His Name is Les…

First rainy day, complete with lightening storm!

At first look… single, drinks – often too much, normally has a live-in girl friend – for short periods of time, has a continues very witty sense of humor – although often “R” rated, and he was my neighbor. In fact if anyone in our neighborhood knew how to be a neighbor it was Les. As a “Christian” I don’t know that I thought very highly of Les. But when I needed to build a deck it was Les who coached, loaned tools, and taught me how to build runners for stairs. When I needed to learn how to tile a section in my basement, it was Les who was came over to help lay tile. It was Les who bought a Cotton Candy machine that occasionally was put out in the front yard and kids from blocks away showed up for an impromptu sidewalk celebration. When I blew a head gasket on my car and had no money, it was Les who said, “That is an easy job, let me do it.” Les did this for every neighbor, no matter who or what they thought of him.

It was during the handing of wrenches and screwdrivers as he performed his magic on my car that we talked theology. It was during this conversation that I learned Les had an incredible faith, that he understood grace, and that he understood what it meant to love one’s neighbor. It had been a long time sense Les entered into a church. But he seemed to understand better than anyone I knew what it meant to be a neighbor, how to live out the Good Samaritan story, how to love and not use words.

Les eventually sold his house, bought a house boat on the Mississippi, fixed it up and floated away from Minneapolis ending up somewhere in the Florida Keys. I think of Les often, wondering if I learned anything about being a real “Christian” from this odd prophet who preached without words.

backward and forward

Søren Kierkegaard, the Danish philosopher, observes that we understand our lives looking backward, but we plan our lives looking forward.

So, for me, looking backwards there are disappointments, losses, weaknesses, misunderstandings, grief, unexpected changes, loneliness and tragedy in my life. Certainly these things are a part of me. But who I am has been more shaped by the fingerprints of miraculous events, beautiful places and wonderful loving people. These are the powerful marks that have touched and molded my understanding of life.

I have plans, visions of possibilities, and great hopes as I look forward.

For now, however, my life is paused somewhere between the backward and the forward. As a friend pointed out, there is also the being. Maybe most important is the being in the now. Enjoying, experiencing and being thankful for the present.

Birds and Fog

The morning choral arrangements performed by Robins, Cedar Wax Wings, Red Wing Black Birds, Geese, and Ducks is becoming fuller and richer as new members arrive daily. A bit in the fog, I still find my way, as my mind plans tomorrow evenings session on prayer.

A Memory

Cedar Falls High School, my junior year, a science class, strangely enough called Edible Plants class. It was a rather odd botany study where we learned what to eat in the woods. The old Grape Nuts commercial with Eual Gibbons, “Ever eat a pine cone? Some parts are edible, still sticks in my memory. Doug Holmes sat next to me in that class. I remember telling him about my last two summers working at Ingawanis Boy Scott camp outside of Waverly, IA. He in turn told me about his last summer at a Lutheran camp called EWALU outside of Strawberry Point, IA. In the conversation he suggested I apply.

One of the most pivotal moments in my life was that moment in time sitting in that science class. If I had not been there that day, my life would have taken a different direction. It was just a moment. Nothing flashed, or seemed out of the ordinary. It was not a recognizable moment of significance at the time. That conversation would take me to a place that would shape my life, my occupation, my vocation, my values, my beliefs, my church, many key relationships, my wife, my family, and so many other amazing directions.

Nor would have I spent the afternoon and evening with my sons eating out and enjoying comedian Jim Gaffigan at the Pantages Theater (opened 1916). Very ornate theater on Hennepin Ave in Minneapolis.

Snowy week

Very little out door running as we had two March snow storms!
Getting back to it the last few days.

Week highlight.
Jamie Cullum in concert. One of the best performers I have seen.

Jamie Cullum Web Sight

Robin & SNAPSHOTS

first robin down by the pond during today's run

SNAPSHOTS:
LIFE IN THE CITY
click to go their site

Nathan picked up tickets for this. I had no real idea what I was going to see. This was absolutely an amazing performance. The plot was woven together by David Grant from hundreds of stories, scenarios and poems written by kids in the Twin Cities. J.D. Steele put it all to music. The energy, emotion and depth was breathtaking. The audience could do nothing but jump to their feet and applaud at the end. This was not a polite standing ovation, this was an “I have to stand and applaud wildly.”

If you liked RENT you will love this. I would even place it a notch or two above! Don’t miss it.

Home Sweet Office!

Welcome to the new office. Stop in any time!

The music is playing, the coffee is hot and the candle is burning.

Beavers and Bands

Beavers are hard at work taking down trees and stripping the bark by the stream.

Too many puddles and too much mud for a good run.


The Gloria guys also hard at work! Got to hear them at the Tripple Rock Sunday night.

NEW LOOK and NEW great song went up last night on MY SPACE! Click to hear.



“There was a child went forth every day and the first object he looked upon, that object he became. And that object became part of him for a day or for many years, or stretching cycles of years…” –Walt Whitman

What is the object or picture or thought that you want to offer that will become part of someone else?

BE

Ps 46:10
"Be still, and know that I am God! I am exalted among the nations, I am exalted in the earth." (NRSV)

In the beginning is the Word. God gives us this Word in a cosmic act of creation, in the cosmic gift of his son, and finally in a cosmic act of the spirit. Through the spirit God amazingly trusts us humans to be vessels containing this wonderful and mysterious good news Word. God trusts us and honors us to communicate this good news Word just by our very being in and amongst the world.

Prayer:

Be still and know that I am God
Be still and know that I am
Be still and know
Be still
Be

I the midst of my own busy world, in the midst of both my personal great joys and great pains, life’s mountain peaks and the desserts I daily repeat this prayer. It is a simple prayer adapted from Ps 46:10 with the origin unknown, but introduced to me through Father Richard Rohr’s writings. For me God speaks loudest in stillness and the unexpected simplicity of being. God’s loving eyes stay with me even when I find my own gaze directed unintentionally, sometimes intentionally, away, or sometimes way too inward. Somehow as I pray this prayer I sense, I trust, I believe, I know, that God is. All my doubts cease. It is by my very being that God’s love and grace reach out in ways that I may never understand.

God was hiding...

Nick joined me today! I had a hard time keeping up. I think it was the cold, or maybe the sun was in my eyes. I'm sure there was a good excuse.

“I had expected to meet God in the lives of those who were whole, instead God was hiding in the lives of the broken.” -Mike Ycaonelli

When have you been surprised to find God hiding in someone you didn't expect?

Now and Now and Now

Great winter run day to be in the now and now and now!

We can not attain the presence of God because we’re already totally in the presence of God. What’s absent is awareness. Little do we realize that God is maintaining us in existence with every breath we take. As we take another it means that God is choosing us now and now and now. –Richard Rohr

When is a time you expereince awarness?