In addition to nearly two dozen wildfires in CA, smoke from a fire at nearby Camp Pendleton covers our town. No, we’re not revisiting wildfires this week, but I do want to steal a fire fighting term—defensible space, which is controlling the vegetation around your house to help keep it safe. To broaden it, that term applies to our…
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Image by Andrew Foulk, Press Enterprise
Fires, Floods, and Evacuations
Along with much of the country, California has been blasted with floods, fires, and evacuations. Likely you’ve seen examples on the evening news. A recent fire in the community next door forced an evacuation of a long time friend, Jim Davis. Here’s his story.
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image by tarkwanews. net
Deliver the Goods
Reading the newspaper was a daily ritual growing up. Dad picked the front page first, mom got the local, and I went for the comics. Then we’d shift around. I’ve always liked papers, and even wrote a weekly column for several years for our local news rag. BUT. I’m likely to end a decades-long habit. We had a fine local paper, then…
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image from Los Angeles Times
Who's the Best?
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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What Kind of Wine Are You?
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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The Gratitude Challenge
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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The Key to Intimacy Is...
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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Murphy Was an Optimist
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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