God Flashes

God shows up in unexpected times and places, if we look for the signs. Here’s one.

Each fall I typically journey to the Sierras. The trout are hungry, getting ready for winter, and bite gladly, not aware of the hidden hook. The cottonwood and aspen are changing colors, rare seen in most parts of CA. The people are scarce, even more rare in California.

Not too far back, one trip featured great fishing, 38 trout in 8 hours on three creeks. The aspen put me in awe, with the most glorious golds and yellows in years. And the people—well, I found more photographers than fisherfolk along the streams. Thankfully…

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A Temporary Heaven

In a series of nine separate and necessary events, each with other people’s decisions involved, in August of 1975 God landed me where I could not have dreamed that big: living in a log cabin in the mountains above Taos, 8,500 ft., the nearest neighbor three miles away. Maybe not heaven for you, but it was for me. No work to do, just living on an unused guest ranch, and being paid for it. In the process of leaving my native SoCal for a fresh start on life, thinking of Colorado but going through Taos in the summer of my 27th year, I found myself “coming home, to a place I’d never been before.” Then came…

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Aspen Lessons

On a hillside in the Fishlake National Forest in Utah sits Pando, a massive, single aspen tree that spreads its roots and grows, covering over 100 acres, typical for aspen trees (Populus Tremuloides), which primarily propagate not by dropping seeds, but by spreading out their root structures to send new saplings skyward. Allow me to suggest that this grove gives a delightful lesson for all of who follow Jesus. Here’s how…

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