Why I Use A Mac

I use a Mac because I can do things like this right out of the box:) Don't try this at home--I'm a trained professional with extensive experience.

Faust Park At Night

I talk about my motorcycle on occasions, but I've never posted a picture of it. This is a picture of the motorcycle I have, a 1998 Honda VFR Interceptor (this is a stock photography picture--mine is not nearly so clean:)

Sometimes I get the itch to ride late at night. Tonight I left the house about 8:30pm and set off on my bike for an unknown destination. As I rode down Olive I decided to pull in to Faust Park about 8:40pm. I had my iPod with me and fired up some worship music and sat on the bench in the darkness looking at the stars and just spending some time enjoying the presence of God without the barrier of a ceiling or lights. Earlier in the evening I had thought about seeing the new Batman movie--Faust Park At Night was better.

Pressing Through

This weekend I attended a men's ministry retreat at the Marionist Retreat Center, and it was a great retreat. The theme was Pressing Through, appropriately named given the incredible challenges some of the men are facing. It had what most good retreats have--times of silence, lots of laughter, prayer, games, worship, and straight talk about challenging issues. The final service was particularly moving; Mickey Davis spoke about the tragic loss of his wife in a car accident. What did I come away with? Several things, but let me share one.

I came away with a fresh realization that I cannot lead anyone to places I've never been. I can point to the far off country--I can describe what others have said it's like--but a large part of my responsibility as a spiritual leader is to go to the place where God is calling his people, to go there so I can lead others there as well. In the same way, men cannot lead their families to places they've never been. And so I pray that God will lead the men of our church so that we might lead those under our care.

If You Hear Drilling Sounds...

If you hear drilling around the church, don't worry, we're just doing some fund-raising. Apparently the Barnett Shale is producing a lot of natural gas these days, and the oil companies have figured out how to harvest it right out of the middle of the city. And churches are cashing in too-like this one! And although I'm pretty sure the Barnett Shale doesn't run quite this far, you never know how far 2.5 trillion cubic feet of gas might wander, and we're not taking chances. So if we strike it rich, we'll have the grandest pot luck St. Louis has ever seen:)

Pondering The Wilderness

Nehemiah 9 recounts God's goodness to the Israelites; God provided the Law, gave the Israelites food from Heaven, water from the rock, and prepared a land for them they did not have to settle. Nehemiah 9:16-18 then says, “But they, our forefathers, became arrogant and stiff-necked, and did not obey your commands. They refused to listen and failed to remember the miracles you performed among them. They became stiff-necked and in their rebellion appointed a leader in order to return to their slavery. But you are a forgiving God, gracious and compassionate, slow to anger and abounding in love. Therefore you did not desert them, even when they cast for themselves an image of a calf and said, ‘This is your god, who brought you up out of Egypt,’ or when they committed awful blasphemies." If you're going to traverse the wilderness, you certainly want the God of Israel going with you. And while slogging through the sand may not be pleasant, you can be sure that He will provide everything you need. As I look back at some of my own trips through the wilderness, I wince as I remember the grumbling and the longing for the land of slavery; if not for his kindness and his patience, I might have been one whose body was left in the wilderness. God is so kind.

Vacation Finale

Well, all good things must come to an end. We spent last weekend in Branson, Missouri with my parents and my brother's family. Six adults (loosely defined), and five kids (Hanna 8, Katie 6, Lauren 5, Jacob 3, and Logan 1). We saw the new Noah's Ark production, which was quite spectacular. We did some swimming. We visited First Baptist Church in Branson. We ate Bransonese food. But mostly we just talked, laughed, and took pictures of the kids having a good time. I've attached a few of them.

It's great to be back in St. Louis and to get back to work.

