Hopelandic

By Sigur Rós:

Svo hljott

ég hallaði á, í ró,
það stóð allt í stað, og þú…
þú söngst til mín, svo hljótt..
þú söngst til mín, svo hljótt..

í túnglsljósinu, ég sé tig á grúfu.
í túnglsljósinu, þú breytist í bláa dúfu

ég þakka þér þá von sem þú gafst mér
ég þakka þér þá von…



So quietly

I held you, in peace
Everything was in place, and you
You sang to me, so quietly
You sang to me, so quietly

In the moonlight, I see you prone
In the moonlight, you turn into a blue dove

I thank you for the hope you gave me
I thank you for the hope...

Thanksgiving 2010 photos

Thanksgiving 2010 in Carrollton:



We had the Parks family at the Country Place club house.



Here's my sister's family---the Mabry clan:



Pops cutting the turkey:



This is Jackson's first Thanksgiving day!



Jackson loves this Cowboys football

For once you have tasted flight, you will walk the earth with your eyes turned skywards

"For once you have tasted flight, you will walk the earth with your eyes turned skywards, for there you have been and there you will long to return."
- Leonardo da Vinci

My Dad used to take me by Addison airport when I was a kid, and we'd watch the Cessnas, Bonanzas, and other passenger planes land. Thinking about it brings a feeling of nostalgia, and eventually, one of my goals is to take flying lessons and earn a pilots license.

With that said, as a fan of aviation, I have the utmost respect and awe for our space exploration. Alan Bean (Omega Chi, Texas) was one of the twelve men to land on the moon during the six Apollo moon landings. Our ability, as a human race, to search for that higher endeavor and always explore is something that makes us great...our willingness to charge into the unknown.

Most recently, we have joined with the nations of the world to send humanity into space with the International Space Station. Though the ISS doesn't make the headlines of the Apollo mission, it consistently reminds me that there is much greatness out there in space to be found.

Tonight is a blue moon, and I look to the moon tonight with that same inspiration as ever. Recently, there have been a number of photographs taken from the ISS, which are just as awe inspiring, only the majesty is directed back toward our small blue planet.



Over the past several days I've been checking into the tweet feed of Doughlas H. Wheelock aka "Astro Wheels", an American astronaut on the International Space Station. While aboard the ISS, Astro Wheels is orbiting our planet at over 17,000 miles per hour and 180 nautical miles above surface. Lately, he has made several news reports for his twitter feed and the pictures he's been posting from the ISS.

These photographs are absolutely remarkable. First are a couple shots of the Northern Lights, or aurora borealis. I am hoping to see the lights first hand if I make it to Iceland next year in March.



Astro Wheels has also posted many pictures of random pictures around our planet. Anyone want to head to the Florida Keys?

"Heart Transformed"

I was quite moved by a story from the end of one of my pastor's recent Sunday sermons. It went like this:

"I want to close with a final story, a true story, of a friend of mine. And a rather strange adoption that he was led into. I need to give you just a brief amount of background so that you will understand the significance of this story.

I have been told, that if a child cries long enough--one person told me thirty days. If a child cries long enough with no one responding to their cries, eventually they will learn to stop crying. Believing that there is no one who will attend to their crying. And essentially losing their voice.

I have been told, and I have experienced also, the reality that, too much pain, or too much sin, and even too much success, can harden our hearts. Make us unreceptive to the hearts around us.

And what I'd like you to imagine for a minute this morning are those two principles combined. A voice that is lost, and a heart that is hard.

From living for fourteen years in a state run orphanage in Eastern Europe. And being thrown as a young child, intentionally, into a fire. And receiving burns from the middle of her stomach to the tips of her feet.

This was the girl that my friend and his wife felt called to adopt.

The doctors pleaded with them, counseled them not to do it. They said this girl was so abused, so neglected, that she had become so lost within herself that no one could ever find her again.

Except that my friend kept hearing Jesus say to him, "I can find her." And so they adopted her. With no particular training whatsoever. They invited her into their home. And they began to love her with the love of Jesus Christ that they themselves had experienced in their lives.

And over the years, she found her voice. And they actually discovered that she had not only a voice, but she had a tremendous laugh and a great sense of humor. She found, her laughter in addition to her voice. And over time her heart was softened. And she was able to both receive love and eventually to give love.

And one day she got married. And he shared with me recently that she is now expecting her first child.

The love of two people, sharing the love of God, through Jesus Christ, allowed that young lady to be healed. And in being healed, to be transformed.

That's the invitation, my brothers and sisters, that Jesus is extending to us in the Gospel. The invitation to invite and receive his healing in our heart. And being so healed to be transformed to be the people that we desperately want to be. The people God has created us to be."

- Reverend Jim Birchfield, First Presbyterian Church of Houston

Same Kind of Different as Me

I was recently loaned a copy of a wonderful book titled Same Kind of Different as Me, by Ronald Hall and Denver Moore.



Seeing as it's a novel on loan, I've remembered to jot down a few of my favourite quotes:

"The Word says God don't give us credit for lovin the folks we want to love anyway. No, He gives us credit for loving the unlovable. The perfect love of God don't come with no conditions, and that's the kind of love Miss Debbie showed the folks at the mission."

"Good medicine always tastes bad."

"The Word says God put ever star in the heavens and even give ever one of em a name. If one of em was gon' fall out the sky, that was up to Him, too. Maybe we can't see where it's gon' wind up, but He can."

"Our limitation is God's opportunity. When you get all the way to the end of your rope and there ain't nothin you can do, that's when God takes over. ... People think they're in control, but they ain't. The truth is, that which must befall thee must befall thee. And that which must pass thee by must past thee by."

"That's the good thing 'bout God. Since He can see right through your heart anyway, you can go on and tell Him what you really think."

"I had learned by then that rich white folks got a lotta rules 'bout forks. I still ain't figured out why they got to use three or four different ones and make a lotta extra work for the folks in the kitchen."

"Nothing keeps you honest like a witness."


"But I found out everybody's different--the same kind of different as me. We're all just regular folks walkin down the road God done set in front of us. The trust about it is, whether we is rich or poor or somethin in between, this earth ain't no final restin place. So in a way, we is all homeless --just workin our way toward home."

- Denver Moore

"I remembered what C. S. Lewis said of the clash between grief and faith: 'The tortures occur,' he wrote. 'If they are unnecessary, then there is no God, or a bad one. If there is a good God, then these tortures are necessary for no even moderately good Being could possibly inflect or permit them if they weren't."

"One of the phrases we evangelicals like to throw around is that Christianity is 'not a religion; it's a relationship.' I believe that, which is why I know that when my faith was shattered and I raged against Him, He still accepted me. And even though I have penciled a black mark in His column, I can be honest about it. That's what a relationship is all about."

- Ron Hall