My Notebook and my Heart  I just read a 600 page long book about note taking. It was called “ANTINET Zettelkasten” by Scott Scheper. What a weird name for a sorta weird book about note taking. Did I mention that it was 600 pages long? The core of this system of note taking can be described with four words. Analog, Numeric address, Tree, and Index.  This is…

The support and the love that came after my stroke was amazing. Although that happened four and a half years ago I wanted to say, Thank you! Thank you! Thank you!  Hundreds of you offered prayers; every day dozens of cards arrived. All with basically the same message: Get well soon! I've been thinking about this saying, get well soon. Geez, me and my words. Is ”well’…

Here is the story I alluded to at the end of my last blog post. It’s a story about a house I framed, got ruined, and was rebuilt. But more than that, it’s a story about neglect. It was 1977 and I was working with my dad building a house in the foothills over Rancho Cucamonga. It was actually over Alta Loma when we started the project.…

My train of thought (posted Feb) was derailed for a couple months, hopefully now it is on track. If you recall, I've been working on my idioms, and the idiom I was working on before the derailment was: My frame of reference. So, I'm thinking about my frame of reference and I’m thinking about my life. My new life in a broken, divided nation. So here it…

I’ve always liked the book of Genesis. The first words written about our world. First principles that can be built upon to make sense of our lives. Things like light and darkness, and that we are created in God's image. The first principles in Genesis are so powerful, they are the foundation of how I understand life. Well, I discovered another principle. I read it in Genesis…

I'm not sure why, but idioms are hard for my brain. Hmm. Well, maybe they work okay in my brain, but there is something happening when I try to express it with written words. Sometimes when I write the words they don’t make sense.   Here is how the dictionary defines “idiom” : A group of words established by usage as having a meaning not deducible from those…

How can you quiet your spirit in a world of chaos? A) have a stroke, B) figure out something else.  Okay, I realize my stroke didn’t quiet my spirit, but it led me to a crossroads of sorts. It is common to find people who had a stroke in a state of distress, in a state of chaos. That makes sense. I have also met people, like…

It started with a couple of questions. Are you content with your life? Or are you envious of your neighbors' success? That is how our men's bible study began.  We were studying the book of Ecclesiastes. What a weird and amazing book. Solomon wrote it as he was reflecting about his life. It deals with the meaninglessness of life, but through it all, Solomon realized God's meaning,…

My grasp of words is floundering but my love affair with words is still there. If you’ve been following my blog you know I often comment about my struggle with words. Last month I mentioned the problem of verb-noun disassociation. Most everyone knows what a noun is (person, place, or thing). A verb is also well known but a little harder to define. They are action words. …

The word “Come” often makes me stop, right in the middle of a sentence, because it causes me to remember when that word was spoken into my heart. If you're wondering what I'm talking about you can read the story on the homepage of my blog, chairsontheporch.com. The word “come” has become so meaningful for me.   Well, today another word has started to surface. I see it…