Life...to the max!

Life By Design: 363/2

Sunday:  29Dec13--it happened. Didn't know when it would. But it did...!

        Somewhere is my lenthenging personal history I heard someone say, or read where someone wrote that for every huge high in one's life there will most likely be a corresponding low.  Sooner.  Rather than later.  At the end of this day, to that thought I can certainly attest.

        Coming off this significant time away, where each day, in some special way was higher than the last one, today the emotional bottom got dropped on it's rear end.  'Tis true, with every ascent, somewhere, somehow, some hour, sometime, some day, there will be descent.  Higher can get addictive.  Descent is not the choce of most of us.

        But...........

        Welcome back to "reality" Mr. Roberts.  Whatever "reality" is in the moment by moment of life.  Mine.  And, friendly reader, yours, as well.  Reality.  What is it?  For you?  For me?

        Through varying circumstances, today's "trip" down took a slow slide all day long.  I'll even admit to tears welling up about three moments in time.  I don't know what brought on the first round (did finally figure that out, though...).  Was more aware of what caused the second round.

        For the third round I'll thank (and I'm serious about this point of thanks...) the movie*** we went to see to put a different spin to the conclusion of this day.  Little did I know there was going to be a distinct point of identification with one of the main characters in the story (which is based on intriguing fact...).  He and I, in different ways, experienced severe harshness as lads.

        That man has long been one of my heroes.  He has invited us all to imagine more in living life well.  He lived beyond what took place in his life.  Taking a deep, thanks-filled breath here, so have I.

        But the story still got to me.  As it should have.  I did not expect the story, both tragic and grand and uncertain and growthful, to be as varied as it was.  But hey.......remarkably it was a story about reality.  I needed a large dose of that tonight.

        Got it.  Grateful.  I sleep tonight on the wings of unexpected grace.

        I would encourage you to go and see the movie*** if/when it comes to your town.  If you are able, skip the ad at the beginning of this trailer, otherwise endure.  But then, again, that's some of the downside reality of life today, too many ads.

        Up high or down low, we all have choices.  No matter our age.  Or life circumstances.  Carefully.  Slowly.  Take your time.  Feel the joy, and remember it well.  Own the pain, or it will only grow.  Inhale.  Exhale.  Be alive.  Really.

Choose reality.

Imagine what that would be like for you.

...thought found on the back of an older, well-used car on our recent journey...

 

Life By Design: 362/3

Saturday:  28Dec13 (...which began the night before.......) Home.

...this is Judy looking a jumping whales offshore...

        Yesterday was about as magical as it can get when one is about to depart paradise, commonly known as The Islands, or Hawaii.  At the end of Friday's post (yesterday) you will see the incredible rainbow (one of many...) that we feasted on with our eyes, and the eyes of our souls, as we were packing up to leave later last night.

        With some time to spare, before turning in the rental car, we did a slow, glorious, beautiful drive down throuh Kihei, into Wailea, did some coffee, walked around familiar digs, and marveled at the peace we experienced within, and without.  With some meaningful conversation sprinkled in, the time was holy, and wholly enjoyable.

        Driving slowly back up through southern Kihei, we parked at a beautiful beach we had passed several times previously to watch one last sunset.  Then...oh whoa!  Oh, WOW.......!!!  The entertainment began.  We could not believe our eyes.  On cue the International Hawaii Whale Rockettes, all the way from the waters of Alaska to birth their young, began to dance off shore.  I mean, like, double Wow, WOW!

        If one could have walked down the ramp in the pic above, right onto the water and walked about a half mile out, you would have been in the middle of the dance.  The word amazing even sounds weak here.  I stopped counting at 20 the number of big splashes and total all-the-way-out-of-the-water jumps the whales made in about a 40 minutes time period.  The sight gave the the word "stunning" a new visual definition!

        Our "ooohs!" and "whoas!!" and "look!  Look, right there!!!" began to draw a small crowd.  A friendly family from Vancouver, BC (she a fourth grad school teacher and he a firman, and the three kids, master sand castle builders, who had just left their spectacular efforts on the beach below us...) told me they were just remarking coming up from the beach that they wished their kids could see some whales jumping.  So, they joined our OOOh and AAHHHh Kihei Beachside Chorus.

