This is what the office looks like most of the time, it's worse when I've been away all day! 

Dedicated To The Ones I Love

Just really feel the "need" to put this down where everyone can read it, today and again, tomorrow. I was off and away on two wheels to do a job for a brother today. The journey took me far from home, and lead me to surprising people. Even before I mounted my steely steed to head toward the rising sun I was blessed by folks I've never had the pleasure of meeting face to face. From across the globe smiles greeted me along with the warmth of fellowship shared in a common faith. So, my first thanks go out to the Trinity, Father, Son, and Holy Spirit, for guiding me, and protecting me, and returning me to the arms of number two in my life(or four, depending on how you count that first one), my wife, Cheryl. She's the reason I post the flower pics a lot of times, and she does love her flowers! I like them, too, but not quite the same way she does. I think that she finds a peace, sort of like the one I find on a long, winding stretch of highway on two wheels, when she is busy about the task of digging in the dirt and planting, weeding, watering, and, in general, tending to her gardens. Our lives, it occurred to me, are so much like her gardens, that the comparison is uncanny. Did you know that some flowers don't look anything like flowers until they bloom? I didn't! I expected that flowers just sort of had a certain way of looking and just got prettier the longer they looked that way. Not so, inspector preacher! Some plants are as ugly as sin, and then just pop, all of a sudden, into something gloriously beautiful. I'm still waiting for that to happen with some of my riding buds. You'd think since I refer to them as "buds" there would eventually be a "flower." We'll see. Number three on my personal hit parade today is my family, all the children and grand children with which I have been blessed. Number four is also family, the extended ones that I only see once in awhile. All day they have been surprising me! Five is the circle of family with whom I share in the local Body of Christ. Thank you, Lord for my faithful family of firm believers. Six is the new friends in Christ that I found along the roads. Personally, I think God was so busy blessing my life today that He did some overtime and deserves a heartier "AttaGod" than I can express here. (I promise to cover that in my prayers tonight) Seventh come the great people I see everyday, the guy in the supermarket, the one on the highway that waved and smiled from his tractor, and the fellows that drive those eighteen wheelers out there that keep an eye open for Harleys of all description. Finally there was the old guy at the service station and his older still buddy. They admired the scoot so much I could have spent an extra hour just telling stories(in the shade)about riding. Another pastor comes to mind as I recount on fingers and toes the folks that made this a wonderful day, but most of all I simply give thanks for the life I have and the ways that I can be pleasantly surprised and awed by the presence of One who lets me know I am never alone. God bless, have a good one, Preacher!

It's a few minutes after midnight so I guess I have to say, "Yesterday was a beautiful day for my wife and I. I Love That Lady!" 

Another Little Known "Getaway" Favorite. This One Is In Direct Contrast To The Desert. 

Riding The Deserts Of The Mind

The picture below was forwarded to me from Canada. Sent to my source from somewhere else in the world where I assume it was taken. It caught my imagination immediately and a song came to mind, then another song came, and for a time I was back in Texas. It seems I've been spending a lot of time in Texas lately without leaving home. I don't imagine the photo is of Texas, it looks more like Arizona or New Mexico to me, but it's hard to tell. The second caption is from a set of lyrics I can only attribute to a CW tune I picked up about a year and a half ago.
I don't know the singer's name, and I really don't know anything about the song, other than the tune and the words. It 's the lyrical content that attracts me to songs, I've discovered. The genre is of little importance if the words say something that takes on shape and creates images that I enjoy identifying with life. That one has to do with the whole male bonding thing that is done on two wheels. The companionship and fellowship that is shared on the road. There are times when we need to get away from our minds that get so busy we can't continue thinking. Those are the times it's really nice to have a little space of desert reserved for getting away. Have you ever been watching a television(I had mine disconnected while I was writing the last book)and found you had no idea of what, or why you were watching? That's the desert I'm referring to, the one that is in there that we can't consciously take note of because we have to be somewhere inbetween unconscious and cognizant to arrive. It's like that thing that happens when you've driven too long at night and start seeing things on the highway, the lights are on, but no one is home. I enjoy sitting around a fire with a few friends watching the flames dance and listening to the hiss of the logs as they release their life blood through the roughly cut ends. Far better than the TV, with a fire I know for sure I haven't missed anything, unless, of course, someone was talking to me. A lot of times around the fire when men talk it really doesn't make any difference if we listen to one another, its the act of getting stuff out of us that is most important, just saying it out loud. Maybe that's one of the reasons I enjoy talking to God about my stuff. He may be a million miles away in the dancing flame, but if I have to drop a load I know I can drop it with Him. Women may need this time, also, but I can't say for sure how their minds work, other than having a daughter who is a woman now and she seems to feel much the same way I do, but that might be my fault. Taking time to "ride" that desert in your mind and finding a place where you can hunker down around the fire with God is a wonderful stress release, and a great way to explore that one on one relationship with Him that we all need. Here's to the next "Ride!" In Christ's Love, Preacher.

And Cowboys Like Us Just Like To Have Fun, Racing The Wind, Chasing The Sun! 

Sometimes Age Takes Its Toll On Us And We Should Not Be Followed. Should This Sign Be Put To Use In DC?