Done

It is over. At least one chapter of our lives is over, and another is beginning. Due to an unfortunate set of circumstances regarding a procedural matter at the home, I am no longer employed there and Pat will be leaving shortly (this week, I think).
Although I’ll not write in the blog about what happened specifically, I will tell you emphatically that this has nothing at all to do with my relationships with the girls. I can’t stress enough how much we loved and cared for the girls, and we would never do anything to detract from their progress and growth. I will also say that, given the circumstances were the same, I would make the same decision again, no question.
I kind of liken our situation to the infamous preacher massacres that occur still all too regularly where the preacher lives in the parsonage and has to be moved out within 24 hours due to some issue that probably should never have been. Having said that, I’ll now say that we are living with my brother and his wife in Valley Center (bless them) and are taking some time to make decisions regarding what we will do next. I will also say that I hold no ill will toward the home and wish it, the staff, and the girls all the best.
I will also say that I believe with all my heart that the Evil One took an incident that should have been nothing and managed to make it into something that disrupted a successful program, caused anguish and pain all around, and caused the girls who were doing so well to have yet another thing to deal with. I don’t believe that any person or persons are or were controlled by the Evil One, but only that he took circumstances as they were and made them into something that caused havoc in the lives of people.
If you have read prior blogs, you know that I have been on him constantly and have been battling him face to face, so to speak. I will not back down now. I will not shrink back. I will not quit. I go on record today that I will continue the battle with all my heart and soul. I am more determined than ever to use the armor of God and the power of the Word of God (John 1) to battle this enemy.

Is There a Lesson Here?

Once in a while I click on a favorites listing in my browser for Antarctic weather. As of when I checked (6am this morning), the South Pole station operated by the United States was reporting 76 degrees below 0, and the Vostok station operated by the Russians was reporting 111 degrees below 0. I was interested in checking further, and Googled Antarctic weather.
I found out that the average relative humidity there is .03%, and there is less than 1 inch average snowfall in a given year on the continent. The coldest temperature recorded there was 129 degrees below 0 at Vostok in 1983, and winds sometimes reach 200 miles an hour on parts of the continent.
At the same time as the above temperatures were recorded, however, Palmer station, operated by the United States, was recording a balmy 22 degrees above 0. Talk of a land of contrast! On the same continent, there was 133 degrees of difference in temperature at different stations.
I don’t know about you, but I am a temperate climate person. Not having experienced the extreme cold of the poles or the extreme heat and humidity of the tropics, I don’t speak from much experience. However, I can’t imagine living in either of those places and being anywhere close to comfortable. Certainly, living there would be an adventure in both comfort and survival.
When we stop to think about it, we really have it pretty good here. We are amply and bountifully supplied with all that we need and more. We have the ability to make our environment even more temperate than normal with air conditioning and heating systems. We can humidify the air, de-humidify the air, clean the air, purify the water, and cook our food. Our waste products break down due to beneficial action by bacteria and other life forms. Overall, we have it made.
So why do we continue to complain? I don’t know. Maybe we’re a “stiff-necked people”, as Moses wrote long ago about Israel. They had it good, too, but couldn’t see the forest for the trees. Hmmm. I wonder if there’s a lesson there for us….

Freedom

I’m going to return to a topic I’ve talked about before. Some of my past blogs have talked about a girl that we recently admitted to Prairie View. I’ll call her Ariel. She has emotional issues that we are not equipped to deal with, so we had to admit her to another facility.
Ariel continues to vividly remind me of the song that I’ve put the lyrics of on my blog before. “Let Freedom Ring” is a song that talks of the freedom that can be had in Christ. Just yesterday I popped the DVD into the PC and played that song as performed by the Gaither Vocal Band. Doing that helps to “ground” me and reminds me why I do what I do.

Let freedom ring wherever minds know what it means to be in chains.
Let freedom ring wherever hearts know pain.
Let freedom echo through the lonely streets where prisons have no key.
We can be free and we can sing --- let freedom ring!

Ariel’s mind is truly in chains. The Evil One has seen to it that she will never be able to escape on her own. This is more than just mental health issues. This is warfare, and Ariel is a prisoner of war.
Ariel’s heart truly knows pain. She was told by her mother that she was a child of the devil. She literally believes that, in her childish way, I believe. Can you imagine the pain of this child as she processes that statement by her mother? Can you imagine what she thinks of her father?
Hers is indeed a wandering on the lonely streets of the prison of her mind. The Evil One has succeeded in isolating her. There is no key…only aimless existence until the key that is Jesus Christ unlocks the chains that bind and the doors that close her in.
I pray that in some small way, we can help her to accept the key to her freedom, which is Jesus.

A Long Day

I just spent all afternoon and long into the evening yesterday in an attempt to get mental health care for one of our residents. She’s not been with us long, and from the beginning demonstrated behaviors that could have been interpreted as mental health issues, but no one really knew for certain. We also did not get “the rest of the story” from the facility where she came from. They withheld information that would have been beneficial to us in making a determination whether to accept her or not. But that’s another blog.
After three elopements from school, three incidents of cutting, two incidents of theft, and many other negative behaviors, we determined that she needed help we were not equipped to provide. So we set out to find that help.
We’re not novices at navigating the mental health system in Kansas. We’ve done it before, and our Director of Services is a three-decade expert in Kansas mental health services. He knows his way around.
However, it isn’t as simple to obtain mental health services as it is to obtain services for, say, a broken arm. With the arm, you call an ambulance, show up at an emergency room, or go to a doctor’s office and they take care of you. With this issue, we had to go through three assessments within a 24 hour period, be seen by three different providers, visit with the insurance company, talk with providers, and generally cajole and convince people that this girl needed help. No psychiatrist ever physically saw her. Only one provider (behavioral health ARNP) ever talked with her.
I can understand why people hesitate to access these services…unless you know your way around, you get lost in the shuffle as they slide you back out the door you entered and onto the street. And the thing about it is they do it in such a way that you’re not even sure what happened until it’s all over.
What was supposed to be a direct admit to a facility (I’ll just tell you it was Prairie View in Newton, Kansas) turned into a four hour marathon of questions, phone calls, faxes, and thinly-veiled statements that she would not probably be admitted because she “didn’t meet criteria”. We had already obtained approval from the girl’s insurance, by the way. The doctor on call wouldn’t return his page. They called the medical director, who shoved us off onto another physician, who finally decided to admit.
I told the social worker who interviewed us (we never spoke with an RN or medical provider) that I was tired, hungry, and angry. I told her I would hold myself together in order to see this through for the benefit of the girl, but had no kind words for the system or for the facility. I asked the social worker what it took to obtain needed mental health services. She had no answer.
What would have happened had our girl been 18 years old and showed up there on her own to obtain services? She wouldn’t have had the staff at the children’s home, the ARNP, the counselors, the people at the insurance company, and others to make phone calls and ask professional friends and colleagues to help open doors for her. I know most of what we did to obtain services. It evidently takes at least that much. She wouldn't have had a snowball's chance on her own.
I’m not so tired today, but I am still angry. The admission to Prairie View will do little more than buy us more time to find an appropriate placement for the girl. We will have three to five days to make that determination and find an open bed for her. Prairie View will assess yet again, adjust medications, and warehouse her for the required period of time before declaring her “better” and dismissing her. At least Prairie View now has the burden of helping find an appropriate setting for her before they dismiss her. They cannot by law set her out on the street without needed services in place, even though I am convinced that they would do that in a heartbeat if they could. The story continues.

Being Set Free

I said in my last blog that I thought the common denominator for the issues and problems that are facing us is evil. I said that whatever you prefer to call it…Satan, the Devil, or whatever else…evil is the common theme. I am more convinced of that than ever.
Last night one of our girls cut her arm. This was the third time in the short time she’s been here that she’s done that. We took her for an evaluation, but they determined that since she wasn’t an immediate threat to herself or others (go figure), she didn’t meet the criteria for admission to a mental health unit. Never mind that she cut so deeply that the blood was dripping on the floor. Never mind that she said she likes to see the blood and let it dry on her arm. Never mind that she has said that she will up the ante until she is taken from this place. She’s back with us. One of the staff stayed up all night with her to keep her from harming herself in the night.
I also read the application for admission for yet another girl this morning. As I read through one of the narratives, I ran across the following statement, “Jeanna (name changed) must learn to take responsibility for her actions.”
If I’ve read that once, I’ve read it a hundred times. It seems that virtually every parent or guardian who has applied for admission to this place on behalf of their girl has said that or something like that in the application. There are indeed common threads in the issues that face these girls. And these threads are also common to the world at large.
Think of the episode some years ago when our President was involved with a certain female intern. He insisted that his statement that “I did not have a sexual relationship with that woman,” was correct because although she had a sexual relationship with him, he did not have one with her…he was a bystander and she was the one who was active in the relationship. If you recall what physical act the relationship primarily consisted of, you can use your imagination to determine the truthfulness of that statement.
Think of the Watergate mess some years ago. The same kind of word play and thought contortion, along with the desire to not have to take responsibility for their actions led several down the primrose path.
You may not believe in a being called The Evil One. That’s OK. You just continue on in your delusion. But in one of your more lucid moments, take a job as a caretaker for troubled persons. Become a school psychologist. Be a social worker. Teach in a public school. Be a counselor. Whatever. I don’t care whether it’s girls, boys, adults…makes no difference. You’ll soon find that you encounter The Evil One toe to toe, head to head, face to face, in the lives of those who are tortured by his schemes.
Things then become much more clear. You begin to see things as they really are. This world is sometimes not a pretty place. You can begin to understand why that great apostle Paul of Tarsus wrote that even the creation longs to “be set free from the slavery of corruption into the freedom of the glory of the children of God.”

