In Harmony With the Creator

Here's a series of photos I took from the shoreline of Heart Lake at the Adirondack Loj at sunset, relaxing and marveling with Corinne over the changes in the sky in just over 15 minutes.  The science of how light reflects off a still body of water and of how the sun rays are refracted as they take a longer path through the earth's atmosphere at sunrise and sunset are well known.  But what I responded to in those moments was not the physics of light but the harmony of nature with its Creator God.  The sky started out cloudy but as the clouds lifted the setting sun splashed some clouds in pinks and peach colors, blue sky appeared, and some of the clouds remained gray.  Nature seemed to be responding in tune with its Creator's design, and it was beautiful and peaceful in line with the Hebrew word Shalom.

Then I considered the state of humankind. Of all the created world, humans were to be God's crowning creation.  

I look at your heavens, the work of your fingers,

the moon and the stars, which you have set in place, 

what is man that you are mindful of him, 

and the son of man that you care for him?

Yet you have made him a little

lower than the heavenly beings,

 and crowned him with glory and honor

Psalm 8:3-5 

So as wonderful as creation itself was intended to be, we who were to be the capstone of His creation, seem to be more out of touch with our Creator than the rest of creation.  What went wrong?  He gave to humankind something that he gave to nothing else in the created world - a free will.  With that free will, Adam and Eve disobeyed God by eating the fruit from the tree at the center of the garden, Cain killed his brother Abel, Isreal abandoned God and clung to idols, and the Jewish leaders and Romans conspired to murder His Son, Jesus.  If God knew all this was going to happen, why did He allow it?  He could have made us like the rest of creation which seemed to me at that sunset moment to be in harmony with the Creator.  But God has made us for himself, to experience fellowship with Him. That kind of desire does not derive from compulsion but from a heart that desires such a relationship.  So if He intentionally created us to experience fellowship with Him and our waywardness has separated us, what can be done to restore it?

God sent His Son, Jesus to perform the work of atoning for our sins, and putting us back into a right relationship with the Creator God (Romans 3:21-23).  While enjoying these long-awaited summer months when we are outdoors near our homes or vacationing in remote and beautiful places, and marveling at God's Creation, think about the door God has opened for us in Jesus to be brought back into harmony with Him.

         

The Marcy Dam Breach and Its Effects

 

While hiking in the Adirondack High Peaks on July 13, 2021, we came across what's left of the Marcy Dam that breached during Hurricane Irene in August 2011.  The top view looks downstream and the bottom view looks upstream.  There used to be a bridge that spanned across the top of the dam that served as a route for hikers on their way to Mt. Colden, Mt. Marcy and other High Peaks. It turned out that as my son, Tim, shared his photos on social media that he learned a good friend of our family's had crossed over the top of this dam with his children hours before it failed.  The New York State Department of Environmental Conservation (NYSDEC) has decided wisely, I believe, to not rebuild the dam. They instead have built a new stone crib bridge to replace the function that the dam provided.  We crossed over that bridge as we made our way to Mt. Colden.  The dam itself, constructed of timber cribs filled with boulders and faced wtih timber planks was not well suited to such a harsh environment and aggressive stream conditions.  A replacement dam, constructed to NYSDEC dam standards would cost $10M or more and would still be a safety hazard for people and infrastructure located downstream of the dam.  

As we approached the dam from upstream on our way back from Mt. Colden, I noticed that the banks of Marcy Brook were severly eroding and many trees had fallen into the brook.  The breach of Marcy Dam also triggered a channel avulsion that changed the brook's geomorphology in a dynamic manner that can be explained by the relationship developed by E. W. Lane (Lane, 1955).  In his emperical relationship, there's a balance between stream energy (represented by the product of stream discharge, Q and channel slope, S) and sediment yield (represented by the product of sediment discharge Qs and median sediment size, ds) as shown below:   

Q_s * d_{s ~} Q * S

Prior to the dam's breaching the channel slope, S, upstream of the dam had flattened and sediment had been deposited in the upstream zone.  When the dam breached, the slope began to re-steepen by increasing the sediment discharge, Qs from in front of the dam, but that erosion also extended upstream as I observed from the severely cut banks and downed trees.  A change to any one variable in Lane's relationship on one side of the equation requires a change to one of the variables on the other side of the equation.  In this case, channel slope, S increased while stream discharge, Q, remained unchanged, thus the sediment discharge, Qs must increase since median particle diameter would be unchanged by the dam breach.  Streams in a pristine environment, such as the Adirondacks, don't typically display this dynamic unless there's a significant and dynamic change.  Eventually the stream will return to a quasi-equilibrium and the banks upstream of the dam will eventually cease to erode.

