July 20, 2025

One Great Day

It was a little over 6 miles today in the heat. There was at least 10 bar-b-ques causing their wonderful smells to float along the air and make one’s mouth twitch in anticipation of choming down on whatever was on the grill. I guess it was lucky there was very little, if any breee because the delicious odor did not last long.
Today was a bonus day for meeting people. There were a number of hello, have a great day people, but the first one to make it past the hello was Joe. We got going on the Dodgers and how bad they are playing. He went to the game yesterday, which was a loss to the Brewers. He checked on his phone and they were losing, 6-4 in the top of the ninth. That means the Brewers swept them at Dodger Stadium. Kershaw pitched today and gave up 3 runs.
After moving on briefly to a few other non-substantive subjects, I started to leave and Joe told me he lived in the back house. On the streets I was doing, there were a number of driveways that lead back to 3 to 5 houses. He said he started out in the front house and eventually worked his way to the back house, which must have been the best one or he wouldn’t have wanted to keep moving down the line.
It appeared Joe had done ok for himself and his family. Kind of remided me of that show where they sang, “Moving on up”. I am not sure but I think it was the Jeffersons who were moving on up. Funny how those jingles and opening songs for shows can stick with you. I don’t know the words offhand, but I would know Laverne and Shirley if I heard it. The funny thing is I never watched their show but I know the song when I hear it.
I need to start working on my memory verses again. I can get to almost any story in the Word and have an idea where many of the famous verses are located. My ability to quote them is rusty and needs some rust remover applied. I wish I still had my 3×5 cards with all those verses on them.  Maybe they are in that 4 drawer filing cabinet in the garage. Imagine that, relegated to the garage. I see my Bible over there with a stack of books on it. At least I have it on my phone so it is available almost instantly. The problem is I leave my phone upstairs when I am downstairs and downstairs when I am upstairs. It has been left in the car, at the office and on the bus once. I need to remember I have the Word on my phone and it should always be close. Maybe the Bible app should always be open!
The sermon was great today. Pastor Josh was on fire. He preached the Word in his Sunday best voice. The admonition to be the same everywhere was strongest point for me. I have believed that, even before I became a Christian. It is just stronger now. I actually was thinking about that the other day when I was running. I have to think about something to minimize the pain in my feet.
There were a number of points made where at the very least, there was one which stood out and should have challenged even the strongest Christian sitting in the pews. The service concluded with a water baptism for 2 people. One was a 14 year old girl who wanted to lead a better life for the Lord. God is certainly working overtime at Revive Church in El Monte.
By the way, the second person I met while traversing the streets was Larry. He was living in a motor home, had 2 pit bulls, and was trying to get a place to live because he has a 4 year old and wants to get her back. Said he has been in the motor home for about 18 months. I didn’t go into the details but Larry is 63 and even though he has a good grip on taking care of himself as far as where he parks, where he gets his propane, where he changes his water, etc., he might have one section of his noggin missing a bolt on one of the screws. He was an overland truck driver, going bak and forth to Rhode Island. I should have asked him what he was hauling. I know the two or three places he parks, maybe I will go back and ask him.
I hadn’t eaten all day. Much to my suprise, we had steak and chicken for dinner. Believe it or not, the ladies made a pasta salad and I had seconds. [For all you uninitiated, I have passed on the pasta this past 80 years!] What can I say besides God is still on the throne, kept me on this side of the ground one more day, and even saw His way to bless me with seconds on the pasta.

