A Beautiful Weekend

Yesterday started off chilly and gray, but by about 2:00 the sun was out and before suppertime the temperature was almost 70 under a beautiful clear-blue sky. I had picked a good day to attend a beginning photography class at Ault Park.
I signed up for it on a whim, with a desire to understand the manual settings on my camera instead of always depending on the presets.
It was conducted by the owner of a photography business in town called ernestography, run by a likable young man named ernest worthing.
It was a beginner's class, and I did learn some stuff, and I'm going to try to practice it this week so I don't forget it!
One thing we learned was how to use manual settings to put a close-up object in sharp focus while making the background blurry. This picture plus a few others from my practice session are posted in a Facebook album.
I came home and cut grass for about an hour but didn't have time to finish before dark, so I finished Sunday after church, errands, and lunch.
Friday evening  Evelyn and I went to the symphony. I had seen a Groupon (or was it Living Social) coupon earlier in the week for discount tickets to hear Andre Watts in concert with the orchestra this weekend. We didn't subscribe to the Pops season this year, so I thought we'd enjoy a chance to go to Music Hall.
Before the concert we went for dinner to Taste of Belgium, a restaurant in the middle of a two-block area in Over the Rhine that is filled with trendy restaurants and other venues. Many of

our friends are Taste of Belgium fans, and I've been wanting to get there for some time. We had their signature chicken and waffle for dinner and enjoyed it. I really want to get there for brunch someday!
We parked in the new garage under Washington Park and walked a few blocks to Taste of Belgium and then walked back to Music Hall. The evening was cool but clear, and it was nice to be outside.
I was really glad we got to hear Watts. The coupon tickets were for seats on the main floor. We usually sit up high, but this time I was glad we were so close to the guest artist. We could see his face as he performed, and I must say I've never seen anything quite like the energy and animation he infused into every passage, every flowing arpeggio, every strong chord. He commanded the instrument, almost attacked it with energy and passion. He mouthed the rhythms, threw his left leg off to the side as he finished a challenging section. His was a marvelous performance.

Tonight was Evelyn's Basin group, something new created this fall by our church's women's ministry: small groups of women, hosted by an "older" woman to give "younger" women the chance to get to know other women in the church and have the influence of an older woman in the church.
Tonight they enjoyed a potluck of Mexican treats. Evelyn finished the chicken for the tacos and made an apple crisp this afternoon while I helped around the edges and wrote a draft of my column to be posted at christianstandard.com Tuesday.
I retreated to the family room and TV and Facebook while the ladies had their dinner, and I snuck upstairs to steal some supper after they'd been through the lines. It was a relaxing and yummy evening to end a fine weekend.

Our Autumn Weekend

"Let's get together this fall and do something to see the leaves," I suggested to Evelyn's brother and wife, Ken and Susan Aulen.
They called several weeks ago with an idea I hadn't anticipated. "Let's ride the Loveland Bike Trail." We agreed that this weekend would be the time.
Ken and Susan got here about 5:00 Friday. Wendy Wagoner had been here much of the afternoon, doing some work, using our copier, and visiting with  Evelyn. Evelyn decided to fix white chicken chili for dinner; Wendy had requested she make it at least one time before Wendy goes to Tanzania in January, and Friday night seemed like the right time.
It was a wonderful dinner. The soup is a favorite; we had plenty of good relishes to accompany it. And I stopped by Graeter's to pick up a dutch apple pie and cinnamon ice cream for dessert.
Wendy (and Milo!) left about 7:30, but we enjoyed staying up and catching up with Ken and Susan.
The next morning Evelyn had pumpkin muffins, apple butter, fruit, and scrambled eggs for breakfast. We needed to eat hearty before our big day of exercise!
We got to the bike rental shop in Loveland after 10:30, and we were on our way after 11:00. Ken and
 Susan brought their bikes, and Evelyn and I rented ours.

It was a gray, chilly day. But the showers of the early morning had stopped by the time we were on the trail. But a breeze plus the wind chill of just riding the bikes made Evelyn wish she'd worn gloves and me happy I'd brought my ear  protection.
We rode 8.7 miles from Loveland to Milford, with a stop to rest our our legs and catch our breath (and eat granola bars and water) on the way. But even with the stop, we got there in about 90 minutes.

We rode and walked our bikes into Historic Milford (I didn't know there was a historic Milford!), and ate lunch at Padrinos on Main Street. Evelyn and I split a small pizza and a salad, and it was very good!
As it turns out, historic Milford has several little shops like you find in Waynesville or Lebanon, and we wandered through a few of them before taking out for the ride back to Loveland.
We had hoped the afternoon would get warmer, but it seemed to be getting chillier. We rode back with a couple of rest stops this time and made it to Loveland before 4:00—just before the rains came. We rode through steady rain in the car on the way home.

The trees are beautiful this year, but, oddly, not as pretty along the bike trail as some places in the neighborhoods we drive through every day.

We had about an hour to warm up and clean up before leaving for dinner. I had made reservations at Tellers in Hyde Park. It's a nice place, and we had a gift certificate and Groupon to use there. This was the perfect opportunity to enjoy a special dinner at a favorite place.
Evelyn and Susan had the salmon. Ken had the trout and shrimp. And I gave up the chance to eat healthy by ordering the pork shank. Oh, it was good--juicy, falling off the bone. Each couple shared a coffee creme brulee for dessert. We were full and happy.
We came home and visited for a couple of hours before giving up for the day.
At 6:30 Sunday morning, one of our smoke alarms started chirping, and we fumbled half asleep to try to figure out why, since Evelyn had replaced all the batteries in all the smoke alarms not long ago. I got the bright idea to push the "Test/Alarm" button on the errant device, which set of sirens, and a digital voice "Evacuate. Evacuate!" through every smoke alarm in the house (some time ago we upgraded to a system that connects all the alarms.) I was mortified, and  Evelyn went downstairs, where Ken and Susan had been sleeping, to tell them they did not need to evacuate!
I had planned to sleep till 7:00, but at 6:45 I gave up and headed to the bathroom to shave.
Sunday we enjoyed worship at 9:00 at Mason. Trevor DeVage's sermon was the wrap-up for our "I'm a Church Member." It was a nice challenge. "If you're a growing church member, you're a dying church member." Three attributes of a growing church member: He's serving, giving, and going. (I think I need to rethink all three in my life!)
I had received a gift card to Mimi's from the folks in my office for Boss's Day, so we used it to treat Ken and Susan to breakfast after church. They were on their way not too long after lunch, and Evelyn an I settled into an afternoon of errands: grocery, lawn mowing and other yard errands, checkbook updating, and assorted online visiting and task-completing.
We ate popcorn and leftover pie and ice cream for dinner while we watched 60 Minutes, Madame Secretary, and the episode of NCIS we had recorded last Monday.
It was a very pleasant autumn weekend. The weather was beautiful Friday and Sunday (not so much when we were out IN it all day Saturday!) . I'm guessing we won't have many more pretty weekends yet this year.

