A Slower Pace

My niece is learning how to play the trumpet. This week my sister lamented on Facebook that there should be a special place in heaven for parents of trumpet players. And while I can sympathize with her for about 3 1/2 seconds, my first thoughts were “Trumpet?? Trumpet??” (similar to the end of the commercial video below — “Playoffs?? Playoffs??”)

My response to her was:

“Trumpets?? Trumpets?? Is that all you got? Your nephew has been playing the drums for over a year and it’s just now getting to be tolerable. And I’m just thankful he didn’t choose the bagpipes.

Things can ALWAYS be worse.”

…..Dan at aslowerpace dot net

I have wondered this for quite a while. I am glad someone else is shining a light on it.

…..infidel Dan

…..Dan at aslowerpace dot net

Good friends of ours are planting a church in a small community near us and last week was their launch service. Consequently, we have been attending our large church on Saturday evenings and then following that up with Sunday worship with them.

Today was our second week of double duty worship and, as a family, we have been getting a lot out of it. This morning I was impacted by a pivotal quote from the sermon and had to share it here.

“Is your life a blank check for God?”

If your life is not a blank check, what is your limit? And what are you doing to constantly increase that limit?

Because, after all, God spared nothing to purchase you — He gave the blood of His only son, Jesus.

…..Dan at aslowerpace dot net

The cleverly done animated vignette below is a couple of years old but I had never seen it. The lessons it imparts are important for the potential shift in education — a shift that might already be happening seeing as we are educating a batch of kindergartners who will be graduating in 2025. And while a business and economic shift might already be underway…..well, let’s just admit it — it IS already underway….. the educational side of things hasn’t budged yet.

Where is that going to leave our kids?

…..Dan at aslowerpace dot net

…..Dan at aslowerpace dot net

The picture I snapped last week on my return flight home from my Chicago hub to Louisville does not do the scene justice. We had taken off and were ascending just west of downtown Chicago. The large, almost-full moon bathed the golden night grid of Chicago with a similar color. Of course, the moon looked much larger in person and it awed me enough to deviate from the no electronics ban and quickly capture the moment.

…..Dan at aslowerpace dot net

“Watch out for false prophets. They come to you in sheep’s clothing, but inwardly they are ferocious wolves.” — Matthew 7:15

…..Dan at aslowerpace dot net

On our way back from our nice hike we passed by a crashed airplane in the middle of the island. It turns out that Johnathon Livingston Seagull author Richard Bach was involved in a plane crash on Friday. He was attempting to land his small amphibian plane on a grass airstrip in the middle of San Juan Island and caught his landing gear on some power lines. Those power lines essentially acted as they do in carrier landings and immediately arrested his flight bringing the small plane crashing down landing on its back.

While the accident scene was taped off and the plane is obviously severely damaged, the wreckage did not look as bad as I would expect. There was no fire, the fuselage and wings were mostly intact, and there were no little pieces strewn all over.

Please keep him and his family in your prayers. You can read local coverage on it here.

…..Dan at aslowerpace dot net

In my previous post, I blogged about the hike with my nieces and the beautiful day and view that rewarded us at the top. The blog post was actually about the funny comment my niece made, but I also wanted to share the view with you readers.

The view is westward and in the distance you can see Victoria, British Columbia and the Canadian mountains. In the foreground is Mitchell Cove and you can see the busyness both inside the cove as well as the shipping lane as evidenced by the huge container ship going to port.

The view, conversation, company, and day were well worth the short hike.

…..Dan at aslowerpace dot net