Vacation Protocols

Son Clemente Beach has one of the most spectacular daily sunsets which I plan to photograph each evening at the end of our week in Palm Spritns.

I have been blogging daily since August of 2008, I am not taking a break, although the time may be more flexible each day.

I will post more pictures of things that interest me, including facebook picts with my smartphone, so you are more than welcome to friend me if you have'nt.

I have three books, a spy novel, and the whole Kindle library to read by the pool.

I will eat healthy (he said to himself), and walk every day.

My flickr account must be renewed this week, I have been neglecting it, I think you access it by typing in pastordoninaz in the search cell?

I cannot really get away from my church family. I love them. We have been together almost a decade, so I will be updating the prayer requests remotely. This reminds me that people run their business from laptops all over the world, we are connected.

I will sit by an ocean, one of God's grand gifts to the planet.

Checking in with my old friends

I left my denomination in 1995, but I still know lots of minister friends and appreciated my decades with the PCA. I notice a lot of effort to keep folks in the boundaries of their doctrine, which can be good, or not so good. Any group unwilling to discuss where culture, science, and faith meet might find it hard to keep people in line.

I listened to a song leader in a local PCA church who won a grammy for her song Blessing, which reminded me what I most loved about the church I grew up in. God can speak through pain and He does, we don't have to live in complete happiness with all our desires being met to trust God. Laura Story wrote this song when dealing with her husbands brain tumor and I found the lyrics to be very encouraging.

I do not really feel separated from them, although they would be quick to point out that I am no longer in fellowship. My view of the body of Christ includes them, and lots of others folks.

Getting all the last minute things done before some travel and sightseeing. Palm Springs has been for us just a chance to see the wind machines dotting the mountain passes before heading to LA . We will pause and see why she has attracted so many people to live and retire there. I want to see the pond where the LPGA golfers get baptized at the Dinah Shore tournament.

Dear Medical Researchers

We are excited to spend a few more delightful days next week in that quaint seaside town named San Clemente, home of  Johnny Weissmuller and Richard Nixon.

Dear Medical reseachers, if dementia and Alzheimer's are caused by environmental or nutritional issues, please let us know. If we can stop any practice or start any treatment please let us know. Watching vital human beings wither before my eyes seems more than I can take.

Observing husbands and wives becoming totally tethered as a permanent help mate is so hard to see.These folks cannot let their loved ones out of their sight. Trying to help the children of these victims make responsible decisions is difficult.

Yesterday Bill, a kidder and joker and a man who enjoyed singing and helping was unable to engage me in conversation, barely able to walk, and obviously overwhelmed by the prison of his mind. Heartbreaking.

Please find more drugs to halt the violent behavior of formally sweet people and the accidents and loss that occur when seniors take the car for one more drive and end up in the desert or lost miles from home.

Lord give strength and wisdom to any family suffering with this disease of aging.

Break Time

I was delivering Jack's juicer to his home when Greg and Michelle, mutual business friends, offered me this really nice Hamilton Beach juicer. I am so grateful and thankful for the gift and for all you guys have done for me in our new relationship.

G&M helped me move my retirement savings to more stable and less risky products two months ago, right before the stock market and its attendant mutual funds went back down the chute. No more chutes and ladders for me.

In a few days we will be taking some time away. We stayed pretty close to home last summer with my heart issues, and getting out of town is something I look forward to. Armed with copious amounts of gift cards from Starbucks Laura and I will focus on rest, recreation, leisure reading, pool side relaxation, restaurant conversationing, grandkids spoiling,  sightseeing, and indulging my photo hobby for a few days.

Love your enemies

Lots of Arizona Diamond Backs in them there desert hills.

Is this riskier than "handle your snakes"? Perhaps, but it has alot more support from the words of Jesus and the description of love fournd in I Cor. 13.  Love seeks not its own, it acts out of the love God places in the art and includes the persons before us, friend or enemy, and God says it is the most God like of qualities and practices.

You can have your snakes, Southern Appalachian faith dude preachers. I will follow Jesus in the way of the cross, in the way of love for mankind.

New Cabinets installed in our washroom. We are the second owners of a home built in 1989 and we are slowly updating the rooms. We will now chose the faucet style, new switches and plugs, and a really cute wall storage unit in the space as it is the place we put our stuff when we enter the house through the garage.

The Cabinets now match the new kitchen and give it a nice look. The ladies in my family, wife and daughter are to be commended for their style and taste and determination to maintain the home and increase its value and usability.

Jack the Painter did a great job on the wall repair and painting as usual.

Branded!!!

A snake handling preacher in West Virginny dies testing his faith, and the headlines link him to me. A preacher of faith, and people laugh.

I preach on the admonition of Jesus that we pray for our enemies and do good to those that seek to harm us and I am laughed off the stage in a manner of speaking.

To the world in all looks ridiculous and to us who read the book one looks presumptuous and the other looks impossible.

I like the quote by the former Jewish prime minister that has been floating around my FB page. The Arabs will make peace when they start loving the own children more than they hate us. Jesus told me that God loves and forgives His enemies, that I was one, and that to deny that love to someone whom I consider at enemy is to fail to walk in love.