Nathan Clark George

Our seminary friends gave us a CD for Christmas by Nathan Clark George, “Pull Up a Chair.” It is an excellent compilation of songs by a great Christian musician who happens to be related to Dr. Gordon Clark, who was the father of the wife of the founder of our seminary, Dwight Zeller. Lois Clark Zeller is an inspiration to us all, her dedication to the seminary and excellence in music for our chapel services is remarkable. I have heard that Nathan spends a lot of time at Horn Creek Conference Center in the summers, so I hope I get the chance to meet him. We have played his CD almost non-stop on our trips around Westcliffe and when we’re driving to Pueblo. I can relate to his music, being a guitar player myself and his vocal range seems to be close to mine. But more importantly, his love for the Lord comes out in his songs and I find myself worshipping with him as I drive along. You can find him on You Tube and his website is http://www.nathanclarkgeorge.com

Snow, Beautiful Snow!

We had about six inches on the ground and last night we got another foot.  It has snowed off and on all day and I am told we’ll be getting more.  They say in March it snows about two feet every week…that ought to be interesting!  I ran the snow plow for several hours this evening clearing up the road and the motel parking lot.  If we get very much more snow, we’re going to have a hard time finding a place to put it all.  I signed up for a facebook account today and came across friends I had heard from since high school.  I’ve only been to one high school reunion and regret that I haven’t been to more.

It’s amazing to see how people have changed as well.

I preached at Wetmore again last week.  The people there are really great and we had a good crowd.  I started doing some part-time IT work at Horn Creek also.  I’ve been working diligently on getting my high-gain antenna up and running.  Free Internet, what a deal!

Birthday for Millie (Part 1 & 2 coming soon)

Here is the first video of Millie’s birthday celebration.

Here is the much longer second video:

Divorce Agreement

DIVORCE AGREEMENT THIS IS SO INCREDIBLY WELL PUT THAT I CAN HARDLY BELIEVE IT WAS WRITTEN BY A YOUNG PERSON, A STUDENT!!! Dear American liberals, leftists, social progressives, socialists, Marxists, and Obama supporters, et. All: We have stuck together since the late 1950s, but the whole of this latest Election process has made me realize that I want a divorce. I know that we tolerated each other for many years for the sake of future generations, but sadly, this relationship has run its course. Our two ideological sides of America cannot and will not ever agree on what is right so let’s just end it on friendly terms. We can smile and chalk it up to irreconcilable differences and go our own way. The Separation Agreement: Our two groups can equitably divide up the country by landmass each taking a portion. That will be the difficult part, but I am sure our two sides can come to a friendly agreement. After that, it should be relatively easy! Our respective representatives can effortlessly divide other assets since both sides have such distinct and disparate tastes. We don’t like redistributive taxes so you can keep them. You are welcome to the liberal judges and the ACLU. Since you hate guns and war, we’ll take our firearms, the cops, the NRA and the military. You can keep Oprah, Michael Moore and Rosie O’Donnell. (You are, however, responsible for finding a bio-diesel vehicle big enough to move all three of them.) We’ll keep the capitalism, greedy corporations, pharmaceutical companies, Wal-Mart and Wall Street. You can have your beloved homeless, homeboys, hippies and illegal aliens. We’ll keep the Alaskan hockey moms, greedy CEO’s, and rednecks. We’ll keep the Bibles and give you NBC, MSNBC, CNN, and Hollywood. You can make nice with Iran and Palestine and we’ll retain the right to invade and hammer places that threaten us. You can have the peaceniks and war protesters. When our allies or our way of life are under assault, we’ll help provide them security. We’ll keep our Judeo-Christian values.. You are welcome to Islam, Scientology, Humanism and Shirley McClain. You can also have the U.N., but we will no longer be paying the bill. We’ll keep the SUVs, pickup trucks and oversized luxury cars. You can take every Subaru station wagon you can find. You can give everyone healthcare if you can find any practicing doctors. We’ll keep The Battle Hymn of the Republic and the National Anthem. I’m sure you’ll be happy to substitute Imagine, I’d Like to Teach the World to Sing, Kum Ba Ya, or We Are the World. We’ll practice trickledown economics and you can give trickle up poverty your best shot. Since it often so offends you, we’ll keep our history, our name and our Flag. Would you agree to this? If so, please pass it along to other like minded Liberal and Conservative patriots and if you do not agree, just hit delete. In the spirit of friendly parting, I’ll bet you ANWAR which one of us will need whose help in 15 years. Sincerely, John J. Wall Law Student and an American P.S. Also, please take Barbara Streisand & Jane Fonda with you.

You Need to Get One of These

Deer in the Mountains

Bagged three doe’s outside my cabin window with my camera.

