These guys dressed, and acted and danced there way through the Beach Boys unique sounds and their innocent fascination with the cars, the girls and the beaches of California. It was fun.

New Word- Crowdpounding

Some facebook friends where up on the mountain in Yosemite last week and I remembered this view with awe and joy.

Apparently crowd pounding is when someone writes or says something that his peers disagree with, and everyone joins in to point out the error and stupidity of the comments.

Case in point is the comment by Franklin Graham after last weeks violence in Chattanooga. He thought it was time to deny access to America of all Muslims. He got crowd pounded.

I am truly in a love/hate relationship with facebook these days because I love to see and hear about what present and past friends are doing in their lives and on vacations and to celebrate occasions.

I hate it because it has become a way for people to express their disgust, hatred, bigotry, and misunderstanding or opinion for me to agree with or disagree with. I know there is a place for all that but it has become a bully pulpit for too many of my conservative friends who feel they are losing control of the country, or of something they think is changing too quickly.

No,I am not quitting, it passes by my screen quickly, as is the nature of facebook. And it is why I keep posting on my blog, if people stop by to check on what I am thinking or experiencing on any given day, they come because they want to and can leave and not return, or be too busy to check or whatever. I do not have enough followers to be crowd
pounded!!!!

Who are these adware people?

Not my taste in yard decorations, maybe it declares the home is full of Greek goddesses??

Trovi, Groovario, Jungle net, sheesh. Chrome has been really ripe for picking up these nasty hitchhikers that slow the system and mess up a great experience on the internet.

My newest laptop was not home for a month when this jungle net thing moved in and you would not believe how it overlaps and inserts pages right in front of what you are looking for. Why would these people think we would be anything but extremely irritated by these unwanted intrusions.

Trying free adware versions first. Oddly my security software does not seem to see and get rid of these things. Its always something.

The Path Most Traveled

My wife Laura is in the classroom this morning facing a new group of young "chiren" to learn "readin" and "writin".

Yesterday afternoon we were invited to hear some rock and roll by the Eagles Tribute Band. It was good fun and the talent level displayed was probably as good as the band was in their youth. I was shocked as always by the packed Sunday afternoon crowd at the slot machines at Wild Horse Pass Casino. Far more crowded than most churches and certainly mine was that morning.

I have no great aversion to a little gaming, though I do very little, but the whole smoky scene just struck me as sad and an enormous missing of life's great pleasures and treasures.

The other funny observation was the packed house for the concert. The Eagles did their thing in the 70s, and the quality of their harmonies and the lyrics and musicality of the era was amazing. And those teens from the 70s are all old now, me included,and you somehow forget that time marches on for everyone.

Some sort of real Eagles band is touring as well, but these guys were good.

Farewell to Tom Watson

Golf course walking in San Clemente Beach on Vacation recently.

Tom's last British Open ended at dusk today. He and I are the some age, and his career was an inspiration to me and many others for the last four decades. A class act in every way.

Today I played my first post age 65 round of golf and it was so much fun touring a new to me public course named Aquila in the town of Laveen west of us. We had a guide who had played it many times and was able to help us not make beginner mistakes on our lines and landing areas so Larry and I played well.

Joy and Thankfulness

I visited an elderly friend today to talk about her sister's memorial. She showed me a picture of her husband the way he looked the week he first entered a room and asked her to dance. The love and desire and life in her eyes took me back to those giddy post war days when the men came home to find wives. For her it was love at first sight.

I see the photos of children, grandchildren and now great grandchildren and know it all started with, Hi, my name is ...... and I would be honored if you would dance with me over sixty years ago.

Ray Lynch, musician composer

A vine type flower by the railroad rocks on Calafia Beach.

I am enjoying the quality sound coming through my Sony Headphones and today at Zia Records I scored two Ray Lynch CDs from the 80s. He was a classically trained guitarist and Renaissance Luteist who took advantage of the sound track and synthesizer era to write and perform some of the most hauntingly beautiful new age compositions in my music library. I never tire of them. Now 14 more to enjoy.

Working on serenity and purpose in the early days past my 65th birthday. So thankful for the place I am in my mind and heart most days.

Age is a reality and an attitude

Beach Sand and beach sand animals are endlessly fascinating and ageless in fun.

The reality of aging stares me in the mirror, the attitude of age pricks us when we think of changing or ending our careers and looking at the numbers. Being surrounded by many successful mentors of retirement years certainly helps me to think through the issues.

Great to hear from so many friends and former classmates on Facebook and through cards and notes.

