A thing I have missed...

I grew up in the Midwest, Minnesota to be specific. We are, in fact, visiting there at the present and ran into something that I didn't realize I had missed until...

We arrived on Wednesday the 20th of July to very hot and muggy weather.  We must have brought the "summer that wasn't" with us from Seattle because the next day the weather broke and it was pleasant and less muggy.  On Friday we rented a car and headed "up nort" for the Crosslake area where my parents have been spending the summer in a cabin they have rented on Whitefish Lake. 

That night, it happened.  The thing I have missed but didn't know it.  A Thunderstorm.  Nothing severe, no tornado or straight line winds, just lightning and thunder and heavy rain.  My reaction was not annoyance or frustration that sleep was now less likely, no, it was pleasure!  I had missed that crack of light that displays everything in a macabre fashion for just an instant.  That BOOM of thunder, especially the close ones.  Then the rain pounding down.

A few days later we headed out to visit our daughter and son-in-law and our grandsons in Western Minnesota.  Farm counrty.  Fields of corn. Fields of soybeans and vice-versa.  While en-route we encountered yet another thunderstorm dumping huge, fat drops of rain with an occasional THUNK! of 1/4 inch hail!  The car was washed clean!  The temperature was returned to reasonable. AHHHH!

The next night there was the light show of lightning and thunder from around 11 p.m. to at least 3 a.m.  I slept fitfully but not in a bad way.  There were mostly distant flashes and low rumblings, but once in a while a brilliant flash and fantastic BOOM...

Did I mention that I have enjoyed visiting my family?

The Learning Curve is Steep

Instead of quoting the lyrics I thought I might try adding the video.  Hope it works out.

What will it be like?

Yesterday I finished reading a book: Heaven Is for Real: A Little Boy's Story.  The basic story is that a family with a 3 year old boy nearly loses him to a burst appendix. After the ordeal, described in excruciating detail, the child has knowledge of events, persons and people impossible to explain and also describes meeting Jesus, John the Baptist and seeing God in heaven.  It was an easy read, enjoyable and in no way a soapbox to brow beat anyone.  I purchased it on my Kindle for just over $6.

I have spent time with my Sr. High Sunday School class trying to figure things out about heaven.  Simple, right?  We recently went through Revelation and it spends a bit of time trying to describe it.  In the book I just mentioned the little guy said there is no one old in heaven.  A great-grandparent he met while in heaven he didn't recognize in pictures until they showed him a picture taken when that great-grandparent was a young man.  What age were Adam and Eve when they were created?  That would likely be the 'age' we would be.  Does that mean that infants and children are that age too or are they forever infants and children?  As usual one question answered brings up another two or three that rise out of that answer.  How many people will be there?  Take into account the world population since the beginning of ??? - then estimate a percentage of that ??? - Then take into account the world population as it is today 6-7 Billion and then estimate a percentage of that (1% = 60-70 million) and suddenly heaven starts to look like a crowded place!  Then, of course, I begin to estimate that if it took Jesus just 10 minutes to interview each person and greet them... (300 million - a guess - times 10 minutes = 3 billion minutes divided by 24 hrs times 365 days = a honkin long time if you are at the back of the line!

See what fun it can be?

Brad Paisley recorded a song written by Rivers Rutherford/George Teren: When I get Where I'm Goin'

When I get where I'm goin'
On the far side of the sky
The first thing that I'm gonna do
Is spread my wings and fly
I'm gonna land beside a lion
And run my fingers through his mane
Or I might find out what it's like
To ride a drop of rain

Chorus:
   Yeah, when I get where I'm going
   There'll be only happy tears
   I will shed the sins and struggles
   I have carried all these years
   And I'll leave my heart wide open
   I will love and have no fear
   Yeah when I get where I'm going
   Don't cry for me down here

I'm gonna walk with my grand-daddy
and he'll match me step for step
And I'll tell him how I missed him
Every minute since he left - then I'll hug his neck
   Chorus then Bridge:

    So much pain and so much darkness
     In this world we stumble through
     All these questions I can't answer
     So much work to do

But when I get where I'm going
And I see my Maker's face
I'll stand forever in the light of His Amazing Grace

Chorus

That kinda sums it up for me.

This is going to sound familiar...

One of the 'perks' of getting older is the ability to rant and rave over politics.  These usually start... "When I was a kid..."  So:

When I was a kid (1950's) politics was the same as it is today. 

How's that so far?  What isn't the same is the degree of 'entitlement' that the public feels for itself.  It is often expressed in expectations of service (high) and demand for little or no taxation.  I'm ticked off when the roads are filled with potholes, or are lined with tall grass and weeds, or haven't been painted in a while because I have come to expect all these things to be done.  Lawyers have sued the pants off the public sector for "should have done's" or "should have known's" (no offense to lawyers intended here - it is what they do).  It is we who have changed my friends.

I buy a house with no money down and then, when the economy goes bad and I can't pay then I want to know what my representative will do to help me out.  I own a company that builds cars no one wants anymore and I turn to my representative to find out what he/she are going to do to help me out. After all I employ all kinds of people... (who are now being vilified by the press for being overweight, overpriviledged and overpaid).  A hurricane comes through and buries my city (built on a delta of a river 8 feet below sea level) in water and I want to know what my government is going to do to bail me out.

Apparently in America we believe that everyone is entitled.  This will only lead to madness.  So to play an old song... our country was built on the backs of people who worked hard, dreamed big and took responsibility for their own actions - good or bad.  It is inherant in politics to try and please the people who elect you so they will elect you again!  If that is unrestrained... you get something very similar to what we have today and that is my point exactly.  If this is going to change we, as a nation, are going to have to re-focus on that old idea that came with the founding of our country that hard work and perserverance will pay off and laziness and the expectation that someone else owes me will not.  No amount of political payoff will ever change that.

So... never dicuss politics and religion eh?  Religion must be next...

Thanks for listening.

I've created a monster!

Oh dear.  Now that I have joined the 'blogosphere' I feel that I have created a monster.  I notice that my last post was well over a week ago (and a morose one at that!) and I am feeling the pressure to have something interesting to write about.  I guess that really is the point, to have a reason to write.  Whether it is interesting or not is really not the point as others will decide that for me.

So now... I am drawing a blank.  I think I'll sign off until something pertinent comes to mind.

Sorry about that but monster, you win this round.