Weekends with Friends

We've had three nice weekends in a row, and I want to jot down the highlights so I'll always remember them.

September 12-14
Friday night Evelyn and I splurged and ate out at Embers restaurant in Kenwood (or is it Madeira?). We called it an early birthday dinner, because it's such a nice place, but we couldn't wait till her birthday because I had a Groupon that was going to expire September 17!
The food is good. The presentation is wonderful. The portions, at least for my short ribs and macaroni and cheese combo, were huge. And I felt compelled to eat every bite. It's been a long time since I've been that full, and it will be a long time before I allow the memory of such a good meal to be spoiled by how uncomfortable I felt for nearly 24 hours afterwards!
Saturday night Shirley and Terry Wuske came over for a simple supper on the grill in anticipation of helping us with a service project in Mason later in the evening.
About the supper: I cooked chicken with a teriyaki glaze on the grill, along with pineapple and green peppers. Evelyn made an Oriental rice dish (from a microwave pouch), and I had bought frozen egg rolls and fortune cookies at Kroger. Our dinner was simple, but it was also fun.
About the service project: Christ's Church at Mason provided most of the volunteers for the city of Mason's annual Heritage Festival. I cajoled several fellows from my small group to help; I chose the assignment of clean-up. We were at least a couple of people short, though, which is why I asked Terry and Shirley if they could help too.
The tasks weren't difficult. The evening was chilly, but dry. We were finished folding tables and chairs and putting away the arcade games by 9:30 (we had arrived at 9:00). But they needed some help with more tables and chairs after the 10:00 fireworks display. So we hung out and laughed with Dave Wick and Mike and Jessica Browning till the big ka-booms. (Evelyn was in charge of turning off and then on one of the large generator-run light banks, and Terry and Shirley each "manned" another generator-light combo.)
Collapsing the large metal and fiberglass picnic tables on the grounds was the hardest part of the evening. But we had a good crew working on it (some city employees as well as us volunteers), and we were on our way by around 11:00. It was fun!
Sunday morning, for the second week, I stood at a book table where we were distributing each attendeeI Am a Church Member. The whole church is considering the book as our preachers preach through each of the chapters. I was one of six folks who wrote a week of devotions to accompany the study; we wrote 6 days of devos for each chapter of the book. We were giving away the devotional books with Rainer's book.
family a copy of Thom Rainer's book.

Next entry: September 18-22: Road trip with Bill and Verna Weber to Levittown, PA where we had a fun reunion--and a birthday party for Miles!--with the Johnsons and Taylors.

Weekends with Friends

I've been preoccupied or pooped, and the blog has suffered. But I want to remember how we spent the last two weekends.

The FOUR-Day Weekend: Labor Day

Our four-day weekend began Friday afternoon when Wendy Wagoner came to see us. She did laundry, and we ran out to supper, followed by a stop at the Cone on the way home.
Evelyn made pumpkin-pecan pancakes for breakfast, accompanied by a bowl of fresh blueberries and raspberries. Better than First Watch!
Saturday afternoon we mowed grass and I did some other yard work.

Then we got cleaned up and left home by 5:30 for dinner and a movie. I had a Groupon for Kenwood Theater, so we saw the film Boyhood after a delightful visit to Dewey's pizza, just a couple of doors away from the theater.

I'm glad I saw the movie, because it achieved something unique, filming the same cast each year for 12 years, with a script to portray the life of a boy from ages 6 to 18. The film was well-acted, I guess, and the premise was unique enough to keep us watching. But I'm not sure I'd go so far as to recommend it. 

For one thing, there's a lot of rough language, especially in one particular scene featuring a circle of teenage boys trying to impress each other with how crass they could be. I'm not a prude about such things, but it did get wince-worthy more than once. 

And then there was the message of the film. Or the lack thereof. The main characters in the movie lived generally hopeless lives, battered by their poor decisions and those of others around them. I figure it's very true-to-life, at least life as many people live it, and so I guess I should say, "See the movie and then go love your neighbor." But many of the non-Christians I know aren't as messed up as these folks were.

Sunday I led worship in the Classic Service and was really blessed to get to do so. Not only by the chance to plan it and recruit a couple of volunteers to take a special part in it, but also by Trevor DeVage's hope-inspiring sermon about Heaven, the last in our 31-week journey through The Story.

Sunday evening we met Dave and Carol Ray for supper at First Watch. We met at 5:00 and had to be kicked out when the store closed (early on Sundays) at 8:00. We stood on the sidewalk and parking lot still talking till after dark, and then a young, thin woman accosted us with a long story about being pregnant and kicked out of the house where she lived and she could stay at the Days Inn for $52, but she had only $24 and she swore she wasn't lying and she really didn't want to lose this baby and could we please help her. Evelyn and Dave and I gave her cash, and on the way home I think we all had "buyer's remorse." One side of me wished we had offered to follow her to the Day's Inn and pay for her room for her. I wonder if she would have let us.

