Saturday, October 16, 2004


Here is a soldier stationed in Iraq, stationed in a big sand box.
He asked his wife to send him dirt, fertilizer and some grass seeds so he can have the sweet aroma and feel the grass grow beneath his feet. If you notice, he is even cutting the grass with a pair of a scissors. Sometimes we are in such a hurry that we don't stop and think about the little things that we take for granted. Upon receiving this, please say a prayer for our soldiers that give (and give up) so unselfishly for us.
 Posted by Hello

Thursday, October 14, 2004


Saw this at www.watersedge.tv and it made me think of revolution...soul revolution. Forget the former things, behold new things are springing forth. Will you not perceive it?
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Our God is an all consuming fire. This last Wednesday was a furnace of fire at New Generation youth church. God is birthing the promise of dreams, prayers and the sowing of tears. You could sense His eyes of fire searching hearts and igniting new passion and hot fervor in cold hearts. It was awesome...an epicenter for sure and the rumblings are continuing to be felt...
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Pure Defiance


I don't know what it means for others, but a follower of Jesus Christ, what it means to live on the edge is to stand at the epicenter of where the kingdom of God confronts the kingdom of darkness. When evil raises its ugly head, taunting God and tormenting the weak, the adventurer rises up and moves toward the challenge.

You can not advance the kingdom of God with people who are in retreat.

No phobia, no fear, just pure defiance...leaning forward , seizing the divine moments, advancing the kingdom of God. -Erwin McManus Posted by Hello

You may die this week...

Too many people put off something that brings them joy just because they haven't thought about it, don't have it on their schedule, didn't know it was coming or are too rigid to depart from their routine.

I got to thinking one day about all those women on the Titanic who passed up dessert at dinner that fateful night in an effort to cut back. From then on, I've tried to be a little more flexible.

How many women out there will eat at home because their husband didn't suggest going out to dinner until after something had been thawed? Does the word "refrigeration" mean nothing to you?

How often have your kids dropped in to talk and sat in silence while you watched 'Jeopardy' on television?

I cannot count the times I called my sister and said, "How about going to lunch in a half hour?" She would gas up and stammer, "I can't. I have clothes on the line. My hair is dirty. I wish I had known yesterday, I had a late breakfast, It looks like rain." And my personal favorite: "It's Monday." .She died a few years ago. We never did have lunch together.

Because Americans cram so much into their lives, we tend to schedule our headaches.. We live on a sparse diet of promises we make to ourselves when all the conditions are perfect!

We'll go back and visit the grandparents when we get Stevie toilet-trained. We'll entertain when we replace the living-room carpet. We'll go on a second honeymoon when we get two more kids out of college

Life has a way of accelerating as we get older. The days get shorter, and the list of promises to ourselves gets longer. One morning, we awaken, and all we have to show for our lives is a litany of "I'm going to," "I plan on," and "Someday, when things are settled down a bit."

When anyone calls my 'seize the moment' friend, she is open to adventure and available for trips. She keeps an open mind on new ideas. Her enthusiasm for life is contagious. You talk with her for five minutes, and you're ready to trade your bad feet for a pair of Rollerblades and skip an elevator for a bungee cord.

My lips have not touched ice cream in 10 years. I love ice cream. It's just that I might as well apply it directly to my stomach with a spatula and eliminate the digestive process. The other day, I stopped the car and bought a triple-decker. If my car had hit an iceberg on the way home, I would have died happy.

Now...go on and have a nice day. Do something you WANT to......not something on your SHOULD DO list. If you were going to die soon and had only one phone call you could make, who would you call and what would you say? And why are you waiting?

Have you ever watched kids playing on a merry go round or listened to the rain lapping on the ground? Ever followed a butterfly's erratic flight or gazed at the sun into the fading night? Do you run through each day on the fly? When you ask "How are you?" Do you hear the reply?

When the day is done, do you lie in your bed with the next hundred chores running through your head? Ever told your child, "We'll do it tomorrow." And in your haste, not see his sorrow? Ever lost touch? Let a good friendship die? Just call to say "Hi"?

