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Birthdays can be rather depressing as we age, or they can be fun reminders of where we’ve been. I choose the later.

I like birthdays, because I enjoy taking time to remember. God has given me such a wonderful life.  Oh, I’ve had my share of trials, pain, and hurt feelings. But as I look at the big picture, I see God with me. And that gives me great hope. It provides a new burst of energy for another year. 

Such memories make me thankful for these days of life.

A friend’s wife was recently in a terrible car accident and now lies in an ICU ward in a coma. Wow! Change can come so fast. It’s a good reminder of how fragile our little lives really are. I need to be thankful for each and every day.

A favorite Christmas memory this year was attending a Christmas concert. Actually, we attended two concerts, but the most inspiring was in a small cathedral-like setting with only 17 singers and a piano. It had a high 40 foot ceiling, but rather narrow walls. Beautiful stain glass windows. Lots and lots of marble. Wonderful, pure music echoed through the halls. I felt God there. And, I think most other attendees felt His presence there, too.  Big Christmas concerts are wonderful– but a few humble voices lead us to God that day.

I’m looking out my office window. The sun is just now coming up and the horizon is mixture of brilliant reds that no artist can possibly duplicate. Father, thank you for the beauty you allow me to see.

It’s Monday after Thanksgiving.  I’ve been reading David McCullough’s Pulitzer Prize winning book, 1776.  According to McCullough, when new British and German troops landed on American soil in 1776, they were amazed at the abundance of the Americans. In fact, he goes on to write that the quality of life in the Colonies was better than most other places in the world at the time.

When I visited Colonial Williamsburg this past summer, I marveled at the hardships they must have endured. Little did I realize that in actuality they lived in greater prosperity than most folks in the world of that age.

Thankful, yes, we need to be thankful.

This week is Thanksgiving, and now is a time when most of us express thanks for our homes, our families, our nation. However, I recently heard someone give thanks for being lonely, because it brought that person closer to God.  That’s interesting. It made me ponder the idea of thanksgiving a little broader.

I can remember stressful times with my work, times when I wanted to quit and dig ditches for a living. Now, I am thankful for those stressful times, because God comforted me. And I’m ever so slightly stronger. 

I can remember hearing friends talk about retiring early, and seeing wealth magazines in airports, covers filled with amazingly happy looking people.  And I began to wonder why I ever picked the career path that I did. But I am thankful, because at such frustrating junctures, I have felt God’s hand on my shoulder, speaking ever so gently that I am in the right place at the right time.  And I had peace.  

So yes, I am thankful… perhaps more so this year than in times past. 

It’s been over a week since my wife and I went on an archeology dig with our daughter. She’s the archaeologist in the family– we are not.

I participated in a dig with her last summer, which was a lot of fun. This year, Denise joined us, which made even more fun.

What was it like being on an archeology dig?  It was hot, dirty– and very much the adventure you might expect. We were part of a large team of archaeologists working three “rich” areas. Lots of artifacts.

We saw flint points, metal points, flint tools, shell casings from army Spencer rifles– the list goes on. It was all cool stuff.

We also found bits of pottery. Now, up to this point, while it was truly neat to see and hold these artifacts, it was difficult to seeing living breathing people. There was such a vast distance in time between then and now that it was difficult to connect. Yes, it made me gawk at the workmanship, and marvel at what it must have been like to live in such a rough environment. But it wasn’t until we were cleaning and cataloging a small piece of broken pottery that one of the older, more experienced participants spoke up and said, “Oh, just wait until you find pottery that has a fingerprint in it!”

A fingerprint, left on the pottery? Now, wait a minute…a real human being, sure-enough fingerprint?

Okay, now a reality hit me. Suddenly I saw past the deadness of the cold objects in front of me and saw a real live, happy, sad, joyful, brokenhearted, successful, depressed, hope-filled human being. Not ancient bones, but the imprint of a living person. It brought the deadness to life.

It was one of those ah-ha moments that I will never forget. 

I’m glad God never forgets our fingerprints.

Well, it’s time for the Texas Archeology field school again.

Many of you may recall that last year I went on an archeology dig in West Texas with my daughter, Anne. This year,  Denise (my wife) decided to join us. Tomorrow we travel to Perryton, Texas, which is located in the Panhandle of Texas near the Oklahoma border. And boy, is it a long drive. Looking at the map tonight, I figure it will take us a  good 7-8 hours. It’s going to be a long day.

So stayed tuned…I’ll be giving you updates along the way.    

Check this out:

 THE WASHINGTON POST

“PUBLISHER OFFERS 5,000 MORE BOOKS FOR KINDLE.  Amazon.com said Friday that publisher Simon & Schuster Inc. will make 5,000 more books available for the Amazon Kindle wireless reader, bumping to 125,000 the number of titles users can download and read.  Later in the day, Amazon.com Inc. CEO Jeff Bezos appeared at the BookExpo America convention in Los Angeles and touted the benefits of electronic book  offerings.  He said Amazon had temporarily sold out of hard copies of “What Happened: Inside the Bush White House and Washington’s Culture of Deception,” the new tell-all book by former White House press secretary Scott McClellan.  Bezos has said Kindle e-books now account for 6% of sales among the 125,000 titles available on the site in both electronic and print formats. The company did not elaborate on that figure.”

The new Kindle reader is drawing a lot of attention. While I love new technology, I’m not sure I will adapt well to a Kindle reader. But it makes me wonder where we will be ten years from now.  Will a hardcover book have such a low demand that retail prices will go through the roof?

Who will use such a reader? It may end up being a generation thing.  Kids in grade school today will be the Kindle readers of tomorrow?  My college age kids may adapt to Kindle better than I will.  Who knows?

What think ye?