For the four years that we lived in Chicago we followed a common practice for students of that time. Although we lived and went to school in Illinois, we kept our formal residency in Montana. We used our parents’ address as our home address, remained registered voters in Montana, had Montana drivers’ licenses and our car bore Montana license plates. Those license plates often became a topic of discussion with friends and acquaintances as we drove around Chicago. The slogan on the Montana license plates was “Big Sky Country.” People would ask about that slogan, “What is so ‘big’ about the sky in Montana? Isn’t the sky the same size everywhere?” I would answer that it isn’t something that I could explain to someone who had never been to Montana, but when they came to visit Montana they would understand. Some of our classmates and friends have visited Montana in the years since and have experienced the wide open spaces of the west in ways that make it easy for them to understand the slogan.

Montana’s big skies weren’t the same as we traveled from Oregon yesterday. The air over the state is filled with smoke. In many places the smoke was so dense that you could smell it and the view of the mountains was obscured. In some places it was hard to distinguish where we were as the distant horizon disappeared and we focused our vision on things closer at hand. It is kind of sad to drive hundreds of miles through smoky country.

The source of the smoke was multiple fires that are boring across the west. In Idaho, the Pioneer fire burning in the Boise National Forest covers over 140,000 acres and the Henry’s Creek Fire near Idaho Falls is over 50,000 acres. There are numerous fires in Western Montana as well. Fires near Thompson Falls and Hamilton added to the smokey skies. For a short period of time as we crossed the continental divide east of Butte the inversion lifted and the smoke plume from the Nez Perce fire in the Beayerhead-Deer Lodge national forest was clearly visible. That fire is relatively small at around 70 acres, but the smoke rising from the mountains was dramatic as the sun began to set behind us. There was no visible sunset because the horizon was completely obscured by the smoke to the west.

Montana, Idaho, Oregon and Washington continue to experience unseasonably warm temperatures. The thermometer in the car was registering over 90 degrees at the top of the pass at 6 pm. For the firefighters in Idaho this summer will go into the record books as one of the biggest fire seasons. The old timers recall 1988 and 1989 when it took the first snows of winter to finally extinguish the huge blazes in the central wilderness of the state. This year’s fires, however, burned much closer to inhabited places with many structures being destroyed along with acres and acres of trees.

Having grown up close to Yellowstone National Park, I learned a lot from the big fires of the late 1980’s. We watched with horror as the television cameras showed footage of trees exploding into flame near familiar sights. We flew around the park in a small plane and observed the extent of the smoke plumes and fire fighting activities. We saw the huge gashes of the dozer lines and other firefighting operations. I remember one hillside near West Yellowstone that was so completely burned over that the locals said the soil had been sterilized and nothing would grow.

They were wrong. That hillside was covered in green the next year. Five years later there were small trees growing. Ten years later the area was filled with more deer and elk than I remember seeing in my lifetime. As destructive and terrible as the fires seem when they are burning, they are part of the natural cycle of the forest and some of the massive fires of our generation are the result of over-aggressive fire fighting techniques of previous times that allowed fuels to build up to such high levels.

Sill, if your home is sitting in a beautiful forested setting and all of the trees within sight of it are burned, the fact that the firefighters saved your home doesn’t change the fact that the view out your windows will not be the same in your lifetime. As we drove over Lolo pass yesterday it was my first look at some of the fires of the past five years or so that have changed vistas for quite a few homes. The fact that the houses were saved from fire is a testament to the skill and dedication of the firefighters. Over the next decades, those who live in those homes will witness the forest’s slow process of regeneration and regrowth, but they will have to be patient. In nature, things don’t go back to the way they were, but rather go ahead to a new reality. The post fire reality in the forest is often a dramatic shift in the type of plants and sometimes in the type of animals in the neighborhood.

Still, it was kind of sad to drive across my home state filled with smoke yesterday. There is the natural sadness as we near the end of our time of vacation and anticipate the work that has been piling up in our absence. The smoky skies seemed to enhance that mood as we drove, sometimes for many miles with very little conversation about anything about how smoky the skies are and what we were missing seeing as we drove.

At my childhood home this morning, today’s drive is familiar and we’ll sleep in our home this evening and return to work tomorrow. I woke straining to hear the river, which is quieted by low stream flows. It is the lowest I’ve ever seen it. The Yellowstone River and all of its tributaries from Yellowstone National Park to the Laurel bridge are closed to all activities including fishing, floating, and even wading. The fly fishing shop in my home town has closed for lack of business. The economic impact is severe. So far the fish die off in the Yellowstone hasn’t reached the upper tributaries, but people keep checking with a wary eye.

This summer will be one for the record books as the locals sniff the air, pray for the safety of the fire fighters and wait for the winds to change. A little rain and a whole lot of snow wouldn’t hurt, either.

Copyright (c) 2016 by Ted E. Huffman. If you would like to share this, please direct your friends to my web site. If you want to reproduce any or all of it, please contact me for permission. Thanks.

We stopped last night at Milton-Freewater, Oregon, a small town just south of Walla Walla, Washington. Our nephew is just beginning his second year as a high school English teacher in the community. Yesterday was freshman orientation day. Today is the first full day of school of the new school year. As we walked through the empty school building last night, we looked at the rows and rows of pictures of the senior classes of the school. There are pictures of most graduating classes from the 1940’s to recent years posted high on the walls of the historic building. Looking at those pictures is a lesson in the shifting population of the area.

Milton-Freewater was settled as two separate towns in the upper Walla Walla river valley. Milton was the town of idealistic pioneer farmers who were quick to form a community with multiple churches and community organizations. After the tragic deaths of the founders of the Whitman mission in Walla Walla, other Christian settlers came to the area. The land is high plains desert and life in the region was harsh. Wherever there was water, however, the rich volcanic soil yielded good crops. The valley became famous for its fruit orchards and onion farms. Others learned the patient practice of dryland winter wheat farming in the areas outside of the river bottoms. Milton was officially a dry town, with no alcohol served. It still carries that heritage of strict moral rules. Oregon is one of the states where the recreational use of marijuana is legal. Milton-Freewater, however, has yet to allow a dispensary inside of its city limits.

Right next to the town of Milton, the town of Freewater was a bit more open and free with its rules and regulations. Alcohol was served and local businesses grew up to dispense some of the vices that were illegal in the neighboring town, and some of the customers of the services of Freewater were prominent citizens of Milton. The two towns developed separate downtown areas and residential neighborhoods. In general, the bigger and more expensive homes were located in Milton, the southern and upstream town. After the initial influx of settlement, the population dropped in both towns and it became practical for them to merge and become a single municipality. The point of meeting was the huge modern brick high school right between the two towns built to accommodate about 500 students and serve both communities.

For decades the school was primarily filled with students with European names and heritages, the children of farmers and merchants who served the agricultural economy. In the later decades of the 20th century the class pictures began to show more and more students with Hispanic names and darker skin tones. The entire region, from Milton-Freewater to Yakima and beyond was filling with migrant workers who came to the area in the summer to provide labor for the fruit farms and began to settle as year-round citizens. There was a huge gap in the economies of the resident land owners and the migrant farm workers. Lacking year-round employment, the migrants learned to live simply and modestly while the land owners began to accumulate wealth.

then, as the 21st century began, a new class of wealthy people began to filter into the valley. These were the developers of vineyards to serve the growing tastes of the nation for domestic wines. Many vineyard developers came from California and arrived with significant wealth. They bought huge areas of land and developed huge estates with massive homes and lush irrigated landscaping. Like the apple and peach orchardists before them, the wine growers employed seasonal workers to provide labor for their enterprises. The gap between the rich and the poor is now very evident to anyone who comes into the area, with clusters of mobile homes in dusty fields with no trees clearly in view of the lush estates of the land owners.

Milton-Freewater’s high school is about 50% Hispanic these days. Being at the upper end of the valley and across the border between Washington and Oregon, the school is in an athletic league with other small town Oregon schools. Those schools are primarily outside of the fruit-growing region and largely populated by students of European descent. Milton-Freewater’s students, many of whom have Mexican ancestry, stand out as being different. Over the years there have been some rather ugly incidents of racism, not unlike incidents that have occurred around the borders of Indian country in our part of the country. Taunts, cheers, threats and occasional fist fights have broken out over school sports events.

Last spring, there was an incident involving area schools that had much of the tone of previous racial incidents. The students are well aware that yelling racial epithets is not acceptable and will not be tolerated by school officials. The cheer that broke out was simply the name of the man who during the summer became the nominee of the Republican party for President. “Trump, Trump, Trump” were the words that were being yelled, not forbidden by the official rules of the schools, but clearly being used as a cheer against the school with a mixed team of hispanic and white students.

As I heard the report of the incident, I couldn’t help but wonder how the name of the legitimate candidate of a major party for the top office of our land could become a racial epithet. I also was struck by the patience and dedication of our young nephew who is giving so much of his life and energy to the process of teaching students in this setting of huge economic, social and racial discrepancies. Despite the tensions of the region and the problems faced by the students, he continues to see promise in the young people who come to his school and stands as witness to the power of education to change the lives of students. He understands how educational success can translate into upward economic mobility and remains idealistic despite the huge problems faced by his students.

I don’t have the name of a candidate to yell as a positive cheer to counter the negative cheers yelled at school sporting events. But I do have great respect and admiration for the brave teachers who put their lives on the line every day to serve all of the students in their schools.

Copyright (c) 2016 by Ted E. Huffman. If you would like to share this, please direct your friends to my web site. If you want to reproduce any or all of it, please contact me for permission. Thanks.

My mother was born and grew up in Montana. She left her home town to pursue her nursing education and met my father while in school. They were married in California where my father was stationed during the Second World War. After his discharge, they lived in Oklahoma briefly as he completed some advanced aircraft training. Then they moved back to Montana. They lived in the same house in the same town until the end of my father’s life. She remained in the house for several years after he died. One year, after experiencing some health challenges, she sold some of her property in Montana and moved to Oregon, to a small home just around the corner from my sister’s home in Portland. She lived in Portland for several years before moving into our home in South Dakota. During all of those moves she considered herself to be a Montanan and referred to Montana as home.

When she was living with us in South Dakota our daughter made the decision to leave her home in South Dakota to join the man who is now her husband while he was stationed in England. I listened as my mother told my daughter how much she admired her. “I would never have had the courage to do what you are doing,” she told our daughter. “Mom,” I interjected, “That’s exactly what you did. You left your home following your heart and married your air force guy.” I’m not sure I convinced my mother, but both marriages have turned out to be the right decisions for the women. Since her two years in England, our daughter has lived in Missouri and is preparing to move to Japan for four years with her husband.

In today’s highly mobile world, people move at all different life stages. People move to attend schools, to advance their careers, to pursue dreams, and to be closer to family. Over the years i’ve had several discussions with retired people who have moved to be closer to their children. For some the move has been a good choice. For others, things haven’t worked out quite as expected. Moving to be “around the corner” from your adult children assumes that they will not themselves move to another location. I know quite a few stories of couples who moved to live near their children only to have their children move to another location leaving the parents behind.

There was a time when frequent moves from one place to another were common parts of the career of professional ministry. We have journal entries from some of our relatives who were Methodist clergy who used to go to Conference each June with their household packed up, knowing that they would be reassigned to a new parish, but not knowing where they would go until the meeting ended, when they’d head off for their new home. Moving every four years was the standard in some conferences for decades.

We feel that following our calling was one of the commitments of our career choice and we have been led in directions that we didn’t expect by the congregations that we have served. Among the unexpected twists and turns of our careers is that we have been more stable and less mobile than we expected. When we began our time in the ministry, we thought that there would be frequent moves, especially early in our careers. We didn’t rule out the possibility of serving in an overseas location for part of our lives. Our experience, however, is that 7 years was the shortest term of service. We have now completed 21 years as pastors in the same congregation in South Dakota and the house in which we live is the place of the longest residence of either of our lives.

Still, we think, and occasionally speak of making a move. It has been the practice among clergy, especially after long pastorates, to make a move at the point of retirement. There is some fear that the retired pastor might exert undue influence on the congregation when not serving it and that there could be inappropriate pressure brought to bear on the new pastor. Quite frankly, that hasn’t been a problem for us in our careers. In both our first and current pastorates, our predecessor retired in the community where we served and there have been absolutely no problems. Our predecessors have been people of high ethical standards who understood appropriate boundaries and respected them carefully.

Still, when the time for retirement comes, it would be prudent for us to consider the possibility of moving to another location. Even if we remain in the same community, the house we now inhabit is too big for a practical retirement. We simply don’t need the same amount of space that was once the case and we’ve collected a lot of possessions that need to be sorted and distributed to afford us a leaner and more responsible lifestyle going forward.

Visiting our children and grandchildren makes us think of how nice it would be to live closer to them. Of course with two children who will soon not be living on the same continent, choosing where to move would be a challenge. Still the conversation turned to speculation of what it might be like if we lived close to our son and his family as we began the process of saying our good byes last night. We’re facing three long days of driving to get back home now and I was commenting that most of the use of our camper has been going back and forth to our children’s homes. “Wouldn’t it be great if that house a couple of doors down from ours came up for sale when you were ready to retire?” our daughter-in-law commented. Of course we all know that a house being for sale doesn’t mean we could afford it or that it would be the right home for us. And none of us know where the careers of our children will lead them. Our son might take a job in a city across the country one day. They might choose to move their family at some point.

For now it all is in the range of speculation and exploring options. But one day, before too many years pass, we will need to make a choice on where to live during retirement. Perhaps, like my mother we will make a few moves during those years. Who knows? Like so many other conversations, this one has a lot of distance to cover before we get to the point of making a decision.

Copyright (c) 2016 by Ted E. Huffman. If you would like to share this, please direct your friends to my web site. If you want to reproduce any or all of it, please contact me for permission. Thanks.

The Olympia Brewing Company, once a major employer in Tumwater, WA, now is a campus of abandoned buildings owned by developers awaiting some future plan.

The Pacific northwest is abundant with a huge number of natural resources. For centuries one of the main ways of surviving in this area was fishing. There are all kinds of seafood available in the waters of the Puget Sound and indigenous people harvested from the abundance of the waters. They went to sea in small boats crafted predominantly from cedar, and the cedar trees were abundant. Chief among the fish harvested was salmon. The fish returned by the hundreds of thousands from life in the ocean to the streams and rivers that run into the sea to spawn. People harvested the salmon and dried the meat to sustain life through the months when the salmon weren’t running. Prior to European settlement, the population was relatively small and many fish escaped and the fish populations remained strong and healthy despite the human practice of fishing. The harvesting of cedar and other trees to make houses and boats had little impact on the temperate rain forest, which continued to produce trees at a rate that far exceeded human harvest.

When European settlers arrived, they soon discovered the abundance of resources and settlement increased the population many fold. There were jobs to be had in commercial fishing, in harvesting the timber, in transportation and countless other ventures. By the mid 20th century huge power producing dams had been built on the major rivers and the abundant electricity spawned the processing of aluminum and large manufacturing operations. One huge industry was the production of aluminum aircraft. At one time most of the airplanes manufactured by Boeing for military and civilian aviation were built in and around Seattle. Jobs were abundant and people continued to flood into the area.

Many of the jobs and industries of the 19th and 20th centuries, were not sustainable, however. After a century of commercial fishing and canning it was clear that the salmon populations were dwindling. There simply weren’t enough fish to sustain the industry. Some held out hopes in fish hatcheries, which could produce large numbers of salmon and other game fish, but the hatcheries produced relatively few species of fish and hatchery spawned fish were less healthy and less productive than the native varieties. While hatcheries produced many fish and were themselves a new industry providing jobs, this practice was not a solution to the declining populations of fish. The consumption of timber also was taking place at a pace faster than the ability the forests to replenish. There are sustainable forestry practices that allow trees to regrow, but the practices of clear cutting huge acreages could not be sustained. It simply takes the forest more years to produce healthy trees than people could wait for the resources.

As the fishing and timber industries declined at the end of the 20th century other industries such as transportation and manufacturing shifted as well. The economy of the region shifted away from the once abundant jobs to fewer positions of employment. The region then experienced a shift in the economy from those traditional jobs to a huge increase in highly technical computer engineering jobs. Microsoft became a major employer in the region, offering jobs to those with technical skills and spawning supportive industries and employment. The economy remains very strong in the region following this major shift in the type of jobs available.

Along the way there were lots of people who got left behind. It isn’t an easy shift from working in a cannery to writing software. Many people were not able to find jobs in the new economy as their jobs were lost from traditional fields such as timber, fishing and manufacturing. As new people moved into the region in search of the highly technical jobs of the computer industry, others were forced to leave their homes and seek employment in other places.

These days one of the signs of the shifting economy are the people who stand on street corners holding signs asking for any jobs, handouts, or other assistance that can be offered. I come to the area as a visitor and I haven’t taken the time to get to know these people, though after a week in the area there are some I recognize as regulars in their vigils on the streets. I do not know their stories. Some, I assume, once had jobs and are no longer employed. Some are the victims of mental and physical illnesses that cause disability and make it difficult or impossible for them to have regular employment. Some are veterans who returned from service to find no jobs in the place of their growing up. Some are the unfortunate victims of temporary situations who will recover from the crisis that forces them to this particular mode of survival and will leave the streets when their circumstances change.

