Much to tell. But where to start?

The picture above is me, last week. Wandering in the wilderness.

On January 6th I rose before dawn and drove alone to Palo Duro Canyon State Park in the Texas panhandle for a few days of solitude, inventory-taking, prayer, and blessed isolation from media bombardment. I had rented one of the old stone cabins that the CCC built back in the 1930s–they hang on the rim of the canyon with a 700 foot vertical drop right outside the window.

They are very spartan–a bed, two wooden chairs, a small refigerator and microwave, and a fireplace in each of the cabin’s two rooms. No phone. No television. No internet, of course. And not even a mobile phone signal unless I walked about 100 yards to the top of a nearby hill.

But what it lacked in frills, it more that compensated me in inspiration. This was the side view from the porch.

Bible, notebook, pen, a little food and water–and I was set. I did regret failing to take my binoculars and a proper camera. I ended up having to shoot these pictures with the little one-megapixel camera in my mobile phone. But I think you can get a sense of the place . . .

I was blessed with perfect weather on this trip. Chilly 30s at night which made a fire welcome. Mid-60s during the day for walking the trails and climbing stuff. My second day there, I hiked and climbed up to a famous rock formation called, for obvious reasons, “The Lighthouse.”

Being early January, I pretty much had the park to myself. For several days the only human voice I heard was my own, in ultra-frank conversation with the gracious God who’s gotten way too small a share of my time and attention over the last couple of years. And I heard His voice, too . . . more clearly than in many, many years.

Just a few hours after my arrival on the first day, I sat at the edge of a dancing, singing stream (I later learned it was the Prairie Dog Town Fork of the Red River), took a deep breath of crisp, clear air, looked past terracotta and salmon-striped cliffs up to an implausibly blue sky and said exactly what I was thinking:

“This is a good thing.”

And it was.

. . . sort of. 

The question is, did posterity and I just lose 18 months worth of soul-baring, wit, and profundity? That would be . . . unfortunate.

“Backups?,” you ask. I’ll get back to you on that.

First the sober part.

I don’t claim any special insight (natural or spiritual) into the future but I strongly suspect we’re in for a truly wild ride this year. After all, we’re only three days into 2009 and we already have a shooting war going in the Middle East with Israeli tanks rolling in Gaza.

Not to be Mr. buzz kill or an alarmist, but here’s what I’m anticipating for the coming year based upon my extensive reading and my expanding gut:

Economy–More shocks and convulsions. Lot’s of volatility in the markets and at some point, a whipsaw out of our current deflationary recession into inflation with a vengeance. Why? Check out this graph of the money supply courtesy of the Federal Reserve. Or this one.

There will be increasing use of the D-word (Depression).And  I wouldn’t be surprised to see a few riots in some urban areas in which both unemployment and a union-legacy sense of entitlement are running high.

Russia–will continue its ongoing policy of creating headaches and hazards for the United States at every possible point around the world. And they will deliver that “international crisis” Joe Biden warned about a few months ago.

China–is headed for some ugly economic territory and they are already experiencing unrest among the masses.

Iran–has been fighting a proxy war against Israel with Hamas as the proxy — and Israel has finally decided to fight back. Israel will crush Hamas (with Fatah Palestinians, Egypt, Jordan and the Saudis silently cheering) and then it will turn its attention directly to Iran (again with the Sunni Arab powers publically condemning while quietly approving and even assisting.)

Of course, the potential for all of the above has the survivalists, conspiratorialists, apocolypticists and anti-semites worked into a frothy lather.

So let me be clear that I do not expect any of the following in the next 12 to 24 months: martial law, a bird flu pandemic, a barter economy with food and gold, the break up of the United States, the rise of our Jewish overlords, the rise of our Bilderberger overlords, the rise of our Raelian overlords, or the rise of “the machines.”

I do expect that as a nation and as a people, will see sterner times than my generation has known or  thought it ever would know.

So why the optimism?

I’m optimistic because I am a “Kingdom” man and stern times present Kingdom opportunities.  Because God’s mercies are new every morning. Because the path of the just is like the dawn–growing brighter and brighter until the full day (Prov. 4:18). Because Jacob sowed in famine and reaped 100-fold in the same year (Genesis 26). Because “everyone who hears these words of Mine and acts on them, may be compared to a wise man who built his house on the rock. And the rain fell, and the floods came, and the winds blew and slammed against that house; and yet it did not fall.”

So let the adventure begin.

Maintaining (or neglecting) three or four blogs apparently isn’t enough for me. I recently succumbed to peer pressure and started a Facebook page. If you’re on Facebook, look me up here. You’ll find family photos and such.

A glutton for virtual punishment, I also started a Twitter feed a while back. If you don’t know what that is, then you probably wouldn’t be interested in it anyway.