Joining the Over the Hill Gang

A poor attempt at a timed photo on the beach, but its real and its us.

Tomorrow I will be 65 years old. Geez, time flew. Very grateful to have survived the heart issues I have experience since I turned 50. Determined to not go gentle into that good night but to rage, rage against the....whatever the poem rages against.

I am appreciative of friends, family, church and especially my wife Laura for every memory, every joy, every experience, every opportunity.

My dilemma in one succinct phrase

"The Bible is no more inerrant than the person reading it" Dear folks, its not doubt but legitimate inquiry to ask whether the interpretations you have been told are actually correct. The history of Bible interpretation is a dark saga of using proof texts to support some of the oddist conclusions and some of the most violent acts in human history.

The same group of currently hot teachers who are telling us they have pegged the prophecies of the Bible to the next three months are those who are expressing the same fundamental dogma that has destroyed better teachers than themselves when they say that those who are not in agreement of their conclusions are the "one world false church'

If the first statement is true then I also must hold my own interpretations and the views of others both old and new in a cautious mode and not fall into the same trap of being so sure that I am understanding the implications of the ancient text that I refuse to reexamine the views of others.

I still resonate with those who are urging us to read the Bible the way Jesus did, with a healthy focus on the love that endures and a willingness to lay old patterns and power plays behind. The gospel is about vulnerability not power as one writer puts it. So I hope my dilemma is yours as well.

Knowing the future is a really bad idea

I do not understand people who want to tell me what is going to happen next. The odds of getting it right are poor. The belief that you can take a scripture portion and peg it down to the next six weeks seems enormously difficult.

Prophesying about the coming bad news makes living in the moment very difficult. What are all those counting on all those seven bads things going to do if all seven of those bad things fail to occur in a timely fashion? As they always have so far 100 percent of the time.

What if it does? Do those who predicted it get a round of applause as final judgment descends upon the world? Way to go Mister predictor. Meanwhile the last precious two months of my life have been sickened with dread, and or anticipation, or....whatever.

Anyhow, I have plane tickets to Kauai for the end of September so Lord do what you must, but I will be OK if the prognosticators of the doom of our culture miss it by a month or two.

Just a tiny bit of closure and appreciation was healing

When Jesus failed to return in the months following 9/11/2001 those who predicted that we were wasting our time enlarging our sanctuary took revenge on my theology by taking our 50 kid youth program to their back yard. This included many sweet families I had baptized and shared tables and lives with.

The resultant split did not stop the completion of our building, but changed our ministry so much that after a year I realized we could not regain our momentum and resigned. Eventually the remnant church sold the property for one dollar to a Calvary Chapel group that was just starting and had grown to 100.

Last Sunday in my first visit to the property in 13 years, the pastor told the congregation of the gift and acknowledged my visit. In that early service I saw one man who had stayed from my era. It was the first time I had met the pastor and he knew of my story but did not know me.

The short acknowledgement that their congregation had received a tremendous gift sort of made all those years of struggle in that little cowboy community that was about to explode in housing and growth feel appreciated. And in that moment of appreciation I felt a deep healing in my wounded spirit. I was glad they continued on that corner and expanded the outreach of the property. I also realized that the calvary chapel kind of maranatha come Lord Jesus is not as rabid and destructive as the fundamentalist dispensationalists who are currently having another moment in the limelight by predicting the end of everything this coming September.

Silence is Golden

Enjoyed seeing Waialua Falls featured in Jurrasic World that past week.

My absence from the blog, and my silence on Facebook stem from trying to survive the comments for and against all the things happening on the news. Maybe it's my upbringing in the 60's or my own personality but I just don't respond well to pronouncements about being on my side or the wrong side of an issue. Or those decrying the end of civilization as we know it.

I do believe as I continue to listen and study that the fundamentalist mindset in religions of anykind can be destructive. So I am just listening with many winces, and trying to walk in love, grace, mercy, compassion, and patience as I approach my 65th birthday on July 13. Still proud to be an American and still love my faith.

The new spirituality

Wow, I am on Medicare

Used my card for the first time today at my cardiologist and pharmacy. It is a weird feeling to move from private to public insurance programs. No turning back, I am on the other side of young and it has been a great experience getting here in every way.

I was able to thank my cardiologist for extending my life with his medical skill today, and he shared how hard it is to deal with Medicare in his practice, and I know he desires to help as many people as he can.

Enjoyed a round of early golf before the heat got too bad, always a treat for me. Did not get to see the Bethlehem phenomenon last night although I have enjoyed watching Jupiter and Saturn in recent weeks each night.