The Pacific northwest is a bit of a magnet for homeless people who drift into the area from other parts of the country. With a relatively gentle climate, it is possible to survive on the streets without the dangers of exposure that are a part of places with harsher weather. The urban areas offer the hope of jobs and other means of survival. I don’t know much about it, but there must be some reward in spending a day holding a cardboard sign on a street corner, for there are people who do it day after day. If it yielded no support, one would expect the practice to cease. Being dependent upon the generosity of others, however, is a risky business and there must be some days that are extremely disappointing and some times when there are not enough gifts to obtain meals and hunger is the result. Certainly those who are on the streets do not have enough money to access expensive items such as health care and transportation.

There must be unique stories for each individual who is out on the streets asking others for help. It is a dynamic that I don’t fully understand. Perhaps if I lived here I could get to know some of the people and learn some of the stories. What I do know is that the economy of the region works for some, but not all of the people who live here. Alongside the triumph of those who succeed are the tragedies of those who do not. Not all of the ventures of the people of the region are sustainable and the shifts in the economy produce losers as well as winners.

We can’t go back to the way things were, and the way forward is less than clear for some of the people in this region.

Copyright (c) 2016 by Ted E. Huffman. If you would like to share this, please direct your friends to my web site. If you want to reproduce any or all of it, please contact me for permission. Thanks.

I’m not an expert on the waters around here. I guess that much of the south sound is technically an estuary - the place where fresh water from rivers and streams meets the saltwater of the ocean. From an ecological point of view, estuaries are important places, teeming with life and producing a wealth of relatively easily harvested food for people. What I know is that although the sound has a direct connection with the ocean and exchanges water with the massive Pacific, it is a very protected area with relatively small tidal changes, few dangerous currents and often calm waters. That makes it a great place for novice paddlers and those who want to explore the waters in small boats. There is an active sailing instruction program in the area and I often see the young sailors practicing their skills when I am paddling here. Still, compared to the reservoirs where I paddle when I am at home, the sound is big water. There are lots of open spaces to paddle and explore.

Yesterday, when we arrived to paddle, a couple was unloading a pair of beautiful 17’ composite sea kayaks from the roof of their car. They had their car parked in the turn around to be closer to the water and were just undoing the straps connecting the boats to the rack on the roof of their car when we pulled up. We parked in the lot and I took down my small canoe from the truck and carried it and two paddles to the water while Susan and our grandchildren carried life jackets. My canoe is light and easy to carry by myself. The couple each took one end of one of their boats and carried it to the water and returned for the second boat. After they unloaded the boats they had to park their car.

Meanwhile we launched our boat and my grandson and I paddled out and took a look at a great blue heron and a group of seagulls, explored some old pilings from what might have once been a dock extending into the water, and took a look around. My grandson is just getting the idea of using his own paddle. I have a small 3’ paddle for him to handle and sometimes he can help propel the canoe and other times he just splashes the paddle in the water. He is learning and each time we go out he is more effective than the last time.

We returned to the shore. My grandson stepped out of the boat and my granddaughter climbed in. Off we went, while the first of the two kayakers sat in her boat receiving instructions about adjusting the foot pedals and lowering the rudder. After paddling around for a little while I returned my granddaughter to the shore and picked up my grandson for a second and longer paddle. The couple were just paddling away from the shore.

As we paddled, I noted that there are two marinas within easy sight of the place were we were paddling. They were filled with recreational boats. There were groups of masts of sailboats ranging from about 25’ to 60’. There were power cruisers and recreational trawlers. Some of those boats are very valuable, costing the amount of a home. We didn’t see any of them out being sailed, however. There were a few whose owners were working on them. Most were sitting waiting while their owners were working.

I have a theory about boats: the bigger the boat, the less often it gets used. Of course that doesn’t apply to the huge transport craft that carry goods all around the world. And it doesn’t apply to tugs and fishing boats that have to be used to earn their living. But when it comes to recreational boats, the larger the boat the more maintenance is required, the more effort it takes to launch and retrieve and the more money is needed to keep things ship shape.

I can unload a canoe from the rack on my truck, haul it to the water and be paddling in about 5 minutes. Even the comparatively short attention spans of 2- and 5-year-old children can tolerate the time it takes to unload and launch the boat. The shoreline is a very interesting place for children, filled with rocks to throw in the water, old chains and pilings to explore, shells and sea creatures to examine, and, of course water that invites wading and splashing on a 90-degree day. By the time we loaded up the boat and headed away, we had two somewhat tired and very soggy kids. Except from a few splashes,they didn’t get wet from paddling in the boat. They got wet waiting between rides in the boat.

Back in the 1990s Richard Bode wrote a small book titled, “First you have to row a little boat.” It is a set of very short essays on the meaning of life - a kind of personal philosophy. It begins with the premise that before you can become a sailor of large craft, you have to learn to properly row a little boat. It has been years since I read the book, but I feel connected to several of the principles expressed in it.

Our grandchildren don’t need their grandpa to have big and fancy boats. They need to paddle a small canoe and experience the joy of playing on the water at this point in their lives. They don’t need expensive toys or extensively organized sports programs. They need gifts of time and attention and creativity. Yesterday was nearly perfect for us. My only regret, and it is a small one, is that I should have simply carved paddles for the children instead of purchasing one. I’ll make their next paddles for them out of some nice, dry Black Hills spruce that I have.

I have no idea whether or not our grandchildren will grow up to be boaters. Whatever happens, they will grow up feeling at home on the water and enjoying the sights and sounds of nature. They will grow up knowing that they are loved and treasured. And that doesn’t require bigger or fancier boats.

Copyright (c) 2016 by Ted E. Huffman. If you would like to share this, please direct your friends to my web site. If you want to reproduce any or all of it, please contact me for permission. Thanks.

I wonder how many hours of my life I have invested in the task of sorting through bins of Lego bricks to find just the right part for a project that a child is building. Legos existed when I was a child, but I didn’t ever have that particular building system. I had Erector sets, which have lots of tiny parts. My younger brother had Legos, but in those days there weren’t many specialized parts. Legos were, at that time, mostly red and white bricks of a couple of different sizes that worked very well for building buildings and other structures. Over the years, the toy system developed lots and lots of specialized parts for constructing vehicles, boats, construction equipment and other items. There is even a system of mini figures with interchangeable parts for constructing characters for play. The toy is mostly sold as kits with parts to make a specific item. After the original item is constructed, it can be taken apart and reconfigured in lots of different ways. From time to time the child wants to return to something close to the original project and the search for the right bricks begins. It can be frustrating for a child to not be able to find just the right parts, so one of the roles for an adult playing with the child is to search through the bins of bricks to find the part the child wants for the project.

I did quite a bit of that kind of searching when our son was a child and so I fall naturally into that role with our grandson.

Searching for Lego bricks is just one of the things I’ve done on my vacation. I’ve also helped construct a set of interconnecting cardboard troughs and tubes with copious amounts of masking tape into a marble maze. I’ve learned to manipulate the parts of transformers to change them from cars to robots and back again. I’ve ridden around the neighborhood on my bicycle following my grandson, reporting our speeds as he raced around. I’ve sat on the floor and been served countless cups of “tea” from a plastic pitcher and pretended to eat all kinds of foods served by our granddaughter. I’ve helped several dolls to get dressed in different outfits and tucked teddy bears into bed with tiny blankets. I’ve scooped sand into buckets and gotten drenched with blasts of water from spray bottles. I’ve lain in the grass looking up at the trees and imagined shapes in the clouds. I’ve read lots and lots of stories out loud. Some of them dozens of times.

There has been some productive work. I’ve prepared meals and shopped for groceries. I’ve run to the hardware store to pick up items for the house. One day our son took the day off of work and together we installed new flooring in their kitchen with all of the attendant moving of furniture, trimming of the flooring, and spreading glue. We still have baseboard to install and a bit of trim left before that project is complete.

Of course there are some things that I enjoy more than others. I love to take the children paddling in a canoe. I’m a big fan of walks and bike rides. I get great pleasure from a child coming to me with a book and crawling up into my lap no matter how many times I’ve read that story before. I admit I can get a bit tired of sorting through Lego bricks, but I do enjoy the creative projects that are pursued. There are few things in life more satisfying than working side by side with my son on a home improvement chore.

All of these things, of course, are not primarily about the tasks being accomplished. There is work that needs to be done. Meals need to be prepared. Children need loving are. Homes need constant repair. What matters the most, however, are the relationships. Children need adults in their lives who are safe, reliable and trustworthy. They need adults who listen carefully and who are willing to invest in their growth as fully functioning members of the community. Parents need times when their children are being cared for by others so they can take a brief break or engage in adult activities such as working for a living and engaging in adult conversation. There is a huge luxury in being one of four adults who are caring for only two children. The work load is heavier when we are in our own home and our children are caring for their children without our assistance. Vacation has a pace and intensity that is different from every day life.

There is more time for sorting Lego bricks without the usual deadlines that are a part of holding down a full time job and managing a household.

I am aware that before long I will have to shift gears into another mode and pursue different activities. I’m not yet at a life phase where I can linger for an extended period of time away from our home. Within the next week there will be three days of driving to get back to South Dakota and when we return I will need to dive into work to catch up with the busy activities of the church. There is a wedding to perform, worship to lead, a newsletter to produce. There are people in the church who are in need of care and prayer and attention.

The writer of Ecclesiastes speaks of a time for every matter and a season for each task. The rhythm of life affords different energies for different projects. We humans are given the gift of diversity in our chores and a myriad of ways of investing our time. Life itself has seasons with different priorities and projects. The season of being grandparents is different for us than it was for previous generations whose life spans were shorter and who faced different diseases and disabilities. For us, there is the luxury of health and energy and the ability to travel.

It is a blessing to have a week when there is time enough to sort Lego bricks.

Copyright (c) 2016 by Ted E. Huffman. If you would like to share this, please direct your friends to my web site. If you want to reproduce any or all of it, please contact me for permission. Thanks.

I can get nostalgic on occasion. I had a joyful childhood filled with tree houses and trips to the library and summers by the river. Our family had a trampoline and we wore cutoff jeans and t-shirts all summer long. I can be nostalgic about the time when our children were little. We were tired most of the time, but we were also constantly amazed by their learning and growing and development.

Having good memories is one thing. Wanting to live in a different time is quite different. I don’t want to turn back the clock. I’m quite content to live in the here and now, thank you very much. The notion that there was some ideal time in the past when everything was perfect is based in less than realistic memories.

I’ve been with a group of friends that will occasionally lament the passage of time and the changes that come with the present. “Back in the ’60’s America has a real car industry. Those muscle cars were second to none.” Actually, I got my driver’s license in the 1960’s. Tires would barely last 10,000 miles. Batteries would wear out in two or three years. Car dealers boasted “new every two” because the design and models changed so quickly that cars became dated as soon as you brought them home. Paint jobs on new cars faded. Carbureted engines started hard. Fuel economy was terrible. Those who remember those days as the high point of the automobile industry probably don’t want to go back to a time when air conditioning was rare, when you had to roll down the windows manually to adjust the rear view mirror and the speaker (yes only one) in the radio was cheap and tinny.

The way we think about the past is, in part, a function of our memories. We are much more able to remember pleasant experiences than painful ones. We tend to forget hardships and trials and remember victories and accomplishments. It isn’t that we are trying to cover up or change our past, it is just that our memories tend not to linger on negative experiences.

Historians and crime investigators are well aware of the inaccuracies of human memory. Two eye witnesses will describe an event as if it were two separate incidents. The oral report of the past is biased by the perspective of the reporter. One person’s glorious victory may be another’s agonizing defeat. It isn’t just that history is written by the victors, which it is. History belongs to those who write books and create permanent records.

I’ve been known to kind of complain about some of the realities of our modern world. Sometimes I don’t like the crush of too many people in large cities and remember times when there were fewer people in some of my favorite places. I can go on and on about times when mainline churches were brimming with people and folks attended worship every Sunday and children’s sports programs wouldn’t dream of scheduling Sunday morning activities. I can wax poetic about our days in North Dakota when blue laws encouraged church attendance from everyone.

I don’t want to go back. I like being the age that I am. I enjoy being a grandfather. I don’t want to be a pastor in some other time or place. I am blessed with a fascinating church that rises to the challenges of its times and is open to the changes of the future.

One of our stories is about a conversation between Esther, a woman of significant privilege, and her uncle Mordecai. The people of Israel faced a harsh and threatening reality. They had little or no political power and there were those in the royal court who were bent on exterminating them. Gallows had been prepared for the hanging of their leaders and forced assimilation was the official plan. Esther herself, however, was safe from the dangers that her people faced because of her position of power and luxury in the royal court since she had gained favor with the king because of her beauty. Mordecai didn’t appeal to Esther as the only solution to her people’s problems. He was confident that God would provide a way for the people to be saved. If Ester refused to help, God would find another way to save the people. However, he urged Ester to think about her position and its possibilities. “Perhaps,” he said, “it was for a time such as this that you were born.” Esther rose to the realities of her time and intervened with the king to save the people. Her courage and actions have been celebrated in story and song for thousands of years.

Indeed there are challenges of our time. Our political system isn’t working to provide the best leaders possible. Our over-consumptive ways create shortages of essentials for other people. Many of our practices are not sustainable over the long run. Our impact on the planet is producing changes, many of which are detrimental to future generation’s abilities to produce sufficient food for all. Our health care system has become so profit oriented and expensive that people suffer needlessly because they don’t have means to pay for care. Our economy seems to teeter on the brink and works well only for the super rich.

Perhaps, however, it was for a time such as this that we were born.

It seems likely to me that focusing our attention and abilities on the challenges and problems of the present is far more productive and helpful than lamenting the passage of time and waxing nostalgic about times that have passed. There were some interesting things about the 1950’s, but we live in the 2010’s and 2020 isn’t that far away. Maybe some things have been lost, but we have been given the gift of grief and the capacity to move forward with our lives.

Our grandson finds great joy in the events of each day. He will often report that each day is “the best day ever!” It seems that he has much to teach his old grandpa and possesses an attitude that restores hope to my sometimes cynical nature. It does seem that it is for a time such as this that he was born.

Copyright (c) 2016 by Ted E. Huffman. If you would like to share this, please direct your friends to my web site. If you want to reproduce any or all of it, please contact me for permission. Thanks.

The campground where we are staying is located in a grove of tall trees. Some of them are 150 feet tall and most have very large trunks. The trees mute the sound from the surrounding urban area and provide a very nice place for camping. But at night when I lie in bed, there is constant background from Interstate 5. The highway is the main corridor between Seattle and Portland and has constant traffic. Here it is three lanes of traffic in each direction. Just a couple of miles north it becomes four lanes that are constantly full of vehicles heading to and from Tacoma and Seattle. The people who live here adjust to the traffic and get used to the crush of other people. Those of us who are visiting from less populated areas are more aware of the people and constant noise.

The city of Olympia is about the same size as Rapid City. Our home, however, is the big town in the region and serves as a hub for the surrounding rural areas. People come to Rapid City to shop, obtain health care, and engage in the entertainment of the more urban setting. You have to drive more than 300 miles in any direction to get to a city that is larger than our town. Olympia, on the other hand, sits right next to other towns and cities with much less open space. We wouldn’t consider ourselves to be out in the country as we drive past Ft. Lewis and Mcchord Air Force Base and then into Tacoma. Tacoma has over 200,000 people and Seattle is home to over 650,000.

The world really is getting more crowded as the human population grows. Last week, we visited Natural Bridge, a beautiful feature on the Boulder River right at the end of the paved road. When I was a child and young adult we would be the only people there most of the time when we visited. But there were at least a dozen people there when we visited and the parking lot has been expanded to accommodate more cars. Yesterday we took our grandchildren to three different parks. All had large groups of children from day care and summer school programs who were visiting the parks as a part of the end of summer activities. The children had to wait to play on parts of the playground equipment because of all of the other children who were playing.

Of course there are still ways to gain solitude even in the midst of this urban setting. It only takes a few minutes to be alone on the surface of the water when I paddle. Even though I am surrounded by urban areas, I can be alone with the water and the creatures that live there. There are also mountain hiking trails within a reasonable driving distance where one can be alone. The high peaks of the cascades are still rugged and filled with wilderness. On the other hand the highways leading up into the mountains are filled with quite a bit of traffic and one has to get off of the main roads and perhaps even park and walk a bit to be truly alone.

It is simply easier to find solitude where we live. I can just go out the door and walk a little was to be alone.

As the world’s population grows, more and more people are settling in cities. Humans are pretty adaptable animals and can learn to live in very crowded conditions. The jobs and other activities of humans are concentrated in coastal regions around the globe with the centers of the continents being the least populated places for the most part. In addition the far north and far south parts of the globe, where winters are most extreme have less population. Those polar regions, however, have far more tourists than was the case a decade ago. More people means more visitors to even the most remote locations and there is an upsurge in adventure travel for vacations.

