the gate

I think this is the funniest story I’ve ever heard a preacher tell. It is told by none other than Chuck Swindoll.

He says he received a letter from a woman he had met at a conference. In the letter she said, “After your talk last night I was enjoying some relaxed moments with friends I met here. I told them I got married at age 31. I didn’t worry about getting married; I left the future in God’s hands. But I must tell you, every night I hung a pair of men’s pants on my bed and knelt down to pray this prayer:”

Father in heaven, hear my prayer,
And grant if you can;
I’ve hung a pair of trousers here,
Please fill them with a man.

Chuck Swindoll read the letter to his congregation the following Sunday. The mother of one particular teenager in the church missed that Sunday because she had to stay home to care for her sick daughter. A couple of weeks later, she wrote this letter to her pastor.

Dear Chuck:

I am wondering if I should be worried about something. It has to do with our son. For the last two weeks I have noticed that before our son turns the light out and goes to sleep at night, he hangs a woman’s bikini over the foot of his bed. . . . Should I be concerned about this?

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i saw this article in the l.a. times this week:  ’spirituality for kids’ class draws fire
 
you can skim the article and get the big picture.  several l.a. PUBLIC schools are offering a class called ’spirituality for kids’ (SFK) to teach kids about ‘inner light’ and other bogus spiritual teachings.  it is run by kabbalah spiritual leaders, teaches kabbalah theology (if you can even call it that) but doesn’t mention it explicitly.  for those that don’t know, kabbalah is a mystical form of judaism that most certainly left the reservation long ago.
 
as long as people don’t mention God or mention any one religion, such as SFK, apparently it’s acceptable to l.a. unified.
 
riddle me this:  what would happen if we had an after school program that taught kids that there was a being outside of themselves that was greater than them, and that they had all committed, hmm let’s say, ‘offenses’ against that being?  and what if we taught them that beyond this life there is an after-life, and that in that after-life we pay for our ‘offenses’ unless that same being feels like giving us a break?  how long do you think it would take the ACLU to file a law suit and have security escorting someone off of the premises?

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THE NEWS YOU ARE ABOUT TO READ IS TRUE. THESE ARE NOT FICTITIOUS STORIES. YOU CAN’T MAKE THIS STUFF UP! The names have not been changed because I am not trying to protect the guilty.

Reigning Miss Universe, Dayana Mendoza, caused more than a few jaws to drop when she described her recent tour of Guantanamo Bay as “a loooot of fun,” saying, “I didn’t want to leave, it was such a relaxing place, so calm and beautiful.” Is that why they decided to close it? [Click here to read the story.]

Sarnia city hall staff purchased a pair of cardboard coyote cutouts hoping they might help reduce goose droppings in their waterfront park. After a jogger reported one of the coyotes barking at her, police arrived on the scene, quickly surrounded the coyote, and moved in for the takedown. [Click here to read the story.]

“Man on barstool charged with DUI” (this you have to read!)

Pirates off the coast of Somalia mistake Navy warship for commercial merchant vessel and attack it. OOPS!! [Click here to read the story.]

(drumroll…) And finally for your viewing pleasure, road rage as you’ve never seen it before. Air bags . . . what a great invention! :-) [HT: Jeff Mooney]

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there was a great famine in samaria america; and behold, they besieged it, until a donkey’s head was sold for eighty shekels of silver dollars, and a fourth of a kab of dove’s dung for five shekels of silver dollars. as the king president of israel america was passing by on the wall a woman cried out to him, saying, “help, my lord, O king president!” he said, “if the Lord does not help you, from where shall I help you? from the threshing floor, or from the wine press?” and the king president said to her, “what is the matter with you?” and she answered, ”this woman said to me, ‘give your son that we may eat him today, and we will eat my son tomorrow.’ ”so we boiled my son and ate him; and i said to her on the next day, ‘give your son, that we may eat him’; but she has hidden her son.”  (2 kings 6:25-29)

america’s famine is so harsh, i ate my son yesterday.  now i’m angry at steve because i let him eat G’s leg because he promised that today he’d be cooking ben up for dinner.  but i heard he stashed ben up in seattle somewhere.  what a jerk!

