Good Medicine

The Bible says, "A cheerful heart is good medicine" (Proverbs 17:22 NLT), and "A feast is made for laughter" (Ecclesiastes 10:19). Maybe that's why Evelyn and I enjoy having company so much. When friends come for dinner, we laugh a lot!

There was much hilarity in the house tonight as we sat around the table with Joy Norwood, Shelley Hamann, and Jamie and Melinda Johnson. It's been awhile since I've seen Evelyn laugh so hard, usually at the outrageous things Joy was saying, sometimes at Melinda's reaction to the outrageous things Joy was saying! 

We'd been intending on having this foursome some Saturday night for weeks, probably months. When we learned that Joy and Shelley had had a house fire that will keep them in the Residence Inn for weeks, we knew we didn't want to wait any longer. 

Maybe one reason the laughter is so sweet is the foundation underneath it--years of relationship and a shared love for God. We talked about problems a-plenty, to be sure, including a consensus, "Thank God for the church. Where would we be if we weren't Christians?"

I'm not sure where we'd be, but I know we wouldn't have as much laughter! 

We're Booked!

After much discussion, communication, and promotion, we're booked for our trip to Brazil this summer! We'll be attending the World Convention in Goiania and then touring in Brasilia and Rio the week after.  Evelyn's going with me (she's real excited about the plane trip!), along with about 10 or 12 others. I'm hoping I can blog from there.


I had to rush home at lunchtime to get our passports so I could give the passport numbers to the travel agent. She found out she had to book the tickets today to get the quoted prices. That created the serendipitous opportunity to stop at Jimmy John's to pick up lunch. Number 6 Vegetarian on whole wheat--what a treat!

Tonight we're reconnecting with Bill and Verna Weber after his trip to New Zealand and our trip to St. Louis. We're looking forward to it! (Pictures tomorrow.)

Money Matters

"I don't care how they spend their money, as long as they're making money for us," Evelyn said after I told her about visiting our financial planner today.
Steve Dauer at Morgan Stanley Smith Barney invests our retirement money and invites me to get together with him about once a quarter. I don't make it every time, but today I visited him in his office. It's nice. Nicer than this exterior picture indicates, although the building isn't shabby from the outside. Not posh, but nice. And, come to think of it, I guess I wouldn't leave my future with a guy who went to work in a dump.
We had a nice visit; I'm encouraged by the progress. I hope Steve keeps making money--for both of us.

Unrelated, but more important: "The last two weeks have been the most frustrating of my time here," a colleague told me today. An air of frustration hangs over many of his co-workers. It's a concerning time.

The flowers in the planters outside our
office are prettier than the mood inside.

And I Quote . . .

After my first post on this blog, a friend teased me on Facebook: "I hope you're not trying to compete with Jen's blog." Every day since then, I've been waiting for the opportunity to record the very first thought I had after reading that: Never! Never would I believe I would bring the fresh perspectives, challenging thoughts, and laugh-out-loud humor to my blog that Jen regularly demonstrates in hers.
This is not false humility on my part. I was leafing through a previous year's bound volume of Christian Standard today. I was looking for something else, but I quickly got distracted by, OK I'll admit it, my editorials in each issue. And gratefully, I wasn't ashamed of them! So, yeah, I can write 400 words that are better than OK.
But these daily ramblings don't aspire to the quality of Jen's weekly entries. And I'm not sure I have her insight and self-confidence, and I know I don't have the voice that she has. Most anyone who's reading this blog is probably reading hers too. But if you missed yesterday's post, read it now, and you'll see what I mean.
She discusses Portia de Rossi's autobiography, Unbearable Lightness, "a brutal book about her struggles with anorexia." And then she applies the story to her own life (and, I suspect, the lives of many young women:

While it made for engrossing reading, I couldn’t relate to most of it on a personal level. However, I was shocked to find myself resonating with her confession that her weight directly affected her mood. Like de Rossi, when I’m thin I don’t just feel thin; I feel more competent, confident, more “together.” When the number on the scale or the profile in the mirror or the “skinny jeans” give me the opposite message I feel lazy, ugly and less-than.

 And yesterday, I read something else worth sharing, an article by William Happer, a professor physics at Princeton, whose piece on the op-ed page of the Wall Street Journal caught my eye.
Let me hasten to say that I am neither an advocate nor a debunker of global warming theory. I don't quite trust Al Gore, but on the other hand, I've never understood the knee-jerk vehemence against the climate change idea expressed by many evangelicals. I'm not a student of the subject, but I'm certainly interested in it.
One brief quote from his piece.

