Today, the Sunday before this post went up, provided some great encouragement and a lesson. The message at church convicted me to the core of my soul, then I had a great bacon cheeseburger at a local golf course. Then Sheila and I stopped off at our winery (well, we’re members, not owners 😉), and something struck me. Look at the pic above. Just in front of us were…
Read MoreJust Keep Dancing
I met John Melton on a motorcycle ride several years back, and we connected nicely and have become good friends. About the same ages, both spent time in the Hawthorne/Lawndale area, and both loved Jesus. The rides continued, then I mentioned we needed pull out drawers for our kitchen cabinets, and the semi-retired contractor volunteered to help. OK, to be honest, he did most of it and I helped. Together we…
Read MoreVariety and Differences
On Thursday, toward the end of our group’s 2021 bike ride, Mick and I rode from Grass Valley in the west side of the Sierras to his daughter and son-in-law’s house in Susanville, on the east side. Friday was a family birthday celebration, so that day I took off on a solo ride north on Hwy 139 past Eagle Lake to Alturas and then south on Hwy 395 back to Susanville. That ride provided 135 miles of joy. I left the music off to focus on enjoying the scenery: majestic mountains and lush grassy meadows and high desert, good-sized lakes and dry creek beds. Ponderosa pines and aspen and cedar and pinon pines. Deer and cattle and eagles and hawks and juncos and who knows what else. I apologize for…
Read MoreDeadheads
No, as much as I loved their music, this post won’t focus on the Grateful Dead band and their fans. Sorry to all the deadheads, but the allusion is unavoidable for a 60s child! A few years ago, we prepped our house and yard for an overnight visit from my sister, her husband, and her friend, and I got the task of “deadheading” our Iceberg roses in the front yard. Icebergs produce abundant white roses, but flowers die and need to be pruned for new blooms to blossom. Hence the name “deadhead.” The process is to…
Read MoreMidnight Whispers
Possibly like some of you, my spiritual state moves up and down. Oh, I always believe in Jesus as my Savior and Lord and follow and serve Him, but the sense of closeness ebbs and flows. And frankly, I usually have no clue why, but I have learned some about the process. Two months ago, I was riding high spiritually. The last several weeks, not so much. God was there, I had no doubt, but the sense of intimacy wasn’t there. Then, after an excellent family Christmas and a marvelous Christmas worship service, God wooed me back with whispers in the night. It came with…
Read MoreGod's All-Seeing Eye
Some of us see distances well, but not up close. Others see the opposite. This past June, our Gray Hogs group rode the Sierra passes, and one particularly struck me: Tioga crossed the mountains from Yosemite to Lee Vining, because it demonstrated our need for multiple perspectives. The pics above show the massive domes of Tioga, and the delicate wildflowers along the road. We best got the sense of the domes and rocks from a distance, and had to get up close to the wildflowers. We tend to be limited to one perspective at a time. But God…
Read MoreMix Christmas Up a Bit!
We can so easily get into a rut, especially at Christmas. We know what we want, and keep doing it until it becomes a habit, and habits tend to dull our senses. We react automatically. Well, maybe we should mix Xmas up a bit and expand how we celebrate it. Like, with palms as Christmas trees. After all, I don’t remember seeing Douglas Firs in manger scenes. 😉 We had a nice discussion on Facebook about changes…
Read MoreFree Will?
Let’s flip the coin. Last week, we began to explore God’s role in daily life with a story of how he overwhelmingly directed a major change in moving me to Taos. One repeated response by readers dealt with the rarity of such clear direction. Though seldom for many of us, it does happen. But my time in Taos ended in a radically opposite form. I’d spent a year in youth ministry a few years earlier, and upon getting fired, declared I’d rather…
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