I've been reading a fun and insightful book; one that has challenged me.  It's a book about a nameless man that takes place in Russia in the 1860s.  He's a Christian wandering around Russia as a Pilgrim seeking God and having many adventures with the goal of figuring out what it means to "pray without ceasing."   The name of the book is THE WAY OF A PILGRIM & THE PILGRIM CONTINUES HIS WAY.

In one section I found my Pilgrim friend in the middle of preparation for confession.  He thought that since he was going to get things right with God, he'd make a written list of every sin he'd committed since he could remember.  I'm guessing this took a while.  After getting his list (maybe a book) finished, he came across a Priest who was known as being a wise and helpful counselor.  He went to this wise Priest and began confessing his sins.  The Priest, being wise and all, rebuked him for bringing up things that God had long ago forgiven and placed under the blood of Christ.  He reminded the Pilgrim that what's forgiven is history.

About now I'm thinking the Pilgrim is feeling pretty good to be free, but then the Priest said something that knocked the book out of my hand and that's what I want to share with you on my blog. Here's what the Priest said to our Pilgrim:

" You have not disclosed the gravest  sins of all.  You have not acknowledged nor written down, that you do not love God, that you hate your neighbor, that you do not believe in God's Word and that you are filled with pride and ambition.  A whole mass of evil and all our spiritual depravity is in these four sins...."

I had been traveling with the Pilgrim for 145 pages before I met the wise Priest and all along I'd seen nothing that implied the Pilgrim was a man of such character.  I'd seen him helping people, giving away his money and time, beaten and robbed and helping those that did it to him later on in the book and all of these things were done from a good heart.

As you can imagine, the Pilgrim was taken aback by such a statement and immediately defended himself rather well.  The Priest was not only wise but compassionate.  He'd already been through these 4 grievous sins himself and wrote notes that he now shared with others that told of what he'd learned.  He called his notes:  A CONFESSION WHICH LEADS THE INWARD MAN TO HUMILITY.  Then the wise Priest gave the notes to our Pilgrim and we all get to read what he wrote and it was then, as I read, that I realized I was the Pilgrim.  Here's an excerpt from the notes:

      1)  I do not love God.  For if I loved God I should be continually thinking about Him with heartfelt joy.  Every thought of God wold give me gladness and delight.  On the contrary, I much more often and much more eagerly think about earthly things, and thinking about God is labor and dryness.  If I loved God, then talking with Him in prayer would be my nourishment and delight and would draw me to unbroken communion with Him.  But, on the contrary, I not only find no delight in prayer, but even find it an effort.  I struggle with reluctance, I am enfeebled by sloth (laziness) and am ready to occupy myself eagerly with any unimportant trifle, if only it shortens prayer and keeps me from it.  My time slips away unnoticed in futile occupations, but when I am occupied with God, when I put myself into His presence every hour seems like a year.  If one person loves another, he thinks of him throughout the day without ceasing, he pictures him to himself, he cares for him, and in all circumstances his beloved friend is never out of his thoughts.  But I, throughout the day, scarcely set aside even a single hour in which to sink deep down into meditation upon God, to inflame my heart with love of Him, while I eagerly give up 23 hours as fervent offerings to the idols of my passions.  I am forward in talk about frivolous matters and things which degrade the spirit; that gives me pleasure.  But in the consideration of God I am dry, bored and lazy.  Even if I am unwillingly drawn by others into spiritual conversations, I try to shift the subject quickly to one which pleases my desires.  I am tirelessly curious about novelties, about civic affairs and political events; I eagerly seek the satisfaction of my love of knowledge in science and art, and in my ways of getting thing I want to possess.  But the study of the Law of God, the knowledge of God and of religion, make little impression on me, and satisfy no hunger of my soul.  I regard these things not only as a non-essential occupation for a Christian, but in a casual way as a sort of side issue with which I should perhaps occupy my spare time at odd moments.  To put it shortly, if love for God is recognized by the keeping of His commandments (If you love me, keep my commandments, says our Lord Jesus Christ), and I not only do not keep them, but even make little attempt to do so, then in absolute truth, the conclusion follows that I do not love God.