When you worry and hurry through your day, it is like an unopened gift....Thrown away.... Life is not a race. Take it slower. Hear the music before the song is over. (I recieved this from a friend in a FW email)

Wednesday, October 13, 2004


O God, you have taught me from my youth.
I have constantly told others about the wonderful things you do.
Now that I am old and gray, do not abandon me, O God. Let me proclaim your power to this new generation, Your mighty miracles to all who come after me.
-Psalms 71:15-18
This is one of my favorite pictures of my buddy Scott. Your day is dawning my brother... Posted by Hello

My brother Marc on the left, me and Fred, my Dad on the right. It is one of my favorite pictures of us. Posted by Hello

There is no fear in love; but perfect love casts out fear, because fear involves punishment, and the one who fears is not perfected in love. -1 John 4:18
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Monday, October 11, 2004


Micah and his pumpkin. Posted by Hello

This pumpkin swallowed Alicia's arm...
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Christian get's all industrial on his pumpkin. Posted by Hello

Austin Digging for pumpkin guts...I don't know what it is about my boys, they are always running around without shirts, even though it's mid October! Posted by Hello

The Blauers carving pumpkins. It's amazing no one severs a limb when we do this... Posted by Hello

Sunday, October 10, 2004


For now we see through a glass darkly...now I know in part. -1 Corinthians 13:12 Posted by Hello

truth in my hand...


If I held truth captive in my hand, I should open my hand and let it fly,
in order that I might again pursue and capture it.
-Malebranche.

Old truths are always new to us, if they come with the smell of heaven on them.
-John Bunyan

Truth, as humanity knows it, is not what the schoolmen call it, one and indivisible;
it is like light, and splits not only into elementary colors, but into innumerable tints.
Truth with Raphael is not the same as truth with Titian;
truth with Shakespeare is not the same as truth with Milton;
truth with St. Xavier is not the same as truth with Luther;
truth with Pitt is not the same as truth with Fox.
Each man takes from life his favorite truth,
as each man takes from light is favorite color.
-Bulwer
Posted by Hello

A rent in the soul.

The habit of using words which belong to a higher state of feeling and experience than we ourselves have attained to, deadens the sense of truth, and causes a dismal rent in the soul.  Guesses at truth

Saturday, October 09, 2004

Writing in sand....


I have uttered what I did not understand, things too wonderful for me, which I did not know...Therefore I abhor myself and repent in dust and ashes. -Job 42:3,6 Posted by Hello

The older I get and the more I preach, the more I get an eerie feeling that I too will share Job's epitaph.
The closer you get to the sun the more blind you become.
Darkness not light begins to take over.
You begin to understand less and question more.

I find more solace and familiarity in Jesus writing in sand than Moses rock hewn revelation.
I feel like I am trying too hard to explain the Holy and in my attempts to capture it...I scare it away.
Truth is the lizard and I stand holding it's tail.

I'm tiring of messages because I find myself feeling like I'm going to end up setting fire to most of it at some point anyway. Dust and ashes...was all Job could say after seeing for the first time.
I think I will have two words to whisper in awe and holy fear when I see face to face...I repent.

LOL...not sure what John Kerry is doing in this photo but a few things do come to mind after seeing the last two debates...thanks to www.captainsquartersblog.com for the picture. Posted by Hello

Friday, October 08, 2004


Peace Through Superior Firepower..is what the t-shirt says. It made the conservative side of me laugh.
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Wine will pour from the hills...


The Lord says, "The time is coming when there will be all kinds of food. People will still be harvesting crops when it's time to plow again. People will still be taking the juice from grapes when it's time to plant again. Wine will drip from the mountains and pour from the hills.
I will bring my people Israel back from captivity; they will build the ruined cities again, and they will live in them. They will plant vineyards and drink the wine from them; they will plant gardens and eat their fruit.
I will plant my people on their land, and they will not be pulled out again from the land which I have given them," says the Lord your God. -Amos 9:13-15

Eat, friends, and drink, until you are drunk with love. -Song of Songs 5:1

What a prophesy...my heart is moved with the dream of a community that is drunk with love. A people fragrant with holy spices. I long for the table to be overflowing with harvest. A harvest of real joy, lives that share the same cup and eat the same bread and a love communion of heart, mind and soul.

I pray for such a table, a time, a vineyard to grow up among us.
Posted by Hello

Thursday, October 07, 2004

I don't know what to do with my life...


The late Henri Nouwen (Photo Above) once said, "Joy is the result of our choices."
Few choices affect our joy more than deciding how to invest your talents in a career and sometimes deciding rightly seems like a burdensome thing.

