Model A troubles

Just before New Years, with the help of my neighbor Don and his White Ford Excursion Diesel and flatbed trailer, Colin and I moved my 1928 Ford Model A tudor sedan from a remote storage garage to a neighbor's garage near the house ostensibly in order to be able to work on it more and get it running sooner. Since that time, I have cleaned all the accumulated crap out from inside the car, and taken the flattest tire off to repair the tube. Model A tires and tubes are a lot harder to work on than bicycle ones or maybe I just don't have the right tools or skills. Beyond that, over a year ago, I removed the carb because the float was stuck open and fixed that. It's ready to be reinstalled. Over the winter, we dropped the pan on Steve's A and cleaned it thoroughly... What a mess. I want to do mine before starting it Then there's the rusted gas tank, the out of round wheel(s), the damaged floorboards... Suggestions? Volunteers?

memories

OK. I started this the week of April 9 and am just now getting around to finishing it...

This weekend will mark the 25th anniversary of my mom's departure from this earth. Even after that much time, I still struggle with the Wisdom of my God in taking her when He did. She missed our engagement, the wedding, the births of both our kids, countless birthdays and Easters and Christmases...

But I have missed that knowing, motherly, listening ear and those gentle words or questions that were most often her counsel to me... I have missed her steadfast example of what looked like facile faithfulness both in ease and in difficulty, of what looked like a very natural faith both in blessing and in testing, of her radiant, humanly-inexplicable joy in the midst of the pain which ended in her home-going

I am comforted with the fact that for the believer to be absent from the body is to be present with the Lord (II Coprinthians 5:8) which assures me of her current location and (by the grace of God alone) our future reunion... but I still wish I could talk to her (or Dad) today.

He Is Alive!

I have chosen the Title today because, first and foremost, we have just celebrated Resurrection Sunday (more commonly known as "Easter") in which we declare that Jesus is the only person to live on earth, die and resurrect never to die again - and from that comes the opportunity for every person accept Jesus as their own personal Savior and then to confidently look forward to an eternal home in heaven some day.

However, I also chose the title to diffuse speculation among this blog's readers that I was dead. Busy, yes. Dead, no

I am also keenly aware that I have no other creative outlet and thus, although I hope to bless and encourage you, this is cathartic for me in very selfish terms.

Our Growth Group has just finished Andy Stanley's excellent video series Five Things God Uses to Grow Your Faith. Unfortunately, we didn't get to see them all so I borrowed the DVD for some self study. Lesson one was called Big Faith and is teh intro to the series. The cornerstone of this message to me was this: only once in Jesus' recorded earthly ministry did Jesus effecrtively say, "Wow!" It was not because of anything anyone DID or GAVE. It was because of the FAITH of the (Gentile) Centurian whose servant was gravely ill. Andy essentially asked us to imagine what our lives would be like if we exercised that kind of faith every day:
- the kind that is confident that there is a personal God Who knows my name and will be with me every step of the way and Who will hear every one of my prayers and Who is attempting to work out His best plan for our eternal blessing in our lives every day
- the kind that always chooses to believe the above... even (especially) in the absence of objective evidence
- the kind that allows us to confidently say, "I will trust Him" out loud if necessary that the unbelieving world might be drawn in with us.

I am challenged

Brother Where art ME!?

Who'd have known that my clever Blog title was prophetic?

Annalee's Hawiian 14th Birthday Party

Shown here are Monique, Abby, Annalee and Becky all dressed for a sleep over (should be called a 'stay up over') watching all three Pirates of the Caribean movies back to back!

Ah 'tis true... my little girl is growing up! The Hawiian theme encompassed the Dining room too.

There was a little 'carpet surfing'


And of course CAKE

Colin Won AWANA Grand Prix Award

Greetings friends!

Sorry to have been idle so long. A long explanation is due, but it would prevent me posting these important updates so it will have to wait.

Colin designed and entered his "Madge" locomotive tow truck in the AWANA (stands for Approved Workmen Are Not Ashamed from the Bible II Timothy 3:16 -- It's a youth group for kids at our church and, in fact, worldwide) Grad Prix and Won the Most Creative Prize. He cut it out on the bandsaw, sanded and shaped it. I cut some pieces of wooden railway track from his Thomas the Tank engine toys and helped hom glue them on. Then he and I spray painted it literally hand in hand. He held the can and started and stopped the pain and I helped guide his had to get even coverage. We painted the trim together and he finished with a black sharpie marker. I added the washers to get it up to the weight limit to help it race well (didn't work)

All in all we had a lot of fun together!

