I am quickly approaching another birthday. It’s funny how we think of getting older only on our birthday, like it happens only one day of the year. Really, I am getting older every second, but like most people, I live life in chunks. We all divide up our days in nice neat sections; chunks of […]
We took a short vacation this week-end and went to one of my favorite places: Cloudland Canyon State Park. I never get tired of looking at the natural beauty there. On Sunday morning, Sam and I skipped a traditional worship service and made the 3 mile hike down (and back up!) more than a thousand stairs. Near the bottom of the canyon,
The tree is gone. The big hackberry tree. The one that lived and grew in my back yard for 30 years or more. The one that provided so much shade. The one that provided food for the birds. The one that held the rope swing that we all enjoyed, flying through the air in long swooping arcs, toes pointed
So I’m praying on my way to work this morning. Praying, and complaining a little. “God, why can’t I know you in a more real way? I want to talk WITH you as a friend, not TO you. Why does it have to be so hard to hear your voice? I wish you would speak directly to
My son was ruthlessly attacked by vicious angry beasts this weekend. He was just trying to do a good deed. It made them angry, so they swarmed from the bowels of the earth and attacked. At first Sam didn’t understand what was happening. As he was mowing the grass, the pain hit him from out
A friend and neighbor gave me an old hymn book a while back. I have thumbed through it a few times since, smiling as it brings to mind songs I haven’t sung since I was a kid. Every now and then I can’t help but stop on a page and hum or sing a few
The poison ivy got me. I put on gloves and went to war, pulling it up by the roots, yanking it up and breaking it off with reckless abandon. I’ve beaten it. It no longer lurks in the shrubs, waiting to ambush a hapless victim, but it didn’t go down without a fight. It’s left
I hate suffering. Especially when it’s near me, and most definitely when it is me. Unfortunately, many of us are called to do it. I used to think that the only good suffering was the kind where I was suffering for being a Christian. Persecutions and such. Now I think there’s more to it than
A fluffy ball of dandelion seeds Sam held up the dandelion stem with it’s white fluffy seed ball ready to blow into the wind. “What are the odds this dandelion will get me my wish?” he asked. “That depends on what you wish for,” I responded. “Of course, even if you DO get what you
The ice cream man came by my house on Saturday. If you are as old as I am, or a lucky youngster who happens to live in one of the few neighborhoods he still visits, you have seen him before. He drives a beat-up white van or panel truck with colorful pictures of frozen treats all over it.