Summer Days

This is our last summer before a huge new phase in our life: school. Isaac will start kindergarten in the fall. Looking back on my elementary school years, I can remember how fast they seemed to go. That makes my heart hurt a bit. It won’t be long before Ethan joins Isaac in school, and Jaylie won’t be far behind him. I know it will go fast and before we know it Isaac will be coming up on graduation. Ok, ok…it’s 12 years away, but still. Once school starts, it seems like things will be a whirlwind and then he’ll be ready to head to college.

I sometimes tease Isaac in the mornings and ask him if he’s ready to go to school and he always says with a smile, “No dad, I have summer vacation.” For some reason that’s funny to me.

So, I’m trying to really cherish these last few days before Isaac’s world changes.

Last night we went down to the pool. Isaac is a little bit nervous about the water, but he’s making progress and getting used to floating around a bit. Ethan thinks being in the water is about the best thing in the world. He’ll go under water and then laugh as he chokes and tries to catch his breath. He’s a trip. Jaylie enjoys it too, but she usually has had enough after about 30 or 45 minutes.

We stop off at the SnoBiz or at Bop’s occasionally to enjoy a good snow cone too. SnoBiz is a personal weakness of mine. Nothing beats a banana SnoCone with cream. This is a little off subject here, but most snow cones are just terrible. Usually the ice freezes into a huge block so that you're left with a little soggy paper cone holding about 3 fluid ounces of kool-aid with a giant cone-shaped block of ice floating in it. SnoBiz’s shaved ice technique is where it’s at. If you’re getting a snow cone, go SnoBiz or just don’t do it at all. Bop’s, which I think is just a local deal, does ok too, but SnoBiz still ranks #1.

Isaac has recently become a chess player. We play a lot of chess these days. The other day he beat me in about 6 moves. Granted, I pointed out to him the move he could make to put me in check mate, but still. Those are some fun times too.

What do you remember about your summer vacations as a kid? Any suggestions for making some good family memories?

Stewpot

Yesterday several of us from church went over to The Stewpot to help serve lunch. For many of the people that eat lunch there, this meal is the only meal of the day. They are hungry, poor, hot, disenfranchised, disengaged and hopeless people. Caught in a cycle of poverty, most of them don't even have hope to one day be out of poverty. Read me right here, they certainly don't want to live in poverty, but they have resigned themselves to the fact that they will probably spend their lives in that type of life.

I can't imagine living that type of life. Moreover, I can't imagine not having hope of a better life. I don't know how to fix the problem. The government must play a role, but I don't know what role. Churches are called to help the poor, but we have limited resources. I know God's heart must hurt for his children that sleep on the concrete ground in 95 degree weather and go hungry every day.

For now, all I know to do is try to encourage them and help meet some of their physical needs. Here in Jackson, The Stewpot has a great ministry going and I intend to help in that work.

Bad Golf and Good Ballet

Saturday was jam-packed with fun. The morning was spent playing chess with Isaac in our pajamas. We all had breakfast and watched some TV, but then out came the chess board and Isaac and I got to work. He just started playing a week or two ago, but every time we play I have to think harder and harder to try to beat him. It won't be long before he is beating me. We've already had one draw. Sometimes we'll play against somebody online so he and I can be on the same team. It's amazing how fast he is picking it up.

11:00 am - Sam and I headed out to the Live Oaks Golf Club for the church Golf Scramble. We had lunch at the grill in the club and hit a few balls on the range before our tee time at 1:00. The course was great. It was in good condition, and it was good to see some big Live Oak trees, which reminded me of San Antonio.

Unfortunately the course wasn't air conditioned and it was hot. We played poorly but it was lots of fun.

5:30 pm - I got home and hit the shower.

6:00 pm - Dixie and I headed out to meet some friends for dinner. We ate at a place called AJ's which is a nice seafood place. The salmon was excellent.

