Return to Holden (the week in review)

I had the opportunity to make a quick trip to Holden this past week. I arrived on Monday and left on Friday. While there I took a lot of pictures and enjoyed various events. Here are some of the highlights:

TUESDAY

I woke up Tuesday morning to a snow covered wonderland. As I walked from Chalet 2 toward the dining hall I stopped to take a few pictures. As I looked up I saw.......
....Wanda heading toward the dining hall also taking pictures. We both stopped and took a picture of each other!!

Later that morning I took this picture of the cloud covered sun trying to shine. The view through the branches of this snow covered tree was amazing.

This is Holden's 1958 Bombadier. It is one of three of these that are put into use to transport folks to and from the Lucerne boat dock when there is too much snow on the road for the buses to get through. After lunch, Terry, the mechanic, wanted to take this one (called Yellowstone) for a trial run since it hadn't been out yet this year. He invited anyone interested in riding with him to go along.

Here are a few of the nine crunched into the back (notice baby Aubrey, age 6 months...her mom thought it would be fun! I am riding shotgun and taking pictures.

All went well on the ride down the road, but on the way back, old Yellowstone overheated and steam poured out. Terry called back to the village to have a jug of antifreeze brought down for the rescue. Most of us decided to walk back instead of wait in the cold. We were about 1 1/2 miles from the village.

Here we are walking back. The people in the picture are the teenagers, who got back in plenty of time for the afternoon school session. The rest of us walked a little slower and before we got back, Terry had gotten the bombadier running and picked us up on the way back.

Tuesday night we celebrated Mardi Gras with costumes, face painting, masks, and a true Cagen meal of shrimp gumbo (or vegan gumbo for those of us who don't eat shrimp.) Here are some of the faces painted by Rachel Weeks. (She is the unpainted one.)

WEDNESDAY

Wednesday morning saw more snow....more beautiful that Tuesday. Big, fat, fluffy flakes that came down all day long. This was Nancy's birthday. Every year, on her birthday, Nancy, her husband, Mark, and daughter, Raina, along with any other daring souls, take a dip in Railroad Creek. Last year I watched and took pictures. They all got lost off my computer somehow, so I have to repeat the event this year.

Here are the hearty souls (minus two) before the big dip.

Here they are dipping in the creek. The air temperature was about 20 degrees.

After the big dip! Luckily they had warm clothes to put on before walking back to the dining hall.

Later tonight we had our Ash Wednesday Service led by Dawn Coffey. Jack preached and I served as Assisting Minister.

THURSDAY

Thursday afternoon was cold and sunny. Several of us took a walk to the Ten Mile Bridge and back. (A total of two miles). It was a beautiful day with the bluest sky you ever saw. It was fun to walk and talk with these friends again.

The view from Ten Mile Bridge...the creek is mostly frozen over here.

This is the view of Buckskin Mountain we saw on the way back to the village.
Believe me, the picture doesn't do it justice.

My trip ended too soon on Friday morning. But I got to travel downlake with several Holden people who were going out for the winter school break. This was a great week....and these are just some of the highlights.

Texas Ice Storm

Here are some pictures of yesterday's ice storm.

Everything was covered with a sheet of ice.

Icicles on the roof.

It's the closest to winter that we have had so far this year.

Update

I haven't posted in awhile but I kinda doubt anyone is reading this anymore anyway. But I did want to update it with what I have been doing (beside working). Oops, that was a wrong way to start because I don't do a lot besides working!

One thing I started doing was volunteering to help sign up children for the Texas CHIP (Children's Health Insurance Program) program. It is an interesting process. So far I have been to a training meeting and this morning went for the first time to actually interact with the people who are signing up. I mainly watched and listened to the pros and helped pass out paperwork. I think I am learning what to ask and how to tell them to fill out the application. It is interesting. The only qualifications besides the low income is that the children are either citizens or legal aliens and have social security cards. It doesn't matter if the parents are or not. The information is not shared with other agencies. Richardson is a very diverse community, culture wise, and we had several different nationalities applying this morning.

Another thing I am getting involved in is the Stewardship Program at my church. I have been interested in doing more with the program, which traditionally focuses on getting pledges of money. I am going to try to expand it as, to me, stewardship involves much more than money. I hope to involve health, wellness, time management, natural resources (the environment), as well as how we use our money. I have just finished reading a real good book called "Faith and Money" edited by Michael Schut that really brings up so many things I have thought about for years. (I love it when I find something that backs up my beliefs.) I have been toying with the idea of setting up a blog for church members to read. I will have to see how that will work out and let you know.

Amen

I discovered this morning that the last word in the Bible is "Amen."

I made a pledge (a "resolution"?) last year to read the Daily Text every day and also to partake in the challenge to read through the Bible in a year. Yes, I say challenge....to get up every morning and read was sometimes a challenge, but as the year went on, it became a habit. Every morning, usually around 5:30, I would wake up, put on my glasses, and read the Daily Text and the Bible reading assigned for the day before getting up. This morning I read the final chapters in the old and new testaments and felt really good when I read the AMEN. I made it through!