I can’t begrudge people who live in urban areas their desire to visit remote locations. Even our Black Hills are a magnet for those who live in cities and we gain a lot of benefits from the many visitors who come to our region and help our economy by spending their funds. Hospitality is an important human quality and it is good for us to exercise our skills as hosts on a regular basis. I know that if I lived in an urban area I would be quick to head for more remote places whenever I had the opportunity. Although at our current life phase the lure of grandchildren makes it easy for us to choose where to go for vacations, for most of our life camping has been the preferred way of spending time off from work. When we visit the city, we find a campground in a relatively quiet and secluded place. This grove of old growth trees has become our regular campground for the past four years.

As the human population of the globe continues to grow, succeeding generations will face the challenge of preserving wilderness and learning to share the quiet places. They will also learn new skills and develop new ways of living closely in dense urban areas. Public transportation will become an important factor in dealing with the crowds of people that need to travel to and from work and other activities in urban cores. Urban planning will have to be exercised to provide for all of the amenities that people need.

I feel fortunate to have grown up in a time when there were fewer people and more open spaces. I’m not naturally a city person and I feel grateful to live in the hills where the neighbors are a bit farther away. I know that it is a luxury that some people will never experience. I am privileged in so many ways.

For now, for me, cities are places to visit and I am grateful to have a less populated place to call home.

Copyright (c) 2016 by Ted E. Huffman. If you would like to share this, please direct your friends to my web site. If you want to reproduce any or all of it, please contact me for permission. Thanks.

Almost every year now I get the opportunity to paddle in saltwater. The south Puget Sound is, by my standards, big water, though it is usually very calm and protected. There are several places with convenient launches for canoes and kayaks that are close to our son and daughter-in-law’s home.

Technically, the increased mineral content of ocean water means that a boat displaces a bit less water than in fresh water and therefore floats a bit higher in the water. In a canoe or kayak this difference is not noticeable and the boat perform and paddle just like they do at home.

I do, of course, notice the difference in scenery. At home I usually paddle in the early morning so that I can get to work on time and get in a full day’s work. On vacation, I spend my early mornings with family and get to go out with my boats at mid day when the children have their naps or in the afternoon when the children are available to go with me. Yesterday I went out alone for a short paddle.

In the south Sound, I paddle within sight of the Washington State Capitol building. Although Olympia isn’t a major port for loading and unloading ocean-going ships, it does have a facility for loading timber and there is usually one or more of the big ships in the harbor. The main occupants of the harbor areas are recreational boats, both sailboats and motor cruisers. A few live-aboard boats spend much of their lives in the waters of the sound and can be seen both tied up to docks and cruising the area. Downtown Olympia features Percival Landing, with facilities for visiting yachts and small craft.

The big difference with paddling for me is the change in wildlife. Although both bodies of water have Canada Geese, that is about the only creature I see that they have in common. California gulls are constant companions when paddling in the sound and when there are groups of gulls, usually attracted by a source of food, they can be quite noisy. In the water I see jellyfish swimming near the surface and can often see sea stars on the bottom. There are a variety of different tiny crabs near the shore and the rocks and posts in the water are covered with mussels and barnacles.

One of the joys of paddling out here are the harbor seals. They are very curious and come to check me out when I put my boat in the water. They will swim alongside the boat, but like to keep their distance. Usually they only poke their heads out of the water and they will dive and swim away if my boat coasts too close to them. Yesterday as I paddled two seals kept about 100 feet off of my starboard bow all the way out and on the port side as I returned. I paddled along the shore and the seals kept out in the deeper water of the sound. I’m sure that there are plenty of fish in the water that I’m not seeing. The water isn’t as clear as the lake where I usually paddle, but when the water is shallow I can see the bottom.

One difference out here is the smell. I can see why sailors become addicted to the smell of the ocean. It is alluring and invites a kind of calm and easy breathing approach to life. My style of paddling is very relaxing and I don’t exert myself to the point where I become overly tired.

I’m developing a new habit this summer of washing down and drying my boat each time it goes into the water. My old style was to wash down the boats once a week or so. Out here, it makes sense to get a bit of fresh water and a sponge to wash down the boat each time it is used because salt residue sticks to the boat and makes spots on the finish.

We’ve been made aware of the problems of invasive species as we have traveled, however. The boats I brought all the way to the coast were inspected three times before they went into the water. Montana is having an outbreak of a parasite that is killing fish that they don’t want to spread and both Montana and Idaho are looking for species of snails that aren’t native to their waters and are potentially harmful to native fish and water animals. It is a good habit to make sure that I’m not transporting any plants or animals from one region to another even though I paddle in places that are, as yet, free of the species for which the boats are inspected. I have, in the past, been known to transport mud and sand from one place to another, so it is a good practice to keep the boats clean and dry.

Kayaks were developed for paddling in northern waters. They could be constructed with relatively small amounts of wood, which made them ideal for the far north above the tree line. The skin-on-frame boats of the northern tribes are very efficient and all of my kayaks show the influence of ancient designs. The boats allowed people to fish and hunt from the water and to travel greater distances. In the north country special clothing such as the tulik, a waterproof hooded coat that seals tightly around the coaming of the cockpit of the boat. Properly dressed, a kayaker can roll the boat without getting more than just the face wet.

I didn’t need any special clothing for my paddling yesterday, though I did put on a spray skirt to keep splashes from the paddle from getting inside of the boat. The day was warm and the bright sunshine combined with the exertion of paddling to have me sweating in no time.

In the next few days I’ll have time to take the grandchildren for short paddles close to shore and give them a chance to paddle the boats with a short paddle that I have just for them. Combining two of the joys of my life is a real treat and a great pleasure of these days.

Copyright (c) 2016 by Ted E. Huffman. If you would like to share this, please direct your friends to my web site. If you want to reproduce any or all of it, please contact me for permission. Thanks.

I am many things. I am a minister. Becoming a minister took a long time and a lot of hard work. I had to earn an undergraduate degree and then sent four years in graduate school studying scripture, theology, counseling, preaching, liturgy and other subjects. I had to read a lot of books and write a lot of papers and hone a lot of skills. After eight years of preparation I was ordained, but I still had to work at the skills of ministry. The process of being a minister requires constant continuing education. I meet weekly with one group that reads books about ministry and another that studies scriptures for preaching. I love being a minister and after decades of working as a minister I know quite a bit about how to do that job. But it requires constant work for me to be a minister.

I am a husband. And I think that I have learned quite a bit about being a husband after more than four decades of marriage. Some parts of being a husband came to me quite naturally. Other parts involved learning new skills. Listening, for example, requires practice. Sometimes my instincts lead me to focus my attention on my work or a book that I am reading or a hobby that I enjoy. But being a husband requires that I set aside those things to listen carefully to what my wife is saying and what she is thinking. She has been, from the moment I met her, fascinating, so listening to her and learning about her thoughts and intentions is not a difficult chore, but I have had to learn what works and what doesn’t work in a long term relationship.

I am a father. Being a father is not exactly how I imagined it. I was surprised by the overwhelming, love-at-first-sight emotions I felt. I knew that a father loves his children. I didn’t know how powerful that emotion would be. Learning to be a father was, for me, a process of making a lot of difficult judgment calls. Raising children is a team effort. The skills of listening, talking and negotiating that are a part of marriage were definitely required for my role as a father. Sometimes we had to make decisions under pressure with looming deadlines. Choices, such as whether or not to take a different job and when to make a family move, are made more complex by the lives and education of children. Decisions such as the size and location of a house in which to live have an impact on one’s children. And being a father has its scary moments, such as the first time a child rides his or her bicycle out out sight or their first drive on slippery streets. There are more sleepless nights that one imagines. They start when the children are little and do not sleep through the night. There are other sleepless nights when they are ill and need attention. Still more come when they are testing their wings as teens and young adults and don’t come in when expected at night.

Of course, I play a lot of other roles in life and many of those roles required eduction, practice, learning new skills and developing new practices.

It is wonderfully amazing to me how natural it is to be a grandfather. Perhaps it is one of those things for which my entire life has prepared me. It seems like such an easy role to play. We arrived at our son and daughter-in-law’s home and as soon as we saw the children, there were warm hugs, and we were engaged in activities. We haven’t seen our granddaughter since May, but she climbed right up into my lap and gave me a cuddle as we talked. Soon there were stories to read, games to play and lots of things to do. We got to spend time with our grandson last week, so it was just a couple of days since we had been playing in the river together, but at his home we soon were off on our bicycles for a ride, stopping to look at interesting things and talking about his interests.

It is as if I simply know how to be a grandfather and no learning is required. Being a grandfather is, somehow, an easier task than being a father. I love being a father. I never haven’t wanted to be a father. But I had much to learn and there are tough decisions involved in being a father. Being a grandfather is so much a process of just being who I am and doing what comes naturally that sometimes it feels as if I have always been meant to be a grandfather.

I love reading stories to our grandchildren. I like the repetition of the familiar. “I’ll love you for ever. I’ll like you for always. As long as I’m living, your mother I’ll be.” I’ve read that story so many times that the little song is memorized. I could read it a hundred more times without a problem. I can do a fairly acceptable voice of Grover from Sesame Street and I’m getting pretty good at the grumbly voice of the dog in the Scooby-doo stories. Our grandson is five, now, and enjoys chapter stories and can make regular trips to the library for new stories to bring home and read. He likes a story that is just a little bit scary from time to time now.

In the ways of our modern world, we live a long way from our grandchildren. We have some marvelous technologies, such as Skype and FaceTime that allow us to remain connected, but there is nothing as grand as being together in the same time and place. I have a bit of envy for grandparents whose grandchildren live close. It seems that many generations living near to each other is a very natural and good way to live for those who are able.

Today I’m simply glad to be here in the town where our grandchildren live. For this week it is a blessing and a very natural role for me to fill.

Copyright (c) 2016 by Ted E. Huffman. If you would like to share this, please direct your friends to my web site. If you want to reproduce any or all of it, please contact me for permission. Thanks.

I woke to the sound of coyotes singing in the night. At first I thought that it was a relatively large group, but when I stopped to think, I remembered that coyotes usually sound like there are more of them than there are. It was probably a small pack, with a few of this year’s pups to add the high soprano to the chorus. We used to hear the coyotes every summer night when we first moved to South Dakota, but it has been a long time since I’ve hear them back home. Coyote populations rise and fall due to a large number of factors including disease and the presence of other predators. Coyotes are not what are termed apex predators. They are sort of nature’s clean up crew. They are opportunistic feeders, eating what is available, primarily mice and other small rodents.

We almost always heard coyotes singing from airport hill when I was a kid growing up. They are adaptive animals and seem to adjust to humans pretty easily. Humans, however, generally don’t like coyotes for neighbors. In my growing up years they were considered to be varmints and were shot on sight by most of the ranchers in the area. They will, on occasion, take a small farm animal and are particularly dangerous around sheep and I grew up in sheep country. However, a donkey, a good dog, or a llama will usually protect the sheep from coyotes. They're pretty easy to run off. Furthermore, they have adapted to pressures from other species quite well. The more they are hunted, the higher their birth rate. They will reproduce in response to population pressures and seem to survive even the most intense hunting. The bounty on coyotes that was part of my growing up years might have caused near extinction, but it didn’t. They simply found different places to hide and raise their pups.

In Montana, where I grew up, and in South Dakota, where I now live, we pronounce coyote without the long e at the end that is the more common Spanish pronunciation. I know that the majority of people in our country pronounce it with three syllables, but our two-syllable pronunciation is a local variation. The coyote is the mascot of South Dakota State University and our unique pronunciation of the name is part of local lore and charm.

Here, in central Washington, where we are camped on our way west, however, I’m pretty sure that the local pronunciation has the long e at the end. There have been Spanish-speaking farmers in this country for a long time - more than a century. Some families have lived in the area for generations. You’ll often hear Spanish spoken in gas stations and restaurants as you travel through the region and there was plenty of Spanish in the campground last night. It wouldn’t surprise me if the coyotes call themselves by the Spanish pronunciation in this area.

This is dry country, with the only green in late August coming from irrigated land. The central, volcanic valleys and plains of central Washington have been irrigated since the 1930’s with the construction of the giant Grand Coulee Dam. The project, proposed in the 1920’s was controversial in the beginning. The huge cost combined with the relatively small local population resulted in light support for the project in the beginning. somehow, however, the work was approved and the local population swelled during the construction of the dam and attendant infrastructure. The huge dam is the largest hydro electric producing facility in the United States. The abundant electricity attracted industry during the Second World War and people came into the area to work at the aluminum plants producing resources for the war. The population has been shrinking since the end of the war and these days the irrigated farms are gigantic, with massive machines working the land and huge fields. The fruit business, however, cannot be pursued on the same large scale and is more labor intensive. Along the river, there are many orchard operations with clusters of houses surrounding them for all of the summer workers. It is interesting country to visit and we enjoy the ability to purchase fresh fruit when we travel in this area.

In the past five years, since we have been grandparents, we’ve made at least one trip across this country each year. We enjoy spending as much time as possible with our grandchildren and travel has become a priority for us. We can make the trip to Washington from South Dakota in three days. We usually make one of those days a bigger day trying to get in more than 500 miles. The other days are a bit shorter. We like to have the last day short enough to get in a good visit with our family before bedtime. We also like to arrive refreshed and not too tired so that we have energy to participate in the activities of our family. Today is a relatively short run. We should arrive at our son’s home in the early afternoon. We will stay at a familiar campground that is close to their home and our grandson can have sleepovers at our camper. Since our son and grandson flew out to meet us in Montana last week, it hasn’t been long since we’ve seen them, but our granddaughter and daughter-in-law weren’t able to join them on that visit, so we’re eager to see the entire family.

By the time we get to the coast the weather and culture will have shifted dramatically. Western Washington is filled with people and traffic and industry. We will also see the dramatic shift from high plains desert to temperate rain forest as we pass over the Cascade mountains this morning. There aren’t many trees where we camped last night. Tonight we’ll be in a grove of 150-foot tall cedars, hemlock and Douglas fir. There probably won’t be any coyotes singing in the forested urban area where we’re heading.

It’s good to travel and experience change and see the countryside, but we are eager for family time and glad to put the miles behind us. All too soon it will be time to head for home again.

Copyright (c) 2016 by Ted E. Huffman. If you would like to share this, please direct your friends to my web site. If you want to reproduce any or all of it, please contact me for permission. Thanks.

The weather gave us a pleasant break yesterday. There had been a nice, soaking rain overnight and temperatures were much lower: highs were in the sixties instead of the nineties. We took our Australian friends to the airport and prepared to head west. There were some things to do to pick up after the intensity of hosting eight guests while traveling. We’re down to just the two of us for two days driving to our son’s home in Olympia, Washington.

The Montana Fish, Wildlife and Parks Department took the unprecedented step of closing all activities on the Yellowstone River and its tributaries from Yellowstone Park to the Highway 212 Bridge at Laurel. The ban includes all of the tributaries in the affected area, which includes the Boulder River where we are staying. The ban includes all wading, tubing, boating, fishing, floating and the like. In the past week the department has documented over 2,000 dead Mountain Whitefish in the Yellowstone. The state laboratory has determined that the cause is a kidney disease that will also affect trout. The ban on all river activity is an attempt to stop the spread of the disease. Activities will be allowed to resume when temperatures decrease and stream flows increase to allow the health of the fish to improve.

The ban has very little affect on us. We were out of the river yesterday anyway and we leave this morning to head west. There will be a couple of additional boat inspection stations on our way, but the boats we had in the river here will stay here for our return and the canoe and kayak that we are taking west haven’t been in the water since Sheridan Lake and were cleaned and dried in preparation for the trip.

It will have a big impact on the community, however. The guests who came into the cabins last night were planning on fishing and now will have to travel 65 miles down stream to get to a place where fishing is allowed. Fishing, drift boating, guiding, rafting and related services are a big part of the tourist economy in the little town where I grew up. The interesting thing to me is that we had a lot more fish and a lot better fishing when I was a child and we had a lot fewer fishermen in the area. The economy was almost all ranch-related when I lived here. Now the ranches have become second homes and recreational properties for people who live elsewhere and the economy of the community has shifted to one of services that cater to those who come here to recreate and play. I can’t complain. That’s the reason we are here this week as well. It is a beautiful place to visit.

It is hard to know, for sure, how much human activity is the cause of these problems. It does seem that there is more irrigation upstream, keeping entire ranches irrigated when in the old days the flood systems used brought water only to the fields closest to the river. There also is a lot more fishing pressure on the river, which presumably puts increased stress on the fish population. Even in areas where the practice is predominantly catch and release, the fish have health issues related to the fishing. And the cycles of weather are shifting. Global climate change is due, in part, to human activity and the long, hot and dry summer may not be a specific result of global warming, but it may be one of the effects of the increased use of fossil fuels.