July 22, 2025

Bumping Your Nose

I finally went to the dentist and had my teeth cleaned. It has been more than 10 years. I have 6 cavities, one crown I need, and an infestion. The cleaning went much better than I anticipated. I only jumped every other flick of the tool rather than every time. I am not the best person at endorsing things, but I would admonish everyone to go have their teeth cleaned more oftern than every 10 or 15 years.
I am going to go out on a limb and bet that not more 1% of you reading this had a problem with the sentence above which stated it had been more than 10 years. Streaming movies and tv series is a big deal today. I would say that streaming my thoughts onto paper is how I write. Probably most of you are the same. Which is basically how we converse with each other.
But the sentence about the 10 years is not a complete sentence. Obviously the sentence refers back to the dentist and cleaning. But it is an incomplete sentence, no matter what.
I believe the extension of this is one of the main reasons that conversations today are difficult to navigate when discussing important issues. The extension I am reaching for is how people talk in “talking points”, without any demonstration of proof, recognition of facts, proper use of words with their real meaning, and an overriding follow the leader mentality.
A couple of examples in today’s verbiage are: “concentration camps”, “Gestapo”, and “Nazi” [how many of you would have spelled “verbiage” correctly? I missed it the first time]
The first thing you have to acknowledge, is if you entered the United States of America illegally, you have broken at least one law. There is no getting around that.
I attended Boy Scout meetings when I was in maybe 9th or 10th grade. I had participated in Cub Scouts when younger in Colorado and my mother thought it would be good for me to get back into a better life after we moved to Florida and I fell into the wrong crowds.
We had a break during the meeting and some of us went to a store across the street from the church where we met. I had learned how to buy candy and gumballs cheap and sell them at school. So I started helping myself to the gumballs when the store owner was busy with another customer. One meeting night, the head Scoutmaster sat us all down, (seems like it was in a type of cell as I look back), gave us a piece of paper and pencil and said the store owner knew who was stealing from him and if that person would confess he would not do anything.
My ability to discern BS had not developed yet and I wrote, “I did it. But just one piece”. My ability to BS was stronger than my ability to discern. Of course I had to go over and apologize, my patch was torn from my shirt, my sword was broken in half, taps was played, the door was opened and I left the Boy Scouts in disgrace. Chuck Connors in “Branded” was based on my Boy Scout story.
My point from the above few paragraphs is that no matter what, I broke the law, whether is was one piece of bubble gum or all the money in the cash register, I broke the law. Whether someone comes into the country to steal or work in a field, they broke the law.
We can argue, discuss, beg, plead, try to bargain, when trying to make everyone happy, which is impossible anyway. But I am here to tell you there will be no accusations of Gestapo and concentration camps in heaven. That is because there will be no illegal aliens in heaven.
Everyone enters Heaven by accepting the payment for your sins, (which you all have at least one gumball you stole in your life which made you just as guilty as the one who stole the money in the cash register), which was the shedding of the blood of Christ on the cross. “for all have sinned and fall short of the glory of God, 24 being justified as a gift by His grace through the redemption which is in Christ Jesus;” Romans 3:23,24
There is no other way, either enter legally or you reside in the place with gnashing of teeth and wailing. Trump did not have to build a wall around heaven to keep the border jumpers out. I pray you will not be one of those who bumps their nose on the invisible wall surrounding Heaven because you also took just that one piece of bubblegum and haven’t accepted Jesus Christ as your Lord and Savior.

July 24, 2025

The Flashing Sign

The Wednesday night life group made it either 2.7 or 3.9 miles. We had a new walker, named Patty. She is a friend of Christina and hopefully she returns, not only on Wednesday, but also on Sunday. We passed a church with the flashing billboard, which had a nice play on words for a meme and an invitation at attend church on Sunday. While walking, we met Ivan and Ana, who were out for a stroll.
I got today started with 5.24 miles. I know God had His Hand on the clock as I checked the bus stop on Romona Blvd., to see when the 192 bus would arrive. It was only minutes to wait to that ended the run. Then we made it to Peck and it was only minutes until the 270 arrived and dropped me off at Lower Azusa. I really didn’t want to catch the 178 as I to walk from Cogwell and my feet really hurt.
While walking, I met David Cervantes. He had 4 dogs on leashes who were well behaved. You could tell they were like Josh, they were used to David stopping and talking with someone for more than one minute. They never became restless, and just like Josh, who is aware we may spend a few minutes in one spot while a conversation takes place, they sat patiently waiting to move on.
David is 70, retired from the Post Office, grew up on the block were on and lives one block West. His dad was a Postmaster and his brothers both work for the Post Office. He loves to travel and recently came back from a 31 day cruise. He is set to visit Hong Kong and would like to visit a world renown museum in St. Petersburg, Russia.
The other day, I was thinking I knew a verse which talked about the one way to enter Heaven. I looked up what I thought the verse said and I was told there was no match. Then I tried a few other possibile quotes and nothing. I finally got a little frustrated because I am supposed to know the Bible by heart and I am shooting blanks. No children for me today.
I tried the word “enter”, and came back with over 400 verses. I tried speeding through the New Testament verses and no go, my verse did not stick out like a sore thumb. What to do, what to do?
I improvised and went forward with some thought for the day. But I got to thinking about the word, “emter”. We do a lot of entering every day. We enter the door, we enter the building, we enter the car, I enter the bus, and unfortunately, we enter into sin.
Think about it. When you enter something, you actually get inside. So, I guess we don’t really enter the door, we pass through it, But when we enter the house, we are inside. When we enter the car, we are indiside. So do we enter into sin? Or maybe sin enters us.
Jesus told the disciples one of them was going to betray Him during the Last Supper and they were questioning Him as who it might be. Jesus told them it would be the one who He gave the dipped morsal and then proceeded to dip the morsal and handed it to Judas and told him to go do quickly what he was going to do. The key here is the Bible says Satan entered into Judas at that moment. John 13:27 NASB
I can think of all kinds of subjects for sermons, Bible studies, debates, etc., from this section of John, e.g., Judas did not seem to act any different when Satan entered into him; Judas must have lost his ability to think for himself as Satan has now taken over his control tower, (where do you think Satan is operating from?]; why weren’t the disciples able to pick up on what had just happened?; and many more subjects.
The bottom line for my grist I am presenting today for you to chew on, is the word, “enter”, and its meaning and use of the word “enter” at one place in Scripture. What I really want to end today with is an admonition: we must have a flashing signs in front and in back, which state, “SATAN, DO NOT ENTER. PRIVATE PROPERTY. THE HOLY SPIRIT LIVES HERE”.

