Nathanael Leads BCS to 4th Place at State
 With
all my great running history at West Seattle, I still never ran
at State. And now Nathanael has competed in Pasco twice.
He finished 1st for BCS and 22nd overall with a time of 17:50
over a slightly harder course than last year when he was 5th for
BCS (47th overall) with a time of 18:12. His fellow BCS
sophomore teammate Martin Geier finished just behind him in 24th
place at 17:58 and the top 5 finished in a pack within 41
seconds of each other. This was good for fourth place and
their first ever team trophy. Last year the team ran 7th.
The BCS girls also finished 4th (by
1 point), and could have been 2nd if freshman Hillary Brown had run.
I was able to make two DVDs from
the videos that Nancy and Jeannie Beth had taken over the course
of the season. I was able to show these at the end-of-season
banquet. They were a huge hit. I also created a
PowerPoint presentation of still pictures of all of the runners,
and it played during the awards portion of the evening. I
had also made a music tape to accompany the DVD movies.
There was a big crowd,
 many
of whom had not been able to travel to the races. I
decided to make a custom DVD for each of the runners, with one
of their photos on the "scene selection" screen. Most of
these were distributed at BCS before the week-long Thanksgiving
break. I just finished the last eight for the junior varsity on
the 25th.
My Return to the Sea
After
"sailing" with author Patrick O'Brian for so long, it didn't
take me long to begin the other great saga of the British
Navy during the Napoleonic era. I am already
 into book
four of C. S. Forester's Horatio Hornblower novels. (It
turns out #11 comes between #3 and #4. I'm glad I
discovered that.)
This is quality writing, not
perhaps up to the perfection of O'Brian, but eminently
satisfying all the same. The books are much shorter, the
plots much quicker. Like O'Brian, Forester (1899-1966)
passed away while still writing this famous series, which
consists of 11 books. The
first volume he wrote in 1937, Beat to Quarters, was
actually the 6th book chronologically in the tale of
Captain Hornblower. It was the one we know from the
Gregory Peck and Virginia Mayo movie. Actually, that movie
combines elements of three of the books. I will read that one
in December. Hollywood certainly took some liberties with the
plot, but Gregory Peck surely caught the essence of the title
character.
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Thoughts on Romans 9 through 11
This month I have resumed the lead of the FPCB
Saturday Morning Men's Bible Study. I am not unfamiliar
with leading this group of 15 to 25 men each Saturday morning.
When our facilitator Phil Voigt was ill during an earlier
period, I led the group for two years. He has battled bone
cancer for over nine years.
ROMANS 9: Salvation is not an ethnic right
of the Jews, but is solely by God's sovereign choice and
subsequent call. For grace to be grace, it can leave no
room for merit. Paul could call to mind any period of
Israel's history to illustrate that only a remnant (and always a
remnant) would be saved. Pursuit of salvation by human
effort (works) could not achieve the salvation God offered.
It could only be received by faith. ROMANS 10:
There is a distinct process to how God saves sinners. God
sends a witness ®
the gospel (good news of Christ) is preached
® "His
sheep hear his voice" ®
they believe (put their trust in
Him) ®
they call on Him and are thereby saved. Believing in the
heart will be observed by confessing with the mouth that "Jesus
is Lord." In the case of Israel, God sent many
witnesses (Prophets), Isaiah being perhaps the foremost.
The gospel was clearly preached to them. Yet the message was
heard (understood) only by few, the believing remnant. ROMANS
11: Yet God is a promise keeper. He does not close the door
completely to the nation that, in majority, rejected the Son He
loves and the sacrifice that would save them. For Gentiles
on the other hand, the only viable response to the priceless
gift of salvation is humility and gratitude evidenced in
obedience. God's first
love, as it were, is still the descendants of Abraham, Isaac and
Jacob. He will not be thwarted in his courtship of Israel. The
story of His love for her has a climactic chapter still to be
written in history.
