Bev and I bought tickets to a dinner and a one-man show on the life of John Muir. Playhouse Merced arranged this special performance by Lee Stetson. Lee has been incarnating John Muir for 23 years in Yosemite National Park and is known internationally for the role.

John Muir is known all over California because of his now famous photographs of Yosemite as well as his conservation efforts. Schools all over the state bear his name, and a Redwood forest north of San Francisco is called Muir Woods.

Lee Stetson’s portrayal of Muir’s love of and respect for animals made me appreciate further the stewardship that God has given us over all the earth, including the animals. He spoke of “Martha,” the last known carrier pigeon to die, of the disappearance of the grizzly bear from Yosemite, and of how rattlesnakes did not strike even though he came very close to them.

Tonight was one of the most winsome evenings we have spent lately. It began with a really great meal and conversation and ended with a very intelligent and witty presentation of John Muir’s love of animals. I have a new appreciation of what a gift God gave us in creation.

I don’t own a crystal ball, and I can’t tell where seemingly random events are headed. But looking backward at time, events often line up like a connect-the-dots drawing.

A couple of nights ago I was thinking about how insignificant an action appeared, months ago when it was performed. I picked up a publication and read an announcement about the start of a leadership class.

That single event acted like the first domino in an elaborate domino design. It toppled the one next to it and so on and so on. Reading about the class led to applying for the class which led to enrollment in the class which led to community contacts resulting from the class.

Today I am part of things that depended directly on my reading that publication several months ago. On the face of it, the act seemed insignificant and unimportant.

This realization has led me to understand that no event should be treated lightly; everything has infinite potential. Not only that, none of us has the ability to judge what that potential could be: a conversation with a stranger, a good deed done for someone who needs it, or a word of encouragement to a struggling student.

God told us to be good stewards of the smallest things. Unknown to us, that may be where God choses to do His greatest work. If we don’t take small things seriously, we may find ourselves missing the best part.

You can’t surf on the shore. The water’s not deep enough, and there’s not enough room to operate.

The best surfers paddle out into the deep water, where the surf is rough–so rough it can even kill you. Their feet can’t touch the bottom, and the best they can hope to do is catch a ride. They certainly aren’t in control.

I think that living in God’s blessing is a lot like surfing. Some people are content to splash in the water that laps the beach. When the big waves break on the shore they run toward higher, drier ground.

Others mount their boards and paddle out into the boiling, crashing waves because that is where the real ride is. God does His best work out there in the deep water. It’s where He took Abraham, Joseph, Paul, and Jesus.

I’ve been a beach dweller most of my life, but now I can’t touch bottom. I’ve also begun to have the ride of my life, and I wish I had paddled out sooner.

I met Eduardo at the towing company. I called to ask if I could look inside my car for lost items one more time. They said, “Not a problem.”

The lady at the front desk called for Eduardo to go with me over to the storage lot to unlock the gate. I made small talk with him and finally I asked him his name. “Eduardo,” he said. I told him mine was ‘Bruce.’

On the way back to the office I asked where he was from. He told me Mexico, as I had guessed. “What part?” I asked. He told me the name of the state, but I didn’t recognize it. I told him that Bev had traveled to Puebla on two occasions. “She really liked the people and thought they were wonderful,” I told him.

“There’s good and bad people everywhere,” he commented. He’s right. There are good and bad people everywhere. We may have different skin color or languages, but we’re all basically alike–good and bad.

Eduardo has been here since the 80’s. He seemed to be a hard-working and polite man. I think I met one of the good ones.

I was driving on a thoroughfare in central Merced on my way to dinner with Bev. She and our friends were at the restaurant waiting for me to return from getting our theater tickets which we left at home. I had just turned onto 22nd street and was proceeding through an intersection. I had no stop sign so I continued on.

In a split second there was a loud bang, a bad smell, and the world was spinning. Another car, on my left, entered the intersection at the same time. He also had no stop sign. All of us walked out of our cars wondering what had happened.

