Archive | March, 2008

My Dad’s First Cast of the Year

26 Mar

After the inadvertent catch earlier this week, I returned to the lake today for another go at fly fishing.  I caught a few thousand blue gills that were too small to keep.  Pretty Annoying.  I then caught an eleven inch crappie.  Look at how pretty it is:

     My dad got his pole out to try his hand.  I told him that they were biting on smaller stuff.  He had the standard rubber nightcrawler with three hooks.  He said he was just playing.
His first cast landed him this bass, which is just over 18 inches:

I asked him what he did to deserve the big fish.  He said that he pays the mortgage.  

Fair enough.   Good work, good start to the season.

First Fish on a Fly…A New Day is Dawned

25 Mar

The wonders of senior year are a stressful senior paper matched with a few general education classes that happened to be left until the last semester.  Those gen eds are ceramics, soccer, and fly fishing.  Fly fishing is the one I have been looking forward to the most.

Hemmingway:  ”Anyone can be a fisherman in May.”
Me:  ”Yeah, but its March and too cold and they still bite for me.”
After only two class meetings for fly fishing, coach let us take the school’s  rods and reels how to practice casting.  I decided that I wanted to learn on our lake, so I purchased a leader and some flies.  The leader got tangled (ok, I tangled it) while I was tying it to the fly backing.  It took me over an hour to de-tangle, leaving 13 minutes for time on the water.  Typical enough.
I managed to push enough line out to where fish would be if it had been warmer than 40º.  The rhythm is funny, and the motion weird for someone who has been slinging heavy bass baits out from the time he could grasp a pole.  
“10, 2…10, 2″  After getting the fly caught on the grass behind me a few times, I managed to put the fly down in the water.  It was a less-than-delicate presentation, but it got out there.  Time was up.  I started reeling back the line that I had let out.  There was resistance.  I pulled up on the line and a small blue gill came to the surface.
It was not bigger than the length of my hand, but I didn’t deserve it anyway.  

Leprechaun O’Bama

18 Mar

I wouldn’t resist:

Hail Yes

16 Mar


Last summer I worked in Juarez, Mexico with YouthWorks!.  We had US and Canadian high school students come for a week at a time while we gave them places to serve by building homes and spending time with children.

Each night we had a club time, which typically began with singing.  We had decided to do worship outside on the steps that led up to the church.  We concluded with the song “Grace Like Rain“.  We had heard that a storm was on the way, and the signs of the storm started showing up in the desert sky.  
I attempted to make a joke that it looked like we were going to get some grace tonight, and that we would have to move inside the sanctuary area for the rest of club time.  Being the only resident man on my staff, I was the one whose job it was to go shut all the windows and prepare for the storm.  
Long story short, I got stuck in the little tool shed area (bodega) in a different part of the property that was about 50 yards away from the sanctuary.  The rain was heavy and cold, then the hail came.
The ice cubes pelted the tin roof above me.  
I grabbed a seat on a bucket and rested in not being in control of the situation.  I started to sing “Grace Like Rain”, but quickly realized that I couldn’t even hear my own signing.  I sang as loud as I could, but the hail was louder.
God will do anything to help me realize how much he loves me.  Grace sometimes has to hurt to get it.  Grace drowns out all of my imperfect praise while at the same time inspiring it perfectly. 
Hallelujah!! 
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Alarm Clock at 5:30 Feeling

3 Mar

Tonight I watched Lord of War starring Nicholas Cage. I would highly recommend this movie because of the moral choices that it presents. I won’t ruin the plot, but one of the biggest ideas of the movie is honesty and the difference between legal and right.

I am disturbed by the movie, because I know that it represents something true. Arms dealers or traffickers exist, but only because of war. Why does war exist?

I came back to my room and started praying. Something like this is what came out of me:

“I have seen innocent blood shed, even though it is a movie, this is my world. Why, God? Jesus, is this the “year of the Lord’s favor?”

Over the weekend I talked at our Spring Christian Ed retreat about the Exodus and the movement of God in the life of the individual and in societies. During that talk I presented the way Jesus began his ministry, which was by reading this in a synagogue in Capernum:

The Spirit of the Lord is on me,
Because He has anointed me
To Preach the Good News to the poor
He has sent me to proclaim freedom for the prisoners and recovery of sight for the blind,
To release the oppressed,
to proclaim the year of the Lord’s favor.

Over the summer, I was praying about hunger. I asked God why it existed, I dared to ask God why He would let it happen

It is hard to describe, but the answer to that prayer was sorrowful.
“My children go hungry because my other children let them.”
Mother Theresa must have listened to the same voice for she said, “As long as there are empty mouths in the world, the Eucharist is incomplete.”

God has and will give his family more than enough. We just wont share. We have our own peace, but will not share.

Why do I go through a day and not ask where the clothes that cover my flesh come from, who worked to make them? How can I drink my coffee without thinking of who picked it, and whether or not they can live off the wages they earned? Why do I believe the lie that it is not my responsibility to make sure those people are getting what they deserve?

When have we given enough? When can we feel good about ourselves? When we all have enough, when we all have peace, when God is feared.

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Welcome to March, Welcome to Life

2 Mar

It is now March. The times they are a changing.

Welcome to the earth my newest cousin Aaron Michael Jacoby Holt. My cousin, his brother, Alex (AJ) is holding him.

Praise God for life. May the Lord bless and keep him always.

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