Minister Of Mocha

This morning is June 19th. Juneteenth. In two days it will officially be summer. So why did I wake up to sleet?!? Weather, life and recovery are filled with mystery and adventure. The dilemma is what to do with them. I am driving through the mountains today, so precipitation of any kind is not awesome.…

A couple of years ago I put up a small pergola in the back yard. It’s main function was to provide shade for the garden and I didn’t put a lot of detailed effort into it. The boards on top were a bit wiggly. The posts weren’t completely square. One post even had a twist…

Now that we are headed into summer and kids are getting out of school I hear a lot of folks talking about their plans and then asking others about their plans.”Hey, do you have any big plans for the summer?” That kind of conversation is happening all over then place. I just had a great…

I suppose what I really mean is that healing is forgiveness. The past week I was in the prison with the fellas and we were discussing the idea of God healing us physically. The question was posed “Does God still heal people?” After much discussion we heard a story of a man who struggled with…

Our newest grandson was born last week. As you might expect, it was a joyous occasion for all of us. It was a long (25 hour) labor, but in the end Mom and baby were both great. The only real issue around his birth was that his parents couldn’t decide on a name right away,…

Late last night I got a sweet picture of my youngest daughter in a hospital gown. She was sitting in the bed with a bullet shaped baby bump sticking way out. That’s exciting news. It wasn’t on the day I have in the family baby pool, but still, our little man was on his way!…

I got into my local Starbucks earlier than usual this morning. Normally this means that there are plenty of seats. Not today. The place is quite crowded. Most of the seats are taken. More specifically, my seat is occupied by someone who looks nothing like me! The nerve of some people… Life isn’t always what…

I remember as a kid we used to play all sorts of a games that had disaster scenarios. We might be marooned on an island. We might be stuck under an avalanche. We might be crashing on a plane. Whatever it was that we dreamed up, someone would grab an imaginary microphone and start calling…

I got up early on Monday morning. 5 am, to be exact. This is not a time that I tend to have my eyes open, but today I was headed out on a road trip. 14 hours of driving time got me from Southern California to Portland, Oregon. I spend most of those hours focusing…

Sunday was a day that’s been three years in the making. When my mother in law passed during COVID lockdown we were not able to have a traditional memorial service. Now that she has been reunited with her groom of over 70 years we were able to do a combined service for them both. There…