The Last Month Plus...

So, in case you hadn't noticed, I am not the most disciplined with this dang thing. But, I am here now.

The last month and a half have been busy, so I will do the highlights:

In late June was my wife's birthday! We had our private celebration at the Cheesecake Factory, and then a party at Wilfs with a bunch of friends. Both were good and my wife loved her hard won gift.

In early July was our anniversary and we had a great dinner at Jake's and a night at a fancy-schmance hotel, woo woo!

And my birthday was later in July and we had a great open house that people came over and ate and talked and we eventually broke out the Wii. Many rounds of tennis, bowling, and boxing ensued. And there was much rejoicing. Yay!

Now onto this weekend. We went to the coast because of the invitation of a friend of ours, who had a rental home that he let us use for a weekend. We had a low key Friday night at the rental, watching "Thank You For Smoking." Saturday, we caught up with our friend, who is pretty amazing. He is a brillant businessman and developer, but his heart is for working with guys who have had a pretty rough history and seeing them have real change in their lives. So, we got to his place and talked for a while before we got into his Hummer. Ah yes, the fun begins. He drove us through some land that he has bought and some that he gave away to the local municipality, all of which was fairly untouched other than a couple of trails and roads. We got out and one point and hiked a little ways to a nice hilltop. The sun was warm and the wind was blowing. Just a beautiful, pure day on the coast, which was very refreshing. On our way back, as we were going up a small but pretty serious incline, and our friend looked at the gas gauge and informed us that the gas tank is empty, which was emphasized by a slight sputtering of the motor. His answer to this was to hightail it through the back country on some "roads" to get back to his place as fast as he can, where there was a 5 gallon can of diesel waiting for his thirsty vehicle. When we arrived back at his place, we were all very hungry as wandering on foot along the hill and the exhiliration of the Hummer ride made us all quite famished. He parked the Hummer and asked if we should take the convertible... ummm, yes. Yes we shall. The car is an AMG, which is faster than a Ferrari. I only know this because he showed us the shift paddles on the steering wheel. We drove to a little seafood place of his recommendation (I hate seafood, but my wife loves it and has been fairly deprived since we got married, sorry honey.) And the drives to and from were punctuated with "sprints." He would find a place to speed up and get all the way up to 70 mph in the span of about 7 seconds, usually towards an intersection or another (stopped) car. We are fortunate that our friend has no desire to see us come to harm, otherwise, his motives (and desire to live) might have come into question. And to top it all off, we were invited to a bonfire on the beach that night, where a bonfire that was taller than my head was successfully built, despite being nearly thwarted for a lack of paper. S'mores ensued, once the fire got going.

That is all for now. Peace to you.

Recent Good Times...

So, about 15 minutes before I got off work on Monday night, my wife emails me and says that she is picking me because she has a surprise for me. Sweet. Surprises from my wife are good. She picked me up and had small bag of snacks. I asked what was going on. She asked if I trusted her. Yep. You bet. And we drove on I-5 north to Vancouver, beyond Vancouver and after we got just past Kalama, she spilled the beans.
"Do you wanna know where we're going?"
"Sure..."
"I called the Target in Kelso and they said that they have 2 Wiis... but that we had to come quick. So they may not have it, but I thought it would be a fun adventure."
"Sweet."
We pulled into the Target parking lot and made our way quickly to the Electronics section, all the while suspiciously eyeing everyone with a cart and a child.
One left.
Happy Birhtday to me, Happy Birthday to me...

The Wii is great fun, and it is nice to be playing games and moving around... the whole use of the remote with motion requires imagination, which is far more joyous than the increased capabilities of the other systems available.

This weekend my wife and I went to visit her family up in Washington. Her youngest brother is graduating high school and so we went and hung out for the weekend. The ceremony was fine and hanging with the in-laws was really good. But the highlight was really reading Scripture in the library nook at my father-in-law's house. It was the most life-giving experience with Scripture I have had in a long time. I think part of that reality is that my wife and I have been leading a home community and just stepped down. It is the first time that I was reading for me and not to gleen something for others. Which in theory I knew was not a good way to go about things, but in practice becomes hard to do. So, refreshing time with Jesus. Yay!
Here is hoping you have a very life giving experience with God soon.

Thoughts on Lesser and Greater Things...

I was perusing various videos online and came across one that was titled something akin to 'Ten Questions Every Intelligent Christian Should Ask Themselves.' It was basically a series of questions with very leading answers put together by some atheist person or persons. The whole of the video basically leads one to their conclusion of "If you really are intelligent, you can only come to the conclusion that God is imaginary." Wow. Somedays, there are no words. I can appreciate that someone chooses to believe there is no God (which is as much a leap of faith as choosing to believe there is a God) and even wants to engage people about why they believe there is no God. However, this kind of stuff makes it easy to dismiss atheists as arrogant and self-righteous (a charge leveled at believers rightly or wrongly). No one will ever convince me that God does not exist or that Jesus is not the way to the Father. Not because I want to be right and impose my views on others, but because of my relational experience of God's goodness in my life. The way He has led me, spoken to me, and is redeeming me. I trust Him and His word. Even when I don't like it, because ultimately He is Good.

It makes me also think about Mr. Hitchens who has written a book called "God is not Great." I haven't read the book, but I saw part of an interview where he described himself as an "anti-theist." There is something particularly unfortunate about encapsilating your entire identity (who you are and what you are about) with what you are against. It's a negative space description. The very thing that a person is against is the thing that defines them... hmmm.

In a completely different vein, my wife and I watched most of the Democratic presidential nominees debate on CNN. I have not considered myself a political person. My parents are die hard Republicans. Basically, the right is right and the left is full of it. This has not endeared me to politics. I also just have a natural bent towards the fact that no matter how many laws are changed or enacted, there will always be lawbreakers, but if you change a person's heart, there will be no need for laws. But I digress. So, me, pretty turned off to politics. Until I started dating my wife and we started watching "The West Wing." All seven seasons. And it was really an engaging look at politics. Well-written, witty, smart, and honest. Even season 5. And it really helped me to connect with all that our political system strives to be. So, watching the debate was far more interesting than I would have thought possible before. It was easy to see why John Edwards, Barack Obama, and Hillary Clinton are the front runners. They were all thoughtful in their answers and spoke with a lot competence and confidence. I have to say that although I still have a pretty significant distrust of Hillary, I was pretty impressed, because she didn't stike me as the poll-chasing, cold, calculating politico that has been built up in my mind. She was smart and seemed to take things pretty head on, not the dodging that I have seen happen in some debates.

Anyway, we are looking forward to the summer and resting. There are lots of things that we are in the midst of, but that is for another time. Peace of Christ to you.

Welcome to the Jungle

So, lots of people have these bloggy thingys... lots. And now I am one of them. I don't have much right now, but the title of my first blog is appropos for two reasons. Reason #1 - This is my official (and unceremonial) debut into the fantastic, soul sharing, and probably self absorbed world of blogging. Go me. Reason #2 - I played the demo version of Guitar Hero 2 today on my lunch break at the local Nerd Store (of which I am or will soon show myself to be one) and played my very first round. I chose "Sweet Child o' Mine" and let me tell you, even on the beginner level, I bombed. I even play guitar in real life (hack tho I may be) and I still didn't even make it through the song. So, there is my confession for today. Peace to you and good night.