Don't You Dare

I haven’t written in awhile. I’m sorry for the delay. You see, I’m becoming forgetful. Yesterday (or was it day before? Well, sometime this week.) was my 58th birthday (or was it 57? 67?), and we all know that old people become forgetful. Yeah, that excuse probably won’t fly any further than I can throw a cannon, but it’s the best I can do until my feeble brain can come up with something better.
It rained yesterday here. We had over an inch of badly needed showers and thunderstorms. It won’t result in much growing outside, as fall has also arrived and things are pretty much shutting down in preparation for the winter months. But it certainly refreshed the earth and our spirits as well.
We will interview a family this evening who needs to place their daughter somewhere. I never know what to say or do at these interviews. We are to evaluate the situation and make some kind of decision (although not right away) on whether to recommend placement. I know that by the time they come here, there is a certain amount of desperation involved, and that they have tried most all other options, probably without success. I know they are looking at us as the saviors of their marriage/family/daughter, and we are very well aware that we are totally human and can only do what we know to do. We’re certainly not miracle-workers and cannot save everyone.
If this girl doesn’t work out, there is another one in the wings that wishes an interview. There always seems to be one more “out there”. We never seem to run out of girls who are in trouble and families that are in crisis.
There has to be a common denominator to all of this. What we see at MCCH is just a microcosm of what is out there on a massive scale. We can pontificate all day, but the long and short of it is that the common denominator is evil (Satan, the Devil, whatever you wish to call him/it).
Tell me I’m a religious nut if you like. Tell me that it can’t be that simple if you like. But until you’ve been a house dad to troubled teen-age girls and dealt with parents who apparently don’t have the sense God gave a goose, don’t you dare tell me I’m wrong.

Ready to Go

We’re back. Of course, as in all time off, it disappears all too quickly. The money also seems to disappear at an accelerated rate during times of leisure. But it was a time that we looked forward to, and it didn’t disappoint us.
This year we did a little differently in that we didn’t do a lot of sitting and visiting, but rather saw some of the sights of Branson. We went downtown (which we had done before, of course) and ate at a sandwich shop. There were, it seemed, a million people walking the sidewalks of historic downtown Branson, and most of that million milling around in the stores, but when we went into the sandwich shop, there were few customers.
The Five and Dime was busy, as were many of the other stores in the block. We perused the collection of articles for sale in a Victorian-themed gift shop and saw the shop that advertised a thousand clocks for sale. We then went down to the lakefront and rode on the excursion train that leaves the depot every two hours or so for a 20 mile ride into the Ozarks.
Following that, we went out to the S of O (School of the Ozarks) campus where my sister and brother-in-law graduated college and took in the new conference center and restaurant. What a pleasant meal we had there, with good food and wait staff. We then took in a show (The Haygoods) and went back to the motel.
By the way, if you have a chance to see the Haygoods, please do. They’re a high-energy, multi-talented family who gives much more than value for the price of the ticket. They displayed, I think, better quality than did Shoji Tabuchi a couple of years ago. It was one of the better and more quality performances I’ve EVER seen.
The girls get back this afternoon. Right now we have the carpet cleaner in. I’m not sure what I’ll be doing today except stay out of his way and think about the next three weeks or so. I am ready for the girls, but the high maintenance of a couple of them will challenge us in ways we haven’t thought of yet. Pray for us this next couple of weeks. I think this will be a pivotal time in the lives of several of our girls.

Long Weekend

We are packing to leave for a long weekend. We’ll be going to Branson and staying at a resort on Indian Point. The resort is far from the Branson crowds, and is a place we’ve been before when we wanted to get away.
My brother and sister will meet us there tomorrow evening. We’ll spend the weekend there, then come back on Sunday afternoon. We’ll mostly sit, eat, visit, walk, and do those things that older people generally do. Sis wants to go to SDC to the crafts festival, but as of right now, I’m not sure I want to do that. I may stay back at the motel. Right now, I don’t want to see crowds.
I’ll let you know how it goes there. The motel will be a little crowded, but we should be able to have space to ourselves from time to time. Mike and Handan are good hosts and see to it that we have what we need for a pleasant stay. I don’t know if I’ll blog while there or not. If not, it’ll be a few days.

Count Your Blessings

One of our girls has a dad who is serving in Iraq. He was there when she came here earlier this year. He came home and saw her a few months ago, and now is back in Iraq.
One of the toughest things I think that can happen with the people who serve our country is the separation of families. This particular family has need to be together…to take part in therapy and marriage counseling. Obviously, this is quite difficult when one family member is 8,000 miles away.
He tries to be part of the family by sending me letters that I copy and give to his daughter. He is beginning email and phone therapy with the counselor. But these things are a poor substitute right now for the real thing. And the girl and the family are not doing as well as they could in part because of this separation.
Life isn’t fair sometimes. We know that, but we sometimes think that applies to people other than us. And in some respects, we are treated more than fairly. We consume most of the world’s wealth and resources. We are not hungry, homeless, or naked. We have access to health care and clean water. We have friends, family, and those who care about us that we’ve never met.
I know that we could improve health care, and that there are hungry people in this nation. I know people in my community are homeless. The point of this article, however, is not to point that out, but rather to let us who read this know how blessed we are.
I told one girl once, “So your Dad abused you, your Mom abandoned you, and you’ve been in four foster homes in the last year and a half. So what?”
She looked at me rather quizzically. I didn’t say that to be mean or uncaring. I said it to say (and I did tell her) that life wasn’t fair to her. However, she now has the opportunity to pick up and go on rather than let those people of her past continue to drag her down and control her future.
This girl was blessed to be in a place where she was safe, had good food and clothing, a roof, bed, and place to call her own, and people who loved and cared for her. It was time for her to realize that and start to put her life back together, even though she had suffered torturous unfairness in her short time on earth.
“Count your blessings; name them one by one.”
“Count your blessings, see what God has done.”

God is Good

The hectic morning is done. Chores have been done and are being checked. Girls are showering and other such like things. There’s a quiet, soothing relax CD playing in the background. As of this minute, no one is carping at anyone else.
It’s a welcome and all too brief respite in the day with six teen-age girls who are here “for a reason.” We enjoy the more animated times with them, but also enjoy the more sedate and serene times, which seem to come all too infrequently.
It’s cloudy here today, with the prospects of a good shower tonight or tomorrow. It’s badly needed as it’s been awhile since good precipitation has fallen. K State is playing KU, and the world will live or die (at least in some people’s reality) depending on who wins and who loses and by how much. The new house parents are moving in today, a welcome addition to our clan. And we are looking forward to a week off beginning Monday evening.
I don’t know about you, but it could be a lot worse than it is. God is good, and we are blessed.

Engaging the Enemy

Yesterday, I thought long and hard about the words to two songs written by Bill and Gloria Gaither. “Let Freedom Ring” and “It Is Finished.” Both talk of the sacrifice of Jesus and what it means for us as human beings. Now, if you’re not a Christian and don’t believe all of the stuff about the Bible, Jesus and God, you probably won’t care to read what follows because you won’t understand what I’m talking about. And even if you are a Christian or an adherent, you may not quite understand why I am so worked up right now.
A few lines of “Let Freedom Ring” go like this:

God built freedom into every fiber of creation
And He meant for us to all be free and whole
When my Lord bought freedom with the blood of His redemption
His cross stamped pardon on my very soul
Let freedom ring down through the ages from a hill called Calvary
Let freedom ring wherever hearts know pain
Let freedom echo through the lonely streets where prisons have no key
You can be free and you can sing let freedom ring

Lines from “It Is Finished” read this way:

There's a line that is drawn through the ages
On that line stands an old rugged cross
On that cross, a battle is raging
To gain a man's soul or it's loss
On one side, march the forces of evil
All the demons, all the devils of hell
On the other, the angels of glory
And they meet on Golgotha's hill

These songs, along with a host of verses out of the Bible, talk of a spiritual battle that takes place for the hearts and souls of humans. This war rages in a realm about which we know very little, but I believe is real, nevertheless. Once in a while, the battle breaks out into our three dimensional existence and we can see not only the effect, but sometimes even the agony of the war within.
Such has been the case recently with several of the girls. The evil one has chosen some of the most vulnerable people on the planet within which to wage a war that continues to torture them far beyond what they should have to bear. These girls have already suffered mightily from the effects of the evil one’s actions on others as those others abused and mistreated these girls in some way. Now this same evil one comes to the setting of a Christian children’s home to continue the war. Up until now, the girls have been fighting back virtually alone. No more.
I haven’t been this angry in years. Yesterday as I sat at the computer and listened to the Gaither Vocal Band sing “Let Freedom Ring” on the DVD and called up the lyrics to “It Is Finished”, I clenched my jaw, shed tears, and made fists. It was all I could do to keep from crying out loud and breaking something. There’s something fundamentally wrong with leaving the most vulnerable on their own to fight a certain losing battle for their own souls and for the soul of the society in which they exist.
And these girls are only a microcosm of what is “out there”. I know why the world seems to be going to hell in a handbasket. It seems that way because it is that way. But God works through me to positively affect the lives of the girls who come our way. I’m engaging the enemy. I’m making a difference. I’m fighting along with the girls and with other like-minded Christians. I’m in this together with King of Creation.
The evil one wants to fight…I’ll take him up on that…gladly. I’m not going to let these girls face him alone.

Driving Miss Daisy

We saw “Driving Miss Daisy” again tonight. Most of the girls had never seen it, and I rented it to show tonight. They seemed to enjoy the movie, and followed the story line well.
During the part where Hoke and Miss Daisy are traveling to Mobile and stop for lunch, the police stop and gently harass them. As they are driving away, one officer makes a racial comment about both of them. The girls soundly lashed into the officers for their comments.
At the end, when Hoke is feeding Miss Daisy at the nursing home, some of the girls didn’t “get it”, but some did. The genuine affection for Hoke shows through Miss Daisy, and that affection is returned by Hoke in a gentle and loving way.
I always am affected by that movie. There’s so much in that story that one can take from it. The brevity of life, the suddenness of death, the temporal nature of business and wealth, the relationships between people and peoples, and many other things come front and center in that story line.
Stories like that don’t come along every day. But when one does, it makes a lasting impression on all who see it and appreciate it for what it brings to life and living.
The world could use some kindness and gentleness right now.

