Who was John?

     Next month our church will begin a Wednesday evening service to cater to those who work on the weekends, or who simply enjoy more of a Bible study format.  I will be teaching each week, and I plan to start by going through the Gospel of John.  Why John?  Because John wrote to Christians who did not come from a Jewish background, and he wrote about Jesus in a completely different way than Matthew, Mark and Luke.  John was one of Jesus' "inner circle" along with his brother James and Peter. Only these three were present when Jesus raised Jairus's daughter from the dead, only they witnessed Jesus being transfigured on the mountain, and only the three of them were privileged to be with Jesus during his darkest hour in the garden of Gethsemane (even though they all fell asleep).

Cave of the Apocalypse: you have to use your imagination

     John was youngest of the disciples, but he lived to the oldest age - in fact, he was the only one of the 12 who died a natural death - the other 10 all died horrible, violent deaths as martyrs (and Judas, of course, killed himself).  Even John wasn't immune to persecution, because church tradition says that during the reign of emporer Domitian they attempted to kill him by boiling him in oil, but he escaped unscathed.  According to the story, the entire coliseum was converted when they witnessed this miracle.  Eventually he was banished to a little island in the Aegean Sea called Patmos, off the coast of modern Turkey. Of course, like any site of Biblical importance, the cave where John supposedly lived and wrote Revelations is now a shrine that in no way resembles what it once looked like. The same is true in Israel, and I found it so frustrating that every single site of Biblical importance is covered with a church, a shrine or a monument - making it virtually impossible to imagine the scene as it once was.  Anyway, as I've been doing research on John's life I've tried to imagine what it must have been like for him to realize, eventually, that he was the last of the original 12 disciples still alive.  He lost his brother James early on, when he was killed by King Herod.  The circumstances of the deaths of the other apostles are related through church tradition, so you can't put too much weight on any of the other accounts. The most commonly accepted church tradition in regard to the death of an apostle is that the apostle Peter was crucified upside-down on an x-shaped cross in Rome in fulfillment of Jesus’ prophecy. The following are the most popular “traditions” concerning the deaths of the other apostles:

Matthew suffered martyrdom in Ethiopia, killed by a sword wound.  James, the brother of Jesus (not officially an apostle), was the leader of the church in Jerusalem. He was thrown from the southeast pinnacle of the temple (over a hundred feet down) when he refused to deny his faith in Christ. When they discovered that he survived the fall, his enemies beat James to death with a club. This is thought to be the same pinnacle where Satan had taken Jesus during the temptation.  Bartholomew, also known as Nathanael, was a missionary to Asia. He witnessed in present-day Turkey and was martyred for his preaching in Armenia, being flayed to death by a whip. Andrew was crucified on an x-shaped cross in Greece. After being whipped severely by seven soldiers, they tied his body to the cross with cords to prolong his agony. His followers reported that when he was led toward the cross, Andrew saluted it in these words: “I have long desired and expected this happy hour. The cross has been consecrated by the body of Christ hanging on it.” He continued to preach to his tormentors for two days until he died. The apostle Thomas was stabbed with a spear in India during one of his missionary trips to establish the church there. Matthias, the apostle chosen to replace the traitor Judas Iscariot, was stoned and then beheaded. The apostle Paul was tortured and then beheaded by the evil Emperor Nero in Rome in A.D. 67. There are traditions regarding the other apostles as well, but none with any reliable historical or traditional support.

So here's John, living out his last days in exile on Patmos - all of his closest friends having died terrible deaths for their faith in the living Savior.   John must have remembered the conversation that Jesus had with Peter after the resurrection as they walked on the beach - with John following behind.  Jesus said to Peter:

“Truly, truly, I say to you, when you were young, you used to dress yourself and walk wherever you wanted, but when you are old, you will stretch out your hands, and another will dress you and carry you where you do not want to go.” (This he said to show by what kind of death he was to glorify God.) And after saying this he said to him, “Follow me.” Peter turned and saw the disciple whom Jesus loved following them, the one who had been reclining at table close to him and had said, “Lord, who is it that is going to betray you?” When Peter saw him, he said to Jesus, “Lord, what about this man?” Jesus said to him, “If it is my will that he remain until I come, what is that to you? You follow me!” 


I wonder if Jesus' last sentence was in reference to the fact that John did, in fact, see Jesus when He came to John in a vision on Patmos, and John wrote the book of Revelations.  Who knows?  I'm looking forward to walking through the book of John with our church, discovering together who Jesus is through the eyes and heart of "the Beloved Disciple".

Night Vision

I borrowed an automatic trail camera from a friend.   I wanted to see what wildlife frequents our property after dark - so I put a pile of meat on a couple of tree stumps about 50 yards from our back deck, and set up the trail cam to capture images of any "visitors".  I was hoping for a bear or a mountain lion, but all I got, as you can see from the images below, are a couple of foxes.  By 10 p.m. the meat was all gone.  I'll have to make it harder for the foxes to steal the meat next time.  The bears won't start hibernating until sometime in December, so I'm hoping to catch one on film before then.  I should probably just leave our garbage can out and put the camera on that!