Remembering The Lord Is My Banner

These little yellow socks are a remembrance from a scary and surprise event that our 2 year old son, Matthew, and our family walked through together while traveling around town.  We were driving along and noticed Matthew was lethargic and when Corinne looked in his eyes, she noticed they were bloodshot.  We happened to be on the other side of town when we discovered this, and it was the weekend, before the time of urgent care centers.  But a doctor friend from our church lived in the area and we decided to drop in just to get him checked out.  She looked him over and told us to take him to the emergency room.  It turned out that he had a severe bacterial infection and needed an IV.  So this toddler was kept in the hospital for a day or two until they were certain the infection was under control and could discharge him.  I remember later the evening we left him at the hospital, gathering the rest of our kids together with Corinne and weeping while praying that Matthew would be healed from this and not harmed by it.  God answered our prayers, he was soon back home with us, and we rejoiced, but I held onto the little yellow socks that he wore while in the hospital as a remembrance of God's faithfulness to Matthew. 

Fast forward almost 30 years and we are at a worship service at Renewal Presbyterian Church in Philadelphia with Matthew, and the pastor is preaching from Exodus 17:8-16.  In this passage the Amalekites launch a surprise attack on the Israelites near Rephidim.  Moses instructs Joshua to launch a counterattack the next day.  As Joshua and the Israelites engage the enemy, Moses stands on a hill with Aaron and Hur on either side of him.  When Moses' hands are raised the Israelites prevailed and when Moses' hands drop from wearyness, the Amalekites prevailed.  So, Aaron and Hur have Moses sit on a rock and they keep Moses' hands held high until the Amalekites are defeated at sunset.  At the conclusion of the event, the Lord tells Moses "Record this event on a scroll as something to be remembered and make sure that Joshua hears it because I will completely erase the memory of the Amalekites from under heaven."  Then Moses builds an altar and called it The Lord Is My Banner.  He said "For hands were lifted up to the throne of the Lord..."

There are many connections here.  It is good to remember the times when God's banner was over us, where we needed to raise our hands towards the heavens and seek His help, where we needed the help of other believers and people of faith to walk or stand with us.  And it's good to build altars by keeping remembrances of events where God showed up and we experienced The Lord is My Banner in a deep and rich way.  Because of distance we don't often worship together, but recalling this family event while we worshipped together, while being instructed to remember the times when God has showed up in our lives was a very special gift.

Mike's Mother's Day Tribute

 (I welcome guest blogger, a dear friend and brother in the faith, Mike Mazzochetti who shares the following blog post.)

Having a Mom who is still alive gives me pause as I age too!

Yes, my Mom took care of me from my youth, sorted out my relationships and situations as needed, dealt with my behaviors, and offered guidance until I was on my own as a young adult.

Once when I was in my mid-20s my Mom said to me, the oldest of 3 siblings, that she was sad that she was not a mother any longer. I assured her that I needed a Mom as any 26-year old could have. Once a Mom, always a Mom!

I carried on in career development, and then marriage with 3 sons of our own. The years went by as my Mom was in and out at different times in the normal course of events. Along that journey my Dad died when I was 38. She was a young widow herself as she struggled with loneliness and finding her way. I did not offer her any special attention as she enjoyed family with her 7 grandchildren and found a way to cope with a certain set of friends. Eventually, she dated a widower whom she knew from her youth, so we were delighted she was with someone we could trust until his death a few years ago.

We grew up in a household that was the center of activity. Friends and family members were a continual source of visiting. Food and drink were always plentiful as we had fun with my parents' fiends and their children. My Mom and Dad never really had to go out, so you knew where to find them. But over time, she, being the youngest of her friends, saw them die one-by-one to just a handful remaining.

In the last few years as her arthritis advanced, sustained a broken hip, and experienced mounting internal ailments, she quietly withstood this onset of age with strength and little complaint, unless you ask her! As the executor of her will, I have had to help her with financial decisions. I laugh now, but it has been so frustrating to deal with a multitude of fragmented accounts as a separate "envelope system" for her expenditures - one for house repairs, another for grocery and monthly expenses, a third so she can cash checks with a known teller, yet another where she had a credit card, and so on. She lives on her own and has a helper whom she has known for years, attending to her 3 days a week, doing the laundry, and grocery shopping. I visit her 2 or 3 days a week to pay some bills and take care of some household tasks amid the conversation.

