Blogging

One of the joys of having your own blog, or vlog if you so choose, is that you can post your ideas, your thoughts, your joys and sorrows to the world for the world to see, and comment on.  One of the downsides of having a blog is that often you feel obligated to blog, when you really don't want to, or really have nothing of earth-shattering importance to say.

This is one of those times.

It has, however, always baffled me why we hold law enforcement accountable when some despicable crime occurs, and, in hindsight, we discover the perpetrator had blogged about the crime only weeks before.  So ask yourself just how many blogs you follow?  How often do you search cyberspace for suspicious words or phrases that could lead to something dastardly? Or better yet, just how much more money are you willing to pour into law enforcement to give them the manpower and technology they need to patrol cyberspace, when we don't give them what they need to patrol the highways?

A recent Google of the word "hate" resulted in 722 million hits, neo-nazi - 3,800,000 (make that 3,800,001 after I post this), racist - nearly 68 million. How would you manage this? How would you want your Presidential candidate of choice this next year to address this?

Well, so much for my fifteen minutes of nothingness...

Until next time...

Here is a short video I would like you to watch:

This video captures the essence of everything Jesus was trying to tell people while He was walking among us.  When asked by the Scribe what was the greatest commandment, He gave two – To love the Lord with all your heart, with all your might, and with all your soul; and to love your neighbor as yourself. The bottom line is that as Christians, we are a part of the family of God.  As part of His family, we all have chores to do, and those chores are to reach out to others, both family members and non-family members with the same love, tolerance, and forbearance that Jesus Himself would show, and did show while He was here.

When we see something we think of as awful and ask God why He doesn’t do something about it, His only answer is, “I did – I put you there to help.” The video you just watched highlighted this exactly.  The truly Godly man on the island was the one who prayed, “Please answer all the prayers of the other man.” Jesus told us that our Father in heaven knows what we need, so if we have faith in that one thing, we can give ourselves to praying for others and reaching out to others.

Remember, when you are at your lowest, reach down, because God has placed you there to help someone who is lower than you.  Once you reach down to help that person, your Father will place His arm about your waist and lift you both up.

It is what it is

One of the things we have been hearing a lot lately is, "It is what it is". At first glance this seems to be a way of saying, "This is something we can not control or change, so it is not worth getting upset about". Okay, that would make sense, but it is not the end of it. "It is what it is" becomes an attitude all too quickly. Once it becomes an attitude, it saps your vitality, your energy, and your willingness to change - yourself and your world. At it's worse, "It is what it is" is a self-pitying, deprecating, piece of post-modern trash that tells you, "You don't matter; you can not effect change; you have no importance in your own life".

I have decided to reject this attitude at every level. The old prayer, "God, grant me the serenity to accept the things I cannot change, the courage to change the things I can, and the wisdom to know the difference" includes not beating your head against a stone wall, but it also includes accepting the challenge to dig under, climb over, or go around that stone wall; not to just sit on the ground moaning, "It is what it is".

Starting today I am standing in the gap against IIWII, and I am inviting you to join me in prayer to stand in this gap as well.
GS

Anoint your sword...

About two months ago, while attending Sunday morning services, the Lord spoke to me and said, "Anoint your sword for battle." That was it, no elaboration, no explanation, no further instructions. But perhaps it would be good to let you know that I do own a hand-and-a-half, battle-ready, broadsword. When I decided to purchase a blade, the options were pretty obvious. There were historical blades, replicas, display pieces, fantasy swords, you name it. But the more expensive blades were the ones marked "battle ready". Mine is hand forged and oil quenched and sharpened to a fine edge on both sides. It is truly "battle ready".

So when the Lord told me to "anoint my sword..." I took it literally, but did nothing.

The next Sunday while in service, the Lord spoke to me again. "Anoint your sword for battle." That was it - no further elaboration, explanation, or instruction. And believe me I certainly asked. Again I took no action. About mid-week, while driving to work and pondering these words, the Lord again spoke saying, "I will speak yet once again on Sunday. Pay attention because I am not going to say it again." Okay, that sounded pretty plain, so I thought I would get some further explanation.

The next Sunday - "Anoint your sword for battle." End of story. On the drive home I told my lovely bride about all this and her response was, "So what are you going to do?". Well, I got home, went into the library, took out my blade and my anointing oil, got on my knees in prayer, and anointed my sword.

