One of the things that I like about flying in airplanes, is that somehow I feel a tiny little bit closer to the rest of the universe and beyond. I don’t often find myself flying at 6am, but continuing my recent early morning theme, I was on my way to College Station, TX this weekend to visit my parents, and I caught the red-eye out of Atlanta, so that I could spend more time actually visiting my folks.
On the way to Dallas you could see the sun just coming up in a myriad of colors out on the distant horizon. It was still very dark and cloudy out the window, a dark bluish gray, so that it seemed like we were sailing on an unending expanse of ocean, with the sun out in the distance.
I’ve been thinking a lot lately about the limitless reach of God, and this was a nice visual reminder.
Tuesday, February 10, 2009
Wednesday, February 4, 2009
The Stars Shine Down on Americus
The last twenty-four hours have been somewhat eventful. Yesterday, February 3, 2009, the founder of Habitat for Humanity, Millard Fuller, died somewhat unexpectedly. Because President Jimmy Carter is a very high profile participant in the work of Habitat, many people assume that he started the organization. Habitat actually germinated at a place near Americus, GA called Koinonia Farm. Koinonia was founded by Clarence Jordan, of “Gospel Patch” fame. The vision of those at Koinonia, and particularly Millard and Linda Fuller, led to the establishment of Habitat for Humanity, which in the years since it was founded in 1976, has helped to build more than 300,000 homes worldwide, serving more than 1.5 million people. In 1996 Millard received the Presidential Medal of Freedom, the nation’s highest civilian honor.
In my short time in Americus, I have hooked up with a small group that goes out walking every morning at 6am on the local golf course. This time of year it’s quite dark outside at that time of day and this morning was particularly cold by local standards, about 25 degrees with a 15-20 mph wind. Normally I probably would not have stumbled out of bed on my own at that hour.
Having spent most of the last thirty years of my life living in the Chicago area, I don’t often get to see many of the stars in the sky. On this amazing morning walking along the golf course in Americus, it seemed like every star in the sky was shining down on us. I like to think that one of the stars was Millard Fuller, smiling down upon us from above.
This morning Millard was buried out at Koinonia Farm. It was an incredibly beautiful, cold, cloudless, clear blue day, the sun shining down like crazy among the grass and trees. His funeral was “simple and decent”, just like the housing that Habitat builds. I hope that God was well pleased with his beloved servant Millard. We can honor him best by continuing to carry out his vision of eliminating poverty housing throughout the world.
In my short time in Americus, I have hooked up with a small group that goes out walking every morning at 6am on the local golf course. This time of year it’s quite dark outside at that time of day and this morning was particularly cold by local standards, about 25 degrees with a 15-20 mph wind. Normally I probably would not have stumbled out of bed on my own at that hour.
Having spent most of the last thirty years of my life living in the Chicago area, I don’t often get to see many of the stars in the sky. On this amazing morning walking along the golf course in Americus, it seemed like every star in the sky was shining down on us. I like to think that one of the stars was Millard Fuller, smiling down upon us from above.
This morning Millard was buried out at Koinonia Farm. It was an incredibly beautiful, cold, cloudless, clear blue day, the sun shining down like crazy among the grass and trees. His funeral was “simple and decent”, just like the housing that Habitat builds. I hope that God was well pleased with his beloved servant Millard. We can honor him best by continuing to carry out his vision of eliminating poverty housing throughout the world.
Monday, January 19, 2009
Barack Obama and Speeding
If I get a speeding ticket driving through the mountains, I’m blaming Barack Obama. First of all I’m still adjusting to driving in states where the speed limit is 70 mph. On Sunday, we were driving through some serious (by eastern U.S. standards, that is) mountains on the way from Knoxville, TN to Asheville, NC, listening to Weekend Edition on Public Radio, with lots of coverage and excitement about the upcoming presidential inauguration. So I’m getting all wrapped up and excited thinking about our new President (elect), and all of a sudden I’m speeding down some mountain at 90 mph and I have to quickly take my foot off the gas. I think there’s a metaphor in there somewhere.
I still have to pinch myself when I think about President of the United States, Barack Obama. It seems like we are replacing a paradigm of “fear” with one of “hope”. How fitting that on the day before the inauguration, we are honoring Martin Luther King, Jr.
Tomorrow, Tuesday January 20, 2009, Inauguration Day, we plan to head from Asheville, NC to Atlanta, GA, where I will be attending a national Habitat for Humanity conference. We hope to be listening to the inauguration on the radio while we are driving to Atlanta. The weather forecast is predicting 1-3 inches of snow for Asheville tomorrow, so we’ll see how everything goes.
More on Barack Obama, hope, and fear in a future blog post.
I still have to pinch myself when I think about President of the United States, Barack Obama. It seems like we are replacing a paradigm of “fear” with one of “hope”. How fitting that on the day before the inauguration, we are honoring Martin Luther King, Jr.
Tomorrow, Tuesday January 20, 2009, Inauguration Day, we plan to head from Asheville, NC to Atlanta, GA, where I will be attending a national Habitat for Humanity conference. We hope to be listening to the inauguration on the radio while we are driving to Atlanta. The weather forecast is predicting 1-3 inches of snow for Asheville tomorrow, so we’ll see how everything goes.
More on Barack Obama, hope, and fear in a future blog post.
Sunday, January 11, 2009
Georgia on my mind
I leave for Georgia on Saturday 1/17/09 to begin my next series of adventures as a volunteer for Habitat for Humanity. I will be traveling with Stuart Barnes Jamieson and his family to Asheville, NC where we will be dropping off his daughter at college and hanging out for a couple of days. We will then head to Atlanta via Greenville, SC to attend a Habitat for Humanity conference for a few days. I will then travel to Americus, GA sometime around 1/23/09 to begin a six week stint doing volunteer work in the national office of Habitat for Humanity.
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