7:15 pm - We headed downtown with our friends to see part of the USA International Ballet Competition. For those of you who don't know, the USA IBC is a big deal. It is like the Olympics for the ballet. It comes to Jackson every 4 years.

I've been to many symphonies, musicals, plays, and other productions, but I've never really seen any ballet. The dancers were very impressive.


We had great seats since our friend had shared some tickets he had through his employer. It was quite an experience.

The night we attended was more of a contemporary night. The dancers danced dances (I'm sure there's more official ballet terminology I should be using here) that were all choreographed in the 20th and/or 21st centuries. I enjoyed some of the more modern pieces.

10:30 pm - We visited about 3 different restaurants, trying to find a place to have some dessert. We eventually settled at the Starbucks inside the Barnes and Noble bookstore. I highly recommend the Chocolate Cherry Chunk Cheesecake!

11:15 pm - We made it home. Sam and Carol had been watching the kids for us. They were ready to head home and go to bed.

All in all, it was a long busy day, but very enjoyable.

www.ONE.org

You may have noticed the recent addition of the ONE.org banner at the corner of my blog. ONE.org is an organization that is dedicated to ending (or at least reducing) severe poverty in the world. If the U.S. devoted 1% of the federal budget to world poverty relief, they argue that great strides could be made.

Honestly, I don't know how much of a difference 1% of the U.S. budget would make. I don't know through what organizations those monies would be channeled and if those organizations are run leanly and efficiently. Frankly, I don't think any of us even completely understand the scale and severity of the problem of poverty in the world.

Here's what I do know: many, many of God's children don't have food, water, and healthcare. I know 1% of the U.S. budget directed to world aid certainly couldn't hurt the cause.

I also know Jesus said the poor will always be with us, so ONE's goal of eliminating world poverty is pretty unattainable. Hopefully they are ready to deal with failure. And hopefully they are willing to keep trying even while they know they'll never completely succeed in attaining their goal. Hopefully they will measure success by the number of people they help and not by the number of people they don’t.

I know people in the United States are blessed with wealth beyond the wildest dreams of most people in the world. I know what Jesus said about wealth and about social justice. I know I have been entrusted resources that I must wisely steward.

I know my name on ONE’s petition is just one name, and I know my contribution is very small. I know we won’t ever have perfect social justice, but do I hope we get closer.

Jan Karon, Paul Simon, & Art Garfunkel

I recently read Jan Karon's At Home in Mitford from her Mitford Years Series of books. More correctly I listened to it. Recently jumping on the iTunes bandwagon, I had been looking for some light listening to fill in some time I spent in the car a couple of weekends ago. The Mitford series had been highly recommended by some online acquaintences I have in an online community I frequent.

It was lackluster at best. The book centers around Father Tim as he pastors a congregation set in the small town of Mitford, North Carolina. As in many small towns, not a lot happens, which, as poor of an idea as it may be, is the basic premise for the book.

Seeing as how other people enjoyed the book, I hate to sell it short but for some reason I just couldn't get involved in the story line. I'm not sure why I couldn't get into it. For one thing, I may be out of practice at reading fiction. I can't remember the last book of fiction I've read. My unenjoyment could have also been due to listening to it rather than actually reading it. I wonder if the format of reading the words on the page causes your mind to create characters and situations that are more conducive to your own interests, rather than having the author use her own voice to voice the story. I'll need to listen to another book of fiction to test out that theory.

Overall, I suppose it was a nice story. There were a few sections that were fairly heartwarming, but taken as a whole it was pretty slow and basically unintersting. I spoke with another friend tonight who has also read it and she said she wasn't impressed either. Since she was an English major, her opinion somewhat validates mine. If you're looking for entertaining light fiction, I'd suggest looking else where.

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I've got a customized Pandora station playing Simon & Garfunkel. There's something about this music that soothes my soul. It connects me to my youth because I can remember staying up late at night listening to the S&G harmonies. No other artist can so quickly melt away my stress and pull me into their art. Moreover, many of their songs speak deep truths of life.

