Archive for the ‘Relationship’ Category
Joined to God
Posted in Blessing, Family, General, Grandchildren, Photo, Poem, Relationship, tagged Blessing, Family, Grandchildren, Photos, Poems on August 15, 2018| Leave a Comment »
Levi Bean had a start so fragile
Bring Levi* near for He shall be Mine**
May Ezekiel again “God strengthen”+
May Mr. Bean be ever friendly
Conches and Crabs
Posted in Beach, General, Outdoors, Photo, Relationship, Travel, tagged Beach, Florida, Nature, Photos, Relationship, Travel, Wildlife on August 8, 2018| Leave a Comment »
I came to Clearwater for the third out of four training sessions. I convinced one of my classmates to take a walk on Sand Key Beach after class. The weather was perfect for a walk on the beach: cloudy, raining offshore, stiff breeze. He and I had good, substantive conversation. We began noticing medium small conches in the shallow water. They were actually coming to shore and gathering in pods of 3 or 4, presumably mating. We witnessed one hopping along the bottom by a quick flip of its foot that propelled it forward 2 to 3 shell lengths. I had never seen that before, assuming that they scoot along the bottom by foot pressure in the sand. When I picked up one of the shells, holding it upside down to see what was in it, the gastropod (snail-like mollusk living inside the shell) kept extending its bony operculum and running it quickly halfway around the shell to snag my fingers. It didn’t like me holding it upside down out of the water. I also observed several burying themselves in sand in less than 30 seconds. They are amazing animals.
The next evening we gathered a couple to go with us to Honeymoon Island State Park. The beach is strewn with much more shell debris, washed up coral and seaweed, and rocks. I saw a mostly buried “rock” and mused to my friend whether or not it was really a rock. Pushing at the sand to dislodge it, a crab crawled out and back seaward. We found others. Their backs looked similar to limestone but with small projections on their backs. Just back from the beach was a large pond with hundreds of very small crabs scurrying away as I approached.
My only regret is that I didn’t get into the water. We sure sweated quite a bit on our walk. But it was good to share the beach with new friends. I like new adventures, learning new things, and meeting new people. And I am thankful that God created all of it with beauty, complexity, and variety. One day He will make “all things new”. (Revelation 21:5)
Godwit? Common Greenshank?
Cormorant
It’s alive!
How do you identify varieties of coral?
Just as I found them
It is nice to see a live sea star
It’s not a rock
Abundant life
Put me down!
It leaves quite the impression
I think that I like beaches on cloudy days better.
Pensacola Visit
Posted in General, Outdoors, Photo, Relationship, Travel, tagged Outdoors, Pensacola, Photos, Roy Hyatt Environmental Center, USS Alabama on August 3, 2018| Leave a Comment »
Time to head south again for another training session. But this time I decided on a different route a bit out of the way for a three night visit with friends I had not seen in five years. We were amazed at how we picked up conversation as though there had not been two weeks between when we had seen each other last. And to make that more amazing (confession time), I’m not particularly good at keeping up long distance relationships. We have had occasional contact by Facebook or phone for needed prayer or listing what had happened in the last year or proof-reading articles, but these were not often. I reflect that one future day when we stand in heaven we will remember and give thanks for all of the people God put in our paths to help us along the way. Some we kept up with; others we did not, but the moments we did share were of value. So make your moments ever more valuable with conversation about your spiritual lives and learning, shared prayer and worship, all true fellowship of substance.
This couple also has three special little girls. As should be they eyed me warily, clinging to mom or dad. But as we interacted and their parents included me in family activities, the girls warmed up. Dad and mom told me to not expect one to warm up, so I was friendly but gave her some space. We played blocks and I read a few stories. I had suggested that the girls were old enough to have longer stories read to them. So I took it upon myself to ask to go to the library where they checked out “Little House in the Big Woods.” I read the first chapter; now it’s dad and mom’s turn. That should keep them busy for a while. It will increase their listening skills and attention span, properties deficient in many of their peers.