Cookie Season Starts Early
 In
mid-December I typically begin a chocolate chip cookie baking
frenzy. But this year Annie has insisted I bake a massive
quantity that she can take back to SPU and share with her dorm
floor. The tin she's asked me to fill is huge. So instead
of joining the crowds of shoppers after Thanksgiving, I've baked
all day. Nathanael did most of the the heavy mixing. And,
yes, that's how I actually dress when I bake. I make it a
special event. It's something my kids will remember when
I'm long gone. (Aside: This week we did a height
comparison and I'm still over a 1/2" taller than Nathanael.)
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Bits and Pieces
- Thanksgiving Pies and Turkeys:
Aunt Susan was in Saint Louis doing fill-in O.B.
work so that doctors there could have Thanksgiving with their
families. Nancy cooked her first turkey for practice and
then cooked another for the Thanksgiving meal that we took to
Grandma Ginger's. Randy was sick and could not attend.
But Nancy's new freezer was full of frozen pies and turkeys so
we managed without the pies he was to bring. Safeway was
selling turkeys for $0.29 per pound so we have four more frozen
ones in the freezer! (We sort of over did it on turkeys
with 2 from COSTCO, 1 from QFC, and 3 from Safeway.) At $3.75
for a 16 lb. bird it seemed like a deal I couldn't refuse.
We did have Ginger's older sister Ellie, and Georgia, a UPC
church friend, at the meal. Having Annie home this
Thanksgiving weekend has been just wonderful.
- My mom and dad were on a three
week vacation at the end of the month. Apparently, dad had
been in a serious accident with his Honda Accord last week.
He was only slightly injured but the car may have been totaled.
I only heard days later. That was the very nice car that I
drove in Vancouver in August.
- April Peter, daughter of SPU
faculty friend Don Peter, did finally receive a reimbursement
check from the University. There was no written
explanation this time, but Professor Peter credited Annie's
forceful fight for her rights and those of other dependants of
employees this past summer. This brings some closure to
that messy and painful episode with my employer. In
a surprise move, SPU president Dr. Eaton is taking a sabbatical
from December through March. I hope it does him good.
- I have to give a one-hour
instructional presentation on PowerPoint to the business school
faculty on December 1st. I will expand it to two-hours for the
campus staff on December 21st.
-
With December comes the first
matches of wrestling season. I've purchased a small
portable stool to make my hours photographing at the mat's edge more
comfortable. And Coach Perkins has ordered me a "BCS
Wrestling" sweatshirt with "DR. SL8" on the back. At least
I'll look like I belong there. He's already raved about
the BCS
wrestling website I've launched for the team. It's
one of my better web page designs if I do say so myself.
- On our drive to Pasco, with
Nancy in the drivers seat at about 6:45AM, we were doing 45mph
on snow and slush just past Snoqualmie Pass. Suddenly, a
black sports car tried to pass us on the left and began to spin
out of control. Nancy slowed carefully to avoid a spin of
our own on the slick freeway. The sports car continued to
spin and crossed into our lane just a few feet ahead of us.
It did a complete 360 in our lane and continued across it to
smash broadside into the guardrail on our right side. Brother
Randy, riding with us to the race, called 911 on his Blackberry
cell phone and we stopped when we could. We were sure that
we'd be bumped but there was not a scratch (except one Annie had
produced two years ago). The State Patrol told us we could
drive on. We arrived in Pasco just as they were singing
the National Anthem and just minutes before the BCS girls team
was to run. God's hand of protection was surely on us that
day. We decided to drive back the long way (via I-84 along
the Columbia in Oregon and north on I-5.) That was the
night rocks fell, closing I-90 about three hours after we got
home. The team bus braved the snowy route but the runners
only recall the great snowball fight with other teams when the
busses stopped to chain-up at the pass.
- From the "I'm Getting Old"
Dept.: Annie drove the van to Grandma's for Thanksgiving.
Nathanael topped a tree in the yard for our Christmas tree.
(Doesn't Annie look good now that she finally has her braces
off?)
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