Archive for July, 2004

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Published
by
Mike
on July 1, 2004
in General
. 39 Comments

Blog Classic . . . I wrote this last summer before Matt and Wade held my hand and walked me through the technology of adding comments. Now that we have a sort of blog community forming . . . well, please, jump in here and tell us about your sacred places.

Last night in “Peak of the Week,” Randy Halstead spoke about “sacred places.” That resonated with me, especially since I’d written about one sacred place in Monday’s journal. But I got to thinking about other sacred places in my life: Green Valley Bible Camp (where I went every year as a kid), Glen Eyrie (a retreat center in Colorado Springs), Serra Retreat Center in Malibu (where I like to go pray and walk the stations of the cross), Megan’s grave, Highland’s sanctuary, and the dining room at Darryl and Anne Tippens’s old house. Now our covenant group rotates homes, but for a few years, we always met there since their kids were raised. It was/is a place of joy, of prayer, of hope, of grief, and of connecting.

Now I’m wondering . . . What sacred places do you have in your life?

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Published
by
Mike
on July 1, 2004
in General
. 10 Comments

Need a good summer “beach read”? Find a copy of Wallace Stegner’s Crossing to Safety. It’s a well-written novel that celebrates lasting friendship. The story centers on two couples who meet at the University of Wisconsin and become close friends but who are then separated by career fortunes. But time, distance, heartaches–nothing can undo their friendship.

I write this shortly after a reunion with two couples whom we’ve loved for a long time. One couple still lives in Arkansas; the other in Vermont. We haven’t all lived in the same place for thirteen years.

But time, distance, and heartaches aren’t nearly enough to separate us.

So, this morning a toast (I’m sipping water, but by mid-morning will switch to Diet Dr. Pepper) to friendships that survive. They don’t come easily.