        What a beautiful remembrance, and more than spectacular last looks at the ocean, it's life and the view we've enjoyed for three weeks.  I said to Judy, "It seems like every hour of this day has had a significant blessing attached to it.  Rainbows.  A short, but fierce storm blowing through.  More rainbows.  A memorable walk.  20+ jumping whales.  Judy said she could stay three more weeks after all that.  :-)

        Off to the airport.  Turned in the car.  Had a fairly long wait.  People gathering.  Our names were called.  The magic continued.  Due to my new level of frequent flyer status we were upgraded to first.  Now words do fail.  We both slept all the way home on the six and a half hour direct flight to Denver.

        The moments from this time out will long be informing us as we go forward, individually, together as a couple, as a family of three, with old and new friends, and with a future to our work that is going to be significantly better, different, improved, more focused, etc. in the year to come.  No matter the lingering longings to stay, it was time to come home.

     
        So this morning the love of my life takes a pic of the love of her life waiting for luggage about 8:40am this morning at DIA.  Our good friend, Mark, brought us home.  We spent the day unpacking, settleing in, did church with our special neighbors at 4pm, grabbed a bowl of soup at a favorite spot (we have no groceries...), and are headed to bed soon after I push send.

        We are a little physically weary.  But, as you know in your own travels, our own bed is going to feel real good in a few minutes.  Judy just said it's snowing.  We are getting up early to repack and head back to the islands.

        Just kidding on that last comment.  We do have our memories, momentos, and forward mission further defined for our lives.  The year to come has high hopes in a number of places.  For now...good night!

        Three more posts to go on blogging daily for a whole year.......

 

Life By Design: 361/4

Friday:  27Dec13--for a good reason, postponing talking about retirement!

Hey!  Hello!!  Good morning!!!

        At the end of yesterday's post, I mentioned talking today about retirement.  That I will be putting off until Monday, at the latest.  Not retirement.  Just talking about it.  lol

        What I do want to talk about today is like the metaphor happening outside.  It's back to really stormy.  Awhile ago we saw the most spectacular double rainbow of our lives.  Brilliant.  That is creation.  Brilliant, from the smallest microcosm that takes a high powered microscope to see...to the stars, so far out there in the night sky that it takes a high powered telescope to see.

        Such are are own lives.  Brilliant in detail, scope, and influence.  That's you.  That's me.  No matter the highs, lows or inbetweens of our lives.

        Last year about this time I made a decision about the year to come that I had not made before.  Yesterday I finalized another decision about the year ahead of us.  If you have followed my personal blog, then you've experienced some of last year's decision.  2014s decision, you will have to wait to find out.  :-)

        Last year's decision about 2013?

        To make a blog post about every day of my life for one year.  Why?  Well, why not.  Some days I fell behind then jammed to catch up.  Some days/weeks there was a regular rythm to that.  Most days pics were used that I took with my iPhone.  A couple of them are even fairly decent.  Some days I had to borrow pictures that others took.

        Some days, what was taking place within me, and/or my dealings with others was wAy too personal to share here.  That, I trust, you understand.  Other days it was a delight to share from the mundane (through very rarely is there a mundane day in my life...) to the profound.  At least profound to me.  Maybe not to you.  lol

        Now four days from the end of living out this year's decision, I've almost completed that odd, challenging, life-expanding decision of a year ago.  Even when on vacation.

        No day has been depleted because of this personal exercise, in making a decision.  Most postings have brought me to pause, ponder and purposefully consider what has taken place within each day.  Most pictures and a lot of the verbage has seemed to not just be reporting, put almost praying, as I've recalled, and reread each post from the whole year this week.

        Some days I've been a champ.  Some days a total dunce.

        Some moments have found me soaring.  Others almost crashing, but not quite.

