A View from the Top

I saw some pictures of Egypt that my friends has posted. They had recently traveled there for a vacation. They had the typical tourist photos of the Pyramids of Giza, the Sphinx, and the riding of camels. Some of the shots were of them with the pyramids in the background. It was really enjoyable to see. I have often imagined myself a world traveler, but I seem to like the comforts of the good old USA. Also, I am not as much of a risk taker as I would like to believe. I like hanging out in the great Northwest.


So my friends were visiting and standing next to one of the Seven Wonders of the Ancient World. In fact, these pyramids are the only one of those wonders that remains intact. Here they are, visiting structures that may have been built around 2560 BC. Amazing! Especially when you think that Moses himself may have seen them. The Great Pyramid standing 480 feet high along with the two other famous ones. Oh, and don’t forget the Sphinx watching guard. It looks powerful, even if it is without nose. All of that, out there in the deserts of Egypt.

I imagined myself, traveling on the back of a camel through the sands of Northern Africa until I finally arrive at my destination. I imagine myself catching the first glimpse of the pyramids on that arid horizon. I imagine myself, standing in awe as I dismount from my ride and finally see them up close and in person. What a sight! And to think that other people have seen them as well for the past 4500 years or so!

But, I was awakened rudely from my fantasy when I just saw a picture on the news about them. It was an aerial view of the pyramids. The article was about finding lost tombs using an infrared technique from space. That is not what startled me. It was the photograph of the pyramids. It appeared as though there were modern neighborhoods just yards from these massive ancient wonders. Only about 500 yards away. It looked totally different.

As I Google mapped them and measured the distance, and then compared that distance with my house and the surrounding neighborhood, here is what I have learned. From my house to the McNary High School building is the same distance of the Great Pyramid to that modern Egyptian community. I am as close to Roth’s IGA as I would be if I were staying at one of those houses in Egypt gazing upon that Sphinx. In fact, there is even a modern paved parking lot close to one of the pyramids.

I cannot express my disappointment because of this revelation. But it made me think of how many times have I made the same mistake when it comes to people or situations that I have observed. Sometimes, we make judgment based solely upon one “snapshot” or one angle of that “snapshot”.

Some people appear to be one way, but upon further observation, or from an aerial inspection, are completely different than originally viewed,  be it good or bad.

My point is this; I do not want to be observed as somebody or something that I am not. I also do not want to give the image or ‘snapshot” of being something o someone that I am not. I have a completely different view of who I am in my imagination. I would like to think that I am super spiritual, whatever that means, and I have myself and life all figured out.

The truth is that I am on this journey just like you are. I believe, but I need help in my “unbelief”. I am confident and yet sometimes fearful. I hope, but sometimes doubt. I run but sometimes fall. I want to be spirit willing but sometimes I am flesh weak. But I trust Him. And I claim Christ crucified and alive again.

Do me a favor. Check out all of the views before you make a conclusion. Sometimes we don’t initially see all there is both good and not so good. Sometimes “objects in mirror are closer than they appear”. And sometimes they are not.

The Day After

So, this past Saturday found me doing the same things that I always do. And, a little bit more. No doubt that there was an uneasiness in me. When the news of a dramatic end of the world is supposed to happen, one’s mind will be somewhat occupied by the possibility.


Now, while my head knew that it was not going to happen, and while my heat kept giving me assurances of His salvation, there was, I admit, in both my head and heart, flutters of “what if?”. And I am sure that I was not alone in that.

After waking up on that morning, I followed my routine and made a pot of coffee. I then went to the computer and went on the Internet. I read the news, got caught up on Facebook, and yes, I Googled the current earthquake status. Periodically, a news feed would pop up in reference to the potential apocalypse and non-apocalypse, as it were.

So, with a sense of peace in my heart, but with a twinge of concern, I find myself drinking my coffee and checking up on the news on this beautiful and calm Saturday morning. And then I hear it. Outside our house, there is music playing.

And the lyrics to this song I am hearing is this, “The Lord told Noah there is gonna be a floody, floody; the Lord told Noah there is gonna be a floody, floody. Now get those animals out of the muddy, muddy.”

I am not going to lie, listening to that song “Children of the Lord” on that particular Saturday outside my house caught my attention. Irony is a funny thing, and sometimes it’s a little cruel.

“When outside my house there arose such a clatter,
I sprang from my chair to see what was the matter.”

There, driving by my house was a float of Noah and the Ark. And the animals, two by two. And the music blaring. Wow!

Our town was having on this day it’s annual Iris Festival, and we live by the school where the participants gather for the parade. Good one God!, I thought.

I am not going to “pick on” or mock those who believed and even taught that the end was that day. I’m not going to judge those people who are upset with them. I do not know if they were “deceivers” or they just got deceived.

