Youth Pastor for the Rock Church in Monroe, WA Travis Warren is living on top of a trailer until the trailer is filled with Thanksgiving Dinners!! He is at the Monroe Albertsons parking lot. Cant miss him!!!
My humble and sincere thanks to all veterans who have served to keep my country and my liberties safe. My heart goes out to all of you, especially to those who have made serious sacrifices. While I go about my daily business and snuggle down safe and sound in my bed, many of you are guarding a wall, battling with the enemy, or rescuing people off rooftops during a natural disaster. Some of you are tipping your last-call glasses of beer down in the halls of the American Legion or the Veterans of Foreign Wars. Your time of service has passed, yet a part of you lives always in the men and women who now serve. Some of you are praying, alone or in groups, that all sons and daughters, wives and husbands, brothers and sisters, and parents are home by the next Veterans Day. You know He can grant your prayers, but it's unlikely given the evil in the world.
Many of you will march in parades -- some of you will be escorted in your wheelchairs -- and be either encouraged by the numbers of people who gather and wave flags along the parade route or disappointed by the numbers, which seem to dwindle more each year. But you should know that the intensity of pride and sincerity of gratitude from just a few who gather are much richer, fuller, and sweeter than all the speeches, blog posts,and five-minute clips on the late news hours.
Some of you are homeless. We can argue about whether you are crazy or on drugs or a victim of the recession or whatever it is that makes you chronically without shelter, but I am at a loss as to how this could happen in my country. With the billions of dollars we borrowed from the Chinese to give to banks and companies who turned around and thumbed their noses at us while they got massages and played golf at an exotic resort, we couldn't spare a couple or three to shelter people who, conscientiously or not, went and stood in the way of bullets when others did not? I apologize to you, for both looking the other way and not being sincere enough to promise you I will not do it again. But I know that you sacrifice to this day for what you did for your country and I live in the grace of your sacrifice.
Some of you are recuperating in a hospital, trying to recover physically, mentally, or spiritually. Some of you are being taken care of by people who care about you, and some of you were forced to endure deplorable conditions at a military hospital, where people were supposed to care for you and try to make you whole as possible, in the name of the American people whom you served. I cannot understand this breach of faith and I'm angered by it, as I believe other Americans were, but like other government-run horror shows it appears to have been easy to sweep under the rug.
I am one of those people who get a lump in their throat when they see an American flag backlit by the sun's rays. A sucker for icons, I get it when anyone plays the national anthem, even though I love "America the Beautiful" a thousand times better, or a color guard comes out onto a baseball field, or some jets fly over a memorial. The arresting sight of a string of motorcycle guards heading to a funeral to protect a grieving family from a bunch of evil nutcase protesters from a Topeka church makes me want to pull in line and follow them to their destination.
But I get downright weepy when I walk through the tombstones of Jefferson Barracks National Cemetery, whether they mark the graves of Civil War soldiers, entire crews of planes shot down in World War II, or soldiers from other conflicts. And, even though some of the graves are for World War II and Vietnam vets from my own family, the the saddest to me are the newer graves of people who have died in recent wars.
I mourn those men and women who kept the wolf at bay.
And thank those who today still keep it from my door.
Are you prepared in case of a natural disaster? What do your plan and preparations include?
oh crap no...
yes, i live in Florida, it's the Lightening capitol of the US. We also regularly have hurricanes.
I don't even have one working flashlight. No extra food....nothing...
But lucky for me hurricane season is pretty much almost over, some rain from Ida and then the dry season will come on full force.
There is a photo contest at my Job (for the entire 7 hospital system). I'd like to enter, but I am not sure I have anything really great. My choices are:
The Gator. People like the color I was able to capture, and the reflection and the way the water looks....
The Frog which is a nice color study...and surprising...but doesnt everyone have this photo in one form or another...
Dragon fly, but his wings happen to be well used....a fact of life....
I need to decide the deadline is November 10. I have a ton of photos. They need to be non imflammatory type pictures as it is the religious hospital....but I mostly do wildlife, sooooo...
Which ones are good...
this is actually a Sun Rise....I like the dark and orangey contast.
With Digital Photography, I think the average photographer has become very skilled, given that any of us can fire off 40 shots, without the fear of wasting 40 things of film....so I think competition is fierce..not only does it have to be
perfectly in focus, and not have a lot of distractors. the composition of the image should also be good, which is sometimes hard for me, like the stick in the background of the Frog, its hard to crop out and there was no way I could move it....