Come See It

We went to the river yesterday. The girls were out of school yesterday, so we went to the confluence of the Arkansas (pronounced ar-kań-sas) and Little Arkansas rivers in downtown Wichita. They’ve built two pedestrian bridges across the rivers at the confluence, and have a Native American exhibit and art at the point. It’s quite a display.
We spent considerable time there, and the girls enjoyed the waterfalls, the rocks, and the relative quiet. They climbed on the rocks, sit and talked, and just spent time alone. They want to go back soon.
Sometimes governments do extraordinarily stupid and wasteful things. We all hear about those times when government doesn’t work as it should. Then there are other times when someone had an idea and government took it to it’s conclusion, with great results.
This is one of those times. I don’t know who had the idea or how it all came to pass, but this exhibit is one of the better things I’ve seen. It’s close to Exploration Place and the Veterans Memorial Park. It’s wheelchair accessible throughout the exhibit, is tastefully done, and respectful of a culture that was decimated in a matter of a few years by the white man and his greed.
I know that critics have bemoaned the cost, the location, and other things. And there may be some merit to some of that criticism. But most of it is sour grapes, and only results in a poisoning of the atmosphere of public service so that qualified people refuse to serve.
Thanks to whoever it was that had the foresight and fortitude to carry that project through to fruition. If you have a chance, come see it some day.

A Higher Plane

A few days ago I was driving the girls to school about 7:30 in the morning. As I turned east on 13th street, the sun was a medium-bright orange orb hanging just above the street and the horizon. It was close to the equinox and the sun rose just about due east that day.
All of us were looking at the phenomenon, and one of the girls simply said “wow”. I think she was truly impressed by the sight, and so were the others that took the time from their chattering to look for just a few seconds at what God unfolded before them.
In today’s world, we are not easily impressed. We can send instant messages to Australia and the space shuttle. We have at our fingertips billions of pages of information. Our automobiles think for us and guide us to our destinations. We can receive hundreds of television and radio channels on private services such as cable tv and satellite radio. We talk long distance with the ease of punching in some numbers on a keypad.
The girls that are staying with us don’t remember George Bush senior in the White House. They don’t recall the Gulf War, except through history. Greenbar and DOS is foreign to them. And it’s been a very long time since anyone has actually dialed a telephone.
The sight only lasted a few seconds until it was obscured by trees and other objects. But it was enough that some of us, anyway, stopped for just a second or two and enjoyed the view. I have to wonder how may other commuters on their way to work or school that day saw and marveled. I would hope that many that day took their lives a step higher, if only for a few seconds, and got out of the rut of daily existence to enjoy a higher plane.

All Worthwhile

“We got our daughter back.” So were the words of the Dad of one of the girls we have kept here at the home, then reunited with her family a few months ago. The home had a fundraising night tonight and this Dad wanted to speak to the audience. He didn’t speak long, but he said those words tonight, among others, in front of God and everyone. Those words stuck in my mind, and probably will for a long time.
It’s hard to know whether or not anything positive comes from our day-to-day interaction with these girls. We don’t see changes happen much over the course of a day or even a week. We continue to see many of the same behaviors and attitudes daily to the point that it seems pointless to continue this seeming exercise in futility.
We see girls leave here against our better judgment and go back to families or situations that we know aren’t good for them. We see families continue to be in crisis due to the choices that they continue to make long after they should know better. We see the effects of a society that still, for all the rhetoric, considers children to be throw-away objects.
But then, something like this happens. Once in a while, it all comes together. Sometimes, things just gel. And we are able to have our poor efforts validated and can see the glory of God working through not only us as house parents, but also other staff, the board, friends of the home, volunteers, our prayer warriors, and others who have an interest in seeing God work in His people.
Thanks so much, Pete, for your kind words. Soli Deo Gloria

The Pain of Withdrawal

One of our girls is going through a withdrawal. No, not a withdrawal from drugs or alcohol. She’s going through boyfriend withdrawal.
This is actually quite good because she has a male dependency and thinks she needs to constantly be in a boyfriend relationship, many of whom weren’t what they should have been. She craves the attention of boys and believes she’s not a whole person without it. She realizes her problem intellectually, and has “taken the pledge” to not have a boyfriend at least for the remainder of this year. It’s been tough, to say the least.
I knew that some women (and men too) had this kind of a problem, but wasn’t aware that this could have just as strong of an addictive track as nicotine, alcohol, or narcotics. The road she’s on is really a tough pull for her, and I feel rather helpless at times to help her much other than to encourage her as best I can.
We often say about others whom we see are in difficult circumstances to just get out of those circumstances and do something different. It’s as if they could just wave the magic wand over themselves and all would be well. We do it with people who are homeless, in abusive relationships, who are hooked on gambling, shopping, or eating, and with people who have compulsive disorders such as stealing.
Only those who have not gone through the torture of having and trying to release oneself from such a demon would ever be so naïve as to think that all that is needed is to just change behavior, as if it can be done in the next 10 minutes and one is cured.
We’re cheering for our girl and working with her as best we can. She’s also in therapy and is working with her therapist on this and other issues that affect her. She has a lot of will power and she has given her life to Jesus Christ. Her family is behind her. Her friends are cheering her on. She’s on the right track. But that track has a lot of trestles and tunnels to navigate yet. The jury’s still out.

Looking Up

I normally don’t pay a lot of attention to the morning hours much before about 9am. However, as I drove the girls to school today (we travel East to the school), I noticed as I turned on 13rh street that the sun was barely peeking above a ridge of dark clouds over in the eastern sky. There was just a slit between that ridge and another ridge above it and the sun was just beginning to traverse that area.
I knew that I had to visit with a school counselor at 9am today about one of our girls who is failing most of her classes. I wasn’t looking forward to that. Neither was I sure what the rest of the day held. So I wasn’t particularly ready or willing to have a religious lesson right then and there.
However, I also felt that there was indeed a message for me, and I needed to look at it (the message) as well as the moment. Somehow, it seemed, God was creating that moment for me and any others who happened to look ahead or over and see the phenomenon. Do you think for a minute that God’s hand COULD have been involved in that? That He did that just for me and whoever would look?
I then wondered how many times I fail to look, or worse, fail to appreciate what I do see. I sometimes have my head so far into the abyss that it seems I can’t even jump up to see out, let alone have any time to truly appreciate what is there for me.
I don’t know if God intended to create that moment for me, for someone else, or for no one in particular. I do know that it got me to thinking about how I tend to (insert cliché here). That cliché could be “not see the forest for the trees” or one of many others.
Maybe I need to look up more.

Does Anyone Know What's Going On Here?

I heard a report on NPR the other day where a U.S. Senator was questioning an Executive Branch official about the war in Iraq. Senator Bob Corker (Tennessee) was asking former Deputy Secretary of Defense John J. Hamre to explain why we have not done more to keep Iraqi oil from falling into the black market. This was after a question by Sen. Corker elicited the information that from 200,000 to 400,000 (no one knows for sure) barrels of Iraqi oil per day is lost to the black market.
I now quote the exchange between these two men.
Sen. Corker: "Is there a reason we have not employed methods to keep 400,000 barrels of oil from going into the wrong hands?".
Sec. Hamre: Iraq has had a "very elaborate . heavy duty black market" in oil since the first Gulf War.
Sen. Corker: "Are you saying the reason we're not intervening is that would create other issues . we'd have to deal with?"
Sec. Hamre: "My sense is that we have had our hands full with a full range of things and this probably was a problem that wasn't as imminent as people shooting at us."
Does this raise any eyebrows with you? Do you think that perhaps if this much oil is falling into the wrong hands, that perhaps the cash received from selling this oil is also falling into the wrong hands and is financing at least some of the “other side” of the war in Iraq?
If the lower number of 200,000 is used, at an oil price of $50 a barrel, that’s 10 million dollars a day (3.65 billion dollars a year) that is going to people that may well be using it to shoot at us.
If the Secretary’s last statement is any indication, perhaps if we would work harder to cut off the flow of money to the “other side”, maybe they wouldn’t be shooting at us quite as much. Or maybe I’m the only one who doesn’t get it.
Don’t try to Google this story. There just isn’t anything on the Internet about this. No news people have picked this up. No reports have been published. There is virtually no information on this except for this brief exchange that was reported by a couple of private news organizations. Even Senator Corker’s office couldn’t comment on it.
What’s going on here?