** tongue WAAAY in cheek **

the famine in samaria was so harsh that they had resorted to eating their own children.  how horrible is that?  somehow, our economic situation seems trivial at best.  perhaps our descent will take us very deep, but we’re a long way from this level of desperation.  we need a bit of a perspective realignment.

now, i’m trying to remember a time where i have had a conversation about the economic status of the U.S.A. that has involved a concerted effort on my part to offer hope.  i share my faith regularly, but with this particular topic i get caught up in policy and whatevers.  i have even had times to share about real need from my experiences in india.  but i am becoming convinced that the Church (capital “C”) needs to take this opportunity to present hope.  these are hopeless times.  people need hope, not a stable stock market.

will you join me in reminding people that amidst the trials that israel faced, God remained faithful to His people?

psalm 23, although it is about a different topic, seems very applicable to me right now. 

even though I walk through the valley of the shadow of death, i fear no evil, for You are with me; Your rod and Your staff, they comfort me. (psalm 23:4)

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Just a couple of tourists visiting one of the world’s seven wonders.

Why buy a minivan when you already have a motorcycle?

And who needs a truck when you can use a motorcycle?

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…because all of life isn’t that serious……….  :)

superfraud 

Shaquille O’Neal asked what adventure most changed your life? “Scuba diving with a faulty tank. This was a couple summers ago in Italy. I’d been diving about 20 times before, so I went down probably 200 feet. I was having a good time, and everything was fine. But then I couldn’t breathe. At first I was kind of panicking because I went for, like, 10 seconds trying to get the breather thing to work. Then I saw the boat’s anchor, and I went into MacGyver mode. I threw off the tank, grabbed the anchor chain, and just climbed all the way up. I was sick for about a day. I thought I had the bends, but I was just dead tired and nervous. I haven’t been scuba diving since. Never again.”  (arizona republic)

i read this by chance this morning.  the only thing Superman about this guy is his absolutely fictional account (read: lie) of this event.  in a standard ascent for scuba, your maximum speed without entering the danger zone is 60 feet per minute.  that means he would have made a safe ascent from 200 feet in a little over 3 minutes.  and take it from a guy who’s run out of air underwater that you don’t know something is wrong until you exhale and then can’t take another breath.   not to mention he admits to not being able to take a breath for 10 seconds (an eternity).  that means Superman would have made that 3+ min. ascent with no air in his lungs to begin with.  that account stinks like his basketball shorts after an overtime game.

how can this economy survive without porn???? 

Francis sees his industry like the big three automakers, only BIGGER: “Congress seems willing to help shore up our nation’s most important businesses; we feel we deserve the same consideration.” (huffington post)

larry flynt (”hustler”) and joe francis (”girls gone wild”) just asked congress for a $5B bailout….and I think they should get it!  well, not really.  i’m not an advocate of porn, but i’m also not an advocate of the bailouts.  who gets to decide which industries get bailouts and which do not?  follow straight up logic, precedent and the law and you get a porn industry that deserves $5B.  if these guys fail, there will be a lot of out of work hoochies, not to mention their plastic surgeons, the silicone industry will take a hit…what next??  we never should have bailed out anyone to begin with.

“saving private john” starring matt damon

The Army mistakenly sent letters addressed “Dear John Doe” to 7,000 family members of soldiers who died in Iraq and Afghanistan, unleashing calls from troubled relatives and prompting a formal apology yesterday from the Army’s top general. (washington post)

do you remember that scene in “saving private ryan” where tom hanks tells the wrong john ryan that his brothers are all dead?  this is straight out of that movie!!  i love how we treat the families of our fallen soldiers.  i hope that the dork that botched the mail merge in washington gets fired.  they can stand in the unemployment line with “candy” and “sparkly rain” from the last story.

that’s all for now…this randomness was brought to you by the letter “F” and the number “4″.

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last week i had a discussion with some people regarding whether or not it is worth it to have children.  while my answer was yes, i proceeded to give my view on how you must walk into that with open eyes and realistic expectations.  if you over glamorize the idea of having children, you may be gravely disappointed.

i wish i would have had this saturday as an example.

