Showing posts with label golf. Show all posts
Showing posts with label golf. Show all posts

Saturday, April 11, 2020

Exactly as God Commanded

In the years following the escape from Egyptian enslavement, the Israelites often didn't perform even close to how God said. They surely didn't have a track record of doing things exactly God's way. The scriptures preceding Exodus 39:43 are a notable exception. They list the myriad of details for the creation of the Tabernacle, its contents, the priestly garments, etc. At the completion of that long list, The Message states: "They had done all the work and done it exactly as God had commanded."

I'm not sure that I've ever done even any short list of to do's precisely as anyone had ever wanted...not myself, my parents, my wife, my bosses, and certainly not my God. No matter how hard I try, I never  seem to do anything perfectly, at least not the first time.

I'm blessed with a loving and forgiving wife. Especially in these latter days (or daze) of our 49-year marriage, she has agreed to grant me/us second chances. We call them do-overs. They are rather like mulligans I used to get or take in my golfing days (again perhaps daze is a better rendering based on my play of that frustrating game).

six golf balls near hole and one golf club
photo by tsg pixels on unsplash.com
When a do-over is granted in our marriage, we both agree graciously to start again. We immediately erase whatever was said or done in the previous minutes that led to the messiness of the moment. Thank you, Lord, for patience; and thank you for second chances. I would like to buy stock in Do-Overs, Inc. That would be better than sliced bread...and more useful, too.

Tuesday, January 7, 2020

City Park

One of my favorite places growing up in New Orleans was City Park. According to Wikipedia it is 1300 acres and is the 20th most visited urban public park in the nation. It is 50% larger than Central Park in New York City. Amazingly I had this urban greenspace as my personal playground on many Saturdays.

Some of the my many adventures included the following:

  • Taking art lessons in the Delgado Museum of Art (although I never really liked art; I was more of a music kid)
  • Renting bicycles and exploring the many side roads and pathways
  • Fishing the bayous for perch, trout, and bass
  • Recycling pieces of whatever we caught to use as bait for alligator gars (there was a bounty, but I don't remember ever snagging one)
  • Climbing the massive oak trees just like Tarzan (although there were no grapevines)
  • Playing tennis
  • Chasing turtles, swans, ducks, and geese around the waterways in rented canoes, peddle boats, or skiffs
  • Puttering at golf
  • Swimming in the large public pool and jumping off the 10 meter high dive
  • Wandering through the colorful maze of Storyland
  • Catching chameleon lizards in the beautiful rose garden
  • Picnicking in the shade of the live oaks
  • Riding the "toy" train
  • Swinging high in the playground and popping the seat chains or baling out from 20 feet up
  • Racing after my brother or other friends in games of tag, not it, or hide and go seek
Ah! The childhood mysteries and memories of that mesmerizing place. I could almost become Peter Pan or one of his boys as I lost myself in the real and pretend worlds of City Park.