Bike to the Bay 2008 is History!

Well, it's over for this year! The Pike Creek Bible Church team are (left to right): John Jobes, Dan Weber (captain), Reed Potecha, Phil McNeil, Mark Legere and myself. It was even raining when we took the picture as it did for much of the two days.

Thanks to the many of you who prayed for us as there were no significant accidents or injuries. Thanks as well to the many who supported each of us by giving to Bike MS in our names. If you pledged and haven't sent in the money yet (or if you haven't pledged yet) there's still time. The cut off is late in October.

That's all for now

Still me... still here

No, contrary to the appearance of this blog, I am not dead. Although these days I find myself quoting Dolly Parton's Nine to Five character "I'm as busy as a one legged man in a butt kicking contest"

Yes, family are all well. Yes, my work, like yours, is busy but good. I have seen the blessing of answered prayer in my requests for effectiveness and wisdom in my use of time.

In an apparent attempt to compound my busy-ness to near insane levels, I have signed up to ride the Bike to the Bay MS150 to raise money for Multiple Sclerosis. It is scheduled to be a 150 mile, two day ride from Dover, DE to Rehobeth, DE on Saturday, Sept 27, 2008 and back on Sunday.

To move me toward a completing a personal goal to ride 200 miles in one day (sometime next Spring, maybe), I am planning to begin at first light (0-dark thirty, Fred) Saturday in Rehobeth and ride to Dover and back. Then I expect to join a number of friends for the 75 mile return trip Sunday.

This is the third or fourth time I've ridden in this event or one like it (City to Shore). Each time it seems I become aware of more people I know personally that are affected by MS. The training is going well, though the lo-o-ong distance experts I am reading are a little grim in their outlook.

Read up on my trip if you like here or ask me how I did (or if I am able to sit down yet (haha))

Bye for now...
ksk<><<

I've started a picture board

In order to help me pray for you more effectively, I have started a picture board here at my desk. It has pictures of many of you as well as pictures that remind me of others. I fear that as things continue to be busy, I could overlook my commitment to hold you up before our Abba (our heavenly daddy). At the same time,
I'm memorizing I Sam 12:23 Moreover, as for me, God forbid that I should sin against the LORD in ceasing to pray for you...

To that end, keep me up to date as to how you'd like me to pray

yours and His
ksk<><

Anxious mind?

Listen to this quote and tell me, sounds like Old Testament or New?

There, the Lord will give you an anxious mind, eyes weary with longing, and a despairing heart. You will live in constant suspense, filled with dread both night and day, never sure of your life.

It may have been a bad way to ask the question... it is old testament (Deuteronomy 28:65b-66), but it made me think that I sometimes feel like this.

It comes from a section near the end of Moses life when he is re-telling Israel about the blessings of obeying God's Law and the curses for disobeying. A few verses previous, he lays out the way to avoid the foreign captivity that brings about the above desperate mental situation: (58) "...carefully follow all the words of this law..." and "...revere this glorious and awesome name -- the Lord your God..."

I feel al little like I am a foreign captive of sin... longing and pining for the righteousness of Heaven, the eternal joy of worship unhindered by my own sin, the relief of being forever freed of the consequences of my bad choices and those of others.

Should it be this way? God has given us all things freely to enjoy... there are blessings to be had here... am I being too far-sighted?

Thanks for sharing this thought with me...

Daddy, what does "Maundy" mean?

Yesterday, as my family and I worshipped together, during the announcements both kids, almost in unison turned and asked nearly the same question.

I remember looking it up before, and I remember being surprised at its meaning, but I could not remember what it meant. Turns out the word maundy means command. According to Wikipedia,

The word Maundy is derived through Middle English, and Old French mandé, from the Latin mandatum, the first word of the phrase "Mandatum novum do vobis ut diligatis invicem sicut dilexi vos" ("A new commandment I give unto you, That ye love one another; as I have loved you"), the statement by Jesus in the Gospel of John (13:34) by which Jesus explained to the Apostles the significance of his action of washing their feet.