July 27, 2025

Unintangled

I went to Chris’ Park and Pray at the Monrovia Park yesterday. Seemed to me the group was the largest one so far and a few of what I thought were regulars were not there. Talked to Duncan aftre the gathering broke up, who I had not spoken with previously. He came all the way from Fontana. That is some commitment.
Went to REI for some gels afterwards. I was in line and forgot to see if they had any pickle juice or pickleballs for Dorothy. I knew they had pickleballs for the game that is catching on but wanted the pickleballs you eat. I went back to look and a lady said she liked what my shirt said. I was wearing my “Park and Pray” shirt. I told her what it meant and asked the Lord to bless her as she and her group moved towards the front of the store.
If I had not gotten out of line and walked back to look for the pickle juice, I would not have been able to share with her about a group of men getting together in the park to pray. For some reason, it came to me that I could count her as my contact when I went out running later. I always have that goal to meet at least one person while running. As it turns out, I got in almost 5 miles later and did not find one person to lasso and talk to so I wound up counting her as my contact for the run. Remember, it is my game and I get to make up the rules as I go along.
Christina read Hebrews 12:1 the other night when the life group was doing the 2 ½ miles. We were working on the word, “endurance”, that night as we paraded around El Monte. If you read the grist the other day, you know the word, “enter”, has captivated my interest this past week or so. Lo and behold, the verse for the day yesterday was Hebrews 12:1. I thought Christina and the Holy Spirit were ganging up on me and if so, I better read the verse without blinders.
What do I find? Hebrews 12:1 talks about the sin that, “entangles”, us God just keeps piling on the revelations from His Word. I was all set to work through the over 400 times the word, “enter”, is in Scripture and now I have this new word, “entangle”, to deal with. I was watching, “Laramie”, last night, (it is on at 12 and 1am), and after Jess was wounded, he tied up the bad guy with a rope, winding it around him, then looping it around his neck and feet. I thought of that word, “entangle”, and realized this was on the outdide of us and not on the inside. What was interesting, is the bad guy was “entangled” and couldn’t move very far, but when we are entangled with sin, we can still move about and carry on our activities. I thought about how sin may be invisible so it can allow us to move but the lists of sin in different passages of Scripture do not seem to be invisible, e.g., murder and laying with another man as a man lays with a woman.
Maybe the “entanglement” and “enter” go together? Does not the brain put forth the orders for our body to operate? In order for sin to perform its dastardly deeds through our person, our mind must bark out the order. Of course, those who refuse to accept any responsibility for their actions say, “the Devil made me do it”. I guess in one sense, if our brain is being controlled by Mr. Pitchfork, he is in charge. I could get very deep in this rabbit hole and add something about the seared conscience Scripture describes and is probably an ingredient, but two words are enough for this grist.
So, sin has entered and entangled us with the result we are under its spell. Whether we know it or not, we are like the man in Mark 5 and Luke 8 when this happens. Well, maybe not as dramatic in our exhibitions, but nevertheless, we are no longer seeking God’s will but our own desires. But thanks be to God, we can be cleansed by the Spirit of God, and then we can be as that man in Mark 5 and Luke 8 after he was cleansed, “clothed and in his right mind”.