The Rescue!

Our blog is back!  Rescued from the clutches of Google and who knows what else.

Phyllis and I literally spent weeks (if you count all the hours) trying to "check" our "auto-renewal button" on the Google Blogger site...but our first challenge was to find it!

Several pleas on Facebook and on the internet resulted in dozens of suggestions, outdated links (Google was practically making changes to the sites daily), and outdated processes.  It became somewhat funny to follow the incoming messages on a couple of the help websites...a suggestion would no sooner come in than another would come in saying the original process had been changed by Google..."this week."  And, of course, Google has no "real" people working for them.  It's all recorded messages with endless loops...very much like certain government agencies - "you're in the wrong line, you need to be in that line."

But, miracle of miracles, someone from Google actually called Phyllis!  (I still believe it was an angel.) That person led us to our "Google Dashboard" where Phyllis turned on the now infamous "auto-update" link!  Hoooray!  Now, we're able to reconnect with our blog...and begin updating the few faithful who might still be lurking out there somewhere.

One more comment: While we were able to get to our "Google Dashboard" to get us back online...it turns out the "angel" took us through what IT people call "the back door."  In other words, we still are not able to get to our "Dashboard" straight on.  That, we are told, will require another call...to someone somewhere who can help us.  (One of the few times we were able to connect to a living, breathing person, he told us he worked for the "supplier" of the website, not Google, and we would have to wait two weeks after we got our site back up and running before we could work directly with him.)  So, we're hoping and praying that there are no "glitches" that would require accessing the illusive "Google Dashboard," which, I now understand, is no longer called "Dashboard."  Obviously, "change" is the major driver at Google...which keeps us less initiated chasing after them just to stay current.

We hope we will be able to keep you all updated on the many, many things going on in our lives - and our ministry - this year.  It's all good...and it's keeping us very, very busy.

We love and bless you all!!

Changing seasons.  Changing climes.  The end of one season, the beginning of another.  The thought has become foreign to us, really, because here in Guatemala, our seasons don't change.  Yes, we have the rainy season and the dry season and whatever happens in between those...but the temperature - my measure of seasons - changes little.  So, the end of our current "season" of life and ministry, and the beginning of a this new season brings major changes, and is causing all sorts of emotions to the surface in me.  It's a new path we are beginning to go down now...one that has many twists and bends...I can't see much beyond today. It's a different path than the one I walked on when we came to Guatemala somehow...at least if feels different to me.  For some reason, in my spirit, there are more "unknowns" now - going back to the states - than there were heading out to a totally foreign country four years ago.  Not only are the states in a different place now, I am a different person than I was when I left there; a different person with a different purpose.

But I know this is the path we are to be on; we are going the right way.  And the purpose of this path is what's going to happen on the journey, not what's waiting the end.  Thinking "journey" instead of "destination" requires a shift in my thought patterns...back to when I'd ride my Gold Wing across the country...and the object was the journey, not the destination.  The joy of the journey was the objective, not just getting somewhere; the "going" not the "getting." The experiences along the way were the important part of the journey then.  This journey has already started.  But right now, I'm still in the throes of the "traffic" before I hit the open road - moving is such sweet sorrow.  Especially when "moving" means leaving everything one more time...and beginning again...one more time.  But I'm really looking forward to discovering what's just out of my sight around that bend up ahead... 

Along the path...

Pondering time...

There’s been way too much space between the last post and this one.  For that Snavely and I apologize.  Part of the issue is that we have not followed the advice of A.W. Tozer that we posted in the last missive.  We’ve been busy “doing” with very little time “being.”  