The next week we were having lunch with a missionary friend of ours and I related the story to him. His response was that he wished he could see what was taking place in the heavenlies as I anointed my sword. I have received further instruction - that I was to mark my blade with my name and the Lord's word. So my blade is at the engravers being marked with "GapStander" and "Ezek. 22:30". After that I will find a time at the church when I can enter the sanctuary and present my blade and my self to my Lord and my King.

Not sure what will happen next, but it is sure to be an "E" ticket!

Later..
GS

Megatrends

One of the research groups I follow is Barna. Over the years I have found their research both insightful and concise. Testing their research, I have conducted my own surveys (on a very limited scale) with pre-teens I was teaching at the time and verified everything the Barna group had found on a much broader scale.

Now Barna has release their "Six Megathemes" for 2010. They are:

1. The Christian Church is becoming less theologically literate.
2. Christians are becoming more ingrown and less outreach-oriented.
3. Growing numbers of people are less interested in spiritual principles and more desirous of learning pragmatic solutions for life.
4. Among Christians, interest in participating in community action is escalating.
5. The postmodern insistence on tolerance is winning over the Christian Church.
6. The influence of Christianity on culture and individual lives is largely invisible.

Like most of Barna's work, this should serve as a wake-up call for the American Church, if it is not already too late.

Work cited

Barna Group. (2010). Six Megathemes Emerge From Barna Research Group for 2010. Retrieved December 14, 2010, from The Barna Group: http://www.barna.org/culture-articles/462-six-megathemes-emerge-from-2010

Screaming

I am going to change my position from staunch Republican to “moderate”. This last election (2008) was a turning point in American politics. Without precedence, we have suffered through the vitriol and venom of the last two years. Now we have the Left screaming that we need more entitlements, the Right screaming we need less government and the Tea Party screaming that “incumbent” is a four-letter word. Everywhere we have people screaming, but nowhere is anyone speaking in moderation and trying to move us in the proper direction.

Perhaps the biggest fallacy of the twentieth century was the passage of the Social Security Act. When the government tries to establish a ‘safety net’ for people, it cripples them. What the Act actually did was tell people, “The government is better able to take care of your family than you are”. This led people to the logical conclusion, “If the government is going to take care of my family, then I don’t need to”. Herein lays the rub – the government should not be taking care of the people – that is not in the Constitution. Provide for the common defense – that is in the Constitution. Promote the general welfare – that is in the Constitution. Establish justice, insure domestic tranquility – those are in the Constitution. However, we cannot find, “provide a safety net for all people” in the Constitution.
Unbelievably, even the Federal Government can spend their way into the poor house. Just look at Greece, the cradle of democracy. When the government tries to take care of everyone, then no one has the incentive to take care of themselves. When the government tries to provide for everyone, then no one exists to pay for that provision, which is exactly what happened in Greece. The biggest fallacy of the twenty-first century (so far) is that everyone is entitled to health care. The best health care in the world consists of keeping yourself healthy so that you never need health care. I am not downplaying the marvels of modern medicine, but there comes a point when you have to say, “This is none of the government’s business”.

Last night the Congress voted to re-instate the Death Tax. This means that when you die, everything you own for which you previously paid taxes will be taxed again at the rate of 55%. This new tax takes effect on January 1, 2011. I hope that after the mid-term elections this year, everyone will stop screaming and some voice of reason can be heard.

Dad

Just before my father died in July 1990, he told me, “I have always lived my life according to what I thought a man should do”. That statement did not really hit home with me until just recently. My first analysis of that statement did not take place until after the year 2000 when I took it apart and focused on the word “thought”. It was not about what he felt, or what he considered himself called to do, but what he thought a man should do; how he thought a man should be. Just recently, while working on a piece by William Faulkner and trying to find a codified copy of a guide to Southern Gentlemen did I discover a deeper meaning. My father was telling me that he learned what he learned, not from his father who died in 1936 when my Dad was only ten, but from the culture around him. Having grown up in the company of merchant seaman, his path could have been radically different. Instead, he learned, and I do not know from whom he learned, to take the best from everyone and to discard the rest. From the merchant seamen he took loyalty and a hard work ethic. From his Mother he took dogged determination. In addition, he took myriad qualities from thousands of sources to form what he “thought” a man should do.

