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Inktober - A Flash Upon Me

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It was gone as fast as it came. A flash. Four days ago. One minute I was my 50 year old self, fighting the downhill momentum of age, pedaling my 21 speed road bike, and a second later I was flying carefree on my red BMX pedal bike down my childhood street. Smiling, hair flying, with all the recklessness a boy of 10 has on a bicycle. The world held no limits. I felt it, it was real. I don’t know what it was that transported me for that one unexpected second in time. Something like this has happened to me before, a flash memory comes back, ephemeral. But never this tangible and vivid. I feel it truly happened for a second.  Maybe it was a smell. I was near an asphalt factory that has been there since I was a kid where they still fill huge noisy trucks with steaming loads of black asphalt, the rich sooty smell of hot tar sharp in your nostrils. The smell is distinct. But I smell it most days riding past here.  Maybe it was the angle of the morning sun flashing in my eyes through holes bet
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Looking Up and Out - Why I'm ditching the "smart" part of my smartphone

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I'm fresh off of a week of camp in central Michigan followed by a week backpacking in the Adirondack Mountains of upstate New York. Both of these of these trips were great, both were exhausting; and both were ironically refreshing . The refreshing part may have to do with something else these two weeks shared in common, -during both weeks there was limited to no cell phone coverage. That's right, no emails, no texting, no weather reports, ...no Pokemon Go, ...no face bent into the cool glow of a three by five inch screen. Last week the upper left corner of my phone's screen held steadfast to it's "no service" stance, every one of the 5000 thousand times I checked, ...the first day.  It was weird.  It was weird because there were more people saying more things around me. There were more clouds, more trees, more conversations, and more going on everywhere I looked than there usually is. I had more time. I sat and chatted with real people about
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You Can Only Talk About Doing Something For So Long

  "Where does the Grand River go?" "To Lake Michigan." "Well how do you know?" "Someone told me I guess." "So you don't really know...   but I do."
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New Painting

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I finished a new oil painting.  It's called "...to the place I belong."  It is a painting of the log circle at Grand Rapids Public School's Zoo School.  My daughter Ellie is attending this 6th-grade-only school and is in the painting.  It was a gift for Mr. K (Dennis Kretschman) who has taught there 39 years and counting.  Prints were also auctioned off to raise money for the school and their annual auction. While picking Ellie up from Zoo School one fall afternoon I was particularly moved.   A sequence of observations followed…   ·       The symbolism in the scene, -covered and surround by the very nature they are studying and captivated by.   ·       The significance of moments like this in the lives of these kids as they grow into adults.   ·       The devotion and heart the teachers put into these kids that extends far beyond their “jobs.” ·       The sheer beauty of the setting. The lyrics of the song “ County Road ,” often s
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Look You in the Eye

There isn't necessarily any theological basis for this or anything, there isn't even any reason to think this would ever happen.  But what if you spent eternity in the kind of heaven you designed while here on earth?  What if heaven operated on the laws and rules you live your life by?  What if people treated each other just as you've treated others in this life?   Would you want to live in a heaven like that?   I think it might look way too much like this world. I pretty much spent most of my life living a sort of Christian "escapism" life.  One where Good is unattainable. Where we're no good, but forgiven, and heaven will be a place where it all gets better.   I think those things are true but...   I think this can be toxic thinking for a Jesus follower if it leads to some sort of fatalism about our potential in this world. Or believing we simply can't actually do any good that our Father would be proud of.   Listening to one of the songs o
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Ellie's Forestry Projects for Zoo School

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Ellie had to do a forestry project on a tree and she picked the Ohio Buckeye.  She had to do a bunch of stuff on the tree but one of the things was 2 creative types of literature.  She chose a recipe and a magazine article.  Here they are! 
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Like Trees

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From the ground, life rises up in a massive collective of praise to its creator.  The trees spread up and out their leaves together, reaching to give glory to the one that gave them life.  The view of a valley, is a symphony of greens fighting toward the sunlight.  A open field expresses its own mosaic of colors and textures rising to their maker. It is their purpose.  Like the rest of the earth, we were created to rise and extend the reaches and efforts of our lives up and out in praise to the one who made us.  It is our very purpose.  If the efforts of your life are not growing up and out to praise the one who made you are, quite simply, missing the reason you exist.  You may do some interesting things but understand, you will miss the whole point of life.  
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