Yet here on the back porch, I am calmed. There is a feeling of nature here – even amongst the two and three story, minimal lot-line houses in the development they live in. As I look out, to my right is a section of woods on slopes so steep that I pray the developers never find a way to conquer and develop there. The tall trees line and overshadow the banks of a small creek that I cannot see except in my mind’s eye, but I know it is there for the manicured pond in front and to my right empties into it. The wind is blowing the 54 degree air causing the not yet fallen leaves to murmur with one voice. They speak loudly today, but even when they are silent, I know they are singing praises to their creator, to God.

In this place all is alive and bursting in song – in love and adoration – to the holiest of holies, God the father. In this moment, I close my eyes and drink Him in. I do not hear his voice, but I can feel his love and it warms me to my core.

Galatians 5:16

“So I say, live by the Spirit, and you will not gratify the desires of the sinful nature.”

Galatians 5:22-23a

“But the fruit of the Spirit is love, joy, peace, patience, kindness, goodness, faithfulness, gentleness, and self-control.”

The leaves on the trees are just beginning to change. They are still mostly green, with those on the top and toward the south gradually becoming yellow, then orange, then a brilliant fiery red. It is, I am sure, no unplanned decision that the leaves facing the Sun are the first to change. Perhaps they are attempting to reflect the Sun’s brilliance, it’s beauty, it’s power. Or perhaps, this morning, just for my education, they are a visible demonstration of change I can expect when I focus on the Son.

So, here’s what’s been going on. Sonya and I have made several trips to Georgia to take care of her parents. They live north of Atlanta so it takes awhile to get there and back. On one of the trips we enlisted the help of a coupe in our small group. They were a huge help and we owe them forever. We do manage to eat ourselves across the town whenever we’re up there though, so I definitely haven’t lost any weight.

I have been reading. I know it looks like I haven’t but I have. I’ve stopped reading 12 books at a time; it seems my mind just can’t keep up anymore. I will change the Now Reading list soon – I promise.

Sonya site is coming along well. I fixed the problem with her images not showing up and now, hopefully, she’ll find time to post more too.

I’m not happy with the look and feel of the TAG site, so at some point soon I’m going to have to change it out. I’ve neglected it before and it bit me, but I’ll probably end up changing the CMS engine. XOOPS is a great engine, but lacks some ease-of-use and ease-of-upgrade I’m looking for. WordPress is easy. I wish they all were, but security is hard; if it weren’t everybody would do it. Feel free to comment if you have an opinion of what to use.

I’ve been testing Drupal for some time now, but the upgrade path seems to be a little dicey … “Don’t upgrade your database twice as it may cause problems.” OK, that scares me.

As far as the real premise of this site, I think it is evolving. This is still “One man’s journey to follow Man One,” but I feel as though I need to share more and less about me at the same time. My studies have become more deep and personal (hence why I haven’t published any lately). And quite a few could use more fleshing out.

So, I will be back, but I’ll be posting more about everything, though they may be shorter.

First, the bad

I really don’t like to bad-mouth things, anything or anyone if I can keep from it. AND, given the fact that Sonya is a huge Disney fan, this is just a little bit harder.

I expect Disney to be masters at putting on concerts – after all, they’ve been putting on NoJ for 24 years, as well as numerous other concerts and events for even longer. So, count me as hugely surprized to find there were numerous places in front of the performances where I could only hear bass. Second, there were places in the park where you were literally being assaulted with 3 or more sources of audio at one time. Now, i can completely understand having bleed-over between the concert venues; what i can’t understand is why Disney decided to have a radio station full-blast in between the venues. Sorry, Disney, it was ridiculous to have so much audio in sometimes very small spaces. Next year, cut out the radio, or better yet, use those speakers to broadcast the closest concert for those that can’t get anywhere near the stage – maybe then I’ll get something besides bass.

Next, the ugly

Disney’s lack of crowd control the first night bordered on dangerous. Movement between the concerts was nearly impossible and resulted in numerous attitudes (from other people of course that most definately did not reflect where we were. In all fairness, the second night was not as bad, but for me that damage was already done. Because of the impossible walking situation (going from one concert to another would take the entire time of the concert), we missed Casting Crowns and Mercy Me – two of the main reasons we went.

I can attest that for at least one person, the crowds were too much. While Leaving the David Crowder Band concert, a woman had collapsed and was being looked after by medical personnel. Disney, i won’t be back because of crowd control issues. Honestly, there were far too many people in the park overall. I don’t have the numbers to prove it, but i suspect the event was over-booked. Either way, I will probably go to Rock the Universe next year.

Finally, the good

The performances (that we were able to see) were fantastic. We saw BarlowGirl both nights! They have incredible music and the best message I’ve heard yet for teen (and older) girls (and boys). The couple we were with has already bought all of their CDs since we got back. I absolutely hope my daughter thinks their message is “cool” when she gets there. Hope and pray, hope and pray.

David Crowder Band pumped so much energy into their perfomance, I was hard of hearing for two days, still humming their tunes. I had heard, but not seen David Crowder before, so he came as a little shock to me. Not a bad shock, he’s full of energy and uses it. Sonya kept asking when he takes a breath. I think this was probably the longest concert and they definately know how to worship. Even when we weren’t jumping up and down, our hands were raised in worship. A Collision is my next purchase.

Jeremy Camp was the last concert we got to. I think we were so tired that by the time we got here all we wanted to do was sit. JC definately put on a good show, but we couldn’t stand any longer. Sorry Jeremy, really we were jumping in our seats!

My hope

My honest hope is that DCB will go get BarlowGirl and come play at my house, well maybe not at my house – my walls won’t take it – but somewhere close. OK, my real hope is that someone with knowledge of how multi-concerts should work, with a large area of land and the inititive to get Christain artists out of the theme parks, will host some sort of woodstock event and transform some lives. Just make it near Ocala.