Shoreside Wanderings

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Hello friends – happy Sunday! I write a few words now as the Redskins/Eagles game plays in the background. Yes, football is back! It’s probably for the better that I not put my hope in football or certain teams but I do enjoy watching it now and again. That aside, enjoying a sweet and relaxing Sunday afternoon. A good time at church was had as Dani and I worshipped with our dear brothers and sisters – all glory be to our God as we consider the glorious gospel that is a man once dead now alive forevermore – Jesus Christ the salvation of our souls! After a lunch of hearty sandwiches back at home, naptime was on the menu, as is proper on a Sunday. Now? A grocery store adventure awaits. Dani and I shall run (er, drive) to HEB and pick up some of the needed items for tonight’s dinner. It’s our “Sunday classic” – sushi for Dani, frozen pizza for me! I think I’ll also make a tomato salad or some such, just for good measure.

What else shall I say? Well, I’m wandering towards it but fear I do not have words to do it justice. So I shall just come out and say it – happy 40th anniversary to Mom and Dad!!! It’s been forty years since they were married – truly? Yes, truly. On September 13th, 1986, Dad & Mom joined hands and pledged their lives to each other and now some forty years later…they press on in love for one another still. Oh the greatness of God’s love and the wondrous bounties that He has poured out upon my parents – what a wonder it is to see how God has worked in these lives through the decades!! I could of course speak on them and their marriage at length as I have been alive for the vast majority of those forty years, but I shall not make this entry a book. Instead, I simply wish to say how encouraged I am as I have witnessed their marriage and have seen how they have steadfastly loved each other through the storms and trials of life and have been faithful to one another as they seek to glorify God as they work out God’s purpose for their lives. I’m so grateful that I have been blessed enough to be called their son. Praise God from whom all blessings flow!!!

Spare

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Hello friends! A few words before I start my reading session this evening. While I kind of wish I could write a bit, I don’t think I feel suited for such tonight. Of course, maybe that is exactly the sort of night I need to be writing? Ah well, we shall see. But for now, let me spill a few words on my latest read. Not many. Then I shall be off.

63. Harry Potter and the Goblet of Fire by J.K. Rowling. Such a romp. I love this book even though I do feel it didn’t hit quite as hard this time as last time I read it (when I recall wondering if had ascended to being my very favourite of the series!). Still though, it’s a great adventure. It’s an almost perfect transition book, one in which the kids move from the innocence of just being school kids to…well, a world that has changed entirely, one full of evil unmasked and death in all its horror. This book was just a pleasure to read. Still a good book, but maybe not my favourite of the series.

Seven by Seven

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Hello friends! A quick Friday morning post here. It’s early and I don’t want to write too many words but I did want to at least log my latest read.

62. The Works of John Owen, Vol 7, Sin and Grace by John Owen. This book was encouraging for my soul. My life-long march through the works of Owen continues. I shan’t go into this one in great detail, but as always with Owen, I found this book to be a fantastic aid to my daily walk with my Lord. The main discourses in this one are on apostasy and spiritual-mindedness. While the first half on apostasy was good and worth the read, the second discourse on being spiritual minded was truly ever so encouraging and convicting for my soul. I’ve mentioned this before upon reading Owen, but I don’t see his works as being primarily about gaining theological knowledge. Yes, there is that, but I don’t read Owen to gain more facts about God or the faith. Instead, reading Owen spurs me on to think about Christ more and to long to draw closer to my Lord. His writing can be tedious and overly discursive at times, yet somehow even as I wade through these waters, I find myself thinking ever more on what it means to be a Christian and how I want to fill my mind with the things of the Lord over and against the things of this world. Perhaps not for everyone, but for me, this was a beautiful devotional read and a book I’m most grateful to have read.

Ashen

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White hands strayed across the piano keys and whispered soft to me. Do you feel the thunder humming? Do you hear the sizzling of the wires as they pass messages up and down the years? Do you see the lights off the northern coast gleaming through the fog? Do you smell the woodsmoke of the bonfire that crackles on that Hawaii beach? I wish I could write a story that would encompass your trials and tribulations and yet still hold you safe within its arms. Yet my ability to do such is outmatched by my vivid vision and I fear that anything I write will shrivel in your presence and turn to stone under the stars. Yet perhaps even that stone will stand the test of time better than some other scribbles and perhaps the star-washed etchings will someday bring tears to a pilgrim’s eyes. So should I not attempt it and see what this feeble hand can bring forth? Should I not at least break out my notebook and try? I put my hands upon the keyboard now and cry to heaven. I get on my knees and pray for aid this night. Why do you call me to account now for what I haven’t written? Why do you look at me with such tender compassion when I know my failures are even now within your sight? Oh I must with diligence press on for that for which I’ve been called to do. Do I believe it possible that I can craft this gem of steel and starlight? Do you? Please don’t text me asking for an answer. I walk this path even now wondering what I shall say at the end of all things. Thankfully I don’t need to present a justification. The price has already been paid. Do you smell the scent of roast chicken cooking? Do you see the light of the candle on the coffee table that flickers this night? Do you hear the tapping of the keyboard as I write this prologue? Do you feel my arms around you holding you as you cry? The lightning struck outside and I turned the record over.

