The day ends -- the third Sunday of our Sabbatical. We are in Charlotte, our home for one week. Last night I wrote a one paragraph blog about a Fed Ex truck that turned over and caused so much delay on the highway ahead that it took us two and a half hours to go 20 miles. The paragraph was so boring that I deleted it, shut the computer and went to sleep. We were eager to rest up and have a nice Sunday. Here are a few pictures I took during that stretch.

This morning we went to Sovereign Grace PCA here in Charlotte. It has been fun comparing churches as to building, friendliness, singing, etc. Tonight we worshiped at Redeemer OPC, which meets in the chapel of Reformed Theological Seminary (RTS), where I would have to say we felt the most at home so far. This in spite of the fact that we got up and moved halfway through the service to a new spot because the fluorescent light in the drop ceiling just above us started attempting a strobe light show in the middle of the reading of scripture. I could almost hear a headache forming. We managed a rather inconspicuous relocation. Our children would have been mortified. This empty nest thing can be liberating.

Sunday nap? Oh, yes. Sunday drive? Definitely. I had started knitting during the long wait on the highway to pass the time, and kept doing it as we drove. This is my excuse for not being more in tune with the map as we approached Charlotte. I am the type of person that needs to know where I am on the map, I need to have my directions correct, and I need to know where the next curve in the road will take us. I had it in my head that we were approaching Charlotte from the west but it was really from the north. I got so turned around just getting from the interstate to our hotel I could barely find my way out my own car door. So driving around today was a necessity.

We have already concluded that there are exactly zero straight roads anywhere in the city, and a wrong turn cannot be corrected by turning at the next street and reconnecting with the same road. It reminds me of the area where Lance and Emily live. Sometimes when I first drove around there, entire stores seemed to move to other side of the street, and side roads Emily showed me completely disappeared when I tried to drive them. Today I had to reset my internal compass, not just for my own comfort but so that I can find my way around tomorrow after I drop Rev. off at school.

He is all settled in here in our room.

Which reminds me, I cannot keep the lights on too long. It is a school night!

Charleston, WV. It was one of those pesky capitals to memorize, and I never thought I would be spending a night downtown here. It is a little over halfway to Charlotte, we are settled down for the night, and I am wondering what to blog about. Now I look back on the fact that we did a lot of wondering today. Curiosity can be a good thing, sometimes I wish I had more of it. It often leads to interesting things. When we were young we were all told that it killed the cat, right? Now I am wondering if I have ever told anyone that myself. Curiosity killed the cat. Apparently I was quite sensitive to cat analogies when I was little. I was told that I once burst into tears upon hearing the phrase, "There is more than one way to skin a cat." I suppose that would be the cat whose untimely death was the direct result of curiosity.

But today as we headed south from the Dayton area (after a stop at Tim Horton's, of course!) we were on roads we had not seen before. We wondered what this part of Ohio will look like...Will it become hilly like Kentucky? After a failed phone conversation attempt with Megan we wondered when we would get a better signal. We wondered why the Wal-mart line we chose went so much slower than any of the others. I wondered why none of the drivers in the parking lot would let me cross in the rain to the cart return.

We wondered why an interstate would suddenly become a 2 lane highway, and then suddenly an interstate again. Why did they spell Five Mile Road and Nine Mile Road as if they were one word: Fivemile and Ninemile. Why is this little town here, what were the buildings originally built to be. Are any of them still conducting the same business as the day the first coat of paint dried. Just curious.

A big curiosity plagued us for miles in Ohio. There are so many signs for Washington CH. Surely as we got closer to this place a sign would tell us what the initials are for. Just because Washington DC has initials, does this Washington need them too? Desperate, we resorted to making guesses. One of my guesses turned out to be right, and it was not Cat Hospital. Oh, no. I am not telling. I had to wait all afternoon to look it up, you can look it up right now.

Now we wonder what tomorrow will bring as we arrive at Charlotte. So much preparation has gone into this trip (reading, for example), and we are eager to start the next part of the Sabbatical. After a night of rest here in Charleston.

Now I wonder how many different ways I just used the word "wonder." Our language often gets muddied as we change the meanings of words, or use words incorrectly. It makes me want to look in the Psalms to be reminded of the use of this word as one that points us to God. That is always wonderful.

It is time to mention John Owen in this blog. It sounds like his is the heaviest influence on the long reading list Rev. has been assigned for this course. Total pages he needs to read is 2000. How far he is right now -- around 1500. One more day of reading at home, and it looks like I will be doing a lot of the driving.

Near the beginning of the large reading task, I heard Rev. saying, "Ok, Johnny." No Dyke vehicles were on our yard, so I realized this was more of team huddle cheer -- ok, Johnny. Here we go, Johnny. This made me become aware of some of the finer details of his reading that developed over the weeks.