        I've experienced both the deepest of joy and sadness.  Tears have flowed both from laughing too hard and hurting too much.  A few times I ate too much, even poorly, but have maintained keeping off the 70 pounds that disappeared several years ago in response to that year's big decision.

        I have loved family and friends well in a variety of ways, and again, so poorly, some moments, it's reeked, as in stunk bad.  Grace has shown up in some moments about the size of a raindrop, and other moments has poured down so strongly as to almost take my breath away.  Fear has gripped me a few times, but, thank God, has not lasted long.

        Some new people I've met, even on this trip here, have shown up to become new friends.  Sincerely crazy/wonderful how our God brings new relationships into existence.  Some of these good souls may be there only for the meaning-filled moment.  Others, I'm confident, will join our fascinating list of life-long friends.  That we have even met the people we have this year is stunning.  This has been a year of some deep, special new beginnings.

        It's also been a year some relationships have faded, disappeared, ended.  Ugh.  That has not felt good.  In a few cases, that has not even been right, on their part, or mine.

        As with all friendships, long lived or short, they need to be held with open hands and open hearts.  Blessing upon blessing needs to be poured all over the thoughts of those good souls.  Truly.  To hold anything, even a little bit, over another only destroys the one doing the holding.  I prefer to live with open heart and open hands with cherished friendships, brief or long-term.

        There are still four days left in this yeal long decision being accomplished.  I'm both excited, and just a bit intimidated (which is good for me, in this case...) at what I'll tackle for next year.  This much I can tell you, there will not be a daily report.  lol  How often?  Remains to be figured out.  But it will happen.

        For this day, I need to get packing, literally and figuratively.  We are back to blazing sun here.  Sitting on the "balcony office" getting this ready to send to you, I've watched the sellar rainbow in the picture below totally fade.  Rain has fallen so hard you could not see the other side of the bay.  Rainbows of all sizes and heights have come and gone in abundance.

        People on the next balcony were heard complaing about how cold it was.  Checking my iPhone for Kihei weather it's 75 degrees.  Supposed to be 84 by noon.  That means in 11 hours we'll be on a plane headed directly for Denver.

        This is a wAy longer post than I ever expected to do on this day.  My apologies.  But somehow the spectacular beauty of this raindbow you see below uncorked my wanting to let you know why I've posted every day this year.  If that decision had not been made, you would be missing the glory of this pic.

        If I understand anything about our God's creation at all, you, yup!, yOu, are even more glorious and glory-filled than what you see below.  Own that.  It's profoundly true.  All of creation reflects God's image, including you...........!  Let's commit to chosing to do that wisely and well in the days to come.

        And now, if you'll excuse me, I've got to go wash the sand off our sandals in which we've walked the beach.  What memories from this year.  What memories are waiting for you, and us, me in 2014?

Live hoping for blessing.  Live being a blessing.  Live blessed.

Life By Design: 360/5

Thursday:  26Dec13--all good things do not need to end.......!!!

        It's just that good things do have a beginning and somewhere down the road also an end.  But, those endings are meant to be new beginnings, new gateways in time for the next miniature to epic adventures.

        This pic catches me out on "my vacation office" balcony pondering these most amazing days.  Week One had our souls being deeply refreshed and nourished via four exceptional men, all authors and welcome speakers:  Paul Young, Baxter Kruger, John MacMurray, Donald Miller...as genuine of souls as you will ever encounter.

        Week Two was time for further exhaling for Judy and me.  It's been a good but very busy year.  Our LDG Board of Directors knew we were in need of some rest.  I told Judy this afternoon that I've not felt this rested in months, maybe years.

        Week Three, our beautiful daughter came over from Austin (got informed again yesterday that she's from Austin, not Texas...and I understand that sentiment...Austin's one cool place!), and what a remarkable series of days we've experienced together.

