I realize that many people do not find photographs of automobile accidents edifying. In fact most people find them disturbing. I would be concerned about you if these photographs didn’t make you wince. It is not good subject material. Wrecks are an ugly part of life. And we tend to not want to focus on the ugly parts of life. There is something in us that would rather ignore ugliness in hope that it goes away no matter how commonplace, or rampant it has become.
The sobering thing to me about wrecks is they are all inclusive: no driver is immune.
I just read I Kings 13. It is a strange story of an unnamed prophet who arrives to prophesy against Jeroboam and his profane altar. God gave the prophet very specific instructions: Don’t eat or drink anything, here is exactly what to prophesy, and don’t take the same road back home. The prophet does really well until he is lead astray by an older lying prophet. Ultimately, God sends a lion to kill the unnamed prophet for his disobedience. If you will allow a modern phrase, this prophet crashes and burns.
This story, as bizarre at it seems, is a theme for many people in I Kings. Namely Joab, Solomon, and Jeroboam. All of these started out doing really well. Joab defends David many times, albeit he is a little unruly. God appeared before Solomon twice. God sent a prophet to prophesy to Jeroboam. These men did well until they did not do well.
These are the kind of things I think about when I see a wreck. Yes, there is something artistic about a crashed vehicle, but it is not something that makes you feel good. It is something that should make you think long uncomfortable, sobering thoughts.
When I see a wreck I think about what the Word of God calls the highway of holiness. I think of a life off course. Of a young person who made an impulsive decision to get them of course. I think of a middle aged man who made a calculated decision to get them of course. I think of wrecked lives. Broken homes. Addictions.
Ye did run well; who did hinder you that ye should not obey the truth? Galatians 5:7
I love ice cream. I once received an emergency haircut after I snuck out of bed to finish off the ice cream. I stuck the empty plastic ice cream bucket over my head and licked the sides. There was no hiding the evidence in my hair the next morning on the way to take Zach to school.
My parents had an old Amana ice cream maker that was louder than three holiness preachers. Like so many other appliances from the 80s, it was brown and tan. I am not sure it came from the factory that loud. When you’re a kid you think broken things are normal, like the refrigerator that won’t stay closed. The noise didn’t ever stop us from partying though. And my parents hardly ever made ice cream without it being a party. After all, what you need to have a party is special food and special people. So by that definition, every night was a party at our house.
I suppose the rackety Amana was better than the hand crank ice cream makers that some of my older friends have told me about. I guess you’ll gladly do whatever it takes to have some ice cream. I imagine you could rig up an exercise bike to an ice cream maker if times were tough and you were smart enough. I bet Creed could do it. Anyway, I’m not thinking about engineering, I’m thinking about ice cream.
Like I was saying, the ice cream machine noise was part of the atmosphere of a party. All the adults would be sitting around the table playing Rook. They yelled anyway, but they had to put in extra effort to raise their voices above the electric motor whining away in the kitchen. The kids probably got away with more mischief since the noise was running interference for them. No one ever said anything about the noise until someone turned the machine off.
“Man that was loud.” Somebody would say as if Jesus had just rebuked the sea and the disciples were marveling at the calm.
They always made vanilla and strawberry. Those were the only flavors I thought homemade ice cream came in. Man was it ever good. Strawberry is probably still my favorite, but ice cream has to be real bad for me to not like it. In Virginia they made Grape-Nuts Ice Cream and acted like it was the best thing ever. If you’re not familiar with Grape-Nuts then you probably don’t know about fried bologna neither. It’s a cereal that poor people used to eat instead of food. Just put a little bit of fine gravel in the vanilla next time you make a batch of homemade ice cream and you’ll get the same texture and maybe a little better taste. It tastes bad because you had to grow up eating it for it to taste good.
To someone out there, homemade ice cream with Grape-Nuts in it will bring back a flood of fond memories. It just didn’t do it for me.
Sis. Beane made some lemon ice cream one time at youth camp. She put it three or four times the amount of lemon flavoring that the recipe called for. Bro. J.L. Parker took a big bite and made a sour face. “Sister, that’s the best I ever tried to eat.”
Dad used to tell us about how Pop would ask him and Uncle Melvin what kind of ice cream they wanted from the store.
