The last few months in Missouri have felt like Narnia - Always winter and never Christmas.
This weekend while I visited the farm, I was reading a book that had a scene of a family celebrating Advent. I went for a walk in the pasture and with all that snow on the ground and the scene fresh [...]
Archive for February, 2008
Postcard from the edge of Narnia
Posted in Christmas, Ministry on February 25, 2008 | Leave a Comment »
Margin Call: Enjoy the view, but keep moving
Posted in Margin Call on February 25, 2008 | Comments Off
Gone are the days when you could go sight seeing on Interstate 229.
The double-decker highway offers panoramic vistas of St. Joseph. To the west, the wide Missouri River arcs around the bend and cuts a lazy path through the tree-covered bluffs. You can see clear across Kansas and almost, it seems, to Nebraska.On the [...]
Just a Trim and Some Career Counseling
Posted in Ministry on February 21, 2008 | Leave a Comment »
You can get a lot of interesting things at the hair salon. I was there yesterday and I have bangs now, for the first time in several years.
I also got some good career advice. While waiting for my turn in the chair, I was talking to a lady who was celebrating her 20th year at a factory job [...]
MarginCall: The winter of my recession
Posted in Margin Call on February 18, 2008 | 1 Comment »
Is winter over yet?
This old-fashioned winter has been interminable, but I remain convinced that a month from now, it will begin to feel like spring.
How about the recession, is it over yet?
Has it even started?
The official definition of recession has specific, economic parameters that involve a lot of bar charts and trigonometry. In a less [...]
Margin Call: No password required
Posted in Margin Call on February 11, 2008 | 1 Comment »
The hot little phone was fresh out of the box, all charged and ready to go. All it needed to be activated was the okay from the phone company.
Twenty minutes of twisting through the call center maze, straining to listen over a trans-Atlantic cable that connected me to a representative in a remote land, and finally everything [...]
Lighthouse in the snow
Posted in Ministry on February 7, 2008 | Leave a Comment »
The church across the street ministered to my household today and they’ll probably never know.
We got nine inches of snow last night. (And I thought February meant the end of snow!) The dog was bouncing around, begging to go for a walk. There was no way I could walk down the sidewalk with snow up [...]
Ground hog greets a new day
Posted in Ministry on February 3, 2008 | 1 Comment »
It was with much relief on Friday that I flipped the calendar over to February.
Just 31 days earlier, 2008 swept in with such promises and fresh beginnings. But it was an incredibly long, cold January. It snowed so often, we wondered what was wrong on days it didn’t. The temperatures hovered somewhere between zero and 20 [...]
Margin Call: Under a Tuscan cloud
Posted in Margin Call on February 3, 2008 | Leave a Comment »
Tuscany Village seems to have sputtered in its attempts to become a shopping center.
The developers maintain they are still active in the project, but construction and announcements of new stores have been in short supply.
Tuscany’s corner may find new life, however, as a convention destination.
If the Buchanan County Commissioners get their wish, an ag expo [...]
