Spilt Wine

I haven’t talked about work in a while and quit frankly, I haven’t felt much like it. It is pretty exhausting a lot of the time. Here is a photo of the local newspaper from the community I am working in. As you can see the gang violence in this little town of nine thousand people is off the hook. Within one week, there was one murder, and three gang related shootings involving six people. One was a seventh grader who was shot in the leg during a drive-by. I made the front page of the newspaper when I gave a gang awareness presentation for the Cutler-Orosi School District. Prior to this week, we had one recent high school graduate and one tenth grader both murdered in two separate gang related shootings over the Christmas school break. Gang violence is ripping this community apart.

As exhausting as the work can be, I really enjoy it. There are a lot of good people and in Cutler and Orosi. After working out there for a day, it definitely leaves you humble and thankful for what you have. The next time you feel like complaining because you are short on money, or you don’t feel like you have a large enough house, or you don’t like your car anymore, come to work with me, and see first hand what the poor lives like.

I came across this painting this morning on line. Not quite the same scenic view I had this morning. I arrived in North Lake Tahoe last night for a school safety symposium. When I awoke this morning, it had snowed two to three inches. After breakfast, I went on a walk in solitude to the lake while snowflakes floated down softly from above. The lake was rough with white caps and the shore was covered in white snow. Fog hung around the peaks of the mountains and tree tops that circle the lake. I tired to listen to God, but the lake was all I could hear. Crashing of waves, the tumbling of white caps and wind that breezed across the vast waters. Who knows, maybe that wasn’t the wind and water I heard after all, maybe it was God.