“Rocky Road!”
“Chocolate!”
No matter what they asked, Pop always brought back Cherry Vanilla.
Dad would laugh about that story.
It was around the time that he knew he was about to die that Dad asked for some Cherry Vanilla Ice Cream. As many times as he told that story, it was the first time that I ever remember seeing it. One of the last things I saw dad eat was Blue Bell Dutch Chocolate. I fed it it to him. I don’t think I’ll ever be able to eat that flavor again and not think of him.
So I’m thinking about getting an ice cream maker, or seeing if Creed can do the bicycle powered deal. I want to experiment with some different flavors. I think peach ice cream would be good. And apparently they used to make that at Nonna’s, but I just don’t remember it. Or maybe we can use some of these blackberries that grow on the back fence. I mean just about any fruit will be good in ice cream.
“Anything with five cups of sugar in it is bound to be good.”
No one is going to be impressed if you tell them, “Today I rode my bicycle.”
Unless you are a child who has never ridden a bike, or just got off of training wheels, there is nothing remarkable about that. Any average adult could’ve done the same thing with little effort and no planning.
But it if you tell someone, “Today I rode my bike 100 miles.” Then you are more likely to get a different response. Some people will be impressed, some will think you are crazy as an outhouse rat. But most everyone is curious about things that require something more than marginal effort. It is that extra effort-work, planning, dedication, etc.-that stands out to people.
Riding 100 miles on a bicycle sounds like a nearly impossible task for some people. But it is really quite simple. It’s just takes hard work and some planning. To a cyclist (I guess I am an official gel eating, ride in the rain cyclist) riding 100 miles, or a Century, is a right of passage. As ridiculous as it may sound, it is something that cyclists work their way toward achieving.
I am not saying that it is not possible to get on a bike without any training and ride 100 miles without a plan. But I am saying that it will be difficult to ride the day after you do that. In fact it will be difficult to do anything the day after. I also can’t promise that you won’t injure yourself.
I’m sure there is someone more qualified to tell you how to go about riding 100 miles, but if you are a regular reader we both know that cycling is not really what we’re actually talking about here. At any rate, this is what I would recommend if this is something you really want to do.
Commit to Cycling.
Unless you commit to cycling and go out and purchase a bicycle, riding a century is going to be like anything else that you would just like to do. There is a commitment beyond simply purchasing the bike: riding the bike. Every day. Something will hurt every day that you ride. You will be out of breath and have to do the walk of shame on some of the hills, pushing your bike up as you wonder if you’ll ever get to a point where this won’t hurt. It won’t quit being hard, you’ll just go faster.
Eventually, there will come a point when that one hill doesn’t whip you any more. This only happens to the people that don’t quit.
Set Small Goals First.
There will come a time when you will have to set a distance goal that is beyond what you are capable of doing in your early morning ride. You won’t be quite sure how hard it will be to ride x miles, but you have a rough idea of how much time it will take because you ride n miles every morning and n•5=x. You’ll be confident you can ride that far because you have done it every week for a few weeks, but you’re not certain that you can do a week’s worth of riding in one day.
This is when you have to saddle up one morning and not get off until you have completed your goal.
Fortunately for you, you have me to tell you to pack plenty of food because you stand to burn about 2,000 calories for a 50 mile ride. If you don’t eat and drink enough you will run out of energy and it will take a while for you to feel better.
If you think you don’t need those padded underwear you will change your mind after that first Half Century.
Plan a Route.
The first time I rode 50 miles I had to psych myself up for it. If I am honest I didn’t have a lot of confidence in myself to finish. So I purposefully mapped a route. It is hard to give up when you are 25 miles from the house.
Mapping out a route is even more important when doing a Century. Nothing kills motivation like not having a plan.
Where there is no vision, the people perish…
Proverbs 29:18
You don’t want to have to spend the last 15 miles of a Century mapping out a route. You won’t be in the right frame of mind.
Follow the Plan.
I believe in following the plan. You made the plan when you were thinking straight. At mile 80 you won’t be thinking straight. If you planned to do 100 miles, then all you have to do is follow the plan.
Century I
For your first Century I would avoid any roads with “mountain” in the name.