Last night, with the river running lower, and therefore quieter, I was much more aware than usual of all of the trains going across the bridge a mile downstream from our place. There is a nearly constant stream of railroad traffic these days. Most of it is Wyoming coal headed to the west coast to be loaded onto ships bound for China to fuel that nation’s increasing demand for electricity. The coal cars are now covered, which reduces the amount of coal dust along the tracks, but there are still huge impacts from this business. I’ve been told that it takes more energy to transport the coal half the way around the world than the energy the coal can produce once it arrives. That means that the cost in terms of fuel consumed is double the yield in electricity. And the carbon pollution from all of those diesel-electric trains combines with the pollution from the huge ocean-going transport ships, driven by diesel engines.

There is no doubt that the world is changing and that part of the change is caused by the pressures of human activities and increased human population on the planet.

These are things about which we never concerned ourselves when we were younger. When I was a boy fishing daily on the river and enjoying weekly fish fries with my family, I wasn’t able to imagine a day when the fish wouldn’t be plentiful on the river. We used to catch our limit of trout three or four days a week and there was no limit on whitefish in those days. We’d clean and freeze the whitefish for winter fish bakes. Sometimes we’d smoke them, which is one of the best ways to eat whitefish. The smoked fish made great snacks and treats for packed lunches. I never paid much attention to the temperature when I was a kid. Some days were warm enough to play in the river all day long, others weren’t. We varied our activities depending on the temperature. Warm, cold, rain or shine we had a few chores that had to be done, but those were soon finishes and we were out on our adventures, trying not to think of September, which brought the end of summer and the return to school.

I’m older now and my carbon footprint isn’t exactly tiny as I travel in a diesel pickup pulling a camper across the mountains to Washington. I’ll do my best to comply with all of the regulations about water use to help protect the fish.

Still, there is a bit of me that is sad and grieving the passing of the way things were. I don’t have solutions, but I’ll be paying attention to the people who are seeking them.

Copyright (c) 2016 by Ted E. Huffman. If you would like to share this, please direct your friends to my web site. If you want to reproduce any or all of it, please contact me for permission. Thanks.

When the snow melts in the high country, there are places where the water drips off of the edge of the snowbank one drop at a time. If you are up there at the edge of the snowfield, you can watch the droplets form, then enlarge and finally become too big to hold onto the edge of the snow and release, dropping onto the ground below. A group of drops become a small rivulet, running down hill toward a small brook. The brook becomes a stream, the stream becomes a river. There are a thousand tributaries to a single brook in the high country. In the early summer there are areas where the ground is soft and spongy and puddles form in each of your steps. On its journey down from the mountains, the water may form a pond behind a beaver dam, with some water passing over and through the dam while a significant amount remains behind the dam, filled with frogs and water bugs and fish and all kinds of creatures that are dependent upon the aquatic environment. The pond goes through cycles of freezing and thawing depending on the season. Some ponds become so deep that they don’t freeze all the way to the bottom, harboring a layer of liquid water year round. Still, there is a circulation of the water, with some escaping the dam and flowing down stream, carrying with the water sediments and plant nutrients that are distributed downstream.

When the streams come together to form a river, there is incredible power. In the high water of the spring, entire trees are washed up and carried away by the river. When the river is running high, you can hear the moving boulders at the bottom of the river rolling and crashing against one another.

Along the way some of the molecules of water are transferred from the surface of the ponds and lakes and rivers into the atmosphere. Water vapor can travel for miles and miles carried on the air, forming clouds in the sky of almost infinite variety. When the temperature and air pressure are just right the water falls from the sky. Rain, snow, sleet and hail are all the results of water vapor taking a ride in the atmosphere and condensing into liquid, freezing into ice and changing into different forms.

We used to think that it rained every time we took a camping trip up into the mountains. It seemed like the weather would be perfect when we started hiking but by the time we were far enough away from home that we knew we’d be sleeping in a tent, the water began to fall from the sky. In the early years, we didn’t even have a tent, just a tarp that we would form into a lean-to that would keep the ground dry in a small patch that we’d cover with spruce branches before rolling out our sleeping bags. Among the old photographs that we occasionally get out are a number of shots of each other with water dripping from our caps. We’d get soaked and have to dry out our clothes around a campfire, infusing them with a distinctive, smoky aroma. The sun would come out the next day and we’d dry out and continue our adventure.

There is something very wonderful about the sound of rain on a tarp or tent overhead. I can recall it completely with some of the old feelings intact as I lie on my bed in our camper. It is a much more convenient way of traveling. Our clothes are dry and our bedding remains dry as we sleep. The sound of the raindrops on the roof of the camper is more pronounced than the sounds we hear in our house when we stay home. Each pitter patter of rain is a bit of music that carries memories as well as a rhythm for our sleeping.

I lie in bed and imagine the journeys that the water has taken. Some of the drops of water have spent decades, or perhaps even centuries as part of an ocean. In that context they carried minerals and salts and suspended any number of different floating objects. Enormous boats are buoyed by the power of the water. Some drops of water have spent millennia trapped in glaciers, slowly carving and sculpting the landscape beneath their thick layers of ice. Some have irrigated the fields that produce the crops that feed us. Some have traveled relatively short distances in recent times, flowing down from the edge of a snowbank and evaporating from the surface of a pond before falling as a raindrop fairly close to the beginning of that particular journey.

The miracle of water is not just an external reality, however. We are made of water. The blood that courses through our veins contains water. Our skin traps water molecules inside of us that take form in our vital organs, protect our fragile brains from injury and perform a dozen important life-giving functions. It is no exaggeration to think of water as one of the most important gifts of God.

If you look at water through a microscope, you will find that it is teeming with life. Many small organisms live their entire lives inside of liquid water. Each has an important function in the web of life and contributes to the growth of plants and animals in a unique way.

When I take time to look I also realize that water provides an incredible aesthetic beauty for our eyes to behold and our spirits of enjoy. Just watching drops of water fly off of the spray from a stream is entertaining and gives a sense of wonder and beauty. No wonder the ancients spoke of intangible things like justice and joy flowing down like waters. Water has a magic and a power that is beyond our ability to express in language. We make metaphors and each seems to fall short of the reality.

Today I begin with a prayer of gratitude for the gift of water.

Copyright (c) 2016 by Ted E. Huffman. If you would like to share this, please direct your friends to my web site. If you want to reproduce any or all of it, please contact me for permission. Thanks.

The river is really low here. Upstream irrigation is in full swing, trying to get one last cutting of alfalfa before the cold weather sets in. We took a drive up the valley yesterday and the irrigated fields look lush and green while the upper hills are in their summer brown. It was as hot in the mountains as I can ever remember. The ground was crackling dry as we hiked.

A low river, however, makes a great place for children to play. They can wade in and as long as they are supervised there are places where they can play without having to have an adult holding their hand every minute. The water is cold enough that they don’t stay in too long and it is a perfect solution to the midday warmth. After we got back from our hike and picnic and took time for a short rest, the children were ready for the river.

I took an old creek boat down to the river and let them try to paddle. The boat is designed for someone about my size, so they have a bit of trouble with the paddle because they don’t sit quite tall enough and have to hold it up by their shoulders and sometimes over their head. Of course they can’t reach the foot rests and their knees don’t fit in the pads, but they can get the feel of the boat and the resistance of the paddle in the water. Even though they can’t edge the boat, it will really spin for them because they are displacing so little water. Just dipping the paddle in the water when the boat is in motion will give them a turn. It is a good opportunity to begin to develop some instincts about the boat and how it will respond. A couple of us stood about 30 feet apart and I pushed the boat upstream to the other adult who turned it around for the child an let go for them to “paddle” down to me. It was a great game.

Later, looking at a couple of pictures I took, I was delighted with the memory. I grew up loving the river and I learned to love creek boats designed for playing in rivers. I have done most of my paddling in lakes in recent years and that has a charm all of its own, but there is something quite wonderful about moving water.

I hopped in the boat for a bit of a paddle around including slipping between some rocks in a more fast running place. There is hardly anything in the river that one would call whitewater at the moment. For bigger waves you’d have to go to the Yellowstone River, a couple of miles downstream and I suspect even that isn’t too wild at this time of the year. I may take it on a little adventure in the next couple of days just for the fun of it.

I haven’t spent much time on the Internet lately. We’re having too much fun just being together with our family in a place that is filled with memories for we older folks and is filling with memories for the younger ones. I’ve been scrambling to manage logistics of making sure there are enough groceries and a meal plan to feed a dozen or so people at every meal, doing some light repairs around the place, and playing with the children at every opportunity. But I am aware, in the back of my mind, that the Olympic whitewater competitions are going on in Rio. Those contests are run with highly specialized whitewater canoes and kayaks. There are competitions for both solo and tandem boats. The incredible maneuverability of the highly trained paddlers is impressive and I’m sure that I will watch some video of the contests later when I have a little time.

The range of activities between a preschooler in his grandpa’s old creek boat and Olympic competition is pretty wide. I have never in my life approached the skill and strength of an Olympian. But I have been blessed with the kind of health and strength that makes for a lot of fun with a little boat. And, when I put on a spray skirt and helmet, I can do my own version of dancing with that old red boat and have a lot of fun. It is very maneuverable and has hard chines so will edge and carve a beautiful turn when the balance is just right. My aim has always been recreation and not competition. When it comes to recreation you don’t even need a boat to have fun in the river. For years we played in the river without any more equipment than a worn-out pair of tennis shoes to protect our feet. We would wade out into the current and allow the river to float us down until we could turn out in an eddy at the edge of a deeper pool. When we were a bit older, we saved our money for goggles and a snorkel to look at the fish in the deep holes. I remember a pair of flippers, but those proved impractical in the river where you mostly float with the current and some kind of stable footing is required on all of the rocks.

Our father used to find the cold water rushing against his tired back to be a soothing end to a long day’s work. I was thinking of him and how he loved the river yesterday. He would wade out without any waders, just in an old pair of slacks and float a grasshopper down the river to just the right spot to catch some tasty pan-sized fish. He usually caught enough for a big fish fry every week. He lived long enough to become a grandpa, but not long enough to meet our children. He died the fall before our son was born in the following spring. His spirt, however, is very much alive in this place and I know how delighted he would have been to watch my grandson playing in the river.

From our human point of view, the river is timeless and its gifts are eternal.

Copyright (c) 2016 by Ted E. Huffman. If you would like to share this, please direct your friends to my web site. If you want to reproduce any or all of it, please contact me for permission. Thanks.

When I was eight years old our family suddenly went from two boys to four. Doubling the number of boys in the house was, in retrospect, a rather dramatic move. Our house always seemed large to me when I was a boy growing up, but we always had more than one kid in each room and there were times when you had to wait to use one of the two bathrooms because they were both in use.

Our father said, “Those boys need some space outdoors to run and play.” When the opportunity to purchase the Bond’s Tourist Cabins on a small acreage down by the river presented itself, he put in a bid. The transfer was completed and our family owned a cluster of run-down and abandoned tourist cabins right next to a beautiful river. The place was overgrown with weeds. He brought down a tractor and a brush mower and began to clear some of the overgrown grass and small trees. The mower hit so many rocks on that first trip around the yard that the sparks were constantly flying and we were all ushered inside to be safe from the flying rock fragments.

Our first summers at the place were fairly primitive. Suppers were cooked outside at the campfire and the cobwebs were cleaned out of the shower house. It sprung leaks almost as fast as the old ones were repaired and then the water pressure would disappear all together. Soon there was a tractor digging to install a new septic tank and prepare for the foundation for a new bathroom addition to one of the cabins. Meanwhile we learned to cut glass and putty new panes into the broken windows, scrape and paint interior walls and shingle roofs.

After two or three years, during which our folks worked and we mostly played, the place began to look a little bit better. Inexpensive plywood siding was put up on several of the buildings and stain applied. The construction meant that there were always plenty of old boards lying around and we began to construct tree houses. The first one was in a large cottonwood tree in the yard. The second was on an island in the river. The construction consumed quite a bit of our time and probably was not up to code.

As we fixed the place up my aunt said on one of her visits, “Don’t make it too pretty. I like it wild.”

By the time we were teenagers the place at the river offered small, independent sleeping spaces. During the school year I had to share a room with my brother, but in the summer, I had a small cabin all to myself unless we were hosting guests and the bed assignments had to be shuffled.

It was a great way to grow up.

The years have passed. Our parents have died. The house in town has been sold. The businesses our father ran belong to others. The cabins by the river, however, look pretty good. They are sporting new roofs and have been recently walnut blasted and re-stained on the outside. My sister has been cleaning and making everything ready for guests. There is a sense of homecoming about staying here for a little while. Even our meal choices remind me of the days when we were growing up and the place was a magnet for guests from around the world and there was always room for one more at dinner. We were 14 for lunch yesterday and 17 for supper. Supper was cooked outside: hot dogs and hamburgers with a big salad and all of the fixings.

My knowledge of the place is simply based on more than 50 years of coming to the same place. I know a lot of stories of what went on here and when we get together the stories get told. Since it was a place we took our children when they were growing up and both of them are here with us for a few days, the stories of multiple generations mingle as we sit and talk around the campfire.

We went down to the river yesterday, as we do every day, and last night I officiated as we baptized a great niece, the granddaughter of my brother. The young children then delighted in throwing rocks in the river. The river has changed a lot since my childhood. The main channel of the river has moved away from our side leaving a boulder field larger than a football field. But it is still the same river. It sounds the same and smells the same and is equally cold to the times when we were kids. It is still a great place for kids to throw rocks and delight in the splashes.

I told the kids that I’ve been throwing rocks in that river for more than 50 years and that it hasn’t filled up with rocks yet. It seems almost as if the work of children throwing rocks is part of the maintenance that the river needs to stay healthy and free. At least we’ve never run out of rocks on the bottom of the river, either.

Of course the work of the river, rounding the boulders and carrying water to the ocean, has been going on for millennia and proceeds at a pace that is often slower than our perception. The river not only carves new channels in the landscape, it also wears a deeper valley in the ground. It has cut through the hard rocks of the high mountains and the softer dirt of the foothills. It has carried mud and trees and all kinds of other things down to the larger Yellowstone River that flows into the Missouri that flows into the Mississippi that flows into the Gulf of Mexico.

One day the cabins will all be gone. The family that claims ownership of the property will be different. Even the stories may be forgotten. But the river will remain.

Copyright (c) 2016 by Ted E. Huffman. If you would like to share this, please direct your friends to my web site. If you want to reproduce any or all of it, please contact me for permission. Thanks.

Cody the dog is an Australian Shepherd. Without a doubt his favorite activity is fetching. He will chase anything you throw. He loves to chase sticks that are thrown and will often go find a stick and drop it at the feet of anyone who will toss it for him. He also has a few well-worn tennis balls that quickly get slobbery and muddy from being thrown and returned in his mouth. He can stare so intently at the ball on the ground that it is nearly impossible to ignore him. When you raise your arm to throw, he is off and running. A frisbee is easy for him to catch, but his mouth is not very gentle. A frisbee has a short life of play with Cody before it is too chewed up and broken to fly well. He will catch a tennis ball in the air sometimes, and often catches it on the first bounce. When there are people around he is in his element bringing items to throw to them one at a time until everyone has thrown objects multiple times.

There is a device for flinging tennis balls that is made of plastic and has a handle on one end and a cup to hold the tennis ball on the other. It grips the ball tightly enough that you have to give it a bit of a jerk as you arch your arm through the swing. Once you get used to it you can throw the ball farther. And it has the added bonus of being a way to pick up a soggy tennis ball without having to handle the wet thing.

Yesterday I watched as our five-year-old grandson gave instructions to the four-year-old grandson of our friends. Elliot, the five-year-old is an articulate child who uses words as one of his primary modes of interaction. Beau, the four-year-old is a bit more soft spoken and prefers an economy of speech without quite as many adjectives. Both speak well and understand each other clearly despite differences in accent. Beau is from Australia.

The flood of emotions was fairly intense as I watched the two play. The story is simple. Back in 1974, we moved to Chicago to attend theological seminary. Among the people we met that fall was a doctoral candidate from Australia and his family. Tony and Shirley had traveled the long distance for two years of study abroad with their two children who were six and eight at the time. Their travel was supported in part by their church at home. Part of what attracted us to each other was the simple face that we all were a long way from home. Part of the attraction was the intensity of theological study. We would discuss the concepts presented in our classes long into the night and speculate about the practical applications of this concepts in the churches that we would serve when we completed our formal educations. There were, of course, other students involved in our conversations, and our circle of close friends expanded during those years of intense full-time study.

During the two years that we all were studying in Chicago, our Australian friends were able to visit Montana twice. The first time we all traveled by train during Christmas break and spent time with both Susan’s parents and mine. Winter in Montana is beautiful and we were able to take a snowmobile trip up into the mountains to visit our church camp and have a brief stay at a hot springs resort with a day trip into Yellowstone National Park. The second visit was a car trip after our second year together. Tony had just completed his doctoral studies and their family was headed to the west coast for their departure back to Australia. We were headed to Montana to manage the Conference’s church camp there. We camped our way across the country and said our farewells from the church camp as they headed out to continue their journey.

