What do you think of when you read the word “party?” I think of birthdays. I think of pin-the-tail on the donkey. Pointy hats, laughing kids and cake… But in our culture, most people associate “party” with plenty of alcohol, hooking up, or some other kind of adult activity. I had a particular intent in…
A few of us are blessed with a primeval sense of abandon. We live for the satisfying shudder — bungee jumping from a bridge, or standing pat in the face of a grizzly’s false charge. Far more of us are contented to “partake” of Alaska’s perils behind a telephoto lens. Adventurous or not,…
As a younger man, I never gave damaging noise a second thought when cradling a hunting rifle against my chin, or shoving particle board through a screaming panel saw. I wear hearing aids now. It’s taken me a while to adjust to hearing with the help. With practice I’m getting better at using hearing aids…
When an Asian ruler wished to honor a subject, he rewarded the person with a beautiful and highly-valued gift: an elephant. But if a subject displeased the king, the ruler delivered 10 elephants to the person. All of a family’s resources had to be reallocated to care for too many elephants. How many elephants are…
Cast all your anxiety on him because he cares for you. (I Peter 5:7) Thank goodness my trout bait was half the size of a pea… I stood in a creek flinging a black gnat into an eddy, immersed in my fishing space—when a “yelp!!” splashed me awake. My eyes followed my tangled line to…
A Norwegian fisherman named Peter Buschmann gazed into the fluorescent blue depths of the mighty Le Conte Glacier in Southeast Alaska, dreaming. In the 1880s, millions of pounds of sockeye salmon were salted and shipped to Seattle in wooden barrels. It was risky business preserving fish — ferrying them to steamships, then delivering the barrels…
I sloshed waist deep in a slow, friendly creek, inhaling forest smells and an occasional gnat. A beaver slapped its tail a few feet away, and his image faded under water before I refocused on the elk-hair caddis sinking ahead of my fly line. Perhaps it was time to refit my tippet with a woolybooger……
He lay upon his deathbed, a brilliant man — genius in many ways. He had an uncommon grasp of science, literature, and mathematics. Military-educated. “Self-made,” he would have said. I felt his influence in my life for 30 years, my wife since her birth. He was a staunch Bible skeptic. He was his own god,…
I wrapped my arms around my wife as she washed dishes yesterday. “Will you do that when I’m old and all hunched over?” she asked me. “Isn’t it nice to know that I ALWAYS will?” I said. She splashed my face with water. “And isn’t it nice to know that I’ll ALWAYS do THAT?” she…
God interrupts our plans sometimes. He clips our wings when we think we should be flying. And when we least expect it, he propels us forward at light speed. BE READY. Trust in the LORD with all your heart; do not depend on your own understanding. Seek his will in all you do,and he will…
For we know that when this earthly tent we live in is taken down (that is, when we die and leave this earthly body), we will have a house in heaven, an eternal body made for us by God himself and not by human hands. (II Cor. 5:1) It has been about 50 years since…
Col. 1:17: And he [Jesus] is before all things, and by him all things consist. KJV He [Jesus] existed before anything else, and he holds all creation together. NLT He is before all things, and in him all things hold together. NIV Know best… Jesus is unoriginated (uncreated; existing forever). He is the fountainhead of…
Like many phrases I write, the weight of the words doesn’t hit the bull’s eye until I read them later. “Tide in, tide out” is one of these… My wonder at being 64 is shown in variations of an Old English phrase dating back to the 1300s: TIDE AND TIME WAIT FOR NO ONE…It means that,…
Have you ever seen your convictions or ministry or trust in someone ground up and blown to… Well… so did the Apostle Peter. On the threshing floor of decision, God used Satan to “sift” Peter’s ego from his ambitions. (Luke 22) Tribulum A tribulum was a sled constructed with shards of rock or iron driven…
An unseen world exists inside a drop of water. Parasites, fungi, amoebas, and toxin gobblers (called rotifers and copepods) feast and swim in 1.5 sextillion (a number with 21 zeroes) water molecules contained in a single sparkling droplet. Invisible predators prey upon other microbes within this one .05 milliliter-sized drip. Now—consider the millions of creatures…
By faith Noah, when warned about things not yet seen, in holy fear built an ark to save his family. By his faith he condemned the world and became heir of the righteousness that is in keeping with faith. (Hebrews 11:7) Like Noah, we are constructing a family “ark” to save our loved ones from…
The tour bus trundled along a muddy ribbon bisecting 6 million acres of pristine wilderness: Denali National Park and Preserve. From their windows 35 deaf visitors studied Mt. McKinley, the Crown Jewel of the North, and delighted fingers intimately shared wonders of the wild. Black bears and grizzlies wandered the 85-mile stretch of gravel…
Rowdy the Raven never knew what hit him. The last thing he remembered was grabbing one last bite of rabbit flesh near the yellow center line on the highway. This time his aerobatic maneuver was a split-second short of a clean escape and the pickup’s fender slammed him into the ditch. When he awoke,…
Body language is communication via the movements or attitudes of the body. If I tap my foot I’m showing impatience. When I kneel or raise my hands to pray, my body language expresses surrender to God. If I jiggle my leg in church my wife elbows me. This “communicates” that I’m distracting people. Some of…
That raspy staccato “quacking” — like a tiny, frantic duck — isn’t one. You are being serenaded by an Alaska wood frog (Rana sylvatica). In spring, wood frog males congregate by ponds and call females to procreate. Some of these old amphibians have overwintered in harsh Alaska conditions for up to 10 years. Wood frogs…
The Story of Roy O Written by Richard Drebert ©Good Catch Publishing The Butcher Baker is a convicted serial killer. He was also my barber. And while we talked, sometimes his eyes glazed over as he drifted in his own private universe. He had confessed to murdering at least 17 women. I was serving jail…
“Suppose one of you has a hundred sheep and loses one of them. Doesn’t he leave the ninety-nine in the open country and go after the lost sheep until he finds it? (Luke 15:4) The shepherd will not rest UNTIL he rescues the sheep. A sheep is seldom cooperative. A sheep will “try” the path,…
When confusion overwhelms, When financial ruin seems inevitable, When betrayal defeats us, When stress overpowers our peace, When bad memories assail us, When panic scatters our well-being, When unbelief smothers our hope, When we discover that what we “own,” owns us, When we realize the logical way is the wrong way… It’s time to scrap…
Are you standing at the edge of a ruined reputation, bankruptcy, mental breakdown, illness or other unnamed trials? Are you huddling on the strand, waiting for God’s direction, unable to see a way forward? Sometimes there is no possible “way forward” yet… You cannot retreat. The Egyptians behind you are bent upon enslaving you or…
Do I take time to think? To take stock of my relationship with God? THIS is a believer’s reality: God is our refuge and strength, an ever-present help in trouble. Therefore we will not fear, though the earth give way and the mountains fall into the heart of the sea, though its waters roar and foam…
