My Friend Dan Gets to Celebrate Easter With Jesus

Dan and I, March 4th, 2008  Today I got one of those calls none of us wants to get. When I saw “Dan Rase” on my phone it didn’t matter that I was about to go out the door with my little boy for a father-son evening, this was a good friend calling – even if it had to be short and offer to call back, I was so glad he was calling. Instead it was his wife, Joyce. As soon as I heard her voice I knew something was wrong, but I was not prepared for her to tell me that Dan had gone to meet the Lord early this morning due to a heart attack while he slept. I had just seen Dan at the Kidology Gathering at CPC in San Diego. Afterward, even though it was nearly 11pm, we stood outside enjoying the cool evening California weather and talked until after midnight. We talked about life, our marriages, our ministries, our failures, our disappointments, our hopes and dreams… and our adopted children. It was one of those conversations that marks you and changes you. I was sick that whole week and running pretty weak, but knew that…

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REALLY LIVE WEB NEWS!

Today I discovered the coolest website! I’ve been trying out Twitter for a few days when Kidology’s “Web Guy,” aka Tannerman posted on his Tweeter that you could watch the Shuttle in space LIVE at www.livenewscameras.com. I clicked over and discovered an amazing site. It looks like this: (Click image for full size view) There are several pages of live cameras you can click on and watch.There are the old familar (boring) webcams of highways, etc., but there are also live cameras of newscasts, but you get to see when they are “off the air” – even saw a news gal fixing her hair, doing the news blurb and then asking someone off camera how she did. The change from when she was “on” and then off the air was fascinating. Real people! My favorite was watching the space shuttle as it did a full rotation as it passed over Australia so that the space station (where the camera was) could take photos of the entire exterior of the space craft for analysis. Then I watched it dock to the International Space Station! Pretty amazing stuff to watch live on your computer while working! There is a moderator at times…

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Could YODA Be Wrong?!?

Our small group tonight started a study of the book of James, our primary topic this evening was on suffering – not necessary the major life altering sufferings – but the daily struggles and trials that upset our plans and frustrate us, but that God is trying to use to form our character. It isn’t just the “big” sufferings that God uses, He used the little daily “stuff” too. In fact, at times, the major battles are easier as they are obvious, but we can easily miss the small battles that actually have a huge impact on our spiritual growth. Below is a piece I wrote awhile back that was published elsewhere, but I wanted to post to my blog for my small group and to archive it here for future reference.   Fear leads to anger. Anger leads to hate. Hate leads to suffering. One of Yoda’s most famous quotes, from the second half of the Star Wars saga, is his ominous warning to the young Anakin, “Fear leads to anger. Anger leads to hate. Hate leads to suf-fer-ing.” (Did you read those words with the appropriate Yoda inflection?) I certainly don’t doubt that fear leads to anger, or…

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