Bye Bye 2020!

Many of us are tempted to think Good Riddance, 2020! But let's not be so fast. Consider,

I Thess 5:16-18, "Rejoice always, pray without ceasing, give thanks in all circumstances; for this is the will of God in Christ Jesus for you." 

     Much good has come from this bad virus. Our ability to communicate virtually is MUCH superior to what it was a year ago. One of my dear colleagues with Cru in Guatemala, Chris C, just sent an email describing all the virtual ministries he has going and how his overall ministry has grown. In the same way, I (Phil) have been able to speak at many venues in Guatemala, Brazil, Wisconsin, Georgia, Minnesota, Clemson, and other places I wouldn't have been able to visit except for Zoom and Streamyard.
     Likewise, all of us in ministry are being forced to consider NEW strategies, and some of these will forever change the ways we do ministry. Even our APPRECIATION for face-to-face meeting has likely increased for many of us, and giving gratitude to G^d for this "assembling ourselves together" will increase substantially, whereas most of us took that for granted before.
     We are grateful for a great many things, including our friends. I pray that our gratitude for so many things we take for granted will last for many years to come. Our own appreciation for simple things has grown a great deal. Thanksgiving Day was absolutely beautiful here in Alabama. 

      For whatever reason, we expected the 2020 fall colors to be a bit drab, perhaps in keeping with many other aspects of the year. But, once again we were wrong. Instead the colors here were marvelous. One of our favorite verses is Romans 1:19-20, "For what can be known about God is plain to them, because God has shown it to them. For his invisible attributes, namely, his eternal power and divine nature, have been clearly perceived, ever since the creation of the world, in the things that have been made."
     Think about this, the dying deciduous leaves at the end of summer could have simply turned brown and fallen off, as they do some autumns. But G^d, in His grace and mercy gives us absolute beauty. 
     Enough talk. Take a look.



We hope you enjoy G^d's beautiful gift to us all, at least in the SE USA. Let's thank our L^rd for 2020. He can use even a deadly virus for His glory. He can change us more in trials than in smooth times. G^d is good regardless of circumstance. And we can be thankful that...2021 has simply GOT to be BETTER.
     We thank G^d for you in season and out. Pls keep praying for us and let us know how we can pray for you. And let's welcome 2021 with great expectations.

Blessed Companionship

A previous blog post was about sacrificial listening, and that got me thinking about companionship. As terrible as people, including me, are, G^d created them and me too, for fellowship. In Genesis, right after the creation of man, G^d says, “t is NOT good for man to be alone…” and created Eve. Now that doesn’t mean that G^d made all of us for marriage. Jesus Himself, was a bachelor, but Jesus himself practiced sacrificial listening and practiced fellowship, not just with the disciples, but with Mary of Magdala, and many more.

If Jesus wanted companionship, so ought we. Strangely enough I enjoy companionship most when I travel and when I hunt and fish. I LOVE hunting and fishing with lots of folks, but my son Andrew and I have got to hunt and fish a lot over the last 14-15 months.

I love hunting and fishing, and I love it so much that I will do it alone, if necessary. Fishing is a sport that lends itself to fellowship, but not deer hunting. Deer hunting, you pretty much hunt alone. But the sweet fellowship comes as you travel to the hunting spot. Even more fellowship happens after the hunt as you describe that buck you killed, or those deer you saw, but didn’t shoot. It also comes as you share the fox squirrel that crossed near you, as you relate the hawk calls you heard, as you talk about the cold or the wind or the rain.

Much of the joy of the moments reward us again as we share it with our companions. And, though sacrificial listening is required at times, much of the listening is more joyous than sacrificial. It shocks me how much more pleasure I get from hunting with someone, even though the actual hunting is 100% alone these days.

So, let us NOT take companionship for granted. Let us give thanks to G^d and to each other for the joys of sweet fellowship—especially outdoors.

 

Christmas Eve

 Well Christmas is here--almost. As many have noted, it is easy these days to lose the Christ in the Christmas. We hope that you haven't made that great blunder.

Regardless of the distractions, let's remember that baby in the manger who came to earth to take away out sin--something we could never achieve ourselves.

Let's think of Mother Mary who says in Luke 1:38, "Behold the handmaid of the L^rd, be it done to be according to your word." What faith this young unmarried woman expressed in that simple phrase. May we have such faith.

Christmas this year will be different with social-distancing and masked visitors. The customs may change, but the advent of our Savior is still the SAME. Sadly too, our consumerism is still the same, though shopping modes have changed.

We in the USA and western Europe are so distracted by materialism we can easily miss the significance of Our Savior come to save us. Here, we (me too), say save us from what? We have it so exquisitely nice who is interested in heaven. From my perspective, those living in poverty and under oppression can readily celebrate salvation much more genuinely than we can.

So, please take just a moment and reflect on what heaven will be like--how superior in every way it will be compared to "...the present evil age" of Gal 1:4. Think about HOW MUCH better it will be to be in the presence of Jesus, than in the world's finest resort. Think what it will be to be in the close presence of Jesu, the King of the Universe, and to chat with the Greatest Teacher and King of eternity. And recognize that it will NEVER end.

