Spilt Wine

Happy Birthday Jason

Things are not the same since you left.
Fantasy Baseball without you is not the same.
Opening Day without you is a little bit hallow.
E-Mails have gone quiet.
Blogging is not as intellectual without your thoughts.
I had no one to have hot-stove discussions with this year.
Making music without just plain sucks.
Not having you as a best-friend in the flesh is lonely.
I miss the disc golf games, the Dodger games, the jokes, the teasing, the deep discussion about life and I miss you.
Happy Birthday Jason. You are missed.

Sheriff Ed Tom Bell: "I feel over matched. I always figured when I got older, God would…sort of come into my life somehow. And he didn’t. And I don’t blame Him. If I was Him, I’d have the same opinion of me that He does".

Ellis: "You Don’t know what He thinks".
- No Country for Old Men

Sheriff Bell's quote echoes how I feel a lot of time. I have always had this notion that when I get older, I will be better. I don’t know where that idea came from. As if age over comes sin. Maybe I have been expecting some sort of supernatural maturity to kick in that would dissolve all of my youthful foolishness. The problem is that I am not so youthful anymore and the foolishness is still here.

Grace is such a hard thing to us to grasp. If I really understood the extent of God's grace, I wouldn't have a low opinion of myself at times. I saw in the paper last weekend that people were crucifying themselves on Easter Sunday in the Philippians as tribute to Jesus. After I read the article I wondered if they did that to themselves because they felt the need to punish themselves for their past sins or perhaps out of guilt. If they really understood how great God’s grace was would they still of tortured themselves in Christ’s sake?

Spring is about here. If you would ask Gracie what was the best thing about spring, she would say the flowers and her birthday. I on the other hand would say baseball over flowers. I look forward to Sunday night baseball games while barbequing in the back yard; listening to Vin Scully call Dodger games while washing the car or running errands; the everyday obsession of fantasy baseball; summer evenings at the Visalia Oaks ball park; playing catch with friends; joining a game of stick ball in the street with the neighborhood kids; the smell of fresh cut grass; the sound of the crack of the bat; the thump of ball being caught in a leather mitt and hopefully, a couple of games at Dodger stadium. Yeah, I have it. I have it bad.

And what so great about baseball? Bob feller said it best when he said: “Every day is a new opportunity. You can build on yesterday's success or put its failures behind and start over again. That's the way life is, with a new game every day, and that's the way baseball is.”

Thank God for Maturity and hair cuts.

Without sunshine and rain the grass wont grow and neither will a soul.
Without sunshine and rain the grass wont grow and neither will this soul.