Fowl weather

My, my, my, haven't we gotten soft. They say it's hard to get to the games because of the snow. I actually like the snow. It fills up the potholes and makes driving easier.

Snow

Okay, so it did snow yesterday. We got maybe four or five inches at our house. Now I have bad news and good news. The bad news is that it's going to drop to zero tonight. The good news is that my air conditioning is working again! Have a Happy New Year!

Probability of snow

The probability of snow at 5:00a this morning is 100%. I looked outside and it's clear, sunny, and dry at 9:00a this morning. Who predicted this? We're supposed to get 4 to 8 inches! So where is it? It is cold here and they say it's coming from Canada. Can't we weatherstrip the border? In fact, it's so cold when I open the front door, a little light goes on.

Family

I found this old family photo the other day. I'm the kid on the front row on the right. The watch I'm wearing has been in the family for years. My grandfather sold it to me on his deathbed. The girl in the middle front row in the white sweater is my cousin Gail, and her brother Gary is on the back row next to the guy looking at the ceiling. We have been close friends for many years. As for the rest of them, I found a great way to solve the problem of visiting relatives. I borrow money from the rich ones, I give it to the poor ones, and none of them ever come back!

Flying Saucers

On the way back from Arizona we went though New Mexico. This particular flying saucer had a bad steering mechanism and landed deep in the sand trap on the sixth hole of this golf course. The pilot called back to his home planet and asked what he should do. The answer was curt: "Dummy, use your nine-iron!"

Set up the tent

The most unusual toy at Christmas was the Thomas and Friends tent. The kids took their toys in the tent and then ran inside and out, over and over and over again. It was endless. The idea that kids enjoy repetition and then we teach them to like variety is probably true. Why is that?

Christmas morning

On Christmas Eve we went to the Winterhaven Festival of Lights. All the lights were great, although the guy who put up stonehenge in his front yard was a little strange. It was cold, so we all bundled up.

Chistmas morning met me with blueberry muffins, hot coffee and lots of presents. The most fun was watching the kids try to open a present in one hand and play with a new toy in the other. The best gift of all was being together and remembering the love of Christ who gave us the greatest gift of all.

Santa Catalina Mountains at Christmas

How silently, how silently the wondrous gift is given. So God imparts to human hearts the blessings of His heaven.

Insects galore

I went insect collecting with my Dad yesterday. He said he got most of what he was looking for. He handed me a big knife and I cut the bark off of the biggest mesquite trees I could find and held his net under the vermin hiding in the bark.

Christmas graffiti

I've been admiring the "rock" art in my daughters back yard. Of course the kids contribute to the design and general appearance of the art. It's something more than abstract. In fact, I think it's a category all its own.


Hey, if there are flowers, there ought to be bees! Here they come, one by one looking for nectar to take back home to their kids.

White Christmas

We're looking forward to another year of Christmas fun, snow, and enjoying Colorado! Who cares if we can't find the driveway! And how come the snowbank is never overdrawn?

Nap Time

Friends

People often complain that they find no friends. But this is very often untrue and one's own fault. I suppose it depends on what a man wants in the world. A friend is not necessarily a refuge for weak souls. Rather it may be someone who breaths life into you, someone who asks you to think and to be yourself, someone who lives a hard life and shows you the way. I'm so thankful for my friends.

The love of God

It was God after all, who gave up heaven and came to earth as a child. His goal? To redeem and save mankind. 1 John 3:1 says, "Behold, what manner of love the Father has bestowed upon us" referring to the gift of Christ. We love him because he first loved us. It reminded me of what Alcibiades said about Socrates, that from being the lover he became the beloved. And so this also expresses God's relation to a human being - it ends with God becoming the beloved.

Tyler coming home

We heard from Tyler and he is definitely coming home from South Korea in January. How he gets here is still unknown. But, he is coming home which is all we care about. These are always special times for us as a family and hopefully he'll be here during the birth of his new nephew, Eli Timothy.

Do you really want a "Do Over?"

Someone asked me the other day, "If you could live your life over again what would you do differently?" My reply was, "Plenty." She said she wouldn't change a thing and she was very happy about her life. I looked at her and thought, "It's rough to go through life with your contents looking as if they settled during shipping." Then I told her, "I get the feeling that I'm cutting the lawn of life with cuticle scissors!"

Anyway I said, "I don't have to live my life over. The first thing you need to know about life is, Christ lived it for you. And, he lived it perfectly, and then he took care of all the penalties and accusations against you and me. He assumed the blame for all the mistakes. Just believe in him and you'll be saved." Life isn't a dress rehearsal you know.

