Kitchen blunders!

This morning the girls were making waffles for breakfast and Jessica, who was in a “mode of efficiency,” sort of forgot to take out the previous waffle before adding more batter…

This was rather minor compared to what we refer to as Kelsey’s “kitchen disaster” that happened on my birthday back in 2002, just after we moved into the house we had built.  This gives new meaning to “dump cake.”

 

What looks like blood streaming down her head is actually strawberry pie filling from the dump cake. 

And to be fair, I am not without my kitchen blunders.  One Saturday morning long ago in our house in Grand Rapids, MI, I started filling the kitchen sink so I could wash the dishes.  Of course, I walked away and found something else to do while waiting for the sink to fill.  Some time later I heard water running onto the floor and I wondered why.  As I made my way back to the kitchen I suddenly remembered that I had been filling the sink.  Well, it was full…and overflowing.

Twins…and definitely not the same

In the spirit of the previous post, another difference was made evident this evening when Libby did two hundred sit-ups by her own volition.  In one set.  Without stopping.  Maggie set out to do one hundred sit-ups, then decided six was enough.  Not six hundred, six.  (Jessica and Kelsey are turning out some impressive numbers on sit-ups too, but Libby is the undisputed queen.)

Libby and Maggie are only seven years old.  To my knowledge I have not met someone who was so disciplined and so determined as Libby is at this age. 

Maggie, on the other hand, is a hedonist to the core, and she’s not afraid to show it.  Now, the challenge with her is going to be pointing her in the direction of Christian hedonism.  Despite her lack of discipline in some, or most areas, she did teach herself how to tie her shoes when she was only five years old.  And she is teaching herself to walk on her hands – and making good progress.

Perhaps being born three months early, weighing a pound-and-a-half each, and spending the first three months out of the womb in a NIC unit ignited a fire inside them that won’t be extinguished too easily.

(What follows is an update - November 22)

You’d think they read this post this morning and decided to do something about it.  Maggie stepped up and did one hundred thirty (130) sit-ups in one set.  Libby, of course, did another two hundred.

This picture of all four girls shows how much alike the twins look.  Seriously, there are days when I have to ask them who is who.  Fortunately they haven’t figured out how to use that to their advantage.

 

The girls at Boxelder Creek Trailhead

Twins, yet not the same

One of the current assignments for each of the girls this year is keeping a daily journal.  Libby and Maggie, twins though they be, and nearly identical as far as I can tell on most days, do have some significant differences, one of which is their handwriting (as you can see in this picture).  The content of these two journals is the same, by the way.

Life in the “Banana Belt”

I don’t remember who I mentioned this to during the blizzard that dropped 4 feet of snow up in Deadwood and Lead and 2 feet here in Spearfish, but I half-jokingly said back then (November 6-7) that by next week the temperature would be back in the 70′s.  I was wrong.  It actually took ten days.  Current temperature as I write this (9:30 am) is 70.2 degrees.  Ahh, South Dakota.

The American Dream

One of the challenges of trying to run two blogs consecutively is knowing what to put where.  This could have just as easily gone over to the other blog, but I think it will find it’s resting place here, since it has much to do with life in general. 

 

 

(What I’ve written above is the original opening of this post, but after some reflection I’ve decided to move it to After darkness, light after all.)

The blizzard of November 2008

If you’ve seen the news at all, chances are you’ve heard something about the blizzard that hit the Black Hills area starting Wednesday evening.  It is now Friday morning and we’re all starting to dig ourselves out.  I’ve posted a couple photo albums on Facebook that show what it looks like in our immediate area.  They can be found here and here.

A portion of our back deck and the snow drift that has engulfed it.

 

 

Bike goals for 2009

I was just asked this morning about my biking goals for next year, and I said I’d do a post about it soon.  Since this is a snowed-in day, here’s the post.  This should fill in the spare time between June and October, Lord willing. 

• At some point in June, Adam and I (and John?) will be attempting, yet again, the High Country Pathway in northern Michigan.  An 80-mile loop in the most remote section of the lower peninsula, we’ve attempted several times to ride it in one day, but to no avail.  Sand, trees, elk, bear, Michigan heat and humidity, loggers who obliterate sections of the trail…I’m looking forward to this one.  It’s been a long time in the waiting, and I think we’ll make it this time.
• Maah Daah Hey Trail (100 miles) in the North Dakota Badlands again?  This time out and back perhaps.  In three days?  It will be tough, but I think I can pull it off.  Anyone want to join me on that one?
• Centennial Trail from the Black Elk Wilderness to Bear Butte State Park in one shot.  That one makes me tired just thinking about it.  80 miles or so through the incredible Black Hills.  Better pack the lights for this attempt.
• Dakota 5-O in under 5 hours?  Hmm…
• 24 Hours of Moab with a top ten finish in the Men’s Solo category. 

Yep, that should just about do it.

The TRUTH behind the Truth

In my opinion, there could be no cooler name for a bike than the Truth!  And the other TRUTH is visible in the photo…the New Testament Greek section of my bookshelves.  I’m not implying that the Old Testament section doesn’t contain the truth, it’s just not visible in this picture.  On the other hand, and this could get deeper than we need to go, the New Testament reveals Jesus Christ in all his glory.  And that’s the truth.

 

Reading, Riding & ‘Rithmatic

The problem: What if I like to read, and I feel the need to read, but I also work (physically) for a living, and when I sit down to read, especially in a comfortable chair, it’s not long before I’m nodding off?

