thoughts late Wednesday night

In response to my last blog, my daughter Jennifer rightly suggested that I follow my inner compass!
I have been wondering since my shrink said yesterday at the end of pouring out my heart to her, "Peter you are all alone, your wife died, your father died recently, your daughters while they love you have their own lives to live, and you have many physical problems and wherever you are, and your daughter is right, you are alone." I wanted so badly to disagree with her, but I couldn't.

All of the modern contraptions are designed to tell us where we are, what to believe, etc. but all that these inventions have succeeded in doing, is driving us away from the spiritual and from God . This gives us the illusion that all we succeed in doing is our own doing. To listen to our own inner compass is risky, because it means that God might have a plan and I might agree or not agree with it, but it is NOT what I would like the results to be, but what He does.

It is also risky, because I and people like me have allowed others to tell us what to do, for so long, that they might not understand.

lost

Lately I have given thought to the GPS and other 'tracking systems' which appear in cars, or on cell phones, and I am thinking that it's difficult to get LOST in this world of today. If such existed in the days of Jesus, we would not have the parables, no lost coin, no lost son, we wouldn't have lost...
I am old enough to remember riding in the car one night with my father at 2 am from the airport where he had picked me up to drive home to Melbourne...He "knew" where he was he kept telling me, although we were lost...about an hour or so later when we came to a recognizable road, he said "i told you we weren't lost.

Throughout my life's journey I have sought to know where I was, and embarrassed to say that I felt lost. with the GPS I would always know where I was! I wonder why it is that I have depended on so many to tell me where I was...and still feeling lost...

God's plans

When my wife Phyllis died in 1993, some well meaning person said to me
"maybe she had accomplished what God had sent her to do."
Thinking of my two daughters, I objected strenuously even at that thought!
I wonder!

Vick Memorial Chapel

Pathfinder Lodge's Vick Memorial Chapel where Matt and Jennifer's wedding was held...

July 6th

The evening before Heather, Jennifer and I had dinner at the Pepper Mill...knowing that Jennifer needed lactaid I ran next door to the Victory store, and returned with TWO quarts of lactaid milk...
only to find out that Jennifer needed some of the tablets...Good old Dad!

It is fitting that we had come to Cooperstown for her marriage to Matt. Pathfinder Lodge which was the Baptist camp where Phyllis and I met, and where I had met Matt's parents. so much a part of our family's life there on the shores of Lake Otsego...it was a beautiful, albeit bittersweet day as we walked quietly to the Chapel...and there Heather, Jennifer let balloons head for the heavens in honor and memory of their mother...There in front of the altar in which was put the names of campers who had gone into the ministry or missionaries...and my name inscribed in its vault...

My heart returns to Pathfinder Lodge, often, and will today, July 6th as we celebrate with Jennifer and Matt their 12th anniversary...Happy Anniversary Jennifer and Matt...God loves you both and your new children...and Heather...and I love you all, as well...