      2)  I do not love my neighbor either.  For not only am I unable to make up my  mind to lay down my life for his sake (according to the Gospel), but I do not even sacrifice my happiness, well-being and peace for the good of my neighbor.  If I did love him as myself, as the Gospel bids, his misfortunes would distress me also, his happiness would bring delight to me too.  But, on the contrary, I listen to curious, unhappy stories about my neighbor and I am not distressed; I remain quite undisturbed or, what is still worse, I find a sort of pleasure in them.  Bad conduct on the part of my brother I do not cover up with love, but proclaim abroad with censure.  His well-being, honor and happiness do not delight me as my own and, as if they were something quite alien to me, give me no feeling of gladness.  What is more, they subtly arouse in me feelings of envy or contempt.

      3)  I have no religious belief (believe in God's Word).  Neither in immortality nor in the Gospel.  If I were firmly persuaded and believed without doubt that beyond the grave lies eternal life and recompense for the deeds of this life, I should be continually thinking of this.  The very idea of immortality would terrify me and I should lead  this life as a foreigner who gets ready to enter his native land. On the contrary, I do not even think about eternity, and I regard the end of this earthly life as the limit of my existence.  The secret thought nestles within me:  Who knows what happens at death?  If I say I believe in immortality, then I am speaking about my mind only, and my heart if far removed from a firm conviction about it.  That is openly witnessed to by my conduct and my constant care to satisfy the life of the senses.  Were the Holy Gospel taken into my heart in faith, as the Word of God, I should be continually occupied with it, I should study it, find delight in it and with deep devotion fix my attention upon it.  Wisdom, mercy, love, are hidden in it; it would lead me to happiness, I should find gladness in the study of the Law of God day and night.  In it I  should find nourishment like my daily bread and my heart would be drawn to the keeping of its laws.  Nothing on earth would be strong enough to turn me away from it.  On the contrary, if now and again I read or hear the Word of God, yet even so it is only from necessity or from a general knowledge, and approaching it without any very close attention, I find it dull and uninteresting.  I usually  come to the end of the reading without any profit, only too ready to change over to secular reading in which I take more pleasure and find new and interesting subjects.

      4)  I am full of pride and sensual self-love.    All my actions confirm this.  Seeing something good in myself, I want to bring it into view, or to pride myself upon it before other people or inwardly to admire myself for it.  Although I display an outward humility, yet I ascribe it all to my own strength and regard myself as superior to others, or at least no worse than they.  If I notice a fault in myself, I try to excuse it. I cover it up by saying, 'I am made like that' or 'I am not to blame.'  I get angry with those who do not treat me with respect and consider them unable to appreciate the value of people.  I brag about my gifts:  my failures in any undertaking I regard as a personal insult.  I murmur, and I find pleasure in the unhappiness of my enemies.  If I strive after anything good it is for the purpose of winning praise, or spiritual self-indulgence, or earthly consolation.  In a word, I continually make an idol of myself and render it uninterrupted service, seeking in all things the pleasures of the senses, and nourishment for my sensual passions and lusts.

 The wise Priest had obviously been through the ringer.  How many know what that actually means?  When I was a kid, after you washed your clothes you "ran them through the ringer."  The "ringer" was made of two long twirling cylinders with no space between washing_lrgthem.  We'd slip the end of a piece of wet clothing into the ringer and and they'd get sucked through and the excess water would be rung out.  That is what it means to be put through the ringer.  That being said, when the Priest saw these 4 things in himself, he was wrung out by God.  And when the Pilgrim was confronted with them, he was too.  When I read it, it made me do some thinking and repenting. 