Some of our friendships have been short stories like I have reported above. We continue to correspond with our distant friends but live quite separate lives, pursuing our separate activities. They returned to Australia and took up their jobs in their home country. We continued for two more years in seminary and I completed my doctorate and began serving congregations here in the United States. With some of our friends similarly close then separated we share an occasional holiday greeting and that is about the extent of our relationship. With others we don’t write letters or send emails, but occasionally meet at a conference or event and do a bit of catching up. With others contact is lost and we live separate lives.

But is that been different with these dear friends. We have kept in touch. They have been able to return to the United States quite a few times and despite the size of our continent, they have always made it a point to visit us. Once they arrived as we were in the middle of a move from Idaho to South Dakota and they helped with the driving and unpacking of our household. A decade ago we were able to travel to Australia and take our adult children with us for a month of touring, visiting and deepening our friendship.

The relationship has forged connections between our children. They have enjoyed their Australian friends and are willing to take the time to continue those connections. Both of our children have taken vacation time and traveled more than 1,000 miles from their homes to spend a few days with our Australian friends.

Watching the two grandsons play with the dog was a delightful experience of the ways in which deep relationships can spread out over many generations. Four decades ago we didn’t imagine the impact of our friendship on our lives. Now we can see how it is affecting the third generation of our families. The deep love of genuine community is stronger than great distances of time and space.

Meaning endures. Joy continues. Love never dies.

Copyright (c) 2016 by Ted E. Huffman. If you would like to share this, please direct your friends to my web site. If you want to reproduce any or all of it, please contact me for permission. Thanks.

The balance of work and recreation is more than just a response to our desire to play, which itself is not a bad thing. Study after study has demonstrated that efficiency increases when workers are allowed sufficient time for rest and renewal. The long hours and short vacations that are common among United States workers don’t yield the greatest productivity. You can read comparative studies about worker productivity in Germany and the United States that might change your thinking about how many hours per week are best for the overall economy. But this blog post isn’t going to make that argument.

We stand in a long spiritual tradition that honors time for rest and recreation. For thousands of years our people have noticed our tendency to ignore recreation time. That is why after the commandments about having only one God and making no false images of God the commandment about Sabbath is explained more carefully than most of the other commandments. The failure to give enough time for recreation is a form of idolatry - of worshiping the wrong god. What happens is that we convince ourselves that we are greater than God, who rested on the seventh day, when we think that we don’t need rest.

This theological dilemma is one to which ministers are especially prone. We work every weekend and we convince ourselves that while many others use their weekends for recreation, a day off a week is sufficient for our needs. We consider ourselves to be able to work more and play less than others. This is a common practice among people of all different jobs. Routinely working 60 or more hours a week occurs among many different professions. There is a big difference between a person holding down two minimum wage jobs in order to survive and a professional who chooses to work long hours. The former has no illusions about their indispensability or their prowess. They work long hours because they see no alternative. The rest of us, however, do harbor illusions of grandeur, convincing ourselves that we are needed and that if we worked fewer hours each week everything would fall apart.

Ministers’ vacations are a whole lot about getting our lives back into perspective. It isn’t an easy challenge.

So for the next couple of weeks, this blog is going to shift. It will be part travelogue as we journey from South Dakota to Montana and linger there for a while and then go on to Washington for a brief visit before turning toward home. I’ll be posting at different times of the day depending on Internet access. Part of the blog will also be reflections on recreation and what we do to recharge for the next phase of our ministry in the congregation.

Yesterday, being Sunday, we had our regular worship in the morning. In the afternoon we packed up and took the short drive to Devil’s Tower, Wyoming where we are camping overnight. We’ll do a bit of exploring here before heading out for my home town in Montana today. I frequently make the entire drive from Rapid City to my home in a single day, but this time we intentionally broke it into two pieces to begin the process of slowing down and taking a closer look at things. Some of the roads we drove yesterday and some of the roads we’ll drive today are a bit slower than our typical pace. Slowing down is an important aspect of vacation for me.

At the moment, my mind is stirring with tasks that need to be done at the church, deadlines and other things. It will take me a few days to release some of those things and get on with my vacation. A few of them will require some phone calls or emails in the early days of my travel so that I will be able to separate myself from the details of work. I’m used to being willing to do a lot of different chores. I’m not as good about delegating as I wish. I work hard to make others look good. All of those traits help me to succeed in the work I do, but also make it harder for me to truly take time for rest and recreation.

The days when it feels like I’m the only one who knows how to keep the church running should be a warning to me of the changes that need to occur. Before the time of the judges Moses convinced himself that he was the only one who could lead the rag tag bunch of former slaves that God had chosen for a new life of freedom. God had to show him otherwise. It is no different for me. Sometimes God has to show me otherwise before I remember that I am human and that the church is far more robust and resilient than I think. God will provide the leadership that is required when we act in faith and allow that leadership to emerge.

We were gifted with a glorious sunset last night. As we sat with friends sipping tea in the cool of the evening I began to relax. I know it will take a little while for me to change my pace. I forgot and left my alarm on to wake me this morning, but that will be changed tomorrow. Waiting for the light to be just right for a few photographs of the tower was a delight. I don’t often simply sit and wait. I’m too quick to pull out my phone and check my email or add to my “to do” list. But last night I was able to just watch the changing color of the sky. It might be the first in a series of sunsets and sunrises that get extra attention from me.

So sit back and relax and watch me try to do the same. This vacation promises to have much to teach me if I am willing to learn from it.

Copyright (c) 2016 by Ted E. Huffman. If you would like to share this, please direct your friends to my web site. If you want to reproduce any or all of it, please contact me for permission. Thanks.

Conversation among my friends frequently turns to politics today. There is a general sense that we don’t understand what is going on. It seems that the political parties have abandoned their traditional positions and values. It seems that the extremists have exerted their control and that the centrists are being nearly silent. We are all a bit anxious about the future, but feel as if the system is out of control and that there is little that we can do to change matters. Our conversations regularly drift to the fear that we sense both from political leaders and from the general population.

One thing that is confusing is that people seem to be so quick to vote against their own interests. Those who are frustrated with the widening gap between the rich and the poor and the shrinking of the middle class often show enthusiasm for politicians who have been part of that very problem and whose election seems to promise a worsening of conditions. Those who say they are looking for a political outsider will throw their support to a candidate who has been the consummate insider, funding teams of lobbyists and manipulating the political process over decades. Those concerned about the lack of jobs will often promote an increase in the kind of jobs that do not provide an adequate living. It seems that we humans often do not know how to obtain the results we need.

In this climate of fear, it seems that we need a renewal of courage, not more fearful actions. In this climate of anxiety, the people need to learn to relax and focus, not to be stirred up by inflammatory rhetoric.

For centuries, Christian mystics have taught their followers the spiritual and physical benefits of centering prayer. The practice has parallels in other spiritual traditions as well. At its core, centering prayer is a mental exercise, but it begins with becoming physically comfortable. The position, whether sitting, standing or kneeling, needs to be one that can be held calmly without excessive muscle strain. Centering prayer often begins with simply becoming aware of one’s body and making tiny adjustments. If there is tension, it can be released. It may require flexing and releasing a muscle, or shifting one’s position, but with focus, you can make yourself more relaxed and comfortable.

Once external distractions have been dealt with, the person at prayer can focus on releasing internal distractions. We spend much of our time trying to remember various lists and problems that need to be solved. Centering involves spending a few seconds with each distracting thought and then releasing it so that one’s mind is freed to focus on God.

Once focused, centering prayer is a process of listening. The sensation isn’t quite the same as having an external sound travel through the air and the sound waves vibrating the ears drum, but it is a process of receiving, rather than one of producing.

Centering prayer requires practice. It doesn’t occur naturally for many people the first time it is attempted. When I am teaching centering prayer, we often begin with short amounts of silence, gradually building up to significant moments after practitioners have had a time to learn to be comfortable with their own thoughts and prayers.

We live in a world where silence and passivity are rarely encouraged or nurtured. We convince ourselves that action is required in response to every circumstance. But immediate action isn’t always the best course to pursue.

I have learned a bit by watching the deer in my back yard. I was taught that the deer’s instinct provides for only two reactions to danger: flight or fright. The deer in our yard rarely fight. There may be some showy front hoof pawing around another deer. There is an occasional head butt between two bucks. But more often than fight, a whitetail deer will raise the tail and run from the situation that seems threatening. Fight or flight, however are neither the most common reaction for these animals. When startled or confronted, the most common response of the animal is to freeze in place. They will stand perfectly still. This technique works extremely well for fawns. Their spotted coats are great natural camouflage. When they freeze in the tall grass, I can’t see them even if I know exactly where they are.

We need to teach that there are at least three options in reaction to danger: fight, flight and freeze. And often the third is the option that produces the best outcome.

I suppose that a debate in which the participants pause to meditate and think before making their responses would be a bit boring for observers and make for poor television, but I would love to witness a debate in which participants actually listened to their opponents and then paused as they sorted out the most effective response. From my perspective a political who takes time to think before reacting would be an extremely valuable contributor to the common good.

My personal life seems to require a lot of time for quiet reflection. I am not always confident that I know the best option when difficult choices are presented. I become confused between what I want and what would truly be in the best interests of all involved. Sometimes I fail to consider the impact of my decisions on others. It seems that I am best at discerning God’s will when I am not the only one praying and listening to God.

I’m tired of the language of winners and losers in our society. Our political conventions are filled with lots of talk about who can or will win and very short on conversations about leadership and the qualities that provide for the common good. The phrase “common good” seems to be a rare commodity in political speech in our country today. Attention to the common good, however, is exactly what is most needed.

We sense a lot of fear in politics and witness very little courage. Lashing out and reacting with violent rhetoric does not display courage.

The bravest thing for a candidate might be to take time to think and consult with other careful thinkers before responding.

Copyright (c) 2016 by Ted E. Huffman. If you would like to share this, please direct your friends to my web site. If you want to reproduce any or all of it, please contact me for permission. Thanks.

Our relationship with our friends from Australia who are visiting us has always been one of family-to-family. We met their children when we first moved to Chicago. Although we had no children at the time, the friendship has gone on through the births of children, grandchildren, and a host of other changes over the decades. Even though we have lived on two distant continents, we have had the blessing of being together at some key moments in our lives. They visited us with their first grandson several years ago. We were able to bring our adult children with us on a trip to Australia a decade ago. Along the way we’ve shared photographs and stories of family life. So it seems completely natural to us that on this trip they are traveling with their son and his four-year-old son.

Our conversations are mostly adult and the four-year-old doesn’t have any of his peers to play with while they are visiting us here. Next week we’ll travel to Montana where our son and grandson will meet us, so there will be two boys for adventures for a couple of days.

All the same, I think we’re succeeding in making the trip into a wonderful adventure for the four-year-old. First of all he is visiting in a place where all of the adults love children. Our daughter and son-in-law both are great with kids. Our daughter works as a teacher in a child development center and is confident and at ease with children. When a burst of emotion overwhelms the child, there is always an adult with an understanding nature available to assist him. More importantly, all of the adults around him understand children and love to have them along, so if something takes a bit longer or if we need to take a few moments for child-centered activity no one is bothered in the least.

A trip from Australia to the United States is a big undertaking when traveling with a child. The 16+ hour flight time from Australia to the West Coast is a big challenge for starters. There isn’t much room for moving about on an airplane and the travel time is long. Even though a child usually sleeps relatively comfortable in an airline seat, no one in good health sleeps for that long in one stretch. Arriving in the United States there are a lot of challenges to a little one whose routines are pretty much disrupted. Even though he can carry some favorite toys in his backpack, most of the rest of his world is filled with new things to which he might adjust. He is sleeping in a strange bed in a strange house with different sounds, smells and sights than he has at home. The people speak in an accent that seems strange to his ears and some of the foods are different as well.

Our friends’ grandson is handling all of the challenges of travel extremely well. He is a delightful and very polite boy who is at home in his world and at home with adults. He is respectful of the people and places he is visiting and is very interested in a wide variety of things, including the animals and sights of this land he is visiting.

Having him along on the trip has added a lot of delight for us adults as well. He is constantly reminding us of the importance of play and his laughter is infectious. He gets us to slow down and notice things we might otherwise overlook. And, seeking adventures that are engaging for him means that we get to do things that we might otherwise miss. Dinosaur Park, the 1880’s train and countless other attractions of our area are things that we often simply ignore in our everyday lives. Having a four-year-old visit reminds us of how interesting and varied our community is and how much of it we pass by without noticing until someone comes along to open our eyes. In addition, having a child around forces us adults to be mindful of regular meals and bedtimes which are as important for adults as they are for children, but which we sometimes neglect in our desire to catch up with our conversation.

Being honored with such a visit reminds me of all of the children whose lives are not so privileged. I read about the children of Syria, for example, whose lives are forever disrupted by war. The loss of homes and family members can be devastating. Going years without the normal activities of children such as schools, an occasional gift or a quiet place to sleep changes everything. A child has to grow up more quickly when they live in a place of war. Hearing gunshots and mortar rounds exploding is very scary for adults. Living with constant fear is more than stressful. It is traumatic. The loss of family members forces children to assume the roles of adults, caring for one another, seeking income for the family, and struggling for the minimums of survival. In war children are often separated from their families and have to make their way with little assistance. War not only injures and kills adults, it leaves children with life-altering injuries as well. They experience pain and suffering beyond our imagination.

The war in Syria has been going on for five years now. That is the entire life of our grandson and longer than our four-year-old guest has been around. There are children who have known nothing but war for all of their lives.

They say that the lucky ones are able to get away from the war. Children can be granted asylum in other countries, but the prospect of having to move far away from home to an unknown place where people speak a different language is daunting. They would like to go back home and return to the familiar, but that is impossible.

So we treasure our moments with the children in our lives. We treasure their presence. But we also pray for the children whose lives are more difficult and hope that they too can find the security of home and family.

Copyright (c) 2016 by Ted E. Huffman. If you would like to share this, please direct your friends to my web site. If you want to reproduce any or all of it, please contact me for permission. Thanks.

Having lived in South Dakota longer than any other state, I still can’t really claim to be a native South Dakotan. That title goes to those who have but in more than a couple of decades. Those of us who live a more migratory lifestyle will never share the perspective of those who have remained in the same place for all of their lives. There are, of course advantages and disadvantages to any point on the stability/mobility spectrum. Occasionally, I find it challenging to speak appropriately, especially when I find something about our place and culture to be amusing or outrightly funny. I have no right to make fun of others, but sometimes a bit of self-deprecating humor is just what is needed. When we are able to laugh at ourselves, we become open to meaningful change as well as a healthy perspective. But I’m a bit careful not to make too many jokes about South Dakotans even though I consider myself to be one of them.

One of the lines that I have been known to repeat is this: “Here in South Dakota, we believe that God made no mountain so beautiful that it cannot be improved by carving it.” Of course I’m not a sculptor and I have never participated in the mountain carving. I’m just trying to make a comment about human nature in general and including myself along with other humans seems to be a more humble and less provocative way of making my point.

I’ve live in places with higher mountains and I know that the attraction and beauty of the hills doesn’t come from superlative size or stunning height. There are plenty of mountains that are higher than ours. What is fascinating and wonderful about the hills is the way in which they stand apart from other mountains and form their own kind of island in the prairie. I have a reprint of a composite satellite image of the hills showing how striking our geography really is.

As I think of the announcement yesterday that the U.S. Board on Geographic Names has decided to rename Harney Peak as Black Elk Peak, I want to include myself in the conversations that have led up to the decision. We’ve been arguing about the name of this feature for quite a while.

For those who haven’t been participating in our discussions, the peak is the highest point in the Black Hills. It is also the highest point in the United States east of the Rockies. That means that when you think of all of the Eastern Mountain Ranges: The White Mountains, the Catskills, The Blue Ridge Mountains, The Appalachians, The Adirondack Mountains, and all of the others, none feature a peak as high as ours.

The peak was called Hinhan Kaga by the Lakota people. Late in the 1850’s it was given the name Harney Peak by the civil engineer Gouverneur K. Warren. The name Harney Peak has stuck in contemporary usage and is the name that appears on maps and other documents of the area.

The name is controversial because General William S. Harney whose name it was given was an honor, is not seen by all of the people as a particularly honorable person. His military actions, especially the ordering of violence against women and children at the Battle of Blue Water Creek, earned him infamy among Lakota people.

It has, since, I have lived in South Dakota, seemed fitting that the name of the peak be a point of controversy. After all it is the place in South Dakota that has been struck by lightning more times than any other. Before the stone watch tower was constructed on the peak there was a wooden one that was struck by lighting so many times that most of its fire calls were referencing the fact that it was the lookout that was on fire. Having the name draw a firestorm of controversy seems appropriate for a peak that attracts so much lightning.

A little over a year ago the South Dakota Board of Geographic Names recommended renaming Harney Peak Hinhan Kaga. That made some South Dakotans angry and there was a move in the state legislature to remove the authority of the Board of Geographic Names. Then the Board reversed its decision stating that , “there was no public consensus on a new name.” That was true. I have heard a lot of impassioned arguments for and against several of the proposed names.