Let It Be So

We attended, as usual, church services yesterday. We went to the place we normally go to meet with others and share our faith. I enjoy doing that, and especially so since we’ve moved to Wichita. The church we’re a part of is a dynamic and growing place. It just seems to fit us very well right now at this time in our lives. One of the reasons I like it so well is the singing that takes place each Sunday. Those of you who don’t attend church or don’t sing or enjoy singing and worship probably won’t relate much to this blog entry. That’s OK. Stay with me.
We sing without the benefit of an organ or piano in our church. There is just something about a 300 voice choir singing acappella that causes a stirring of emotion that cannot be experienced by any other means. Yesterday was no exception.
For some reason, though, yesterday’s services were especially emotional for me. There was nothing special about the sermon, the people, etc. Now, don’t get me wrong. Rick’s sermons are always good and yesterday was no exception. But the topic wasn’t an especially hard-hitting one, at least for me. The people were the same, the auditorium was the same, the bulletin was the same. I don’t know what made the services so emotionally intense in me.
We sing 8 or more songs during the worship hour. Some are choruses. Some are old favorites. Some are more contemporary. We sing four-part harmony with the words and music projected on a screen. Our song leader is especially trained in music and works as a choral director would, with dynamic changes, tempo adjustments, and signals and cues to the audience.
At the end of the service, one of the elders usually gives a “blessing”—a short talk, prayer, or observation. Yesterday, however, they said at the close of services that the blessing would be a song, but didn’t say which song it would be. When the time came and the song was put on the screen, I just went silently, “Oh, man!” I knew that as hard of a time as I had had during the services keeping my composure during the songs, I’d never get through this one. And this one was one that I really wanted to be able to sing.
“The Lord Bless You and Keep You” was the song. I knew it well, and also knew the 7-fold “Amen” would be part of it. Sure enough, I had to just listen for a good part of the song. I did, however, manage to croak out the bass line for two or three of the “Amen” lines at the end as well as the first couple of bars at the beginning.
They say there will be singing in heaven. I can’t imagine anything more “heavenly”: than blending in with voices from the world over while singing songs praising and glorifying the God of Heaven and Earth. Let it be so.

Commit to Memory

Several days ago, we went to the state fair along with my wife’s sisters and our son and his wife and daughter (our granddaughter). I’ve already blogged about that a bit, but want to expand a little on a thought I had a couple of days ago.
We had a great time with our granddaughter. She is one year old (actually, 14 months old) and was a joy to have at the fair. She didn’t cry, wasn’t a problem, and seemed to really enjoy the day.
I was a little ashamed of the money we spent at the fair this year, as we are on a tight budget and being houseparents at a nonprofit children’s home isn’t a job one takes if one wants lots of cash. I then thought about the fact that we will only go to the state fair with our one-year old granddaughter one time. That’s it…one time.
You see, next year, when the fair comes again, she’ll be two. The year following that, she’ll be three, and so on. We only go around once with our first grandchild at the state fair when she is one year old.
When I thought about that, I immediately tried to commit more of the memories of that day to long-term storage and cherish that day when Granddad took her into the water fountain and let her enjoy getting wet with the pulsating water jets…when she tried the cotton candy, but didn’t like it…when she lost her hat while riding on the train…when we saw the rabbits, chickens, and ducks…when we went to the petting zoo…when we….

Have A Good Time

I said yesterday that we went to the state fair and that I would be writing about that in a later post. It’s later.
We had a thoroughly enjoyable day at the fair on Tuesday. Arriving about 9am, I waited at the entrance until our son and his family (with granddaughter) arrived about 9:30. We joined the wife and her two sisters on the fairgrounds.
The weather was pleasant, the grounds were not crowded at all, and our one-year-old granddaughter was a joy to be with. We enjoyed the train ride, the slide, and the water plume. We ate all manner of food from fried pickles to chili pies to ice cream. We saw exhibits of rabbits, chickens, photography, and quilting, along with giant pumpkins, wheat, and eggplant. We observed live snakes, fish, and other animals. The petting zoo was one of our last stops where we saw goats, camels, emus, and other exotic animals.
But it was the people that made the fair. Vendors seemed to be extra friendly that day, not having a lot to do other than visit at times. Others on the fairgrounds were pleasant and seemed to be soaking in the experience just as we were.
There were the usual sellers of knives and other kitchen gadgets (“It slices…it dices…and it cleans in a snap!”). Political booths were in abundance (but the politicians themselves were busy somewhere else). Commercial vendors tried hard to get folks to stop for a minute or two and there were more than a few non-profit and religious booths.
Leaving about 5pm, I gave what ride tickets I didn’t use that day to a young couple with a small boy (about 3 years old) who were just entering the fair. They at first thought I wanted to sell the tickets, and seemed genuinely surprised and pleased that I had no intention of selling them. I hope the youngster had a great time that evening.

Of PC's and the Fair

It’s certainly been an interesting couple of days. Monday, I got a new PC that didn’t work right out of the box, yesterday we went to the state fair with relatives, and today I got a replacement PC that does work right out of the box. What a deal.
First, the PC. The old PC needed to have a clean hard drive. I, however, no longer have the numbers needed to install Windows XP (although my software is legit). So I could buy a new copy of XP, or I could get a new PC. With rebate, the new PC was about $75 more than the software, so I got the PC.
Right out of the box, it didn’t seem to be working quite right. I fiddled with it until today when I called the people who did the warranty. No, I didn’t hold on the phone for hours on end. I bought an extra warranty from the sellers of the PC (Office Depot) and they answered the phone in just a few minutes.
Nigel (from Georgia) heard a minute or so of my complaint and told me to box it up and take it back, taking advantage of the 14 day “no questions asked” guarantee. I did so and exchanged it for a like model. This one appears to be running as advertised. Thanks, Nigel.
It’s always a hassle to change PC’s. I have to install programs, move data files, make sure I don’t forget anything, and in general hold my mouth just right or I tend to get in trouble. I get impatient and sometimes click something I shouldn’t. That messes up everything. I’d never make a computer technician.
However, Vista (yeah, yeah, I know) seems to be doing fine, and we’re back on the web. I’ll talk some of the fair in another post.
BTW, the girls are coming back tomorrow. I think we’re ready, but we never know for sure until they get here.

Pinto Beans

We drove to Newton this evening. We went up old Highway 81 and came back by way of Meridian Avenue. While in Newton, we drove around a bit and stopped at a bakery/restaurant that we knew was downtown.
We went in and found that they were serving a German buffet. About 30 people were there enjoying the fare. I looked around and asked my wife where all the people were that were younger than we are. There were none. We are in our mid 50’s and it seemed everyone was as old or older than we.
During the meal, I continued to observe the crowd. Only when we got up to leave did I see a younger family with a couple of girls in the back of the dining room. Everyone else was older.
The food was great. Hot German potato salad, two kinds of soups (a cabbage-chicken soup and a green bean-ham soup), sausage, and all kinds of breads were on the buffet. There was a kind of rolled up roll on the dessert table that looked a little like a croissant, but not curved. It was drenched in a creamy vanilla sauce and was piping hot.
Inside the roll was a filling consisting of pinto beans. Yes, you read correctly. Pinto beans. Some were mashed and some were whole. The outside was a sweet, white bread dough and the whole thing was baked.
It was a lot better than I thought it would be. The beans were actually an addition to the dessert, although the bread and sauce would have been fine, too. We wondered if that recipe was formulated by a frustrated mother long ago who didn’t have much to eat except beans and bread, and wanted a way to fix them that was a little different.
The meal was ten dollars, dessert and drinks included. We’ll be going back.

You Tell Me

We are having a big garage sale on campus right now. The home isn’t putting it on, but rather is renting out space to a private individual to hold the sale. This person collects stuff, then sells it and donates the money to charity and gives the home a cut as well.
We have a rather narrow circular drive on campus. Signs direct traffic one way around the drive. However, to go that direction requires that one navigate almost the entire campus to arrive at the location of the garage sale, which is visible at the fork in the drive. Obviously, some people don’t look at the sign and rather look at the sale, then drive the wrong way up the drive to the sale.
I was watching from the porch today as one woman did just that. She drove up to the sale the wrong way on the one-way drive, parked on the wrong side of the drive right next to the sale, and got out. After she got out, she looked around a little at all the other cars pointed the other direction. I might add that she appeared from all aspects to be healthy and mobile. She also looked at the sign which was right beside her car telling her to not park there. She looked a minute, took a couple steps toward her car, stopped, looked for a legitimate parking place, didn’t see any within 50 feet of the sale, then went back toward the sale.
You tell me. Was this woman A. An idiot (in the legitimate, psychological sense of the word); B. Illiterate; C. Hoping someone would smash her car that was parked in the lane of traffic; D. So eager to buy stuff at the sale that she willingly disobeyed clear signeage; E. Thinking she somehow had a right to park in a lane of traffic; F. So full of herself that she hadn’t a clue; G: Thinking the rules applied to everyone but her?
Let me know what you think. Thanks.

Resilience

It’s after 10pm and only one of our six girls is here tonight. All the others are on weekend pass for the Labor Day holiday. Some girls, however, will be coming back tomorrow evening, and the others will straggle in Monday and Tuesday (no school Tuesday). So it’s quiet in the house.
The girl that is here is downstairs asleep on some pillows, with the TV blaring next to her. I didn’t wake her, preferring instead to let her be. It has to be tough to be a teen girl and live in a group home because you know that Mom and Dad don’t want you in their home.
Shana (not her real name) is a good girl with a few issues, but none that would normally warrant her being here. But her family situation is not good, and she now is staying with us. That’s also why Shana is the only one left to spend the holiday with us. I really don’t know how she manages to keep her sense of humor and good-natured attitude. I think someone once said that the word resilient described people like this.
Young people especially seem to have an extra amount of resilience in their systems. God seemed to know that not everyone would take kindly to children or treat them with respect. Jesus particularly was incensed one day when his disciples shooed away parents wanting to come to Jesus so he could bless their children.
“The people brought children to Jesus, hoping he might touch them. The disciples shooed them off. But Jesus was irate and let them know it: “Don’t push these children away. Don’t ever get between them and me. These children are at the very center of life in the kingdom. Mark this: Unless you accept God’s kingdom in the simplicity of a child, you’ll never get in.” Then, gathering the children up in his arms, he laid his hands of blessing on them.” Mark 10:13-16 The Message
How can we possibly read that account and not shudder in our shoes when we think of all of the children that have been abused, neglected, and abandoned? Many adults will have a day of reckoning coming if not in this life, in the life to come.
Yes, resilience is certainly necessary and a great gift of God. It has helped untold millions of children grow into relatively functional, mature adults. But it would be infinitely better if resilience could be used in situations less horrid than child abuse, neglect, or abandonment..