 That's about all I'm going to do with this one.  If you'd like to read the book you can find used copies here:  http://www.abebooks.com/servlet/SearchResults?isbn=0816420696&sts=t&x=33&y=15

 I love this little book and trust if you pick one up you'll enjoy it too.  Oh, for all my old Protestant friends that are etching crosses over the screen of my blog because I talked about a Priest and confessing to him, fear not.  When we go to a Priest to make confession it isn't to ask him for forgiveness, it is to ask him to listen and pray and counsel with us as we confess to God.  If you want to keep it entirely honest in your life, quit confessing your sins in private and start confessing them to the same person every couple of months.  You'd be amazed what a little accountability will do for you. 

Our first U.S. vacation in about 100 years... a small river near Franklin, NC.

Greetings all... I trust this letter finds you all abounding in God's grace and mercy. This is our travel letter. Yes, we got to go somewhere other than work! I, Bob, worked out a 6-month contract I had with Anastasia Mosquito control and saw unemployment fast coming into my world. What were we to do? No job. One income (Jackie has her kids, which are no longer throwing things at her!) and no new job on the horizon. The only thing we could think of was to go on a vacation. I haven't seen my brother in about 5 years or so and he lives in North Carolina and it's Fall and all the leaves are changing color so what else could we do but go? Savannah, GA is kind of on the way and I have a Priest friend, Fr James, who has been an email friend for the last couple of years that we've not met face to face so the first phase was to go there and see him and visit his church. What a blessing that was. Fr James was a Monk and is now a Priest and his church service was awesome. I don't think any of you on this mailing list have ever been inside an Orthodox church, but the beauty of one is spectacular. The liturgy, which is sang back and forth and rich and overflowing with the Spirit of God, goes for about an hour and ends in partaking of the Eucharist (communion), receiving Christ into our mortal bodies. Thus filled to overflowing, we had lunch afterwards and met some new friends and spent some time with Fr James.

What a true blessing our trip began on. Then we drove over to my brother's in Franklin, North Carolina. Our '96 Buick, which was given to us by Leah, our daughter, ran beautifully all the way and got about 33 miles per gallon. That's a bonus plus the gas was only about $2.19 most of the way and as low as $1.99. Much better than the $4.15 of a month or so back. My brother, Joe, has

Over there on the right are the mountain peaks around Blowing Rock and the myriad of colors provided by God.

some land with his house and 2 cottages he rents by the week and he had one ready for us.

The back balcony overlooked his cow pasture and the mountains surrounded it. Having a quiet time out on the porch, though very cold, was amazing. The sun would come up and just light up all the trees and the depth of blue the sky shared with us

There's our cottage now, nestled amongst the trees and overlooking the cow pasture and mountains. They are so cheap to rent. Wanna go?

was too much to describe in words. It was just too amazing for us who live in FL and only see green and the ocean's murky brown that we have here in Saint Augustine. Another bonus was to 411.com some old friends we hadn't seen in years, Ty and Malissa Bryson. They live in Blowing Rock so we drove over there (4 hours) to visit them. There's just nothing like the love of old friends being applied to your lives--maybe we could say it's like the "balm in Gilead."   God has continued to bless them and their children were great.

                                                                                                                                     That's Ty and Malissa.

We hadn't seen them for about 14 years or so. We spent the night and since I was now unemployed, we spent the extra money needed to not sleep in a dive and stayed in a very nice motor lodge kind of place that had been renovated and made very inviting. Jackie deserves such things for living with me these 36 years (our anniversary is November 22nd if you want to congratulate, or send condolences to her). It was still only about $70 so we were blessed.

From there it was back to my brother's and we spent another 3 days there and then just as quickly as the time came, the

Surf where you can....

vacation was over. 10 hours of driving south found us back in St. Augustine and we were grateful to Father in heaven for such a marvelous and rich time. God is so good to us.