So, pause and endeavor to dismiss this world for the moment and thank the L^rd that He was willing to be born in humble circumstances to save us from our sin.

Pause, Pray, Praise.

Yes, Deer Season is in for 2020 (No animals were harmed in this blog.)

It is 6 Nov. and I am on my third deer hunt. This is my first hunt on the Brown Farm down in Greene County. I had low expectations for the morning because the night before had been good feeding and I assumed all the deer had full bellies and were laying in their beds chewing their cuds and digesting the contents of their full bellies.

I m in a very pleasant location, though I had to kill a couple dozen red wasps to be relaxed in this shooting house.  Fortunately, the chill of fall ad them in s stupor. It isn’t cold- high 50’s and t 0815 the wind has just started to blow a bit in the last 20 mins. I am archery hunting, so I have to be within 35 yards of a deer to make a high-percentage shot.

To my surprise, just after 0700 I saw a big doe with two fawns. They were about 250 yards SSE of me in a big green-field. These were the first deer I have seen whilst hunting this year, so it was a thrill, especially when the 4^th deer, another good doe, joined the others. I watched them as they slowly fed my way. When they got within 100 yards, I got my bow up and ready.

My excitement mounted as they steadily came my way. The two fawns were prancing, and running and enjoying themselves, as was I as I silently watched. I had used my rangefinder and know where 22 yards was. When they crossed the 55-yard mark, I got ready to shoot. They only needed to come within 40 for me to try a shot, but suddenly 2 more does and a fawn came out at about 80 yards to the east. That’s bad because now I had even more eyes and ears listening for me to mess up.

The first group decided to exit the field and came at a trot crossing my east at 35 yards—which would have given me a shot, but I was pinned down by the watchful eyes and acute hearing of the 2^nd group.

The first group went out about 150 yards into a second green-field and started grazing, the 2^nd group crossed the field to my south pretty quickly, only feeding a bit.

I continued to watch the first group, though they were presently far out of range,  I hoped they would come back the way they had traveled earlier, and I set up for a shot. Alas, I discovered one more red wasp, and as I dispatched him apparently I scared the deer with my movement.

Just a couple minutes before 0900, a single deer appeared to my ENE at a bit over 275 yards. Since it was alone, it was most likely a spike buck. At 0913 another lone deer appears at the end of the south field, over 250 yards away. After  short feeding he flags and runs off the way he came.

Oh well, that’s the way hunting goes. It was a beautiful morning and it is always nice to see 9 deer in 4 different groups, and even nicer to come so close to getting a good shot. Well, there’s always the next hunt. I count my blessings that I had this one.

Cleaning houses for fun

Am hoping this title, “Cleaning houses for fun”, has you a bit intrigued. Some of you cannot envision me cleaning much of anything besides fish and firearms. Well, today I will add a third object—deer hunting shooting houses. To be accurate(pun alert), they should be called ”sitting houses” because a lot more sitting gets done than shooting.

Generally shooting houses are small sheds 4-6 feet wide and 6-8 feet long with a ceiling height of about 7 feet. They have a metal roof and lots of small windows either always open or able to be opened. They provide a dry place to sit and watch for deer to appear. Sometimes they are on the ground, but more commonly they are elevated 8-12 feet, though we have one on our farm that is probably over 20 feet above the ground. I have acrophobia, so I have never even climbed to that one.

Shooting houses provide good, comfortable places to sit and wait on deer. I write this sitting in a shooting house where I have completely revised a textbook before, and worked on Fit Over 50, plus done lots of other computer tasks and read many a book. As I get older I hunt a higher percentage of time in these abodes.

Shooting houses also provide a good, comfortable place for various species of wasp to build their nests and raise the next generation of stingers. So, each fall, owners or leasers of said houses must go around and spray the wasps and sweep out the deer wasps and other debris that accumulated since last season. Failure to do so may result in a painful surprise for an unsuspecting deer hunter once the day warms and the wasps begin flying. In the house I sit today I had to kill over 2 dozen wasps yesterday while I was trying to hunt.

As a service to a friend, yesterday Andrew and I killed hundreds of wasps and swept and roughly cleaned 2+4+2+2+4 +3= 17 shooting houses. This took us from just before 1100 to about 2:30, with both of us working as fast as we could. It is hard, dusty work and there is a realistic danger of getting stung by irate wasps who object to tearing down their nests. We also found 3 bird nests inside the houses, one that still had eggs in it from a failed attempt last spring.

Everything, even hunting, has at least a small element of effort required, EXCEPT ONE THING. Accepting Christ as Savior requires no effort on our part, only acceptance.

Growing as a Follower of the Christ, obeying his general and particular will for us. Now that takes some work.  But it is a LOT more worthwhile than deer hunting.

 

First Fire of Fall 2020

 On Sunday 31 Oct we lit our first fire of fall 2020, and  didn’t let it go out until 5 Nov, when we had an unusually warm stretch of Nov. weather.

I am not sure of why warming by the fire gives such comfort, but I truly savor it, as I am guessing I have relayed here before. Last year we burned a fire in our fireplace insert all winter long. We were gifted with a good supply of very dry firewood which burned well.

