Life, also, is good in this marriage experience. While I don’t expect this blog to become a journal of marired life, that reality will be evident, of course. Faulkner now has an indoor counterpart named Minou, Debra’s black cat for the last 15 years. That brings new appreciation for the Get Fuzzy comic strip.

Sharing photos has become difficult with the slowness of iPhoto on this old computer. A new one is in sight, but it might still be a while before funds make it possible. When it happens, I’ll pick a few representative photos of the wedding and the Texas trip to share.

Thank you for the comments about Balance, both here and on Facebook. I look forward to renewing meaningful written exchange with you before another long time passes.

Releasing oneself through the helplessness of prayer is such a good start.

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Most of you have been going to the grocery store long enough to know that “Contents May Settle.” As a result of this settling, there are so many more raisins at the bottom of the box than at the top. Raisin Bran is what I’m talking about, in case you didn’t know. (Yes, here’s another opening ramble from the breakfast musings of your pastor.) And these aren’t just regular dried grapes; they’re raisins that have been sweetened to the point of rendering them almost candy. Wow! What a difference there is between both the taste and the nutrition content from the top and the bottom of the cereal box. Could somebody check my blood sugar, please?

You’ve probably noticed the same thing with other products. When you buy potato chips, you get half a bag of free air as a bonus. The chips huddle at the bottom and scrape their salt from one another, creating an oily, salty slick of crumbs that could cure meat.

This type of gravity-induced retreat from the mouth of the eater happens in many products, including some which aren’t even food, like laundry detergent. That’s why dry contents are measured by weight, not by volume.

What method, would you say, do most Christians use to measure their contents? …by weight, or by volume? That’s a throwaway question really, because talk about “most Christians” does not help us get to a point of personal faith impact. What we really need to consider is how we measure our own content. Weight is a matter of substance, how much stuff is really there. Volume is a matter of how much room you take up. Volume, also, is a matter of how loud you get (another way of filling space).

How are you measuring the contents you carry? And has the shelf life of your contents caused a settling that maybe compromises the real value of what is there? It’s just a question…I need to go brush my teeth.

Ta da!

It began during the river trip on Saturday with this:

…a basketball floating down the Catawba river, like thousands of others have done in the past. After determining its species (Spaulding), I released it to continue its migration.

When I finished on Saturday, I didn’t take the kayak off of the Frontier, hoping I might have a chance to go again on Sunday after worship. And that’s the way it worked out. The upper body exercise from the paddle movement felt great, and the seasonal scenes again blessed my awareness.

Suddenly, there was this:

I don’t have a football, so I thought this might be a cool, free find. But when I picked it up, water squirted out along the laces; it was too far gone. It posed for this shot before jumping back in.

Very shortly after the football, there was this:

Yes, folks, that’s a Care Bears ball. I wonder how long that’s been waiting in the woods for a flood to set it afloat.

I continued into the river’s western curve around the big island, different from Saturday’s eastern route.

On the way back down the eastern bank, something caught my eye over by the grass.

Until the very end of 2008, I don’t think I ever had a soccer ball of my own. That’s when I found a nice one in the dunes at Ocracoke, while exploring with Debra, Bryan, and Laurie. Then, when kayaking with Debra on the Catawba River back in the summer, I found one that was in pretty good shape, and kept it. Now here was a solid blue one just waiting to be found, like a watermelon in a cotton field. I manuevered the kayak close to shore, between the two stumps and clump of roots, hoping the ball was not too waterlogged.

Now I have three!

And just before heading in to land, this floated by:

(Here’s an article that gives a little background of this phenomenon.)

(And this one has a related picture.)

Here is a slough entering the river, made more accessable by the raised water level. Having not been back there before, I decided to explore while the passage was navagable.

I find places like this really beautiful.

I threaded my way through some fallen trees into a deeper place, contemplating the stillness. But I wasn’t there long before a truck approached, unseen behind the trees to my right. Not knowing who they were or how hospitable they might be to my presence in “their” woods, I turned the Q700X around while the truck growled its way through whatever mud it found. You might remember that this kayak is quick, so I was back to the river entrance before they were finished parking. I would find other stillness, perhaps.

I crossed the river and came farther upstream to this passage between two islands, a place I’ve kayaked and photographed several previous times. The flow was impressive, sounding like rapids in places where tree branches filtered the current.

Readers may recognize the scene, though with different foliage than in earlier postings.

As I floated back downstream after 5:00, darkness came much earlier to the west bank than the east.

This was a very good day on the river.