Keeping momentum is the hardest part

The problem with momentum is eventually you run out of it.
At least that’s the way things seem to go. This is especially true with conferences, motivational speakers and special programs. You get fired up for a while and maybe even make significant, life-long changes. But then the excitement wears off, you get back in a rut and the next thing you know all that momentum is spent.
I’m coming off an event last weekend that I hope has enough momentum to last longer than normal. I went to Men At The Cross at the Berry Center with a group of guys from my church, First Colony Church of Christ.
Men At The Cross is kind of a Promise Keepers spin-off. Its founder, Joe White, got his momentum from Promise Keepers, calling men to the cross of Christ and challenging them to be followers and mentors. Where Promise Keepers is focused on making men better husbands, fathers and leaders in their church and community, Men At The Cross takes it the next step. Evangelizing and equipping the next generation of Christian leaders is its focus. But in order to do that, it must first pick up where Promise Keepers left off.
(Note: Promise Keepers still exists and is the preeminent men’s ministry in the country. It has just fallen on hard times and is struggling to rebound.)
Many of the speakers Friday night, including White, are current and former Promise Keepers speakers and staffers. They all have an unwavering passion for reaching the hearts of men for Christ. It’s a passion I share but momentum I lack. This past weekend was a huge boost in many ways. It’s also a reminder that we are in a spiritual war and as of late, we’ve been losing a lot of battles.
I can’t recall which speaker said it, but it was noted that the men in the church – many who used to be on fire from Promise Keepers – have become complacent. We’ve become content that our wives are been nourished in thriving women’s ministries and that our children are engaged in children’s and youth programs. We’ve let our guard down knowing our families are cared for. We’ve forgotten that we’re to be the ones caring for them. We’re to be the ones supporting our churches and pastors. We’re supposed to be the ones engaging our families.
I come before you now confessing my guilt in this regard. I have not been the spiritual leader that I know I should be. I’ve been getting by with minimal effort, being content to let my wife lead the charge.
I challenge the men out there to join me in taking spiritual leadership in your families. The first steps are not difficult. Pray with and for your family. Pray for each member of your family by name. Pray with your family. I do at each meal and at bed time. I try to have each person in the family pray at night when we come together, but usually it is past bedtime for the younger kids and I end up saying the prayer in haste and sending them off to bed.
Where I have been failing is in making time to pray with my wife and to be in some kind of daily Bible reading with her. That needs to change.
The second thing is to make sure the family gets to church each week. Don’t just show up and go through the motions. Get engaged in the things there. Volunteer to serve where you can. Set the example. Participate in activities. Tithe. Attend mid-week services. Spending time doing these things is much healthier spiritually and physically for your family than watching endless hours of television.
As a side note, every minute you spend with your family away from TV, video games and movies is a minute less of mind control the entertainment media has over you. It’s also a minute of time that will not be lost in regret.
But back to my original point. It’s time we men got motivated. We need to get back into the game. We need to be the men God made us to be. We can’t be content to be game watchers. We must be the playmakers. We need to be actively engaged with our families and with other men.
The culture in this country is eroding the role of men. It’s time we came together and fought the good fight. It’s time we stood up against the things of this world that have hold of our children. We need to be there for our wives, leading the charge, not following along.
If there is anyone out there who would like some help in this regard, please let me know.