Monday was a rainy day and a quiet day around the house. Jennifer called us late in the afternoon (a nice visit!), and by then it was raining steadily off and on. Instead of cooking on the grill as we had planned, we ran to El Rancho Grande for a quick Mexican fix. I was surprised to see a big crowd there on a holiday evening.

The plants always look prettiest in the morning. The light rain made them seem even healthier.
By Labor Day some years, the pot garden is looking pretty scraggly. But I was taken by how
nice it looked this year, first thing, on Labor Day morning.

Last Weekend: Road Trip
Once or twice or three times every year we get together with Todd and Lyn Dillon and Terry and Shirley Wuske, usually spending overnight Friday at one of our homes. This weekend we picked up Wuskes at 4:00 on Friday and headed to Dillons' place in Plainfield, Indiana. (I took off the whole afternoon so Evelyn and I could enjoy a long lunch with Bob and Sue Willson who were in town for a quick visit. We sat at McAllister's with them for at least 90 minutes.)
Todd and Lyn are the consummate hosts, and we couldn't have enjoyed more sitting around their table with them Friday night. Lyn said she bought all the food already prepared, and it was yummy. The laughter and the talking were even better.
We chose this weekend for the visit because Saturday was the Penrod Arts Fair, a one-of-a-kind event meeting on several acres of the grounds surrounding the Indianapolis Museum of Art. It is a juried show. The presenters of painting, pottery, leather work, metalwork, leaded glass, woodwork, handmade jewelry, and more are all top-quality. Add three areas of eclectic food offerings plus several performance stages featuring everything from bluegrass to ballet and you have a day more than worth the $15 admission--especially when you can browse the grassy aisles with good friends. (We arrived midmorning after enjoying breakfast treats--yogurt parfaits created by Shirley and homemade cinnamon rolls baked by Evelyn--along with healthy portions of coffee and conversation.)
Actually the grass turned to mud in several spots, because it rained hard overnight and drizzled off and on all morning. We wore long sleeves and carried umbrellas (we only actually used them a little), and weren't daunted at all by the weather. Actually it was nice to have a cooler day without beating sun.
We were back at Dillons for a wonderful supper of cauliflower soup and chicken salad croissants. It was pleasant to enjoy the meal on their screened-in back porch, and again the good food was enhanced by the good conversation.

It's wonderful to be able to laugh hysterically as well as talk about deep issues that concern us, all with the same group. It's an experience that provides encouragement and accountability, a sharing of Christian fellowship that can't be manufactured or programmed.
We left after 8:00, drove to Wuske's house to pick up our car and were home well before midnight. It was a short night because Evelyn and I had volunteered to be at the new Starting Point (replacement for the old Welcome Center) for its trial run at 8:30 Sunday morning.
Sunday afternoon included grocery shopping, bill paying, and a nice phone visit with Geoff.
Two great weekends--too nice to forget.

This Week at a Glance

This is becoming my weekly instead of my daily diary, but I'm determined not to just let it go. A few things to record from this week:

Made some progress at work: planning/editing the November issue, consulting with Jim Nieman about layout and design options for the October issue. Spent quite a bit of time emailing and on the phone to nail down plans for the Stone-Campbell Dialogue meeting that will happen this year in Abilene in October. (Evelyn and I are planning a nice dinner out the weekend before her birthday, because I'll be in Texas on her birthday.) Did some work toward further marketing of the Christian Standard app and its digital editions. As of today, close to 1,300 people have downloaded the app and close to 100 have actually paid to read the magazine via the app. That's gratifying; the numbers grow every day. But the progress seems slow to me.

Thursday Paul Williams was in the office for our last official meeting together. His contract as consultant with Christian Standard ends in August. It was a productive meeting, a nostalgic meeting, a meeting with blessings (Paul has always shed light on my path), ultimately a difficult meeting. I will truly miss all the insight and ideas he's shared to help make Christian Standard what it has become.

Friday I had a great lunch with Dave Lautzenheiser; talked over my plan for the worship service August 31. He asked me to lead in the Classic service, because he plans to be out of town that weekend.

The weather has been hot and dry, at least it was till the end of the week when we had a couple of rip-roarin' thunderstorms overnight a couple of nights. I had thought maybe I'd come home from work Friday to cut grass, but Evelyn decided (and I agreed) it was just too hot! So on an impulse we called Terry and Shirley Wuske and invited them to share dinner with us at LaRosa's (our treat)—just for the fun of it and to celebrate the new half-time development position Terry began with Grundy Mountain Mission last week. He'll do a fine job, and he can do it from Cincinnati! So they won't have to move, and we won't have to tell them good-bye. We adjourned to our place after spaghetti and hoagies to finish off a peach pie Evelyn had baked earlier in the week (with peaches we had bought in Amish country). We really enjoyed the spontaneous evening together.

Saturday night Paul and Sev Friskney came for dinner. We hadn't visited with them all summer, and it was good to laugh and catch up. We had typical picnic fare: hamburgers on the grill, baked beans, cole slaw, and Evelyn's potato salad. She made a Rice Chex ice cream dessert that we used to serve every summer but hadn't had for years. It was a fine evening.

Brian preached in the gym, and those of us in the auditorium
enjoyed his sermon via the video feed.

We enjoyed being at church this morning. This was our regular Welcome Center Sunday, so we were there about 8:30. I had some contacts to make regarding that worship service next Sunday, and we enjoyed all the chatting and laughing we always enjoy with the extended time to see folks. Trevor had asked Brian Jobe to be guest preacher, and he had a fine sermon. I'm thinking I'll use his points as the jumping off point for my men's group Bible Study Thursday.

 After church Evelyn and I each had separate meetings to attend. Mark Senseman led a training meeting for people who have been serving at the Welcome Center; he announced and explained some exciting innovations and renovations coming to that whole ministry. Evelyn attended Mark's meeting while I attended training led by Dale Reeves for "tribe" leaders in anticipation of a new series kicking off September 7. Dale has done an excellent job getting all that ready. Evelyn attended training for women's Bible study leaders last Sunday at lunchtime, and she's at a women's kick-off event this evening (Sunday) for that whole emphasis. It's really great to see strategic plans, training, and fresh ideas from those leading the ministries we're involved in!

