Peter -n- Melodye

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...

When I write I tend to do it in the same way I talk ... without end. My wife, fortunately, understands that few people have the patience to read through to the end (if I ever did get to the end) on something I write.  So she effectively edits.  And edits.  And cuts.  And edits. In the largely misdirected idea that perhaps someone might be interested in more detail than can fit on the front/back of a newsletter along with lots of other pictures ... I'm putting the uncut version of all the articles here. No, I don't really expect you to read all of it.  But if you want to you would make my heart glad... :-) GENERATIONS "Everybody get up, move your chairs around.  I want you sitting in a single row of chairs in order according to your age -- the youngest person over here and the oldest over here."  That was the politically incorrect way that Peter opened up a discussion on GENERATIONS during our recent field conference.  Once we were all ...