What To Remember

Wednesday was an interesting day. In some way it was a disastrous day, and in others a very special day. I spent some time in the morning trying to fix a problem with the contract on our rental car, which involved two shuttles to the rental car company and two shuttles back after they told me they couldn't help me (all this after the office in St. Louis told me I needed to go there for help). On the whole, not so good for my blood pressure, but my eye wasn't twitching yet and the day was still fairly new. Next we went to IKEA to look around. Wahoo! However, the joy of IKEA was cut short when I went to pay for I don't remember what and discovered my debit card was being declined. Since I knew how much was in the account I called the Credit Union to inquire and they told me their whole system was down and unless I could find a local shared branch credit union, there was no way I could get money at all-no debit, no ATM, nothing. On the whole, not so good for my blood pressure; my eye was beginning to twitch. The Credit Union tried to give me directions over the phone to a local shared branch but after nearly an hour of searching we had to drive back to our hotel and find a location and directions using my laptop. We got stuck in traffic and so that took about another hour. On the whole, my blood pressure could have been counted by timing the rapid-fire twitching of my eye. By the time all this was done it was 4pm and we nearly decided to scrap our plans for the day. However, my daughter strongly exhorted us to stay the course and head to the beach and to Navy Pier. We got to the beach about 5pm and then left for the pier about 6:30pm.

Despite the first appearance of the picture, Jake isn't have a coronary or threatening anyone with bodily harm; he's making muscles to show his formidable strength. I was careful to be duly impressed. The other picture is a picture from the top of the ferris wheel at the Navy Pier. It goes up 150 feet and gives you a spectacular view of the Chicago skyline and the beach. We played games, had some snacks, ended the evening with fireworks, and schlepped two very tired children back to the hotel.

As I was thinking about yesterday and listening to Katie and Jake talk about everything we did, I realized that they didn't say a single word about the hours they spent in the back seat waiting for us to get where we were going. They never mentioned the shuttle rides or the unsuccessful search for a Credit Union. They didn't even talk about the nasty traffic and the guy in a blue Volkswagen Passat who nearly put us all in the hospital. They remembered the fun we had and the time we were able to spend together. I know that some day they will grow up to be much more sophisticated and be able to more fully appreciate the frustration of such days, but not yet. And why should they? It won't change a blessed thing. So for the time I'm trying to grow up a little to be more like them-simple, joyous, child-like.

Vacation And The Afterlife

I have a couple interesting events to report.

One, while at the Field Museum in Chicago, we took our kids through the part of the museum that's a small version a pyramid. It gives you a chance to see how they were made, what went where, and to read some interesting facts about these ancient engineers. While looking at some mummies, a retired volunteer for the museum came up and started talking to me about the Egyptian view of the afterlife, how they saw the life force or energy as something that could not be destroyed and so they simply prepared for the next phase of their existence. He ended with what I thought was a telling comment: "many people today think the Egyptian's religion was morbid, but they were just preparing for another existence--no complusion or scare tactics--that sounds pretty good to me." For the sake of my family enjoying our time in the pyramid, I decided not to debate this gentlemen on the Egyptian view of death or the fact that less than 1% of Egyptians had the financial resources to go into eternity at all prepared (as did the Pharaohs and other prominent leaders). But the thing I really wonder about is what sort of experiences this man has had that would cause him to so quickly and so openly share his distaste for any religion that had any sort of concept of ultimate justice. I hope that in the midst of the message of judgment was a message of love and grace, but I know such was probably not the case. That's a good reminder for me.

Two, we went to the beach today and I have a picture to share of my kids. They say a picture is worth a thousand words, and I believe it, but I have also spent the last few years immersed in endless words and so I sometimes do not use pictures as much as I should. In fact, I have been blogging for some time now and this will be the first picture in my blog. That's what's so special about this post, not that we went to Lake Michigan (go Blue!) at a beach in Chicago. I have the greatest kids in all the world...other than yours, I'm sure.

Vacation

Family vacation is underway! We left St. Louis about 4pm this afternoon and got to our hotel just inches from the O'Hare runways about 9:30pm. After a few unscheduled pits stops and a coin-only toll bucket that took our picture and I'm sure by now has mailed us a ticket, we got the little people in bed and are now settled in watching a Jackie Chan movie. Could there be anything better? Just yesterday someone told me that rest is holy. I had never thought of it that way, but I'm looking for some holy rest. And while I'm at it I'm going to drag my kids around and have some fun.