It is with great joy and thanksgiving that I submit my first blog posting. My wife, Monica, and I moved from Ohio to Manhattan on August 11, and we are amazed by all that the Big Apple has to offer. Because we have only been here for about a month, we still feel like tourists roaming through a maze of buildings and subway stations, trying to find our way through a sea of people and heavy traffic. It takes some getting used to.

The decision to move to New York City was wrought with several reservations on my part. A flurry of anxious questions occupied my thoughts: Where would we live? Will we be able to afford it? How will we find our way around? What if the people aren’t nice? The anxiety was raised even more when we filed the paperwork for our new apartment. And yet, with the help of friends at Marble and new friends in our neighborhood, we have found the transition to be easier than expected. In this big city, we’ve found out that we’re among millions of other “transplants”—people on a journey from other parts of the world who at this time call New York City “home.”

I think that it was Eleanor Roosevelt who said, “A woman is like a tea bag. You never know how strong she is until she gets into hot water.” In my thinking, a teabag never becomes fully itself until it finds that hot water. Maybe it is so with women, as well. In fact, this could be a commentary on our culture—there’s been a lot of “hot water” in which women have found themselves these days.

At this very moment, the strong women who are on my heart and in my prayers are the mothers, grandmothers, neighbors and friends who have, in any way, been hurt by the numerous hurricanes that have recently come through the Caribbean and the Southeast U.S. The women who have protected their children and families, while evacuating or hunkering down are heroes to me.  May God continue to be with them.

In a loftier and less tragic area, the Olympics were a highly competitive international cup of “hot water”. This summer I found myself glued to the television. There were so many strong women athletes, though some left especially vivid impressions on me: the strength and beauty of relay runner Sanya Richards; the fortitude and persistence of 41 year old (you go, girl!) swimmer, Dara Torres.

How do you end a vacation? You look forward to it all year. The excitement grows the closer it gets. And this year it was perfect. The sun shone, the water in the pond at the end of our yard was warm and inviting, the ocean smiled as the waves rolled in, and Cape Cod Bay delivered breathtaking sunsets. We laughed, we played, we ate ice cream; and then we did it all over again.

You know in the back of your head it will end but you do not think about it. Sort of like grandaughter Sara who this year decided that every day this summer was June 18, the day vacation started. The clock stopped.

The day to go back home did eventually come. The end of something good. The end of a wonderfully playful time with our adult children and seven grandkids. They were going home, we were going home. It would be a while until we saw each other again. It would be a year until we saw the pond again.

Labor Day! No matter what the weatherman says, this is the official end of summer and of that otherness which we all adopt, both mentally and physically. My apartment complex closes its outdoor pool. I gather up the detritus of my summer's activities, and the fall mode begins. In fact, I started early and, as I look at both the calendar and the remaining bits of my summer's activities, I wonder—did I really do all that?

I have travel printouts that assure me I took 11 different airplanes, multiple interstate buses and commuter trains (one trip alone merited seven different modes of transportation to get from here to there). No, I did not have a "staycation" as so many people did, enjoying the blessings of home as a response to the doubtful joys of travel.

I was on the road for 51 days in the past three months and I took my road mind with me. There is always something new to see and so to learn. I saw soybeans growing in Kentucky, admired roses in Texas, marveled at a herd of yaks in Colorado as well as the June snow of the Rockies beyond them, got caught in a cloudburst in New Jersey that flooded both the streets and my luggage, rode in a speedboat towing young water skiers on Lake Champlain... Yes, all this was a by-product of the retreats and workshops I gave across the country, and I learned as I went.

I heard some wonderful advice recently via an old friend and mentor regarding that classic conundrum: call. As in, what are we really supposed to do and be? What is the next thing we should say yes to, or throw our hat in the ring for?

Of course, this dilemma is lifelong... our calls (vocations, jobs, enthusiasms, identities) change over time, and we are always invited and challenged to lean into our growing edges, into the places where the new life is. Many people try to discern God’s will here, not as in “you must do something you may not like because God says so,” but... where is God inviting your gifts to come out of hiding... where can you find a fresh way to serve?

The Beatitudes are to the New Testament what the 10 Commandments are to the Old Testament. These seven pithy statements, the stuff of my summer BLOG, puts a whole new spin on living the Christian life.

The Ten Commandments are rules to govern behavior. The Beatitudes speak to attitudes and our internal belief systems about life. Behavior follows proper attitudes... humility, empathy, openness, integrity, compassion, pure motives, and now this week, peacemaking.

There was a great deal of fighting in my childhood home. When my father married my mother, she moved into the family farm house. I was raised by my parents and my fathers parents. Two women ran the family, and this does not work. Two or three times a week after supper (on the farm we had dinner at noon and supper in the evening), a discussion would start about some event of the day. And this would turn into a loud fight between my mother and my grandmother (her mother in law). The fight then spread to my father and mother, her being angry that he brought her into this situation. It ended with threats of divorce, everyone crying and finally going to bed. As a child I would feel an anxious tightness when they were both together in the kitchen after supper... it didn't even take a fight, just a presence.

Tucked here and there in the Bible among genealogies and kingly displays of power are little gems of faith that shine all the more brightly for having to be excavated, as it were. One of my favorites is in 2 Chronicles 20.

Very briefly, it is the story of King Jehoshaphat of Judah who is depicted in this book much more favorably that he is in the Book of Kings. In this instance, an alliance of enemy armies is invading his kingdom from the south and he does not have the military wherewithal to repel them. It is that simple.

The people gather in the presence of the Lord, men women, and children. They pray: "We do not know what to do but our eyes are on you." An unknown prophet, Jahaziel, tells them not to be dismayed because the Lord is on their side.