Legalism

An excerpt from Phillip Yancey's book, "What's So Amazing About Grace?":

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Author Tony Campolo, who makes a regular circuit as a chapel speaker on Christian college campuses, for a time used this provocation to make a point. "The United Nations reports that over ten thousand people starve to death each day, and most of you don't give a shit. However, what is even more tragic is that most of you are more concerned about the fact that I just said a bad word than you are about the fact that ten thousand people are going to die today." The responses proved his point: in nearly every case Tony got a letter from the chaplain or president of the college protesting his foul language. The letters never mentioned world hunger.
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How blind we can be. It is so easy to get caught up in rule keeping and checklist managing while we lose focus on the grace of God.

May our churches always remain focused on being the incarnate body of Christ.

May we read the Bible and glean the wisdom from the instructions given to those people so long ago.

May we decide to pattern ourselves after the first century church's hunger for God and their openness to the Spirit's guidance, rather than their rituals and customs.

Hurricane Season

Well the new Hurricane Season just recently began and Florida has already seen their first tropical storm that bordered on hurricane strength. It's amazing that the Gulf of Mexico Coast has to ready itself for the possibility of new hurricanes when the damage from last year's Katrina still has not been repaired. In fact, experts say recovery from Katrina will approach 10 years.

Meadowbrook has been involved in helping as many people as possible from the beginning. We have an ongoing relief effort and permanent campsite on the MS coast thanks to a federal grant and the donations provided by Jackson area members.

Frequently, Meadowbrook sends a team of volunteers down to the coast to work with our staff down there. It's a chance for a morale boost for them as well as an opportunity for us to serve people who are trying to gather the remnants of their lives. A couple weekends ago, I joined about 14 other Jesus followers from Meadowbrook and we went to work.

The destruction is amazing. Nearly nine months later and some areas still look like they did immediately after the storm. Cars are pushed out into the woods. Debris is everywhere (including 25 feet high in the trees where it got stuck when the waters receded). The trees look like something out of a Salvador Dali painting, stripped bare of their growth. Many of the pines were snapped in half. The mighty oaks were uprooted. Many of the pines that survived the winds were killed weeks later by saltwater poisoning from the displaced ocean. The trees that did survive are starting to sprout new leaves but still look strange with all of their new growth concentrated so near the branches. It's as if God's creation turned on itself.

Man's creations fared even worse. Houses weren't just damaged, they were decimated. Driving along residential streets provides views of foundations after foundations but the structures that once sat atop them are gone. Houses that were constructed on pillars to try to avoid flood waters are gone with the pillars remaining. Many of them have front steps that lead up to a nonexistent home.

Even the wealth of the retail giant Walmart could not protect one local Walmart near the beach. The structure is still somewhat in tact, but the walls have been blown out by the pounding waves. Seemingly millions of white plastic Walmart bags were strewn in the trees behind the store. As one of our team members quipped, "...and so , all of the merchandise slowly floated back to China."

Moreover, people's lives were destroyed. These last few months have seen divorce and suicide rates skyrocket. Some schools are still closed. Work is scarce, unless you are skilled in construction or contracting work. White FEMA trailers dot residential areas. Grocery and supply stores are few and far between and understocked.



I can't quite imagine what would happen if another strong storm hits anywhere between Galveston and Panama City. The destruction of all the temporary shelters and what little progress that has been made would be devastating.

We hope this season will spare this area. If we can get through this season, I think we can make enough progress over the next year to be ready for future storms. I hope the federal government will keep this effort a priority in the way they budget money. Meadowbrook is in the process right now of trying to gain approval for an additional grant that would allow the continuation and expansion of our recovery effort. Pray that we are approved and that we will steward the money well.

Also, pray for the people that have had their lives shaped by this storm. Some people's lives were defined by the Great Depression. Some were defined by WWII. Some were defined by Vietnam. Some will be defined by Katrina.