Good Morning All & Happy Friday!
I’ve been enjoying Barre Code classes at my daughter Amy’s studio in North Spokane. It’s been really helpful to get through the “coronavirus blues” and gain some needed flexibility and core strength. They are great classes for both women and men and I’ve really benefited from them. You can check out their class schedule by going to www.thebarrecode.com/spokane or Google “The Barre Code Spokane” and it will take you to their web site/contact info. It’s really worth checking out! Not to mention, that you can be a member long distance and take advantage of live streaming classes in the comfort of your own home! Here’s to Amy Cathey and her team at The Barre Code Spokane!
Speaking of adulation, Happy Birthday wishes go to singer Frankie Avalon, who turns 80 today; to baseball star and Chicago Cub great from Spokane (he played high school baseball at North Central High School here in Spokane!), Ryne Sandberg, who is 61 today; and to pediatric neuro-surgeon extraordinaire and all-around outstanding human being, Ben Carson, who turns 69 today. Dr. Carson’s story is a compelling one…having grown up in inner-city Detroit with a single mom, going to medical school and then having a distinguished career in pediatric neuro-surgery, running for President and now serving as our country’s Secretary of Housing & Urban Development. Here’s to Dr. Carson and all the other folks celebrating their birthday today!
I recently finished reading a book by John Piper entitled “Desiring God” and there’s a chapter in this book entitled “What Does It Mean To Love Your Neighbor?” and there is a great excerpt from it that I’d like to share with you. I found it convicting and inspiring…
“What I do mean is this: loving God sustains us through all the joy and pain and perplexity and uncertainty of what loving our neighbor should be. When the sacrifice is great, we remember that his grace is sufficient. When the fork in the road is unmarked, we remember that his grace is sufficient. When we are distracted by the world and our hearts give way temporarily to selfishness, we remember that God alone can satisfy, and we repent and love his grace the more…
…It (the command to love our neighbor) cuts to the root of sin, called pride. Remember, this root of pride that gives rise to all other sins, the passion to be happy, is contaminated and corrupted by two things: 1) the unwillingness to see God as the only fountain of true and lasting joy, and 2) the unwillingness to see other people as designed by God to receive our joy in him. But that is exactly the contamination and corruption that Jesus counteracts in these two commandments (to love God and love our neighbor)….people human beings, everywhere you find them, are designed to receive your joy in God. Love them the way you love yourself. Show them, give them—through every practical means available—what you have found for yourself in God…”
…And the Bible teaches that man’s chief end is to glorify God BY enjoying him forever.”
—John Piper, “Desiring God”, pp. 285-286 and page 290
Here’s the word definition for the day:
“Panache” (One of my very favorite words in the English language): A 16th century Middle French word meaning “Flamboyance or a confident flair.” Audrey Hepburn and my wife Judy fit this word perfectly…they have lots & lots of “panache”! It seems as though people are naturally attracted to people with “panache.” I know I am!
Here is the thought for the day:
“The great thing, if one can, is to stop regarding all the unpleasant things as interruptions of one’s “own,” or “real” life. The truth is of course that what one calls the interruptions are precisely one’s real life—the life God is sending one day by day: what one calls “real life” is a phantom of one’s own imagination.”
C.S. Lewis, “The Letters Of C.S. Lewis to Arthur Greeves”
Here’s to a great Friday and lots of love & good wishes always!
Press on,
Papa ‘a (Dad, Uncle Mark, Mark, etc.)