I'm leaving this morning to fly to Austin, Texas to lead a crisis management training with a church down there.  I'm really looking forward to it.  This may be the last training I'll do for a while, because Daphne and I are investing our time and energy more and more into our local church - and my role as Executive Pastor is starting to pick up speed.  If God brings other training needs my way, I would consider them on a case-be-case basis.  But we've realized that our passion is to use our experience to help build this church - and this is probably the primary reason why God brought us to Conifer in the first place. 

The Aspens - God's marvelous canvas

We went to see the Aspens yesterday.  No comment needed.

Birthday hike & bugling elk

Daphne celebrated her birthday last Tuesday, and her birthday wish was for she and I to drive up to Estes Park to take a hike with our friend Sharon.  The particular hike Sharon suggested is a six mile in Rocky Mountain National Park - up a canyon in Moraine Park, across a river, then back down again.  Only one week earlier we'd driven up to see Sharon with our girls, and it was blowing an arctic gale.  On Tuesday, the weather was as perfect as anyone could hope for - warm, clear blue sky and a gentle breeze.  You'd almost think someone had dialed the day in for Daphne (she must be living right).  We had a beautiful hike.  We ate lunch at Cub Lake (covered in lily pads), sitting on a rock at the edge of the water.  Several ducks paid us a visit, and they are obviously used to being fed because one of them practically sat in my lap waiting for a handout. 

The Aspens are just about at their most brilliant, and this weekend  - today actually - we're hoping to drive up to Kenosha Pass where there are huge Aspen groves that should be spectacular. Anyway, the hike was pretty strenuous - six miles is a good hike by anyone's definition, especially at this altitude.  Daphne was starting to feel pretty "rugged" and proud of herself for making it up to the top of the trail. . . until we passed several groups of elderly women in their 80's who were shuffling along with their walking sticks.  Oh well, so much for pride!  Daphne's birthday present (other than the hike and time with Sharon) was the
full set of the TV series on Daniel Boone that was
produced back in the 50's.  She absolutely loves it, and now I've got to compete with Fess Parker (who plays Daniel Boone) for her affections.  I personally think she's smitten.

Several mornings a week around 7 am I drive around this area looking for the herds of elk, and hoping I can get some good shots of the bulls in rut.  Yesterday I went out with our friend Danny, who used to live next to us when we rented a house out in Bailey.  Danny is an avid hunter, and he has several elk calls - both a bugle call and one for the cows that sounds like some kind of loud bird.  We drove around until we spotted a herd grazing on the Evergreen golf course lawn.  There's a big bull that I've found several times, and he is distinctive by the curious crooked tine he has on the end of his right antler.  This particular bull is very aggressive during the rutting season, so I always have to be careful not to approach him too closely.  I was taking pictures of the same bull a couple of days ago, and met up with a man named Allen who's been following him for years.  Allen told me that a woman was attacked by a bull elk last year as she got out of her car in her own driveway.  Apparently,

she was on her cellphone and wasn't paying attention, and she didn't see the bull elk just outside her car.  As she exited the vehicle the bull charged her and gave her one rake with his antlers.  Looking at the size of the antlers on the left, you can imagine how easily she could have been killed.  She apparently suffered a puncture wound in her abdomen, as well as a broken nose.  I'm surprised these kind of attacks don't happen more often when consider how many bull elk there are in our area, and in what close proximity they have to humans every day.

I will be leaving a week from today to conduct a crisis management training in San Marcus, Texas with Cypress Creek Church.  I'm excited about this opportunity, especially as I'll be able to spend some time with Mike and Myra McCoy since Cypress Creek is their home church.  The last thing I need to work on for the training is also the most difficult - to create a crisis scenario exercise for the group on the last half-day of the training.  I want the exercise to be as realistic as possible, because the goal is to get the participants to "feel" the stress and tension that a true crisis invariably creates.  This particular church sends teams to Kenya almost every summer, so I should be able to come up with something good considering that I lived there for eight years!

My Nephew Aaron, his fiancee Minette and my nephew William are all coming up to spend the night with us tonight.  We haven't had any time with Aaron  - on his own - ever, and we've never gotten to know his fiancee. Should be a fund day!  I'll have to exercise great self-control to choose to spend time with them and not watch the Auburn-Clemson game this evening!  They are the priority today -- and I can always watch the reply later in the evening, as long as no one calls me to comment on the game ;)

Don't Mess With Me!