Now you may ask "how was the experience?" It just felt like something I had to do every day. I enjoyed reading the history section of the OT a lot, but I really got bogged down in the prophets. They all said the same things and it got kinda boring. And I have a hard time believing that God told them all the things God supposedly told them. Sorry, but I think that reading the whole Bible actually made me a non-believer about a lot of things in the Bible. Should I admit that? But that's what I came away with from this year of reading through the Bible. If we believe that God is love, how can we believe that God was directly responsible for all the violence and evil things that the writers of the Bible wrote about. I did however think the Old Testament was more interesting reading that the New, but that is probably because I am more familiar with the New and most of it was repetition of many Bible readings I have heard in worship services, etc. But I question some of those writers too. I believe God sent Jesus to show us how to live our lives and since Jesus is God and God is love, why would God be the cause of destruction and violence? I think that is just how the people of the day interpreted what was happening and believed God was the cause of everything good or bad that happened.

Anyway, when I read the last word "AMEN" in the Bible this morning, my main thought was "I finished it! I actually went through the whole year and keep my pledge to myself." Now this year I am hoping to try to get more involved in peace and justice issues. This will be hard for me as I am a private person and don't like to speak out about certain issues, but I am going to try anyway. AMEN!

Joy Journal

I read today about keeping a Joy Journal. I think that is a really cool idea so I have been thinking about what has given me joy lately. Some of those things I have thought about are:

1. Sitting by the fireplace drinking my early morning coffee on a cold day.
2. Seeing the white lights glowing on the bushes outside my window.
3. Reading Christmas cards and notes from friends far and near.
4. Singing carols and hearing the Christmas story at our Christmas Eve service.
5. Hugging my grandsons when they came over this afternoon.
6. Getting a Walmart gift card from my son.
7. Getting a snugly fleece blanket and a waffle iron from my daughter and son in law.
8. Playing with a new electronic game called "20 questions" with my family. It's a hoot!
9. Listening to a new radio station that plays only old favorite songs from the past.
10. Seeing the sun shine in my windows lighting up the kitchen and family room.

"Once you begin looking, you may be surprised to discover just how much joy your world has to offer."
Thomas Kinkade

It's Christmas Already

I have been trying to savor the Advent season the way it's done at Holden. I have been doing a fairly good job of it, but in this "outside" life, that is not easy. Well....it is easy, but it's not the norm. I have been avoiding the hustle and bustle of the shopping scene and haven't gotten stressed about it, but I also haven't prepared too well for Christmas on a personal level.

On a professional level my job has been very stressful in an intimidating way. It seems there is so much to do that I am working many extra hours just trying to keep my head above water. Maybe this isn't what I should be doing after all. I do enjoy the various aspects of the job, it's just that there are too many of them to get them all done in a day. Obviously there are deadlines....I have to have bulletins ready for each service....and they take a lot of time as each one is a huge publication in and of itself. I worked most of yesterday and today on the Christmas Eve bulletin and am still not finished. Guess what I will be doing in the morning? At the same time, I am working on Sunday's bulletin, which has really been a production as I download from an internet sight and then have to put into a publisher format. I have been feeling kind of out of sorts about it. I am supposed to get off early tomorrow and have Friday off too, but I don't know if I will be done by the time I leave tomorrow.

I finally finished the last of my Christmas cards at midnight last night and got them in the mail this morning. I sent three groups of cards out three different days so some will be on time and some will be late. I apologize to anyone who gets a late one.....but the Christmas season goes on for twelve days after the 25th, so I guess technically they won't be "late."

All those concerns aside, I am trying to keep remembering the reason for the season. I will be a communion assistant at the late Christmas Eve Service. I will be Assisting Minister on Sunday. I would also like to remember that Christmas is not over on December 26th (which is also not the norm in the "outside" world.)

Merry Christmas!

Fall in Texas

Fall in Texas comes about six weeks later than"up north." We are having a beautiful fall here this year.

I missed the fall color in Wisconsin....I was a little bit early for full color...or maybe it was a little bit late. I missed the fall color in Washington too. I saw a lot of gold color on the trees driving through Montana in late October.

Here now, we have it all, reds, golds, oranges, yellows, and greens. It is so pretty driving through town on my way to work. The weather has been really fall-like. It's been in the 50's in the daytime and down to the 30's or low 40's at night. There's lots of sunlight and I am hanging my clothes out to dry ever since I got back. No dryer for me!

It's the second Sunday in Advent today. I am trying to keep Advent everyday. It's hard here though without worship every day. However I have pledged not to rush Christmas. And not to rush out of Christmas either on December 26th. There are two things I noticed about the Dallas area when I moved here 39 years ago. The first was the fences. Everyone has privacy fences and I thought that was so strange (I still think so). The second thing that I noticed was on December 26th all the Christmas trees are out on the curbs to be picked up....and all Christmas decorations are stowed away. I try to keep Christmas going through Epiphany, but it feels kind of corny to do that here. I have renewed my resolve to keep it going this year.