Just sitting in my chair and looking at the garage sale sign leaning against our wall giving evidence of yesterday’s community garage sale. Two words within the words stood out as if written in red…RAGE and ALE. Funny thought that often the reason we have a garage sale is because of some trauma in our lives…financial woes,
having to move, death in the family, kids leaving home etc. Thus explains the “Rage.” The ALE is often the elixir to help cope through the rage!
Of course another word within those two words is “SAGE.” There is a certain wisdom in all the various turns and valleys of life. Sometimes the answer is a tall cool glass of ale, and a garage sale!
*********************************************************************************************************************************************
Thinking about the fact that we work at our job to provide our life. Which in turn often robs us of our time and enthusiasm for actually having a “life!” We do things that we…given the choice…would not do, and we limit the time in our lives that we are able to do things that we would choose to do. Strange.
***********************************************************************************************************************************************
Mom told me some wonderful things yesterday and I don’t want to forget them!
One thing was; She was standing in her backyard in Escondido California and looking straight up at the sunset. She said that it was one of the most amazing sunsets she had ever seen in her eighty eight years of life! The marmalade sky, patterned with clouds, were bright red cotton-balls of fire! She thought to herself that “just earlier, these were dark clouds!” “Earlier, these clouds blocked the sun. They were sinister and threatening rain!” The thought came to her that as our sun sets in life, we get to see ALL the things that earlier in our life were so daunting become a beautiful pattern of the glory of God’s plan FOR our life! Without the sun…or Son, none of this would happen.
The other thing was;
Jacob was a prodigal! He was told by God to return home! He often said, “The God of my Father’s.” But when he returned to his father’s house, it became “My God!”
Mom said that we are “prodigals everyday!” In the morning we are in the Fathers house and we have everything! We then go out…and how often is our feeling…Father I have been a waster today! I have wasted your precious goods, I have wasted time! I have wasted time, effort and money on things that DON’T LOVE ME!! And they have left me empty and hungry! We often then return home in the evening…expecting punishment…and finding again, the fatted calf and all of the Father’s love right where we left them earlier!
*************************************************************************************************************************************************
Our journey is hills and valleys, but a lot of it is just flat-land traveling as well! Not too high, not too low, just long sometimes long dry stretches that we all go through. Russell Stearns told us Wednesday night that both David and Joseph were asked by their fathers to go check on their brothers. He said that both were asked to do relatively simple tasks on what started out as very common days. Neither of them could have believed what was in store for them after those days! One was eventually made king of Israel and the other was made ruler of Egypt. Key word…eventually! Even then, it was a process, it didn’t happen overnight! We need to remember that incredible opportunity might lie in what seems at the time to be incredible common experiences! Then, we need the patience to allow the experiences to prepare us for the uncommon opportunities!
************************************************************************************************************************************************
The letter of the law is easier to apply to other people than to ourselves.
When things happen to us, we start thinking about the spirit of the law.
************************************************************************************************************************************************
Writing is a bit like throwing up. You hold it-hold it- hold it…and then it just comes spewing out onto the page sometimes unrecognizable to what the different components were that went into the digestion tract of your brain. Like being sick, you often write of things that trouble you or hurt, and like throwing up, you often feel better when they come out.
************************************************************************************************************************************************
A mans need for speed!
The other day I had a customer come in with a fully restored 1973 Chevy Chevelle with a 454 high performance motor and super charger. He was probably in his middle to late sixties with a full head of snow white hair. I’m not specifically an old car nut, but I was impressed. This was a very well done restoration and just one bad looking machine. Jeff, the guy I work with however, is a huge car nut and I could tell that he was like a kid in a candy shop looking at this beauty. I managed to convince my customer to give Jeff a ride around the block and as they literally rumbled out the driveway, Jeff had this huge smile on his face of pure unadulterated joy!