So we are commanded by Jesus word and example to love one another at the level of washing one anothers' feet: intimate, humble and self-deprecating.

I am praying you'll have a blessed and transformational Holy Week

A little Friday thought... ask for help

Today, I'm taking time off from work to seek wise advice from a friend. I am anxious that perhaps a decision I've made is unachievably ambitious and I am asking him to look at it with his "fresh eyes" (an expression I learned while working for a Japanese company) and give me his unvarnished opinion. To even have such a friend is priceless to me.

You've read that e mail about people coming into your life for a reason, a season or a lifetime? I did not seek to meet this guy, we just happen to share membership at the same church. Yet his very nature is open and available. I wonder if I am that way?

I encourage you today. If you have a problem, ask for advice from a wise friend. If you don't, then build friendships with wise people or seek to be available for those in need. My favorite Book is peppered with quotables about how plans succeed when wise counsel is sought, when many counsellors are employed, and when the Wonderful Counsellor is besought (beseached?)

Thank you for being a friend to me... I trust I can be one to you as well.

A summary of parts 2-6

Hitchiker said he would love to see parts 2-6. I don't have the time or ambition to flesh those out retrospectively, but I can give you the outline:
1 be grateful see How to celebrate Christmas *properly* pt 1
2 be content. This flows naturally out of the first and sets you up for the rest. Contentment is not complacency. Contentment says 'God is good all the time and all the time God is good'. It is a wilful choice to accept what is yours. If you've ever been around a person that's content, you know what I mean. They're like a big comfy couch: welcoming, comforting, refreshing and encouraging all at the same time
3 be generous. If you haven't done 1 and 2, you're stuck. Go back. Like our words are the overflow of the content of our heart, so generosity is the overflow of our stuff... our material blessings. This is easy for a few of us whose love language is giving and receiving gifts, but for the rest of us it falls somewhere between almost like work and downright impossible.
4 be creative as a way of being generous with who you are instead of just what you have. These are the gifts you really remember. Like the time your kids gave you coupons for them to do things for you.
5 be thoughtful - the gift that is most desired or needed may be a couple hours of your time, your listening ear, a hug or the like
6 be patient and don't overschedule - it helps you savor the joys and gives you time to do the others without exhausting yourself
and 7 be extensive... don't stop celebrating just because the calendar says to. see How to Celebrate Christmas *properly* part 7

A reason, a season, a lifetime

You've gotten that e mail, I'm sure stating that friends come for:
- a reason: either you have a need they can meet or they have one you can meet
- a season: a period of time which seems to start and end at the Lord's discretion
- a lifetime: obvious

We'll I've just had a ministry that left me. It seems it's season was over... at least for now. This ending has been bitter-sweet to me. Bitter in the sense that I hate to stop doing something I enjoy which also helps men and women get to know my Lord or get to know Him better. But sweet in the way it happened.

I have been asking for wisdom in the use of my time for a long time and a month or so ago, a friend said, "Maybe it's time to let something go..."

I talked to my wife Karen at length and she said "Maybe you should let it go..." Then there were my two accountability partners, Brent and Craig. Each of them counselled the same. Then there was my Thursday morning mens group: Dave, Rusty and Joe who said the same kinds of things.

Seems like sometimes the best thing I can "do" is to stop doing something that's season is past.

PS You know it's been too long since your last post when you forget your blogger password. my apologies.

How to celebrate Christmas *properly* - Part 7

No, part 7 has nothing to do with Independence Day... There was a well planned series intended to occupy the space between part 1 and 7. None the less here is part 7: Extend your moderated celebrations (part 2) as long as possible.

You see I have the good fortune of having a January birthday. If you
don't, fret not as there is yet much hope for you. See, on average, one in twelve people has a January birthday. Therefore collect friends and acquaintences until you find one.

Here are photos of a birthday fondue celebration at the Melting Pot Restaurant in Independence Mall in Wilmington DE. with (clockwise from left) my wife Karen Kohler, Betsy Burton, Anita Rafetto, Rod Rafetto, Kevin Kohler and our host, Steven Kohler It just so happens that Rod's wife Anita's birthday and mine fall on the same day.