CO2 is not a pollutant. Life on earh flourished for hundreds of millions of years at much higher CO2 levels than we see today. Increasing CO2 levels will be a net benefit because cultivated plants grow better and are more resistant to drought at higher CO2 levels, and because warming and other supposedly harmful effects of CO2 have been greatly exaggerated. Nations with affordable energy from fossil fuels are more prosperous and healthy than those without. 

Professor Happer's piece seemed objective and thought-provoking, and I thought as I read it, "I'd like some others to read this." Maybe some of you will.

You Know It's Not a Big Day . . .

I wanted to get a cut like that
guy on the poster, but no
one seemed to think
that was a good idea.

You know it's not a big day when the best thing you can report in your diary is getting your hair cut. We'll see if the Tuesday five weeks from today is any more exciting; if not, you'll be seeing me with the blue plastic shawl and our excellent haircutter, Peg Wiggs, popping up on the blog again.

Trivia question for the record: What, in the personal grooming category, do the last two editors of Christian Standard have in common? 

Answer: For awhile at least, they both went to the same haircutter! When Sam and Gwen Stone lived in West Chester, he asked me where I got my hair cut, and I recommended Peg. He stuck with her till he and Gwen moved back to the West side of town. But she asks me about them often.

This doesn't usually happen, but Evelyn got her hair cut tonight too, just before I arrived. I wanted to take her picture in the barber chair, but she wouldn't let me. So she took mine! (That's her in the mirror snapping me and Peg. Now, don't you think SHE would have made a more attractive shot than I turned out to be?)

Good News, Bad News

So here's the good news: in our yard the flowering crabapple is more beautiful and the lilac bushes are earlier than I can ever remember.
And here's the bad news: there's a freeze warning and frost predictions overnight.

More good news: top management is looking favorably at a Christian Standard monthly.
And bad news: they want more information before pulling the trigger. (Our June goal has become September, which is better than December, which was the verdict a few days ago. I guess that's a good news/bad news scenario, too.)

Some bad news: the ministerial candidate we knew was the perfect choice said no.
And the good news: we're energized by the list of names we're considering. And the pulpit committee meeting tonight was pleasant, fun even, just like they've all been. Maybe sometime I'll post a picture of these guys!

We received printed samples of our four April issues today. They're in the mail now.

Home and Garden

Rode home from St. Louis with Sev and Paul Friskney after a leisurely breakfast at the Renaissance Hotel where they stayed for the conference. It was a beautiful day to zoom along through the flatlands of central Illinois and Indiana. We'd eaten so much for breakfast we didn't need any lunch, especially with a stop at Dairy Queen in Batesville  for Blizzards and sundaes.

Arrived home at about 7 to find the lawn had grown maybe six inches since Evelyn finished cutting it THIS Tuesday. So I jumped into some old pants and went at it for more than 30 minutes, and then Evelyn came out and cut for 30 minutes more. The lawn was so wet and long that we were clearing out the caked-up grass from the bottom of the mower every couple of swaths. So we didn't finish. Evelyn hopes to cut the rest (mainly the front) tomorrow night while I'm at a meeting at church.

The same sun and rain that made our lawn grow (and the trees and bushes in our yard bloom) created magnificent displays at the Missouri Botanical Garden, which we visited yesterday afternoon with the Friskneys. I posted 20+ pictures on Facebook, but I'll choose a few here to give an idea of the beauty of this place. I really hope we can go there again.

After visiting the Garden from 2:00-5:00 (when they closed), we drove up to The Hill, the Italian neighborhood of St. Louis with a wonderful restaurant on every corner. We chose a place called Zia's and had a sumptuous feast of breaded artichoke hearts, stuffed mushrooms, delightful salads with a sweet vinaigrette and fresh-grated mozzarella and parmesan, grilled chicken, pasta with shrimp, and cannelloni. (We didn't all have all of that, but you get the idea.) It was early when we got back downtown, so we changed into walking shoes and browsed up and down Washington Avenue, a happenin' couple of blocks with restaurants and clubs and interesting people to see. We stopped for coffee and a little something sweet at the 12th Street Diner before calling it a night. Really, it was a wonderful time.

How Long Should a Sermon Be?