This is when I knew the oral tradition is alive and well in 21^st Century America; or at least in 20^th Century America. He passed his oral traditions of what he thought to my brother and me over countless encounters on seemingly trivial subjects. While shucking corn to put in the freezer for the winter – “It’s okay to give out, just don’t give up.” On States’ Rights during the Civil Rights movement – “When you’re on the job, then the job goes to the best man and color doesn’t matter; but I don’t want the Federal government telling me who I have to socialize with”. This little bit of wisdom I saw personally played out dozens of times when I had the opportunity to work with my Dad during summers while I was in college. One time in particular I remember sitting in his office at a stone quarry in Alabama when a suit walked in from the Federal government without knocking (rude behavior) and threw a list on my Dad’s desk, informing him that he had to meet those quotas of racial equality on the job site.  My Dad scanned the list and then looked up and asked, “Will you help me inform my men about this?” When the visitor looked flustered and said he would, my Dad informed him, “Because I am going to have to fire three black men and two spics and replace them with white guys.” The suit about dropped his teeth, grabbed his sheet of paper and walked away. As far as I know, they never came back to that plant, at least not as long as Dad was there.

Other things he used to tell us, “You can learn something from every person you meet, and you can teach something to every person you meet.” “Never do anything less than your best.” “You can break the laws of man and possibly get away with it, but you cannot break the laws of God without it catching up with you.” Moreover, other things that I remember when I am not trying to remember things that are important. This oral tradition was passed on to me, got confused with the times (the 60’s and 70’s) and did not really come to fruition until I was in my late 30’s through early 50’s.

Getting Old

Spent about three hours last week in the back of a 1979 Cessna 185. It was a nice ride with a good pilot, but my body is just not made for the back seat of a small plane anymore. When I was a young man I could do things that were outside of the "routine" or even down-right abusive, and recoup in an hour or two.

Now I find when I do something outside "routine" it may take me days or even weeks to recover. I guess it is like my Dad used to say, "There's just something about that ol' routine." Anyway, taking this plane saved us (I was traveling with a collegue) over a day of travel, so we left on Thursday around noon and were back home for Friday night and the weekend.  Otherwise, we would have to have left on Wednesday morning at 0dark:30 and getting home by Friday night would have been iffy.

The best thing was watching the bears and whales and eagles as we traveled and seeing a part of the country that I had never seen before. Anyway, I thought I would share a short video with you that I made from the back seat.  Hope you enjoy.

Long Time

One of the things I have taken to looking at lately has been my "bucket list". As a young college student in Alabama we were asked to write down those things we wished to accomplish before we "kicked the bucket" and like the movie, this list was worked on, written down to complete the assignment, and then quickly forgotten, until; well, until the movie came out and I started looking at my life.

Two things I have been able to get off my list, and the third is in the making as we speak. I always wanted to go North of the Arctic Circle, and in March I got to visit Kotzebue, Alaska, which is 33 miles north of the Arctic Circle. I have a whole new appreciation for the caliber of people it takes to survive in the Arctic.

A second thing was to learn to tie my own fishing flies, and I knocked that one off the list this last week by taking a class at a local sports shop. I ties two Iliamna Pinkeys, two Egg-sucking leaches and two flesh flies.

A third thing was to fish in Alaska, and I have a trip planned for the end of July during my school break to do just that. So by and large, I am doing just fine with my bucket list.

And I have a lot of time left to get the rest of it done!

Busy Time

While it may appear that I have not been doing much lately, in fact I have been quite busy. We have a couple of major projects at work that have seen me traveling quite a bit and for a large part of the time I am in areas of the State that do not have Internet access. At least not Internet that I can access; let's put it that way.

But I have seen a lot of glaciers, waterfalls, mountain ranges and miles and miles and miles of tundra, so that has been fascinating. The Mendenhall Glacier outside of Juneau was great and I like traveling to Juneau and Fairbanks, but then they are fairly respectable cities as for size.

One thing I have learned when flying over large tracks of tundra in single engine planes - wool socks! I did not realize how much cold can be conducted through tactile touch with the floorboard of an airplane.  While the ride has been comfortable, my feet have frozen. Of course that could be a function of the stainless steel imbedded in my feet as much as from the cold.

At any rate, I will try to post a little more frequently. It looks like the traveling might be on the downhill slope for a while, so that will be a good thing.

Mendenhall Falls

So I had to spend some time in Juneau, and one of the State Troopers asked me if I had seen "the glacier".  I had not, so he insisted I drive up the valley and look.  Here is the video I took while I was there!  Enjoy!

Home From the Arctic

I got to spend a couple of days this week above the Arctic Circle in a little village called Kotzebue. It was definitely a different experience.  Although I have spent some time in Northern Europe, I have never been this far north before.  It has been on my "bucket list" for oh, 40 years or so, and now I have been there.