The point of Part 7 is plainly this: The most important thing about Christmas is that we celebrate Jesus Christ's birth. But we could do no worse dis-service to His mission and legacy than to end our celebrations there. His mission was most broadly seen as He walked among common folk and met needs. The coup d'etat of His mission is celebrated the first Sunday after the first full moon following the vernal equinox, which a few of us call only Resurrection Day. Therefore, in my opinion, the more our celebrations focus on meeting the needs of people around us and remembering His death and resurrection, the more deeply satisfying they will be.

On the above pictured day, we met our own needs (and a whole lot more) and I suppose no one elses... but we did relish the Resurrection and what it meant to each of us and at least in part because of that, I really enjoyed myself.

How to *properly* celebrate Christmas, Pt. 1

Step #1 Have all of your Christmas shopping completed before Halloween -- although admirable from many standpoints including stress, budgetting, and economy, few actually achieve this... aspire to it anyway!
Step #2 To prepare for Christmas, fast from all food and drink except water beginning

the day before thanksgiving until Thanksgiving dinner. It's amazing how

much time and brain power this frees up to count your blessings and to make you more aware of how great your blessings are. Attend a Thanksgiving Day Parade. This year, we attended the Macy's Thanksgiving Day Parade in Philadelphia. Here are some photos:

Step #3 Celebrate Thanksgiving as the first feast of Christmas. No better gifts will come from you or to you than can be derived from a heart of gratitude.

Closing Time

One of my favorite films this time of year is nearly any version of Dickens' A Christmas Carol. But today I am thinking of the Muppet one. Early in the film, after Scrooge has gone home on Christmas Eve, the shop staff and Bob Cratchet have a brief celebration of closing time before the impending holiday.

That is exactly how I feel tonight having crammed 40 hours of Engineering into this 3 day week and having kept the hounds at bay at the Financial Planning office to boot. I am brain weary for sure... but very aware that many would like to have a job let alone one with flexible hours as I have. Many would also like a family to go home to and a home to which to go. I am a man greatly blessed of God.

Some of those blessings are structural, like the freedoms and the general and disproportionate prosperity with which the West and most notably the US live by comparison to the rest of the world. Others are relational, deriving from the people I have known and to whom I am related and the many benefits they have showered on me, knowingly or not. But even so, there are some that cannot be satisfactorily explained to me any other way than the direct intervention of Almighty God into the fabric of time and space for my benefit.

The most noteworthy of these is that I am even aware that there is a God Who passionately desires a relationship with every individual that has ever lived on the face of this terrestrial ball for so much as a second, bar none. And the second is that He has wooed me into an eternal relationship with Him

If you are reading this, YOU are very likely one of the people I am grateful for. I cannot always tell how, but somehow, you have been used as the very fingertip of God to touch my life with blessing. And I pray I'll have opportunity to tell you face to face just exactly how I've seen God bless my family and me through you.

Happy Thanksgiving!

(Mother always told us not to eat food that talked)

Fences

My men's accountability group meets each Thursday morning for breakfast at a nearby restaurant. We're reading and discussing Jerry Bridges Transforming Grace subtitled Living Confidently in God's Unfailing Love. It has been a great book thus far with about a 50-50 balance of encouragement and correction for me personally.

We were to have read Chapter 9 for last week titled "Called to be Free" in which Bridges lays out essentially the Christian's Magna Charta of basic freedoms from legalism and many of the common strictures of organized religion. It is not freedom from God, but rather freedom to worship God without first having to check a list of "do's and don't's" (Curiously, I knew very little about the Magna Charta until I read this and did some research -- interesting stuff)

To illustrate, he cites an example from his own life of a family vacation to the beach. Long story short, there were too many revealing bathing suits for him to really enjoy his time there. He knew that if he stayed, he would eventually look with lust, so he informed the family that he was going to the car. By so doing, he maintained a standard of visual purity for himself without imposing it on his family. Perhaps even more importantly, though, he resisted the naturally human temptation to say, "going to the beach will always lead to sin, therefore the beach is evil and we're not going there ever again."