What flashed in my mind seeing his huge smile was Orson Atkin. He was an eighty year old man that lived across from our first little battery shop in Riverside California on Cypress Street. He rode around town in an old golf cart that he named Roadrunner. It was a three wheel job with a tiller for steering and because of probably hitting a curb too hard, it wobbled back and forth as he drove down the road. We became very dear friends. In fact, Orson was the Grandpa to Mark and I that we had never known. Mark was still in the golf cart business in Orange County and somehow, he came across a four wheel Taylor Dunn golf cart that we decided to fix up for Orson. It was like going from a clunker to a Cadillac for him! It had a steering wheel, windshield, lights, and fully enclosed doors for when it rained. Mark also hopped it up a bit so it was really fast compared to the roadrunner. We will never forget the first time Orson tried it out! He came flying up Cypress Street with a smile so huge that his dentures had trouble staying in! When he opened the door, he uttered a string of congratulatory colorful language which amounted to him declaring…”That thing hauls donkeys!” Even at eighty years old, the need for speed had not left the little kid inside.
As kids, we just wanna go faster! Whether it’s running, or sledding or on our bikes, wanting to go faster is just in our genes. It must come from the Creator making most of the edible animals quite faster than humans. In order to try and catch dinner, our ancestors just had to keep trying to go faster and faster. I remember very well having a Honda mini-trail 70 when I was about twelve or thirteen. I sent away for a special ninety CC piston and had the cylinder bored out to match. I then mounted a Honda 90 carburetor on it by customizing the manifold at my Junior High metal shop. Somehow it all came together and man, did that thing fly! I remember one of my friends on his motorcycle clocking me near fifty five miles per hour on that bike! The fact that it was so small, made it seem like it was going all that much faster!
Even today, I own an electric bicycle that can go forty miles per hour when the norm for an electric bike is about twenty. I would not be nearly as enthralled by the bike if it only did twenty! Just the way it is. Most of the time I get comments on my bike, it’s about how fast it is! Other bikers will pull up next to me at a stop light and their comment is often….”man, that thing hauls!”
****************************************************************************************************************************************************
Loren Coleman:
Wed Night Gospel Mtg 9/10/14:
Jesus as the King and His Kingship compared to all of the natural kings who preceded him. Here was a cool thought…”A natural king loves himself and rules his subjects…Jesus loved his subjects and ruled over himself.”
having to move, death in the family, kids leaving home etc. Thus explains the “Rage.” The ALE is often the elixir to help cope through the rage!
Of course another word within those two words is “SAGE.” There is a certain wisdom in all the various turns and valleys of life. Sometimes the answer is a tall cool glass of ale, and a garage sale!
*********************************************************************************************************************************************
Thinking about the fact that we work at our job to provide our life. Which in turn often robs us of our time and enthusiasm for actually having a “life!” We do things that we…given the choice…would not do, and we limit the time in our lives that we are able to do things that we would choose to do. Strange.
***********************************************************************************************************************************************
Mom told me some wonderful things yesterday and I don’t want to forget them!
One thing was; She was standing in her backyard in Escondido California and looking straight up at the sunset. She said that it was one of the most amazing sunsets she had ever seen in her eighty eight years of life! The marmalade sky, patterned with clouds, were bright red cotton-balls of fire! She thought to herself that “just earlier, these were dark clouds!” “Earlier, these clouds blocked the sun. They were sinister and threatening rain!” The thought came to her that as our sun sets in life, we get to see ALL the things that earlier in our life were so daunting become a beautiful pattern of the glory of God’s plan FOR our life! Without the sun…or Son, none of this would happen.
The other thing was;
Jacob was a prodigal! He was told by God to return home! He often said, “The God of my Father’s.” But when he returned to his father’s house, it became “My God!”
Mom said that we are “prodigals everyday!” In the morning we are in the Fathers house and we have everything! We then go out…and how often is our feeling…Father I have been a waster today! I have wasted your precious goods, I have wasted time! I have wasted time, effort and money on things that DON’T LOVE ME!! And they have left me empty and hungry! We often then return home in the evening…expecting punishment…and finding again, the fatted calf and all of the Father’s love right where we left them earlier!