PRAYER BUSINESS     I mentioned a couple of weeks ago that Janell was having heart problems and asked for prayer. She got past that and seemed like she was back to normal, but yesterday her husband, Dale, emailed that she was bleeding internally

                                                                   Out in the pasture with the cows

and in the hospital again. The doctors were able to stop the bleeding after 10 pints of blood has gone through her but please pray for this dear lady. She is as close to us as our own kids and it saddens us so much to see her constantly getting into these physical challenges.

I could also use a job. I've spent the last few days driving around town, going to employment offices and filling out many applications, but not much is happening.

Us being happy together

Actually, nothing is happening! It doesn't matter to me what I do so anything will be fine you pray for.

Penny continues to fight the cancer in her body.
Kenny still needs a new liver.
We all need to see Christ magnified in our lives and His precious named taken to all the nations and people who have not yet had the privilege of knowing Him. Blessings to you all....

 

 

                                   Through the trees and the sky all  the way to the sun

Jackie even did some hiking on her new knee. It hurt, but fun often does!

                                                                                     

                                                                                                                                   My brother and his wife, Ann. She can sure cook!

YOU CHOOSE

Who dat? Well, that's Nathan. For you who last saw him when he was 3 feet tall with big ears, here's the big version.

Nathan called tonight to tell us he scored a promotion at Apple. He was is and always will be stoked about that. Life hasn't been that smooth sailing for him the last few months, but hopefully the boat will come about and starting going downwind. Much smoother that way. All it takes is HIM increasing and US decreasing. Nathan always has some kind of gizmo going and he wants me to play with them. Here he is showing me his I-phone and I'm as inept as usual with such inventions. What else is new in our lives? Well, we are all alive and well. Here's the last "all of us" family photo so you can see us for yourselves.

That's us, there on the right, unless it flipped and went somewhere else when I got all this pasted up and laid out. But you can tell from the crowd it's all of us. From the left you see Zack (14), Becca with the long dark hair (hanging with Nathan), Jackie just below her and Nathan towering over me. The guy near my right ear is Jake who has grown at least 6 inches in the last 6 months since this photo was taken and under him is Elijah (6) and Leah. How about something a bit different? Down below on the right is me and a bunch of 2nd graders.

One of the fun things I got to do at work was to go to schools and teach about mosquitoes. Talk about a crazy thing to do. I'm no entomologist but you don't have to be too sharp to teach 2nd graders about bugs. Just read 'em a story and show some pictures. I've gone from university students to 2nd graders and come October 31st unemployed again. We just love adventure.

The girls + Jake and Max the dog. That's how Jackie looks nowadays without a knee brace, crutches or other helps. She's thrilled to be walking, working and bringing home money. We were sending it out so long it's great to see it actually coming in again. A few of the little guys still try and push her around. One tried to headbutt her helper yesterday and when she got home she was about ready to move--anywhere! We have a really nice house we rent with a very big yard (garden for you Brits and cousins of Brits) for the kids, dog and cat to play in. Here's what it looked like a couple of weeks ago when Tropical Storm Kay came blowing by. It hovered over us for 3 days and brought tons of rain.

As you can see, we did get some rain. The boys had a great time playing in the 40 mph (68 km) wind and rain. Leah, the mom in charge of the wet clothes and mess, wasn't nearly as excited about it as they were when they came in soaked to the bone. One really bonus of this storm was I had two days off work.

So, there's us. Hope you enjoyed spending a few minutes with us. You know what would really make our day? For you to send us an email kind of like this one and show us what's going on in your part of the world.

Oh, let me tell you about what happened to me at work the other day. We'd been out trapping mosquitoes and in 3 days brought home about 700,000, which didn't make a dent in the population where we were at. I had to dig through them and put 'em in petri dishes. That's a lot of dishes. To do that you obviously don't want them flying around so we put them in the freezer until they are dead. So I had a pile of 50,000 frozen mosquitoes on my desk and I started to put them in petri dishes. A pile like that tends to spread out on the desk so when some fell I didn't think much of it. But then I thought I noticed one twitching so I looked a little closer.