Then, yesterday, the U. S. Board on Geographic Names adopted the official name “Black Elk Peak.”

I suspect that this will not yet be final.

Our Governor and one of our U.S. Senators have already made statements opposing the name change. The Governor cites possible confusion and the expense of renaming the feature on all of the maps. The senator says the group acted more quickly than was promised. When you are a politician it seems that it is a good idea to appear to be indignant in front of the press from time to time.

I don’t think calling the spot Black Elk Peak will be much of a challenge. After all it is right in the midst of the Black Elk Wilderness area. And Black Elk is a well-known Lakota spiritual leader. And John Neihardt’s book, “Black Elk Speaks,” has sold a lot of copies and attracted a lot of readers. It probably isn’t the definitive description of traditional Lakota religious practices that it claims to be, but it is one of those books that everyone who is serious about understanding the history of Lakota people should read.

Not being a Lakota speaker, I find Black Elk Peak much easier to remember than Hinhan Kaga, which would have challenged me had it been the final name chosen.

I think that not only do we find carving mountains to be a pastime here in South Dakota, we also find arguing about the names of our mountains to be worthy of our time.

Copyright (c) 2016 by Ted E. Huffman. If you would like to share this, please direct your friends to my web site. If you want to reproduce any or all of it, please contact me for permission. Thanks.

We’ve been sleeping in the basement for a few nights. Our house is filled with guests and it just made sense for us to sleep in the basement bedroom, which is close to my library while others sleep in the bedrooms on the other floors of our home. I’m very comfortable down here and have been sleeping very well. That phenomenon is assisted, likely, by the fact that with family and friends surrounding us I’m not prone to take a nap or nod off too early, which would mean that I might miss some of the fun and conversation.

On the one hand the basement is not the quietest place in the house. We can hear noises from the water softener and other plumbing. We can hear footsteps in the kitchen above us. But what we can’t hear is the weather and the sounds of the natural world. I’m used to sleeping with an open window and waking to birdsong all summer long. I’m used to being aware of the crunch of gravel in the neighbor’s driveway if he comes and goes in the middle of the night. I’m used to the rumble of thunder in the hills and the wind in the trees.

No worries, this arrangement is temporary and before long I’ll be back to my usual bedroom and familiar sounds.

But I certainly was surprised yesterday morning when I went out to get in my pickup and run to town for a few early morning chores at the office. There is a tree between our house and our neighbor’s place that had blown over. I didn’t even know it had been windy.

We used to call the phenomena a “micro burst.” It is a particular kind of vertical wind that is caused by a deteriorating thunderstorm. What happens is that a very strong blast of wind comes down in a nearly vertical direction from within a high cloud. We would occasionally come upon a small area where all the trees had blown over in the forest and it looked almost as if a tornado had touched down, except all of the trees would be laying in the same direction as if a huge wind had blown them over, which is what had happened. However, there would be trees growing a short ways away that were unaffected, so you could tell that the wind was concentrated in a relatively small area.

Tuesday night’s burst took out 13 power poles in a row feeding electricity to a neighboring subdivision. Power poles are designed to take a 100 mph wind if there is no ice. They can take a pretty good wind with ice, but that is a winter phenomenon. We don’t know the actual windspeed in this particular burst because the nearest official weather station is a few miles away from our area.

We got lucky. We get our power from buried cables and didn’t experience an interruption. And, the tree that fell missed both houses and my pickup which was parked on that side of our house.

The tree that fell is one of about a half dozen dead trees that the neighbor has left standing in the yard. I offered to cut down the dead trees for the neighbor once and was told that she had to check with the property owner and would get back to me, but I never heard back. It’s pretty clear from the experience of Tuesday night that the standing dead trees pose a safety threat. I spoke with other neighbors who are willing to help get the trees down safely so that no one is injured. Obviously they still can’t be removed without the owner’s permission, but the storm provides a big incentive to get that permission. If the barrier to removing the trees is cost, neighbors who are willing to work together should address that issue. That is pretty much just the usual process of living with neighbors. We have to exercise our skills of talking with one another and figuring out how to solve problems.

The weather, however, is something different. The phenomenon we witnessed on Tuesday night is just another example of the power of nature. I commented to someone whose home was affected by the power outage, “All I can say is that if you had been sleeping in a tent out there, you and the tent would have parted company.” The amazing thing is that nature put on that display of incredible power. Forces strong enough to snap off power poles and uproot trees are pretty amazing. And no one was injured. I’m sure that row of power poles will cost the power company a chunk of money to replace them. And they’ve probably invested quite a bit in making the temporary restoration of power to the neighborhood. But financial losses are easier to take than injuries or fatalities.

In the time we’ve lived in this house we’ve witnessed early fall and late spring blizzards that drop feet of snow overnight, accompanied by strong winds that uproot some trees and take the branches off of others. We’ve seen hailstones so big that they break car windshields and pummel the hoods and roofs of cars with dents. Just a few weeks ago we had tiny hail that continued for a half hour leaving the garden flattened and a two-inch thick layer of ice on everything that took 24 hours to melt. It was something we had not previously seen and one fascinating thing is that the grass in the lawn acted just as if spring had returned. That water soaked down into the roots of the grass and it greened up and started growing with a vengeance. I had to return to weekly mowing, something that is unusual in August around here.

The weather still has a great capacity to surprise and amaze us. There are new things that happen every year. And there is one more thing that is surprising to me. I can’t believe that I slept through all of the excitement.

Copyright (c) 2016 by Ted E. Huffman. If you would like to share this, please direct your friends to my web site. If you want to reproduce any or all of it, please contact me for permission. Thanks.

Many years ago when our children were growing up, we discovered super soakers. These are water guns that use an hand pump to create air pressure that forces the water through a nozzle at quite a bit of power giving the toy more accuracy and range than the standard water guns that were popular when I was a child. It is the kind of toy that is a lot more fun if you have two so that two people can play the game. Most of the time, both end up getting wet. Sometimes, when our kids were teens, the “battle” would escalate into use of the garden hose to complete the drenching.

We didn't encourage gun play with our children, though we did try to teach them some basics of gun safety as they grew old enough to understand. The super soakers, however, were just so much fun that the game frequently erupted, especially on hot summer days.

Kids grow up, our lives have moved on and the super soakers sat in a plastic bin with other unused outdoor toys for a long time. Then yesterday when our friends arrived with their four-year-old grandson, we went outside to play and opened the bin in search of a frisbee and balls for outdoor play. The young boy’s eyes fell on the super soakers and he was immediately attracted to the toy. With the temperatures in the 90’s it was a good day for water play and before long both of the guns were filled with water and we were sneaking around the back yard, crouching behind trees and receiving blasts of cold water accompanied by the infectious laughter of a four-year-old. It was great fun and a good game for a child who has been traveling a lot in the past week and was ready to just have time to run and play and enjoy being with friends.

The super soakers that we have are made of brightly-colored plastic and although the shapes vaguely resemble weapons, with hand grips and triggers like a gun, no one who knows anything about guns would be confused about the purpose of the toys. Still, I am reminded of how toys can become serious and play can turn to danger.

It was also yesterday that Rapid City police released their conclusions in an investigation where shots were fired from a real gun. The incident began with two young adult robbers when entered a store with a plastic airsoft gun. The store clerk wisely gave them the demanded money and they fled the store. A bystander, who didn’t witness the robbery, but saw the suspects fleeing took out his handgun and fired shots at the fleeing robbers. No one was hit by the real bullets fired. After an investigation, police say it was a crime for the shooter of the real weapon. The suspects in the robbery have been arrested and are in jail awaiting trial for their crime. The shooter has been charged with reckless discharge of a firearm, a misdemeanor offense. The misuse of a toy gun accelerated to the misuse of a potentially lethal weapon.

In our society it is important for all citizens to learn about our responsibilities when it comes to weapons, toy or real. As we have learned from numerous incidents across the country the use of a toy in a threatening manner can lead to confusion that results in fatal shots from a real weapon.

Yesterday was also the 2-year anniversary of the death of Michael Brown, a Ferguson, Missouri, teenager who was fatally shot by a police officer in 2014. There have been a lot of different opinions about the events that led to Mr. Brown’s death and the incident was a flashpoint for protests and gave rise to the Black Lives Matter movement. The father of Mr. Brown has been active in organizing peaceful memorials and remembrances of his son and called for a quiet candlelight vigil in his son’s memory to mark the second anniversary of his death. Somehow, however, the event turned violent. The details are not yet clear, but news reports state that gunfire broke out after a car hit a protestor. Photos of the event show the person hit by the car to be conscious and being carried away. It is unclear whether the person was struck by accident or whether the car was being used as a weapon. Shortly after he was hit a number or protestors began chasing the car. One or more guns were drawn and shots struck the car. Fortunately no one was injured by the gunfire.

Reading the news headlines this morning I was struck by how close innocent play that is great fun can come to real dangerous actions that result in injury and death. Those of us who choose to play with toys that resemble guns bear the responsibility of teaching our children about the safe and proper use of weapons. It seems like a difficult and perhaps premature lesson for a four-year-old. We do know, however, instinctively, how to intervene with a preschooler when it is time to end the play. We set limits. He learned that the toys were our outdoors play only. He had to make sure that the person he was going to soak had consented to the game. We taught him to avoid aiming at heads and faces. We made sure that he knew how to put down his water gun when we brought out the towels for people to dry off. We had him put the toys away at the end of the day. The use of the toys brought responsibilities. Hopefully these lessons form a foundation for future decisions that will be made.

Even though we live in a dangerous world, the innocent play of children remains a blessing and I’m delighted to be able to participate in that play. I don’t want our fears to prevent us from the joy of sharing with children. Still, I also know that I share in the responsibility of teaching as we play so that we can build a community that is safe for all of our children and a society where people can live without fear.

Copyright (c) 2016 by Ted E. Huffman. If you would like to share this, please direct your friends to my web site. If you want to reproduce any or all of it, please contact me for permission. Thanks.

There was a time when I paid closer attention to the Olympic games. I think that I got out of the habit mostly because I’ve gotten out of the habit of watching television. There are so many things that I enjoy doing with my time. And simply not turning on the television gives me a gift of time to read, work in my garden, go paddling and do a hundred other things that I like to do. In this busy, hectic society of ours the gift of time is a precious thing and I enjoy it. Most of the time the gift is free. There isn’t much of a downside to it. Occasionally, I am uninformed about the topics of conversation in the room. My friends are getting used to my response when they ask, “Did you see . . .?”

I do know where to go on the Internet to find a table of medals awarded, so I know that the US is leading in the overall medal count followed by Japan, Russia, Italy and Australia. Given the number of Russian athletes who failed to qualify the medal count is impressive, though only two of Russia’s 10 medals are gold. But that is about it for what I know about the Olympics. I haven’t watched a single competition live and I didn’t even look up video footage of the opening ceremonies, choosing to look at a few still photos instead.

That is only one aspect of my cultural deprivation. There are a lot of things I don’t know. I don’t go to movies often and haven’t kept up with the summer blockbusters. I’ve been meaning to go to the new Star Trek movie, and I heard that the new Ice Age movie is fun. Other hit movies don’t hold much appeal for me. I don’t like the name “Suicide Squad,” and I see enough of suicide in real life to think that it can’t possibly be entertainment. I’ve skipped all the other Bourne movies and we are currently without pets, so their secret lives is not very intriguing to me at the moment.

If you want to have an in depth conversation with me, the topics of television and movies might be good to avoid.

Then there is the subject of motorcycles. You’d think that anyone living where I do would have some knowledge and expertise about the Sturgis Rally and Races. After all, we’re surrounded by motorcycles. I’ve learned to be a cautious driver and look very carefully for motorcycles. I want all of the riders to enjoy the hills and remain safe as they do. I’m the right age to recognize some of the concert headliners such as Willie Nelson, Lynyrd Skynyrd, and Wolfman Jack. But Five Finger Death Punch, Pop Evil, Sweet Cyanide, The Flaunt Girls, Reformed Whores, and the Living Deads don’t sound like acts a minister should be familiar with in the first place. I enjoy looking at the beautiful paint jobs on the bikes parked on main street, but I am not informed about the different brands, different engine sizes, and other features of motorcycles. The biggest motorcycle I’ve ever ridden is a Honda 350 and I haven’t ridden a motorcycle in about 40 years.

I don’t have any tattoos and have no plans on getting one this year.

The Sturgis Rally is big news in our town, but I’m not really in a position to engage in intelligent conversation on the subject.

My cultural ignorance is generally accepted by my friends who are able to talk about canoes, kayaks, hiking, the animals of the hills, religion, fiction, science, poetry and other topics about which I have some knowledge.

And I’m always willing to talk about the Chicago Cubs. Holding strong at the front of their division with the best record in baseball this year. After a mere century and a bit since a world series win, this could be the year.

Here is the problem. Movies, television and motorcycles aren’t the only topics about which I lack information and expertise.

I know nothing about rugby.

I know one team has the ball and the other team defends until the offensive team loses the ball or scores. I know that a forward pass is illegal in the game, distinguishing it from football, as does the phenomenon known as scrum. But I don’t really know what scrum is other than a bunch of players mashing together in a big blob. (That’s probably not a technical rugby term.) I know they tackle each other and wear a lot less padding than American football players. It’s a rough game for a bunch of players wearing short pants. But I don’t understand the part about scoring tries or how a penalty kick works.

If you are a dedicated rugby fan, you’ve probably already given up on me in disgust.

Here is the problem with all of that. We have guests from Australia arriving today. They are deer friends whom we’ve known since the 1970’s. But their son and our daughter will also be with them as well as their grandson. And our son and grandson will join us all next week. That means that the younger generation would like to talk about something other than old times.

Our Australian guests are motorcycle people and are glad to be arriving during the rally.

And The Australian women’s rugby team beat New Zealand 24-17 to win the first ever Olympic rugby sevens gold medal. It’s big news in Australia. Canada beat Great Britain for the bronze medal. The Australia team outscored New Zealand four tries to three, with two of those tries while New Zealand’s Portia Woodman was in the sin bin. You’d think a minister would know what a sin bin is, don’t you. I’m trying to figure out how the score was 24 to 17 if they scored four tries to three. You’d think the score would have been 24 to 18, wouldn’t you.

I think it would be good for me to do a lot of listening and to avoid trying to offer my expertise on any subject for the next week or so.

Unless they want to talk about the Cubs.

Copyright (c) 2016 by Ted E. Huffman. If you would like to share this, please direct your friends to my web site. If you want to reproduce any or all of it, please contact me for permission. Thanks.

OK friends, I had a lot of fun yesterday blogging and preaching about something about which I know very little, namely physics, specifically particle physics. So I thought that I would follow up this morning with another blog about something about which I know equally little, that is, the Second Law of Thermodynamics. Since we live in an orderly universe that abides by the laws of physics, it makes sense that I ought to have some idea about those laws.

But first, a little personal information. Nearly four decades ago, when we were seminary students, we formed a close friendship with a family from Australia. When we completed our educations, we began our ministries, they in Australia and we in North Dakota. Over the years, the friendship has remained strong and vibrant despite the great distances between our homes. When we have the opportunity to get together, which we seem to find about every five years or so, our conversations continue as if we had been talking daily all along. It is a joy to know that friendship truly transcends distance and that the values that we hold dear are still relevant even after the passage of time. Ten years ago we were able to travel to Australia with our family and spend time with our friends. It was something that we will always treasure and remember.

Anyway, those friends are coming to visit us tomorrow and we are excited and happy. Our daughter and son-in-law will also arrive tomorrow as she is eager to see our friends and to introduce her husband to them. Next week our son and grandson will travel to meet us in Montana for an even greater reunion. First, however, we are going to invest part of this week showing them South Dakota. Tony recently retired after serving for a decade as the National Director of Multicultural and Cross-cultural Ministry of the Uniting Church in Australia. As a result he is very interested in our partnerships with Lakota Congregations and their work on our reservations, so we will be traveling to Bridger to view some of the work of that congregation later this week.

So, the past couple of days have involved the normal kind of house cleaning that is a part of preparing for guests. These people are family and friends, so we don’t need to alter our lifestyle. On the other hand, we do want them to feel welcome and we are excited that they are coming, so a little extra window washing and preparing are in order.

Combine that with the fact that our church is having a rummage sale in a couple of weeks and it is an opportunity for us to donate some the the accumulation of 21 years of living in the same house. So, we’ve made some modest donations to the rummage sale and have been doing a little bit of sorting of our things, which seem to accumulate no matter how hard we are able to envision a more minimalist existence.

Which brings us to the second law of thermodynamics. I know you’ve been waiting for this. Simply stated the second law of thermodynamics is that an isolated system’s entropy never decreases. To state it in a different manner, there are certain things that cannot be reversed. Moving away from thermodynamics, slightly, There are certain things that occur only in one direction. You can’t unscramble an egg. A crashed car cannot reassemble itself. Smoke doesn’t flow down the chimney and back into the fire. We accept these things simply by our observation of the universe. In physics. Entropy is an all pervasive natural force, similar in importance to gravity or electromagnetism. It relates to the “flow” or directionality of time. Time only goes in one direction.