A Weekend in August

We ate dinner Saturday night with Bill and Verna Weber, Donovan and Jocelyn and Ruby and Nora, and the Webers' friends from South Africa, Phil and Irene Hughes.
The Hugheses had been visiting the Webers as a part of their four-month visit to the U.S. this summer. We had wanted to connect with Webers--we hadn't seen them since a couple of brief hellos at the NACC. They suggested we meet them on their way out of town (they had come to visit with Donovan's family for the day) and back home to Indy. So we drove over to the Bob Evans on North Bend Road and enjoyed a nice early supper with them.

"Thanks for coming over here to eat dinner with us," Verna said as we were breaking up.
"Hey, this is the high spot of our weekend," I said.
"Oh, I hope not!" Bill replied.
Well, maybe it was. But the whole weekend has been pleasant.
Friday we had a big night out with a Groupon-discounted dinner at Mimi's followed by frame shopping at Hobby Lobby.
Saturday I spent a couple hours weeding, trimming, and watering outside. I decided to take some flower pictures while I was working.. The pictures look better than the yard. We haven't had rain for quite awhile, and the grass is pretty brown.

Then I got a good start on my final batch of notes to folks to tell them about the Alaska trip we're helping host next summer.
After we got home from supper, we watched the latest Muppets movie via Movies on Demand from Time Warner.
Evelyn and I worked the Welcome Center at church, and she and I each had meetings at church at noon.
I went to the grocery on the way home and bought a can of soup to eat for lunch. Then I finished my Alaska invitations and took 'em to the post office late in the afternoon.
We had a nice talk with Jen on the phone after supper.
A simple weekend. A pleasant weekend.

An Open Letter to Trevor DeVage and Benji Maurer

Before this morning's worship at Christ's Church at Mason was finished, I determined to write a thank-you note to Trevor DeVage and Benji Maurer for leading an experience that challenged and inspired me. And then I decided I'd just let anyone read what I have to say . . .

Dear Trevor and Benji . . .

Thank you, thank you for the blessing of this morning’s “Easter in August” worship service. It touched

me in ways I didn’t expect and can’t explain, but I can tell you several aspects of the service I thought were very special.

• I loved the way you worshipped with us, Trevor. When you came to the center of the platform to sing

“The Old Rugged Cross” with us, when you closed your eyes and raised your hand in worship, it was almost as if you were leading us. You were with us in a way that can’t happen when you come onto the stage after 30 minutes of singing. Today you were a fellow-worshipper, not just the presenter-preacher.

• I loved the way you used that hymn as the lead-in to the first point of your sermon, without introduction or interruption. We were right there with you, from the first word.

• Speaking of that old hymn, thanks for including it, as well as a couple verses of “Christ the Lord Is Risen Today” later in the service. Everyone was singing along, younger people as well as older. I loved the new accompaniments and the way the old hymn was combined with a contemporary worship song.

• I loved the energy in the room. It was a blessing and a challenge to see 30-somethings around me, men as well as women, singing and engaged. What a future our church has when we’re developing Christians like these!

• It was wonderful to hear the congregation singing with me (or listening to them sing when I didn’t know a song). The instruments accompanied the words and the melodies to make a powerful testimony.

• Thanks for surprising us a little with how the songs and other elements of worship all fit together. A gentle dose of the unexpected kept our attention, kept us anticipating. I wasn’t really ready for the worship time to be over.

• Thanks for teaching us a new song, with the promise to use it several times in the next weeks. It has such a powerful message. I’m looking forward to learning it and hearing our voices lift together as it becomes part of our shared experience at CCM.

I’m also looking forward to the combined services we’ll enjoy in September. I know you’re working harder than we can understand to craft worship experiences that honor God and point us to his presence. You achieved that for this morning’s worship. And I just wanted to say thanks.

Busy Times, Fun Times, Inspiring Times

Here it is Tuesday, and I'm just now finding time to write a brief rundown of the weekend. This has been a busy week since then.
Jim and Diane and I have been busy with several new and out-of-the-ordinary tasks associated with the creation and introduction of the new Christian Standard app that we hope will be live on the Apple Newsstand in another week or two. It's very exciting, and once we get it established (learn how to use the interface and establish the print/digital integration), the month-by-month work on it will not be nearly as consuming as this journey up the learning curve.
But I really think it will create a digital version of the magazine that many will find attractive. We plan to push it at the NACC; I'm hoping for a slew of downloads during NACC.
Last night I met with Dales Reeves and a bunch of other members of the Christ's Church at Mason writers group he's formed. The church is planning an all-church study of Thom Rainer's book I Am a Church Member, and members of our group are writing devotions for all six weeks of the study. Dale runs a good meeting, we have a fun group, and I enjoyed the time with them.
Now about the weekend:
Friday night Evelyn and I mowed grass, and I did several lawn tasks. Then we ate pizza and salads from LaRosa's on the deck, enjoying a beautiful, sunny but cool evening.
Saturday I read the chapter in The Story for Sunday morning, paid bills, enjoyed breakfast, got the car washed, and went to the grocery. About 1:30 Bill and Verna Weber arrived from Indy, and before 2:00 we drove to Bill and Joni Baker's house for a pleasant meeting and picnic-style meal they had prepared.
The occasion was to hear a progress report, consider next steps, and pray for Victoria and Joshua Baah-Binney, Ghanaians studying here in preparation for ministry when they return home to Africa. We learned a lot, laughed a lot, ate a lot (!), and praised the Lord a lot for the Baah-Binney's commitment and his provision for all their needs. There will surely be more needs to come, though, and we will probably be involved in some way to help meet them.