Making Us Think

I got up and around this morning, as I usually do when we have the girls, at about 5:45am. The girls start stirring about that time and it’s good to have someone out to help with things. Monday morning, though, I stepped outside and observed for a minute or two a phenomenon in the pre-dawn skies. The moon’s light was being eclipsed by the earth as it passed between the sun and the moon. It happened to be just a few minutes past the totality of the eclipse, and the moon was about 95% dark.
To be sure, as with most eclipses, even the dark portion was lit slightly due to reflected light. But the sight of the moon as a dark, reddish-orange orb was just a little disconcerting even if the scientific explanation was well-known to me.
We’re in luck here in America. The moon will eclipse next in February of next year (2008) and will do so in the evening just a couple hours after sunset. That will make for a prime viewing by many over the parts of the earth that will be able to observe it.
The sun, however, will not totally eclipse in this part of the world until 2017. Then, it’s expected to eclipse beginning in the Northwest part of the nation, and the path of totality will travel to the East Southeast right over Kansas and on down to the Southeast part of the United States. Surely, something to look forward to.
By now, we know the mechanisms by which these things happen. They are not a manifestation of some god’s wrath or anything magical or mysterious. They are, however, part of the creation and were obviously planned by the Creator.
Sometimes, it’s good to look at the eclipsed moon and understand that there are things that humans cannot control and that are bigger than we. Events such as an eclipse make us aware of our frailty and inability to provide even the basic necessities for ourselves. We are not as powerful and self-sufficient as we may think; and maybe that’s why the Creator chose to have the creation go through an eclipse once in a while…to help us understand that “God’s invisible qualities—his eternal power and divine nature—have been clearly seen, being understood from what has been made, so that men are without excuse (Rom. 1:20).”

She Came Back

Corina came back today. I met Corina (not her real name) the first day we worked for the home. She had been in the older girls’ program (Intensive Life Skills), but had gone AWOL from that program and spent the night with “friends”. This wasn’t her first brush with the rules, and wouldn’t be her last.
She was bucked down (so to speak) to the Christian Family Program and placed on the lowest possible privilege level (level 0). She would remain there for two weeks or more, and only gradually over the next several months work her way back up to a level with good privileges. She would go up a level or two, then back down. She’d stumble, get up again, only to fall again. She was the great manipulator.
I visited with her the first day on the job. I hadn’t a clue what I was doing, and probably wasn’t doing anything right those first few months. But together we worked, and she finally made it back to the ILS program, graduated high school, made a commitment to God, and enlisted in the Air Force.
She’s back on campus for several days and will work in the recruiting office that saw her off some months ago. She’ll celebrate her 18th birthday this coming Saturday on the same campus that she almost swore she would never come back to once she left.
Corina had a reality check this past year or so, and seems to have come out on the bright side of things. She seems to be on her way to being the young woman she was intended to be. She seems happy and fulfilled.
I’d like to think we had a part in that transformation.

Monday Morning

It’s another Monday morning on campus. It’s a little past 6am and a couple of the girls are already dressed and have eaten. Some haven’t gotten up yet. Bacon is in the oven and the newspaper hasn’t come yet (which is unusual). The morning is muggy and promises another hot day with a good breeze.
I was struck this morning (yes, I do some of my best thinking this time of day) that there are only a finite number of Monday mornings left for me. Let’s see. Assuming I have about 25 years left in my life, there are only about 1,000 Monday mornings left for me to enjoy.
Now, when I think of it that way, Monday mornings carry a whole new meaning. Where they used to be something to dread…going into work, drudgery of another week, etc…now they are something to be cherished and savored. I want to soak up the experience, knowing that it will all too quickly be over.
When the boys were in high school, we had a young man stay with us who needed a home. He was the same age as our sons and was a joy to have around. One spring when the young man and our older son were seniors, our younger son was a sophomore. They all had vehicles that they drove to school. For a time in the spring of that year, I scraped the frost off the windows and started each of the cars for them a couple of minutes before they came out to leave. I checked fuel levels and put some gas in a tank if I needed to. I’d check the oil sometimes, look at the tires, etc.
I will probably always remember that time in the spring of 1998 when I did that. It was nothing, really, but it was something to me. And yet, even as I was scraping frost, I knew that all too quickly, it would all be over, the boys would be leaving, and I would be left with memories.
I don’t know how old you are. I don’t know how many Monday mornings you have left. Neither do you. This may be your last. Find something in it to savor and appreciate.

Not A Good Day

Yesterday wasn’t a good day. I dunno. Nothing special happened either good or bad that set me off. I just wasn’t feeling good mentally. Physically everything was as fine as it can be for someone with arthritis and high blood pressure. But emotionally, it was not good.
Some days are just like that. You understand that the day was given to you by the grace of the Almighty, and you do fine in the day, but you just feel, well, crappy.
I started the day by reviewing in my mind the words of the song, “This is the day, This is the day that the Lord has made, That the Lord has made…” I don’t know what happened, but it went down hill from there.
Today, however, is a different day. I’m feeling reasonably well. My hands and fingers only hurt a little. The weather is hot, but there is a breeze outside which makes it tolerable. God has given me life and breath and health.
I think I’m ready for the day, whatever it holds. We’ll see how it goes.

The Dance Line

We went to a local steak house last evening. We’d been there a time or two before, and knew it would be busy. We also knew they had good steaks and the wait staff danced in the aisles from time to time…yes, they danced in the aisles.
We were no more than seated than the music started and 18 wait staff (all young people, by the way) did a dance to a country number. I can’t recall the title. They then went back to waiting tables. Toward the end of our time there, they danced again. This time there were 20 in the aisles dancing away to another country number that again I can’t remember the title of.
The steaks were incredible, though. Moderately priced, they were cooked just as ordered and seasoned just right. Many people think they can cook a good steak. The folks at this Texas-named place really do know how to cook one.
I guess my only comments on the dancing, though, are that the wait staff seemed to really enjoy doing the dances and providing some entertainment to their customers. They also have much more energy than I, and it shows. Of course, that could well be due to my pushing 60 and the folks in the dance line pushing 25, but who’s counting?

What Are You Waiting For?

Yesterday, I told you about a drive through the Flint Hills of Kansas through open range, crossing streams, and watching out for cattle. We traveled to the little community of Olpe where we met our son and his family, and our niece and her family. We met at a local restaurant there.
The Chicken House restaurant has been a fixture in Olpe for years. The building burned in the mid-1970’s and they rebuilt. They continue to serve some of the best fried chicken around along with chicken fried steak and other dishes sure to please hungry ranchers and cowboys. No calamari, frog legs, steamed broccoli, or garlic mashed new potatoes here. Just a lot of food on a plate that goes down easy and satisfies.
I enjoy those kinds of places. The conversation is usually brisk and friendly. There’s much more that goes on there than just eating. People make connection again with friends and neighbors. They keep up on the latest. They reconnect with the community. They are a part of something that is bigger than themselves. And they leave the place satisfied not only in their stomachs, but also in their guts knowing that they still matter.
The church was designed to be that same way. Church should be a place to make connection with friends and neighbors. It should be a place to reconnect with the community of believers. And it should be a place that gives a feeling of deep satisfaction knowing that one matters and is loved.
If the church you are part of isn’t that way, something is wrong. It could be something is wrong with the church, but it could also be something is wrong with you and your relationship with the God who made both you and the church, and created both to be a great match.
Just as we long to matter and be accepted by the neighboring community, so we also long to be accepted by God and the community of believers. Why do we persist in being part of a church that isn’t what God wants it to be, or conducting our lives in a manner that God never intended?
There really are churches that model God’s way. There really are people who have that relationship with God that you long for. What are you waiting for?

The Flint Hills

Last weekend we drove up to the community of Olpe (in Kansas) to meet a niece and her family at the local restaurant there. Our son and daughter in law, along with granddaughter drove down from Emporia to meet us there, too, and we went on to their home after lunch for a few hours to visit.
We drove through the Flint Hills to get there. No, we didn’t take the Kansas Turnpike through the Flint Hills. We went to El Dorado and caught Highway 177 east of there and took it up through Cassiday and on to Matfield Green.
At Matfield Green, we turned off and headed out of town on a dirt road that went into the heart of the hills. The road winds, turns, and has few side roads off of it. One really can’t get very lost, because if one encounters an intersection (an oddity there), just take the most well-traveled road and it will be the right one.
The road goes through some of the most breath-taking scenery in Kansas and is truly a delight. For almost 10 miles, the road travels through open range, meaning there are no fences to keep cattle off the road. Several cattle guards keep herds in certain sections of the pastures, but one always needs to be on the lookout for cattle on the road.
We forded several streams that were spring-fed and had fish in them (no bridges out there) and even saw a bobcat mama and two kittens along the side of the road. They scampered into the brush quickly, but not before we got a pretty good look at them. Of course, the cattle were everywhere.
One place a few miles east of Matfield Green has a little path that goes to the top of a rise. Take that little path and a whole world of hills, grass, and beauty wait at the top. Don’t linger too long, though, because you’re not on the public road any more.
One family had stopped and was playing in a stream. We saw one or two other vehicles, but that was about it for people. We saw a few ranches and several signs that talked of private roads or drives. Of course, one must respect those signs or be faced with someone who might not ask questions until after the shooting is over!
Honestly, though, most of those folks are good and decent folks who just want the peace and quiet of the hills. They don’t want (or need) tourists sallying in on them at all hours.
If you go, look first at a map. Google Maps offers a rather accurate map of that area. Know where you’re going, plan to take some time, and enjoy a little of what Kansas has to offer in that area. You’ll never regret it.