Century II
Once you ride 100 miles in a single day, any distance below 100 miles doesn’t seem that far. It is a psychological barrier that must be broken. Once it is broken there is also the danger of not riding shorter rides any more because they aren’t 100 miles. I feel pretty strongly that these simple daily rides are just as important if not more important than any Century ride.
Light gains, heavy purses.
-Poor Richard’s Almanac
Anything in life worth doing is probably going to be hard. Easy things hardly ever stand out as great things. The paradox is that great things are generally simple, but simple doesn’t mean easy.
You may have great things that you would like to do but haven’t done yet. I believe that you can do them. It is amazing what you can do with a little commitment and planning.
There is a certain amount of guilt that comes with giving up on a book.
Sarah can always tell when I start reading a new book that is really good because I’ll stay up past 9:30pm. There is nothing quite like a book that really captivates you. You’ll find yourself thinking about the characters and plot even when you’re not reading. When you finally do finish it there is a bit of sadness because it is over. Then you have to hope that the next book your pick up is as good, but you never know. Sometimes you feel obligated to press on through an uninteresting book. You try to press on, but when a book is boring there is no motivation to read, and instead of staying up to read you close the book and go to sleep. There is a certain amount of guilt that comes with giving up on a book. When you finally make the decision to ditch a bad book you run the risk of going through this whole process again. This is what I call being stuck between books.
I guess now is as good of a time as any to confess that I am a bibliophile. I don’t just love to read, I love books. A book case is the first thing you see when you walk into my home. I love the smell of a century old book. I love the feel and color of old paper with words that were mechanically printed with ink and typeset. My parents bought books not only to read, but to display.
When a book is really good it becomes a part of our family language: an integral part of how we express ourselves.
Being between books demands a decision. We can either reach back for old books that we’ve already read (and there are some books that should be re-read) or we reach forward for the unknown of a new, hoping that we will chance upon a story that will become a part of us. Or we can stop reading.
In a larger sense, we can compare our lives to a series of books. There is romance, love, horror, tragedy, adventure, mystery. There is one exception though, you can’t really re-live any of these books. You cannot start over, but you can start new. And there is still a possibility of getting caught between books.
In life it is sometimes hard to tell when one book ends and another begins, which can make for dangerous transition traps. Thankfully, early on these lines are drawn more clearly for us. We go from Kindergarten to first grade and so on; each school year a new volume in the library of life. Once we graduate we lose the preset beginnings and endings that school provided for us yearly from age five until whenever we stopped our schooling. Because of this, we can all too easily forget the feeling of beginning anew once we become adults, and many people feel the pressure to somehow to make forty year run until retirement with no new fresh starts. In short, it is quite difficult for people to affect a new positive change in their lives-or even recognize a when a change is necessary- without help from an outside force.
As a result people get caught between books in life. Or worse, they continue re-reading a bad book hoping in vain to finish with a different ending, or without a concept of ever finishing. To use Bible language, these people are drifting aimlessly through life “having no hope.”
The basic message of Christianity is repentance. Or making a complete new start with the understanding that the routine that I was in before is no longer an option. It takes a lot of guts to make a new start like that. Jesus Christ said it best:
The law and the prophets were until John: since that time the kingdom of God is preached and every man presseth into it.
Luke 16:16
John came preaching “Repent, for the Kingdom of heaven is at hand.” What an offensive word: Repent. It is still as offensive today as it was then. No one wants to hear that they are doing anything-much less that they are living and thinking-wrong. But the message of Christianity has not changed since the birthday of the church in the book of Acts, and the preaching of the repentance still pricks people in their hearts, or cuts them to their hearts. This kind of preaching demands a decision.
There are many people who see what this kind of change requires and are unwilling to pay that kind of price, and they go away sorrowfully like the rich young ruler.
In fact a lot of “churches” have long ago quit preaching any semblance of conversion, because they also have quit preaching repentance in an effort to be less offensive. These assemblies, or congregations-I’ll not call them churches-offer no hope to people who desperately need a new start.
Therefore if any man be in Christ, he is a new creature: old things are passed away; behold, all things are become new. I Corinthians 5:17
There are certain things that, if you really want to do them right require a lifestyle change.
