Summer 2007

            Welcome to my website! I know I should be talking about my work, and about myself – but I just couldn’t resist this opportunity to share something I observed here in the Northwest in the deep heat of summer.

            We keep our boat in the saltwater pond formed where Chambers Creek runs into the Puget Sound. Every time we leave for a cruise, we must go under a steel drawbridge run by the Burlington Northern Railroad. Sometimes, we must wait for approaching trains to pass before we can approach the bridge. Last week, as we waited for the bridge to lift, I noticed a huge bird’s nest on the bridge’s topmost beam. Using binoculars, I saw Mama Heron feeding hungry babies about sixty feet above the surface of the water. Lunch was something long and stringy!

            On either side of her, the Burlington Northern folks had placed an artificial owl – hoping to frighten her into building her nest elsewhere. The two owls had little effect. As the bridge rose, and the huge screeching mechanism climbed ever closer to her babies, she didn’t squawk; she didn’t fly away in fear. Instead, undaunted by the noise or the owls or the height, she perched on that bridge in the bright morning sunshine and took care of business. She was feeding her chicks.

            Doing what she was created to do.

            And I began to wonder if that isn’t the way we should be. God has placed us in a precarious place. Serving him sometimes feels like trying to balance on top of a steel beam sixty feet above the water. Keeping our balance takes all our concentration.

            Sometimes, it looks as if we’ve been planted dangerously close to our most deadly enemies. Like the owls, our enemies wait close beside us, and part of us wants to give in to fear. If only we could fly away!

            But we should be realize, just as Mama Heron did, that our enemies are impotent – nothing more than clay shadows of the real thing. And though the place seems precarious, we are protected from falls by a nest we cannot see. A spiritual wall, strong and tough and made by unseen hands. Though our circumstances seem noisy and scary, they can never truly reach us.

            Our fate is sealed. Our victory is won. And nothing – no artificial enemy or noisy circumstance can keep us from our final reward in Christ Jesus. We must, like Mama Heron, refuse to be distracted by the things we see, by the dangers that lurk so close beside us. Like her, we should take care of business, enjoy the Sonshine, and do what we were created to do!