Favorite highlighter color: yellow. Although I have seen him using orange, and blue is being used right now to clip a group of pages together. Best time of day to read: mornings. Beverage to read with: coffee -- black and strong. Best place to read: as pictured on day one of this blog. Most unusual place to read so far: Parking lot of thrift store in Indy where I found some great items. Music or quiet? Mostly quiet, occasionally music, never talk radio or RefNet. 

I heard him reading out loud once, which I know is a good way to tackle difficult passages. I could hear him from where I was weeding just under the windows and at first thought he was talking to the dogs, then it dawned on me that their doggy vocabulary is no where near what I was hearing. Common phrases such as Go away, Stop licking that, Lay down somewhere else, were not being used. 

When the dogs know I am at home but cannot be near me, they make little woof noises. Especially if they can see me, say, sweeping the porch or watering the plants. Repeatedly. Woof...woof.... While I take this as one of the highest forms of praise, it has been pointed out to me that these sounds are not conducive to the reading of Puritan theology. I have to stay inside, go completely away, or refrain from outdoor tasks visible from the windows.

Now I will accommodate those of you hoping for a little more substance than highlighter colors and dog woofs. "What is the most interesting thing you have read so far," I asked him just a few days ago. This quote. This is what really says it:

John Owen (1616 – 1683) “The Forgiveness of Sins; a Practical Exposition of Psalm 130”(Page 394):

He that hath slight thoughts of sin had never great thoughts of God. Indeed, men’s undervaluing of sin ariseth merely from their contempt of God. All sin’s concernments flow from its relation unto God; and as men’s apprehensions are of God, so will they be of sin, which is an opposition to him. This is the frame of the most of men, they know little of God, and are little troubled about anything that relates unto him. God is not reverenced, sin is but a trifle, forgiveness a matter of nothing; whose will may have it for asking. . . . He who is not acquainted with God’s holiness and purity, who knows not sin’s desert and sinfulness, knows nothing of forgiveness.”

 

And from William Gurnall (1616 – 1679)  “The Christian in Complete Armor”

He that will be Christ’s soldier, must persevere to the end of his life in this war with Satan. Not he that takes the field, but he that keeps the field; not he that sets out, but he that holds out in this holy war, deserves the name of a saint.

In a few days we will be in Charlotte, North Carolina. Neither of us have been to this state before, and we both enjoy road trips that take us to new places. Tomorrow I will officially be in pre-travel stress, and am planning to skip a blog until we are one day on our way.

Megan made two noteworthy comments on yesterday's blog that I will share in this one. Megan visited Lance and Emily this past Saturday and Sunday, or more precisely I should say she got in some great Auntie Megan time visiting Finley and Reid. Megan's first comment about my blog was that Finley calls her brother "Weid." So in light of that information Megan and I agreed that it would be funny to hear Finley talk about her grandpa -- had he helped me in the flower beds -- spending the day "weading" and weeding.

Megan's other comment was that I have rarely mentioned her in my blog. I talk about Sam, to use her exact words, "all the time." So paragraph one has remedied the problem for now. Does this little keeping of accounts happen in other families? Did I ever do that with my siblings?

But on to topics much more relevant to the Sabbatical. Like the walnut tree. Raise your hand if you are tired of reading about the walnut tree. Everyone? Ok, I thought so. A few final comments and then I will not mention walnuts in here again unless it is in a recipe I feel the need to share. Those of you who know me well know the very low likelihood of me discussing anything recipe related, so this should be it. I decided to clear away the last of the awkward branch stuff that was keeping me from being able to mow the grass by asking my neighbor if I could borrow her electric chain saw. I am still on a little bit of a power rush from that, it was fun.

The picture I am including is of a very perplexed squirrel that I watched while I was drinking coffee on the porch this morning. It is rather amusing to think of all the things that could be going through his little squirrel brain about the current condition of what used to be a very squirrel friendly tree. And now the last -- I promise -- piece of information on the tree. From the stump to the edge of alley as far as it reached when it fell:  69 feet.

No more on the tree or on walnuts. Not even for a brownie recipe. And don't bother to tell me about a great recipe for brownies with walnuts. I will never use it. Just bring me the brownies, and I will just take your word for it that it was a great recipe.

My brother got all the cooking, baking, kitcheny skills in our family. Now that I ponder it a little, if my Mom had ever had the opportunity to write a blog for seven weeks I betcha she would have mentioned him more than me!

I really am going to get around to talking about Rev. Wetselaar and his Puritan friends. Not today. That little chain saw power rush is rapidly fading into a real need to put my tired body to bed.

This was a pretty night to be driving home from a short errand, heading east, just before sunset, on a road with little to block the sky. The first picture is of the amazing cloud formation that we saw, and we both commented on how much it reminded us of Mt. Baker, the mountain we could see from our house in Washington. (second picture) This seemed fitting on a day of travel in which we got talking about our years in the ministry in general. An unexpected bonus of the time free from normal obligations!