This morning Daphne joined me on a dawn hunt for Elk in rut.  We drove all over kingdom-come to find a herd of elk that I could photograph, and we finally came across several bulls in competition for a small group of cows only a couple miles from our house.  The dominant bull was on the right side of the road, bugling his challenge to two younger bulls on the opposite side of the road.  We pulled over on the shoulder and I jumped out to get some shots - hoping I could catch them fighting.  Well, the main bull was closer than I realized, and as I stepped around the truck he saw the movement and came up the embankment towards me with a determined look in his eyes.  I jumped behind the truck and took the picture above - and he then swung his head back and forth and knocked branches off the trees and dug at the ground with his antlers.  I don't speak elk, but I didn't need a translator to catch his meaning: "Don't mess with me!"   We sat there for the better part of 30 minutes watching the mexican standoff between the three bulls - but the two challengers never engaged with the dominant bull.  This being my first time to see the elk in rut, I wonder how often the bulls actually fight.  So far it hasn't happened when we've been present, but sooner or later the dominant bull has to lose the fight to a

younger bull.  I know now to keep a healthy distance from these huge animals, especially when their hormones are raging.  We were amazed by how loud the bugling is when you're close up.  We could also hear a strange sound like someone knocking two pieces of wood together, and then we realized the noise was coming from the main bull's panting breath.  Good thing the mating season only lasts a couple of weeks, because I doubt he ever takes the time to eat or rest while he's watching his ladies.  Just goes to show why polygamy is a bad idea!

Journey Racing Team

One of the things I love about our church is that we like to have fun, and we'll try just about anything to bring people together.  Not far from Conifer is the Bandemere Raceway - a quarter mile drag racing track that runs along the base of the foothills.  The fastest cars (and especially the motorcycles) can run the quarter mile in 9 seconds . . our car can do it in 14 (which translates to around 100 miles an hour). Our church's car is a 1967 Dodge Coronet that's been stripped down to the bare minimum.  The original engine has been replaced by an RV engine, so it has a huge amount of power.  The goal of having our own car is not just to win races, but to include kids and adults from church who can help in rebuilding the car, or learn how to drive in a drag race.  It's also a way to build a sense of community ( and bring along our friends who may never darken the door of a church). Anyone who has a valid drivers' license can drive on Wednesdays,  and you'll see just about every make and model of vehicle at the track.  Wednesdays are "Test-N-Tune" nights, which for most people means an opportunity to push their car to its limits prior to race day, and fix the inevitable problems. Although I didn't drive last time (I'm planning to drive this Wednesday) I had a great time watching the whole atmosphere.   I've invited my friend Bob to join me, and he is really excited at the idea of driving a car at the Bandemere track.  It's not WHAT you know, it's WHO you know, right?  There's just something primal deep inside most men that yearns to drive at high speeds in a controlled environment -- in other words, we all want to RACE!  Ohhh yeah baby! 

Tomorrow is Daphne's birthday, and to celebrate the day she and I are driving back up to Estes Park to go on a six mile hike with our dear friend Sharon.  The weather is looking like it will be perfect, so it should be a great day.

Wild Weekend

We won't soon forget this past weekend!  On Sunday afternoon we drove down the hill to meet my sister Cathi, her husband Gary and my niece Beka at Water World.  I've been to some water parks in the past, but this place made them look minuscule - it is enormous.  We could not have possibly gone on every water slide in the park, but we went on several and we had an blast.  Two rides stick out in my mind as I think about our "wet and wild" afternoon: the first is called "Voyage to the center of the earth, "which is built entirely indoors and underground.  Of course, you have to pick up your large, three man inner tube at the bottom of the ride where everyone is getting out, and carry it (push it, drag it, roll it) all the way to the top.  Once you climb - with considerably difficulty - into the inner tube, the ride takes you down a series of large, downward spiraling chutes - and in between the chutes there are animatronic dinosaurs to keep things interesting.  I was in a tube with Nicole and Jacqueline.  I'm sure Jacqueline looked up a time or two, but for most of the ride she kept her head down in the tube and screamed at the top of her lungs.  It was hilarious.  The second, noteworthy ride is called "The Lazy River" . . . and you can probably understand why this one appealed to all the adults!  Now, it would (theoretically) be a nice, lazy, slow ride in an inner tube around a circular "river".  But throw in a billion people on tubes all jostling for position and you've got a rubber traffic jam.  Once you get separated from your group - good luck trying to find them again.  So you end up floating along with some guy with a beer belly and 500 tattoos, or Billy Bob's cousin - only with fewer teeth.  I talked with one guy who had a tattoo on his shoulder of the crown of thorns and three spikes which, he explained, illustrates his Christian beliefs.  He then told me how his next tattoo would cover his whole back - a picture of the entire zodiac calendar...??

