Peter -n- Melodye

I'm 57 years old and I've been trying for 18 months to get my driver's license. Yes, I have been driving since I was 12 and I have had my US license since I was 18 (as soon as I returned from growing up in Kenya). So why am I trying to get a driver's license now? The law in Spain is that you can drive on your US driving license for a period of time but if you live here longer than that then you are supposed to get a Spanish license. And I live in this nation of very technical driving exams overseen by extremely punctilious examiners, the land of impossible driving tests. Yes, I know that nearly 30 million people have a Spanish driver's license. So theoretically "impossible" might be an overstatement. But "impossible" feels like just the right word. My issue is that I keep getting into my head when it comes time to take the practical exam. I get nervous and then anxious and then lose my confidence and then I make stupid mistakes because I'm ...

 I was reading Luke 2 this morning... I wish I could have been there for the angels' dress rehearsal. I imagine them in their choir robes shuffling into place the night before as the conductor reminds them of the plan:  All right, Sam, you show up first. The narrow spotlight will be full on you and you do the full "terrifying angel" thing. (You've got your lines down perfectly, right? We only get 1 chance at this!) If you do it like we practiced they won't be able to take their eyes off of you while the rest of you file into your places. Remember, total darkness and total silence - we've been planning for this moment for millenia so don't mess it up! When I give the signal I want the light crew to pull out all the stops. God has given us the go-ahead to drain up to 100 stars of their light just for that moment, but it's all got to happen in perfect timing. EXACTLY as I point my baton ALL the lights come on simultaneously and the choir really belts it o...

 I've always had a thing for memorizing Scripture. I guess it came easy and I got kudos for it and so I wanted to do it again. It started as a young child and it just kept going in spurts and starts and stops.  I remember when my dad decided that memorizing Scripture would be a good punishment for us boys. Arguing with your brother? Memorize Philippians 1:1 . Didn't clean your room? Memorize 1:2 Didn't do your chores? Now you've got 1:3. It didn't take long before I had multiple chapters of the book of Philippians, but I'll confess it took me a while to get over that. The basic message was that memorizing Scripture was a punishment and it kind of left a bad taste in my mouth. I recommend against this approach. On the other hand, I recommend doing just about anything to get children to memorize Scripture. It's so easy when they are young and it sticks with them. And so often a little praise is enough to motivate them to go on... Parents and preschoolers and e...

I've always had this thing for nautical-themed decorations: old fashioned ships wheels, compasses, ship models, pictures with ships and lighthouses - it just feels like "me." Most of my life I've been prancing around the globe and so, necessarily, these decorations have been left in attics and storage boxes and often sent to thrift stores or (sniff) the dump, but I really do enjoy collecting these things and decorating my "man cave" with them. (a similar crystal ship, but not as intricate) I remember one year for a birthday in my 20s my parents brought me a beautiful crystalline ship, crafted in exquisite detail despite its tiny size. They traveled for my birthday and brought it from Pennsylvania to South Carolina (about 12 hours in the car) in a very carefully packed box. When I opened it at my grandparents' home it was perfect in every detail - incredibly fine glass forming each line and railing and porthole. I lived just over a mile away and so when t...

I WILL NOT BE CHEATED! I WILL NOT BE MADE A FOOL OF! I WILL NOT BE TAKEN ADVANTAGE OF! I WILL NOT LET ANYONE TAKE WHAT IS MINE! (including my rights!) A peak into the soul of a controlling man... A recipe for bitterness and a brittle heart... I wasn't always this way. I remember as a teenager working on a repair job with my uncle. He stepped off the ladder next to where I was working on the floor and stepped squarely on my fingers with his workboots. It hurt! But my response was reflexive - I apologized for getting in his way and almost making him fall... The other people in the room laughed at me (who apologizes when it is their fingers that got stepped on?!) but it seemed quite natural to me... I remember maybe the day (?) when this attitude took root in my heart. I was in seminary but visiting at a relative's home. I had just had my car repaired and the mechanic had really hung me out to dry, overcharging and then not doing the job. I had worked myself up into a bit of a tiz...