Nostalgia Met

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She picked up the stack of pictures from the end table and flipped through them. Most get a cursory glance. But for a few of them, she paused and gazed steadily into the faded eyes that look up into hers. These pictures that live outside of memory and screen – what stories do they tell? Is it really a land that time forgot, a lost realm that belongs only to the dreams of those aged few? There is one picture in particular, a candid shot of a group of friends in front of a lake. Storm clouds crowd the frame and the three youths glow with the vibrancy that seems self-evident in the moment captured. One boy laughs as he half raises his hand in jest while the other looks away across the water. The solitary girl gazes at the lens and squints, mouth half open as she wonders if the button has been pressed. The moment lost in the past and now lost in the present as it is shuffled to the back of the deck and the women sat down on the edge of the chair. She wondered what she was thinking then. Those clear eyes and that unfiltered invitation. Why was her hope then so much smaller than her dreams? She closed her eyes and touched her brow. There were wrinkles there that marked her prayers. And in her dreams now she heard the piano playing the melody she ached to hear.

Old School

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It’s a two post day! Now back home and Dani is still out and about thrifting and having adventures and so I have all the time in the world. Whatever shall I do with myself? Well apparently…cook and talk to people on the phone. Called Caisson and we had some good catch-up time, and then talked to Dad for a bit too! All errands have been accomplished and now on the couch with college football on the TV. First college football of the year!! Apparently I am so excited by that that I currently have Boston College/Cincy on. Why. Well, I’m not really paying attention, it’s just fun to have football background noise once again.

Also cooked some chicken – chicken thighs marinated with paprika/onion powder/garlic powder/cumin/salt/pepper then blasted at high heat in the oven for 25 minutes. Now letting that cool. Will soon cut it up into small pieces and make some chicken/cheese/spinach burritos. I’ve been craving such lately and with Dani out, figured now was the time! Will be a good lunch(at 3pm) – I so declare.

Wow this entry is so random. Sorry not sorry? Think I’ll dive into my fun book and enjoy some of that while I chill this Saturday afternoon. Harry Potter and the Goblet of Fire! I do love that book in all its ridiculous glory. Once Dani gets back, we’ll go on a date to Warby Parker and look for glasses, hurrah! We definitely need new ones as our old ones have been serving us well for over two years now and showing definite signs of wear. After that? A relaxing evening and beef/okra/rice dinner made by Dani are in the cards. It’s a good day and I’m grateful to my Father God for such blessings. Oh how wonderful it is that I can cry out to my God all day every day. Now before I spiral off into who knows what, shall close. This has been a random one, to be sure. Peace, dear friends.

Over the Shoulder

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Hello friends! It’s throwback time – I’m currently writing from my old Starbucks from years of yore. A bit of a pilgrimage this morning…these past few weeks I’ve been going through some of my old journal entries and currently in 2017-era. And apparently at that time, I frequented this Starbucks all the time! So this morning, with Dani off on her own adventure, I thought why not? Why shouldn’t I visit my old Starbucks and enjoy some good writing time just like I used to so many times before? So here I am, sitting and sipping my black coffee and looking around me as I do so. It’s odd indeed, being here some nine years later and…well yes, it’s Starbucks so it hasn’t changed that much. Yet the sad thing is all the people I used to know are gone! No more barista friends, alas. But I sit here and smile as I think of friends of old and the many good conversations that were had. Ah how thankful I am for God blessing me so throughout the years. I am beyond blessed – of that there can be no doubt.