I’m not sure whether it falls under “doing” or “being,” but I love to read…and to share what I’m reading with others.  I’m usually reading two or three books at one time, which, up until recently, has been a challenge because one or more of my “reading” books gets put away by a helpful person.  I say “recently, “ because I’ve just become the owner of an Amazon Kindle Reader – an amazing little device that allows me to download books – hundreds of them – and keeps track of where I am in each book!  It coordinates over the internet with my laptop and my desktop computers, so I can read wherever I am…never losing my place.  And the battery lasts up to 30 days.  This amazing little machine has encouraged me to spend more time “being.”  I am able to read from some of the best Christian and secular authors, as well as the new NET Bible, with just a flick of my thumb.  And then I spend time just “being,” absorbing and experiencing what I’ve read.  And Father helps me with the absorbing and experiencing – bringing people, events, times, places, and experiences into my mind to ponder, appreciate and understand, from an entirely new perspective – his.  They are good times. 

So, as summer begins where you are…and the rainy season begins where I am…I wish you much time to ponder with Father…he knows us very well.  He wants us to know more about him. He’s one of the most interesting people we’ll ever meet, especially when we give ourselves time to really know him.  So, until next time, happy pondering.

Is it better to "be" or to "do?"

Snavely and I aren't always walking along the path.  Sometimes we find a place to sit, quietly, and just appreciate what's around us. Other times we sit quietly and read...or just listen. 

Today it was stormy - rain, wind, lightening and thunder drove us to find shelter to wait while the clouds blew over.  Never one to miss opportunities, we always have a book or two with us - to share or to read quietly alone. 

Over cups of tea and honey, we shared a short read from A.W. Tozer.  If you don't know who Tozer is, Google him.  He wrote many books worth reading.  Today we shared from his book, "The Root of Righteous."  It seems to me to be an answer to today's topsey-turvey world....so I thought I would share it with you.  I hope you enjoy it as much as I did.  Stay dry!   

To Be or to Do

Historically the West has tended to throw its chief emphasis upon doing and the East upon being. What we are has always seemed more important to the Oriental; the Occidental has been willing to settle for what we do. One has glorified the verb to be; the other, the verb to do.

Were human nature perfect there would be no discrepancy between being and doing. The unfallen man would simply live from within, without giving it a thought. His actions would be the true expression of his inner being.

With human nature what it is, however, things are not so simple. Sin has introduced moral confusion and life has become involved and difficult. Those elements within us which were meant to work together in unconscious harmony are often isolated from each other wholly or in part and tend to become actually hostile to each other. For this reason symmetry of character is extremely difficult to achieve.

Out of deep inner confusion arises the antagonism between being and doing, and the verb upon which we throw our emphasis puts us in one of the two categories: we are be-ers or we are do-ers, one or the other. In our modern civilized society the stress falls almost wholly upon doing.

We Christians cannot escape this question. We must discover where God throws the stress and come around to the divine pattern. And this should not be too difficult since we have before us the sacred Scriptures with all their wealth of spiritual instruction, and to interpret those Scriptures we have the very Spirit which inspired them.

In spite of all our opportunity to know the truth, most of us are still slow to learn. The tendency to accept without question and follow without knowing why is very strong in us. For this reason whatever the majority of Christians hold at any given time is sure to be accepted as true and right beyond a doubt. It is easier to imitate than to originate; it is easier and, for the time being, safer to fall into step without asking too many questions about where the parade is headed.

This is why being has ceased to have much appeal for people and doing engages almost everyone's attention. Modern Christians lack symmetry. They know almost nothing about the inner life. They are like a temple that is all exterior without any interior. Color, light, sound, appearance, motion—these are thy gods, O Israel.

"The accent in the Church today," says Leonard Ravenhill, the English evangelist, "is not on devotion, but on commotion." Religious extroversion has been carried to such an extreme in evangelical circles that hardly anyone has the desire, to say nothing of the courage, to question the soundness of it. Externalism has taken over. God now speaks by the wind and the earthquake only; the still small voice can be heard no more. The whole religious machine has become a noisemaker. The adolescent taste which loves the loud horn and the thundering exhaust has gotten into the activities of modern Christians. The old question, "What is the chief end of man?" is now answered, "To dash about the world and add to the din thereof." And all this is done in the name of Him who did not strive nor cry nor make His voice to be heard in the streets (Matthew 12:18-21).