But the most interesting part of the day came at the end.  Around 2:45 we all met back at the cabana that Cathi had rented for the day, and Cathi and Daphne told us to look through our things because they'd  seen a woman going into our cabana a few minutes earlier (they were in the pool at the time).  When they confronted her, she made up some story about getting mixed up with her cabana.  We discovered that Daphne's Amex card was missing, and when I called American Express they said that there had been around 10 charges made or attempted, starting two hours earlier!  So, this woman had come into our cabana, taken the card and then tried to charge several things in the park, and then at stores just outside the park.  Then she came back into the park and tried several more again, and apparently when Cathi and Daphne saw her she was looking for our zip code because the charges wouldn't go through with the wrong code.  We called security, and eventually had a police woman come to take our report.  Long story short:  they found the woman STILL in the park, sitting by another pool with her child.  She did such a good job of bluffing anger that Daphne wasn't 100% sure it was her, but in hindsight we know it was.  She's either the bravest or most stupid thief I've ever heard of, making multiple charges on the card and still hanging around the same park!  Even though to our knowledge she wasn't charged, it made for an interesting end to our day.

Rocky Mountain Adventure

On Monday we drove up to Estes Park to visit our friend Sharon McElwain (who previously worked with us in France) and for me to hopefully take some photos of the elk in rut.  We had a short visit with Sharon, and a very cold and windy picnic (see pictures below: Daphne kind of looks like the unabomber with her hoodie and sunglasses!) - but no luck with finding any elk.  We decided to drive home over Trailridge Road - which has got to be one of the most magnificent panoramic roads in the world.  Well, right on top of the mountain we came across a herd of elk with a large bull - and a second challenger bull who was making his way down to towards the herd.  The first bull outweighed the challenger by a good bit, and he was able to convince him to change his mind without a fight.  I got some great photos of both of them.  Then further down near Winter Park we came across a cow Moose with two calves, which was our first time to see moose in the wild.  It was a great day.
     The only down side was that I forgot to take my medicated patches, which meant I was up literally all night pacing the floor - I only got to sleep around 7 am.  Daphne and I prayed and prayed, and I ended up in tears in the wee hours of the morning - not just for myself and the frustration of this never- ending battle, but I was weeping for my brother John who suffers from chronic pain.  Although our ailments are of different natures, we seem to be living in parallel worlds of physical struggles - and have been for several years.  God has placed a very strong burden on Daphne's heart (and now mine as well) to believe God for complete healing from my restless leg syndrome.  This is perhaps the first time in our marriage when I am following Daphne's heart and what she's heard from the Lord, since in the past she has tended to follow the promptings I have felt from the Holy Spirit.  I have never seen her so convinced about something, nor so tenacious in her prayers.  Her firm belief that she's heard from the Lord has brought me to the same conviction - so that is how we continue to pray.  And I find myself often, in the early hours of the morning, praying the same for John.

Freezing Picnic in Rocky Mountain Park

Master of his Harem

The Challenger

Magnificent Bull

Cow moose with both calves

Lion Hunt

We had some excitement this evening; just as I walked in the door, the phone rang and it was Emily who's on staff at our church (and who lives next door).  She said her husband Sterling was looking off their deck and saw a fox meandering by.  Suddenly, the fox stopped dead in its tracks and stared down into the woods. Sterling followed its gaze, and about 50 yards away in a clearing he was shocked to see a large cougar.  It was walking slowly in the general direction of our house.  I jumped back in the truck with my girls, and we raced over to their house and picked up three more.  Just as we were pulling out of our driveway our Pastor's wife Amy pulled in to use our printer, and I asked her to let our beagle inside as she would make a tasty hors d'oeuvre for a hungry cougar!

We drove all over our neighbors property of 50 acres, but other than a couple of mule deer there was no sign of the mountain lion.  Still, it's exciting to know that they're in the area!  We're going to go back out after dark to see if we can spot it.  We're wondering if it was after the mule deer, but the deer obviously hadn't caught the cougar's scent because they were calmly nibbling on the trees and shrubs.  They would have been miles away if they had any idea who was lurking in the neighborhood!  Who knows - maybe we'll spot the lion after dark.

I submitted several of my paintings to a local gallery to be reviewed, as I'd heard they are looking for another artist to display.  I heard back from them a few days ago, and they decided that my work does not fit in with the gallery.  Of course, they have the right to accept or reject any artist based upon their own evaluation, and based upon the general theme of the gallery.  I would not have minded a simply "Not our style", or "We do not need an oil artist at this time."  Unfortunately, they added a final paragraph with some practical tips to improve my oil painting technique, and a final note "Good raw talent!".  The note bothered me, simply because I was not requesting an art lesson.  I've been painting for over 35 years and while another artist may not appreciate my particular style, I found the note to be inappropriate at best - and downright rude at worst.    I'm planning to write a letter back to the gallery to express my sentiments, and to encourage those on the jury to treat potential artists as professionals and not as middle school art students.

Nicole and I went back out after dark - we saw an enormous buck, but no lion.