Why do I tell you these things? 

What is most beneficial is that I call her each day, even when I am to visit. This gives me a chance to assess how she is doing and what she needs - some days she feels better than others. This phone conversation is focused as we give undivided attention in just a few minutes to anticipate the actions for the day. 

I pause at this because I find in my heart the reason to care. I realize we are in relationship and not just a needs provider. When I am there, I hear her thoughts and sense her emotions as I note her problem solving skills. Is this easy? No, as I can be testy or stand-offish with her idiosyncrasies!  She has hearing deficiencies as I need to repeat myself, not always being patient. When she has a restless night, she sadly is incoherent in speech or cannot count money properly. When she struggles with the remote for the TV or navigating her smart phone, I do my best to teach her watching her steps - again hopefully with patience! I applaud her when she cooks a meal, or bakes cookies, or mops a portion of the floor - things she likes to do that make her feel productive - but learning that she needs her rest to take on the next day.

When she was young and I was a child, she took care of my needs - but I know now she was in relationship with me. She is the "other woman" in my life. We have each other in relationship of giving and receiving, caring and sharing - building on vulnerability. I love you, Mom! I know you say the same to my brother, sister, and me.

Remembering My Friend, Don Oppedisano

 

Heartbroken is the word that described me after hearing my friend Don Oppedisano had died so suddenly.  How long a history did I have with Don?  44 years.  Don and Sharon were married at Parkminster Church on Thanksgiving weekend 1977, exactly one week before Corinne and I were married there.  We began our married lives blessed by many faithful people of that worshipping community.  Although the opportunity to buy his family's shoe store in Honeoye Falls resulted in him and Sharon moving there, we've stayed in touch over the years.  

We first vacationed with Don and Sharon in Cape Cod in 1978 and we recently visited them in Doral, FL in March 2020 just before the pandemic hit.  In between, Don and I took many road trips to NY Yankee baseball games.  Each game was its own special adventure because Don planned our outings with such thoughtfulness.  June 1992 was the first of these adventures, and included his son Rich, my son Tim, pastor Mike and his sons.  We ventured to Camden Yards in Baltimore, during its inaugural season, to watch a Sunday night ESPN game followed by a Monday night game against the Orioles. We Yankee fans were well entertained that evening: 4 Yankee home runs; controversy with Baltimore's manager and umpires as to whether the Yankees starting pitcher was doctoring the ball; and receiving single serving size boxes of Wheaties as we left the stadium.  The Yankees, who were a sub 0.500 team at that point in the season, undoubtedly had eaten their Wheaties for breakfast that day.  Don arranged for us to stay with friends that night and created a plan for the following day that included a visit to Ft. McHenry and the Babe Ruth Museum.  We got to the stadium early for the Monday night game to watch batting practice. Don was somehow able to find a way for us to meet the Yankees manager at the time, Buck Showalter, and for the boys to get his autograph.  Although the Yankees lost the Monday game, we had a wonderful trip and time together.

There were many other Yankee road trips we enjoyed together including:

• The 2003 away opener against the Blue Jays at SkyDome, Hideki Matsui's first season and game with the Yankees, and the game that Derek Jeter broke his hand sliding head-first into third base; 
• The September 11, 2009 game where Tim, Don and I saw Derek Jeter break Lou Gehrig's all time Yankees hits record; and
• The July 21, 2018 game against the Mets that both my sons, Tim and Matt, attended with us and watched Yankees closer, Aroldis Chapman, nearly blow, leaving the bases loaded to end the game.

Don squeezed so much out of each trip, each game, each game highlight.  After one particular home game, we met up with Sharon and Corinne after the game and enjoyed Italian pastries at Veniero's in lower Manhattan.  Win or lose, the adventure of the road trip and appreciating the time spent with Don was rich because we also shared our joys, struggles, hopes and prayers.  He understood and lived out the concept that attending baseball games held much more than just entertainment value - we shared our faith walks, enjoyed the times as a gift from God, and we grew in our faith on these journeys.  Every game I attended with Don was a pure blessing.  

Because of my competitive nature, sports too often became an unhealthy obsession for me. Through Don's example I learned to appreciate baseball as a gift from God for all the positive things it teaches about life: discipline, focus, excellence, failure, and redemption.  I don't know when and with whom I'll be attending my next NY Yankees baseball game, but I know I will be remembering and giving thanks to God for my friend Don. 
 

