An Island Sunrise

It's 9 am body time and 6 am Kauai time so we are waiting on the sunrise and watching the last of the full moon set in our western view from the south part of the Island. Getting here takes some time. Almost seven hours in the air from Sky Harbor into a headwind. We love our Condo at Whalers Cove, and not so much love for the Camero, which is sleek but not as roomy as our Mustange from last trip. But, its all about the convertable.

So begins a relaxing day of sightseeing in green lushness of which we desert dwellers have no experience.

One week in paradise

Brian posed in front of a natural backdrop from the Indiana Jones movie when he was reading the map looking for the cave.

Paradise being a metaphor for a really beautiful place we enjoy visiting. It's been five years, and were are looking forward to the experience of ocean, vegetation, something special to see around every corner.

Pictures to follow after we check in.

Date Night Generational Fun.

So happy to be among the first to enjoy the movie "The Intern". Outstanding, touching and funny. The retired Robert DeNiro worked for forty years publishing Dex, and yes, I remember how important the yellow pages were and how completely outmoded most have become.

Anne Hathaway is so expressive and genuine in her acting that she wins your heart, and what can I say, all the themes of the changing culture, the honor of work, the importance of marriage and family, the pressure of work, all there and all well done.

Less than three days till on week on the Garden Isle of Kauai, and I know it will be relaxing fun, and special.

The Pope, The Jewish People, The Trampled Muslims, and my damaged heart!

First the trampled Muslims, just last week I was looking at a picture of the million tents preparing for the trek to Mecca, and the Arabs unwillingness to take any Muslim refugees, and wondered what would happen if someone tripped in that mass march around the back temple. Well, the answer is....individuals get trampled under the mass influence of Islam.

Second, the Jewish People met for their high holy day in our Chapel yesterday and packed the place. I thought about how difficult it is to be a minority religion and of all their sufferings, and as they got in their Cadillacs and Lexus Automobiles to leave, I knew that America had been very good to Israel, and to Muslims who came here with the same attitude expressed on the Statue of Liberty. So, I prayed, Muslims, stop trampling your own people and the Jews and the West, primarily the United States.

Third, the Catholics, a very amazing world religion, one with very visible Shrines and very oddly dressed clerics, and a world fascinated by one who is crowned as the very vicar of Christ. And I worried, about the tendency for Empires, both evil and benevolent to try to use the trappings of religion for the purposes of wielding power and influence.

Fourthly, I thought about this powerless protestant who follows a risen Savior, and how confused many of my brothers and sisters who follow the literal paradigm that Israel and her feasts were supposed to usher in the apocalypse yesterday, and my damaged heart felt very, very sad for the world, for the church, the the cause of Christ. I was sad when I noticed that the religious channel that allows the prophets of doom to preach and set dates is actually running a telethon to raise money for the future this same day. Early this morning on the same channel a scary bearded dude stared into the camera lens and said, when you open your purse and send your money to me, God will open His purse and send His money to you, and my damaged heart hurt for the church of the Savior who became flesh and dwelt among us.

Faith is believing that the quiet voice of the peaceable kingdom will prevail, hope is looking with faith beyond the circus that is religious hoopla and love is committing to believe that God has not abandoned the least of us.

I prophecy my future

Sunrises and Sunsets mark the days of our lives.

Lord willing, in exactly one week from today I will wake up at 4am unable to sleep, and will grab my camera and go shoot the sunrise. Thus endeth the prophecy.

OK I fudged a bit, because I will be sleeping in Kauai, and the four hour time difference has always caused me to rise early, and I have gone for an early morning photo shoot each time we have visited the Garden Isle.

The Author and experts on the Four Blood Moons predicted a stock market crash on September 12th or 14th, an apocalyptic event on or between tonight and sunset and Sunday, because they believe God operates on the Jewish Feast Day Calendar and we are at the end of the end times. Thus endeth my short retelling of the Four Blood Moons.

I fudged a bit, because I know that the failure of date setting must of necessity be a 100 percent failure, right up until the right one, when it will be too late to gloat.