Melons

I looked at the watermelon plant we have growing out our back door the other day. I marveled at the complexity of that plant and what it was doing. The watermelon plant is a vine. It has a central root and runners that grow upwards of 20 or more feet from the main stem. Unlike some runner plants, it relies solely on the central root system and not on sucker roots that grow from the runners.
Our plant has three or four melons on it. The melon vine is busy manufacturing sugar and transporting it to the melons. It also is busy gathering water and transporting it to the melons. In fact, everything the vine is doing, it is doing for the melons that are hanging on it right now.
I wondered how it knew to shuttle the sugar manufactured in a runner over here to a melon on another runner over there. I wondered how it manufactured the red flesh inside the melons and how it manufactured that pigment. I also wondered how it could continue to stuff water into a melon that is already about 90% water. Normally, water flows from the greater to the lesser. In this case, it seems to be flowing from the lesser to the greater because the roots of the plant are in soil that certainly is not 90% water.
I probably will have to continue wondering. The fountain of all information (the Internet) only talks about something called transpiration, which is how trees get water from roots to leaves. That says nothing about how to stuff an already soaked melon with still more water.
Someone smarter than I am will have to explain it to me some day.

Happy Slogging

We’re working on our old house that we used to live in, but have rented out for the past several years. It’s in another community in southern Kansas about an hour’s drive from here. We went there today to do some work and were there yesterday evening for awhile.
The work is going rather slowly, it seems. I know it will pick up and if we’re persistent, it will look nice when we’re done. But right now, we’re kind of in the messy, tearing-out phase and it just seems to drag on and on.
Life is like that sometimes (you knew there would probably be some kind of “lesson” in this, didn’t you?). We seem to just plod on and on with little progress, getting “another day older and deeper in debt” as the old song goes. Sometimes we even wish we were somebody else or could move or get another job, etc. We wish we could win the lottery and not have to work any more. I don’t know what your fantasy is, but those have been mine in the not-too-distant past.
God put us here for a reason and for a purpose. Life indeed can be drudgery. Life indeed can be boring. Life indeed can be old. We may not know why, or even how, but that’s not for us to necessarily know. God loves us. That should be enough.
And that’s what makes the prospect of life with God so great. Some day, we’ll no longer be bored. No longer old. No longer slogging through the day. And it will last forever. Get that? Forever.
Now, that is something to think about.

One Life

Tomorrow is my grandfather’s birth day. If he was alive, he would be 137 years old tomorrow. Now, you might think, why in heaven’s name would anyone remember a birthday for someone who has been dead for over 40 years?
Normally, I don’t do a very good job remembering birthdays. I know a few of them, my own included. But I don’t know all the nieces, nephews, etc. Besides, birthdays normally aren’t a big deal for me. But this one somehow is a little different.
Grandpa Sol was one of those larger than life people in my young life. Although an old man when I was but a youngster (he died at the age of 96…I was 16), he was one of the most genuine and kind people I knew. His mind was sharp until the end. He told stories of times long ago and far away. He lived with his daughter for many years, but was independent regarding caring for himself until the last few weeks of his life. My time with him was all too short, and in some cases my young mind didn’t fully appreciate his presence in my life.
I remember his birthday primarily because I remember his 88th birthday celebration. We traveled to LaCrosse, Kansas on August 8, 1958 to celebrate his 88th birthday. Think about it…88 on 8/8/58. Sol’s granddaughter lived there with her new hubby, and they put on the party.
As a young boy, I don’t remember much except it was hotter than Hades and our ’56 Ford wagon (with a Thunderbird engine) didn’t have air conditioning. (Or did we take our ’54 Ford sedan??? I can’t remember.) At the time, LaCrosse had a public water supply that had high concentrations of minerals, and the water didn’t taste or smell at all good. But the celebration in the park was great, and we enjoyed the day.
In his last year or two of life, he and I talked about television. He had a set, one of the first to get one in the community. He marveled that we had figured out a way to send pictures and sound in the air from a great distance, and have those pictures and sounds hit a conglomeration of tubes up in the air on a pole (antenna), come down a little wire, and appear on the box in his living room.
He’s right, of course. Those who know how television works would truly understand what a marvelous invention it is, and that we far too much take it for granted. This was a man who saw the spread of the railroad across the prairie, the establishments of counties, towns, and states, the taming of the west, the demise of the buffalo, and the harnessing of electricity, the patenting of the telephone, the internal combustion engine, and other monumental events. He also saw manned space flight, the harnessing of the atom, the conquering of polio, the invention of the computer mouse, and was dead only two years before the first flight by Apollo to the moon. He was fascinated by all of it.
What about you? What have you seen in your lifetime? What will you yet see? Only time will tell.

"I Can't Believe You're Here!!"

I’m seeing something in both my and my wife’s families that is interesting. We both are gradually, it seems, coming back together as a family either in or close to the places where we grew up.
My wife’s brothers and sisters will, by the end of this year if things go well, all be within about 75 miles of each other, except for one. Other assorted relatives, nieces, cousins, etc. are also in this radius.
My family is centering, it seems, here in Wichita. Three of the six of us are here now. There are also other family members in this area. Whether or not we will all eventually gather here, or even if any others gather here, I don’t know. But at least we are here.
This is not an unexpected thing. Families many times do this in the latter stages of life. I just wasn’t expecting it with our families quite this soon. But it’s also comforting to know that others we know and love are just a few minutes away, even with the instant communication of Yahoo Messenger, email, or cell phone.
As sis has said to me more than once, “I can’t believe you’re here!”

Another Time, Another Place

I just watched an old video of Peter, Paul, and Mary in 1986. It was a PBS special, and they were celebrating 25 years together. The songs they sang were timeless and their voices were still in good form that year. “Blowin’ in the Wind,” “Puff, the Magic Dragon,” “If I Had a Hammer” and others were sung with enthusiasm and received by the huge audience with equally great enthusiasm.
Watching this video was kind of a thought-provoking time for me. I grew up with their songs. I sung along on the radio with them when they played. I have their earlier recordings. And I’ve followed them through the years. Sometimes during the performance, I was able to take myself back to those years. Other times, I thought about how much we’ve all changed, yet nothing really has changed. Sometimes, I’d just enjoy the music, the professionalism, and the performance.
They did not sing “The Great Mandela” or “Its Raining, Its Pouring,” but they did sing many others of my favorites. It’s an old video, but one I’ll keep. My boys will, when I’m gone and they’re going through my things, wonder why I kept it. I’ll watch it only a few more times in my lifetime, I suspect, but that’s OK. Sometimes, we need to be taken to another time, another place. For me, music is a good way to do that.

The Vacation's Over

This is a busy time for us. One might think that with summer vacation ending and the hot days upon us in full force, it would be a rather lazy time. I am somewhat surprised, though, that we are as busy as we are with the girls.
There’s school that starts in a couple of weeks. We’re taking the girls to dental and eye appointments, finding clothes, enrolling girls, and generally trying to get things going so we don’t have all of that to do at the last minute.
Then there are the remnants of summer activities. One of the girls is staying with her folks for a few days. One of the girls just got back from camp. We still have classes and other activities going on here at the campus for the others.
We have much to do on campus. The garden is in full production. The grass has only recently begun to slow down its growth due to a lot of rain this spring. The trees need to have limbs trimmed, trash is ever-present on campus due to a business district next door with a McD---- there, and other repairs and projects beckon as well.
To add to all of that, for us personally, we are looking forward to helping my brother move to new digs soon. We also are working on our rental property, trying to keep up with our granddaughter, arranging our finances, and finding time for ourselves.
Yes, it may be a busy time, but I think it’s really a matter of perspective. You see, school is just a couple of weeks away. Then the vacation is over.

What's Normal?

The girls who were here and I went with my brother and sister this morning to pick blackberries at a nearby blackberry orchard. I don’t know what the real name should be, so I’ll use the word “orchard”. We got up early, were out of the house by 6:25, and on our way to the restaurant for breakfast and to meet Sis, then on to the berry farm.
The girls did generally well at picking, but mostly had fun with each other and with the “berry bugs” and the “berry snakes”. One of the girls saw a garden snake and called it a berry snake, and there was some kind of insect, like a locust, that one of the others nicknamed a berry bug. Of course, the bugs and snakes were going to eat them, etc and there were appropriate shrieks and laughter about the critters.
My brother said during the picking time that if one didn’t know differently, one would think that these girls were “normal”. I replied that most of the time they were indeed normal, but there were times where triggers of some sort, usually unknown even to the girls, cause them to not think clearly and do something they otherwise would not have done. Or they have not been taught proper interaction techniques or responses to certain environmental stressors. Or there is something else going on of some kind.
We all have times when we’re not normal, I suppose. It’s just that most of us react appropriately to those times and redirect ourselves back to normal or accepted behavior. These girls, for some reason, can’t do that appropriately.
By the way, what’s normal?

Cultural Ruts

We attended a performance by some Chinese acrobats today. As you may know, these folks are just pretty good, and today’s performance was no exception. They made the very difficult seem very easy, and made the impossible seem just a bit harder than easy. Along with the acrobats, some Chinese yoyo performers showed their skill, and some dancers did a Chinese dance. All in all a very enlightening and entertaining afternoon.
I was struck this afternoon with the idea of the incredible diversity that is built into this world of ours. Venues such as this performance allow one culture to contact another in a non-threatening and educational manner. We are privy to a small piece of China and are blessed and made better by our appreciation of these people and what they do.
All too often, we are stuck in our cultural ruts, rubbing elbows only with those who are like us. We don’t have experiences that get us out of our cultural boxes, and when such experiences are made available to us, we often turn away from them as something that is new and different. We want everything to be the same.
Thanks to all who made this performance possible. It was good for me to get out of my rut and appreciate another people and another culture.