Arrangements are falling nicely into place for our travels later this week. This will be the big trip, the one to Charlotte, North Carolina, for a one week course on Puritan Theology at the Reformed Theological Seminary. For me it will be a one week exploration of a new area. I also have a project ready to take along to make use of my days in the hotel.

In the next day or two I will give an update on Rev.'s reading. Today I tried to convince him to help me with a little bit of weeding, just because it would sound funny to say he spent the day weeding and reading. Ok, clearly I spent too much time weeding in a bent over position and all the blood ran to my head and blurred my brain from thinking of anything interesting to write today.

We are at the end of a great Sunday on which we visited the Reformed Presbyterian Church in Indianapolis for both services. It is a good experiences being a visitor, and this was a very friendly church. By the end of two after service visits we felt like friends. It helped that we scored a lot of "Dutch Bingo" points -- should that be Scottish Bingo? -- by finding a lot of common ground through people we know and colleges attended or visited (Geneva, Covenant, Dordt) There were even other visitors there from Demotte (and Crown Point), Michael and Lindsey Standarski! And to point out what I found funny -- we parked in the exact same spot both times and sat in the exact same chairs both times. Hey, I didn't promise profound thoughts all the time, did I?

So today we really mixed it up and took our Sunday drive before our Sunday nap. Part of that drive included a move to a different motel.We did upgrade to a better motel. The one last night didn't score so well on my 3 requirements, the worst being Weird Smell. If Bad View had been one of them that would have been worse. It was clean, and we lived through the night so it was safe, right? Rev.'s suit did not fall off the rack even though the screws were out of the wall completely on one side and it clung to the wall at a jaunty angle. Our motel was still keeping up its lawn care and shrubbery trimming, and its sign had all the letters in its name, which is more that I can say for the one across the street, the only other motel in this area that we saw. Ours also still had glass in most of the windows.

Just kidding. 

I promised an update on Sam and Dorinda. I know they are fine because they commented on a photo Russ and Mary put on Facebook of the dorm room they (Vander Molen's, not Sam and Dorinda) are staying in at Dordt. A mom will take whatever information she can get, right?  Especially after Sam's comment about our tornado. He was so thankful his dog and his car were ok. Dog. Car. Nice, Sam.

We are headed home first thing in the morning to get ready for the big trip to Charlotte. I will try to keep my days normal but I know that dreaded thing called Pre Travel Stress will sneak up on me soon.

The new motel has pretty flowers, and I thought of Margo while I got some photos of them in the afternoon sun. Part of me wishes we could have just zoomed home tonight for a fresh start tomorrow, but I know that Rev's back and my blood clots would not have been in favor of that so we will rest and be refreshed. We will Sabbatical.

You would think that my biggest regret about being tired yesterday would be that I did not write much of a blog. But the regret that looms so much larger than that is that I missed Chick Fil A's Cow Appreciation Day. But at least I can claim a family member that celebrated it three times. And she can claim a friend that celebrated it eight times! I spent the morning icing muscles that did a little too much on Thursday, Yard Work Day. Instead of getting some things done that needed doing on Friday -- Paper Work and Errand Day --  I watched grandson Levi for a few hours. We were outside most of the time, a favorite location for both of us, and I sent him home covered in dirt, a little moist from the hose and with mud stains on his clothes. A good afternoon for both of us. Fels naptha, Jess.

Now tonight we are settled into our hotel for our Second Sabbatical Weekend of Travel in an undisclosed location. We are in a large city in a state that begins with "I." On our way home from dinner we drove past an Iowa 80 Truck Wash and a Waffle House, so now I am not really sure where we are. But I will say that we ate at Joe's Crab Shack for supper. It was our first time tackling certain sea-foods. I enjoyed taking pictures of the lobster more than I did eating it, but I am guessing that is not normal. I at least wore my plastic bib, which is more than I can say for my dining companion. We both breathed a little sigh of relief when Bruce the Balloon Man passed our table by. That is an art form I prefer to admire from a distance of at least several tables.

Our hotel is in an area that has brought us a little bit out of our comfort zone. For me, staying in a hotel always causes such internal friction between wanting a nice place (safe, clean, does not smell weird) and not wanting to drop triple digits for a place just to sleep and shower. So it can be an adventure. But we are very near the church we plan to visit tomorrow. We had planned to stay home and worship somewhere close-by, but as the day dawned we both felt the tug to do otherwise. We are so appreciative of the ability to just make some plans on Saturday and just drive off and go. Special yet anonymous thanks to the motorcyclist who cancelled his trip due to rain and therefore his dog's spot at the kennel, making it possible for last minute accommodation for our two dogs. This is not a habit we intend to cultivate, nor do we recommend it for anyone to do on a regular basis if it brings him or her away from regularly gathering with God's people at a home church. But these seven weeks are intended to be a change of pace for us. And we are enjoying them!