Punching My Chest and Confessing Cynicism

ANOTHER dictator is dead....Harold Camping was wrong AGAIN....and intellectualizing the Anabaptist way hasn't helped us like we thought it would.

Aye...if Gaddafi would just have known what I know about "Truth" or what is really "Real"...if he would just be as smart as I...if he would have had a well thought out "Anabaptist perspective" on leadership...Oh, if he would just know what I know about "community"...he clearly didn't understand "relationships"....if he could have attended that seminar on "The Kingdom"...how God, HOW did he not get a copy of "Mere Christianity?"

....and at this point in the story Jesus leans over and interrupts my prayer, "sshhh....(Me: Wait I didn't even get to Harold Camping yet!) sshh...check out that man over there punching himself in the chest....I'm telling you Kyle, He's getting really close to My Kingdom.

Be Careful HOW You Remember!

Memory is less a neutral accident of the mind than a conscious work of interpretation, marked as much by deletion as by selection. How a community remembers its past is the single most important element in determining its future. - from my current reading ("Constantine's Sword")

Think Holocaust...think Industrial Revolution...think energy crisis...think national debt...think about how your parents treated you as a child........be careful HOW you remember!

Ponce Deleon's Fountain of Youth

I find myself these days, clinging to that category called youth...scratching and clawing...sinking my fingernails into the rock...stubbornly laying claim to a portion of my youth group...calling them my own.

They are so good for me! This past weekend they reminded me...even inspired me...to drink deeply of that fountain of youth that Ponce De Leon never found. Unfortunately he was searching in Florida when he should have bee searching the headwaters of the great Kinzua Reservoir...where the wind blows cold, rivers are pregnant, hot drinks boil over the fire, and enough rain falls daily to take anyone back to their days of youthful tenacity!


















Aye...we spent the weekend camping in this business. The weather was cold, but we warmed ourselves with hot drinks, blazing fires, and amazing fellowship. "Sticks and stones can break our bones, but rain can't keep us from loving each other, making memories, and having a GREAT weekend!"






































The most popular spot on the campground after early morning sleeping bag extraction was certainly the hand dryer...there is nothing so devastating as entering the bathroom only to find some other "bean head" has already claimed the coveted residence.