Ale for the Soul

This is another holiday I hadn't seen before but speaks greatly to my interest and hobby of capturing real beauty on film.  If you've been following my blog for any length of time, you already know I love to take pictures of moments which are truly inspiring.  By no means am I a professional or anywhere near a trained photographer, nor do I have fancy, state-of-the-art equipment to use in logging beautiful scenery.  However, I do believe I am blessed with a sense of what to photograph, and of what will inspire appreciation and gratitude to the God who created all this.  Over the previous year and a half, I haven't been able to head out camping, which is a sore subject for me at present.  In order to make up for that deficiency, I have been photographing unusual, or less well-known sites of beauty and historical interest around town and posting them on both Twitter and this blog.  (Thank you to the people who share the same interest I have by reading the ent...

In reporting on obscure holidays, I'm beginning to see a repeat of ones I've already covered; however, this is a new one for me.  Blood is the life of the human body.  Many other organs and physiological aspects of our human encasement may fail or become severely hindered, but without blood one ceases to live altogether.  Almost twenty-five years ago, I had a friend who donated blood to herself in preparation for surgery.  The pints of blood were stored for the day she underwent the knife.  This was an interesting procedure I had never heard of then or now.  Many people do not donate due to an illness or disease, such as cancer, diabetes, or ____ (you-name-it).  Others do not donate out of less than legitimate reasons, regardless how valid these perceived excuses may seem.  Such reasons may be: fear of needles, a bad donating experience, or...the list could go on infinitely.  All it boils down too is selfishness and a lack of sacrifice of ...

What does your family history contain?  The rich and famous?  The notorious?  Do you have more bad memories than good?  Years ago my maternal uncle began a genealogy for his side of the family.  This prompted a search and study of my father's genealogy.  However, this isn't the purpose of the entry as it has already been discussed in another previous post.  A family's history is so much more than who beget whom or how long they lived.  What I desire to touch on is the heritage and legacy one leaves his or her progeny.  Both my father and mother, along with their parents and grand-parents, passed down values, morals, and rich life experiences I can not find any where else.  They not only talked about such things as a strong work ethic and loyalty, but also lived out these characteristics in their daily lives.  As each one shakes off their temporal shell and passes in to eternity, I recognize the changing of the guard, the passing of ...

I'm here today for a very special reason. When my daughter, Eve, was small, every dinner conversation would go roughly the same way. I would introduce a fascinating topic. Then I would make some glittering comments and generally attack it from all sides until Eve or one of her sisters would indicate a sufficiently low level of interest to make me grind to a stuttering halt. Now Eve is graduating college and I've been asked by her class if I would give a little talk. Of course I accepted.This will be the first time in 21 years that she'll listen to one of my speeches all the way through. As I stand here, I'm probably experiencing what most parents feel today. A desire, a little inner tug, to say something that will count in a special way. Deep in our hearts we know that the best things said come last. People will talk for hours saying nothing much and then linger at the door with words that come with a rush from the heart. Doorways, it seems, are where the truth ...

Blessed assurance, Jesus is mine! O what a foretaste of glory divine! Heir of salvation, purchase of God, Born of His Spirit, washed in His blood. This is my story, this is my song, praising my Savior all the day long; this is my story, this is my song, praising my Savior all the day long. Perfect submission, perfect delight! Visions of rapture now burst on my sight; Angels descending bring from above Echoes of mercy, whispers of love. This is my story, this is my song, praising my Savior all the day long; this is my story, this is my song, praising my Savior all the day long. Perfect submission, all is at rest! I in my Savior am happy and blessed, Watching and waiting, looking above, Filled with His goodness, lost in His love.

In the early part of the 20th Century, the Oxford Group became the precursor to Alcoholics Anonymous.  The group took essential Biblical principles such as identifying wrongs, making amends, and living a God-honoring life, to those who were consumed by alcoholism.  This quasi-religious group became a hospital of sorts for the most hopeless of cases.  Alcoholics at this point were treated in hospitals, with the prescribed course of action nothing more than simply a drying out period.  What people really needed was a radical spiritual transformation.  Why people weren't getting this in church is beyond my comprehension.  However, I am thankful the Oxford Group, and later Alcoholics Anonymous, were used by God to deliver people from the clutches of alcohol.  (I do want to make it very clear it is still God who delivers, not some person, group, or any perceived form of magical hocus-pocus.)  In a few months I will celebrate ten years of sobriety from ...

People demand freedom of speech as a compensation for the freedom of thought which they seldom use. Soren Kierkegaard Freedom of thought, freedom of expression, and finally freedom of speech are the most fundamental and foundational of our rights.  Without these, there is no voice for the many other freedoms I enjoy as a human being and a child of God.  First, a person must have the tools of reason and logic, often called analytical thinking, in order to become fully self-aware and self-actualized.  Without this, processing the world around him will not make any sense and will cause him to drift in the wind morally and mentally.  Then a person must be able to properly and effectively express himself.  Yes, my friend, there are objective standards of truths and morality a person can find in the Bible in order to use as the framework for such expression.  This is what is often called the coming of age for the individual.  Finally, the cascading...