The exci tement of the trip, buying new items, thinking through what might be needed, arriving early to avoid the traffic, carrying suitcases and boxes and crates, watching and talking while he organizes things. And then the excitement ends. Not slowly and gently but suddenly and loudly, like the sound of a guillotine slamming home. A last meal. A last prayer with a tight voice and a quavering chin. And then there were four. A long, quiet drive home, a growing pile of tissues on the floorboards of the car. Periodic conversation gambits fumbled in the haze of sorrow. This morning I got up as usual before the rest of the family. Usually I have to be careful which light I turn on because Christopher's room is a little day-room that looks into the kitchen. This morning I didn't have to be careful. No snarled sheets, no bed-head on that pillow. Oops. Not "Christopher's room is" but "Christopher's room was"... Words hurt. Even the tense of a...

I was going to post this on FB, but I realized I would have trouble finding it later and this is definitely a keeper... My wife has gone off with some of her girlfriends for the weekend leaving me and the boys to fend for ourselves. Fortunately this is the week after Thanksgiving. Unfortunately Melodye decided to put the leftover turkey in the freezer for soup and I didn't know about it until it was frozen hard-hard-hard. But we do have lots of mashed potatoes. (Thanks, Lori!) And carrots and carrot casserole (tastes like sweet potato casserole - if you've never had Melodye's carrot casserole then you are missing out on a thing of beauty and wonder!) and all those other good things. But to properly enjoy mashed potatoes you need gravy. "No problem," I thought, "Jen told me how to make gravy a while back." [Madly searches through viber, whatsapp, email, etc. and comes up with squat.] "No problem," I thought, "if Jen can make gravy ...

IF YOU USE AIRBNB OUTSIDE THE USA YOU WILL WANT TO READ THIS! --- EXECUTIVE SUMMARY: Every time you use airbnb to rent a place where the price is given in a currency other than your "home currency" Airbnb will take more than 3% that, by agreement with Visa, they are not allowed to take. I'd like to get a bunch of people contacting Visa and Airbnb to get pressure on airbnb to allow the option (which is already required by the agreement with visa) of charging in the currency of the customer's choice. Here's a link to a form you can fill out and send to vcf@visa.com --- Have you ever found a great deal on airbnb, saw just the price you were looking for, and then been dismayed that airbnb charged you in a different currency, at THEIR (worse) currency exchange rate, and (to add insult to injury) added a 3% exchange fee on top of that? In my personal experience I just lost over $50 making reservations for a conference - lost it by airbnb charging m...

Holy, holy, holy is the Lord God almighty, who was and is and is to come.   What is it with this whole "holy" thing?! For all of eternity we're going to hear that word, repeated 3x over and over and over again, describing God. Doesn't it seem a little over done? And what does it mean, anyway?! We so often take it to mean "without sin". That does describe God, but is that what holy means? Or is that one of the "symptoms" or by-product or *results* from being holy? My neighbor's cat is a mammal. By definition that means Happy is warm blooded and gives birth to live young. Happy is also a fierce predator, regularly leaving (largely unappreciated) "gifts" of dead lizards & birds & mice outside our door or under our neighbor's bed. Happy's mammalian nature contributes to her speed & strength as a predator, but being a predator is not part of what it means to be a mammal. (Just ask this couch potato sit...

I preached a sermon a few weeks ago in which I destroyed 2 pieces of electronic equipment: a computer keyboard and a cellular telephone. Destroyed?   Yes, literally destroyed. I took a big ol' hammer and just went to town on both of them. Someone held a clear shield to keep the audience from getting plastic splinters in their eyes, but there were pieces all over the front of the church!  And I'll admit it - it was fun. I had a blast! I just got this silly grin on my face and kept slamming that hammer down - what JOY!! Why?! Do you have something against electronic equipment?! No, I destroyed them IN PROTEST! I was protesting all the many unnecessary conflicts they have caused. All the divisions that have occurred between brothers and sisters as a result of these 2 pieces of equipment. You see, computer keyboards are used to compose EMAILS and FACEBOOK MESSAGES and cellular telephones are used to compose SMS MESSAGES . And I am convinced (by experience both as a ...

What is Christmas really about? Christmas Trees? Decorative Lights? Cheerful Music? -or-  Betrayal! The Self-Sacrificing Love of a Father! A Ransom Paid! This last week I read several articles about families whose children ran away to join ISIS.  Knowing the atrocities and the violence and the brainwashing and the trauma most of us find the idea of joining ISIS completely repugnant.  And obviously the families in these articles that I read were similarly shocked that their own children would have chosen to go and join such a group.  They were repulsed and could not believe that their child would do such a thing.  Many of them were under age but had gotten hold of their passports by deceptive means and in many cases they had stolen money from their family in order to finance their travel to Syria or Iraq. One article told of two young girls who had left their home in the United States and were caught by the police in Germany before they wer...