The question came to me as I started reading a book by Peggy Noonan. On Speaking Well is an old book (1998), but it was published before Noonan became one of my favorites, so I hadn't encountered it before. It was on a $5 table at a booth in the CCCC exhibit space, so I picked it up.
Here's her very first piece of advice: "No speech should last more than twenty minutes." As soon as I saw this, I thought of all the sermons I've heard--and delivered--that have been way longer than that, many of them twice as long.

I figure Noonan hasn't attended many, if any, churches like those where I've worshipped or spoken. And I'm pretty sure she's never delivered a sermon. But she's given lots of speeches, and written many hundreds more of them. Here, from President Ronald Reagan's most famous speechwriter, is her advice:

No speech should last more than twenty minutes. Why? Because Ronald Reagan said so. Reagan used to say that no one wants to sit in an audience in respectful silence for longer than that, if that. He also knew twenty minutes is more than enough time to say the biggest, most important thing in the world. The Gettysburg Address went three minutes or so, the Sermon on the Mount hardly more. It is usually and paradoxically true that the more important the message, the less time required to say it.
I would add that forty years of the habit of television has probably affected how people receive information. They are used to fifteen- or eighteen-minute pieces on 60 Minutes. . . .  They are used to twelve-minute segments within the arc of [a TV] drama. . . . They are used to commercials interrupting the flow of thought. They are not used to watching forty- and fifty- and sixty-minute presentations without a break, and there is no reason to believe they want to get used to it.
So keep in mind what Hubert Humphrey's wife is said to have advised him: "Darling, for a speech to be immortal it need not be interminable."

Again this week I listened as a young preacher spoke about his church's adjustment to a music style that will appeal to today's generation. But I can't remember when I've heard a preacher talk about adjusting his preaching style to appeal to today's generation. I know many preachers do more than speak glued to a podium. I know they move around the platform and try to speak conversationally. I know they use PowerPoint. I know many preachers think about how to engage today's audience.

So here's one more principle to consider. For every thoughtful preacher, and for myself, I'm adding this advice from someone in tune with today's listener: No speech should last more than twenty minutes.

Met Them in St. Louis

Began the day with a sumptuous breakfast at the headquarters hotel for the CCCC conference, with Paul and Sev Friskney. Then we got an overview of downtown by riding the Downtown Trolley for its whole route. Sev, who's been playing the role of tour host for our travels, posed at the front of the bus to firm up her image.
Evelyn and Paul went to workshops all afternoon, and Sev and I decided to check out Union Station to see if it's a site all of us needed to see. Verdict: We didn't all need to see it.

Sev and I rode the Downtown Trolley to get close to Union Station and then walked all the way back to the convention center afterwards, with a pretty good view of the arch and passing flower beds full of beautiful blooming tulips.

This evening the four of us went to the City Museum, an eclectic mix of salvaged architectural wonders with mazes, caves, and tunnels perfect for 12-year-olds to climb on, hide in, and crawl through--all accompanied by hollers, laughs, and general loudness.
Before and after the museum we ate at the 12th Street Diner. Great burgers for dinner and yummy desserts before we returned to our rooms.

OK, blog readers, you can guess WHAT this dessert is . . . and WHO ordered it!

Teachers Conference

These are apartments, just a couple of
blocks from the convention center. 

This is conference week for Evelyn and me. Monday through Wednesday I was at the NEXT Conference in California. Now I'm in St. Louis with Evelyn who's attending the Conference on College Composition and Communication, sponsored by the National Council of Teachers of English.
The morning and early afternoon were chilly and rainy. First task: buy an umbrella. Second task: find the room for Evelyn's first workshop. Third task: find a deli to grab some lunch for Evelyn and me to eat in the 30 minutes between her first workshop and her second workshop.
I spent the afternoon in our hotel room: did some editing, played on Facebook, answered e-mails. Evelyn was in and out between workshops, and then we met Paul and Sev Friskney to enjoy a very nice dinner together. (Paul's attending the conference too.)

"We're going to be in
Taylor Made," Sev said after
agreeing to pose with Paul
for a picture.

I haven't seen all of downtown St. Louis, but the area around the convention center and its headquarters hotel, the Renaissance, is kind of cool. Restaurants, a few (very few) shops, and a Whole Foods-type grocery, Culinaria, where Evelyn and I grabbed some granola packets and a banana for her breakfasts and two cookies for a bedtime snack.
A nice day. An important discussion may happen at work tomorrow that I may wish I was there for. But, on the other hand, maybe it's good that I'm not. I'll weigh in on that after I know how it turns out.