Also I am amused reading all my entries from back in the day…I did a much better job of chronicling my life – that is for certain! Back then I actually wrote about what I did and where I went and who I hung out with. Nowadays? Well…I suppose my entries have gradually become more opaque – likely a result of growing older and moving away from the public sharing of the facebook era. I do now and again write a newsy post and I’m actually working on being better about that – sharing my life and praising God for what he is doing in it. But the majority of my posts these days tend to be book reviews or quotes from books or random creative flow. My creative output – whether it be poetry or prose – is precious to me and I love it so and I’m so thankful for that gift…yet I do realise it’s not as accessible to others. I know what I’m saying and what lies on my heart! Yet others don’t quite have the same understanding of my heart and so my writing is at a bit of a remove. I’m ok with that, I think. What does it mean that my writing of late is less transparent? I suppose it simply shows that while I still love to write – ah so much word vomit! – I won’t always explain myself clearly in such. That has always been the case to some degree. Even in the early days of my journal career, poems were dropped from the sky without a guide in sight. Now I suppose it’s just that the majority of my writing tends to be the random creative output. Also I have less time now than I once did. Hence…when I do get a chance to write, a few creative lines strain to escape and I gratefully take the opportunity to release them into the wild. It is good for my soul.

All that being said? I have been far too random this morning and not entirely sure what the point of all the above is! Still, I shall let it stand. I’m so grateful for this morning. And thankful that God has given me both the ability and the desire to write. The quality may be questionable at times, yet still I do love the process. Those of you who read what I write, thanks for putting up with me. That last came with a half-smile and a raise of the eyebrow. Remind me to give you a hug next time I see you.

Devotional

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But this is that which giveth life unto the affections of believers; they know that in the enjoyment of God in Christ their eternal blessedness doth consist. How this is their happiness and glory, how it will give them an everlasting, overflowing satisfaction and rest, they understand in the first-fruits of it which they here receive. And this is the ultimate object of their affections in this world, and they go forth unto all other spiritual things in order hereunto. The more, therefore, their affections are fixed on them, the more they are kept up unto that due exercise, the nearer approaches they make unto this blessed state.

When their minds are possessed with this persuasion, when it is confirmed in them by daily experience of that sweetness, rest, and satisfaction, which they find in cleaving unto God with fervent love and delight, in vain shall any other objects rise up in competition to draw them off unto themselves. The more we love God, the more like we are unto him, and the more near the enjoyment of him.

-John Owen, Works, Vol. VII, page 482

Carry On

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I am grateful for the small and simple beauties of everyday life. I think that all that know me well know this well enough. Some may call me boring – the Lord knows that some have! Yet I don’t mind this ascription, especially when it very well may be true. I will take the charge and carry on and enjoy my book of the evening as I sit in the candlelight. I am not denying the fun that can be had in a grand adventure or the adrenaline thrill that may accompany a new experience in climes abroad. Once in a while, these have their place. But for tonight, I am thankful for the small things. Perhaps this comfort comes from the larger and greater comfort that my feet are firmly planted on the rock on which I stand and the reality of my place in a symphony that has been written long ago. And so as the music soars out against the rafters and the birds tweet along with the part they have been assigned, I nod along assured that I need not fear when I hear of wars or rumors of such things because I know that I am my God’s and He is mine. Instead I pray for strength for today and good cheer as I walk along this pilgrim path and ask for fortitude that I may remain faithful still. And I walk along the viaduct noticing the way the sunset light touches the foothills and smile to know that I need not worry that the third movement will carry along uninterrupted. Soon the climax, soon the bowstrings will in their anticipation quaver and the trumpet sound one last time. For now I’m simply grateful for this small moment in my armchair.

Paradise

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I stand at the shoreline and relish the feel of the cool sand upon my bare feet. I look out over the early morning waters and take a deep breath. The breeze washes over me and reminds me of the long ago time on the Oregon coast when the birds sang low and the bonfire of roses burned. Now I have no such stark reminder of the sacrifice that has been made for me. Instead it is only my inner muse that chants the song and keeps my hands steady in anticipation of what comes. I lift the lamp to my eyeline and let it hang there a moment or two. It swings slightly and the flame bounces merrily to and fro. There is still oil enough. I have prepared. I have done what I can. Though nothing I have done matches what was done for me. I lower the lamp and shift my stance slightly. It has been a long wait, though not as long as the walk that came before. Over mountains and across prairies and on paths bordered by wild grass have I traversed this long night. Now for some reason I do not tremble. I have been given food to eat that has upheld me body and soul. My last sandwich is in the pack and I do not plan on eating it. It is a sacramental reminder, turkey and swiss and mustard on good rye bread. Now I do not need it. A gull cries. I open my eyes and see a boat break upon my sight. The waves lap against it and I need no further call. I step into the water as my eyes begin to fill with tears one last time.