“I’d like to take up the guitar.”
I hear this from time to time and I always get a little tickled. Playing guitar is not something that you simply take up. It takes the kind of lifestyle change that will make a kid who throws fits about having their fingernails clipped start cutting them every five days. In living for God we call this kind of lifestyle change a conversion. You can’t have Christianity without conversion and you’ll never be really good at guitar without a major lifestyle change.
Sometimes people aren’t really ready for a change, they just like the idea of the results the change brings. That’s how I have always looked at being healthy.
“Man, I’d sure like to be fit.” I’d catch myself thinking as I loaded up a second portion of barbecue at one of the feasts that most of my memories are centered around. The fact is, I enjoy eating good food. It has been a part of my lifestyle since I can remember. We ate to celebrate, we ate to mourn.
I love food.
I have been slowly chipping away at college work over the last couple of years. I have always been impressed at how disciplined I can be when someone imposes upon me a syllabus and deadlines. So I decided to do an experiment. I wrote out a set of health/fitness goals and a ten week plan to see what I could achieve. I picked this number partly because it matched my summer semester and partly because I had a Doctor’s appointment at the end of that ten weeks. I want to share with you the plan and the results.
Me and Hollynn, who hardly ever lays her head down on my shoulder. I’m about 235lbs in this picture.
May 22, 2021
I weighed 232.4lbs. My waist measurement was 35″. I had a bike but I wasn’t a consistent cyclist.
Health Goals 5/22-8/02/2021
Take in my belt two notches
Fit into my suits comfortably
Weigh 200lbs
Cycle 500 miles
Waist 30″
Health Plan 5/22-8/02/2021
I suppose this may be the most important part, otherwise those goals are just nice thoughts. This is where the lifestyle change comes in.
Ride or run daily
No snacks, only meals
No sugar
One helping at supper
Avoid fried food
Pushups daily
Weigh in at the end of every week
Results
Weight
Waist
Miles Ridden
Week 0
5/22/2021
232.4
35″
50
Week 1
5/29/2021
227.4
32″
65.66
Week 2
6/5/2021
229
32″
51.02
Week 3
6/12/2021
229
32″
53.76
Week 4
6/19/2021
225
31 7/8″
101.7
Week 5
6/26/2021
223
31 3/4″
72.27
Week 6
7/3/2021
223
31 3/4″
3.99
Week 7
7/10/2021
223
31 3/4″
86.39
Week 8
7/17/2021
220
63.07
Week 9
7/24/2021
219.4
72.92
Week 10
7/31/2021
217.6
85.2
Dr. Appt
8/2/2021
215.6
Total
705.98
Take in my belt two notches-I took it in three
Fit into my suits comfortably-Achieved
Weigh 200lbs – This may have been a tall order. Losing 32.4lbs in ten weeks may not be healthy. I am satisfied with having lost 16.8lbs.
Cycle 500 miles-I rode 705.98 miles.
Waist 30″- I quit measuring after week 7, because after looking closer I think the tape had a manufacturing flaw.
Observations
During week 6 I went to Youth Camp, I ate fried food every day, and staid up until 2:00am every night. The only reason I cycled any is because I rode my brother’s bike. Even so, I didn’t gain any weight that week, which was surprising.
Me at youth camp playing a Bsus4 chord at 223lbs
In week 7 I bought some lights for my bicycle and I started riding before work and before I ate anything. You can see that weight loss is more consistent from that time on out. It was around this time that I also noticed that I was waking up before my alarm clock.
I tried to do some running, but I only managed to get three miles. Running is a lot harder than cycling. I’ll have to tackle that in a different plan.
I have noticed that if I eat much later than 7:00pm I will fill sluggish in the mornings.
I have avoided sticking to a hard diet like Keto, because I feel like I would crash and burn. I did however try to eat more whole foods instead of processed foods.
I asked my doctor about nutrition at my appointment. He said that I was already doing a good job.
“If you are doing it right, it is going to take a long time.”
Sarah and Me on a date. I’m weighing about 216lbs here.
Conclusion
So why am I writing about this?
Anytime someone decides to make a lifestyle change for the better, there are people who will wait for them to fail.
