Patriot Rovers Serving Veterans in North Carolina

Golden retrievers and military service personnel. How can you resist?

Patriot Rovers is an amazing organization providing a unique and relevant service to many soldiers who have served.

Patriot Rovers is a North Carolina based 501( c)(3) that provides canine therapy using rescued and trained Psychiatric Service Dogs for military veterans who suffer from PTSD and/or Traumatic Brain Injury. The program is free for veterans.

Patriot Rovers is committed to rescuing, housing, nurturing, rehabilitating, vaccinating, spaying, neutering, training and socializing rescued dogs in order to qualify them as Psychiatric Service Dogs that will perform medical alert and response in addition to specific tasks for combat Veterans.

The mission of the organization is simply to serve soldiers and honor heroes through the training and placement of therapeutic animals and highlighting the accomplishments of men and women who have served their country. You can get the full story on the Patriot Rovers website.

Thank You

New Year's Resolution - Be A Turnstone

Last December I set some 2012 Goals. I don't like resolutions or promises, I like goals. I especially like goals in writing. I don't work from written goals nearly often enough (maybe that could be a 2013 goal), but when I do - it is amazing how well it works.

Last year, about this time, I set these goals:

1. Celebrate today - everything we do, each moment we live is too precious to be treated as a passing fancy. I will better live in the now.

2. Laugh harder - there are too many minutes between belly laughs so intense that they make me cry.

3. Pray deeper - it is time to embrace an ancient and powerful oracle once again.

 All in all, I met these goals more often than not in 2012. #2 was especially helpful and challenging. Life on life's terms can suck the joy right out of you, unless you tenaciously keep perspective. Part of my #2 was completing my book, Wishful Preaching: Things I Wish I'd Said From The Pulpit. Writing it and sharing it with others has kept me laughing.

I'm still working on my specific set of goals for this year, but I have one piece of it nailed down. I want to live like a bird in 2013 - a particular kind of bird, the Turnstone.

Turnstone at work

Living along the seashore, the Turnstone feeds on insect and animal life near the water line. Like the sea gull, sandpiper and countless other shore birds, it is dependent on the food it can find. Shore birds search the surf's edge and beach sand for the unsuspecting bug, crab or minnow   However, the Turnstone has developed a habit of doing more than hunting on the surface of things. The Turnstone, as it's name suggest, will use it's hardy beak and strong neck to flip over shells, rocks and seaweed to uncover a meal that other shore birds will miss entirely. I feel a life-lesson analogy coming on...

It seems that I need a bit of Turnstone in the days ahead. I don't want to just react to what appears in front of me, or crawls across my path in the months ahead. I want to look into the crevices of life, search for the nourishment that hides beneath the surface of each day, flip over apparent failures and see what can be uncovered. Too often we give up. Frequently we accept less. NO! I say. Let's enter this new year with the determination to uncover the richness of our particular lives and the strength to crack it open and feast on the victory!

Will you join me in a Turnstone New Year?

Gift Ideas #3 - Dirt to Shirt!

I met Eric Henry of TS Designs the evening his company received the Green Business of the Year award from the Piedmont Environmental Alliance.

TS Designs has a unique "Dirt to Shirt" program that creates a 100% organic cotton t-shirt from the growing of the cotton to the finial printed t-shirt within a few hundred miles - all in North Carolina. Each shirt comes with a unique code that you can use to track and 'meet' the growers, weavers and printers involved in your shirt!




You can get your very own Dirt to Shirt Tee right off their website. What a great gift to spur conversation and local pride!

Happy Halloween

My your candy be delightful, your fears fondly frightful and your evening hallowed.

Happy Halloween

Happy Birthday to Kim Williams!

May 2, 1958! Old Guys Rule!

St. Patrick's Day - Saintly Drinking?

Happy St. Patrick's Day. Just in case you don't really know what the holiday is about (other than drinking green beer - which is the oddest way I know to celebrate a Saint), here's a link: Saint Patrick's Day.

Oh, and one more thing. Have a Celtic Shamrock

Celtic Shamrock

Sunday Coffee Cup – The Good Stuff

I remember clearly as a child, that I had two kinds of shoes: my everyday shoes and my Sunday shoes. The Sunday shoes were the ones I wore to church each week and to any special ‘dress up’ occasions. I suspect we all have special shoes or other items that see use only at certain times – dishes, for instance. On a normal day we go to the cabinet and grab any old plate, bowl or cup. On special days, we get out the good stuff – silver flatware, china plates and even cloth napkins.