...Twitching? How could you be twitching? Must be the wind from the A/C blowing this way. So I kept on working. Bzzzzzzz. A mosquito went flying by my ear. I looked closer and lots of them were twitching. Not good. I only had to squeeze them into 12 or so dishes so I thought maybe if I worked fast, I could get them in and refreeze them. I don't really like to touch them, though they are pretty soft, but in large numbers they really stink. About that time a few more went flying by and then circled back to get even.

I work in the lab. In the lab we don't want to introduce poison so I'm looking at this pile wondering what to do with them. I ran into the kitchen and found some window cleaner and came back and started spraying the pile with that. You know what this reminds me of? John the Baptist. No, I haven't been drinking. I'm completely sane (allegedly).

I'm reading a book about icons and how they fit into the Church. Perhaps you are wondering about my sanity, right? Really, icons are awesome and the stories they tell are quite interesting. Anyway, John the Baptist came to us in a flash in the gospel of Mark and appeared in the desert telling us we better repent: The ax is at the roots and if you don't bear some fruit, you'll be cut down and burned. That's my version of it. So how does a pile of half frozen and all-alive mosquitoes remind me of saint John? I saw that pile as my life. When it's lying still and not doing anything, life's good. But when the passions get caught by some enticing little (or big) opportunity to sin, it can fast turn into a mess. How easy it is to say something about someone that need not be said: Bzzzzz, goes a buzzing mosquito. Or how about seeing something on the Internet you don't need to see? Bzzzzz. Did that fine looking girl catch your eye? Bzzzzzz. Is that really how it happened? Bzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzz....

The icon of John is looking toward the icon of Jesus (not shown) and His head is bowed and his hands extended.  What you are seeing is an icon that says, "I must decrease and He must increase." And that's what we need too. In his eyes you can see he's asking for mercy and showing thanks for the mercy he has received. He's perhaps even praying on our behalf. In church we stand in front of this icon, and many others, and extend our hands toward Christ along with John balancing our prayers for mercy with intercession. There is a cloud of witnesses that assemble with us in church--we are not alone no matter how small the group may be that is meeting in worship. Being not alone is a good thing because together we can move toward Christ and if we are moving with a heart of repentance, we know that when the books are opened up and read, we'll be fine. Until then, we should be living the best life possible. If someone like Paul could say he was the "chief" of sinners, we need to take a good look at ourselves and see how we measure up. Do you think of yourself as a sinner or do you just cruise along and figure with it's all a done deal so when you die you'll just ride the rocket up and all will be cool? Unfortunately, in our era, people tend to think that it's all grace so what difference does it make how you live? I believe it does make a difference. A huge one. Our life in Christ is meant to be transforming, going from "glory to glory."

At the Baptist church we used to go to, there are stained glass windows all around. They are really cool. When it's dark, you can barely make out the details of what you are seeing. That glass scene on the left would be obscured if it were dark outside. The lighter it gets, the more details you begin to see and the clearer the image of who's who. The more we are filled with the light of Christ, the more people can see Him in us. So that's the point of killing those mosquitoes before they kill you.

The window cleaner kind of worked. It made them dizzy and they couldn't take off. So I put some newspaper on top of them, wrapped 'em up and put them back in the freezer and let them peacefully slip into a colder and happier place. Actually, I killed them! The particular species of mosquito I had on my desk is a highly aggressive one and a vector of some not- so nice diseases. I wonder how my career as Bob the mosquito guy would have gone if I'd allowed those pesky 50,000 critters to get loose in our offices? It makes me wonder how our lives in Christ will fare if we don't take care of all those little sins that constantly try and distract us from our relationship with Jesus? Well, that's about it for now. I really hope your life in Christ is truly going from glory to glory to glory and that the light of heaven is illuminating your innards and the fragrant aroma of Christ, who loves YOU very much, is blessing all those you come in contact with. Feel free to leave any input you might want to share with us.