Wanderings

Yearly Archive: 2008

Mount Hermon Fix

Wow! What a week we had at Mount Hermon this year. Spent time at Family Camp where Bill Butterworth and Chip Ingram were the main speakers. You can "Yahoo" or "Google" the names.

Had a super time, even thought this was not the "Homeschoolers Family Camp", there were many of us present. This turned out to be the largest camp Mount Hermon had all summer. What thrills and excitement awaited us!

There were two new rope/climbing courses on the grounds. The Canopy Course lets you traverse the redwoods on zip lines high above the ground – like through the tops of the redwoods. the Canyon Course was kinda just that – zip lines across the canyon. Due to the rains during the winter, the previous rope course had been damaged, and so they rebuilt. We did not go on either this year, but people who did had words of praise for Mount Hermon.

In addition to the great food, fantastic music Jack Pearson and Jesse Butterworth, there were just a multitude of things to do and see. Time to sit and share – build friendships and discover people from your past.

It happened to me on "Train Day". There we were sitting at a table on the Boardwalk in Santa Cruz. This guy from the next table (white hair like me) came over and set with us and we started talking. He was from Sun City, AZ. I asked him if he happened to know someone (a retired pastor) who had moved there, and got a negative response (OK, so it was not someone like Billy Graham that everybody knows). We kept talking, and he said he grew up in San Francisco. After looking at his name (Gordon Bostrom), my brain put two and two together – asked some questions…turns out his dad had been Prayer Chairman for the first (1958) Billy Graham Crusade in San Francisco. I was heavily involved in a youth organization (Christian Endeavor) that was active in many Northern California churches.

What a connection…across all these miles and years. What an encouragement he was to me about things that had happened in my life. Needless to say, we exchanged email addresses, but Gordon said later "I'm a phone kind of guy, could I have your phone number so I can call you?"

I'm thankful for the week we spent – thankful for the ministry of Bill and Chip (check out their podcasts or talk to us) and ever grateful for Gordon's words.

The Truth Will Out!

That's something that I think Shakespeare said. It had to do with the fact that when you did deeply enough, the truth will float to the top – it cannot be buried!If you watched the finale of "So You Think You Can Dance" on the Fox network, then you heard the words of the winner. Joshua Allen said "God is in control" right there on network TV. It was not one of those long thought out speeches.

When Cat Deely the host asked him if he had anything to say, he said "I just wanna say that never let anybody tell you you can't do something because God is in control and with God you can do anything! So thank you God, thank you." Notice, that it was not his parents, grandparents, dance instructor, judges or the voting public. It was God he thanked first!

In subsequent interviews, it seems that the TV editors avoid any mention of God, but if you go to the Fox website, you will find it right there in the "Results" for episode 26 of season 4. Watching some clips that Fox puts up from after the show, is a totally different experience.

If you missed it, you missed it! Even the episodes cannot be seen on Fox – who knows, maybe someone will put up Joshua's response on YouTube. I guess what popped up in my mind was the fact that Joshua wasn't afraid to say what he believed. A powerful statement of his faith – that someone (a higher power) was in control. And then that reference to Jesus' words "with God all things are possible."

Thoughtful Sign

At least it got me thinking. Posted outside a local church was this “There is no right way to do a wrong.” It got my little logic cells computing. Do they also mean that there is no wrong way to do a right? After all, that would be the second side of the coin so to speak. In coin terms, that would be the “obverse side”. My mind is already wandering…

Then my mind got to thinking – actually asking myself if that was really true.

At some point, I would have probably said “it depends”. I guess if someone wanted to steal, and they talked to someone who steals for a living (now that’s a thought to ponder), the professional thief would probably give them pointers on the “right way” to steal. It would still be doing a wrong, but according to the expert, you would be doing it the right way.

Applying that kind of thinking to the “wrong way to do a right” picture, could really mess with one’s mind. I’m not so sure, but you see where the logic and illogic can take you when you get started down the wrong path (There was that word again!)

Oh well, perhaps it got your brain going and you are asking yourself “what in the world is he talking about?” My only point here is that a wrong done is still a “wrong” even if we don’t think it is/was. Makes you want to go find and argue definitions for “right” and “wrong”. Well, don’t call me…