Welcome

If you have stumbled here by accident let me first insist that there really are no accidents in life. If however, you came on your own free will then please by all means open your hearts and your minds to the "New Wine" that God has prepared for you!

Sunday, January 23, 2011

The Smoking Catapillar

Whats in a name? My sister's name is Karen. She is really super smart almost too smart for her own good. In fact she has to order extra large hats. We were both born in the 1950's in Southern California. Our parents fought constantly which was no bed of roses. I remember the early 1960's it seemed like someone was being assassinated every couple of months. The music on AM radio was great! Three Dog Night, The Beatles, Bread and all the rockers that sold out to the Devil himself.

Karen was very smart like I said before but she was also so beautiful too! Our mother Pauline was a homecoming Queen at San Diego City College so she inherited the gene. My daughter Emma is looking more and more like my sister Karen. She introduced me to Jimi Hendrix, Woodstock and Three Dog Night. We are 5 years apart in age but closer than you might think.

We grew up on Merritt Drive in El Cajon, California where the hills are covered with avocado trees. We watched the Adam's Family and Night Gallery on a used black and white TV. Car rides with our parents were always with the windows rolled up and both parents smoking an extra long cigarette.

Corkey McMillin built our 1960's ranch house himself for $25,000 complete with a flat roof that leaked only when it rained. The Cloverleaf dairy was situated at the bottom of our hill. And for Sunday morning breakfast the Dutch family who owned the dairy would slaughter a cow in the front of our breakfast room window. I think That is why I am a "closet vegetarian".

I got unfairly kicked off the school bus at the age of 5 yrs and so the rest of the kids on my block and my very own sister walked with me to school for the entire year. i later saw that bus driver when he was very old but did not seek my revenge on him.

My dad had planted a fruit orchard and a pine tree perimeter around his little ranch. Karen had several horses which she would ride all over hill and dale. On day she put me on her pony and gave the pony a stiff kick in the belly and all I could do was hang on for dear life! My sister really did love me.

I remember too when those leather coats with all the frills were in style thanks to Crosby , Stills and Nash. One day while sitting in the car near 7-11 I accidentally grabbed a handful of her frills and ripped them off her jacket I saw stars. Just like Lucy giving Linus five good reasons Karen belted me in the eye with her fist of fury and stopped just in time as mother was returning to the car.

If you have ever played the game "Clue" and were going to relate it to my family life it would be Karen in the living room with the lead pipe. The problem wasn't that Karen was so smart it was that I was so dumb. Gullible, I was flat out gullible and Karen exploited that one flaw for most of my pre-teen life.

My sister was related to Eddie Haskel from "Leave it to Beaver". And because she did not like me she decided to torture me. Luckily for me she got married at a very young age and that is probably what saved my life from an accidental drowning.

Karen also like to watch William F Buckley. She was really smart so that makes some sense I guess. She got an aquarium for getting her appendix out, while I had my tonsils taken out and all I got was an old screaming recovery nurse. My sister could have been the President of the United States. That's why I love my big sister!

The Radio Show


So here I sit on the top of Mt Helix. One of the most beautiful days in any month of January I have ever seen. I’m sitting in the cool breeze under the shade of an very ancient eucalyptus tree. Above me and behind me is the giant white cross that stands as a monument to a past loved one. I wonder how many people have enjoyed the view from up here? Below the great expanse sprawls out like maple syrup or oil from a spilt can. Why is life so hard for most of us when we live in such proximity of such colossus beauty?

I can see the ocean today and the Coronado Islands. And I am wondering just how large is this Pacific Ocean of ours? The freeways below me look like matchbox car tracks as they  weave back and forth like human arteries masterfully laid out in an arm or leg. The houses up here are incredible the trend these days is Tuscany and the million dollar villas complete with their red tile roofs dot the steep slopes of this beautiful  place.

Today Greg and I recorded our third complete week of Refuge radio. We have been working hard to study for each week of shows, promote a new church plant called “Refuge”, put together a sermon, prepare for the Men’s Tuesday Night Bible study at Calvary Chapel la Mesa, attempt to keep our houses clean, pick up and take our kids to various social functions, shop for groceries and look for employment.

I just realized today that if I want to be a minister of God’s word that I need to take a vow of poverty. Greg and I have been using the Starbucks at the La Mesa Trolley platform for our church office. The other day we met yet another pastor doing the exact same thing, his name is TC Porter. Why shouldn’t I get paid to do a radio show or prepare a sermon? Greg is even more dire straights than I am. His unemployment ran out and now it feels as if there is a giant pink elephant on his back.

Today's show was great we are studying Galatians about being zealous about good things. I like passion and when I see it it makes me want to know more about the person who displays it. Jesus was a passionate guy. I think he would have been here with me today sitting in the sunshine up here on the mount. Humble, meek and Divine He is one man who left his mark on this world. As I look around at all this urban sprawl I cant help think that it was through His hands that all this came to be in the first place.

Hands that felt the iron nails pierce His hands and His feet. Splinters from a cross made from the wood of a tree that he planted in His garden, the garden of God. But He also made the hands of the men who cut the tree down that made the cross, mined the iron that was smelted into metal that fashioned the spikes.
It seems strange to me that we as the human race were able to take this man, falsely accuse him, beat Him bloody, humiliate Him, spit at Him, compel Him to carry His own cross up a hill and crucify the Son of God.

Sunday, January 9, 2011

Crosswalk

Technology these days is really quite incredible. You can receive and send email from your Blackberry or I phone. With the new RFID chips you are now able to wave your magic wand and a door will open, lights will turn on or even pay for gas at your local station. And to think 150 years ago we were using antique printing presses, filling up our car's gas tank with hay, using kerosene lamps for light and corn cobs for well... we better just move on.

I was on my way to KPRZ 1210 AM studios yesterday with my newest best friend Greg Kelly. We drove in my work truck complete with a lumber rack so we not able to park in the parking structure. So down the street around the corner and through the intersection we went to Tom Le Vine's little shop of wonders. We parked my truck and started walking toward their office building. As we approached a major traffic intersection we stopped and pushed the "Walk" button on the traffic signal and waited for the walking green.

This particular street is way wide and so after crossing about four lanes of traffic Greg looks over and asks me "Maybe we better run the rest of the way?". Now  having been down this street before and crossed this intersection many times on foot I knew the walking green flashed a count down when you reached the middle of the crosswalk. So as I looked over at Greg I said "No, we don't have to run we still have 23 seconds on the clock" and  just then the walking green signal flashed 23, 22 and then 21 as it counted down the time left before the light changed from green to red..

Friends, I only wish I could reassure you  that God has installed those very same  high tech crosswalk signals in our own lives, the ones that let us know we only have a few seconds or days left in our lives. When we would all  transform ourselves into the likeness of a Mother Theresa or Saint Francis of Assisi  but He has not. Our Heavenly Father did, however, manage to leave behind a "Cross" to point us in the right direction. But maybe you are a "Jay Walker" and like the thrill of running across the road  taking your life into your own hands?

Greg and I completed our walk across the street as the seconds on the walking green sign ticked down to zero we had safely made it across the intersection and were half way to our destination. I looked down at my wristwatch and we were right on time to  record our first five days worth of programing for K-Praise's  KPRZ 1210 AM "Refuge Radio" which airs Mon-Fri 8:30 to 9:00 PM evenings. Where by the way, you can hear more about that old rugged cross that really is God's "crosswalk"  into eternity.