What's NEXT?

Paul Williams was one of
two facilitators for the
NEXT conference.

Greg Nettle led our group
half of the time.

The NEXT conference for emerging leaders,  a blessing and challenging time for all of us who attended, ended today at noon.

My take-aways: We have an emerging generation of young leaders more innovative in ministry, more down-to-earth in their approach to sinners, and more willing honestly to examine their own lives than any generation of leaders I've known during my ministry.

Today we went around the circle, and each person shared "best

Caleb Kaltenbach and Brian Jobe

practices" from his or her ministry.  The result was a smorgasbord of creative ideas for personal productivity, community outreach, leadership development, technology usage, stewardship, and personal accountability.

The personal accountability theme continued in the final session, led by Greg Nettle, who challenged each of us to end our ministries well. Group members shared steps they have taken to establish healthy boundaries and vulnerability with a group of close friends, their staffs, and their spouses. It was a rich and helpful time.

So what's next for our movement? Seems to me the integrity, passion, and creativity of those assembled in California this week all bode well for the health of our church in the next decade.

I'm writing this at the John Wayne Airport in Orange County, where I'm waiting for a flight to St. Louis via Denver. I'll spend the rest of the week there with Evelyn, and Paul and Sev Friskney. Evelyn and Paul will be attending a conference for college English teachers, and I'll be reading, editing, and maybe doing a little exploring in the city with the big arch.

It's a good week away.

Jodi Hickerson and Danny Schaffner

California Dreamin'

The rocks around the tide pools at Laguna Beach.
One of my favorite places to visit, and
I got to go there today!

The NEXT Conference, hosted by Provision Ministries in Irvine, California, started last night with a stimulating discussion led by Greg Nettle. He described his struggle with the question, "What is our church doing to make disciples?" This came as he saw longterm attendees at his church who were as scarred by the sins of our culture as people outside the church. He challenged us with his church's decision to create communities in neighborhoods to reach and serve their neighborhoods and make disciples. And his congregation is seeking to invest 30% of its budget on their weekend gatherings in the church building and 70% on ministry outside the building, instead of visa versa.

Today Paul Williams presented material based on his doctoral research that shows the connection between the DISC profiles of church planters and the success of their new church plants. He followed this up with material about how family systems influence church function--or dysfunction, as is often the case.

We spent some time discussing our individual landing spot with regard to our identity with and for the fellowship of Christian churches and churches of Christ, and then broke for the day.

Jeremy Brown and Greg Lee were two in our beach party.

Bart Stone, always smiling, especially
in this beautiful spot.

I had the chance to ride with some others for a quick walk on Laguna Beach during our afternoon break. The conversations to and from the beach were filled with talk of ministry problems and opportunities and approaches. The same was true for the animated discussion around the dinner tables at  Bluewater Grill this evening.

A good day. A challenging day. I'm tired, but I need to pack up and be ready to start again at 8:30 tomorrow for a session that will last till noon. Then a flight to St. Louis through Denver to meet Evelyn who will be attending a conference for college English teachers the rest of the week.

Spent the Day with Jennifer

Jennifer and I are both attending the NEXT Conference in Irvine this week, sponsored Provision Ministry Group, Orchard Group, and Christian Standard. She flew in Saturday and stayed with some friends. I flew in last night so she and I could hang out together here in beautiful California before the conference starts this evening. (I'm writing this after 4:00 on CDT, so evening hasn't come here yet!)

My flight last night was through Chicago and then to Orange County. We were landing in Chicago just as the sun was setting, and the clouds above the city were beautiful.

It was only 10:30 in California when my plane landed at the Orange County airport, but of course that was 1:30 on my old body, so I was pretty tired, but I still had trouble sleeping well. So I'm going to be tired for this opening session of this meeting tonight, too.

Jennifer picked me up at 9:15 this morning, and we drove to Newport to eat breakfast at Pacific Whey, a trendy little coffee/pastry/breakfast/lunch cafe not far from the Pacific Ocean. In fact we could see the Ocean past the parking lot beside the window where we sat.

Then we drove through Newport a little and ended up at Roger's Gardens, a fabulous place that was more like an arboretum than a garden store. Jennifer and I are both flower fans, and we spent at least an hour looking through every nook and cranny of the place.

Then we met her friend and host Heather at Watson's Drug Store in Orange for lunch and a long visit about everything from what to do in Cincinnati when Heather and Paul come to the wedding to dysfunctional families to essentials for a marriage that works to race relations and prejudice. All that accompanied by lots of laughter helps me see why Jennifer values Heather's friendship so highly.