7 am - running children and wood floors = wake up!!!!
10am - family portraits.
12pm - drove home from whittier to pick up my new blackberry storm, only to find out that RIM dropped the ball and i wasn’t getting it yet.
3pm - newphew’s birthday party.  sugar (aka child crack) induced hysteria.  it’s a little stressful following a 2.5 year old kid around to make sure he doesn’t jump in the pool while no one is looking.  especially when you’re trying to watch Oklahoma destroy Texas Tech!
11pm - bed time.  woo hoo!!
11:30pm - G starts Vomit Fest 2008.
my day ended at a mind numbing 6:30am the next morning.  i was awake with G all night as he vomited over and over and over, to the point where he was dry heaving in his sleep.  it was awful.  i did three loads of laundry and made several trips out into the cold to throw away the remnants of the birthday party food that he had so graciously deposited onto his pillow and sheets.

as i held my breath, i tried my best to pick out the warm chunks of food from his blankets.  yes, i said warm.

then i sat in a rocking chair hoping to get some sleep but instead quickly moved to a state of mild fear and concern as he was puking every 15 minutes or so. 

so what did i do?  the same thing, over and over, sandwiching his vomiting with my heavy doses of prayer that God would heal his sickness and help him sleep.

why do i share this story?  because as i was praying for him, i did think a alot about how patient and loving our heavenly Father is.  He would do it for us.  He would clean up our puke, change our clothes, sit in a busted chair and not sleep if He needed to.

even more than that, i thought about Him holding back someone’s hair while they heave into the porcelain god after a long night of drinking.  my first reaction was to think “where did that come from? that can’t be right to think about”.  but the more i thought of it, the more i realized that God is loving, gracious and comforting even when we choose to indulge ourselves in sin until we vomit.

the entire story of the Bible, as well as our own personal stories, reads like my saturday night.  a loving and patient Father cleans up our vomit (self induced or virus induced) and prays for us.

so what if the question was posed to God, is having children worth it.  i think He’d say yes.

what a wonderful daddy we have.

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No, it didn’t have anything to do with my glee or despondency about the election that was going to take place on Tuesday. But I did get high — 9,200 feet high, to be exact. I was even caught on camera while I was high, and I’m shamelessly posting those pictures!

Before we leave Summit Pass, here’s Mt. Whitney 40 miles in the background. Mt. Whitney is the tallest peak in the lower 48 states.

I’ve been wanting to take this trip up to the Sierra Nevadas for a year now. I missed it last year because the roads closed for the winter before I could get up there. Since my small group wasn’t meeting this week, Sunday afternoon I rode up to the booming metropolis of Exeter, where I spent the night. At daybreak, I headed down Yokohl Road over to the mighty 190, and from there caught the Western Divide Highway, and then went up to Summit Pass (9200ft). There I made a U-turn and caught the Kern River Highway, to Hwy 155. Thinking the best part of the trip was already over, when I hit the 155, a silly grin broke across my face from ear to ear as I started carving those incredible curves. What an amazing motorcycle road!

Here’s a section of the curves on the mighty 190 captured from my GPS map.

Since I was there, I just had to stop at the Trail of 100 Giants. Here’s one of the giants.

Here’s a shot of the Kern River Highway, tracking right alongside the river.

With the leaves changing color, the clear blue sky, and the majestic mountains, it was a gorgeous day.

Add the 182 miles I rode on Sunday to the 309 miles I road on Monday, and you get 491 miles of good, clean fun. All totaled, I did a bazillion curves — actually, more than that … I lost count at one bazillion. The difference between Sunday and Monday was several thousand feet of elevation, and 127 miles of curves!

If you’re interested, when the air temperature is 41° and you’re traveling 40mph, the wind chill factor is 28°!

A Google Earth perspective of the Monday ride.

(You can click here to read about my last motorcycle trip)

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UPDATE - Tuesday, Nov 25

They Won! (click here for story)

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Vote for America’s “Got Milk?” Chief Health Officer

CLICK HERE and scroll down to Joel Hasemeyer’s video. Rate his video by clicking on the milk glasses — one glass being the lowest score and five glasses being the highest. Voting will be open until midnight on October 31, 2008. Vote as frequently as you’d like, but there is a limit of one vote per day.

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