“Oh she’s going to church now? She won’t make it three months.”
“He’s learning the guitar? Hahahah! What a waste of time.”
“He’ll be off that diet come fourth of July.”
People don’t mind telling you what they really think. Some-not all- will comment in hopes that you fail no matter what you’re trying to do.
This is part of a real conversation I had about my health plan.
“You ride that bike on the road? Man that’s dangerous!”
“You’re right, but you know what else is dangerous? Congestive heart failure and diabetes.”
So I am here to encourage someone today. If you are trying to make a healthy lifestyle change, you can do it. That is, if you really want to. Anything worth doing is probably going to be hard.
There are some lifestyle changes that carry a greater pay off than others.
For bodily exercise profiteth little: but godliness is profitable unto all things, having promise of the life that now is, and of that which is to come. I Timothy 4:8
I got a message this week from one of the ladies at church.
Would you mind sharing with me what you liked about your dad, for Father’s Day presentation?
This is the answer I gave her.
I suppose I would be lying if I said I liked everything about my dad. There are the things that he and I share in common that I have to constantly keep in check and I wish I could change. But these kind of things, and more importantly how we deal with them, are a part of what makes up a person’s character. Thankfully, the shortcomings alone of a man are not what define him.
The characteristics that I admire most about my Dad are as follows:
Faithfulness
Most will proclaim every one his own goodness: but a faithful man who can find? Proverbs 20:6
I never wondered where my Dad was. He was faithful to his wife, his family, his church, and his God.
Love
He that spareth his rod hateth his son: but he that loveth him chaseneth him betimes. Proverbs 13:24
Now that I am trying to raise my kids I can relate to the frustration Dad had trying to raise me. I realize now that the driving force behind everything he did was love.
Integrity
The just man walketh in his integrity: his children are blessed after him. Proverbs 20:7
As an adult I realize now how rare integrity is.
Love for Truth
Through wisdom is an house builded; and by understanding it is established: and by knowledge shall the chambers be filled with all precious and pleasant riches. Proverbs 24:3-4
Dad had a deep love for truth. He was always quoting Proverbs 23:23 Buy the truth, and sell it not; also wisdom, and instruction, and understanding.
Communication
A word fitly spoken is like apples of gold in pictures of silver. Proverbs 25:11
Dad may not have necessarily been a powerful orator, but he was an excellent communicator. A critic once accused Mark Twain’s work as water compared to the fine wine of higher literature, mark Twain replied, “But the people drink water.” Dad was a master at the art of conversation. He could talk to anybody.
Maybe this was more than she was wanting, but I have been thinking about Dad more than usual this week and I didn’t want to give her a generic answer.
These are some of the characteristics that I am striving to master in my own life. More importantly, I want to instill them in my children.
On the wall in a spare bedroom at my wife’s grandmother’s house hangs an old portrait of a sailor. It was the kind of portrait that was made on black and white film with color added by hand as a part of the development process. I always stop and look at this picture whenever we are visiting Grandma Mattie.
Claude Cornelius Cooper
“That was my father, Claude Cornelius Cooper.” She told me at my first visit.
Mr. Cooper had been a sailor in the 1930s. He got out of the Navy and came back home to south Alabama where he purchased a farm from a cousin or uncle. It was during these last years of the Great Depression that he realized he could reenlist to the Navy for a few years and be able to pay the farm off. So he did just that.
He was on the USS Neosho on December 11th, 1941. The oiler was able to successfully escape the harbor and the destruction of that day of infamy.
It was at the Battle of the Coral Sea on May 11, 1942 that the Neosho was attacked and set afire. A destroyer rescued the surviving crew and then scuttled the Neosho.
Claude Cornelius Cooper was not among the survivors. He left behind his wife and children and the farm.
I read a lot of books about war. Perhaps it is the little boy in me that finds this history so interesting. More likely I find it interesting because I have never experienced the hellish nightmare of combat. One thing that is inescapably painful to me as I read these histories is the massive cost in human life that war demands.
Memorial Day is a day set aside for remembering. We remember the thousands upon thousands of individual Americans who have died in the name of freedom. It is a heavy and somber day. A day when history becomes personal.