I am certain that there are places for that kind of statement, mainly when God has made such a statement and we make it to obey Him. But he gained a credible teaching moment for his kids because he chose holiness to the Lord over the path of least resistance. Part of this is born out of Bridges own upbringing in which he was told "Don't go to pool halls." His parents could have initiated conversations to warn him about drug and alcohol abuse, smoking, carousing, unwise use of money, or gambling. Instead they simply equated Billiards with Sin in his mind. The comedy of which is that he had a mental struggle as an adult upon finding a pool table at a Christian conference center. Pool is not evil and the beach is not evil any more than the church or the christian conference center is all good. There are obedient and disobedient people at both places and they can influence you both places for good or ill.

An attractive girl in my growing up church who had parents in positions of respect and leadership is an example of the latter. On a youth retreat with her parents present, she organized a "long walk" that turned out to be a short walk and a long pot smoking (the parent's weren't present on the walk). That could easily have influenced me to go that way. Thank God it didn't... last I knew her life is a mess. Oh Father, please continue to draw her toward yourself.

Fences applied as Jerry Bridges describes here are the modern equivalent of eating meat offered to idols: not clearly right or wrong in itself, but a precipitous place to walk because: applied heavy-handedly we risk treading on someone else's tender conscience yet applied imprudently, too little, too late or not at all, we risk destroying our credibility as a witness for our Lord.

So am I saying build a fence? I don't know. Do you need one? ...then build it. Talk about it with others? Yes, with tenderness of heart so that they can be built up and encouraged in much the same way as our conversations encourage me.

THANK YOU! I am sorry it has been so long since my last post and that there hasn't been much human interest here recently. I'll upload some pictures and write you some balance, Daniel-san!

Disturb Us

I stumbled accross this today. It intrigued me as I read so that I read with increasing attention and interest, fully expecting to see that the author was some peer or contemporary of ours who clearly understood exactly the unease that comes with familliarity and smooth sailing.

As I write this, I think of a brother who was just lamenting how tall the waves are where he is, and how dark the night. Hang on, brother, God wants to reveal Himself to you there. Your difficulty is no accident and your family are needy to see you boldly holding fast to what you know is true in the absence of so much as a ray from a distant lighthouse.

I myself am in choppy seas with gusty unpredictable winds. I have sought familliar shelter through rest, through dear friends, through worship... but they have not satisfied me. Perhaps now I know why. My Master repeats His invitation to Peter to me, "Come" (Matt 15:29). Not so that I learn to walk on water, Peter failed there too. But rather that I learn to look to the Master.

Disturb us, Lord, when

We are too well pleased with ourselves,

When our dreams have come true

Because we have dreamed too little,

When we arrived safely

Because we sailed too close to the shore.

Disturb us, Lord, when

With the abundance of things we possess

We have lost our thirst

For the waters of life;

Having fallen in love with life,

We have ceased to dream of eternity

And in our efforts to build a new earth,

We have allowed our vision

Of the new Heaven to dim.

Disturb us, Lord, to dare more boldly,

To venture on wider seas

Where storms will show your mastery;

Where losing sight of land,

We shall find the stars.

We ask You to push back

The horizons of our hopes;

And to push into the future

In strength, courage, hope, and love.

Sir Francis Drake - 1577

Where do you think we go when we die?

I happened accross an interesting forum this morning, asking "Where do you think we go when we die?" I responded after reading the first page or so of responses with the following:

The fact that the question troubles all humankind so deeply suggests that it is not a cultural, geographical or age related question. It is born out of who we are and where we come from. I as an engineer and a student of nature cannot believe that things got better and better without any train wrecks until the amoeba that crawled out of the primordial ooze finally became a human. The idea of an intelligent creator appeals to me and I find it to be consistent with all that I see around me.

The Bible claims to be the self revelation of that creator to his creation and as has been mentioned above, specifies that there are two eternal dwelling places, to one of which every person will eventually go. It also lays out a history of how this came to be and a path to get to heaven. Heaven is desireable to me because it is "good". Therfore, if everyone gets in, including the Hitlers... it doesn't seem like where I want to be.

I understand that the idea of reincarnation or just ceasing to exist is desireable at some level, because it takes away eternal responsability for your actions and decisions... but again I cannot fathom that it is possible to live like I want without consequence.

THEREFORE, I believe that everyone will go either to heaven or to hell and I hope that you will pursue heaven... I'd love to meet you there.

What do YOU think?