Encountering Darryl Strawberry

 

Our family travels and vacations have come with planned and unexpected encounters, but were always an adventure.  On this trip, we encountered a person with celebrity status who, though broken, blessed our family. 

I was attending the International Bridge Conference, held each year during the month of June in Pittsburgh, which was a big deal for me. I was the principal author of a paper describing the bridge scour evaluation program that Bergmann and two other consultants ran for the New York State Thruway Authority. We made this event into a family mini-vacation, that included an evening baseball game at the old, Three Rivers Stadium on June 11,1991. It was to be a night of disappointments and blessings.  At that time Tim was 9, and baseball was the love of his life.  We were all pumped to attend the game between the visiting Los Angeles Dodgers and the Pittsburgh Pirates.

Unfortunately, we left Three Rivers Stadium early that night, wet and disappointed.  After a 2.5 hour rain delay the game was cancelled.  As we trudged through the parking lot, all I could think about was whether I would be able to get back the $50 I'd spent on game tickets.  I also hoped that we could get back to the Gateway Hilton Hotel, where we and the Dodgers were staying, in time for Tim to get autographs from some of the Dodgers.  Realizing this possibility, he was easily able to forget about the rainout.  We arrived ahead of the Dodgers, and there were already about a half dozen boys waiting around the front lobby near the main doors. The hotel management were not pleased to see these children loitering in their four star hotel and said that when the players arrived, we'd have to go outside to attempt to get autographs.  

In 1991, both the Dodgers and Pirates were contenders, and the Dodgers had several big names including Orel Hershiser, Eric Karros, and Darryl Strawberry.  In November of 1990, Darryl Strawberry, who had been a New York Met, signed with the Dodgers as a free agent.  He was kind of a big deal.  Darryl Strawberry was voted to the NL All Star team that year, and later in his career signed with the New York Yankees and was a member of their 1996, 1998 and 1999 World Series Championship teams.  

We waited a little longer, then saw several limos arrive with the bulk of the players.  What happened next was fast paced.  Tim and Corinne went outdoors, but the players passed them by.  Darryl Strawberry, a lean 6' 6" tall, towered over everyone.  He stopped in front of three boys in the lobby and quietly signed their cards and papers.  Tim, who was rarely quiet or patient, raced back inside and positioned himself next to Darryl who autographed his paper too.  Tim was filled with awe.  I wondered if Darryl Strawberry knew how happy he made those boys.  Leading up to that game he had been slumping, and was hampered by injuries.  I didn't know too much about Darryl Strawberry at the time, except that he had recently come to faith in Jesus.  That night I saw him as a person who was willing to take the time, when nobody from the media was watching, to bring a group of boys some joy by showing an interest in them.

Darryl Strawberry's baseball and personal life has been filled with both success and brokenness.  You can read about it here:  https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Darryl_Strawberry .  He suffered under an abusive father, was suspended three times by Major League Baseball for substance abuse, suffered two bouts of cancer, and several times was in trouble with the law.  Yet, one can see through the brokenness that Darryl Strawberry is a person loved, saved and restored by Jesus, who taught us "Those who are well have no need of a physician, but those who are sick.  I came not to call the righteous, but sinners." (Mark 2:17).

Trying to Understand God's Perfect Way

 

This God - his way is perfect: the word of the Lord proves true; he is a shield for all those who take refuge in him.  2 Samuel 22:31

My 94 year old father, pictured here, has experienced a series of challenges since the start of 2021 and yet he's expressing joy and thankfulness in this photo.  The year began with a fall and trip to the hospital where he was released less than 24 hours later.  He returned home and got very sick, spent a day in bed, then fell in his apartment the next day and was taken back to the hospital.  He tested positive for COVID-19 and immediately began receiving the conventional treatments.  Thirteen years earlier he signed a living will that limited the medical measures that he was willing to receive, one of which was intubation, a measure that is often used to treat COVID-19 patients.  During this hospital stay, which lasted three weeks, his condition worsened to the point where they were running out of treatment options.  He then came out of the danger zone and gradually got off oxygen completely.  In the process of evaluating him, an alert vascular surgeon found that a portion of his aorta had an aneurysm that was three times the normal diameter and deadly if it were to burst.  She recommended an endovascular aneurysm repair (EVAR).  He went through all the pre-op appointments and for the last appointment he was supposed to have a stress test, but the cardiologist and vascular surgeon could not find a suitable stress test due to some other complicating factors.  They ended up recommending that since his heart was sufficiently stressed through COVID-19 it would not be necessary to put him through a stress test which came with other risks.  They recommended him for EVAR and we agreed to the procedure.