 We left Bakers after 5:30 and drove to Riverbend to enjoy a concert by Cincinnati Pops. We sat on the
lawn (we'd brought our sling chairs) and visited in the hot sunshine till the program began at 8:00. (We were there when the gates opened at 6:30.)  After the sun set, I was actually chilly. But it was a fine program of orchestral spectaculars, finished off by the 1812 Overture and cannons, and then a wonderful fireworks display before we went home.
Webers spent the night, and we lingered over breakfast the next morning (Evelyn's raisin bread, granola, and fresh fruit). All of us left before 10:00; they for LifeSpring and we for CCM. We enjoyed visiting with friends in the lobby and snuck into the 10:30 service for inspiring singing and a wonderful sermon from Trevor, centering on the return of the Jews to Jerusalem and their failure to finish rebuilding the temple as God had commanded (Haggai and Ezra were the main texts).
Trevor painted the word "SURRENDER" in bold letters on a white flag on the floor as he began his sermon, but we didn't see what he'd written till he drove home his final point at the end: "The secret to a life with meaning is surrender. . . . The day I found freedom is the day I raised the white flag."
We grabbed lunch at Noodles and Company and then came home to tend to desk-type tasks, in between talking with Katie and Byron and later Geoff about our upcoming visit all together to New York. We're looking forward to a wonderful time together.

Mulch and Memories

"It's our red, white, and blue breakfast,"
Evelyn said when I came in from the yard
to enjoy breakfast.

I spent most of yesterday, from before 8:00 a.m. till after 4:00 p.m., working in the yard. I took a break mid-morning for a wonderful breakfast of homemade waffles and fresh, fruit and another break about 2:00 for peanut butter crackers and a Coke.
I planted flowers and tomatoes in the bed beside the driveway and then mulched it all. (I had cultivated it Sunday, so it was ready to plant.) I started there because that side of the house is in the shade in the early morning.
The next door neighbor offered me a whole garden cart full of mulch. He'd bought too much and gave it to me free for taking it off his hands. So I cultivated and planted flowers in the front flower bed in time to use his mulch. He gave me enough to cover the whole bed!
The day grew warmer and warmer, but after my lunch, I planted a hosta in the flower bed behind the pine trees and then spread a bale of pine needle mulch to cover the bare spots all around the trees in the back of our yard.
Through it all, I used RoundUp on weeds and got several shovels full of compost from our compost bin in the back of the yard.

Aided by the chilly days and nights of
late spring, my lettuce patch has really taken off!

We cooked pork chops on the grill (from the freezer, part of our Omaha Steaks Christmas gift from Ken and Susan) for supper, and went to the Cone for dessert later in the evening.
It was a perfect, productive day, the third warm and sunny day of this three-day weekend. And it gave me the chance to make a lot of progress in with my list of spring chores.
Sunday we were at the Welcome Center at church, and I "hosted" in the Classic Service. I came across a headline in The Wall Street Journal that gave me the idea for the Communion meditation and the column I needed to write for christianstandard.com (It went live this morning). I worked on the column at the kitchen table for awhile after we got home from lunch and errands. And then, as I mentioned above, I worked in the yard.
Saturday evening we went to RiverHills Christian Church to enjoy a wonderful dinner celebrating the seminary graduation of George and Zina Dababneh. George is from Jordan; Zina is originally from Iraq, and after hard work and sacrifice, they received their degrees a couple weeks ago at the CCU graduation.

Zina and George are as attractive on the inside as they are good looking on the outside.

While we were there, we got acquainted with another international couple, Miguel and Allejandra Lara. He was an IBM salesman in Venezuela when he was converted to Christ through the ministry of Johnny Dye. Now he and his young family are living in Price HIll, and he is in graduate study at CCU. We discovered that they are attending Christ's Church at Mason, and in fact, the next morning we saw them at church.
Two inspiring couples who will one day use training received in Cincinnati to take the gospel to difficult foreign fields.

Garden Gallop

Took a day of vacation today to join Dave Lautzenheiser and a bunch of other (mostly) seniors from Christ's Church at Mason for the annual Garden Gallop. Dave and Sarah Ferris organize this each year about this time; it's a trip to 3 or 5 nurseries/garden centers to shop for plants for spring planting and summer gardening.
This is at least the third time I've joined the group. I go for the fellowship, to keep Dave company (sometimes he and I are the only males), and to ooo and ahhh over all the annuals, perennials, vines, bushes, planters, hanging baskets, and garden doodads one can find at these garden centers. And every year he takes us to some places I've never been before.
This year we visited three garden centers on Ohio Pike/Route 125 east of town. I bought at least something at each of them; two offered us a group discount, and all gave new ideas.
I always have a container garden on the deck, and I decided this year to try something different: all foilage. I was able to find several unusual plants you just don't find at Home Depot and Lowe's. (But I saw some that I HAD seen at the big boxes, at much lower prices, so my shopping isn't over.)

Our gallopers posed for a group shot at one of the nurseries where we visited. We dodged raindrops
all morning. But the heaviest rains were on the way to the first stop and on the way home
after the afternoon was over.

We ate lunch at Quaker Steak and Lube. Great onion rings! They're giving away a Harley later this year, but I didn't enter the contest. Think of it as Cracker Barrel with motor cycles and auto paraphernalia hanging from the ceiling and decorating the walls instead of antiques, washboards, and pictures of somebody's grandmother.
After lunch (a LONG lunch, but it didn't matter; we enjoyed the visiting), we drove back to Natorp's in Mason. It was the first time I'd been there this year: acres of BEAUTIFUL, healthy plants under one roof. Every kind of annual, vegetable, herb, and perennial you can imagine.
I have a gift certificate from there I want to spend, but I didn't have it with me today. (Didn't know we were going to go there.) So I looked at everything and made mental notes. I'm going back to Natorp's!
I began the day by running into the office and visiting with Matt Lockhart for about an hour regarding a proposal we're making to sign-on with a company that creates digital versions of magazines. We're seeking approval tomorrow, along with another significant request at the same meeting. I'm praying about this (and I don't say that flippantly). At home this evening I revised the P&L statement I had created in preparation for that meeting.

