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image from Los Angeles Times
Baseball’s heart throbs with competition. MVP, Cy Young, World Series. But probe below the surface, because cooperation between team members, complementing one another, and wise managing that puts each the area of their strength, provides the foundation for winning baseball. Cooperation within the team, competition without. And perhaps that gives us a metaphor for the church, because…
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Recently, Sheila and I joined a local wine club. Avensole offers a tranquil, relaxed setting, some fine wines, and good conversations with the sommeliers and fellow members. One benefit—we each get a free glass of wine on each visit, and I’ve learned a lot. Particularly, I’ve seen some spiritual lessons that wine provides, enough to craft a book proposal! But if you don’t drink wine, no need to stop reading. I’ll share a lesson I learned on how to better connect with the world’s best winemaker—Jesus.
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This fearsome sevensome, a blend of riders from two local churches, putted a week ago from Temecula up the back way to Big Bear. Yeah, we wandered off on some side roads. But once we reached the big evergreens, relaxation grew. Something about the aroma of pine and cedar and the crispness of mountain air, coupled with the beauty of creation, always soothes my soul. We lunched at Mountain Munchies before heading down the front route, until…
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How do we enhance intimacy in human relationships? An important question, since as humans we’re so enmeshed with others. But I suspect what builds intimacy between humans often works between humans and God. Makes sense, since he created us in his image. That key is…
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Four weeks from the day this post is written, I’ll head north to Montana to meet Jerry, then east to Duluth, and then west to meet Mick and Brad, and we’ll all journey to Banff and Jasper. Then home. About 16 days, 4,500 miles, and the first day will feature a solo attempt at an Iron Butt ride—1,000 miles in 1 day on 2 wheels. And because life has taught me that Murphy, famed for his law “If anything can go wrong it will,” was an optimist…
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image from Orvis News
On a seldom fished section of Rock Creek in the Sierras, a bit overgrown with trees. Yeah, nowhere near a campground. The pic above had the caption, “If casting is difficult, you can assume not many have fished there.” My kind of stream. I spotted a nice pool and wove through the tree branches with just about 3 ft of line hanging down from the fly rod tip. Letting out a little line and dropping in the hole, I realized a route was blocked to extract any trout that chose to bite, so I gently moved a branch aside with my left hand, the one that controls the line, that sets the hook.
Just then…
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image by Daniel Bernstein, Getty Images
The 2018 NBA Western Conference Finals. Steph Curry, leader of the Golden State Warriors, had missed a good chunk of the regular season with injuries. Game 2 saw the Houston Rockets blow them out by 22 points, and the game stayed tight at half time of game 3. Then Steph stepped up, with 19 points in the third quarter, leading them to a 41 point margin of victory. After one layup, Curry turned to the crowd and yelled, “This is my…”
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image from EPA
The Big Island grows bigger. For several decades, Kilauea safely sent lava on a downward slope to the sea, giving a bit more land to the island. But a new series of eruptions have changed things, with about two dozen fissures, or cracks in the earth’s surface, that allow lava to surge, destroying homes and highways and immolating cars. The earlier cool lava has given way to fresh and hotter lava, creating steam as it reaches the Pacific, and slowly increasing the size of Hawaii. But something struck me. Didn’t God finished creating…
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