Drawn to the beach like waves to the seashore

As the old saying goes, “Life’s a Beach.”
Actually, I don’t care for that saying much because it trivializes what’s meant to be a vulgarity. Still, the phrase seemed apropos after we spent Sunday afternoon at a beach near Galveston. Being newbies to the region, we find trips to the beach exhilarating, unlike many locals for whom the novelty has worn off.
Our schedule usually allows us to go about once or twice a month, usually on a Sunday after church. That leads us into a repeating pattern you think we would be smart enough to break by now.
We set our alarms an hour earlier than normal so we can get to the early service at First Colony Church of Christ. Of course, we almost always remember that in addition to the usual scramble to get everyone up, fed and out the door in time that we need to pack a lunch, beach toys, changes of clothes and such. So the mad dash is on and we bolt for church hoping we haven’t forgotten the sunscreen or camera.
After church, we go out to the car, get our swimwear and sneak back into the church to get changed. This always lends itself to a few moments of embarrassment as we emerge from the bathrooms in T-shirts and swim trunks while the next service is getting under way.
Once we start heading down the road, we pass out sandwiches and drinks with the usual admonition to not spill anything. That always proves to be a waste of breath, but we say it anyway. For an hour and a half or so, we zip down Highway 6 to the tune of “Are we there yet?” and “I need to go to the bathroom.” Then there is the obligatory “I spilled my drink.”
Once we get to the coast, we usually drive around for a while looking for a good spot to stop. Of course, by early afternoon, all the good spots are taken. So we usually wind up parked next to a group that is blasting music and downing beers.
Once there, we pile out of the car, lather everyone in sunscreen, gather up toys and camera and settle in for some fun. I normally try to take pictures early on so I can safely stow the camera back in the car where it will be safe while I go splash in the warm waves.
The water always feels good, except when seaweed brushes by your leg or you step on something sharp (or something that moves).
Life is good at the beach. Holes are dug, sandcastles built, water waded in … you get the picture. But then comes the time to return home. That’s when you find that the sunscreen acted as an adhesive to allow generous portions of sand and salt to adhere to your body. That is also when you discover the parts of your body that you missed with sunscreen because those parts are glowing a bright red.
Now comes the formidable task of getting everyone and everything back into the car without getting the seats wet and full of sand. We know full well both tasks are impossible, but we try. It makes us feel like responsible parents to remind the children at least three or four times to wipe off the sand before getting inside. Still, we manage to come home with enough sand to re-fill the sandbox.
The trip home is always in discomfort, as we are tired, burned, wet and sandy. Once again we pass out a round of soft drinks and chips and cookies – or stop at McDonalds – with the now futile admonition to not spill anything. This time it was ice cream on the floor.
On the trip home, almost everyone dozes off except for the driver and the person asking “are we there yet?” or “I have to go to the bathroom.”
Once home, the monumental task of unloading the car begins. That is followed by bathing everyone, vacuuming out the car, washing off the salt and sand and getting all the swimsuits and towels to the washer.
By this point I almost always tell myself that I’ve had enough of this mess. The beach just ain’t worth the hassle. That opinion is reinforced as the sunburn stings and then peels in the course of the week.
A strange phenomenon always happens to the human brain. It causes you to selectively forget that nasty feeling of driving home in a wet, sandy swimsuit in a smelly car and you begin to feel the call of the beach again. And being slow learners, we faithfully heed this call of nature.
They say the definition of stupidity is to do the same thing again expecting a different result. As I sit here writing this, I have a burned neck, the grit of sand under my fingernails and about two weeks until a three-day weekend.
No matter how hard I try to break the cycle, I know I am weak and I will once again return to the coast. I guess it just goes to prove that life is a beach and like the waves, you're forever drawn to it.

McCaul understands key issues very well

U.S. Rep. Michael McCaul stopped by the Waller County News Citizen office last week as part of the congressman’s summer break media tour.
He and his aide, Mike Rosen, did not stay very long, but we had an interesting conversation. It seems we’re in agreement on each of his hot topic issues.
He began by railing against the backlog at the Houston office of the Veteran’s Administration. That is a very hot topic at our house. The waiting list for service at the VA is two years. That proved costly to my wife’s grandfather.
Grandy, as we call him, is a World War II veteran who injured his knee during the war. It was not too serious, but his knee deteriorated over time as a result of the injury and now needs to be replaced. He recently sought help through the VA and got caught in the backlog. He was also hampered by having his medical records destroyed in a fire – the same fire that claimed the records of numerous vets, including McCaul’s grandfather.
The pain in the knee caused Grandy to shift the way he walks, and it wrecked his hip. He is now recovering from hip replacement surgery (not covered by the VA) and still needs his knee replaced. He must now live with the prospect of having two surgeries rather than one and months to years of physical therapy due in large part to the inadequacies of the Houston VA.
If this is how the government provides medical service for veterans, why on earth would we want the government to provide it for all of us?
That led into McCaul’s second point. He is hearing a strong outcry all across his district from people opposed to President Obama’s healthcare plan. A government-run healthcare plan is wrong in more ways than one can count. The more of our lives will put in government control, the less control we will have over our lives.
I don’t want to pay more in taxes for less service. I don’t want Uncle Sam determining the level and kind of treatment I get – or if I get treatment at all.
I don’t want to see innovation and advances in medical technology stymied by government intervention. I think that doctors who excel at their craft should be free to make more money than the quacks. A government-run system will not reward excellence or innovation. It supports complacency.
While I could go on this soap box for ages, let me conclude with this note: the same government that wants to run healthcare is the same one that in just a few short months has pushed our national debt and deficit to previously unfathomable depths. Do you really want such irresponsible and inept leaders determining what kind of care you get and how much (more) you will pay for it?
Getting back to McCaul’s visit, he touched on a few more topics, such as the need for immediate relief for farmers hurt by the drought. He also supports restoring funding that was cut from NASA’s budget by the Obama Administration. McCaul knows that while his district does not include Houston, it benefits from the money NASA brings in. He also knows that NASA is one of the few government agencies that produces a sizable return on the investment. NASA has always been about exploration, innovation, discovery and invention. That is what’s needed to push the economy and to advance the human race. To look at NASA as a nonessential money pit is akin to looking at the brain or heart as non-vital organs.
NASA is to today’s economy and culture what the Department of the Interior was back when this country was being settled. It is the agency that is advancing our understanding of our world and preparing the way for our future. This is where the trailblazers come from.
To tie a couple of these issues together, the things NASA’s astronauts are doing now in space will result in new discoveries that will improve the health and lives of people on the planet. The Obama Administration wants to reign in NASA (kill the one thing in government that is working right) and take control of your health. Is that something you really want to happen?
To allow this or any administration to push this country in that direction will cause us to surrender more and more of our rights and freedoms to the government. At that rate, we will be nothing more than the Union of Socialist States of America. I pray that never happens.