I am not really gloating, I am mourning the capture of the church by this fundamentalist, violent, and false view of the future, of the hope of the Gospel, and of the centrality of Jesus and his cross shaped plan for the future.

A great time of resting

Lord help us to avoid worldwide religiously motivated war and violence.

Back to the office tomorrow after several days of resting. I determined that I would share as best i can the fruit of my quest to understand why there are so many variant gospels floating around the church. I would rather not preach than continue with the strange narrative of escapist and fundamentalist fears that are causing so many unchristlike reactions to the tensions we face in these dark days.

Every election cycle raises the tensions and divisions to a point where I cannot turn on the TV at times, and this spirit of disunity and distrust and personal attacks sets my spirit into a sadness and grief that robs me of hope.

Movies I taped and finally watched

Sky Harbor decoration, where I was twice last week visiting friends, and will be departing to Hawaii in ten days. Trip excitement is building.

Two mentions, first I enjoyed the simple message of faith and truth in the golf movie Seven Days in Utopia, a booklet I had read years ago. Well presented and warm hearted restoration of a golfer damaged by Dad's ambition and the cruelty of a public meltdown.

Wow did I enjoy 'If I Stay". It had everything I enjoy, Family, romance, music, the supernatural, tragedy and hope. Very well done and with a new young actress with a future, Cloe Grace Moretz.

On another note, I postponed my tax return and am up against a deadline when the whole Turbotax program crashed with all my work unprinted. I am through doing this chore with this program, nothing but headaches for the last two years, expecially with the unique clergy issues.

True quote from my wife to her teacher friends, Don is dangerous when he goes into Bestbuy, Whole Foods, or Costco without me!!! Very true.

An update on CDA and my RCA

I live with Coronary Artery Disease. I look health and feel healthy most times, and my arteries are clear, so says my Cardiologist yesterday afternoon, that is after he fixed one. Since 2000 I have had three coronary events, ie. chest pain and heart damage, and now six interventions in which I had a stress test that indicated a problem.

Yesterday they found plaqueing at the end of an old stent, the ones before they began coating them with a plaque resistant substance. The majority of my problems have been in the Right Coronary Artery which provides oxygen for the hearts major pumping chamber I am told.

So, depending on how you look at the issue, I am either very successful in slowing down the disease or very poor at dealing with it. Given most of the lifestyle issues it looks like I am doing all I can to stop a genetic predispostion. There is always more to try and do which is my goal for this next twelve months.

So, a visit with the team on a miracle table called the Cardiac Catheterization Lab. A very bad nights sleep in the Cath bed area with some kind and compassionate and caring nursing professionals. Now I am home resting for a few days like many times before. Thankful, hopeful, and excited to still be living life among the living.

Bird Feeding and Bird Watching Fun

I had such a great time watching birds, rabbits and hummingbird at the Bed and Breakfast last month that I bought a feeder for both.

The big birds jump on the Finch Feeder and knock a bunch of the ground. The Doves are happy, this family of Quail stop by every day, and we have a hawk about 12 inches tall who loves the bird bath.

That friend at the Airport

In 2007 I met Mercy at Sky Harbor on the way to a Bible Conference. We visited several times over the years and then parted five years ago with a brief visit at Sky Harbor as she moved to serve the Lord in North Carolina, and then yesterday she departed for Israel to serve the Lord and we had an hour to visit at Sky Harbor. It is an odd and blessed friendship. Facebook does help us keep in touch as it will this coming year.

That Day 14th Anniversary

Spending a day walking above, around, and under the Ground Zero Twin Towers was a dream and a desire fulfilled for me a year ago, shortly after the opening of that memorial museum that hallowed the place and the people for all time.

Dear God, please help the world to deal with the hatred that motivates mass destruction like this. My hope is that tommorrow will be safe for all in all places given the signs of the times. God have mercy upon this broken world.

Farewell Ike

Ike loved Brooklyn and Manhattan, though he said the people there were very corrupt at times.

