Hello Everyone!

I am not sure if the intent was to help us forget the advance of time, because we were, afterall, ??Ǩ?on vacation.??Ǩ There were very few anywhere in Alaska, clocks, that is. Well, I certainly didn??Ǩ?Ѣt expect timepieces to chime on the hour in the vast wilderness. Yet honestly??Ǩ?hotels, restaurants, museums, stores, and every mode of transportation??Ǩ?civilization was significantly clock deficient. I did notice the cruise ship had a few strategically placed wall clocks in all of the most out-of-the-way places. They did have, however, an interesting way of marking time. Each morning a large floor-mat with the day of the week woven in the fabric was placed in the elevators.

I may have been more acutely aware of this unusual phenomenon because my $10 Wal-Mart digital clock, calendar, stop-watch, alarm with custom-fit band and gloss black plastic case special absolutely refused to keep Alaska time. I complied, setting it to local time, only to discover the next morning (when the alarm buzzed) that it had mysteriously re-set itself to the Eastern time zone. Why did thoughts of its burial at sea come to mind? It is possible this watch was confused because of the proximity of the magnetic pole (and that it probably needed a new battery), but I just don??Ǩ?Ѣt know.

Do you know how annoying you become when you are always asking, ??Ǩ?what time is it???Ǩ That question rates right up there with ??Ǩ?how much longer???Ǩ when driving! Just because the crew only marks off the day of the week doesn??Ǩ?Ѣt mean that a watch is not a necessity aboard a ship. Every event and activity is marked by a beginning time. How would I know without a timekeeper? And, if you had thoughts of suggesting I use the Pioneer method of telling time by the sun??Ǩ?you can just forget that! In Fairbanks, some wag must have enjoyed listing each day??Ǩ?Ѣs time for sunset and sunrise. The day we were there, the sun was scheduled to set at 12:36 AM, with its encore performance beginning at 3:15 AM. Who can tell time with an inaccurate sun like that?

Having extended daylight created an all out war between body and mind, though. Alarmed that it might be 11:30 PM the body demands in agony and torment, ??Ǩ?put me to bed, now;??Ǩ while the mind reasons, ??Ǩ?but look, there??Ǩ?Ѣs the sun in the middle of the sky??Ǩ?it??Ǩ?Ѣs not that late??Ǩ?there??Ǩ?Ѣs lots to see and do, keep going!??Ǩ

From our equatorial frame of reference, it seems abnormal for the sun not to set at a respectable hour, nor to rise with the roosters. God??Ǩ?Ѣs first creative act was ??Ǩ?let there be light, and there was light.??Ǩ It wasn??Ǩ?Ѣt until the fourth day that He created the sun and moon. Later, He promised winter and summer, cold and heat, and seedtime and harvest would continue for our benefit. God established a pattern that is still effective and on course today. For our Alaskan friends, the length of the day is not so unusual, because most have endured the opposite??Ǩ?extended hours of night throughout the long, cold, silent winter months.

Sun-lover that I am, I don??Ǩ?Ѣt think I would like several months of night. I can??Ǩ?Ѣt imagine 22 hours of darkness with only 2 faint hours of light. Besides, I don??Ǩ?Ѣt know how to treat moon-burn; sunburn, on the other hand, I can adequately treat well! The prospect of an arctic winter is enticing and would make for another interesting vacation.

The extended daylight in Alaska helped me understand something about eternity, too. There will be no darkness there, not even minimally. Nor will there be need for the sun, seasons, or time because Jesus will be the Light. Kids will not need to reason with their parents why they should be allowed to stay up until it gets dark because the Light will never set. Mind and body will cease their tug-of-war because neither will ever become tired.

For me, that is more difficult to imagine than round-the-clock darkness. Of course, I don??Ǩ?Ѣt expect God will have a use for clocks, either. Starting time will always be at His beckoning. Just to humor us, I do hope He lets the old prospector keep his sunrise/sunset charting job. I??Ǩ?Ѣm not sure what it will say or do. It might simply remind us of the necessary constraint of time. I wonder if we will even use phrases like ??Ǩ?long ago??Ǩ and ??Ǩ?far away??Ǩ?

Hello Everyone!

Some have noticed it has been a month since I have sent the bulletin and news from us. If you have been wondering what happened, I would like to give you a reasonable excuse, that is, explanation.

You should have heard from us on June 26th. But, there was no bulletin that day for anyone, neither paper nor electronic. I can??Ǩ?Ѣt remember the last time there was no printed bulletin (and, frankly, I??Ǩ?Ѣm not going to research when that was either).

If you want someone to blame??Ǩ?talk to God! He is the one who made each day 24 hours and I haven??Ǩ?Ѣt yet figured out how to cram 36 hours worth of ??Ǩ?stuff??Ǩ into 24 (and you can be sure I have tried, but there is some natural law He invented and enforces about being limited to time and space??Ǩ?how on earth did Jesus do it?).

The week preceding June 26th, I had the additional privilege of preparing two sermons, since the Rigsbys would be in Hawai??Ǩ?Ѣi for their son??Ǩ?Ѣs wedding. Curtis and Naoko are now married, and in Japan for a couple of months. We are happy for them and extend our congratulations again to the newlyweds! Thankfully, all that is remembered of the sermons is that they are over. Murmurings continue, however, about the absence of the bulletin. Fortunately, grumbling turned to shouts of joy and sighs of relief the very next Sunday when Pastor Rigsby once again returned to preach!

I wasn??Ǩ?Ѣt very good at spinning all the plates. In fact, I didn??Ǩ?Ѣt even try to prepare bulletins ahead of time for the two Sundays I would be gone, July 3rd and 10th (and I came close to not getting this one ready for the 17th). As it is, I am already into next week and still working to finish last week.

Where was I? I was with my family??Ǩ?dad, mom, Teri and her family, Kenneth and his family, all twelve of us??Ǩ?celebrating our parent??Ǩ?Ѣs Fiftieth Wedding Anniversary (although Brother Byrd did erroneously write ??Ǩ?July??Ǩ on the marriage license, so maybe being married 50 years isn??Ǩ?Ѣt quite official just yet).

They wanted the family to do something together??Ǩ?and we did??Ǩ?in a (uncharacteristically for us) grand way. June 29th, we flew to Anchorage, Alaska to begin a twelve-day land tour and cruise of our 49th State. Our travels took us by train through thick forest, over glacial rivers and along salmon filled streams to Mt. McKinley; by bus into the wilderness and tundra of Denali National Park (even the wildlife didn??Ǩ?Ѣt disappoint us too much), by jet boat into some back-country (where the mosquitoes are monstrous and fur trapping is lucrative); by a paddle-wheel steam ship along a river in Fairbanks (makes you wonder how the city got its name, doesn??Ǩ?Ѣt it?); by tour bus down the Alaskan Highway to Seward, where we boarded the ms Ryndam, which sailed through College Fjord and Glacier Bay National Park (why is it called ??Ǩ?calving??Ǩ?), and made port in Sitka (some caught halibut and one shark, others toured the city, driving all fourteen miles of paved road), Juneau (where we helicoptered to and walked on a glacier; some even dogsledded), and Ketchikan (salmon were the catch that day, and the lumberjacks??Ǩ?Ѣ performance was entertaining) before we disembarked in Vancouver, where we transferred to the airport for the flight home on July 10th.

Well, this is the best excuse I can give, what with the short notice and all. It isn??Ǩ?Ѣt very imaginative, but I know I could have done better, if that mosquito hadn??Ǩ?Ѣt have bit me!