Plus its hard to tell what judges are going to like, dislike.....
Sooooo..... what do you all think????
A one year old boy, who could have a tracheotomy, be taken home from the hospital and live his life, may have his ventilator removed at the wishes of his mother and the HOSPITAL TRUST PAYING FOR HIS CARE, because his severe physical disability has been deemed 'intolerable suffering'. His father disagrees and is fighting for his son's life.
See UK Court to Rule Whether Baby Better Off Dead Than Disabled from the blog Secondhand Smoke by Wesley J. Smith.
In honor of Reformation Day, the anniversary of when, in 1517 Martin Luther nailed his 95 theses to the Wittenberg University’s Castle Church door, boldly declaring where the Church needed reform, I'm writing my own thoughts about the Church and some places where we still need reformation. Of course, this post will lead to inclusion of people with disabilities, because, well, that seems to be what I do.
There are two religions in this world. One is based on works, the other on grace. The religion based on works requires its disciples to work through law, rite, or service to make that disciple in right standing with the god of this religion. The God of the second religion, that based on grace, demands perfection unto His Law; however, when man failed and fails, this God has given mankind His own righteousness through His Son, the Second Person in the Trinity that calls Itself God, a righteousness contingent only on faith in this Holy Son and His atoning work on the Cross.
The disciples of this second God- of this One True God- the adopted sons and heirs, join together according to the Word of this God, as one Body, and we call ourselves the Church, with Christ as our Head. Like the followers of the first religion, the Church has a law, the Law of God, though our Law has been fulfilled by this Christ, and we members of the Body now walk by faith in our Savior, Christ Jesus', work and in the Spirit, Who is the Third Person of this Triune God. We perform rituals in our church gatherings as does the first religion, though our rituals, rituals of baptism and the communion of the saints, focus not on our attempts to gain righteousness but rather on the One Who obtained righteousness for us.
And, as do followers of the first religion, Christians, those of the Body, of the Church, we perform acts of service. As is the Law, Christians, attempt to love God and love our neighbors by serving our community and serve others.
However, unlike those following the first religion, Christians are not attempting to earn our place in our God’s Kingdom through this service, though serving God and serving others is part of God’s Kingdom. In fact, daily lawbreakers, we could never serve enough to enter that Kingdom.
Nor are we serving God through our own power or our own nature. We are serving God because we have a new nature, and a new Power- the Holy Spirit, given to us through the work of the Cross, upon our belief in Christ, this work, and the repentance of our sins. We are serving humanity- offering grace and mercy to one another- in response to how we were shown grace and mercy, in response to how we were invited into that Kingdom based solely on the death and resurrection of our King. We love because we have been loved.
Based upon this motivation for service and community within our own Body, we take seriously our Savior’s teachings on service and community. The fourteenth chapter of Luke’s gospel, verses 7 through 24, includes one such teaching. Through instruction and parable, Jesus shares His Father’s desire that, oh, may His house be full! He teaches us that His Father wants those at His table those who cannot repay His kindness- ‘the poor and the crippled and the blind and the lame' (vs 13) (as if people who are not poor or who do not have a disability could pay Him back). In fact, He says to compel them to come, revealing the earnestness of His heart toward the least in this world, those same ‘least’ who will become great in His Kingdom.
How does this teaching apply to Christ’s Church 2,000 years after its original exhortation? It applies the same way. There are still those who are ‘great’ in this world, and those who are poor or who have disabilities are still regarded as ‘the least’. Sadly the world’s view of who is great and who is the least is often paralleled in the Church.
Thankfully, the Spirit of God is working in the same way that He has for 2,000 years. He still convicts the Church, both the individual member and the entire of Body, of sin, and He is convicting me of my exclusionary practices of the ‘least of these’ in my church’s gatherings.
So, what do inclusionary practices of the ‘least of these’ look like? Inclusionary practices begin by being reminded of how all inclusion to the Body begins. It begins with the Cross and how Christ, forgiving us of our sin, reconciles us with God, making us His child and a member of Christ’s Body. We must be reminded that God never needed our able bodies or cognitive awareness or our large bank accounts to forgive us our sin, to give us faith, and to make us one with Him and His community. In that regard, we become aware that we are no different than our poor and/or disabled brother and sister.