I am, however, going to keep pressing on. I am going to keep sharing the fact that “Jesus Saves”. I am going to “rise and shine and (wooo) give God the glory, glory.”

And you can too, all you “children of the Lord”.

Old Fashioned Comfort

Putting our boy to bed Monday night, we could tell that he wasn’t feeling well. So we gave him a little medicine and, thankfully, he slept through the night. Tuesday was a whole different story.


He woke up crying. It was not a mad, sad, angry, not getting my way, or I need attention cry. This was more like a moaning and wailing type of cry. Before my wife went to work, she told me that it might be a good idea to give him a bath. This would get him clean, but also wash off any dander in case it is allergies. We are still not sure if the season change affects him in this way or not.

So since he was still in bed, I got his bath drawn. He was being very whiney at this time. I asked him if he wanted a bath. “No bath”, he replied. I asked him if he wanted juice. “No juice”. I asked about breakfast, milk, TV, and getting up. “No breakfast”. “No milk”. “No TV”. “No up”. It was going to be a long day.

He then asked for his plastic duck in the most helpless voice he could muster. So, I gave him his duck. He then whimpered and pointed to his Edison the talking alphabet caterpillar. I submitted to his request. Now, Edison is a good learning tool, but to be honest, sometimes he gets annoying. I long for the day when he turns into Edison the butterfly and flies out the window to start his new life.

So I am getting my teary eyed, not feeling good boy out of his pajamas for his bath and he is sobbing in that “everything hurts” kind of way. Once he got into the tub, his demeanor started to improve. The soothing water made a definite change in his countenance. So, with him in the tub, I went into the kitchen to refill my coffee cup. It is nice that, at this age, he can be in there without the 24/7 watchful eye and paranoia as when he was younger.

Coming back down the hall heading into the bathroom, he points to the water and says in his falsetto voice, “Poop”. And I thought to myself, “what a wonderful world”. Upon further inspection, it turns out that he had just made bubbles. Whew! Bullet dodged. We have been working on potty training him and his awareness is good news, but I wasn’t in the mood to do any haz-mat today.

Washing his hair caused more trauma, complete with tears and painful sniveling. Drying him off and dressing him for the day provided no relief for the boy. It is sad when Dad can’t fix the problem.

For most of the morning, he moped around. He wasn’t being bad, but he just couldn’t seem to feel comfortable in his own skin. He drank some juice but he didn’t want to eat anything. After a bit, he goes into his room and grabs his blanket and wraps it around him and sits on the floor drawing with his Magna-doodle.

The next thing I see is my sickly little boy on the floor with his blanket covering him. Now this is not unusual as he does this quite a bit. Sometimes he will play “nap”. I asked him if he was tired and would he like to take a nap in his bed, ant the reply was “No nap”. So, I head back to the kitchen for a refill.

Seconds later, I hear snoring. There on the floor, my boy, is taking a nap.

Rather than risking waking him up, I just left him there, sawing logs. And there he slept. In fact, he woke up minutes before T. came home from work. This was her first sight of him for the day, with mussed up hair, rosy red cheeks, the sniffles, and slightly “ferhoodled”.

It was a long day for me, as every attempt to care for him fell short of satisfaction for the boy. So my wife, grabs his blanket, his bear, scoops up the boy and sits on the couch, curling him up in her lap. He cuddles tightly next to her and slowly falls into the most restful sleep ever.

I tried all I could to appease, repair, control, and remedy the situation, but to no avail. The fix was in the arms of Mommy.

Sometimes, a kid just needs their mom.

Death of a Dream

When is it time to give up on your dream? There is, unfortunately, a time to let it go. You have hoped, planned, invested, sweated and bled to make it happen, to make it come true, but alas, to no avail.


Over and over again, you are told, “never give up on your dream”. Over and over again, you are told, “if it is meant to be, persevere, and it will happen”. Over and over again, you are told, “you can do anything if you put your mind to it”.

But you, you never gave up, you persevered to let it happen, and you put your mind to it, and you have not seen your dream come to pass. You watch and hear of others accomplish and see their dreams materialize, but your ship is not in sight. Nothing is knocking at your door.

What should you do? When is it time to give up on your dream? You have poured out all you have time and time again, and you are not seeing any progress on you dream achievement. And you are being constantly disappointed, disillusioned, and frustrated. But all you hear in your head is, “never give up, keep going, it will happen”. Friend, maybe it is time. Time to let it go.

You have permission to give up on your dream because, sometimes, it will never come true. No matter how much effort you put into it. Let it die. Let it go.

Now, giving up and letting your dream go doesn’t mean that you are a quitter, a failure or a loser. How much should you invest before you are just wasting time, energy, and yes, even money? Sometimes, you have to stop putting money into an old “beater” of a car, because no matter what you do, it will still not work very well.

