Walk on On

"Home... hard to know what it is if you've never had one
Home... I can't say where it is but I know I'm going home
That's where the heart is"
Walk On by U2

Soon Linda will be going on a Walk to Emmaus. My prayer is that it will be an intimate time of renewal with our Lord.

We all need that time to draw close to Home. As Christians we have never been Home, but we know it exists and this temporal world is not it. So we all desire to Walk On until we arrive at our one and only true Home.

Draw closer my dear that is my prayer.

Rambling on from the ramble no more one, hopefully.

Wow, it seems so long but so fast since I last blogged. We are in the new abode, and loving it.

Hopefully the rambling days are over, at least for now.

We have been getting slowly adjusted to new climate, in two words, hot and humid, it can be sufficiently summed up. Whereas, Sumas, WA was cool and damp. I personally prefer the hot and humid.

We started off getting acclimated by working outside early in the mornings and just yesterday we actually went outside and worked for about an hour during the hottest part of the day. Well, we were in the garage with three box fans running, but it was still very hot and humid.

Of course the Coral Snake show down at Burton Town was exciting. We had never seen a live Coral Snake, but there he or she was darting out of our leaves and on the move, and as they are extremely deadly it seemed prudent to do away with it.

Our other big adventure is finding a church home. We have been surprised to learn that we are in the middle of a hot bed of mainline liberal church goers. So we continue to visit churches praying that the Lord will lead us to our new church home, where we can worship Him in spirit and truth.

Linda and I are also loving the Bluebell aquatic center in Brenham, TX, just a short and straight 15 minute drive away. Hey, as y'all know that is a short drive in Texas. We try to go two times a week to swim and water walk. We are also trying to walk two or three times a week. Needless to say, we are sliming down, which is good.

Bottom line, at least for us at this time,life is behaving well and we are enjoying it.

We have had difficult news of the sudden passing of a dear friend, Alan Phillips, and are praying for his family. Our prayer list seems always to grow, although there are many praises, there are always more things and people to pray about. I now understand why Paul said to pray without ceasing.

We are looking forward to the cooler months of winter. Everyone here constantly reassures that it does indeed get cooler and that winter is lovely. Pray so.

Blessing to you and thanks for reading my rambling words.

Teaching, I just could not have said it better!

Such bright stars, who shine in the darkness, but will the darkness notice them?
Dune Lark has said it well.

Waiting Zone!

So, what is there about waiting that is so hard?

Yep, we are waiting. It seems like an eternity, but it has only been since May the eight. That is when we signed on the dotted line. We agreed to their counter offer, and supposedly, we were to close no later than June 15th, which has come and now is gone.

The contract breaker date for knowing about financing has been reset so many times that neither we nor the sellers any longer talk about it. We were told, via email, Eureka you have been approved for financing, but wait for it. Yes, that is right the other shoe, which is the actual closing.

No one, not the closing company, the mortgage broker company, our agent, their agent, them, or us knows when, or, even, if we will ever actually close. I mean, is it possible to be forever buying a home, but to never buy the home?

Why do I feel stuck in an old rerun of the Twilight Zone? Is anyone out there? Help, please find us and take us out of this Waiting Zone.

Hakiu on the move

Surrounded by opened boxes of our lives’ ancient relics (photos – some of which we no longer even know the names of the people, animals, places, or occasion – old knick-knacks, memorabilia, and just plain junk) we separate and pack away again.

Or we place stuff not to be repacked in the growing piles; one each for Sally Ann, and various friends to whom we will give our valuable treasures, and one each for recyclable, and just plain old trash to be tossed. Is this all life amounts to, piles of stuff with memory only value attached?

I have many more times than once gone through this process when moving to a new place. It is always a melancholy experience. One cannot help but feel some kinship to the treasure in piles that signify life lived and gone.

Must one always toss away stuff with the attached memories? Will the memories return after the artifact of the memory is gone to some nowhere? Nevertheless, alas, it becomes a simple practical process; we cannot avoid moving what is not truly valuable, as we are paying for the move. That old twirling baton, or that old antique dresser that belonged to mother, must be worth their weight in coins, else off with them (with apologies to Charles Lutwidge Dodgson, aka, Lewis Carroll ).

However, as unsettling as this pre-move purging process is, it does not have the true sadness of the similar process when a loved one passes. I have helped with this more than once. It is truly sad to know that all the physical stuff that comprised one’s life is of so little value to the living. Must life always be reduced to piles of stuff?

Wait, my spirit says, all this process is the prerequisite for moving onto to a more hopefully situation. In this case, our final, I hope, retirement place; a home we truly love already.

And, so it is with the life lived and gone from this plane. They are already there, in a much better place seeing face-to-face, no longer in darkness but with light shed on all life’s important questions, and truly do not need their old useless stuff.

Therefore, it is right to give or throw most of it away. The rightful owner no longer needs it to make their life have meaning, as they have arrived at the place where all the physical of this life has no value at all in the light of the true meaning of a life well and faithfully lived.

So, open, sort, and pack
or pile shall be my task with
a new found smile all the while
(with apologies to Hakiu poets everywhere.)