As I had been to the Naval Air Museum, the beach, and two historic forts in the area, Dad and I took an all day trip to the USS Alabama in Mobile Bay. It is being wonderfully restored by the money and efforts of the people of Alabama. I find it amazing how much money, energy, and technology goes into such a war machine for the amount of use and action it actually has. The Alabama took 2 1/2 years of 24/7 to build and had a crew of 2500, but saw action for only five years, shooting down 22 planes. It bombarded many islands in the Pacific. But what would have happened if these great ships and their convoys had not been built. Desperate times require desperate measures. War is madness and passive subjection is suicide. What is a people to do?
My friend teaches at the Roy L. Hyatt Environmental Center in Cantonment, FL. We and his girls went the next day to feed the animals and show the new guy around. The Center is in a major transition with a full teaching schedule during the school year while a new multi-purpose classrooms/exhibits building is going up. The variety of activities and creativity of my friend and his teaching colleague is inspiring. Even with many of their exhibits temporarily warehoused they have come up with new, engaging activities for their students, like a GPS treasure hunt that gets the students to solve environmental problems with science based on clues they are sent to find. They have many donated and injured animals that cannot be released as exhibits and 120 acres of swamp, bog, and woodland that has not been disturbed since WWII. They are doing real ecology with studies and allowing students to see, smell, touch, hear nature for themselves.
1 of 4 USS Alabama Screws
16″ Turret Nest
B-25, B-52, Mobile Skyline
Big Guns
Rings True
Anti-Aircraft Guns
Packing Some Punch
Comin’ atcha
Cruiseliner with Mobile Government Building in the background
But restoration funded by the people of Alabama
Modern Shipyard
C-47 (DC-3 Civilian) A workhorse in any capacity
Where are we headed Captain?
Keep regulation haircuts
Notice the overhead winch track for heavy repairs
Boiler Room
16″ Armor-piercing projectiles
USS Alabama Battleship
The fastest of the fastest (SR-71 Blackbird)
Grounded Submarine
Torpedoes Away!
Oldest
Youngest
Middle
Exhibit A
Native Florida Lobster
Corn Snake
Pitcher Plant
Actual Flower of the Pitcher Plant
Helping Daddy
High Protein Diet
Preying Mantis hanging out
Smaller Pitcher Plant
The Fun way to get around 120 acres
Reminiscing Romp
Posted in Beauty, Experience, General, Outdoors, Photo, Relationship, Remembering, Reminiscence, Travel, tagged Beauty, Experience, Linville Gorge, Nature, Photos, Relationship, Reminiscence, Travel on August 1, 2018| 2 Comments »
I had asked my fourth born son to come to town one weekend and go for a hike with me. It has been a long time since I have hiked with any of my children. He decided to invite a friend from college days. Since it is summer, I thought it would be nice to visit one of our adventuresome swimming holes at the base of Babel Tower in Linville Gorge. It is a steep hike down for two miles. I love to stand on top of the tower, which sits in a severe turn in the river and look down at about 60 degrees to the right and then the left to see the upstream and downstream legs of the river. After we looked around, we went down to the river where we swam, jumped, and sunned. My son waxed reminiscent about past trips that challenged and pleased us.
He said that he liked the other swimming hole we used to frequent better. We still have a lot of daylight; we could go to that one, too, he suggested.
So we hiked as quickly as we could back up out of the gorge. This brought on a discussion (when I had enough breath to talk) about how he and his brothers learned to hike fast, trying to keep up with dad. “I remember the very hike that it changed. You could no longer keep up with us. To be fair, my younger brother and I could not keep up with our older brother either.” But I am thankful to God that I can still hike, and especially since I had a knee injury seven months ago. I have not run since then and could not walk any distance or speed for many months because the back of my knee would swell. But this time I almost kept up.
We went on to Wiseman’s View and took pictures there and told stories. Then we started the car ride around the top end of the Gorge and down Hwy 181 to Mortimer Road and cut across to Wilson Creek in order to hike to Lower Harper Creek Falls. There are few swimming holes so versatile as this one. There are two pools separated by a gentle cascade that you may slide down seated. In the middle of this cascade is a pothole of four foot depth and diameter that the water swirls around in. You can stand in it and even submerge into an airspace under the falling water to hide. The upper pool is narrower and deep with a forty foot waterfall coming into it. Along side the falls you can run off the steep incline at about twenty-five feet up and hit the pool beyond the sloping rocks. The water is quite cold, but the rocks warm up nicely in the afternoon sun.
