Mini-Vacation

Nancy and I were able to get away for a few days this week before I began work at Covenant Christian School. First, we went whitewater rafting on the Nantahala river in western North Carolina. It was my first time rafting and Nancy's third. We had a blast! Appalachian Rivers Outdoor Recreation has great prices and come to find out the owner is a member of a PCA church in Greenville, South Carolina. Abby, the owner's daugter, was driving us to the launch site and she found out we were from Saint Louis. She said, "This may seem wierd but did you go to Covenant Seminary there?" Well, as a matter of fact... What a small world.

Then we did an overnight backpacking trip on the Appalachian trial. We hiked from Stecoah Gap to Cheoah Bald. We didn't see a soul on the way up to the Bald, which was a rigorous uphill climb of 5.8 miles (the sign I'm pointing to is wrong). We were carrying our gear: tent, sleeping bags, sleeping mats, reading materials (a necessity), food, cosmetics, etc. Though in decent shape our legs weren't quite ready for the strain even though our eyes eagerly feasted on the views. When we got to the top we set up our tent and crashed for a while.

We camped on the Bald and were privy to some beautiful sights, our favorite being watching the sun set over the mountians. At night we didn't hear any sounds of civilization, only the breeze whistling through the treetops. Right after college I hiked the first 210 miles of the AT and had always wanted to take Nancy on a portion of the famed hiker's road. Walking these paths again rekindled an old desire of mine to hike the whole trail. Unless the Lord provides a five month stretch I'll probably never be able to do the entire thing at one time but doing small portions over the years is doable.

Being close to God's green earth is nice and I like the sense of accomplishment too. You never know what kind of things you'll see (like the strange tree Nancy is leaning on). There's something about carrying your own house on your back, so to speak, and being able to have a front porch, as I called it, that includes a majestic view. When we opened our tent fly in the morning the first thing we saw was the sun rising over the distant mountians. At the end of the day you're dog tired, stinky, and dirty. The sleep is so good and the most basic of meals tastes like a feast, even if it is just pasta with a little bit of watery spaghetti sauce because someone forgot to bring the tomato paste(!). I'm blessed to have a wife that will go on "vacations" like this with me!

In SC

On Monday, June 19th, we closed on our house and the next day headed for SC. The trip was uneventful if you call three kids being squished in the back of a Honda Civic all in their car seats an uneventful thing.

I drove the minivan and it was filled up with so much stuff (e.g., a desk, two tables, a lawnmower, and firearms) that no one else could fit in the car.

On Thursday Nancy and I found a nice house with a huge yard, making our city yard seem even smaller than it really was. We don't close on the home, though, until the end of July so the family will stay in Greenville with my parents and I'll stay in Columbia working during the week.

Lukan Literary Slam

In Acts 9:33-34 Luke writes of Peter as he travelled "here and there among them all" that "he found a man named Aeneas, bedridden for eight years, who was paralyzed. [34] And Peter said to him, "Aeneas, Jesus Christ heals you; rise and make your bed." And immediately he rose."

Luke's mention of Aeneas is a not too subtle claim of the superiority of the gospel over Roman imperial claims to hegemony. Aeneas is the main character of Virgil's Aeneid, a fictional account of the founding of Rome. Though fictional Virgil's account was justly famous then and is now for its literary artistry and for it's not too subtle claims for Augustus Caesar's rule.

Luke was not forced to mention Aeneas's name but providence provided him with an opportunity to record an amazing healing and hint at Jesus Christ's greatness against any Caesar's. It would be like an American Christian healing a man whose name happened to be George Washington or Abraham Lincoln.

Christ came to found a better city than Rome. In the Aeneid Aeneas founds his city upon the blood of his enemy Turnus. Though Christ will come in judgment one day, his city is founded upon his own blood, a blood that speaks peace and bids all who will to rise and walk in his name.

A time for everything--even a post on time

Never have enough time to do what you want to do? The guys at Manager Tools have some useful things to say about time management. Though geared for business managers, I found their insights not only commonsensical in a Platonic recollection sort of way but practical for myself too. They advise following a four-step assessment of what you do and then an evaluation of what your priorities are in theory and practice:

1. Make a list of what you have done in the past three weeks from memory alone. Don’t look at a calendar, PDA, etc.

2. Capture your key priorities. Rule: You can’t have more than ten. Ask: Which five are the most important? Distinguish between tasks and priorities. (The gurus said that Peter Drucker claimed that a good manager would only be good at one thing and have that one thing as his priority!)

3. Analyze where you spend your time. You need a calendar and a reporting measurement device. Analyze in 15-minute increments. Then assign % to the five most important priorities.

4. Schedule your primary responsibility or goal. This is the most important step. It needs to be at least 2 slots/week of 1 hour and half.

Another more in-depth device is "Getting Things Done." Umm...Maybe I'll have to make reading that a priority.

(HT: Ed and Barlowfarms)