Nice Weekend, Happy Birthday

I've always believed birthdays are one of the best reasons to be on Facebook, and this year was no exception. In a pretense of humility, I will not count up how many birthday wishes I received. It wouldn't be easy, anyway, because some commented in response to my last blog post, some commented in response to a quote about aging I posted, and some commented in response to a shameless self-promotion plug I posted the day after my birthday--all in addition to Facebook's birthday notification at the top of friends' home pages.
It IS nice to hear from folks I might not communicate with any other time, though. I'm not planning on signing off of Facebook!
Actually, this year, I got my birthday cake as a result of one of those posts (not sure which one). My big day was Sunday, and it was a busy day at church. Evelyn and I had Welcome Center duty, and I filled-in as teacher of the Seekers class at 9:00. Then I had been asked to emcee a fundraising lunch that happened in the church parlor after the last service. When the event organizers, Dave and Valerie Reed, saw it was my birthday, they stopped by Kroger on the way to church and bought me a cake so everyone could sing "Happy Birthday" during the luncheon. I loved it!
The lunch was very nice, designed to raise funds to name a room in CCU's remodeled Rine Hall after

I opened my eyes and snapped this picture during the
closing prayer at the end of our lunch Sunday.

Vic and June Hunter. June was a graduate of the school and an active supporter. Her "adopted" daughter, Marilyn Pitzer, gave a fine tribute to Vic and June and presented Dave Faust (he was there and made a nice presentation, too) with a check for $25,000 from the Hunter estate plus a personal gift from her family. It was a moving, enjoyable day. We sat with Dale and Judy McCann and Cliff and Becky Leighty, plus one of the students who accompanied the Fausts to church for the event.
I attended the 10:30 worship in the gym (I'm usually in the auditorium or the chapel) and was especially blessed by Trevor's sermon about Solomon. I plan to discuss again with our men's Bible study Thursday four words Trevor chose to characterize Solomon's life:

• Compromise
• Exception
• Meaningless
• Duty

A couple of quotes I jotted in my bulletin:

"The road to folly starts with the word except."

"When a good thing becomes a god thing, that's a bad thing."

"Do something big with your one and only life."

We stopped at Kohl's on the way home and used a coupon to buy my birthday gift, a new pair of Skechers I can wear to work on jeans Friday.
Anticipating rain on Monday, Evelyn and I mowed grass after we got home. (For the record, that's lawn mowing no. 4 this year.) Shirley Wuske wanted to come dig some hydrangea sprouts from the bushes in the front yard, so we invited them to come share my birthday cake. After grass, before the Wuskes, both of the kids called, and we enjoyed nice catch-up visits with them. We had a great time digging and eating and visiting with Terry and Shirley (they brought ice cream to go with the cake!), and by the time they left, we were ready to get ready for the week.
It was a busy day, which is why I didn't have time to write about it then.
The birthday continued Monday; Evelyn got up in the morning and baked two coffee cakes for me to take to work. And then today the Magazines people took me to lunch. I chose Jason's Deli, the restaurant Sev and Paul Friskney had introduced us to earlier this year.
So I feel fully entered into my year as a 64-year-old. It was a happy birthday!

The Day Before Easter Is a Good Day for a Funeral

The flower beds around our church building
are filled with tulips and phlox in full bloom.

If one must go to a funeral, let it be the funeral of a fellow-Christian on the day before Easter.
That was my thought this afternoon after we went to say, "We're so sorry" to Bethany Bellamy at the visitation for her husband, Tim, who died in his sleep one week ago. Tim and Bethany are young (at least a lot younger than Evelyn and me!). He's usually on the platform playing keyboards for one or more of our worship services, and we had worked with Bethany in more than one Christmas pageant in the past. They attended a short-term small group I led this fall, and all of us were shocked at Tim's sudden, unexpected death.
But we Christians say Christ's resurrection gives us hope in the face of death. We believe Christ's resurrection gives the promise that all of us will live again. And tomorrow we will celebrate the life we find only in him while we remember that this life is not the end and this world is not our home.
It was a beautiful day today, above 70 degrees, bright sunshine, brilliant blue sky. After the winter comes the spring. After death comes life as surprisingly beautiful as the green lawns and multicolored tulips and blindingly white pear trees in full bloom everywhere this weekend.
As wonderful as spring's new life is to see and smell, it happens in a world where Satan still brings disappointment and dysfunction and disease and death. We can only imagine how wonderful the next life will be without any of the devil's influence and in the eternal presence of the Author of Life.

Good Preaching, Good Pictures

Quote of the Day:
Mark Mueller, one of our church's elders, preached this morning, and he did a super job. The sermon told the story of David: his call, his battle with Goliath, and his integrity in sparing the life of King Saul in the cave.
It was a sermon filled with challenges for the man on the street, laced with Mark's slightly bent and deadpan humor.
My favorite smile from the sermon:
"If your father-in-law is trying to kill you, and his daughter (your wife) and his son (your best friend) are trying to help you, you don't need to be a clinical psychologist to know the family Christmas party just became very interesting."

Pictures of the Day:
Evelyn got a new hair-do, and she decided the short cut in her Facebook profile just doesn't work
anymore. So she asked me to snap a new one for her. By bedtime it had received 115 "likes" on Facebook!
This afternoon I ran over to Dr. Charley Horsley's house in Lebanon. Charley is a semiprofessional photographer, and, in response to a Facebook inquiry from Evelyn a couple weeks ago, he offered to send our family picture taken last summer to the place that prints all his pictures, a high-quality print-output company that makes prints for professional photographers.
Below is the print we're having enlarged to hand in our living room. Daughter-in-law Lisa orchestrated and directed the photo shoot in Central Park last summer (and color-corrected the pictures for us). After we get the print, we'll work on getting it matted and framed. The Horsleys have a recommendation for a good framer in Lebanon.
Finally, Evelyn will be getting her family portrait to hang on the wall!

A Nice Weekend

Pictures of the Day:
A highlight of the weekend was the concert by the Purdue Glee Club at Christ's Church at Mason Saturday night. More than 500 made a nice crowd in our auditorium to see the uniquely energetic and entertaining show/concert performed by this stage full of young men singing in tuxes. Their repertoire covered the gamut: sacred, classical, Broadway, gospel, pop, and patriotic. Always with strong voices, sometimes with complex harmonies, varying their stage presence from formal rows to seemingly unchoreographed interactions with each other and the audience, their performance was a joy to watch as well as hear.