On the day of the surgery, I picked him up at 5:30 AM, took him to the hospital, went through all the check-ins with the doctors and nurses, prayed with him and left at 7:30 AM when he was taken into surgery.  I returned at 6:00 PM and took this photo.  I've come to realize the privilege I've had to walk with him through this challenging time.  In 2020 he asked me to help him write a story of a two year period of his life that we named My Formative Journey.  He met and embraced Jesus as Savior during his journey, a journey that began forming him at age 19 into a man of integrity, a man who seems to me to live the words of Psalm 23:6.  Trying to understand the path of troubles God has led my Dad through in 2021 has been futile for me at times.  What I can see now is that God's way is perfect even when it does not seem perfect and that God has been a shield for my Dad because my Dad has taken refuge in Him.  It seems that my Dad suffered through COVID-19 so that his dangerous aneurysm could be discovered and repaired, restoring him so that he would not have to bleed to death at some point in the near future.  God has more chapters to write in Dad's life.  This was one of them.

 

Surely goodness and mercy will follow me all the days of my life, 

and I shall dwell in the house of the Lord forever.  Psalm 23:6

Ethical Creatures Are We

We face decisions every day of our lives, but we sometimes don't consider the ethics of those decisions. It is so easy in the pace and clutter of our lives to just blow past decisions that may require deeper ethical thinking. This chart, prepared by the Charlotte Lozier Institute https://lozierinstitute.org/ summarizes several COVID-19 vaccines in terms of whether the development / production of those vaccines and the lab testing of those vaccines use abortion-derived cell lines.  The challenge that this chart presents is that it makes clear which vaccines use abortion-derived cell lines in the research and production of COVID-19 vaccines.  In the rush to get everyone vaccinated, here's a matter that's been overlooked by government officials and the mainstream media.  I want to relate a story of how the ethical aspects of the COVID-19 vaccine were discussed on a radio show and what I as a Christian learned from that discussion.

On Sunday, January 31, 2021, I was listening to a weekly program on WHAM (1180 AM) where three very experienced Rochester, NY attorneys answer questions from callers on various legal topics.  On this particular Sunday morning, the hosts were totally caught off guard by two callers who had questions on the ethical issues surrounding the use of abortion-derived cell lines in the COVID-19 vaccines. The two women who called, were clearly devoted Roman Catholics who had read some publications from the church that claimed that all the vaccines use abortion-derived cell lines in either the research or production of the vaccine.  As the chart above shows, the Roman Catholic church publication squared pretty closely with the Charlotte Lozier Institute data.  The hosts were totally unprepared to respond to these women with facts, and showed a lack of sensitivity to the ethical issues the women were struggling with.  One of the attorneys posed this question to the caller, "If you were a fetus and were told your fetal tissue could be used to help others wouldn't you agree to it?"  The woman was stunned by the question and would not answer it.  I could tell that she considers the fetus a person, not a commodity. It was evident how the attorney would have answered the question.  The attorney's question underscores an ethical viewpoint held by many in post-modern America.    

It's clear that the two women callers expressed a Christian world view ethic, and the attorney expressd an atheistic and materialistic world view ethic.  To the attorney the fetus by itself has no inherent worth and little value unless it can be used as a commodity to conduct research or to develop a vaccine that will help other people to live better lives.  This atheistic and materialistic world view seems to me similar to that of southern white slave-owners towards blacks in pre-Civil War 19th century America.  Back then the black slaves were also a commodity used to benefit the white slave owners of the southern states by providing low cost labor for their economic benefit.  I also noticed that the devote Catholic women were unprepared to respond to the atheistic, materialistic view promoted by the attorney.  It was like they were talking past each other.

I learned several principles from this exchange.

1. Everyone has a world view and thus everyone is ethically motivated by some world view perspective.  
2. For Christians our world view is deepened through "Christian Formation" or sanctification, a growth process whereby through our faith disciplines and experiences grow to walk closely to Jesus and bring every thought captive to Christ.
3. We need to be able to live and speak our world view with grace and compassion to those around us. 
4. We need to understand the various world views that are present in our day, and be able to gently question our relatives, friends and neighbors in ways that will help them understand both their own and our world views. 

As we become more grounded in these principles, which come through the process of "Christian Formation" we understand ourselves and our world with more clarity, and hopefully make a positive, gospel-based impact.