We must begin the needed reform by challenging the spiritual validity of externalism. What a man is must be shown to be more important than what he does. While the moral quality of any act is imparted by the condition of the heart, there may be a world of religious activity which arises not from within but from without and which would seem to have little or no moral content. Such religious conduct is imitative or reflex. It stems from the current cult of commotion and possesses no sound inner life.

The message "Christ in you, the hope of glory" (Colossians 1:27) needs to be restored to the Church. We must show a new generation of nervous, almost frantic, Christians that power lies at the center of the life. Speed and noise are evidences of weakness, not strength. Eternity is silent; time is noisy. Our preoccupation with time is sad evidence of our basic want of faith. The desire to be dramatically active is proof of our religious infantilism; it is a type of exhibitionism common to the kindergarten.

—Root of the Righteous, The/A.W. Tozer

The Old Paths...

I liked the old paths, when Moms were at home.

Dads were at work.

Brothers went into the army.

And sisters got married BEFORE having children!


Crime did not pay;

Hard work did;

And people knew the difference.


Moms could cook;

Dads would work;

Children would behave.


Husbands were loving;

Wives were supportive;

And children were polite.


Women wore the jewelry;

And Men wore the pants.


Women looked like ladies;

Men looked like gentlemen;

And children looked decent.


People loved the truth,

And hated a lie.


They came to church to get IN,

Not to get OUT!


Hymns sounded Godly;

Sermons sounded helpful;

Rejoicing sounded normal;

And crying sounded sincere.


Cursing was wicked;

Drugs were for illness;

And divorce was unthinkable.


The flag was honored;

America was beautiful;

And God was welcome!


We read the Bible in public;

Prayed in school;

And preached from house to house.


To be called an American was worth dying for;

To be called an American was worth living for;

To be called a traitor was a shame!


I still like the old paths the best!

('The Old Paths' was written by a retired minister who lives In Tennessee)

Pondering - Global Climate management

Snavely and I were walking along the path yesterday when the afternoon rain started.  We took shelter in a coffee shop, which are plentiful here in Guatemala.  As we sipped our brews and watched the rain fall in the shop's garden, Snavely pondered that, if we were able to control the climate, he would have called for the rain to wait until we were finished with our walk.  Yet a farmer, just finishing planting his corn crop, may have wanted the rain to come exactly when it did.  Still yet, a woman with laundry on the line would have wanted an entire day without rain. God's word says that the rain falls on the just and the unjust.  If man was able to control the enviroment, who would decide when it was supposed to rain, where it's to rain and when it was more convenient for it to wait - the just or the unjust?  He asked me if life isn't complicated enough without having to try to manage the weather to suit our will.  "We can't even control our own emotions, how are we going to control the weather?  Or, better yet, why would we want to?"  Then he got off into deeper waters.

Snavely pondered that, if man can't even control - or stop - one oil well from gushing oil into the sea, how on earth can man possibly think he can control the environment of the whole earth?  "Preposterous," he snorted, and turned to look out at the rain, now coming down harder.  I looked into my coffee cup  and waited for him to complete his thought.  "Pride," he said, "is a bitter root, and man is filled with it, like an overgrown plant in a small pot. God hates the proud and the arrogant.  Being transplanted to a larger pot is very stressful for a plant.  It depends more on the farmer for water and nourisment and attention after it's been transplanted." 

There was a break in the rain.  We stepped outside, inhaled the sweet air and continued our walk.  Then Snavely said, "That's what God's doing, you know.  The world is in turmoil because God is transplanting us. He's breaking roots off the prideful."  He stopped, turned to me and said, "Now is a time to press into the Farmer more than ever. Just like plants transplanted , those who press into the Farmer will survive.  Those who don't will struggle.  Some will survive and some won't. You and me, my friend, we know who is our source - the Good Farmer.  Stay close to him and we will make it through this storm no matter how bad it gets." 

We turned and strolled together down the damp path toward home. 

Snavely has returned...