 

Obama: A Natural Born Citizen? Not likely!

OK, I know I have a specific section for this kind of thing, but when I saw this video, I had to put it on my front page.  It’s not like the IRS is going to take away my tax exempt status!

Big Snow at Sangre de Cristo

We have been having a really good snow that started last night and has been non-stop all day.  It  will probably be melting by Thrusday afternoon though.  I thought I would share this video of Angel playing in the snow.  She loves it!  I do too!

Andrew’s Elk

It’s been almost a week now since Dr. Zeller got his elk.  I’ve got to tell you that it was a really thrilling night for both of us.  I had never been hunting before (and probably never will for reasons I will discuss later).  By the way, this will be a long post, so get your coffee and enjoy.

Last Wednesday night, Paula and I were at the seminary potluck enjoying some good Italian food.  At about 6:20, the phone rang and it was Andrew informing us with justifiable excitement that he got a bull, a five by five.  Now, I knew what the first part meant…a bull is what you call a male elk.  The second part I was pretty sure I understood to mean that the elk’s rack had five points on each side, and I was correct.  I eavesdropped close by while Beth Ann listened to her hubby give the details.  Then he asked to talk to Matthew, one of our students, and I eavesdropped so more.  It became apparent to me that Andrew was giving instructions on where he was so that Matthew could go and help him with the elk.

It was already dark by then, but all of the sudden I got this crazy idea to get closer to Matthew and listen to the conversation even better.  Matthew hung up the phone and looked at me and said, “Do you want to go help…” and before he could finish the question, I heard myself say, “I’m all over this…let’s go!”  Unfortunately I didn’t get all the details before I committed, but the short part of it is this:  Andrew was about three miles up from the Horn Creek trail head, about half a mile south of horn creek, and then about two hundred yards straight up the mountain.

We agreed to meet at Matthew’s truck in ten minutes.  I ran down and up to my cabin, yes…full of Italian food, and went in to get my boots, a mini maglight, a warmer coat, gloves, a hat, a compass, and my dad’s filet knife.  In a few moments, we had reached the trail head where Andrews suburban was parked alone in the dark.  It was now drizzling pretty good, so I took my hood out of the pocket of my coat and we began our trek up to Rainbow Trail.  We purposely did not use our flashlights in order to save power.  There was no moon and did I mention it was dark?

Our eyes began to adjust to the lack of light and we were making a pretty good pace when I started to realize three things:  (1) Matthew is 29 years old; (2) I am 51 years old; (3) I’m needing oxygen and possibly (4) did I make a wrong decision?  By the time we were half way up the mountain, I started remembering my days in the Marine Corps when we went on those 20 mile long forced marches and I also remembered that Matthew was a Marine as well (see aformentioned age differences if you are having any questions at this point about what I am trying to communicate here!).

After a few stops to let the old man get some oxygen, Matthew was looking at his map, but I think he was really thinking about the old man and by now wondering if he had made the right decision to ask me along.  Pure speculation on my part.  By the time we reached Rainbow Trail, the rain had stopped and the beautiful night sky with all of God’s hosts gleamed upon us through gaps in the pines.  We have now walked a little over half a mile uphill.  Once on the trail, we had to turn south toward Horn Creek and Andrew said we had to go past Horn Creek to another creek and then take a turn up this little trail.

We stopped periodically although Matthew was leading at a pretty good pace and I was very glad I had my magnum boots on because the rocks on the trail kept jumping up and trying to trip me for some reason.  We stopped again but this time to listen…there was all kinds of sounds of branches breaking all around us in the dark pines and aspens.  A herd of Elk was all around us!  I think I mentioned that I had NEVER been hunting before, but I knew what an Elk looked like…there’s a mounted trophy hanging up in the lodge that one of the Zeller girls got.  That dude has got some points!  I only point this out because it is dark, I’m on a little three foot wide trail at about 10,000 feet up, and there is a herd of spear-carrying beasts all around and one of their family has recently been taken out by Andrew Zeller!  Now, I’m not afraid, mind you, and I know Matthew is not afraid, but we decided the best thing to do was move on down the trail…and yes, I think our pace picked up a little.

At this point, please allow me to wax poetic.  We came along this stretch of trail inwhich to our right was nothing but trees and mountainside but to our left was an opening where there were no trees, but a shear drop off for a hundred feet or more…I couldn’t see the bottom, but I could see the neighboring mountain side across this huge draw.  I could hear water rushing not too far away.  Looking up, was the most beautiful sky I had seen since I was out at sea on a destroyer during my R.O.T.C. days.  The milky way!  No words can describe what I was feeling!  The thrill of being right where I was, in the dark, on the mountainside, on the way to watch and hopefully learn how a bull Elk was field dressed.