There is something about transporting a large, awkward object like a canoe or a chifforobe in something other than a pickup truck on the interstate that makes for good character development.
My father-in-law gave me an old canoe last year. We hauled it the three hundred miles back home tied to the top of our minivan. There is something about transporting a large, awkward object like a canoe or a chifforobe in something other than a pickup truck on the interstate that makes for good character development.
Not far from the house is the perfect place to take a canoe: Duck River. It’s a relatively new reservoir with three boat landings and a 17 mile hiking trail around the perimeter. The whole family has gone to the hiking trail countless times, but only Wes and I have ventured out in the canoe. The first time we only had one paddle.
Like anything, there is an art to canoeing, but you’ll have to read someone else’s article if you want to know more about that. I do understand, because of firsthand experience, that the canoe is keelless and can be turned with just the slightest stroke of the paddle. If you are located more or less toward the rear of the vessel, you’ll quickly get a handle on how to maneuver the boat with a single paddle. This is what we call, faking it.
The second time Wes & I took the canoe out we each had a paddle. Initially, I decided to sit in the back so I could steer the canoe. It became immediately apparent that the weight in the boat was not equally balanced, so we pulled ashore opposite our launch and redistributed the weight. Which means we swapped seats. Then we realized that since we were facing each other it would be difficult for Wesley to help paddle. So we rearranged the seating once again with Wesley aft and me fore. This was the position I was trying to avoid, because it meant that Wesley would have to be responsible for the main steering of the canoe. But he is good at following instructions, so I gave him a crash course in using his paddle as a rudder and we shoved out into the water again.
It is a funny thing, communication. Something so glaringly clear to you can become a convoluted mess whenever you try to put it into words and convey it to anyone. Especially a child. And if you’re in a hurry.
It was so frustrating to exert a lot of energy paddling only to watch the canoe turn in a wide circle. I looked back and saw that Wesley was steering us the wrong direction. I wanted to be mad at him, but I realized that in my haste all of my instructions had been opposite of the right instructions.
After about the third loop we made, and some heated dialogue, Wesley exclaimed very clearly, “I don’t know what you want me to do! If you tell me exactly what to do I’ll do it!”
After this, I pulled up next to the shore and turned the canoe around backwards so I could show him-in detail and patiently like I should have done in the first place-how to use the paddle as a rudder. It really was quite amazing the canoe instantly responded to such subtle movements of rudder. From then on, we had no more trouble steering the boat. We even executed a couple of loops on purpose in order to get a better look at some water snakes.
A map of our canoe route shows a clear difference between the crooked trip out and the straight trip back.
As I was sitting in that spinning canoe frustrated at myself for rushing out into the middle of what could be a stressful situation and expecting my seven year old son to read my mind as well as react like an adult this verse came to mind.
Behold also the ships, which though they be so great, and are driven of fierce winds, yet are they turned about with a very small helm, whithsoever the governor listeth. Even so the tongue is a little member, and boasteth great things… James 3:3-4
No matter the amount of fierce wind-or in our case how hard we paddle-the direction will be set by a small rudder.
But the tongue can no man tame; it is an unruly evil, full of deadly poison. James 3:8
I am of the firm belief that only God can tame your tongue. Until then, regardless of how much energy you put into your life, an untamed tongue will be steering the ship.
“I’ve always thought skydiving would be fun. I’ve just never found the time or money to do it.” I said this to a friend who skydives all the time.
“Doesn’t everything take time and money?” He asked.
It is true. You can get a lot of things done when you have a lot of time and money. Everyone may not have the same amount of money, but we all are given the same amount of time. The difference is, if you have a lot of money you can buy other people’s time. When I write it out like that it makes me wonder if I’m selling my time too cheaply.
“What’s time to a pig?”
Sean’s grandfather
I had a conversation recently that on the surface was about organization of a daily routine and getting better sleep. At the core though, this conversation revolved around time. And more specifically, the frustration and guilt over the mismanagement of time. In an effort to help my friend, I shared my thoughts about time. It was nothing new, but I think it helped him. So I’m sharing them with you.
Time is currency. We spend it, waste it, or invest it.