The Talmud, the body of Jewish law, tells an illustrative story of Akiba, who on his deathbed worried aloud to his rabbi that he was a failure. His rabbi moved closer and asked why and Akiba confessed that he had not lived a life like Moses. The poor man began to cry, admitting he feared God's judgment. At this, his rabbi leaned into his ear and whispered gently, "God will not judge Akiba for not being Moses.
God will judge Akiba for not being Akiba."

Your destiny is written in your only-ness. You are the only person ever to possess your unique blend of natural skills, temperament, experiences, and spiritual sensibilities. Observe your uniqueness and understand it. Be awake and attentive to the message God is sending you through the way you are knit together, then give it all back to the Lord. Remember the little boy who brought his loaves and fishes to Jesus, who then used them to feed the five thousand; in the same way, bring your loaves and fishes and offer them for their proper use to be multiplied for the kingdom's sake.

Theologian Frederick Buechner described your calling this way:

"The kind of work God usually calls you to is the kind of work that you need most to do and that the world most needs to have done. The place God calls you is the place where your deep gladness and the world's deep hunger meet."

Like Chariot of Fire's Eric Liddell, who felt God's pleasure when he ran fast, your gladness originates in doing what you love to do and are gifted to do well. Celebrate your talents, and then develop and express them in your work. -Dick Staub
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Tuesday, October 05, 2004

We suck...?


Found this T-shirt here.
I wouldn't wear it but I like the reverse marketing strategy.
Too many churches spend too much time, energy and people's hard earned cash trying to hype up their image. It's all dung. It weaves a cord that will eventually hang you. It's a fine line between getting the word out and blowing your own horn. A good restaurant gets packed out by word of mouth more than anything...not an ad in the paper.
Posted by Hello

Give Him Wild Honey

He said to them, "Have you any food here?"
So they gave him some honeycomb.
And He took it and ate in their presence.
-Luke 24:41-43

I've been meditating on the imagery of wild honey within my prayer and worship times.
I keep finding myself drawn to the passion of Song of Songs.
I've been dancing between the lover and the beloved's description of finding honey under each others lips.

"Your lips drop sweetness like the honeycomb..."
"I have eaten my honey..."
"Eat, friends, and drink, until you are drunk with love..."
(SoS 4:11, 5:1)

My heart cries this U2 lyric from "Wild Honey:
I send you flowers
Cut flowers for your hall
I know your garden is full
But is there sweetness at all?

One of the most haunting words of Jesus are when He said that in the last days men's love would grow cold. I feel we are in the days of cold love. My heart battles succumbing to the slow freeze of our times. As The Divine Lover said through the prophet Jeremiah: "I remember the unfailing devotion of your youth, the love of your bridal days..."-Jeremiah 2:1.

lately I have found and given "wild honey" and it's been sweet.



Monday, October 04, 2004


LOL! Too funny...thanks to Dave for the pic. Posted by Hello

Saturday, October 02, 2004


What an awesome CD this is. For some reason I really like the song "Wild Honey" and I love "Grace" as well, I'm thinking about using that one in a communion time. Posted by Hello

The thrill and danger of it all...


What would be the state of the highways of life, if we did not drive our thought-sprinklers through them, with valve open, sometimes? -Holmes

My Dad sent me this quote and I thought it really captured the truth of these last few years for me. I have been blessed to enter a season of life where the narrow constraints of man made religion and social conditioning have been graciously unlocked and old chains that have fettered my mind have fallen away or are loosening.

It's been a strange journey, it often feels like exploring a cave. There is something about discovering a great underground tunnel that you never knew was there. Spelunking is dangerous but one of the most exhilarating experiences too. Discovery has an adrenaline rush to it but it has a price to it as well.

Sometimes you get so far in that you have to determine (more like debate) whether going back or pressing on is the greater drive. At that moment you teeter on the line between excitement and fear, trepidation and courage. I'm there more often than not these days...
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The Man Hole is continually evolving thanks to some quality acquisitions from our recent youth rummage sale. Nice 70's hanging glass lamp, large farm picture, chairs for the table, black/white TV, another lamp, barometer/tempertaure gauge, old radio with clock, book shelf, wood case with new poker chips and cards. Now I just need to find an old man Hole to hang up in the room.
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Friday, October 01, 2004

9-11 photos

Here are a bunch of tragic 9-11 photos, many that I have never seen.
Thanks to Hugh for the link.

Kramer makes me laugh. I can't wait for the DVD to come out.  Posted by Hello