We headed a little bit more west and crossed the area where Horn Creek was and went for what seemed to be another mile until we came to a couple of culverts and a small stream.  Just beyond the stream was a path that headed northwest (by my reckoning), up into the trees.  We had occassionally been on the phone with Andrew and had attempted to call out to him, but still could not determine where he was.  Finally, we called him again, and he used his elk call to help us get a read on where he was.  We were right below him about two hundred yards!  This was the part I hated the most, because it was a very steep climb through wet trees and brush and my wind did not last long.  Matthew seemed to be taking it in stride quite well though.

We turned our flashlights on when we hit the path and called once more.  Finally, we heard Andrews voice and were able to hone in on where he was.  I was very glad to see his flashlight!  At that point I told Matthew to go on and that I would catch up with him.  When I reached where Andrew, Matthew and the elk was, I was stunned to see that Andrew had already removed a rear leg and half of the rib cage.  There were elk guts just below the carcass in a huge pile with steam coming up from the cooling animal.  Andrew sat down when we arrived and began to open a pack of MRE’s (that’s military food – Military Ready to Eat).  He said that he was really hungry.  Now I don’t know about you, but I don’t think I would be very hungry after gutting a bull elk.  In fact, by now, I was pretty glad I had walked off most of my Italian food from the potluck!

After Andrew finished dinner, Matthew and I held the flashlights and occassionally a leg, while Andrew finished dissecting the elk.  Because of the slope we were on, the carcass kept wanting to slide down the mountain side.  With each piece Andrew cut off, the elk looked less like a beautiful animal and more like something in a butcher’s shop.  We hung the cuts in the pine tree close by.

By the time we had finished with the animal, the wind had started to pick up and it was getting colder.  We cleaned up the area and gathered our belongings.  Andrew slung the bull’s head over his shoulders and we all started down the hillside.  I was very glad to get to the trail on more level ground, but as we walked back, we talked about different things, but in my thoughts, I was thankful that I had been allowed to be a part of this segment of the hunting event with Andrew and Matthew.  When I got back to the cabin, I showered and told Paula about my exciting evening – it was almost 11:00.  It was probably an hour later before I drifted off into slumber.

The next morning before heading to class, I stopped by the place where Andrew had left the bull’s head and marvelled at the beauty of that animal, it’s rack pointing toward the morning sky.  Andrew and his family don’t eat beef, but God had provided this meat, a very large animal, for a very large family.  This animal was not wasted in a frivolous sporting activity;  it was a practical and necessary use of nature no different than when an african lioness provides her cubs with a kill. 

That morning, Andrew borrowed Dwight’s ATV and loaded up his family in their van to go and pick up the meat that was left hanging in the tree the night before.  It became an outdoor school for the children – an exciting trek up the mountain to see where dad got his elk, and to participate in bringing the meat back down to be stored.  It was an impressive thing to see.

Now, I am reminded of a thought I had the night before when I was up there in the mountains with Andrew and Matthew.  I couldn’t think of any seminary in the United States that would afford this kind of learning experience let alone be close enough to go hunting for elk, deer or bear within walkin distance of the seminary campus.  This is truly a unique environment and I realize that elk hunting 101 is not a part of my Master of Divinity degree, but one must take any lesson he can when it comes.

Andrew's Bull Elk Head

Wind

Never in a million years did I think this place would be so windy.  It is blowing so hard right now that I am sure if I was outside it would carry me away!  After the last time it was like this, I asked Dr. Andrew Zeller about it and he said that sometimes it blows the trees over.  I made some joke about free firewood, but he was serious.  I wonder if it blows this hard when there is two feet of snow?

I preached this morning at Wetmore Community Church.  The sanctuary was full.  I preached a message from 1 Timothy 6:20-21 called “Guard the Truth.”  After services, we shared a potluck dinner and then drove home through the Wet Mountains.  It was a spectacular drive as the clouds were down in the valley and ice glistened in the trees from the sunlight that peeked through.  I am still in awe of God’s creation!

We watched the first half of Lawrence of Arabia this evening.  I thought I had seen it before but apparently had not.  So far the movie is fantastic.  It is such an interesting story and it drew me into the movie so deeply that when the first half was over, I was tempted to start the second half…but that must wait for tomorrow evening.

As a final note, I continue to feel so blessed to be here.  The friendships that have been formed I feel will be ones that last forever.  Granted, we have some differences in minor areas of doctrine, but our commonality in Christ and love for each other abounds.  I see so many wonderful things in the brothers and sisters here, both young and old.  The horrible thing about it though, is that I see Christ so much in them and so much pride in me.  I pray every day that God would not allow this pride to be found in me.  He is faithful and He does hear my prayers and I’m thankful that every day some measure of pride is taken from me as He continues His work in me.