        Letting her out at the Maui airport tonight, she repeated again, "This has been our best Christmas, ever!"  Judy and I fully agree.  We give the One Who loves us most all the credit for that.  Even as I type this in, Shannon is winging her way home on USAir to Austin, via Phoenix, not Arizona.  lol

        Week Four?  Well, we leave tomorrow night on United at 11pm, this time, and arrive in Denver @ 8:30am, Colorado or Denver time, take your pick.  Our good friend and valued LDG Board Member, Mark Beach, will be picking us up at DIA.  :-)  Watching the clouds roll at fair speed across the north part of the island, what you see in the picture below is what I was seeing and being inspired by...to the max!.......as we focus on the future.

        Yeah.  Sure.  Wouldn't it be fun to stay here longer.  But this tremendous gift we've been given concludes tomorrow.  We need to head for home.  Plus, the weather lady just said it's going to get real cool here for the next several days with a low in the high 60s, like the world was about ready to end.  I'm laughing out loud.

        But, we do need to get home.  2014 will be a significant year of change and growth for me/us/all we are about.  365 days from now the LDG landscape will be much different, very much better, I'm smiling broadly at what all seems to be on the horizon.  I'm sitting here shaking my head at the wonder of the potential of it all.

        Stay tuned here.  Much will begin to be shared on this personal blog post, and with an exceptional new website coming on line for Leadership Design Group, in about 90 days, or less.  Much transitional work needs to take place.  It's time.  Prayers from a number of years are being finally fully being answered.

        I'm looking forward to the journey to come of 2014.  Someone asked me this week, correctly observing that I'm now a man with some age on me, "When are you going to retire?"  A good question.

        I'll talk about that in the next blog post.

 

Life By Design: 359/6

Wednesday:  25Dec13...more special than can even be expressed!

Oh, wow.................................!

As is said out here:

Mele Kalimaka!!!

        This easily turned into a most memorable day for the three of us.  The gifts this year between we three was being together, the experience, the memories.  That worked beyond our dreams for this time together.

        At the encouragement of several sets of good friends who knew about this extraordinary trip, we did Christmas dinner at an amazing place on the east side of the island.  The finest food of our time out.  The location was beyond beautiful.  We three took almost three hours to enjoy the moments.  Talk about knowing we've benn blessed.......to the max!

Shannon got Judy doing sushi this trip.

An accomplishment, if you know Judy like we two do.

The three of us enjoying one of the finer feasts of our lives.

The family gathered.  If you blow up the pic you can see a multitude of wind and kite surfers out beyond the waves.  'Til the minds go in our older age (that be the Judy and me...) this is indellibly printed into the eyes of our grateful souls.

At 2014's ages:  this will be a favorite pic, forever @ 70 and 72!

............and then, tonight.  BUT, that's a whole other story!  We have one brilliant, deep-hearted daughter!!!  How we love her, and thank God for her!  She returns to Texas tomorrow night, arriving in Austin mid-day Friday.  Being together has been as grace-filled a family time as we've ever had.

Words do fail.

Being thankful for this amazing gift does not.

...and yes, as this is written, this olde man does have tears in his eyes...

 

 

...indeed.

 

 

 

Life By Design: 358/7

Tuesday:  Christmas Eve--24Dec13--at times words do fail.

Amazing day.

Snorkling.  Whales.  Dolphins.

Seven hours on the water in total beauty.

70+ people from all over the world.

Our daughter's comments:

"This has been the best Christmas ever."

Enough said.

This olde heart is full, to the brim, with thankfulness.

Between the two small boats, looking closely, there is the back of a 45' humpback mama whale.  Her baby is just below the surface.  Hard to see.  They were there.  So were we.  Thankfully.

Grateful for the Pacific Whale Foundation.

If you are ever over here, do one of their tours.  Educational.  Inspirational.  The value is exceptional.  The dedicated staff of brilliant researchers and volunteers were a total delight.

 

Life By Design: 357/8

Monday: 23Dec13--what a special day Christmas Eve Eve has been!!!

Mid-morning to early afternoon was planned Mom and Daughter time.  Choice, relaxing, meaningful moments at a spa we found out about during the first part of our trip here.  I meandered around the familiar property and found a great place to sit and ponder, read, pray, and made some purpose-filled decisions for when we return home.