Worth Knowing

A few days ago, I was over at the little shopping center that’s just a block or so from the campus. There’s a drive-up mail box there and I noticed a postal service vehicle there and a mailman at the box. I didn’t think much of it at first, but did a double take when I processed the fact that the mailman was putting mail INTO the box instead of taking it out.
Now, that may not seem like much of a deal to you, but it struck me as kind of different that a mailman would be putting mail into the box. My thought was that this was a route carrier that had picked up mail from his route and instead of taking it back to the post office to put into the system, he was putting it into a box to be later picked up by someone else.
You may look at this and just say, “So??” If you do, so be it. You don’t have to read anything into this if you don’t wish to. But some of you undoubtedly will see the irony here; that someone who is supposed to deliver and process mail instead deposits it into a box to be handled by someone else…he’s just a regular Joe who is mailing some things.
So now you know. If you give a letter to your carrier, the chance may be good that he’ll just pull up to a drive-up box somewhere and mail it for you instead of carrying it all the way back to the post office. And isn’t that really worth knowing?

Going Soft

Well, it’s Friday. We have our girls back and we’re in the middle of the Friday schedule. Right now, the girls are at tutoring. We have some adults that come on campus twice a week during the summer and help the girls with math, reading, and writing. These volunteers are a godsend and we are indebted to them greatly.
The day promises to be warm and sticky. I’ve some work to do outside, and am not looking forward to it, but it must be done. I don’t know why, but the heat seems to bother me more than it used to.
I can recall younger days when we had a swamper at home. That’s a water cooler; one of those boxy things that went into the window. Water ran down pads of some kind of material (which smelled wonderful the first few days) and cooled air that was sucked through them and blown into the house. On dry days, it worked great. On humid days, it wasn’t so good.
But as a boy, I wasn’t that concerned about humidity, heat, and discomfort. There were too many things to do in the summer and not enough time to do them. There were tree houses to build, field work to do, drain ditches and railroad sidings to explore, summer recreation, and a host of other things to keep a young mind occupied. The swamp cooler was just a brief respite at times from the heat and outdoors.
Now we lament that we are going soft. We have to have air conditioning and plenty of it. We don’t spend much time outside and when we do, we slather lots of sunscreen. We sweat and think it’s somehow unnatural. And to even think of building a tree house with old boards found on the board pile under the elm at the back of the place is not possible, because there are no more board piles laying around.
I don’t know if we’re going soft or not. In some respects, we’re tougher than ever. I’ll leave that up to you. But for right now, I’m donning my hat, my gloves, and a steely will to brave the heat and humidity of Wichita in July. If I make it back alive, I’ll let you know how it went.

A Decent Place

We spent yet another day at the rental house in my hometown…the one I’ve been telling about in previous posts. We didn’t spend a lot of time there. Maybe we were there four or so hours today. We were both tired today and I hurt from yesterday’s work.
We did get some sheetrock (excuse me, DRY WALL…Sheetrock® is a brand name) mudded and got some wet sanding done. We also prepared to do more dry walling tomorrow and maybe some more mudding and taping.
It’s getting a little more dry down there, as it hasn’t rained any great amount for almost a week. The humidity is even going down some. Now, maybe we can get back to some semblance of normal, whatever that is, with the weather.
We’re getting our girls back on Thursday afternoon. We’ll go down there tomorrow and work, but stay here Thursday to prepare to get them back. On Monday, three of the girls will be going to camp, so that will leave us with just three for about a week. Then following that, we need to begin thinking about school. We need to do some shopping, get school supplies, etc.
We’re going to see our sons and their families this evening at Emporia. They’re meeting us there. It’ll be just for a couple of hours or so, then back to Wichita. These weeks off never seem to have enough days in them. We always have more to do at the end of them than we had at the beginning, it seems!
Thanks to all who have encouraged us as we work with our old house. It’s nice to know that there are others who care. We care, too, and will do the best we can with the resources we have to make the place a decent place to live once again. Thanks.

Listening

The wife and I went down and worked on our rental house today. We’ve been down there several times over the past two or three weeks, and we’re just now beginning some re-building following a lot of tearing up, down, and out. It’s been a discouraging process to go through, because the house is where we raised our family and is where I grew up. It just doesn’t seem right to have to see the old home place look like this.
Every time we go down, we are welcomed by a house wren and his missus. They’ve taken up residence in an old wren house attached to a post that isn’t more than about six feet off the ground and about 15 feet from our back door. Regardless of the weather, the man of the house is singing away either in a nearby sycamore, on top of the post, or on top of the wren house. He helps his wife take in various kinds of bugs…I am assuming there is a family inside.
I think God sent him there to keep me on the right track. This house repair is awfully discouraging. But the wren doesn’t care what the weather is, what shape the house is in, or anything else. He knows what he knows, and he knows that he needs to sing his song. And he does sing…and he cheers me whenever he sings.
We’ve had wrens in that house (one I built as a teenager) for years. Even when we moved and rented the place out, they still came. I’m glad they’re here this year. It’s just one more reminder that God loves me and desires what is best for me. Now, if I’d only listen….

Attitude Adjustments

We have a home in this area that we’ve owned for many years. When we had to move away several years ago, we kept the house and rented it. Recently, we found several things wrong with the house and asked the renters to move so we could work on the house.
When we took a good look at the place, it was obvious that it needed more than we could give it in just a day or two. Several of us spent three days earlier this month at the place, and we uncovered issue after issue that just sank us deeper into discouragement. It turned out the house was a lot more in need of attention…major attention…than we had thought.
We kept thinking that we had found all that we were going to find, then something else would manifest itself, causing us to THEN think we’d found all that we were going to find, etc. We reached a low point, I think, on the night of the third day. Since then, it’s been a struggle to maintain a good attitude while working to correct the problems.
Having a good attitude and a positive frame of mind is so important in any aspect of life and living. I must confess that I don’t have that kind of an attitude nearly as much as I should. I tend to take things personally. I want to make things worse than they are. I think that no one in the world has the problems that I have.
Then all I have to do is look at the girls we serve here and their families. All I need do is look at the people of Greensburg, Kansas or Coffeyville, Kansas (tornado and flood, respectively). Or I can look in any nursing home or hospital, any prison, any mental facility, any of a number of places to find people who would gladly trade places with me.
Why is it that we have such a hard time figuring out that we have a lot going for us and that God is indeed good? Why do we continue with the martyr complex? Why can’t we see life as good? Why do we dwell on the bad, the negative? I don’t know the answers to those questions. I don’t know if anybody does. But I do know that I’d better get an attitude adjustment quickly, or I’ll miss out on what is truly special about living.

Going Beyond

We had an “upset the applecart” day in church yesterday. We were asked to wear nametags (you know, the “Hi, my name is….” tags) and were asked to sit somewhere in the auditorium where we normally would not sit. The idea was that with a congregation of several hundred souls, there were people we don’t know even though we’ve been attending for some time. It really was a fun thing to do.
We moved to another area of the auditorium and happened to be sitting such that we could see the sign language interpreter head-on. Normally, we sit where we see them work from kind of a side view. I’ve always been fascinated by signing and enjoy watching the signer as he or she interprets the words I hear. I try to match the words with the sign.
We sang “Holy, Holy, Holy” and I was able to look head-on as Scott interpreted the words. I don’t know what happened, but I saw in that signing a beauty and an awesomeness that just bowled me over as surely as if I’d fallen to the floor.
The words themselves are wonderful in that song, and the sign interpretation of it by Scott just seemed to bring out a kind of understanding that went beyond the meaning of the words themselves. The whole was greater than the sum of the parts, as some would say.
To say that worship takes place only during such times is, of course, fallacy. However, to say that worship must be devoid of such emotional times is also patently untrue. We are created as emotional spirits that inhabit physical bodies. There must be a blend and balance as we struggle to let the God of heaven and earth know of our love and devotion…not an easy thing since our actions speak louder than our words. And our actions on a daily basis are, if anything, less than stellar.
We say in worship that we love Him, yet we continue to lie, cheat, steal, gossip, and generally disobey in everyday life. How can He possibly believe what we say, knowing that we do what we do? I think it helps sometimes to have moments of worship that go beyond our saying that we love Him. I think this moment was one of those.

Back Again

We’re back and going again here at the home. It has been an extraordinary vacation to say the least. Yes, we got the older son married off on Saturday and they are wrapping up a week at a Caribbean island. We had all of my siblings at the wedding and we had a good time with them at the motel where we stayed.
We then spent three days at the old home place in southern Kansas and cleaned, painted, tore out, tore down, and in general made a mess of the place…actually prepping it for better things down the road.
We camped out, some in tents, some on air mattresses. Some stayed in a nearby motel. In addition to the work, we had a weiner roast, birthday party, talent show, fireworks, and generally had a good time those days.
The house, however, was not in the best of condition and we found several things wrong that we didn’t know were wrong when we first started. So now we have added things to do that we didn’t know about before now.
But isn’t that always how it is? You know, it seems that when we try to do something…anything…the job never is as simple and easy as one thinks it is or will be. Those thirty minute jobs end up taking all afternoon, and a two or three day job ends up taking a week.
Regardless, the week was great and we accomplished a lot. Thanks to the family for helping out and for being there to celebrate our son’s wedding. I am truly blessed.

A Different Vacation

I have yet to get truly connected in this day and age. We’re going on vacation today and I have no means to contact the Internet while we’re away. That means no email, no blogging, no IM’ing. I somehow feel deprived.
However, others in the group probably will have that 90’s invention, the laptop, and I can operate one of those fairly well. So I may have some connection with the ether after all.
It’s amazing, isn’t it, how we become so accustomed to wireless connections, instant communications with Australia and Iraq, and pop-up anything-you-want on the screen. We get to the point that it becomes part of us and we are somehow less than whole if we don’t tap into it regularly.
However, these next several days we will be renewing relationships with family, doting on the granddaughter, marrying off a kid, and trying to get a start on fixing up the rental property in the hometown. We’ll have plenty to keep us occupied, so I may not be very regular in checking email or blogs, and may well not write for more than a week.
Maybe this vacation from technology is just what the doctor ordered.