*************************************************************************************************************************************************
Our journey is hills and valleys, but a lot of it is just flat-land traveling as well! Not too high, not too low, just long sometimes long dry stretches that we all go through. Russell Stearns told us Wednesday night that both David and Joseph were asked by their fathers to go check on their brothers. He said that both were asked to do relatively simple tasks on what started out as very common days. Neither of them could have believed what was in store for them after those days! One was eventually made king of Israel and the other was made ruler of Egypt. Key word…eventually! Even then, it was a process, it didn’t happen overnight! We need to remember that incredible opportunity might lie in what seems at the time to be incredible common experiences! Then, we need the patience to allow the experiences to prepare us for the uncommon opportunities!
************************************************************************************************************************************************
The letter of the law is easier to apply to other people than to ourselves.
When things happen to us, we start thinking about the spirit of the law.
************************************************************************************************************************************************
Writing is a bit like throwing up. You hold it-hold it- hold it…and then it just comes spewing out onto the page sometimes unrecognizable to what the different components were that went into the digestion tract of your brain. Like being sick, you often write of things that trouble you or hurt, and like throwing up, you often feel better when they come out.
************************************************************************************************************************************************
A mans need for speed!
The other day I had a customer come in with a fully restored 1973 Chevy Chevelle with a 454 high performance motor and super charger. He was probably in his middle to late sixties with a full head of snow white hair. I’m not specifically an old car nut, but I was impressed. This was a very well done restoration and just one bad looking machine. Jeff, the guy I work with however, is a huge car nut and I could tell that he was like a kid in a candy shop looking at this beauty. I managed to convince my customer to give Jeff a ride around the block and as they literally rumbled out the driveway, Jeff had this huge smile on his face of pure unadulterated joy!
What flashed in my mind seeing his huge smile was Orson Atkin. He was an eighty year old man that lived across from our first little battery shop in Riverside California on Cypress Street. He rode around town in an old golf cart that he named Roadrunner. It was a three wheel job with a tiller for steering and because of probably hitting a curb too hard, it wobbled back and forth as he drove down the road. We became very dear friends. In fact, Orson was the Grandpa to Mark and I that we had never known. Mark was still in the golf cart business in Orange County and somehow, he came across a four wheel Taylor Dunn golf cart that we decided to fix up for Orson. It was like going from a clunker to a Cadillac for him! It had a steering wheel, windshield, lights, and fully enclosed doors for when it rained. Mark also hopped it up a bit so it was really fast compared to the roadrunner. We will never forget the first time Orson tried it out! He came flying up Cypress Street with a smile so huge that his dentures had trouble staying in! When he opened the door, he uttered a string of congratulatory colorful language which amounted to him declaring…”That thing hauls donkeys!” Even at eighty years old, the need for speed had not left the little kid inside.
As kids, we just wanna go faster! Whether it’s running, or sledding or on our bikes, wanting to go faster is just in our genes. It must come from the Creator making most of the edible animals quite faster than humans. In order to try and catch dinner, our ancestors just had to keep trying to go faster and faster. I remember very well having a Honda mini-trail 70 when I was about twelve or thirteen. I sent away for a special ninety CC piston and had the cylinder bored out to match. I then mounted a Honda 90 carburetor on it by customizing the manifold at my Junior High metal shop. Somehow it all came together and man, did that thing fly! I remember one of my friends on his motorcycle clocking me near fifty five miles per hour on that bike! The fact that it was so small, made it seem like it was going all that much faster!
Even today, I own an electric bicycle that can go forty miles per hour when the norm for an electric bike is about twenty. I would not be nearly as enthralled by the bike if it only did twenty! Just the way it is. Most of the time I get comments on my bike, it’s about how fast it is! Other bikers will pull up next to me at a stop light and their comment is often….”man, that thing hauls!”
****************************************************************************************************************************************************
Loren Coleman:
Wed Night Gospel Mtg 9/10/14:
Jesus as the King and His Kingship compared to all of the natural kings who preceded him. Here was a cool thought…”A natural king loves himself and rules his subjects…Jesus loved his subjects and ruled over himself.”
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