The problem continued: What if I’ve set some pretty big goals for mountain biking next season and I need to train this winter, or those goals will not be realized?

The solution: Add the two together (that’s the ‘rithmatic part).  I have yet to fall asleep while riding my bike, and in fact, I’ve found so far that my alertness level for reading while riding is higher than normal, leading to higher retention of what I’ve read.  Double bonus.

Without hurrying through it, chapter 3 of Piper’s Let the Nations Be Glad! took about two hours this morning, with an average heart rate of 110 and distance of 25 miles.  I’m looking forward to this winter in ways I haven’t in the past, and my list of books to be read is looking very good.

(Incidentally, the title of chapter 3 is “The Supremacy of God in Missions through Suffering.”  I may post some thoughts and quotes from this chapter on the other blog in the near future.  We’ll see.)

Don’t let the orange tire throw you for a loop.  It’s made by Continental Tires and is designed for the rigors (!) of indoor riding.

I’ve wondered if this set-up is pushing past the limits of acceptable stuff-ownership (materialism), but then I remembered that Piper runs on a treadmill most mornings, and treadmills aren’t cheap.  And they’re big.  And if it helps me read books that are worth reading and it combats laziness, I think God will approve.  Not sure if you could actually call it a physical comfort.  More of a physical torture device, in a good way.

 

The reading room

 

The solution

 

Let the Nations Be Glad!

From darkness into light

I moved this post over to the, uh, other blog…

After darkness, light

The welcome mat, without the mat

If you were to walk up to our house in the afternoon of an early November day it would look something like this…

 

What’s in the back of your Bible?

One of our textbooks from college days was Your Mind Matters by John Stott.  A short book, but good nonetheless.  On page 55, in the last paragraph of the chapter called “The Mind in the Christian Life” Stott writes this,

I myself have a growing burden that God will call out more men for this teaching ministry today; that he will call men with alert minds, biblical convictions and an aptitude for teaching; that he will set them in the great capital cities and university cities of the world; that there, like Paul in Tyrannus’s hall in Ephesus, they will exercise a thoughtful, systematic teaching ministry, expounding the ancient Scriptures and relating them to the modern world; and that such a faithful ministry under the good hand of God will not only lead their own congregation up to Christian maturity but will also through the visitors who come briefly under its influence spread its blessing far and wide.

That quote strikes a deep chord somewhere in my being, and always has, and so I filled up the one blank page inside the back cover of my Bible with it.  And ironically, or not, it is right next to the last map which happens to be the missionary journeys of Paul.

Spearfish reminds me of Ephesus.  While not a capital city, it is a university city (ok, big South Dakota town), and it functions as a geographic and economic center for a big, multi-state area.  Hmm.

Currently Amy and I are praying that God will raise up a church that looks like what Stott writes about, a church that focuses on three things in particular: expository preaching (and teaching), genuine fellowship of believers, and real evangelism of the lost.  A church that doesn’t need a unique vision or mission statement because God has already provided that in Scripture (Colossians 1:28-29, for example).  And personally we wouldn’t mind if that church was baptistic without necessarily being Baptist, unashamedly Calvinistic (Reformed in soteriology), complementarian when it comes to how men and women relate to the church and each other, and led, not ruled, by a group of elders who happen to be men.

Why are we praying this?  Because frankly there isn’t one in this town.  And the spiritual vacuum is almost tangible, you can just about feel it.

Is Dilbert a Calvinist?

Greetings

Greetings one and all, or few, as the case may very well be.

This blog is most certainly going to be a work in progress, assuming that it does progress.  Time will tell.  I’m expecting this to be a place to log (blog?) ponderings and happenings about our life, and especially how our life and faith in Jesus Christ integrate with each other.  C. S. Lewis said, “I believe in God like I believe in the sun, not because I can see it, but because of it all things are seen.”  So this blog will be about all the things that are seen.  At least that’s the plan!

In the future I would expect to find posts about the things we care about: Christianity, church, the Bible, Spearfish, the Black Hills, our family, our friends, (ultra)endurance mountain biking, hiking, work, failure, success, education…and anything else I generally feel like writing about.  Again, all the things that “are seen.”

The title of the blog comes from Ecclesiastes 4:6, “Better is a handful of quietness than two hands full of toil and a striving after the wind.”  I’ve been studying Ecclesiastes over the past few months in a limited fashion as time allows, and I also read through Derek Kidner’s commentary on Ecclesiastes from the BST series.  Kidner’s comment on this verse is worth repeating here.  “To both these unhappy ways of life [what was described in verses 4 and 5] verse 6 holds out the true alternative.  The beautiful expression, a handful of quietness, manages to convey the twofold thought of modest demands and inward peace: an attitude as far removed from the fool’s selfish indolence as from the thruster’s scramble for pre-eminence.”

One of the things Amy and I have committed to and consciously try to abide by is purposely not filling our life with activity after activity.  If activity defines and describes your life then you probably know what I’m talking about.  After all, the basics of life – family, church, mountain biking(!), and work - leave little time as it is for reading, pondering, and living.  In the 21st century we have the ability to fill every nook and cranny of our lives with things to do, which, in my estimation, leaves little time for genuine discipleship (either our following Jesus as his disciples or making disciples of fellow human beings).  And then to smother the whole works with television…don’t get me started!