I was no more than 11 and spending the day down the road playing at a friend’s home. It was getting late and near suppertime. My friend’s mother asked if I wanted to stay for dinner, and I declined. When she asked why I told her, “I’d better go home for dinner. Mom’s planning something special – she’s using cloth napkins and everything!” My mother loves to tell this story, because she was in fact, not planning anything special. She has always enjoyed the simple pleasures of life and believes that from time to time we should bring out the good stuff – just because - and enjoy it ourselves. That brings us to today’s Sunday Coffee Cup.

Allow me to introduce you to our wedding china. Today I’m having coffee with “the good stuff” and by that I mean more than the good china. I’m sipping wedding memories and sacred thoughts about love, marriage and the most wonderful woman I know – my wife. That makes for a fine cup of coffee.

Sunday Coffee Cup - Noel

Sometimes we have to provide the meaning.

How many times have we sung, “The First Noel?” It is a wonderful, commonly known carol. You most likely can sing it from memory – tune and verse. If you need a little help, I’ll get you started:

The first Nowell the Angel did say
Was to certain poor Shepherds in fields as they lay.
In fields where they lay keeping their sheep,
In a cold winter’s night that was so deep.

If you remember it slightly different, you are probably right, as well. There are many versions of “The First Noel,” or Nowell . It makes sense, really, considering the hymn dates back to the early 18th century and has made its way through countless Christian and popular revisions.

Today’s Sunday Coffee Cup reminds me of the popular and often misunderstood carol. Do you know what “noel” means? Perhaps. Perhaps not.  Noel derives its meaning from a French word (which came from a Latin word) that means “day of birth.” So, we are singing about the day of Jesus’ birth. It is a little difficult to ‘get’ the meaning of Noel from my coffee mug this morning.

The snoozing teddy bear and children’s block letters spelling Noel are – well – where’s the Christ in that? This morning Christ is there all right, but not because of the secularized image on the mug. No. The Christ of this Christmas morning rises, like the steam from this mug, from the beloved family, friends and fellowship of my life.  So, today – I will take the time (amid the busyness and chaos) to savor the moments of the day. The unwrapping of gifts will be symbols of the greater gift we have all been given. The indulgence of the meals will remind me of the abundant table that Christ sets before us. The laughter and tears (for both will come today) will remind me of the intensity of a life lived trusting a higher power. And this little sleeping bear, resting unknowingly upon the very word that announces Christ’s birth reminds me that because of what we celebrate this day – all is well.

Merry Christmas, my friends. Merry Christmas.


P.S. As I post this, Bing Crosby just began singing "The First Nowell" on the Panadora Christmas channel. Perfect.

Sunday Coffee Cup - Old World Santa

Christmas has already arrived in my cupboard! It is a household tradition that sometime shortly after Thanksgiving, the regular coffee mugs and many of the glasses get replaced by the “Christmas drink ware.”  It is always a small delight to open the cabinet door and be greeted by a bright, if cluttered, assortment of holiday mugs and glasses.

There are Santa mugs, snowmen (sorry, no snowwomen), decorated trees, and even an elf or two. We have a drinking glass set of the 11 days of Christmas (there use to be 12 days, but somebody dropped the Piper’s Piping – moment of silence please).

Today’s Sunday Coffee Cup is an old world style mug with a different sort of “Santa” depicted. Here in America, we have come to conceptualize Santa as a caricature of a short man as depicted in the old Coke commercials or the clay-mation special Rudolph the Red Nosed Reindeer.  The Santa staring at me this morning is more of the old world variety. I like that.  He is depicted here as a taller, thinner man. His clothing is less cartoonish and more realistic. My mind reminds me that Santa is a larger phenomenon that what we do in 2011 in the United States. It reminds me that the gift giving, myths and commercialism really started as something else.

I can allow my imagination to let go back in time, following an imaginary path back to a real man, a kind, generous, self sacrificing man who lived – giving to the less fortunate because of the unfathomable generosity of his Christ. I can remember that there was once a real connection between the Christ of Christmas and Saint Nicholas. Then my fantasies expand and I follow the greatness of God’s love into other places and faiths, many nations and stories, countless traditions and beliefs as humanity struggles to unite around the truths of caring, self-sacrifice, peace, justice, kindness and a belief that children deserve more love and security than we have historically given them… my mind wanders and my heart both aches for more and fill with abundance of gratitude  that at least for the next few days we will once again gather around decorated trees, tinseled presents and faith filled hymns and remember – if only in a limited way – that God has come to us and we are better for it.