So, give it up and let it go. But don’t think for a minute that everything is over. It doesn’t mean that there are no dreams left for you. On the contrary, there are plenty. Just because one dream dies, doesn’t mean they all died. So, go ahead, pick up a new one.

You see, if your arms are full of a “going nowhere dream”, it is going to be very difficult for you to pick up and grab another dream. Your life isn’t over and you haven’t failed as long as there are still dreams out there. You only lose if you refuse to go and select a new dream. So, dream on.

Lead, or Get Out of the Way

So, I went to a youth student conference in Vancouver this weekend. We took four girls and one boy from our church. My wife and another worker S. were managing the young ladies. I was responsible for the guy.


When the first session ended at 11 pm, we drove to a local church where we were to spend the night. It was only a half-mile away from the conference building. It is a nice thing that churches by providing free sleeping accommodations for the teenagers and youth workers.

Our tiny group of two men shared a Sunday School room turned into an European style hostel with a church from Washington The ladies were in a larger room with the girls from that same group.  As near as I could tell, the other group was comprised of twelve boys with two adult workers. Make that three.

Now here is the reason for my confusion. From the time we arrived at 11 until about 12:15, all I saw was twelve to fifteen boys, plus twenty five girls running, with what I can only say was, a muck. Not a leader in sight from the other group, unless you count the twenty something guy that stood quietly in place as still as the British Royal guard at his post. Missing only, of course was the big furry hat. But he wasn’t budging. And chaos was ensuing.

Now, here it is, 11:30 pm in a church parking lot, on a busy stretch of road, with houses behind. And there are students from the 6th grade through the 11th grade, from other towns in the Northwest, yelling, throwing footballs, running, skateboarding throughout the parking lot in pitch black darkness.  Twice I heard sirens. Thought they were coming for us.

Then at about 12:15am their other leaders arrived with eight party pack boxes from Taco Bell. Really? Taco Bell?  Hear me when I say that I not at all opposed to “fourth meal”, but with middle schoolers and their innards combined with greasy beef and bean Mexican fast food topped with 12:30 in the early AM, that will have only one very unpleasant result.

So, we huddled into our rooms at about 1:00am for a long restful slumber of 6 hours, if, and only if, sleep comes now. Which, of course, didn’t happen. My guy and I have, at this point, placed our sleeping bags in the only spot left.

The other group had spread out through the entire room with sleeping bags, backpacks, I-pods, and their tacos and bean burritos. And for the next half hour, I see the “leaders” of the other group mosey into the room one by one. With each one, I extend a hand and offer awkward introductions.

As I observe the young people in their element, which includes dropping taco meat in their sleeping bags, throwing a rubber ball with extreme inaccuracy, and singing loudly to a song with a verse that ends with “in between the sheets”.

At this point I hear British Royal guard guy say softly, “that’s inappropriate”. Another leader came in and placed his sleeping bag on the couch and immediately went to bed. Not peep one from him.  In fact, the only other sound from those “leaders” was after a teen from his group made a loud and lengthy expulsion from his backside. The “leader” said, “Billy, that was a gnarly one”.

I found another room where I could hunker down for the duration, because I am far too old to be on the frontlines of chemical warfare. Our group leaders had to, at times, be Mama and Papa Bear and put an end to the late hour talking.

And as everybody started to drift off to sleep in that one o’clock hour, Taco Bell began to kick in.  I went to sleep after two and was up at six. Slept like a baby. I woke up every hour and a half and wanted to be held and fed.

So at six, I was getting ready for the day. Since there was no shower at the church, I cleaned up and washed my hair in the bathroom sink. When you were in the army, you learned how to wash up using our helmet. I was not in the army and I don’t owned a helmet, but I did it anyway.  After everybody in our group woke up, we packed up, went to breakfast, and then we were off to the rest of the conference. Which was great.

With the observance of the obvious ineptness of that leadership, I realized this. People will not naturally do what is right and good. We make the assumption that teenagers, including Christian teens, will make the right choice and follow the way that they should go. That is just not the case. They need direction. They need leaders who will lead and not be on the sidelines. And those leaders were that night on the sideline.  Now before I get all sanctimonious and pick up rocks to throw at them, I didn’t even help my one guy roll up his sleeping bag. Sigh.

Here is what happens to children from eight years old to twelve years old. It is at that time that parents will lose their position of influence over their kids. Let me repeat that. . It is at that time (between 8 and 12), that parents will lose their position of influence over their kids. It begins to switch to peers.  Part of the reason may be that we quit leading them and start telling them. Influence, however, moves on. Somebody or something is influencing them be it media, music, curriculum, friends, or celebrities. They are following something. And somebody is leading them.
It might as well be us. Those who believe. Be a leader.