back?

I've been away from blog-dom for a bit. I needed a break. My kids, as you know, were gone. The dog was peeing on the carpet supposedly because she was missing them. Seperation anxiety. Yeah, right. My wife was driving back and forth to West County many days to baby sit for Elle. And so life has been odd.

It hasn't, however, been peaceful. No. Not peaceful. I do not want to go in to all of that here. If you know me you also know the drill. Let's just leave it at that.

But my heart, which I thought would be full, has been empty. Kind of rocked back on its heels. (If a heart has heels.) It has been a hot and tiring summer. Lots of time with teens which is good. Great actually. But also lots of time to think. And right now thinking is making my head hurt. I am really ready to think about new things. I am weary of thinking about old things. Some old things just need to die out and go away. Maybe they will. Maybe they will.

God says He makes all things new. New is good. I am ready for new. Next week I am taking my bride to Seattle. I have never been there and I have always wondered what it is like. It just has a...

Ok, before I could finish that sentence my youngest son called me sounding distressed. I drove to meet him at our home. It seems he was coming back from registering at college. As he crossed the Chain of Rocks bridge over the Mississippi River a truck kicked up a tire that was laying on the road. He had no "swerve room." It nailed his front bumper and tore it up then ran down the drivers door of the car and scratched it pretty badly. He was mad. I understand that, having been in similar situations myself. But I tried to remind him that this happened on a bridge that rises about 50 feet above one of the longest and widest rivers in the country. He could have hit it and been thrown through the guard rail. That would have been quite a bit worse. "Bad" is usually relative.

I got to pray with five 4th graders to receive Christ tonight. I got to teach bible study to 9 middle schoolers. I got to visit and pray with a dying man this morning. I got to deliver school supplies to a Christian activities center in a very impovrished East St. Louis after that. And then I got to spend time reading to and praying with a women who has ALS. She cannot talk. She types me letters with a special mouse that she moves with the one remaining toe she has that still works.

So my son survived a near disaster and I got to do some cool eternal things. I should be pumped. I should be up. Way up. But I am tired. To the bone. I am ready for a break in the great northwest. I am ready to be away from the air of home for a while. I want to look at mountains and stare at the ocean while it swallows the sun. I want to gaze into an active volcano. I want to go to a fish market and watch them throw fresh sea food at each other. (They tell me they do that there.) I want to watch my bride smile and hear her breathing come easily for a change. The air is clean there. Tell me that the air is clean there. Please? I want to forget about agenda's and deficits. I want to forget about people who are a more than a little mean and yet pretend to be a friend. I want to go to church and not have anybody ask me something or tell me what is wrong. I want to worship in a pure and unadulterated way. That is, after all, the only kind of worship.

Ok, rant over. Sorry for not being more upbeat. I'll do better next time. After the plumber fixes my faucet and the insurance adjuster writes my storm-damage check and my jet is wheels up over a state that doesn't touch mine ...