Road Trip

I know I just got back from a trip to the Holy Land, but I am afraid it's time to hit the road again. This time the destination is not quite so easy to pin down on a map. Perhaps you've heard of places like Scottsdale, and Scotts Bluff. Well I am off in search of the mythical place known as Scott's Hips.

Many people travel to foreign lands to find themselves. As I embark on this journey, it is my goal to lose (at least part of) myself, regardless of what else I may find along the way. While I can vaguely recall having seen Scott's Hips before, it was long ago when I was just a sprig. I am afraid that my memory of it has faded over time. In fact, I have yet to run across a single living soul who can accurately recall what Scott's Hips even looked like :(

I am told that if this place still exists, it is best found on a simple bicycle. How fortunate! With gasoline prices having reached a point where the cost of operating a motor vehicle is in the neighborhood of 20 to 25 cents a mile (five miles for a dollar!), we live in times where every road has become a toll road. I find it to be very good news indeed that I can search for Scott's Hips to my heart's content and stay out of those high-priced neighborhoods altogether. Considering it therefore to be a sound investment, I have done my research and purchased a worthy machine.

So wish me luck as I take to the road this summer on a quest to find that piece of my past which may be present in the future (sorry). I am told that while it may not be easy, and may take a bit of time -- the longer I look, the clearer Scott's Hips will appear. I hope I am up to the challenge.

Trip to Israel

I just recently spent some time in Israel on a tour which was hosted by Insight for Living. More than 600 of us walked, climbed, crawled, and peered through many of the more famous sights Israel has to offer. We had the opportunity to listen to Chuck Swindoll preach on multiple occasions at various holy, and some not so holy sites. Chuck had a lot of very good and appropriate messages over the two weeks we traveled and worshipped together. Oddly, though, perhaps the most profound thing that he said may have been that which he cautioned on our last night together.

Clearly many of us will go back to churches where the pastor may not have had the opportunity and the privilege to visit Israel and see the sights that we have seen. Knowing this, he wisely cautioned that if we happen to come across a statement made by a pastor or someone else in authority in our church that we know to be different from what our pastor claims -- because we have been there; because we have seen it with our own eyes and he has not -- that we might be wise to take it easy on whoever that might be. How easy it would be to come back brimming with "Christosterone" and be the Christian bully at our church. Hopefully that is not why I am writing today. Hopefully God will grant me the grace to avoid that trap in the years to come. Of course since Chuck is the pastor at Stonebriar Community Church, the church that I attend, I don't have the luxury of pulling rank on him. Few could. But I imagine it would be a temptation to do so with just about anyone else. That said, hopefully I have 'called myself out" before the fact, and can therefore avoid that horrible trap.


I am still sorting through my pictures from the trip. I guess this is as good of a place as any to post them. I don't want to clutter things up with a pile of pictures, so I am thinking about how best to post them that will still be easy on the eyes. They should be scattered in over the next couple of days along with some of the stories of my trip.

Long forgotten

When I posted the first (and only) post to this site a little over a year ago I watched it for a few days and never saw a comment or any hint that anyone had even noticed. Perhaps this is something all, or at least most bloggers experience. Either way, the experience left me a bit deflated. Testimony to that is the fact that I basically went off and forgot about this site. In fact, I really hadn't thought much about it until the name of my blog popped up only recently when I signed in to another blog to leave a comment.

A lot has happened in this past year. In fact, there is quite a bit that I have wanted to say, but just haven't -- even if it is to no one. I realize now that it was a bit naive to think, "If you write it, they will come", but on the other hand, this is more socially acceptable than talking to yourself. So perhaps I will dust off the site and take another stab at making a noise in the great abyss.