When I met Ike over a year ago I did not realize that I was meeting a soul mate. He moved here on a second retirement after 20 happy years in Florida. An unmistakable thick Brooklyn accent, a non stop story teller, a true unique character with a genuine faith and a life time of hard work and faithfulness to his wife and daughters.

As we shared over the months after his cancer took over, we found so much in common, people, golf, New Orleans Jazz, and a serious desire to understand the ways of God with man. His months in hospice home care allowed us to share deeply and observe his family provide for his needs as suffering increased. What an amazing help a good hospice nurse can be. Thank you Heather for your strong care.

Esther is a strong woman who I pray will go on and find in Sun Lakes some of the joys they knew at the Villages in Florida.

My friend Billy

A nice visit with one of my oldest friends in ministry. Billy was in my Jr. High Youth Group almost 40 years ago in Crystal Springs Ms.. Wew were golf buddys for many years, and we enjoyed a round today. He has 30 years with the Mississippi Farm Bureau in their financial wing. Three high school kids of his own now. My how time flies. He was here to pre plan their Phoenix Gathering in 2016.

Creativity thrives in Safe and Secure Places

Bonneville Salt Flats from a year ago summer trip.

When you are filled with fear, or uncertainty, or insecurity, the best parts of you refuse to flow. I remember many times when I was studying or preparing for a deadline and a storm warning went off, I would be unable to think about the future because of the threats to the present. Guess this is human nature.

All that is best in life thrive when live is relatively secure. Yes, trials test us and refine us, but its the rest and joy after the trail that allows us to love and created and experience life at its best.

How can you enjoy life when you are being told that some huge disaster in the form of judgment is just two weeks away? Just saying!

Crisis in Europe

Easy par four except for the mental pressure of crossing water.

The mass migration of desperate families from Syria, Africa. It's biblical in its enormity and tragedy. I pray and weep in my heart. Part of the exciting truths I am discovering deal with God's heart toward these hellish situations. A cross shaped compassion and a cross shaped powerlessness in our hopes that God will just step in with miracles.

Breakthrough ideas settle long felt tensions

Love the textures of this bark.

When your mind seeks answers in a discipline where the facts and ideas are metaphysical and subject to historical interpretations and anomalies, then you walk around the new thought with amazement, wondering where this idea has been and why it took you so long to hear it. Then you begin to realize this idea is no new, but ancient, and once familiar but lost to the labyrinthian meanderings of human thought, then you realize you can put faith in these ideas, that they may be, indeed, truths to be proclaimed again, recovered, revived, reformed so they can transform us again.

More to follow in days to come. Indebted to others on the same path of questioning and rediscovery.

Cottonwood Enjoyment

Teed off early, weather was pleasant lots of grass and lakes on my home course. If only I could remember how to swing a golf club after three weeks away. Nice to have my Ricoh Camera along to get used to how she operates and observe the finished product at home. For a small lens it has a pleasant tone and texture and sharpness. Can't wait to see some tropical fish pictures in a few weeks in Kauai.

Hope is a powerful thing

Wall Street one year ago, hoping they find their way back to growth soon. For all our sakes.

I am taking my teaching ministry into Hebrews 11 and focusing on faith, hope and love. A delightful trio of functioning attitudes and actions that always deserve our attention.

Some days when the level of hatred, discord and violence in our culture and around the world reach a disturbing level, I find that hope rises in my spirit that somehow, someway, there will be a turn in the tide and healing will take place.

On a more mundane note, I paid 90 dollars to get a keyboard replacement on my four year old Toshiba Satellite, and the replacement suffers from the same stubborn shift key that happened when I brought the laptop home. Oh I with I had continued to complain when I discussed it with the Best Buy geeks long ago.

Summer Monsoon Clouds are a sight to behold

You folks that live where there are four distinct climates just need to understand what happens when you live in the desert. You have a seven month shirtsleeve season from October thru April, and a five month heat warning called Summer. During August we have a monsoon, which excites us quite a bit with winds and rain. The last two evenings we have have real rain and tree damaging winds.

The late afternoon skies become precursors to what lies ahead, and during my walks I just stand amazed in the presence of this afternoon artwork.