We made an evening of the outing by inviting the Webers and the Friskneys to join us for supper at

The singers filled the aisles with song more than once, this time
to serenade ladies they chose from the audience.

5:00 and then go to the concert with us. We enjoyed the meal and the laughter at Mimi's and got to the church by 6:15 or 6:30 to get good seats for the 7:00 concert. Afterwards, Evelyn was one of the volunteers serving trays of homemade cookies to the crowd that lingered in the large lobby area outside the auditorium. Several of the singers had nice reunions with family members made more pleasurable by our church's hospitality.
Bill and Verna stayed overnight with us and left about 10:00 Sunday morning to worship at Lifespring Christian Church and spend the day with the Webers 2.0. We decided to go to second service at Mason Sunday morning; the net effect was two long, hashing-out-life visits with the Webers: Saturday night till almost midnight and then again over a leisurely breakfast Sunday morning. (Evelyn had made our favorite coffee cake--yum!)
Friday night was a typical Big Night Out for Evelyn and me: dinner out (Macaroni Grill --and that was special!) and a shopping trip at Costco's followed by Evelyn snagging this quarter's sale at the Clinique counter at Macy's.
Sunday we sat with our friend Alan Guttman in the Classic Service at 10:30, ate lunch quickly at McAllister's, and then returned home for a productive afternoon. Evelyn graded papers, and I worked a couple hours in the yard (trimmed all the rose bushes). It was a sunny 60-degree day, and I went with Evelyn on her walk after my yard work. Then I came in and did something I haven't done for a long time on a Sunday afternoon. I took a nap--a long nap! Evelyn was afraid I wouldn't sleep that night, but I managed to quit waking to see the alarm clock by about 11:00 p.m.

Quote of the Day:
"We think obedience is fine for kids and dogs. But we don't celebrate obedience in our culture. . . . Obedience puts us in our place. It's God's wisdom and strength we can't outgrow."
—Trevor DeVage in his excellent sermon in our The Story series, this week on King Saul's sorry pattern of disobedience.

Welcome Home, Welcome Weekend

Picture of the Day:

John and Sally Skerl hosted an open house at their new house in Maineville yesterday, and we really enjoyed the chance to stop by. The house is wonderful--especially the wraparound deck at the back overlooking a rushing creek in front of a wooded hillside.

They provided a buffet full of yummy treats, and we really enjoyed snacking while visiting with some friends from church as well as Rick Ruble, whom we were surprised to discover is Sally's relative. (Sorry, I've already forgotten the connection.)

The best part, though, is realizing their commitment to the Lord and the Christian spirit underlying their invitation to fellowship. It was a nice way to spend a late Saturday afternoon and early evening!

Back home, we spent the last part of the evening watching Mandela: Long Walk to Freedom. I had wanted to see it when it was in the theaters, and I'm glad we got the chance to watch it at home. Some of it is difficult to watch, but it is well-acted and, of course, a compelling story. I learned some history I hadn't fully realized.

Today we attended both Sunday-morning services; I did Communion meditation and offering prayer in the 10:30 service. We grabbed lunch at Skyline with Dan and Cindi Cooper; it was the first we had sat and talked with them in weeks, and we had a nice time.  I got ready for my trip tomorrow in the afternoon and then spent a couple of hours outside in the cool air and warm sunshine cleaning out the flower bed in the front of the house and filling a garbage can with leaves and branches and twigs.

Enjoyed the last few minutes of the Michigan/UK NCAA basketball game and then Sixty Minutes and then another movie on TV before bedtime.

Quote of the Day:

"Grief is the silent, knife-like terror and sadness that comes a hundred times a day, when you start to speak to someone who is no longer there. Grief is the emptiness that comes when you eat alone after eating with another for many years.

Grief is teaching yourself to go to bed without saying good night to the one who had died. Grief is the helpless wishing that things were different when you know they are not and never will be again."

—Edgar Jackson, quoted by Trevor DeVage in his sermon today on Naomi and Ruth. Find a longer quote here.

A Different Sunday, a Good Sunday

Several things about the day were usual:
• Evelyn and I were at church a little after 8:30 to do our fourth-Sunday stint at the Welcome Center.
•  We attended the 9:00 service and heard an excellent sermon based on the era of the Old Testament Judges, based on that chapter in The Story. Trevor DeVage did an excellent job of summarizing 330 years of history and challenging us with the cycle of sin, oppression, repentance, and deliverance that characterized the behavior of the Israelite nation at that time.

But more things about the day were unusual.
• We sat during the second service with our friend Alan Guttman who's been coming to my Thursday men's Bible study for years and  Sunday-morning church for weeks.
• After 2nd service we ran to the VA hospital emergency room on Vine Street after receiving a text from Shirley Wuske saying they didn't come to church because Terry decided to go to the hospital with chest pains. We got there just in time to visit and joke with them before he was discharged. (They decided it was just muscle pain, not a heart problem.)
(We had gone through the drive-in lane at Wendy's and grabbed fish sandwiches on the way to the hospital.)
• Then we left the hospital and drove to Eden Park in plenty of time to see the 2:00 performance of Pride and Prejudice at Playhouse in the Park.
It was excellent! We had bought tickets with the gift certificate Evelyn's colleagues gave her as a going-away gift when she retired from full-time teaching last spring. This play was her choice from the current season, and I was glad to go with what she wanted.
We had good seats and thoroughly enjoyed the production.

This beautiful setting was used in many creative ways to contain the various scenes of the play. These
two butlers lit the candles on this chandelier in the 2 minutes before the play began.

After the play we used a Living Social coupon to grab some dinner at Mount Adams Bar and Grill. I had their bean burrito, and Evelyn enjoyed the chef salad. Then we split a piece of Graeter's fudge cake with ice cream for dessert.
We were home in time to relax in front of 60 Minutes and some other TV, along with catching up on Facebook and then getting ready for the work week just ahead of us.

