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Showing posts from August, 2005

Another thought about this generation

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Worship What?! This entry continues the ramblings I have been pondering considering this generation. Today I take issue with the worship of this generation. I find that we gravitate towards the large and the extreme and especially the famous. Hey, God is all three of those. That's really good. Probably what is not entirely good is that we think worship is what we do when we sing God a song- possibly a very emotional experience. We desire worship experiences with the lights, the music, the whole emotive display. Great. But what about at home. When no one is watching. Do we dance with all our might before the Lord or do we excuse ourselves. I think we've got a mixed up view of worship. It's not songs, dancing, emotion. Those can be part of it but worship should be the sound of devoting our whole selves to Lord. There can be events but if that's all we entitle worship we are sorely missing it. All these things -music, song, dance, lights, incense whatever are the a

BWCA fire of 2005

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Evidence of fire in the distance. Smoke churls up into the skies just west of the Gunflint Trail between Alpine and Seagull Lakes and the end of the trail.

Phil defies the warning in the BWCA

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My canoe comrade, Phil, and I ate lunch at this deserted campsite just before fire consumed it. Not really . In fact we did not even notice this sign until we began to make our lunch. It was hung on the other side of the site. However, smoke had been noticable around the lakes we were coming through (Alpine and Red Rock). Although we were in the vicinity of the fire for a few days we never saw anything but smoke and planes flying overhead. Phil had first seen the smoke on August 6th as we were heading east into "O gosh it's gumbie" Lake (Phil's rendering of the lake name). We never met the flames.

Extreme biking beyond

The other day I revisited the eery locale I call The Lord of the Flies. A friend and I rode our bikes south to this "ghost neighborhood." I christened this place "Lord of the Flies" because when I first visited all sorts of winged pests were bustling about especially around an area that looks like an altar. On this visit the bugs were missing but there were quite a few skeletal remains of varmints. We explored the premises carefully. My friend appeared to be awestruck by the strangeness of it all. Time ran out on exploring and we needed to head north to go the RedHawks baseball game. A friend of mine gave me some really good tickets and I had wanted to go see the 'Hawks play for a while. A cool autumn evening began to descend as we made our way to the stadium. However as we cruised the empty sidewalks, suddenly a white Saturn came out of a blind alley. I braked hard but ended up hiting the automobile at about 15 mph. Fortunately I was not injuried. The car susta

Under the open sky

I hustled out of town last week into the wilderness for a few days of canoeing in the Boundary Waters with the ever quotable Phil, his Volkwagon Rabbit, and his Kevlar Canoe. It was a bustling time in the Boundary Waters. We went at peak season and did not even reserve a permit. At the Cook ranger station, Phil and I learned there were only 5 available permits left! Pretty bad for a million acres. Most of the available ones were on or near Lake Vermillion. I wanted more wilderness. The only one close was at the end of the Gunflint Trail and a 3-4 hour drive through backwoods roads. We took it. We stopped in Ely for gas and get a few supplies. What we failed to get was bread. This tripped proved to me that the BWCA is a bit crowded in places. However, those sturdy enough to put in some miles will find it well worth passing through the congestion at the entry point. Our entry point also happened to have motor designations which proved distracting although tolerable. I will detail th