My son wanted to do everything that we “used to do”. I figured out that between the swimming and jumping and eight miles of hiking to three locations that I was exhausted. On top of that we took very little for lunch. My wife had a three pound roast and plenty of vegetables prepared when we arrived home. There were very few leftovers after three hungry men ate supper. I am thankful to God for the mountains and the health so far to enjoy them, the memories we have of playing there, and the opportunity to show them to others. I need to do more of that.
I wonder if this is where the Babel Tower separated from the Gorge wall.
Friend from college days hopping around on the Tower
Hawk’s Bill and Table Rock
Beautiful day for a hike with friends
Upstream of the Tower just below the swimming hole
Frequently you can see people on top, but I don’t today.
The Tower has 100′ cliffs on one side and another 100+ foot drop to the river beyond that.
Deep pool, various jumps, current, decently cold water
It has been a wet season
from Wiseman’s View
Lower Gorge with Shortoff on the far downstream side
Brings back memories; makes new ones.
Lower Harper Creek Falls
The cascade into the lower pool
The way in and out to the upper pool
Grandchildren
Posted in Family, General, Grandchildren, Photo, Relationship, tagged Family, Grandchildren, Photos, Posterity, Relationship on July 14, 2018| 2 Comments »
I have 6 grandchildren when you count the one due in September. Following are pictures of five of them, four very recent and one several months ago. For you or I months or even several years make little difference in a picture, but little ones change so fast. I think several things draw us to little ones: They are growing and changing so fast, they are generally happy and curious, and they learn new things all of the time. The feeling of connection and posterity also make them very precious to grandparents. I pray regularly that God will keep them safe and grow them strong in body, mind, and spirit.
The pictures are in order of age, the first one with her uncle belongs to my daughter who is pregnant with her second. The other four belong to my oldest son.
Scarlett Family Reunion 2018
Posted in Family, General, Photo, Relationship, tagged Family, Photos, Relationship, Reunion on June 15, 2018| Leave a Comment »
Eat, tell stories, find out what’s been happening since we last gathered, and eat some more pretty much sums it up.
American Woman
Posted in Beauty, Cultural commentary, General, Poem, Relationship, tagged Beauty, Encouragement, Expectations, Modesty, Poems, Rejection, Relationship, Respect on June 1, 2018| 2 Comments »
The following poem may be the biggest mistake I’ve ever made on this blog. It could draw some significant ire. However, if those who read it, read it carefully and understand its intent, it may help someone reconsider how they are doing things. The poem came as a result of a conversation I had with a decent young man who at present has no prospects for marriage. What he said could be interpreted as so much sour grapes, but I don’t think so. He wants to be a godly husband and is waiting for a godly spouse, but inside and outside the church, young women seem suspicious and disinterested in commitment to young men. (Switching gender in this statement is sometimes true as well.) One statement he made struck me as instructive: “The American Woman (I’ve decided to call her) expects that a man meet all of her emotional needs, but she sees it as optional to meet his physical needs.” I thought several things after he said this: 1) The full pendulum swing from the man as ruler of his house to the fully liberated woman has occurred. 2) Neither extreme is biblical and both are damaging to all parties involved. 3) This statement illustrates the age old difference and misunderstanding of differences in needs of the two genders.
This society belittles males as nothing more than animals, blathering, hormonal driven fools. What we expect and inspire is what we get. We need to change our expectations and encouragement of boys and men.
American woman why do you flounce?
Look on with disapproving eyes
Every male reject and renounce
Belittle in jest and despise
You practice no modesty before guys
In speech and action or in dress
Putting out honey will draw flies
Complicit are you in this mess
(Now it’s true that men should not lust for girls
Treat them as objects, as mere tools
But made in God’s image, real pearls
Honoring her, not acting like fools)
So build up young men; don’t tear them all down
Declare to them their great value
Help them step up to be renown
Sober of mind and always true
Thus the benefit for all and for you
Respect your man and serve him, too
Modest in dress says you are true
He will arise, protect, love you
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