Many of you have probably been searching this site for the unbelievably profound and thought-provoking missives from the great Snavely. (Yeah, right.) And you are probably growing tired of "he's not available, please leave a message." (That's the message that comes right after the "press one for English.") Well, he has returned from his sabbatical as a czar (please note the small "c" which differentiates HIS kind of czar from the Czar (capital "C") that hangs around the White House.) Over the next days, he will be sharing his thoughts, impressions, quests, triumphs, and insights. And, unlike the capital C czars, you get all this at no taxpayer expense. He promises that nothing printed here will raise your taxes one thin dime! And you can take that to the bank. The dime, that is.

Which reminds me of a time when I was in grade school. (Yes, there were grade schools way back then. In caves.) I can't remember who sponsored the program, but we, as little kids, were introduced to saving money in a savings account. We were given little deposit books - real ones, not something the teacher created. We were to deposit our pennies into this account (some of the kids had dollars) and see what happened by the end of the school year. Each week, we deposited something...it didn't really matter how much. A few pennies, a nickle, dime...or one time I even put a whole dollar in. (Thanks, mom!) During our "deposit activity" each week, we learned about people like Benjamin Franklin ("A penny saved is a penny earned."). I also began to understand better Uncle Scrooge, Donald Duck's stingy uncle.

Taking all I was learning, I once approached my dad and asked if he had a savings account. He told me that, after paying all the bills, there wasn't much left to try to save. Paying the bills then became something I also understood. I learned that you took what you earned, subtracted what you spent (bills) and could save what was left over. (Although in our savings experment at school, we were being taught to save FIRST and then pay bills, my dad didn't see it that way.) All this to say that my fiscal foundations were set pretty early. Though in my career as a television journalist, I never earned a lot of money (they do now, but not back when it all begain), so I always paid my bills, but was never able to save a lot. But I understood that if you spent MORE than you earned, you could not save anything...or, in some cases, not even pay your bills. While my savings over my lifetime has been meager, my bills have always been paid. I am in debt "to no man."

I was discussing this with Snavely recently, and he told me it is the basic law of economics - everyone is subject to it without exception. Spend more than you earn, you feel the pain eventually. Live and learn, he said. But, he explained, there is one entity that never learns from the pain - government. He said that truly intelligent men and women - people who, for the most part, follow the basic laws of economics in their own lives and businesses - enter into the halls of government and are somehow mysteriously stripped of this basic economic understanding. But, Snavely said, the most likley reason for the lack of learning is that the "pain" is seldom felt by government. The "pain" is passed down to taxpayers who always, in the end, pay government's bills, one way or another.

It reminded me of a friend I had in school during our little savings lessons. He was overweight and most kids didn't like him. I was one of his few, true friends. He had problems saving money. He used up his withdrawal slips faster than he used up his deposit slips. He would take money out to buy candy and soft drinks. I tried to tell him he shouldn't eat so much candy, but he wouldn't listen. At the end of each month, our teacher would meet with each student to discuss how our savings program was going. My friend always asked me to "loan" him some money from my account so he would have something in his. I would usually give him something from my account so he wouldn't be embarassed when he met with the teacher.

One day, the teacher asked me why my account was growing so slowly or not at all. I told her about my "loan" program with my friend. She told me I was a very good friend, but that, by always giving my friend money (he never paid me back), I was hurting him as much or more than I was hurting myself. My friend was not feeling the pain of his poor saving/spending habits. It was a hard lesson. I knew she was right, but I felt sorry for my friend. Even so, I stopped lending him money and, for a while at least, he stopped being my friend.

Snavely got me to thinking. Maybe it's time we stopped "lending" our money to our friend, the government (like my friend, it never pays it back). Maybe it needs to feel the pain. The only problem with that is, government is very good at passing its pain to us along with all its bills. It's been doing that for many, many years and, like my friend, it never seems to appreciate the sacrifice we make so it won't be embarassed. In fact, it's getting to the point where its acting like we OWE it our money. I don't know about you, but I don't need a friend like that.

Maybe Snavely's got an answer for this dilemna. If so, he could probably sell it for a lot of money and mabe put part of it into a savings account. I guess we'll see....