What does it mean to love?

The Bible says in Ephesians that the wife is to be submissive to her husband. I find it interesting that society is so offended by this. Simply take the statement that as a child, Christ was submissive to His parents. He shared their work, did his chores, obeyed them, etc. Society will always be offended by these viewpoints. The savior of the world stoops to this? Nevertheless according to the Bible, the husband is also to love his wife, just as parents love their children, and Christ loved the world.

So what does it mean to love? It is to want to be like the beloved, or it is to move out of one's own interests into the beloved's interests. So God (Christ) moves into the world (our interests). Once again society is no doubt offended by this. I think the most enlightened social norms define love as a 50-50 relationship, which is too bad because then you're always thinking about who is giving or loving the most and you end up measuring everything. Someone always loses.

Exercise and eating

I went to the doctor last week and he asked me how much exercise I've been getting because I've gained a little weight. I told him I jogged backwards the other day and put on five pounds! The problem isn't a lack of exercise, but I'm a very brisk eater.

I go to this power pump class at the Y sometimes. Our instructor gives us paper plates and we do lunges by sliding our feet back behind us and across the floor on the plates. The real challenge is getting your feet back once they're behind you. We do this many, many, many times. The other day I asked our instructor, "Where are the hot dogs?" Now I have a brand new exercise which is worse.

Optimism

I was an optimist when I tried to program my new TV by myself. Now I get movies on my electric can opener! I'm one of those guys who does his laundry, folds a sock, and thinks he's found the missing one! I just see the bright side of all the problems.

Fancy Lake

Someone asked what my favorite hike was this year. I think it has to be Fancy Lake in the Holy Cross Wilderness. It's beautiful, pristine, no people, magnificent scenery, and a very nice hike up to the lake.

Nancy and I stopped near a ravine for a short lunch on the way up. The weather was cloudy that day but no rain until we got back to the car. This is a place I hope to return to next year.

Didjeridoo

I play the didjeridoo for fun around the house, and sometimes outside to irritate the neighbors and animals. Mine is made of bamboo and uses beeswax for the mouthpiece. It's interesting that little Andy is interested in imitating it. I just hope he doesn't watch me too closely.

Dinner with your dentist

Nancy and I are going out for dinner tomorrow night with my Dentist and his wife. They are very nice people, so I guess I should take my toothbrush. They recently got back from Nepal and trekking in the Himalayas. I'm anxious to find out about their trip.

After dinner we're going to the Denver Botanic Gardens, Trail of Lights. The Gardens are a great place. They've got plastic Christmas trees now. They're hard to tell from the real aluminum ones.

Christ

It is heartbreaking that Christ, who is the teacher of love, is betrayed - with a kiss. This fact causes me to re-examine my own heart more closely because I tend to want what I want, when I want it. After all, what did Judas want? His own way. Larry Crabb says that we are so interested in fixing our own problems, and feeling better, and being restored, etc. etc. that feeling better has become more important to us than finding God. He's right. I think we often value healing for our pain more than pardon for our sin.

Finding God

Jesus was born of a virgin and so if we're going to talk about Christmas, it's not related to marriage and the nursery, or family or Christmas celebrations, or nice trees. No, the Christ child is spirit but also represents what it is to be human and consequently is not related to mother, father, child, etc. He is related to every single human being as spirit but also as man. He is not just the son of God, but the son of man. At every moment Christ is God just as much as he is man. This makes Christ's birth central to our faith. If he was not born of a virgin, he is of no value to mankind.

The birth of Christ is an event not only on earth but also in heaven, but our justification is also an event not only on earth but also in heaven. Christ now relates to us as man and can justify us. As God he has authority to justify us.

We find God to the degree that we want to find him.

Wake up!

Hey! I was the one who was supposed to sleep on Thanksgiving! What she needs is a good cup of coffee. It's a pretty powerful stimulant you know. I had a friend at work who drank twenty cups a day. He died last month, but a week later he was still mingling in the company lounge.

Pregnancy

My daughter seems to be enjoying herself out in the sunshine while being 8 months along. Pregnancy is an example of a woman's ability to take physical pain. No man could go through it. When a man cuts his finger trying to peel an apple, he has to lie down for ten days. No man could stand morning sickness. After the first urge to hurl, he'd say to himself, "if that woman tries to kitchy-koo one more time... I'll... I'll... get a headache maybe."