Here is a simple example: You have a cup of very hot coffee that you would like to drink as soon as possible, let us say, within 5 minutes. Should you first add the desired quantity of cold milk to the coffee and then let the coffee sit for 5 minutes? Alternatively, do you let the coffee sit for 5 minutes and then add the same quantity of milk?

The answer is not intuitive but it is simple, if we are familiar with the Second Law: The rate of heat exchange between the hot coffee and the ambient air depends on their temperature differential. The higher the temperature differential, the faster will be the rate of exchange. Within the 5-minute waiting period, heat transfers to the air at a higher rate if we do not add the cold milk initially to the coffee. If we add the milk at the beginning, instead of at the end of the 5 minutes, the energy transfer will slow down and the coffee will be markedly hotter at the end of 5 minutes.

OK, pastor, this really doesn’t have anything to do with everyday life, unless you really care about the quickest way to cool your coffee. Apply the principle to the universe, however, and you will see how the principle applies to what is going on in my life today. Instead of thinking about the energy in a hot cup of coffee, think, for a moment about all of the energy in the universe. The amount of energy in the universe was established at the time of the Big Bang. At that point, energy was extremely concentrated and ordered. Since then, the universe has expanded vastly and energy has become more diluted and randomized. It is inherent in the nature of the universe that this process must and will continue. If it were to stop, the universe would cease to exist.

Just as the flow of time is one way, the expansion of the universe is one way. It is a fundamental process of the universe that energy becomes more diluted and randomized with the passage of time. This cannot be reversed. The universe literally flows form order to chaos.

Which explains why although we work hard to keep our house clean and our possessions organized disorder continues to creep into our lives. It is a universal law: paint peels, hot coffee turns cold, investments go sour, and the garage gets messy. It isn’t just that anything that can go wrong will go wrong. More precisely, according to the second law of thermodynamics, anything that can go wrong must go wrong.

Now that you’ve got that, I can explain quantum mechanics to you. But that discussion will have to wait for another day. I’m out of space for today.

Copyright (c) 2016 by Ted E. Huffman. If you would like to share this, please direct your friends to my web site. If you want to reproduce any or all of it, please contact me for permission. Thanks.

My wife’s grandmother lived to the age of 100. When she was in her nineties, she used to occasionally marvel at all of the technological advances in her lifetime. Born into the era of horses and buggies, she witnessed a revolution in transportation that included private automobiles, airplanes, the landing on the moon and regular airline service around the globe. As Marshall McLuhan observed, the rate of discovery and change is accelerating. It is likely that there have been as many scientific and technical discoveries and innovations in the span of my lifetime even though it is nearly four decades shorter at this point than 100 years. Prominent among the technical advances of my lifetime has been the development and miniaturization of computer technologies. People are quick to point out that there is more computing power in a smartphone than was used to guide the first landing on the moon. The latest generation of supercomputers and perform more than a quadrillion operations per second, allowing scientists to identify meaningful patterns in unfathomably large amounts of data and perform simulations with incredible accuracy.

I can’t help, however, being a bit less amazed and awed by scientific discovery and technical advance than was my grandmother-in-law. When I think of this relatively young century, it seems as if the “breakthroughs” of science have been softer and less surprising than was the case with previous generations. One possibility is that, having witnessed so much innovation and change, I’ve become a bit jaded. I think, however, that there is something different going on. The advance of powerful computing combined with the incredible costs of modern scientific experiments has resulted in most discoveries being predicted long before they occur.

Two of the biggest discoveries of experimental physics of the 21st century - the discovery of the Higgs boson and the detecting of gravitational waves - were predicted for a long time before the discoveries were announced. It seems almost as if scientists are only able to discover things that they are looking for.

Two factors are important in the current world of scientific exploration. The first is access t o incredible computing power. The ability to sort through enormous amounts of data and the ability to perform calculations at breakneck speed have resulted in pushing the edges of scientific discovery in so many directions that breakthrough discovery can only occur in places of specific and well-concentrated focus. There is no longer a process of just observing nature to see what surprise will occur. There is less unfocused creative thinking brought to science than was the case in previous generations.

The second factor is the enormous cost of modern technology. The price of many of the experiments required for discovery now has surpassed the capacity of single institutions. This means that only large collaborations can raise the funds required to conduct experiments. Science is no longer the product of isolated geniuses in their laboratories, but rather huge cooperative ventures with all of the administration, bureaucracies, and politics of complex human collaborations. In order to obtain funding for the experiment, scientists are forced to go public with their theories and the theories are tested in simulation multiple times before the experiment is undertaken in actual circumstances.

These are, of course, generalizations and there is a great deal of science that is being conducted in other ways and places. But the general result remains. We are able to yawn and take a bit of a lackadaisical attitude in regards to science because we have heard all of the predictions long before the event. I remember a time, not long after the discovery of the Higgs boson, when I had to get out my computer and look it up because I couldn’t remember if the actual discovery had taken place or that it had just been predicted. I had a similar reaction to the discovery of water on Mars. The models had predicted it so long before the actual detection that it is difficult to remember exactly when they first confirmed what they had so long predicted.

Some of the breakthroughs of contemporary science carry the capacity for life-altering consequences. The sequencing of the human genome and the advent of relatively common genetic testing is opening new doors for the practice of medicine. Scientists are on the verge of growing new organs from a patient’s own stem cells, curing previously untreatable diseases, and employing genetic modification to treat and cure cancer.

This morning in worship we will return to one of the older of Christian writings, the letter to the Hebrews that speaks of the nature of faith. One famous quote from that latter asserts, “Faith is the evidence of things not seen.” I’m pretty sure that many modern scientists would cringe at the thought of using the word “faith” to describe their experiments, but it does seem to me that we as a general public have placed a lot of faith in the process of scientific breakthrough and technical advance. We believe that things will get better and we expect technologies to solve some of the most demanding problems of humanity. And the scientists keep searching for things that are unseen because they have predicted that those things exist. At the micro level, in the field of particle physics, virtually all of the experiments are now conducted with all kinds of enhanced detectors because what is been sought is beyond the ability of direct observation. The search for the unseen continues and the scientists, in fact believe that the things for which they are searching exist. The neutrino detector failed to detect anything. The response is to build a bigger and more sensitive detector. No one at those fund raising sessions has dared to question the existence of neutrinos. They believe in things unseen.

I’m with them. I expect that they will continue to detect the forces and particles that they predict are present. And when they do they will not be discovering something new. They will be discovering particles and forces that have been present in the universe since long before humans began to be aware of them.

At my core, I believe that there is yet much more to be discovered about the nature of this universe and that as we learn we will realize that each new discovery makes another possible. I do not, however, believe that it is for us to fully understand in the span of this lifetime. We’ve still a great deal to learn.

Copyright (c) 2016 by Ted E. Huffman. If you would like to share this, please direct your friends to my web site. If you want to reproduce any or all of it, please contact me for permission. Thanks.

Yesterday afternoon I attended a ceremony for swearing in new officers of the Pennington County Sheriff’s Office. We had a few new deputies, a few new corrections officers and booking technicians and group of temporary deputies who cover contract law enforcement in Wall, Hill City and the Forest Patrol to free up regular deputies for service during the annual Sturgis Motorcycle Rally. It takes quite a few extra officers to deal with all of the extra traffic duty, accident investigations and law enforcement that is part of inviting tens of thousands of guests into your neighborhood.

After the swearing-in ceremony we Chaplains get a half hour or so to present a brief introduction to law enforcement stress for the families of the new officers. It is a chance to help to communicate to families some information about the unique stresses involved in law enforcement and the tool and techniques that can help with stress management. It is important that not only our officers understand stress and learn to manage it well, but also their families understand the dynamics of living with an enforcement officer.

I was struck, once again, by the uniqueness of the swearing ceremony. I hope that the new deputies and officers also were impressed with the way we do things here in the United States. Central to our way of life is the presence of non-military law enforcement. In general, except in times of grave crisis, our military is trained, equipped and deployed to defend our country from threats that come from the outside. Our internal laws are enforced by an entirely different group of professionals, who are distinctly civilian.This is very different from many countries around the world where internal law enforcement is managed by the country’s military.

Our peace officers swear to uphold the constitution and laws of the United States, the State of South Dakota and the statutes of Pennington County. They stand before a judge, dressed in a robe with all of the trappings of a legal proceeding and make individual pledges to enforce the laws with all of the diligence, training and impartiality that they can bring to that task. It is a moment when we, as citizens ask other citizens to make a personal commitment not to the leaders of our land or to the hierarchy of officials, but rather to the fair and impartial enforcement of laws.

When we say that we are a nation of laws, we really mean it. It is a fundamental principal of our democracy.

Of course as I look down the ranks of new officers, many of them seem really young to me. That isn’t because they are too young for the responsibilities we give them. It is just that I’m getting old and I am aware of how much there is that still needs to be taught by basic experience. These young officers will have a few hard knocks and a bit of trial by fire before they become seasoned officers, but their energy and enthusiasm is a great benefit to the Sheriff’s office team.

Part of our responsibility as chaplains is to provide young officers with appropriate ways of diffusing stress, opportunities to learn from their mistakes, and regular communication of the support of the community for them in their chosen profession.

The sad truth is that those engaged in law enforcement are prone to a lot of the effects of stress including poor health statistics, higher than average divorce and suicide rates and a host of other problems. When what you do for a living each day is deal with society’s chronic problems, you begin to get the sense that everyone out there is a problem. There can quickly develop an “us” and “them” mentality among law enforcement officers. As chaplains, we seek to provide opportunities and experiences for our officers to see another part of this community in which we live and to learn effective ways of dealing with the stresses of their profession so that they can be fully engaged members of the community.

It is a big challenge and looking at the officers as they take their oaths, I am aware of how big our responsibility is.

the thing that I wish I could capture and retain from yesterday’s ceremony is the idealism and enthusiasm of the young officers. They are genuinely convinced that their role as law enforcement officers will make the community safer and more livable for all of the people of our community. I know that over the years they will be tempted to become cynical. They will collect enough experiences that make them question the basic goodness of their fellow citizens. They will see enough trauma and discord to color their opinion of the people of our community. Some day, years from now, some chaplain will need to once again remind them of what they believed on their swearing-in day. They will need to be reminded of the oath they took and how much it meant to them at the time they were sworn. And they will need to be reminded that they once believed in the goodness of people and the power of impartial law enforcement to build up the community.

Yesterday, however, wasn’t the day to warn the new deputies of the hard times that lie ahead for them. It wasn’t the day to caution them about their own mental health and the threats to their life and health that come not from armed perpetrators of violent crime, but from the cumulative effects of long days with too short breaks and too many stressful situations appropriately handled, but inadequately diffused after the fact. It was a day to celebrate their commitment.

And it was a day to remind ourselves that we believe in the power of effective laws impartially enforced. Each of us has a responsibility to uphold those laws and to remind our fellow citizens that our community depends on everyone doing their part.

Congratulations deputies. May your careers be long and successful. And may you never forget the goodness of the people that you serve.

Copyright (c) 2016 by Ted E. Huffman. If you would like to share this, please direct your friends to my web site. If you want to reproduce any or all of it, please contact me for permission. Thanks.

According to Wikipedia, (in other words I didn’t do any significant research here), It was John Baboon Lane Soule, who in an 1851 editorial in the Terre Haute (Indiana) Express, wrote, ‘Go west young man, and grow up with the country.” The more famous American author and newspaper editor Horace Greeley picked up the quote and used it in his own editorial in 1865. I grew up hearing that quote over and over again. We considered ourselves to be Westerners, but we considered all of those east of our state to be not truly western. The Dakotas, where I now live, were only “midwestern” in my childhood evaluation. We lived in the land of rodeos, huge unfenced expanses of government pasture, mountains with peaks that rose above the treeline, and the continental divide running through our state. We were a bit elitist about our mountains and didn’t consider the Black Hills to measure up. And we were elitist about our Western heritage and wanted to claim something exclusive about our state’s brand of ranchers. In the days of my growing up, considerable lip service was paid to the pioneers in our county. Our local paper was called “The Pioneer.” The ranches and grazing permits that were still in the same families that originally had homesteaded were known as pioneer ranches. The nursing home was called “Pioneer Home,” and the hospital “Pioneer Medical Center.”

We claimed to be of pioneer stock even if our families had only been in the county for a few years before we were born. Those of us born in that town felt ourselves to be directly connected to the pioneers and when we said “pioneer” we weren’t talking about the first people to live in the area. We were talking about the homesteaders and cattlemen who settled the land as it was forcibly confiscated from the indigenous people of the area, mostly the Crow tribe.

There were a lot of shortcomings to the version of Montana history that we learned in school.

We now know that the pioneer lifestyle was never sustainable. It was based on the principles of unlimited growth, sprawl and high energy consumption, sucking up resources as fast as possible wrestling land from others through competition and then moving on.

Of course growth is never truly unlimited. Resources are finite. And eventually the realities of geography mean that there won’t always be a place to which to move on.

It isn’t a surprise that I know several people from my home town who eventually moved on to Alaska to experience “the last frontier.”

We were, after all, of pioneer stock. We were tough, self-reliant and able to make our way in the world without being connected to the products and riches of cities.

Our hunger to always have more, however, seems to be as strong as ever. My classmates and colleagues enjoy complaining about the challenges we have faced. “It was easier for our parents,” we claim. We showed up after all of the good land was taken. By the time we came along, the slogan “go west” no longer applied. The west was already taken and filled up with people.

It probably is no mistake that I seem to have settled in the Black Hills on land that was among the last to be confiscated from Native Americans. It was opened for settlement after most of my home state had been claimed by homesteaders. Even though it is a bit south and east of my home territory, it might be close enough to retain a bit of that pioneer image with which I grew up.

Now that I am an adult, however, the time has come for me to think differently. The time has come for me to think about future generations and ways of living that are sustainable for the land and for communities of people. The pioneer ways of the west belong to the past.

The “Lone Ranger” go-it-alone attitude needs to find new ways of cooperation with others. If we are to meet the challenges of this century, we will need to find ways to work together. If we choose to only compete for the limited resources, we will certainly come up short. Some people will definitely loose out if we don’t all learn to share. Under conditions of scarcity there can be no frenzy of uncontrolled growth or waste of resources. We will be called to discover new efficiencies in our modes of travel and of working the land.

As we discover these new ways of being and of living with our neighbors we need to be careful not to throw out the values of our forebears that we treasure. Not all of the pioneer ways were bad and not all of them should be discarded. Values like helping the neighbors, stewardship of the land, and a basic conservatism when it comes to the management of resources all have a place in the new society that is emerging. Courage and a sense of adventure are always required for people to progress. The appreciation for the beauty and value of the land will continue to be critical for each new generation of people.

But we might also need to learn how to stay put for more than a few seasons. We might also need to think in terms of multiple generations instead of measuring our success by direct comparison with our parents and neighbors only. We might need to discard some of the intense competitiveness with which we grew up in order to understand that we’re all in this together.

Maybe we need some new slogans. “Go West” might be replaced with “Build for your grandchildren.” “The grass is greener” might need to be replaced with “grow green where you are.” As always, however, it will take more than slogans. It will take people who are serious about developing sustainable ways of farming, sustainable economies and sustainable communities. It will take people who are willing to put investment ahead of short term profits.

It will take a whole new spirit: respecting while daring to be different from the last wave of pioneers on this land.

Copyright (c) 2016 by Ted E. Huffman. If you would like to share this, please direct your friends to my web site. If you want to reproduce any or all of it, please contact me for permission. Thanks.

Here we are past the mid point of the year and my beloved Rapid City is on target for a record-breaking year.

No it won’t be for the number of motorcycles at the annual Sturgis rally. It won’t be for the record warm temperatures we’ve experienced. It won’t be for the lack of rainfall. Those things might garner our attention, but we really aren’t heading for records in those departments for 2016.

If the rate we’ve established so far continues, however, 2016 will be a record-breaking year for the number of suicides in Pennington County. Summer usually sees an upturn in the number of suicides in our community, but our LOSS (Local Outreach to Survivors of Suicide) Team has been averaging a call each week for a long stretch. Yesterday we made two calls in the same day.

Although the process of responding to those who have experienced the death of a loved one to suicide requires skill and energy and can be terribly exhausting, I’m not complaining. Whatever discomfort I experience from having to get out of bed when I’d rather be sleeping or having to get my energy up to make another visit pales in comparison with the suffering of those who are wrestling with this unique and difficult type of grief.

There’s still plenty of stigma associated with suicide. Friends don’t know what words to use. The topic of suicide is often considered to be inappropriate for polite company. And, unfortunately, those who are ignorant of the nature of psychological illnesses, brain disorders, depression and other diseases sill consider suicide to be a “wrong choice” or a “failure of character” or a “moral flaw.” Those associations don’t promote understanding. They don’t help prevent suicide. They don’t ease the grief of those who are left behind.

There has, however, been some significant research and increased understanding of the dynamics of this public health epidemic. We know that suicide rates are higher in rural and isolated locations. We know that risk of suicide goes up with devastating medical diagnoses. We know that risk of suicide increases with unemployment and financial crisis. We know that suicide, especially among youth, can run in clusters or groups of related people. We know that those who are closely related to someone who has died by suicide are themselves at increased risk for suicide.