A split second can inconvenience you or change your life forever.

I said something about the weather. The guy was standing next to his truck trying to make a cell phone call. I didn’t realize that he was the business owner I had been e-mailing for two or three weeks.

When I stuck my head in the open door of his not-yet-opened business, his employees pointed me toward the cell-phone guy. I went back to tell him who I was, and we talked some more. Today I got an e-mail from him and a promise that we’d get together soon. He said he wanted to talk to me some more about marketing.

Here’s the deal. He knows who I am and what I do, but that isn’t a problem. All my life I’ve heard Christians say that the world has a problem with us and that most doors are closed to us and our message. That may be true of a few, but the vast majority of people are ready to respect us if……

I think the “if” is 1) respect for people and 2) willingness to have a relationship with people aside from our desire to share a message with them.

Credibility in the world is gained outside the four walls of our church buildings.It is gained by joining civic organizations, offering service to others, and making genuine friendships with people outside our normal circles. There’s no shortcut to this. But the effort is really worth the results.

Bev got me an iPod for my birthday. I requested it because the three television stations at the gym were becoming boring. On the fifth viewing of the day’s news headlines it starts to feel like Purgatory.

So with the iPod I can load up its memory with interviews, book reviews, travel documentaries, and sermons from some of my favorite preachers. I’ve now got Scientific American and Erwin McManus within a click away from each other.

I took it on its maiden voyage this week. The time flies by now. My mind is carried away on interesting discussions and inspiring talks. Hearing Rick Steves talk about travel to Prague reminded me of our last European trip.

Today I put my radio headset away in a closet. I no longer need that to enertain me while I sweat away. It doesn’t get much better than my iPod.

My sermon today was about memory. John told the church in Ephesus to “remember” what they had fallen from, Revelation 2:1-7. Memory is the foundation of identity.

I saw a friend whose memory is slipping away. His normally natty appearance and youthfulness was missing. His hair stood up like someone that had just awakened from a nap.

When memory is absent there is no past or future. Without memory all relationships become the same. A son or daughter is viewed no differently than a complete stranger. There are no experiences to share with a spouse.

I no longer exist in my friend’s mind. I know that a disease has stolen his memories. But disease isn’t the only reason for lost memory. Sometimes it is because of indifference. At such times the lofty, noble values of the past are lost in organizational survival.

I’ve seen churches loose their memories. They forget Jesus. They forget their God-given mandate to share the gospel. They forget that the world is not a suitable lord. Soon forgetfulness steals their identities, and they have no basis for being distinctly Christian.

Then God ceases to exist in their minds.

Some days are just better than others. For me it is the “people quotient” that makes one day better or worse than another. Good days are measured by the degree to which I was able to interact with other people.

Today was a great day. It began with a 7 AM meeting that was quite enjoyable and nutty. It was punctuated during the day with coffee and conversation with other individuals, and it ended with another meeting with friends.

A bad day for me is doing administrative stuff–the thing I used to enjoy doing. Now I feel like a failure if I have not had at least one “significant” conversation with someone–at Starbucks, or a meeting, or over lunch. The more the people contacts the better the day.

Today was a good day.

Did you read about it? It appeared in the Wall Street Journal, among other places. Jim Henderson of Off-the-Map hired an atheist. He got the atheist’s services by bidding for him on E-Bay in exchange for which atheist Hemant Mehta agreed to visit Christian churches and report on his experience.

That would make most churches too nervous–having an atheist visit them in order to report on the experience. Some might say, “What right does he have making a critique of what we do?” Indeed.

In point of fact, he might have every right in the world because if our message fails to connect in a credible way with folks such as Hemant, maybe we need to start listening to what they think of us, painful though it might be.

If you want to know what Hemant thinks, read his interesting and very honest blog. He will make you review the things you have said and done in the name of Jesus.

I think Hemant underestimates the positive influence that all those Chrisians are going to have on him.