Quite a Remedy

Pictures of the Day:
I was blessed to hear our choir sing and Brad Wilson preach in the 10:30 Classic service this morning.
The opening video set the stage for a message about God's creation, man's sin, and God's remedy. A powerful thought to realize that sin is behind all the grief and pain in the world, but God's story is the story of providing us the remedy. I've begun studying for our small group's study of Chapter One of The Story, and I'm even more looking forward to this study.

Quote of the Day: If we believe the remarkable truth stated in Genesis 1:1, "In the beginning God created the world," it's not hard to believe the rest of the Bible.
—Brad Wilson in this morning's sermon.

From Writers for Writers

Quotes of the Day:

With a shout-out to some friends who have formed a new writers group at Christ's Church at Mason, I offer these quotes from the "Sunbeams" page in the latest issue (February 2014) of The Sun.
"Sunbeams" is a regular feature in this independent journal, and this month, all the quotes relate to writing.

(Dale Reeves formed our writers group to write/edit/compile projects for the church as well as to share and expolore our own writing. The first meeting was last night. I enjoyed it!)

I lived in the midst of an affectionate, charming family, and I am sure that there is no greater obstacle to a person who is just beginning to write.
—Katharine Butler Hathaway

The good thing about writing fiction is that you can get back at people. I've gotten back at lawyers, prosecutors, judges, law professors, and politicians. I just line 'em up and shoot 'em.
—John Grisham

He asked, "What makes a man a writer?"
"Well, I said, it's simple. You either get it down on paper, or jump off a bridge."
—Charles Bukowski

Writing allows even a stupid person to seem halfway intelligent, if only that person will write the same thought over and over again, improving it just a little bit each time. It is a lot like inflating a blimp with a bicycle pump. Anybody can do it. All it takes is time."
—Kurt Vonnegut

I am dissatisfied with everything I have ever written and regard it all only as a preparation for that one work which probably I don't have it in me to write but which I hope I can go on trying for.
—Ruth Prawer Jhabvala

He who has made a thousand things and he who has made none, both feel the same desire: to make something.
—Antonio Porchia

Trevor DeVage, Garrison Keillor, and Man of Steel

Quotes of the Day: "Be careful not to forget the Lord" (Deuteronomy 6:12).
"We all need reminders
of what the Lord has done in our lives."
—Trevor DeVage, Christ's Church at Mason, January 5, 2014.

Another Quote of the Day:

May we not lose our marbles,
and keep up the pace.
May we face getting older
with something like grace.
—Garrison Keillor 

Frustration of the Day: Discovering that almost four hours of work during Christmas vacation created files on a flash drive that today were all polluted and inaccessible. I'll ask IT tomorrow if they can recover the files, but a) my plans to make two or three hours more progress today were thwarted, and b) it's possible I'll be starting from scratch tomorrow.

Accomplishment of the Day: We decided to attend church at 10:30 instead of 9:00, since Evelyn had a lunchtime meeting at church at noon. So we were up early, and I was able to get written a draft of my January 7 column for christianstandard.com before we left for church.

Very Grateful Today: SO-O-O-O glad I brought in the outside Christmas lights on New Year's Day when the sun was bright and the temperature was flirting with 50 degrees. Since then it's been cold and snowy and blustery and ugly. And even yesterday when the temperature topped freezing, all the bushes (those bushes that the lights had been adorning) were covered with snow. And today, on a gray afternoon, the forecast was for rain and then snow again, which leads me to my second measure of gratitude: I'm SO glad I had no plans to sit in the freezing mess at the Bengals game this afternoon.

Disappointing Memory of the Day: Man of Steel, last year's Superman prequel now available on DVD. If you like 143 minutes of computer-generated imagery (I didn't keep count, but I doubt there was any 10-minute stretch in the whole film without it), enough explosions and falling buildings for 40 9/11's, super-hero fistfights (again, tiresomely made possible by CGI and inexplicably finally won by Superman), unaffecting performances by Hollywood stars, and a plot that frankly I found confusing, then do like we did yesterday and pick up the disc at your local Redbox. The best thing about it was I had a promo code and got the experience for free.

Picture of the Day: Sorry, Mr. Kroger, but I doubt we'll have all our Christmas candy eaten in time to buy more for Valentine's Day.

Sunday, Workday, Funday

We attended the 9:00 service this morning. Drew Sherman, minister at Compass Christian Church in Colleyville, Texas, was our guest speaker. He ministers where Trevor DeVage was associate for 11 years, and I know Trevor was delighted to be with him this weekend. We were pleased too, because he brought us a WONDERFUL sermon on the life of David, challenging us to allow ourselves to be used by God as David was.
We had breakfast at Marie's Scrambler. The food is fine, but in spite of the fact that the place is always packed, I just can't convince myself that it's a place I really like. It had been a long time since we'd been there, so I decided to give it another try, but my feelings about the place haven't changed.

The proof page for our November cover. Scott Ryan designed it, and
we think it will attract attention.

Mostly what I did this afternoon is read the proof for the November issue of Christian Standard, which goes to the printer Wednesday. For some reason, I've gotten a little behind this month; it's been awhile since I've read proof on a Sunday afternoon.
The November issue will center mainly on missions; we'll distribute it at ICOM in November. There's some really good stuff in it! :-)
I was at it from about 1:00 till about 5:00, with a nice break to talk with Geoff on the phone somewhere there in the middle. Jennifer called not long after I was finished, and we had a nice visit with her too. They're each involved in meaningful and important things. Geoff is editing his doctoral dissertation proposal down to the right word length before emailing it tonight. He and Lisa have found a new, larger apartment they'll move to on October 16. Matt and Jen are making final preparations for a 10-day trip to India to speak at a huge youth conference sponsored by Central India Christian Mission. They leave October 7.

Evelyn and I ate butternut squash soup from Costco for supper and watched the season premier of "60 Minutes." If we can stay awake, we'll watch PBS's "Foyle's War" at 9:00 before bedtime

.