Each of us is given and indefinite amount of this currency made payable only in the present. We can make plans on how to use our time just like we make plans to use our future paychecks. We’re not really sure when our time will run out. And we know that at a single instant everything could change. But we do not like to retain this in our knowledge. If dwelt upon, the uncertainty of time is unnerving.
Boast not thyself of to morrow; for thou knowest not what a day may bring forth. Proverbs 27:1
The gift of time is a great responsibility. If time is indeed currency, or money, I want to get the best deal for my hours and minutes. Perhaps it comes with age or possibly is a byproduct of sheer laziness, but economy of time is very important to me. Let me explain.
I am allotted one hour for lunch. Lunch can cost me the full hour, or I can choose to only pay five minutes for lunch and then have fifty five minutes to spend practicing guitar. If I do this five days a week, that is four hours and thirty five minutes of practice gained.
Currently I have precious time bound in my commute to work. In order to make the most of that nonnegotiable hour in the truck I listen to audiobooks. Which means I can read a book a week on my commute alone. If I adjust the audiobook speed I can sometimes squeeze in two books a week.
There are some times when I’m less concerned about how quickly a task can be completed, or rather how cheaply I was able purchase an activity with my time. Some things are worth however long it takes. I am thinking of the time I invest with my wife and kids. I do not believe that all moments are equal. Five minutes on my lunch break is not worth the same amount as a five minute conversation with my five year old.
Then there are the truly priceless moments of opportunity that can never be regained nor renegotiated. How can we measure their worth? These are the moments of decision in life. It may be possible that they can be anticipated by the wise, although they often go unrecognized by the foolish. These are the moments that if missed will be a source of regret and anguish, if acted upon will be a source of strength and resolve.
So what are you doing with your time? If the Chronological Examiners Board showed up at your door to do an audit could you endure their report?
My prayer for you, dear reader, is that you would take time to address the areas in your life that are of eternal significance. Thank you for your time.
I love all children. Round up a choir of them to sing before the offering at church and you are guaranteed all of the cash in my wallet. I love to hear children play. Even when I have to step in and act like I don’t like it when they get rambunctious- because that’s what parents are supposed to do, and so they won’t tear the house or the church down- I love that too. Children have unbridled energy.
“He just needs a tiller.”
Perry Wells in reference to a hyperactive child.
I especially love when children carry on a conversation with an adult. I think this is something I picked up from Dad. He loved talking to kids. Not in the baby talk way, but in the same way he talked to everybody.
Dad asked my cousin Kyle about his first week of kindergarten.
“Well Uncle Perry, there’s some boys in my class and there’s some girls in my class. And I’m one of the boys.” I am not sure they are still teaching this these days. But it is still a good lesson to learn.
Children have an interesting way of putting their thoughts into words. Or using language. Or “Playing with language” as linguist David Crystal puts it. When you have a limited vocabulary you have to improvise sometimes. I love it when children make up useful words. For a while Miriam called the flyswatter a fly-smacker. If the made up word is good enough then adults will likely adopt it. I have adopted fishing-wand.
Children are also practical. I once asked a child where he liked to eat pizza. “At the table.” He replied. The made up words and innocent logic are just two of the things that make a child’s conversation rich. There is an honesty and directness that children possess in communication that many adults have lost long ago. Speaking with children reminds us of that.
If I may be vulnerable, children who do not “speak when spoken to” get on my nerves. At the same time, I will not reprimand my child if some creepy adult is trying to talk to them. But, I was raised that it was rude to not speak when spoken to, and I will not remove that landmark.
I have noticed that you have to earn the trust of some children. It may take a while before a child isn’t afraid of you. After all, I’m a big loud man and that may be intimidating to a child.
I feel like my brother was born grown. Dad said that Zach always wanted to be with the adults as a child. As an adult he is equally good at talking to people and to children. He is as good as Dad was at talking to the little fellows.
If you want to be a good communicator it really helps if you genuinely love people.
I think that learning how to speak to adults is an important life skill. A lot of business gets handled through conversations. Perhaps young children that can hold a conversation with an adult are more prepared to handle that business when they become adults. I don’t know. But I wonder about these things when I talk to little children. What will this child do when they grow up? What natural propensity is this child already displaying?Does this child know how to have a conversation?
Mostly From Memory 