A Pretty Good Deal

Well, it will be just a few days until we’ll be on our way to the Kansas City area to prepare for our son’s wedding. This truly is the end of an era, and the beginning of another for us. We only had two kids, and now they both will have families of their own.
Times like this make me pause and reflect, something I don’t do very often any more. Time marches on, as they say, and there is nothing we can (or would) do to stop that.
Our son asked for pictures of him when he was home. I’m thinking they are making some kind of display. Those pictures, as we looked through them, tore my heart more than once. We had such a good time as a family when the boys were home. I couldn’t have asked for a better ride in life than what we had with our family. Even so, it’s time to move on.
Hopefully, each of my sons will have that same ride in their families and with their lives. As they look back in 20 to 25 years, hopefully they will remember the good things and decide that on balance, life handed them a pretty good deal.
And after all, any good deal we receive is really undeserved and made possible only by the grace and mercy of the One who started it all.

A Wedding

I’m getting ready for our older son’s wedding, coming up in a little over a week. I’m to officiate at the ceremony, and am preparing the services.
I know that the minister is mostly not paid-attention-to, and is there in most cases just to get the job done. However, this time it’s a little more special for me as it’s my boy that is getting married. So I am working with a little more diligence on the words I will say, and will have the services on cards word-for-word instead of having notes to use. It’s one of the more enjoyable, yet nervous-type things I’ve done over the years.
And I’ll be wearing that strait jacket otherwise known as a tux. You know, the one with the cuff links, cumber bund, and other things that no one knows how to properly wear nowadays. But that’s OK. I don’t intend to do tuxes many more times in my life, so I guess I can handle it this one time.
That day will come and go before we know it. If anything happens that day that isn’t according to “the plan,” probably no one will notice it except those who created “the plan” in the first place. They’ll be married, and we’ll take of the tuxes, the dresses, and the too-tight shoes and relax by the motel pool.

Telling a Story

Once a month, we and the girls help at a food distribution center here in town. It’s a little different concept than one might normally think. It’s totally private with no government funding. There is no income or other test in order to benefit. No questions are asked other than basic contact information and how many and which order packages one wants. We work in the area where people come to make up their packages and pick up their groceries. We also help carry out the groceries to waiting vehicles.
It is interesting to see folks come in and try to imagine what life might be like for them. Some come in with walkers or canes. Others bring munchkin kids along. Some seem to have it together, or at least they try to make us think so. Still others tell part of their story to the workers as they go around making up their orders. And a few even come by public transportation to take advantage of the reduced prices for food staples.
The condition of the vehicles many times continues the story. A few are spotless. Many are cluttered with children’s toys and baby seats. Some are downright dirty. Some are newer…some are older. Some are in good condition…some are dropping pieces of themselves on the road as they travel along.
Everyone has a story. Everyone has a history. I’m sure we’ve seen abusers and the abused. I know we’ve seen poverty and want. We’ve also seen people grateful that they don’t have to lay out their life history in order to receive help and can bolster their dignity just a bit with the few minutes of contact they have with the workers.
Everyone also has a future. For many, the future isn’t very bright. They may have a terminal illness, be on the brink of bankruptcy, or anticipating a divorce. Some may be resigning themselves to the fact that their spouse will come home drunk and beat them tonight. They’re wondering if they’ll be able to protect their kids.
Some don’t think about their future. They’ve never been taught to think beyond the next hour or so. Others may not want to think about the future because they know that it doesn’t promise to be good.
Still others may not know what the future here holds, but know their eternal future is safe and secure in the unchanging Creator of the Universe. Rich or poor, sick or healthy, black or white, married or single, these people know that something better awaits and look forward to that Day when there will be no more sickness, death, disease, abuse, hunger, or terror. “Even so, come Lord Jesus!”

Worlds Together

We have a black and white cat that stays on our campus. She’s been here for several years, and indeed is a “she”. She stays in one of the drain gutters on campus and comes out regularly and makes the rounds. She’s not a tame cat, but she’s not really wild, either. One of the girls that was here a couple of years ago and is now back says that she has petted her, although I can’t get near her.
One of these days, I suppose, some disease or injury will put her out of commission, and the tabby will be no more. However, she’s managed to survive several years and seems to be in reasonable health just now.
I guess one thing I think of when I see her strolling from one place to another, as I did just a moment ago out of the office window, is that there are multiple worlds out there that inhabit the same space. The cat’s world intersects with, contacts, and intertwines with our own. And these two worlds have interaction with a great assortment of worlds and environments of everything from birds to neighbors across the street. And in many significant ways, each of the participants in this worldly dance sort of go their own ways and do their own things and make their worlds into what they want them to be.
Humans have a decided advantage over cats. Where the cat can only make her world the way God programmed her to make it, we humans can reshape, reform, and remake our worlds into many different forms and appearances. The choice is ours to make.
We can make our worlds hell-holes, or we can make them into the beginnings of an eternal life of peace and happiness. The difference, of course, is whether or not we allow God into our worlds. I don’t know about you, but I’d much rather exist in a world with my creator than in a world without Him.
Next time you have a minute or two and aren’t doing anything (yeah, right), think about all of the people whose worlds make contact with your world. Think about what their worlds might be like, then decide if you need to tell someone about the creator of the universe who wants to be in their world and make it the beginning of a blessed eternity.

Say It Ain't So

Doesn’t it just seem that whenever things are going well, something happens that pops all the bubbles? Let me tell you a brief story.
My brother in law works with the state social welfare agency. He recently received a compliment from a client that made it all the way up to the state director in Topeka. Each manager along the way complimented him on his work. In fact, the state director had this to say, “It is stirring to think that a grieving mother can pause to recognize the kindness of others as she is laying her son to rest. Obviously, you made a tremendous difference in this man's life. I truly appreciate the helpfulness you offered and the compassion with which you connected this family to critical services. Thanks for being such a wonderful ambassador of SRS and for providing services from the heart.”
The story continues, however. Due to whatever reasons, over this past weekend, the computer gurus at SRS decided to re-format and re-load all of the hard drives in all of the PC’s. They assured my brother in law that the information he had stored on his drive (contacts, email addresses, policy interpretations, etc) was safe. Monday morning he comes in and there is none of that information available. The documents that were there had been reformatted, his printer didn’t work correctly, and things were a mess…so much so that now they are saying they will replace his PC, resulting in even further loss of information.
Bruce truly works with compassion and from the heart. It is truly a travesty that this had to happen, and a further travesty that the computer nerds don’t seem to care much that they made major messes in the work lives of many folks at that agency.
Thanks, Bruce, for making a difference.

A Great Visit

We visited the zoo yesterday. The Sedgwick County Zoo is one of the better zoos I’ve visited, and yesterday my opinion was only heightened. They just opened a great penguin exhibit and have completed many other attractions in years past for both animal and human. They continue to work on the place, and are now constructing something right in the middle of the complex.
Maybe the best exhibit of them all is the rain forest. The building one enters is humid and damp, just right for a rain forest. I was amazed, as I walked the path in the forested area, at the incredible diversity of life in the ecosystem. It seemed that everywhere I looked in the forest, a pair of eyes was looking back at me. Birds, lizards, bats, frogs, and many other species of animal inhabit this area. And the fish! As I strolled into the under-aquarium tube to gaze at the fish, the wondrous diversity of species, color, size, and shape mesmerized me. The plant life was lush and green, providing protection and food for a wide variety of animal life.
As I exited, I noticed that my clothes were wet and I really appreciated the lower humidity of the outdoors, even though the outdoor humidity was so high it bordered on oppressive.
I was again struck at the creative nature of God. Who ever heard of a big baby blue bird that walks on the ground that has a mohawk haircut? Why on earth would God have made a square fish? Or mammals that hang upside down to sleep (bats)? I have to wonder just how much of a sense of humor God has as I look at some of the things He has made.
What about the gorgeous tree frogs whose skin is so poisonous that humans can be killed just by touching them? Or the pretty green snakes or the lizards with tails that come off when attacked by a predator or well…you just think of some of your own.
Some time when you have a few hours, go to a zoo near you and appreciate the creation and all that is in it. And think of the One who made it all and marvel.

A Good Harvest

Toto, Kansas is alive and well. The past couple of days, we’ve been blown at from the south by hot and dry winds, only to have them shift about 9:30 last night to the north. They blow from the north at about the same speed, but thankfully not the same temperature.
This morning it’s dry, but more pleasant due to the cooler temperatures outside. This time of year, however, it usually gets warm rather quickly after a cool front comes through, and the next day or two promises to be no exception to that.
This is harvest weather. You may not have ever experienced wheat harvest in Kansas. But if you have, you know that when it turns hot, windy, and dry about this time of year, the wheat also turns that golden color and the farmers are itching to get it cut and in the elevators.
I probably won’t see much harvest activity living in the middle of Wichita. And in a way, that’s kind of sad because that used to be my favorite time of year. Just out of school, the summer looming large, there was a beehive of activity in preparation for the harvest. We worked on equipment, went to the parts stores, bought fuel, oil, and grease, and hoped it wouldn’t hail.
During harvest, we saw friends at the elevator we hadn’t seen in a long time (Sam Allenbaugh at Duqoin, Sam and Ralph Barker at Harper, and others), talked about the quality of the harvest (protein, moisture, etc), and planned how to raise this next year’s crop. We ate out of Guardian Service cookware either in the field or in the kitchen of the old house on the north place. We could count on Mom bringing out pot roast with spuds and carrots along with corn, fruit, iced tea, and usually a home-baked pie. We had real plates and flatware, too. Somehow, those meals were the best-tasting….
It is my wish that you have a good harvest this year.