Man, the whole island is crowded from when we first arrived.  A variey of languages, and body shapes, abound.  Even reconnected with one of the employees at our first hotel who stated that whatever I had spoken to him made a difference in a major part of this life here on Maui.  Don't remember what that was, but it was nice to be seen by this good man.  One more lesson in never fully knowing our impact.

Both, during Judy and Shannon's mom/daughter spa moments, and then back "home" where we are staying, I took some of my stack of traveling books.  Yes, I travel with a short stack, so that whenever, whatever fits the moment, I've got some good things to read.  This is only half the stack for this trip.  I've already read three other books.  So good to have the time for the Spirit to whisper/shout into my soul through the creative brilliance of others.

This is the view you've seen from previous posts at "our place."  This is from my "vacation office."   Can't help it, but some times I just get wonderfully lost staring at the sky as I ponder the penetrating and encouraging words I've been reading.  My olde soul is ever more full of gratitude for being here!

Someone in the family declared, "Let's go see the sunset!"  So hey, though in my evening jams (who knew?) we headed for the beach for some more rememorable family moments.  This olde beach stud was trying to show his muscles, but he couldn't find 'em.  :-)  Every night the sunset show has been spectacular.  The windows in the reflection in the background are from the condo building in which we are staying.

Here is the remarkable daughter, Lady Shannon, taking a picture of me taking a picture her and her remarkable mom/my wife, Lady Judy.  It was a three way tie as we raced to the beach.  Obviously, some in the family had enough sense to do this in their day clothes.

If you knew Judy's story, and how she almost wasn't here once upon a time several years back, then you would know why tears fill these olde eyes looking at this beautiful face even as I put this into my blog post tonight.

Whew...........

Thanks-filled, am I, even more to the max!, for our God sparing her so that we may have moments like this, and so many others, past, and hopefully, in the future.  What a very, very, very special day it has been with the two most important people in my life!

As the spontaneous beach time was concluding, what a kick it was to do FaceTime with a special friend and his family before we left the beach front.  They were delivering Christmas presents in their town in the frigid cold and snow, and here we were.  Gave them a 360 look at where we were.  Technology is crazy good.......most of the time.

 

Life By Design: 356/9

Sunday:  22Dec13--slipping and sliding!  Will we make it?  We did!!!

        Hey...the family adventure took us to a remote trail on the east side of Maui to a some times steep, crazy, slippery trail that only locals know about that took us to a beautiful waterfall.  Our greart-niece, Megan, who teaches here, told us about it before she went to CA.  It was slow going for we older ones, not for our agile daughter.

        We made it into here and back out, without incident.  Whew!  There were a few moments we were wondering.  But, hey, this whole trip has been an adventure involving all 8 dimensions of life.

The legs felt it.  'Twas great fun.  What a day!!!

 

Life By Design: 355/10

Saturday:  21Dec13--this was just about a perfect day.......

        The day was spent, just the three of us "up country."  If days can almost be perfect, then this was one of those days.

        Tonight there is deep and quiet thanks within this olde soul, as I reflect on this tremendous blessing we are living out...and as I reflect on others who are experiencing deep pain.  We, too, have had pain-filled moments, in past days.  This is life.  There are no guarantees.  Whether deep joy, or great pain.

        We join those back home in being saddened as we've learned of the death of Clair Davis from the Arapahoe High School shooting.

What...where...when...who's next...why?

        Joy..  Sorrow.  Christmas.  Life.  A new year on the horizon of our existence.  'Tis the season to be real, faithful, clear, forgiving, living on purpose, focused, intentional in all 8 of the dimensions of our lives.  That be you.  That be me.

Up country today I made some new "friends."

We saw some awesome "surfing goats."

        The sunset we shared together at a new beach on the way home was almost beyond belief.  I had to smile watching and listening to all those lining the beach.  This pile of rocks we had climbed out on had a cross honoring some who had lost their life at sea.  Recent leis fluttered in the breeze.  Standing there with Judy and Shannon was gift beyond words and price.

Deeply grateful for this day.

Thankful...to the max!