When we become aware of the absolute equality with ‘the least’, community- koinonia- the Greek word used 20 times in Scripture for 'fellowship, sharing in common, communion'- makes sense! We are equally created in the image of God, we are equal in our human depravity, and we are equal in that any grace anyone has received has been from God. We are one Body.
Therefore, as one Body, if one member suffers, we all suffer. When one rejoices, we all do. When one holds a banquet, all are invited.
Whether through formal programming, or just meeting an individual or family where he or they are suffering or struggling, any church can do ‘disability ministry’. The call is for all, for all of the Body, to invite, to compel, ‘the poor and the crippled and the blind and the lame’ into the Kingdom of God and sharing a meal- that is, offering them repentance and the forgiveness of sin through Jesus' name, and truly becoming one Body- for the grace of God is for them, too!- in loving response to how the Father first invited us. This is how we reveal the religion of grace to the world.
I have not been running this week because I seem to have strained my right calf severely. It doesn't hurt much to walk on it, but when I put the full impact of running on it, it was really terrible.
So, in lieu of the running, I took Teulu the wonder dog out for a 6 mile walk. (He needs to lose about 10 pounds, so it was part of his diet and excersise program as well...)
Oakland park is not really a park. It's a very small lake (about 1/2 mile around) with a gravel path, a picnic bench and some swings at one area. It is situated on the West Orange Trail about 2.5 or so miles in.
As with most Bodies of water in Florida, This sign is posted.
This is the only place with a 1-800-gator program...but they really are a problem at times. I have been to this park so many times, I was convinced there were no gators, but I was wrong.
The lake is home to a lot of wild life. It's one place where I can ensure constant sighting of the little blue heron, egrets, and a variety of other lizards etc....
I personally like to photograph the frogs. Frog photography is pretty tough with an overly excited dog. this particular frog obliged even with the dog pacing wildly. Eventually though I did not supervise the dog carefully enough and he decided to jump into the pond to cool off....
Keeping in mind the sign I had just seen I was a bit frantic to get him out. He did climb on out within minutes (he was still on a leash) now wet and covered in the green weeds. THis is the only photo I got of him. Not a pretty sight, but it does reflect his enthusiasm.
Sort of. His tail is not as fluffy as normal as it soaked in pond scum.
We kept moving around the pond after Teulu's unexpected descent into the deeps.
Fall in Florida is a bit different. We don't get a lot of "Fall color" like up north. and right now its about 83 degrees F at 8 pm. But we do have subtle seasonal changes, like the seed pod below. Seeing a whole vine of these is like looking at fairy lanterns. I know its probably some sort of noxious weed, but its very fall like, and cheerful....
and while we dont have fall colors we do have some spooky Halloweeny sights:
Moving around the pond, we photographed, and then startled a Great Blue Heron.
Which moved and then pretty much posed and posed for me until I actually got sick of photographing it.
But I did get some pictures of the bird.
At that point, I was being attacked by many mosquitos. So I decided we should move away from the water. Suddenly I hear a scratching noise on the ground, and a very large sploosh. Definitely not a frog. It was the Alligator I had been searching for for months! I was definitely too close to such a creature. From what I gather about Alligators, they are not exactly bright, as UF states they are mostly just prey driven predators.
This is the wide angle of the pond.
As we went back up on the gravel, away from the gator sploosh, I then spotted another Gator resting on a log. It does look like I am right beside him, but I have a long zoom.
This is the other view of an alligator which is more often encountered.
It's often hard to tell if it's a log or a gator, but this particular log moved about 10 minutes after I took the photo, so I am sure it was a gator....
Anyway, theres my latest photography. I hope people enjoy.
Several times I have been thinking about something and wish I could see or think in three dimensions. I want another angle on something or I need another perspective. Many times God is that third dimension for me. Where I can go beyond myself and my limited thinking.
Also, I think it is important to surround ourselves with sound teaching. Listening or reading what other's have to say is not a substitute for our own relationship with God, but it can provide another view.
God reveals himself in so many wonderful ways and I love to read the excitement others have when sharing their experiences. I have listed some resources on my blog and I hope you will enjoy them. Batterson, Jentezen and Moore are a great place to start. Do you have any other resources you would like to share.
Also, I have been searching for new, deeper worship songs that can really minister to my family. We all love to sing and there is nothing like a good song to touch the heart. Here is one of my recent favorites. I love to preview songs on You Tube since it has become quite expensive to buy so many songs. Enjoy this simple song that is so profound.