If this evening's conversation is half as stimulating, the day will have been quite memorable. More about that tomorrow.

Headed to Irvine

This is a quick post just before I leave for the airport and a trip that will take me through Chicago to the Santa Ana (Orange County), California airport. Headed there for the NEXT Conference, which will convene tomorrow evening. Sponsored by Provision Ministry Group, with a little help from Orchard Church Planting and Christian Standard, the conference is an attempt to listen to and learn from emerging younger leaders among the Christian churches and churches of Christ. It lasts through Wednesday at noon, and then I'm flying to St. Louis to meet Evelyn who is attending a conference for college English teachers Thursday through Saturday. I'm riding home with her and her colleague Paul Friskney and his wife, Sev.
More about all of this in this space as the week goes on.

May? No, This Was March

It would have been a beautiful day to spend all day outside. We were able to be outside for under two hours this morning. Evelyn and I walked the neighborhood and enjoyed all the spring flowers and blooming trees that had popped in the last few days. Then I pulled out the electric hedge trimmer and cut down the dead ornamental grass and cut back the spirea and hydrangea bushes in front of the house. Then after a quick shower and lunch, we headed to The Healing Center at the Vineyard for an afternoon of volunteer training.

The highlights were workshops by staff members Mark Lutz (pictured) and J. T. Turley. She spoke on conflict resolution, and his workshops were on boundaries and reflective listening ("I think I hear you saying you feel this was a long time to spend in a windowless room on a beautiful spring afternoon." "Right. That's exactly what I'm saying.")

Then we stopped by Graeter's to pick up dessert for dinner with Terry and Shirley Wuske. She fixed a wonderful pork roast with sweet potatoes, broccoli, and fruit salad. We took a walk after dinner and then came back to enjoy decaf and ice cream with little butter cookies iced in green (our nod to St. Patrick's Day). We sat in their screened-in porch and thought we had been translated to May instead of March.

A Nice Way to End the Week

A busy day at work today: reading manuscripts, clarifying some assignments, knitting together details for my travel next week. Met with the staff to discuss production and other issues for the next few weeks. Matt Lockhart asked all his direct reports if they'd like to go to lunch, and I was the only one available. We went to BD's Mongolian Grill--a fun place with an infinite number of possible combinations: Go through the bars and put meat and pasta in a bowl, and then pile on the vegetables of your choice. Choose or mix your sauce--Asian or Mexican or Italian, mild or tangy or spicy. Then take the bowl to the guys at a huge, tablecloth-size grill where they stir-fry it all up for you to take back to your seat and eat with white rice, brown rice, or soft tacos. Yummy.

More than I had planned to eat for lunch, though, because Evelyn and I took Verna Weber to supper at Mimi's tonight. And the three of us are sitting in our living room with our feet up as I write this. Verna is home for two weeks when she wanted to be in New Zealand with Bill visiting their daughter and husband and grandkids. She aborted her trip in Los Angeles when she got word that her mom had been taken to the hospital. So we asked her if we could give her some company tonight. She's staying overnight, and I'm expecting to see pajamas soon.

She's spending a lot of time at Mason Christian Village where her mother, Mildred Holmes, is in the nursing wing after two hospitalizations. We'd enjoy having Bill here, but it's fun to just hang out with Verna.
Good friends create a wonderful excuse to relax, eat (yes, eat!), and talk about life. What a blessing to have them!

Not Nearly a Thousand Words

They say a picture is worth a thousand words. But there's no way to picture the way I felt for most of the day today. It's been a long time since I've been this frustrated at work. And if I used all thousand of those words to elaborate on that frustration, well, as they said in Washington several presidents ago, it just wouldn't be prudent.


At the height of my funk, a sky-darkening thunderstorm rolled through, and I decided a picture of it might match my mood. This little video doesn't do the storm--or my frustration--their due. And everybody's seen it rain before. But, considering my mood, it was the best I could do.

I talked to a good friend at lunch and my boss toward the end of the day, and I felt better, some better by the end of the day.
The sun had come out, the flowers were blooming, along with some of the bushes, and it was a beautiful drive home.
The frustration is not gone, but neither is God.
To brighten this post a little, I took a picture of some pansies I hope to plant in a pot or two for our deck or the porch or both.