But we also know that intervention works. We know that being able to talk with someone about suicidal thoughts can provide avenues to getting help. We know that many people who have attempted suicide and continued to live say that the decision was impulsive and that a delay in the attempt probably would have prevented the attempt. We do know that helping people access appropriate medical treatment for psychological illnesses decreases suicide rates dramatically.

I’ve been asked by friends why I continue to work with the LOSS Team. I’ve been on so many suicide response calls that I can’t remember the number. Those who ask usually think about the process of making a cold call to someone who is in the depths of grief, of talking with law enforcement investigators about gristly details, and of the inconvenience of being an emergency responder. I’m not eager about any of those things.

I keep working with the LOSS team because of the hope that I gain from the process.

Helping survivors to connect with support groups, counseling, short term help and other services is helping to prevent suicides. Every response is a meeting with those who are at elevated risk for dying about suicide. Every response is an opportunity to save a life. Every person to whom I hand a card with an emergency number or a list of services available in our community has more resources than they did a few minutes ago.

But there is more. Hope comes from the response of the community. Even on what may well be the worst day of someone’s life, I see friends and neighbors who come into homes motivated by genuine care and concern. I see embraces of tears and pledges of support and love that few are enabled to witness. I am privileged to be present for the first few tentative steps of rebuilding a life after a traumatic and devastating experience. I watch the signs of new life in the face of death with every call in which I am involved.

Still, I have to be honest. I wish I would never have to go on a suicide call again. When I am on call I cringe every time my phone rings. Although I have deep respect and admiration for the investigators and coroners of the Pennington County Sheriff’s Office, I would not be disappointed to never have to call one to discuss a case again. I know that there is a sense in which community service is a process of playing with fire. I know that there is a little loss involved in every call and that those little losses build up. I know that there is a sense in which I am continually in the steps of grief. You don’t attend as many funerals as I do without being affected by the sorrow you have witnessed.

I know that I do not have the strength for the work I do all by myself. Being surrounded by a community of care and love and prayer is essential. Without weekly worship and daily prayer I would fall apart under the pressures of the particular path I have chosen for my life. The generous parents of our church who allow me to hold their precious babies and listen to their children talk about faith probably don’t realize how life-giving they are. But I couldn’t be who I am without them.

Not only are the losses cumulative, so too is the hope. Add up the number of babies that I have baptized and I come out ahead on the balance every time. Consider the confirmation of youth whose families have allowed me to witness their growing up and you’ll understand that I gain more than I give from my experience in the church.

I seriously do not know how anyone could do this work without that level of support. The first prayer of each morning and the last prayer of each night is always a prayer of gratitude. When I no longer feel that way, it will be time to stop what I am doing. Until that day, I’m willing to remain on call while dreading the next vibration of the cell phone.

Copyright (c) 2016 by Ted E. Huffman. If you would like to share this, please direct your friends to my web site. If you want to reproduce any or all of it, please contact me for permission. Thanks.

As I scanned through my usual news sites seeking something to read that wasn’t about the juvenile behavior, ad hominem attacks and undermining of the US presidential election system by the candidates themselves, I was reading about the Australia women’s water polo team. They arrived in Rio de Janeiro on Monday. The team, considered to be a strong contender for a medal had four members go immediately into quarantine because of a gastrointestinal illness players picked up in Rome on their way to the games.

Today is Wednesday and the opening ceremonies will be on Friday. This year’s Olympics, however seem to have lost their luster. Before the games have even begun news of serious problems of organization seem to be streaming from Brazil: A Paralympian was the target of an attempted robbery. Athletes have discovered that toilets in the Olympic Village don’t work. Fire alarm systems have been discovered to be dysfunctional. Laptop computers and clothing have been stole from athlete’s quarters. The list goes on and on and on.

Hopefully with proper medical care the Australian swimmers will recover. They still have a week before their opening match on August 9 against Russia. Yes, Russia will have water polo teams competing in the games. Despite having their track and field team, their rowing squad and their weightlifters banned from the games because of doping violations, approximately three-quarters of the Russian Olympic Team are in Rio preparing for competition.

In the recent competitions of the Summer Olympic Games, the United States, China and Russia have been the three biggest winners of medals. This year, with so many disqualified athletes, Russia is expected to slip in the rankings. That means that there may be some interesting medal races in the games making them worthy of our attention.

In general, the countries that do the best in the overall medal count are either rich or big or both. Being rich means that there are funds to support athlete training and preparation. Being big means that there is a large pool of athletes from which to draw. Using that basic information, however, isn’t really predictive when it comes to Olympic medals. India is a large country and has been growing in wealth. They probably should fall right behind the U.S. and China in medals, but in 2012, they took home only six. Germany and Japan consistently do much better. Saudi Arabia has plenty of financial support for their athletes, but they didn’t win a single medal in 2012.

One of the things that makes watching sports competition engaging is that it cannot be fully predicted. Surprises abound in athletics.

Chances are pretty good that the United Kingdom, though somewhat less united than was the case in 2012, will continue to bring home quite a few medals. Australia, Brazil, France, Italy and South Korea also have teams to watch when it comes to Olympic success. Being the host country isn’t quite the same thing as having the home team advantage in Olympic competition, but it is a factor and the people of Brazil will bring lots of energy and enthusiasm to the crows at this year’s games.

For a lot of us, it will be a relief to have something other than politics taking up space in our news sources. And some of us are hoping for a quick recovery for the sick women of the Australian water polo team. It’s no fun being sick when you are traveling. I’m hoping that at least the quarantine rooms where they are recovering have functioning toilets.

Seriously, I am hoping that the games have a level of success that keeps Olympic planners interested in countries that have not previously hosted. Certainly it is a huge strain on the economy of a small country to host the games. It is true that the accommodations for press and athletes are more luxurious in countries that have more available resources. Still the games are a world competition. And every Olympic Village enjoys a level of luxury unknown to many people around the globe. Got a toilet that doesn’t work? Consider the number of people in the world who have never used one. Worried about having your laptop stolen? Think about how many of this world’s citizens will never have access to a laptop. I am no fan of inadequate sewage systems or crime, but it can be helpful to shed some of our local biases when considering events to which the entire world is invited. After all mosquito repellant should be on the packing list of everyone who plans to travel this summer.

I’m not likely to be watching television of Friday Night, but I probably will stream a clip or two from the opening ceremonies. They usually are a grand show with fireworks, music and a bit of drama. I don’t expect an actor pretending to be the Queen of England to parachute from a helicopter, but I suspect that the city of parades and Carnival and lots of other shows will be able to come up with a bit of pomp and ceremony to launch the games in proper fashion.

Meanwhile, back here in the hills, the rumble of motorcycles is already echoing all around us. The annual Sturgis Motorcycle Rally is predicted to be a bit smaller than last year’s 75th anniversary event. Still, it is the week of the year when we welcome the most guests at one time to our region. And lots of guests brings lots of diversity to the area. We always see a few exotic costumes, a few truly monumental beards, some interesting tattoos and a bit of behavior that raises our eyebrows. It is all part of being hosts to guests who’ve been invited to come and visit.

The kickoff events at the Buffalo Chip probably won’t be a glitzy as the opening ceremonies in Rio, but there probably will be a few fireworks and, for those who are there to watch, a few memorable moments. I’ll probably spend the evening at home, It seems like a good option to me.

Copyright (c) 2016 by Ted E. Huffman. If you would like to share this, please direct your friends to my web site. If you want to reproduce any or all of it, please contact me for permission. Thanks.

Decades ago I had a conversation with a friend. I had been enjoying light craft sailing. Our church camp was developing a sailing program for campers and we had acquired a couple of Hobie Catamarans and a couple of 14’ monohull boats. I was by no means an accomplished sailor, but I was beginning to get some of the ideas of sailing in my head and had developed a feel for how to get around the cove of the lake where our camp was located in generally light winds. The experience had made me want to have a sailboat of my own and, since my available funds were limited, I was thinking about building a sailboat. I had a booklet of plans that i had studied and thought about the various techniques of building. I had not, at that time, however, ever build a boat of any type. My friend suggested that I start by building a canoe. Then, if I wanted, I could build a sail for my canoe. I had done a fair amount of canoeing at that time and I liked the idea of having a canoe. I knew that there were sailing canoes and that there were simple sail rigs that could be added to most canoes, though I never had actually been in a sailing canoe.

I ended up building a 17’ ribless canoe out of narrow strips of cedar, covered inside and out with fiberglass. There were quite a few mistakes in my construction and my eyes still go to the mistakes I made whenever I look at the boat. It is, however, a reasonable canoe for tandem or solo paddling. It has a reasonable cargo capacity and we’ve done quite a bit of paddling with three aboard. It has been down the Yellowstone River in Montana, on lakes in Idaho, Oregon, Washington, Montana, and the Dakotas. Eventually, I rebuilt the gunwales and thwarts of the boat and added leeboards, a mast and rudder. It can be sailed, but adding all of those accessories makes the boat pretty heavy and it is cumbersome to set up all of the extras. As a concept, sailing a canoe is an interesting idea. In practice, paddling is a pretty good way to get around in a canoe. With my level of skill, sailing a canoe is a fairly good way to go fast downwind and a reasonable way to get wet making turns.

There is something about the process of building that is addictive and so I decided to build a very small canoe, using similar techniques. A solo boat, designed for smooth water could be very lightweight and easy to tote around. My budget was, as usual, tight and I didn’t have a good source for clear cedar, so I made the boat out of fence-grade cedar which has a lot of knots. I did a lot of cutting out the knots and making scarf joints in the strips. The result, however, was pleasing to the eye and is a joy to paddle. It has probably become one of the most-used of all of the boats I have built. Although it is a solo canoe, it can handle an occasional passenger on calm water and I’ve given rides to family and friends when playing with the boat. Such an adventure led to getting fairly wet while paddling in the Puget Sound with my brother. We didn’t swamp the boat, but there wasn’t a lot of freeboard and we took on a fair amount of water over the gunwales.

That experience inspired me to build a kayak. A kayak is quite similar to a canoe. One has to build a deck and get the hull and the deck mated in a smooth seam, so there is quite a bit more work, but it is satisfying. Kayaks, also, tend to be narrower and have more compound curves, so the process of gluing the strips requires a bit more technique and flair. I still paddle that first homemade kayak dozens of times each year. It was the boat that taught me that paddling a kayak is significantly warmer than paddling a canoe. If you wear a sprayskirt, the lower half of your body is in an insulated chamber. I paddle the kayak exclusively in the early spring and late fall when water and air temperatures cool.

Driving around with one or two boats on the rack draws attention and conversation and soon I was meeting lots of other paddlers. As the result of one chance encounter and conversation at a gas station, I ended up with a great friend and the job of re-canvassing a 1942 Old Town Canoe. The project was pretty straightforward, but since I’d never done the canvassing before, I read a couple of books on the subject before tackling the project. I was able to obtain paint that was very close to the original from the manufacturer and I stripped and re-varnished the interior of the boat and made new seats to match the original. It was a very satisfying project. The canoe, although heavier than my woodstrip canoes, paddled like a dream when finished. It has now passed from its original owner to her son and probably will head to another generation before long.

I started to get a reputation as someone who loved canoes and that seemed to make me a magnet for people who were wanting to get rid of old boats. I didn’t respond to every invitation, but I did get the opportunity to obtain an Old Town canoe for myself. This particular boat has a wonderful story, but it was upside down on saw horses in a back yard with huge holes in the canvas. rot in the ends, cracks in the gunwales, a couple of broken ribs and a sizable hole in the planking when I dropped by to help an acquaintance evaluate the boat. After a brief examination and discussion, the owner said that the boat would be taken to the dump the next day if I didn’t haul it away that evening. I took on an 18-month restoration project and added another boat to my fleet.

A decade later, I’m aware that the time has come to begin to figure out how to get rid of boats instead of acquiring them. But the urge to build continues. There’s a project in my garage underneath two boats hanging from the rafters. There’s a home made row boat under my deck and a rack filled with canoes and kayaks in our storage unit.

There was a time when acquiring boats was a sort of hobby. As I enter this phase of my life, I think I’ll have to make finding new homes for old boats my new hobby.

Copyright (c) 2016 by Ted E. Huffman. If you would like to share this, please direct your friends to my web site. If you want to reproduce any or all of it, please contact me for permission. Thanks.

I have many friends that I have never met face to face. Most of them are authors, whose words I have read. Some writers offer a deep connection that keeps me coming back to read more. The advent of Internet blogging has provided me an additional window on some of these friends. The briefer, more informal writings help me to see how that individual thinks and processes information. One of those friends with whom I’ve never shared the same room is Parker Palmer. His books and ideas have been pivotal in my way of understanding myself and my calling. His blog frequently inspires me and, on more than a few occasions has inspired my own.

Last Wednesday, Parker included a beautiful Mary Oliver poem in his blog. Mary Oliver is another of those friends I have never met. Here is that poem:

"Mysteries, Yes"

by Mary Oliver

Truly, we live with mysteries too marvelous
to be understood.

How grass can be nourishing in the
mouths of the lambs.
How rivers and stones are forever
in allegiance with gravity
while we ourselves dream of rising.
How two hands touch and the bonds
will never be broken.
How people come, from delight or the
scars of damage,
to the comfort of a poem.

Let me keep my distance, always, from those
who think they have the answers.

Let me keep company always with those who say
"Look!" and laugh in astonishment,
and bow their heads.

I am a firm believer in seeking answers to questions. One of the things I love most about scientists and others who employ systematic methodologies to seeking answers is that they contribute to our understanding of the world. I read there words of Robin Wall Kimmerer, a botanist who has an understanding of how plants convert the energy of the sun into sugars that can be used by other plants, fungi and animals to sustain life. Her scientifically accurate analysis of how grass nourishes a mammal helps me and others to understand the complex photosynthetic and metabolic processes.

Analysis, however enlightening, does not in the end remove the sense of wonder. That is something that I treasure about Kimmerer’s writing. She never loses her respect and joy at the processes she observes. More importantly, with each new truth that she discovers, she understands that there are even more questions to be answered, even more mysteries to explore. From what I know, her being another friend I have never met, she has never lost her sense of wonder at the ways of plants.

It is the last two lines of Oliver’s poem which are most inspiring for me today: “Let me keep my distance, always, from those who think they have the answers. Let me keep company with those who say ‘Look!’ and laugh in astonishment, and bow their heads.”

Note that she doesn’t say, “Let me condemn those . . .” or “Let me argue with those . . .” or “Let me make enemies of those . . .” in reference to the ones who think they have answers. Only “Let me keep my distance.” As I read, I imagine a respectful distance. I imagine Oliver to be saying, “I have no need of thinking I have the answers. The truth is never something that is fully possessed.”

I know some of those from whom Mary Oliver chooses to keep her distance. After a long time of searching they experience a “Eureka!” moment and convince themselves that the search is over. The discovery they have made seems sufficient for their quest and from that point on they think their discovery answers all of their questions. Other, in my option more interesting scientists, make a discovery and use it as a springboard for more explorations. Each new discovery raises a thousand new questions and they understand that ultimately the truth is always beyond our grasp. They abandon their certainty and open their eyes to the wonder of on-going exploration.

Still, Oliver’s poem invites no enmity between us and those who think they have the answers - only a respectful distance.

And, with joy, Oliver speaks of those whose company she chooses to keep: “Let me keep company always with those who say, “Look!’ and laugh in astonishment, and bow their heads.

Like Parker Palmer, I am delighted that Mary Oliver is one of those people who can say “Look!” and cause me to laugh in astonishment and bow my head. Her words give me joy and offer such a deep response to a world that otherwise might feel drab and dreary. Instead they bring delight and awe and wonder into the world in such a way that makes me want to look again, to discover even more questions, to explore even more deeply.

I have long considered myself to be a bit of a scholar. I love to read and research and to seek wisdom and truth knowing fully that wisdom and truth are goals and not items that can ever be fully possessed. I enjoy the process of putting the fullest capacities of my rational mind into discovery. My field of research has, for the most part, not been the natural world, but rather the world of human ideas. I revel in the words of philosophers, ancient and modern. I find deep joy in the juxtaposition of concepts in poem and prose. I find endless possibilities in the exploration of words and ideas. It is my way of honoring the commandment: “You shall love the Lord your God with all you heart, and with all your soul, and with all your mind.” I have long believed that the love of God is well expressed in rational thought and intense mental activity. There is no threat to wonder caused by intense academic study. It is only the belief that one knows all the answers that separates us from the love of God. Searching for more truth and light keeps the passion of love alive.

With Oliver and Palmer and a great community of other friends and thinkers, I find great joy and energy.

“Let me keep company always with those who say ‘Look!’ and laugh in astonishment, and bow their heads.”

Copyright (c) 2016 by Ted E. Huffman. If you would like to share this, please direct your friends to my web site. If you want to reproduce any or all of it, please contact me for permission. Thanks.