Posts Tagged: "Maple Valley"

There Is Joy In This World

You direct me on the path that leads to a beautiful life. As I walk with You… I know true joy and contentment. —Psalm 16.11

Our home is near Lake Wilderness in Maple Valley. Just a block-and-a-half from our neighborhood is the trail that leads to all my favorite places… the lake, the arboretum, the river, the forest, and the field where boxes of bees from Yakima “rent” some space each summer.

Most days, we opt for a walk around the lake. Shari loves birds and birds love Lake Wilderness, so it’s a win.

A handful of times each year, we will see a blue heron or two. Even more rarely—maybe once or twice a year—we might see one of them flying over us. Whenever this happens, I stop and watch with reverence. It always feels like a sacred moment.

In Wendell Berry’s book The Long-Legged House, he describes witnessing the flight of… Read More

You Swirling Tornado of a Human Being

note: picture above is from the field at the end of my favorite walking/running trail near my home – the trail ends in a wide-open field – the stacks of wooden boxes are bee hives, and they are from Yakima, WA – some 137 miles away from Maple Valley.

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The following is a poem entitled “We Are The People” by Naomi Shihab Nye…

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We are the people

always going somewhere else. What is this peculiar attribute of our households, our days, our nation? We will not be here long enough to get tired of it. Does this make us less responsible? It’s that relationship you have with a towel when the towel belongs to a hotel.

If we can’t go anywhere else, are we more encouraged to enhance and protect the place where we are?

Hmmmmmm. Bzzzzzzzz.

We should do all we can to stay out of jail, but now and then it is quite uplifting to… Read More

I Wish We Were Weird Like That

I wish we Christians would be weird differently.

We’re all weird. I am, that’s for sure.

People generally think I’m weird when I talk about not liking white things that spread (mayo, miracle whip, sour cream, cream cheese).

Nobody agrees with me when I say, “I don’t like Tom Hanks as an actor.” Instead, people walk away thinking, “That guy is weird.”

And then I have this thing where I enjoy sleeping in jeans – not all the time, but sometimes it’s nice. My wife really thinks this is weird.

But I’m not talking about that kind of weird today.

Everybody has quirks. We’d all be pretty robotic and boring without our little idiosyncrasies.

I’m taking aim at Christians (in the U.S.) in general. We are known for certain patterns of weirdness… Read More