Mandy and I are blessed this weekend to be in the Bay Area for the wedding ceremony of Matthew Avedikian and Liza Yi. Right now, I'm hoping the gale force wind subsides a bit or else it's going to be terror on the candles. Matthew and Liza are being married in a beautiful location at Half Moon Bay and I am excited about performing their ceremony.
Plus, it gives my bride and I a chance to get away for a couple of days. Thank you, thank you, thank you to the Miller's and the McDermott's for caring for our daughter's this weekend.
As for Football Friday, the luster of the Fall season fell before the leaves did in the central Valley. I still struggle to wrap my mind around how one team so markedly better than another could lose a game such as the Dogs did last Saturday night. I know the turnovers deal, but still. For all of you who've suffered through 12 years of this, I better appreciate your pain.
The worst team in the NCAA (Idaho) arrives in Fresno this weekend. Thankfully, Tim and Janie & Ashley and Andy Frizzell will be in our seats as we'll be at the wedding. The Dogs should be angry and Idaho should be a patsy.
But so should've Hawaii.
Fresno State -- 63
Idaho -- 14
Also, Arkansas travels to Auburn, site of the most dysfunctional team in the SEC. Who fires their Offensive Coordinator six games into his first season? Apparently Camden native Tommy Tuberville does. Wow, talk about a short fuse!
Auburn -- 3
Arkansas -- 2
Bonus Pick: Oklahoma -- 42, Texas -- 28 (that's for you, Sam Laird!)
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The occasionally produced "Christian Studies" by Allan Stanglin's Alma Mater, Austin Graduate School of Theology, arrived on Thursday. I always look forward to its arrival. In this issue, a poem by Martha Pounders Walker entitled "Beyond the Darkness" was especially meaningful. I share it to bless you this weekend.
"Oh, the loneliness of just-past sundown,
when tired day begs to stay --
when anxious night hovers in the wings
eager to command the stage.
Oh, the weariness of the unrelenting
task master pounding my brain, dividing
to conquer. The youth in me wants to finish;
the older me looks longingly at the sofa.
Oh, the guilt-ridden list, still incomplete,
the questions of indecision and the 'if-onlies.'
Where is time hiding, and when did the body
become so unwilling to cooperate?
Finally night slips his dark shawl around my
weighted shoulders like a caul, protecting
the precious embryo of resignation from
which shall come thoughts of hope --
germinating, growing, and finally bursting forth --
Hope for the new day that was conceived when
darkness extinguished the struggling lights
of my regrets and my repentance.
How long now before that final twilight? How long
before that last night wraps me in his velvet shroud?
I cannot know when, but I can know hope --
Hope in the One who worked under cover of darkness,
Bringing day from the nothingness of night.
That same Creator, who brought me from the darkness
of my mother's womb, shall likewise draw me from
the darkness of the grave -- into the Light of His Presence.
I cannot remember that first nocturnal work, but
He can never forget. He has promised to do it again!
He shall surely shred the shroud, and
Darkness shall never strut again!