Kotzebue was white, stark, cold, and beautiful. I came away with a new level of respect for the people who reside north of the Arctic Circle in small villages, and a wonder akin to awe at the hardiness of the stock that settled the region before there were such things as gasoline, fuel oil, and thrice-daily flights bringing in supplies and sustenance.

Getting Away

Sometimes you have to take the bull by the horns and just run with it. That is how it happens in life and you have to make it that way in your marriage as well -- sometimes.  This was one of those times, so I made the plans and then let my lovely wife know she needed to put in for a Friday off; then I let our Pastors know that we would be gone on Sunday so someone else would have to teach; and I let the kids know I was taking their Mother out of town for a few days, so they were on their own.

And we ran away to Seward.

The trip was wonderful, the time together has been fabulous and the fact that Seward is largely a tourist town and it is the "off" season has made it even better.

The picture is of Resurrection Bay taken just outside the Sea Life Center here in Seward.  A picture does not do justice to the beauty and majesty that surrounds us.

Adventures are fun!

Mild Winter

It has really been a mild winter this winter, but I want to share with you a couple of photos from my cell phone.  This first one I called Freezing Fog because that is what happens when the fog rolls in and the temperature is in single digits.  It flocks literally everything, as you can see from this photo of a tree close to home.

This next picture shows how little snow we have gotten this year.  You can actually see the different layers which represent different snowfalls since October 1st. You can tell there have not been any really "big" snowfalls, but only come in 4" to 6" spurts.  Of course what you see has already been compressed by the cold. We have only received about 48" of snow this year, but it is compressed down to about 30".

 

Another One

I'm really beginning to like this guy!



Pass it on!

Too Good Not To Post

This is probably the most accurate "comedy" bit in a long time:



Pass it along!

Artic Grilling

This weekend I did what I like to do and threw some meat on the grill. Only difference is I live about 400 miles south of the Artic Circle and it was -1 outside while I was doing this. The thought occurred to me that I can not be the only idio - uh - enthusiast that grills under adverse weather conditions. Perhaps there are others out there that would like to share their tips, techniques, and possibly recipes with the world at large. Having said that I am putting together yet another blog which I shall call "Artic Grilling" - watch for it on your favorite search engine soon!

Problem Solved

Everyone around here was saying we did not have enough snow and it was not cold enough. Now they are saying...nothing. This week we have gotten a couple of feet of snow and today's high might reach zero - and it might not. The fun thing earlier was watching the little snow plows that take care of the sidewalks. Since Monday, these guys have been employed driving the big rigs trying to keep the streets and highways cleared. And they have done a fabulous job. This is truly a winter wonderland where every Christmas is a White Christmas.

Merry Christmas everyone!

Warm Snap

Probably the worst thing that can happen during the winter around here is a warm snap. The temps rise above freezing and you get rain instead of snow. This means that the ice on the ground is now covered with a wet sheen that really does not do well for tire traction (or for shoe traction for that matter). Couple that with the fact that you know in about 24 to 48 hours the temps are going to drop again, and you are going to have 300,000 square miles of an ice skating rink.

Not a good day!

How Men Fail

In the course of our daily lives, or at least that part of our daily life that passes as our livelihood, we are called upon to make many decisions. Granted, the majority of us are not in those occupations where our decisions could cause someone to loose their life, and this entry does not apply to them anyway.

But the rest of us make many decisions, some small, some not so, during the course of our livelihood. When faced with such a decision, logic would dictate that the more information that was obtained, the better the decision would be. Albeit some decisions must meet a time constraint, a lot of decisions, sometimes affecting millions of dollars, are not time-constrained, and the more information the better. Alas, this does not happen. We listen to a plethora of information, but not from a plethora of sources. It would seem that if we take the time to contact and solicit a plethora of sources, then we would be perceived as weak, or unable to make a decision on our own. So what happens (sometimes) is we listen (a lot) to sales people who tell us all the wonderful attributes of the product we are looking at and either do not mention (or do not know) those wonderful idiosyncratic things that will make the product practically useless to us.

After the product is purchased and the monies expended, the first thing that pops up are, yep, you guessed it, the idiosyncrasies. Now we have the choice of spending even more money (which will make us look bad), or saying, "We messed up" which will make us look worse. So we attempt to push the blame onto the ineptitude of others by saying things like, "you didn't implement this correctly", or, "it wasn't installed correctly", when all the while, we just didn't have the information we needed to make the decision before us in a purely logical manner.

So somewhere down the road, we are left with, "Houston, we have a problem"...

Live large!