Sunday Quote 22810

John Piper on Bible study:

“A pastor will not be able to feed his flock rich and challenging insight into God’s word unless he becomes a disciplined thinker. But almost none of us does this by nature. We must train ourselves to do it. And one of the best ways to train ourselves to think about what we read is to read with pen in hand and to write down a train of thought that comes to mind. Without this, we simply cannot sustain a sequence of questions and answers long enough to come to penetrating conclusions”

I have a steno notebook that I carry in my Bible holder where I can keep all my notes and thoughts while I read and listen to Pastor Rob.  But we don't have to do that only during church.  I usually find myself looking up Bible verses online, and so can't write in my Bible at that time.  But I am never, ever far away from a notebook, legal pad, or at the very least, a scrap of paper to scribble something down on.  I can't tell you how many times I've gone back to my notes and discovered some other connection or insight that I had written down before.

jj

On Optimism

Last week was a difficult week in the Wingnut home.

It started with our dishwasher.

It had been slowly fading away as all appliances do, and we decided to bite the bullet and purchased a new one.  The hassles that go along with any major purchase like that are enough to drive most people a bit insane, and we were looking forward to having it delivered and installed and over with.

Sunday Quote 22110

A poem I found while surfing the web recently:

IMPRESSIONS OF A PILOT

Flight is freedom in its purest form,
To dance with the clouds which follow a storm;
To roll and glide, to wheel and spin,
To feel the joy that swells within;


To leave the earth with its troubles and fly,
And know the warmth of a clear spring sky;
Then back to earth at the end of a day,
Released from the tensions which melted away.


Should my end come while I am in flight,
Whether brightest day or darkest night;
Spare me your pity and shrug off the pain,
Secure in the knowledge that I'd do it again;


For each of us is created to die,
And within me I know,
I was born to fly.

— Gary Claude Stoker

jj

The Logbook: .7-2.0 hours

This is the second in my Logbook series, chronicling my journey from earth-bound neanderthal to the much more evolved Homo Pilotus. You can read the first entry here.

Four days after my introduction flight, I was back at it. I arrived at the airport just a tad before my scheduled time, ready to hop in and go.

Sunday Quote 21410

It's a strange tension we feel when we fly.  Tense and relaxed at the same time, alert, and yet strangely aloof, consummate, coolly professional and safe, yet risking our lives every single time we go up.  Charles Lindbergh said it better:

"I may be flying a complicated airplane, rushing through space, but in this cabin I'm surrounded by simplicity and thoughts set free of time. How detached the intimate things around me seem from the great world down below. How strange is this combination of proximity and separation. That ground — seconds away — thousands of miles away. This air, stirring mildly around me. That air, rushing by with the speed of a tornado, an inch beyond. These minute details in my cockpit. The grandeur of the world outside. The nearness of death. The longness of life."

Charles A. Lindbergh, The Spirit of St. Louis


jj

Dear Sir.

To the gentleman exiting Westbound I-196 at Rivertown Parkway Tuesday afternoon:

I understand that you are upset and angry.  I recognize that you probably didn't want anything to do with my wife yesterday.  We cannot blame you for that.  Your emotions are well justified, given the circumstances that you found yourself in.  In all honesty, we too would rather this situation not have happened.  We sincerely apologize for everything that happened.

Why do We do This?

The Hughes H-1 racer is a beautiful machine. It was originally conceived and built by Howard Hughes and his mechanic Glenn Odekirk in 1935. Several technologies used on the aircraft were groundbreaking, including flush rivets that did not protrude out from the aircraft skin, and retractable landing gear. The engine was a top of the line radial engine, the Pratt&Whitney R-1535, capable of producing 1,000 horsepower. When it was completed, with Hughes himself at the controls, it broke two speed records: the land-plane speed record (352 mph), and the trans-continental speed record. Hughes flew from Los Angeles to New York City in 7 hours, 28 minutes, and 25 seconds, for an average speed of 322 mph.

Sunday Quote 20710

I am currently reading a biography of Theodore Roosevelt, so naturally anything that mentions him catches my eye of late.  I consider him a model for all to follow.  I daresay that we need more men willing to stand for what they believe as he did, unafraid of what consequences there may be.  On the opening of the Panama Canal, he once again extolled the virtues of what he called "the strenuous life".  Don't talk, just do.

"Why, gentlemen, there never was a great feat done yet that there were not some men evil enough, small enough, or foolish enough, to wish to try to interfere with it and to sneer at those who are actually doing the work. From time to time, little men will come along to find fault with what you have done; to say that something could have been done better; that there has been some mistake, some shortcoming; that things are not really managed in the best of all possible manners, in the best of all possible worlds. They will have their say and they will go downstream like bubbles; they will vanish; but the work you have done will remain for the ages. It is the man who does the job who counts, not the little scolding critic who thinks how it ought to have been done."

 President Theodore Roosevelt at the dedication of the Panama Canal. November 16, 1906


jj

My Blog Does Not Define Me!

But it is a part of who I am.

Since I began this blog, my only intention was that it would be a place for me to jot down my sometimes random thoughts on life.

I'm not able to pigeon-hole my existence into one thing, and I am not able to separate the many things that I do within their own particular venues.