An Early Autumn Cloudy Afternoon

Regarding the Presidential Debates

Sitting on a sofa on a Sunday afternoon.
Going to the candidates' debate.
Laugh about it, shout about it
When you've got to choose
Every way you look at this you lose.

~ Simon & Garfunkel, "Mrs. Robinson"

Alaska Trip 2016

All of the pictures and one video from our recent three week visit to Alaska can be found here. Enjoy!

Of This and That...

I just deleted one of the posts from this blog that was originally published back on December 12, 2013. It was somewhat of a popular and a bit controversial post, but I came to the conclusion it really no longer served any positive useful purpose. Yes, I know some thought it never served any positive useful purpose to begin with, but I respectfully disagree with that assessment, and would cite their own protests as proof to the contrary.

My wife and I got back home yesterday after a three week visit to our daughter and family who moved to Alaska back at the end of June. They live in a small town in the interior where "going to town" means a 2 1/2 to 3 hour trip to the Palmer/Wasilla/Anchorage area. Words and pictures are inadequate to describe Alaska. I fell like I just got back from another world; another country. At this point in my life I could not and would not live there year around, but am thankful for the opportunities we have had to visit there. Our last visit before this trip was 16 years ago. It is a beautiful wild wilderness of a country, and I love being there and seeing it.

I have said very little about politics. I have no favor for either of the major party candidates, nor will I allow my conscience to be bound by the specious and mathematically flawed argument that a vote for a third party candidate is a vote for Hillary Clinton and her goosestepping minions. The electoral college diminishes greatly the influence of any one individual vote, especially in those states where the electoral college vote is allocated on the "winner takes all" basis which the vast majority of the states use. Whoever "wins" God still rules over the affairs of mankind and part of His judgement on a wicked secular materialistic nation wrapped up in its own hubris will be to give that nation the rulers such a nation thinks it wants and let us as a nation bear the consequence thereof.

Current Reading: "We Believe: Recovering the Essentials of the Apostles' Creed"; Michael Horton; (Word Publishing, 1998). Good stuff so far. I would encourage you to read it if you have not already.

Copper River Valley & Wrangell Mountian Range

This video was taken from the Copper River Bluffs near Glennallen Alaska. The Wrangell Mountain range is about 28 miles away from wheere I was standing. For a sense of perspective, Mt. Wrangell reaches a height of 2.4 miles.

An Alaska Landscape

View from Glennallen, Alaska USA

Stegman Creek

On Being an Autism Grandfather

For some time I’ve been meaning to sit down and write about my grand-daughter. She was our first grandchild. When we heard some 16 years ago that we had a grand-daughter we were excited. We looked forward expectantly to the Grandparents role with all the assumptions of normalcy; a grand-daughter who I could bounce on my knee, we could buy fancy dolls for, who we would read stories to and all the normal things a Grandfather does with a Grand-daughter.

But our Grand-daughter was not normal. Our daughter, her mother, noticed it when our first grandson came along. He developed differently than his older sister. She was obviously not where she should be in terms of “normal” development. And so we entered the world of autism. Our expectations of “normalcy” in relation to our grand-daughter were shattered. I have grieved and still to some degree grieve what could have been but was not.

We always hear of the "success stories"; the autistic children that respond well to this therapy or that therapy or some "miracle program" and we are happy for them. But as our grand-daughter grew older, hope for "the miracle" has faded considerably. I don't totally rule out a miracle, but neither do I hold my breath waiting and hoping for one.

We observed the strain her autism has been on our daughter’s family as well as ourselves. Her sibling brother at an early age sensed and felt the anxiety and uncertainty autism brought into his family. He too shared the emotional burden and psychological strain. We often were there to provide much needed respite time for her mother. There were some very extremely difficult times, but somehow by the mercy and grace of God we as an extended family pulled through.

Yes I do love her; autism and all. She is very very special. I think she knows I love her, and in her own way has expressed her love for me. If she was on the verbal end of the autism spectrum perhaps it would have been a little easier, but she is on the non-verbal part of the autism spectrum, and though there has been speech therapy and other things, she remains non-verbal. I have never heard her say, “I love you Grandpa…” She has expressed love to me in other ways and for that I am thankful, but I still feel a loss.

I don’t know why this happened. It just is, and despite all, she was created in God’s image and as such, her life has meaning, purpose and value in and of herself as a being created in the image of God. I pray for her just as much as I pray for her two younger “normal” brothers. My hope is that in the resurrection when all things are restored to the fullness of what they were meant to be, that I will finally hear those words I have so longed to hear…

“I love you Grandpa…”

Who do you trust?

 

Thus says the Lord: 

  “Cursed is the man who trusts in man  and makes flesh his strength,  whose heart turns away from the Lord.   He is like a shrub in the desert,  and shall not see any good come.  He shall dwell in the parched places of the wilderness,  in an uninhabited salt land.   

 Blessed is the man who trusts in the Lord,  whose trust is the Lord.  He is like a tree planted by water,  that sends out its roots by the stream,  and does not fear when heat comes,  for its leaves remain green,  and is not anxious in the year of drought,    for it does not cease to bear fruit.”   

~ Jeremiah 17:5-8

A St. Louis Sunset

We had been driving all day, a good 8 hours from our home in Michigan, and we still had a few hours to go to get to our overnight in Springfield, Missouri. We were taking I-255 to go around the south side of St. Louis. As we passed by on the Illinois side of the Mississippi River, there low on the horizon was the St. Louis skyline with the famous St. Louis Arch; way off in the distance across the Mississippi River in Missouri. Though St. Louis beckoned, we could not stop. We hurried on; the road ever beckoning. I had "miles to go before I sleep".