There is something I hate more than moving. It is the leaving. I hate leaving a place. Almost any place of significance.

It is the memories which a place brings to life for me. It is the place that reminds me of all that had happened there. The wonderful thing about any place is that I get to take the memories with me (Kind of like the towels… I mean, soap… in a hotel.)

These are just a few of my favorite memories that I take with me as I move:

Dinner with friends.

Thursday guitar night at Jeff’s. It is quite amazing how many people you can fit into a single living room. It is also amazing how much joy there is to play music and sing praise and worship songs.

Once I fell asleep an hour before my youth group kids were to arrive for a Bible study. The day at work had been a long one. I awoke about three hours later to find a note pinned to my shirt. Thoughtful children. I’m a sound sleeper sometimes.

The stars. Sitting in the backyard in early autumn to watch the stars.

I saw the space shuttle Columbia pass over my house at night as it returned to Florida. It left a yellow-glowing trail behind. The local news showed it landing in Florida less than 15 minutes later. I was so very shocked to hear about its breakup over Texas this past year. My heart sank.

Long talks in the living room. The summer breeze is blowing through the open windows as the sun is setting.

The house itself was a 1930s-built farmhouse and was about 3 miles into the country. The fields surrounding the house were populated with cattle. About every 3 months, I’d come home to find a calf or a cow who had squeezed under the barbed wire to graze on the grass in my front yard. I got pretty good at herding cattle with my Jeep.

I awoke one night to find a Sheriff’s deputy in my backyard. The gate to the field with the cattle is at the back corner of the lot behind the house. The deputy had found two calves on the roadway and was attempting to return them back to their proper field. I offered my cattle-herding services to him, but he felt he had things under control. By “control” I think he meant that if the calves charged at him once more, he would shoot them. I doubt that COPS will ever film an episode in my hometown.

I hate leaving, but I love the memories.

TIDBITS ABOUT JEFF: I have lived in less than a dozen different places in my lifetime. All but two of them have been within 40 miles of where I was born. The most distant place that I have lived was the summer that I spent in the mountains above Colorado Springs, Colorado. I worked at a summer camp for three months and lived in a teepee.

I hate moving. I hate moving with a deep passion.

I am moving from a farm house to a city apartment. For some reason, I thought the the house wasn’t much larger than the apartment. Apparently, I was wrong. I have too much stuff and much of it won’t fit into the apartment.

I overlapped my leases for a full month so that I would have plenty of time to move. I had a good start on things nearly 30 days back when my parents helped me move all of the large furniture.

My plan was to move a little at a time and be out by the middle of the month. Procrastination, illness, and a general misunderstanding of how much stuff I own has forced the final moments of my move to the end of the month. I have spent this last two days tossing things madly into boxes in an attempt to finish the move. I am very close. I have to be. I turn in the key on Tuesday.

I hate moving. Deeply and passionately.

In my last post, Worth A Thousand Words, I included a photograph from the First Presbyterian Church retreat that was held two weeks ago at the Mo-Ranch Conference Center near Hunt, Tx. I’m in the process of sorting through the rest of the photos that I took at the retreat. I will have them online soon.

The theme of the weekend was Psalms for Your Life. Pastor Mike expressed his premise for the weekend as: “Wherever you are in your life, whatever you are experiencing, whatever you are feeling, there’s a psalm for you. A psalm for your life.”

He’s absolutely right.

I have been reading through the Psalms more diligently in the last two weeks. And I have been reading about the Psalms as well.

“Most of scripture speaks to us, the psalms speak for us. It is my view that in the words of this book, the whole human life … is comprehended and contained. Nothing to be found in human life is omitted.” — Athanasius

“The Psalter occupies a unique place in the Holy scriptures. It is God’s Word and, with a few exceptions, the prayer of men as well.” — Dietrich Bonhoeffer

“[T]here is not an emotion of which any one can be conscious that is not here represented as in a mirror.” — John Calvin

– Special thanks to Pastor Bill for compiling these quotes.

In the last two years, I have had a difficult time praying to God. I have had a difficult time being still before God. I have had a difficult time because of a single date: September 11, 2001. (More on that topic soon.)

But I do pray because of the simple fact that God is God and I am not.

I have a strong faith and a strong desire to live my life for God and with God, but it is not easy. Of course, it wasn’t meant to be easy.

The Psalms pray, cry, whine, yell, laugh, sing, and praise. When I find that I cannot pray to God, that I cannot find the words to say, then I let God pray for me. I speak His words and He listens.

This is today’s prayer: Psalm 121.

This is the Psalm for my life.

OK, so I’m cheating… instead of writing something deep, probing, and intelligent, I’m posting a picture that I took about two weeks ago. Short bit of explanation below.

© Jeff Walters. Large version: 1024×768.

On the weekend of September 12th, nearly 200 members of the First Presbyterian Church held their second-annual all-church retreat at the MoRanch Conference Center near Hunt, Texas. On Saturday night, they joined together around the campfire for singing and s’mores. The “glowing” tree at the center of the picture is near the campfire. Paul and Tim, our two guitar players, are standing between the tree and chuckwagon at right.

[With apologies to William Shakespeare]

My friend Curt started blogging a few weeks back.

If you are thinking, “That must have hurt” or “Isn’t there a cure for that yet?”, then you are out of touch with the modern world (or not nearly as dorky as I).

Blogging is the act of writing a weblog, blog for short. Blogs can be about almost anything. Some writers cover current events with opinions and commentaries that rival syndicated columns; some people write daily journals for their friends and family; and others write for the same mysterious reason that made the very first writer pick up a stick and scratch something out in the sand.

Curt, for the most part, is beyond the days of sand scratching. Curt writes about marriage in a hostile world. His site is called The Happy Husband. He has wonderful insights into life, love, and marriage. Definitely worth a daily read.

Actually, Curt is The Happy Husband. He and his Happy Wife live on a Happy Island. This Happy Friend used to be the Happy Roommate of the Happy Husband when he was just a Happy Guy and the Happy Wife was a Happy Friend who came to visit often at the Happy Guys’ Happy Apartment. Oh crap!! Sorry about that I accidentally spilled the Happy and it got all over the place.

So now that my friend Curt is blogging on a daily basis, I feel pressured to also blog. I understand that even second-hand blogging can increase my chances of serious disease, so what would it hurt if I just blogged a little myself from time to time. I don’t think I would blog everyday. It won’t be a habit. The major tobacco companies have said themselves that it isn’t addictive. Oh, wait… I’m confused.

I am not sure if I will blog everyday, but my current plan is to start blogging on a semi-regular basis, at least once or twice per week. I’ve added some odds-and-ends that will change daily on their own (such as the pictures and quotes at the right). I’ll be adding a photo gallery soon (maybe even a photolog or two).

I also will be reporting more on the lives of the folks in Peachwater, Tx. itself. I’ve recently made a trip out there and have lots of good info to pass along. BTW, the Festival is still cancelled.