Life at 3 miles an Hour

Coffee at the beach holds a different meaning for me today. Usually I’m more concerned about the coffee than the beach. Not today. Today, the beach is more than a location. It’s a metaphor. Gazing at the footprints disappearing in the rising tide, I think that I am able to understand a comforting lesson about our recent life changes. We just returned last night from taking my daughter to college in the high desert of Boise, Idaho. The trip lived up to the destination. It was high and it was 100 degrees. Mountains and sage brush are the realities there. Personally I prefer mountains and beach front, but that’s me. It wasn’t just a change of scenery for us though. It was the beginning of something totally different and totally inevitable. For my daughter, it’s a new life, with new friends, in a new room, with endless opportunities. For my wife and I, it’s a new life, with each other, with empty rooms, and a sense of loss and “where did it all go?”. We’ve already gone throug...

You’ll have to excuse me from missing my Monday morning appointed blog time. Yesterday was 24 years for us. If you’ve been with me over the years you know that, as long as I’m here in Seattle, there’s not much that would keep me from Monday mornings at the beach. Even my birthday wouldn’t keep me away. My anniversary would though, and it did. No particular reason except that on this particular day of the year we choose to spend every minute of it together. We don’t work on that day. We aren’t apart on it either. This is non-negotiable. Neither of us would even consider being separated on that day. It has meant that we have spent the day together in some pretty unusual and interesting places. That wasn’t the case yesterday. 24 for us was a bit unusual though. We’ve been talking about it all year and yet it really took us by surprise. I spent last week beginning the new phase of my educational journey and this week my daughter begins the new phase in hers. Between those tw...

So let me start this morning by telling you that I believe that there is a plan for my life. In fact I believe that there is a plan for every life, just as there is for mine. You may not believe this way and that’s okay, we can still be friends. I don’t think that the plan is an all inclusive set of detailed blueprints like you’d find at a Donald Trump construction site. In my way of thinking, it’s more like an IKEA set . You know, the big picture, I’m not really sure what this is saying in Swedish, kind of plan where you can get a general idea of what is being communicated and a general idea when it’s all done whether or not you got the chairs or the table in this box. There are two reasons why I feel strongly about the existence of these plans. The first one centers around my faith and the words that have been recorded for me in the “Book of Books”. In the grander story of the grander plan, I can picture my own story intertwined, and just as an author develops an intentional ...

I wonder if Mick Jagger still thinks that “You Can’t Always Get What You Want”? Didn’t we all try to teach that concept to our children? I’m pretty sure that we’ve stopped teaching it, singing about it and even believing it somewhere during my lifetime. This morning as I wandered in, a bit later than usual (I’m on vacation), I ordered my usual for a Monday morning… a grande` drip. Well, there happened to be about three sips less in the pot than a true grande` size. It was fine by me, but not by the Starbucks barista code. She apologized profusely and if I could wait 3 minutes I could have a fresh one. If I couldn’t wait, they’d whip me up an Americano. Either way, my drink was “on the house”. Apparently, the code is “on demand” or it’s free. Last night we enjoyed a great family meal out. My son ordered an enormous sandwich, hold the tomatoes. Well, they forgot to hold the tomatoes. It was no huge issue to him, but to our server and the manager it was at least a misdemeanor ...