Duck Tale

There will be days without laughter. There may even be days without smiles. On those days I will pull up this post and remember the chuckles and giggles I enjoyed, just because of my Facebook friends.

The day started badly, in a way I wouldn't have chosen. As I posted on Facebook:

I ran over a duck on the way to work. Saw him too late. Felt the thud. Saw the flurry of feathers in my rearview mirror. 

Then the punny replies started. And they were still going at almost 9:00 tonight. I can't do better than to repeat the best of them:

"I hope you have that AFLAC insurance!"
"That quacks me up."
Me: I hope I don't get a bill for this.
"You think your morning was bad. It was even worse for the duck!"
"I didn't mean to ruffle your feathers with that last post."
Me: All this is getting me down.
"Not your fault, Mark. The bird should've known when to duck!"
"Waddle you think will happen to the duck now?"
Me: When I have time, I'll take a gander at the possibilities.
"These duck puns just drive me daffy. I can't keep doing this; I've got to get my ducks in a row for today."
"Such fowl language."
"You should have tried duck tape; that'll fix anything."
"I seem to remember you get to work early . . . maybe at the quack of dawn?"
"Mark, don't be down in the mouth."
"It's because of incidents like this that even the price of down is up!"
"I heard they treated him at the Drake Center."
"This was Pi Day. You could have skipped the four-and-twenty blackbirds and made a nice one with that big dude."
"A bird hit my windshield, but I've avoided lots of bunny rabbits over the years."
"Did somebody say bunny? Hare we go again  . . ."
"Let's get hopping!"
"When it comes to duck puns, you all have been Peking the easy ones."
 "This whole discussion is quacking me up. Where will this duck tale end?"

Well, it will end now. But I can't wait till I have another fun string like this to record again!

Thanks to my FB friends who get the punsters of the day award:
Dan Garrett, who started it all (and contributed the most), Ronda Blair, Chad Showalter, Dave Lang Verna Weber, Jack Bowman, Brandon Wuske (I loved that Drake Center line!), Maribeth Pippenger,  and Michael J. Weiss

Good People, Important Work, a Beautiful Day

Sheryl and Diane were game to pose for me this morning.
Two great ladiesI get to work with every day!

We started the day at work with a very small celebration. I brought in a box of Dunkin' Donut donut holes to celebrate the return of Diane Jones to the office after her honeymoon. Now she's Diane Jones-Dunham.  Sheryl Overstreet had been out some last week, tending to her husband, Ed, who had a pacemaker installed Thursday. So today everyone in the Lookout and Christian Standard staff was back at one time. Seemed to me like a good enough reason to eat donuts, don't you agree?

Tomorrow is our second deadline on a new production schedule for The Lookout and Christian Standard. We're giving four issues at one time to the printer, who will print and mail them all at one time. We had been mailing issues two at a time. Printing and mailing four at a time really saves on postage, and postage is every periodical publisher's big concern these days.

Our managing editor, Jim Nieman, already turned in one of this week's four issues last week. Yesterday he uploaded the second of the four, our April 8 issue in which we invite several church leaders to weigh-in on the attractional vs. missional discussion. I'm looking forward to seeing how readers respond.

Today he uploaded the April 15 issue, which examines the idea of elder governance, an adaptation of the Policy Governance model that some corporations and volunteer boards have adopted. It, too, should prompt some helpful discussions.

For the record, today ended in the high 70s, a glorious, sunny, summerlike day. As I left the parking lot today, I saw some guy, evidently from another office in the building, kneeling by a bed of daffodils to take a picture. I smiled and felt like less of a nerd for doing the same thing several days in the last week.

He's Bigger than my Stuff

There are wonderfully productive days, and there are days that were a total waste. Today was somewhere in-between. I accomplished some stuff, and with each thing I accomplished, I remembered or uncovered more to accomplish. And sometimes I felt like it was more than I can get accomplished.

This is why it's good to quit work at the end of the day and come home. Among the distractions (a wonderful dinner that Evelyn fixed, a good talk with a friend who's providing excellent leadership at our church) was our walk to the park. It had rained all morning, and we had to dodge a few puddles, but the air was warm and the breeze wasn't cold. It seemed to be blowing the clouds away for a clear day tomorrow. And that sky reminds me that God is bigger than all my problems and to-do's.

 There were reminders at work too. This guy (or gal?) greeted me in my quick walk around the building at lunchtime. And (call me a sucker for pretty flowers) the daffodils continue to pop open around our office complex.