This year we are burning wood that I cut the spring and summer of 2019. It typically takes wood over a year to season totally to make a good-burning, hot fire. Wood containing moisture uses heat to evaporate the moisture which leaves as steam. And, green wood causes a fast build-up of creosote in the chimney.

The chief thing I have noticed already is the increased weight of this newer wood. More weight in dry wood means more heat available and slower burning rates. The other night, I put one heavy chunk of wood in the fire and went to sleep. Six hours later it showed hot coals still which started the following day's fire. I was impressed.

I think part of the joy of a wood fire, besides the smell, is the work required to have one. First you have to find wood to cut. Then you cut it, then you haul it, then you split it, then you stack it to dry, then you move it from the stack to the wood box, and finally you move it from the box to the fire.  Whew! That’s the first time I think I have ever written this all down in one spot.

I have never considered this, but fire, in some form, is essential to life as we know it. Perhaps there are a few, very few, tropical places that never need warmth from fire, but even those folks want/need to cook food and sometimes to boil drinking water. For those of us a bit farther from the equator, we make fire to warm, to cook, to boil, to drive our internal-combustion engines, and to do a great many things in industry to give us useful metals, liquids, and other products.

So the next time you see a fire, unless it is raging out of control, thank the L^rd G^d for fire.

Thank you L^rd!

 

Sacrificial Listening

I recently ran across that term, "Sacrificial Listening", and thought, what a great concept. There are so very many people today who have NO one to listen to them. A few people, hermit types, can handle that happily, but G^d made us social creatures, and having someone listen to our theories, our hopes, even our complaints is a true Blessing.

Well, how about the “sacrificial” part. Well, as a talker, most of my listening is sacrificial, from my perspective. But, many people in this world are boring—including me. Listening is so very important, but quite often requires sacrifice, even as people patiently listen to my stories.

Sacrificial listening requires that we invite people to speak about whatever, and we actively listen, asking clarifying questions, nodding, smiling when appropriate and silently communicating that we are truly attending to their words.

We speak with much more impact, if we sacrificially listen first. We serve others by listening. We help them process their own thoughts, when we actively listen and ask good questions that help them reflect on what they are saying.

But, it does take some sacrifice on our part. And, we grow in Christ-likeness as we listen and express love to those to whom we listen sacrificially.

After all, G^d Himself sacrificially listens to us!!

"Day of Infamy"

Today, 7 Dec. is a "Day of Infamy" because this was the date of the Japanese attack on Pearl Harbor. Now, if you have ever had the pleasure of visiting Japan you know that it is among the MOST civil countries of the world. IF I had to walk down the streets of a big city at 2 AM, I would feel safest in a Japanese city. Our son David who has lived in Japan for over 10 years now, says that police officers in Japan have boring jobs, seldom even giving out speeding tickets.

Sadly,  Japan is the least religious country I have visited to date. They have many religious shrines, but these are almost entirely relics of the past. When some dignitary in Japan visits one of these spots, they are doing it for historical and publicity purposes, with no serious consideration of spiritual principles.

How do I know this? Well I can't give you a lot of specific arguments, but I can tell you that religion of all types is very low profile in Japan. And, this is not because of civil or criminal law, it is simply their preference. It really struck me to go from the SE coast of Japan to the SW coast (down near Osaka) and only see ONE cross on one building the whole way.

Now I do KNOW that there are Christians there, including some Christian professors. Several years back we spoke to an assembled group of Christian profs at a University in Osaka. I know a Cru missionary now in Japan, and know a couple who were missionaries there.

Let's take this day to PRAY for the people of Japan. Everyone is an eternal being. Everyone needs to hear the Gospel of Jesus Christ.

Let it be so. Pray.

Fall Gardening

 Gardening is, more or less, a year-round hobby. Fall is the time for transplanting. Fortunately, I have had good success in transplanting even in spring, and planting day lilies in early August. But, the best time for moving trees, shrubs and flowers is fall when they are going dormant.

This last few days (early Nov.) we have transplanted some of my favorite bush--the crepe myrtle. I salvaged some gerbera daisies from the trash in mid summer, and am in the process of getting them in the ground. Our next door neighbor, Ms. Connie, gave me 7 cuttings from her beloved "mother" gardenia. I got them rooted and set them out last week. All 7 survived the summer and appear to survive the transplanting.

I also moved a Leland Cypress from the east side of the front yard to the west side. For some reason, the east side of our front yard does not foster rose, cypress, or anything. A few lantana seem to do OK, but nothing else.

Here's the new crepe myrtles.

As you might suspect, this whole row is composed of volunteer shoots from mature crepe myrtles. If some of these die, no worries, as there are plenty of other volunteer sprouts. I also have 5 loropetalum that I harvested from a couple of huge bushes back at Allums. It has taken a year and a half, but they are big enough to safely move, if I discover a spot for them. They are so very hardy, that I might even try one over on the "No-grow" east side.

To see the wonderful beauty that G^d has given us in plants is to increase our worship of Him. That he made such variety and such beauty tells us that heaven must be a lovely place indeed.