I have now provided so many electronic windows into my soul that I’m living in a glass house.

My girls go to Faith Christian School in Grapevine, Texas. Female Offspring Unit #1 graduated there–Class of Ought Seven. FOU #2 graduates this Spring. FOU #3 will be Class of 2012 (seven months under the wire for the destruction of the universe according to the Mayan “Long Count” calendar! But I digress . . .)

Recently ESPN’s “Life of Reilly” column shared a pretty cool story about Faith’s football team. Check it out.

A startlingly honest and clear-headed essay in the The Times of London. The headline:

As an atheist, I truly believe Africa needs God:
Missionaries, not aid money, are the solution to Africa’s biggest problem – the crushing passivity of the people’s mindset

An excerpt:

Now a confirmed atheist, I’ve become convinced of the enormous contribution that Christian evangelism makes in Africa: sharply distinct from the work of secular NGOs, government projects and international aid efforts. These alone will not do. Education and training alone will not do. In Africa Christianity changes people’s hearts. It brings a spiritual transformation. The rebirth is real. The change is good.

Do read the whole thing:

 Watched It’s a Wonderful Life for the millionteenth time the other night. A couple of years ago we picked up the new digitally-mastered, THX version. It’s amazing how much better this edition looks after having grown up watching the grainy, dusty panned and zoomed copies on television.

As we started the DVD the other night, I told the family that I was going to try to “see” something in the film I’ve never noticed before. I did in this scene in which Mr. Potter offers George a job . . .

Do you see it too?  Apparently the set director thought we might need a little help figuring out who the bad guy is in this film. So every time the camera shoots over Potter’s shoulder, we see this this guy staring at us:

What’s up with that freaky thing? It has a chain, for pete’s sake.

Out of curiosity, I decided to see if there was anything on the internets about this prop. I googled “skull paperweight Mr. Potter’s desk” and got one hit. It was a review of the digitally mastered edition DVD I had purchased. One line in the middle of the review read:

This strikingly beautiful remastering draws you in all over again, letting you relive George Bailey’s despair and take in details like the skull paperweight on the desk of twisted Mr. Potter.

Well, imagine that.

I’m sure there’s a story behind that paperweight. I’d love to hear it sometime.

On Friday Mrs. Blather and I marked our 21st wedding anniversary. As is our custom, we threw some clothes in garment bag and headed out for our annual overnight getaway. It’s a tradition we started 13 or so years ago when we still lived in Minneapolis and the girls were still quite small.

In those early days, we’d get an overnight babysitter and head to one of the many B&Bs in Stillwater, Minnesota. Stillwater is a charming historic town filled with antique shops and art galleries on bluffs overlooking the St. Croix river on the Minnesota-Wisconsin border.

Now, no babysitters are necessary and slipping away for 24 hours of shopping, dining and enjoying each other’s company is less of an exercise in logistics. This particular long weekend was packed with stuff that we found fascinating, and others will possibly find mildly non-boring.

• First, we grabbed lunch at a great restaurant at trendy Inwood Village spot called Rise No. 1 and ended up sitting about three feet away from former Facts of Life star, Lisa Whelchel. (We pretended to be oblivious to who she was but couldn’t help noticing that she prayed over her meal and talked about God pretty much the whole time she was there.)
• Later that afternoon we checked into the W Hotel, across from the American Airlines Center and immediately learned that some rapper by the name of Li’l Wayne (great-grandson of Li’l Abner, I presume) is staying at the hotel and will be performing at the AAC that night. We were offered tickets but politely declined.
• We had one of the best meals we’ve had in a long time here.
• Saturday night was the Dallas Cowboys’ final game in Texas Stadium and a friend was kind enough to invite us to join him, his lovely wife, and a few other couples in one of those skybox suites. It was a great place to watch a historic game, even though the Cowboys’ performance was more akin to a Greek tragedy than an exhibition of football. Again, massive quantities of food were a part of this event–a new wave of foods comes out every quarter–and you will be stunned to learn that I felt obligated to sample all of it.
• Sunday afternoon we had a few friends over and had a promise ring ceremony for my youngest daughter, FOU #3 who is 15. Everyone brought . . . wait for it . . . foods of many types and forms! It would have been bad form for me to not try a little of everyone’s wares.
• Per the pattern we’ve established with her older sisters, FOU #3 and I had a “date night” later on that evening.  It was great.  We went to the Gaylord Texan hotel, looked at the amazing Christmas lights, and had a lovely meal. Yes, that’s right. A meal. What’s your point?

As I said . . . It was quite a weekend. I think I’ll hit the gym today.

Penn Jillette (of Penn & Teller) is an outspoken athiest–often a rather militant one. But he makes a good point in this webcam confessional and shows some refreshing intellectual honesty.

Have a look.