A good day to reflect on life

Today is a day I will spend reflecting on my life.
The rest of my family is at church camp this week and I have been home alone, wishing I were with them. While I have not been to a church camp since I was 9, camping has been a huge part of my life. Most of it has been with the Boy Scouts.
Working at a Boy Scout camp stirs up some very fond memories – some of the best times of my life. That is part of the reason for the introspection. Missing my family is another part.
I first discovered Ben Delatour Scout Ranch near Red Feather Lakes, Colo., in 1977 as a Webelo Scout. I returned there for several years as a Boy Scout in Troop 161. In 1982 I joined the staff as a kitchen worker. I returned three of the next four years as a mountain man, teaching wilderness survival and Indian lore.
I was last there in 2005, ending three years in a row as a Cubmaster and parent. I came full circle, having experienced the camp as a camper, staffer and parent.
The best times of my young life were spent on staff up there. It was a coming of age experience that few of my peers can relate to. For two months each summer I lived in a tee-pee in the Rocky Mountains, dressed in buckskins and was on my own – more or less.
The father of one of my colleagues owned a group of movie theaters in Fort Collins, so most weekends were spent down there doing laundry, watching free flicks and consuming generous portions of pizza and beverage.
Each year we would spend one weekend up in Wyoming at Cheyenne Frontier Days. One time some buddies and I found an unlocked gate and we snuck in to see the Oak Ridge Boys in concert.
Granted, we were Boys Scouts but we were also teenage boys away from home for the first time. We did a lot of un-Boy Scout kinds of things. I’m not proud of some of those exploits. Yet those were experiences that helped shape who I am today.
I consider those days as among the best in my life. There have been many milestones and accomplishments that surpass even that. Weddings, the birth of children and home ownership are obvious ones. So are moving and living in different parts of the country.
I have been on two week-long, 50-mile canoe trips (thanks to the Scouts). I have watched the space shuttle launch and have met and interviewed numerous astronauts. I have met more celebrities, politicians and religious figures than I can count. I’ve been to nearly 40 states, have seen the Grand Canyon and been to Disneyland and Disney World. I have climbed 14,000-foot mountains and swam in two oceans and the gulf.
I have photographed professional football from the sidelines. I have flown in hot air balloons and stunt planes. I own the Lone Ranger Fan Club. Ten years ago this week I was on a mission trip in Honduras. Also 10 years ago, I was at the first Star Wars Celebration in Denver. That’s where I asked Sandy to marry me.
I was at Stand in the Gap with Promise Keepers in 1997. I have been to many Promise Keepers events as a participant, volunteer and reporter.
I grew up on a hobby farm and have had the experience of milking cows and goats and raising rabbits by the hundreds. I’ve been a beekeeper. I’ve been a hunter, fisher and a three-sport athlete (make that a three-sport benchwarmer).
Among the odd jobs I’ve had, I’ve been a ticket taker for the Colorado Rockies, a stable hand, in management at a pizza place, a warehouse worker and I’ve been Santa Claus at a mall.
I guess you could say I’m bragging. Maybe I am. It’s just that there are times when you have to stop and reflect on what’s gone on before and try to anticipate what’s ahead.
Whenever I get down and feel my life has been a waste, I can look back and see that it really has been an exciting adventure. Looking ahead, I know that God has much in store for me. My oldest child is two years away from graduating high school. My youngest is starting first grade this fall.
There are books I want to write and places I want to go and more things I want to experience – like scuba diving and skydiving.
I will be celebrating my 10th anniversary in December. Today I mark the fifth anniversary of my 39th birthday. There are times I never thought I’d make it this far and other times when I feel like I’ve just begun.
But no matter what I have done or have yet to do, I take great comfort in knowing I will have life in paradise with Jesus once this life is over. And nothing would make me happier or be a bigger accomplishment than to bring others along for the ride.