Easter 2000

Dear

How much do you want?

I've had multiple reasons to ponder the meaning of Easter this year. For me, one thing it means is the time of year I aim to get a letter sent to you!

Let me start with a one-time privilege of my year. In September, my cousin Phil married Aldyn Douglas in Charlotte. I am very thankful for how it worked out for me to attend the wedding as well as take a road trip to get there during which I visited many friends and relatives. First I flew to Dallas-Fort Worth, and spent a couple days with my niece, nephew, and great nephew, Nicole, Trey, and Will, missing seeing Colin who entered the University of Northern Texas. From there I rented a car and drove to Marshall, TX, where I met two week old Hannah Joy, daughter of my friends Steve and Shannon Alberts. Next I headed to Benton, Arkansas, staying with former roommate Mark and his wife Debbie in their new house. From there, I drove to Memphis to see Jeff and Katie, friends from church and CSU. They are back in Loveland now, as Jeff finishes the last externship segment of his optometry degree. I returned to Benton and with Mark and Debbie toured Hot Springs, including going up a 200+ foot tower atop a "mountain" (i.e. hill (+; ) behind the Arlington Hotel. Then on to Nashville, spending an evening with Jeanette Herring, even helping out a little with a kids class at her church. I was extra thankful and privileged to meet her boyfriend Bobby, and get to know him a little! Next came Chattanooga, to visit high school classmate Adam and his wife Anne G. Adam's growing from home business Safari Trackers books hunting safaris all over the world, though mostly in Africa. Their upstairs "den" is a real den, with many trophies, including a leopard? just about to leap off a tree branch at you! By then it was time to meet up with family arriving for the wedding at the Charlotte airport. This wedding was noteworthy and beautiful for the clear way God worked to bring Phil and Aldyn together. It was also a rare and treasured time to see and be with family gathered from Washington, Chicago, Tennessee, and Colorado. So as you can see I enjoyed that week-- even the driving, especially the Natchez Trace Parkway?

The Bible makes it sound as if weddings were multi-day events. I felt a taste of that last October as my long-time friend Jean Hultgren married Michael Gere. Their wed at Emmanuel Heights camp near Creston, CA where Mike and Jean now work alongside Mike's brother and his wife and Mike's parents. Over the whole weekend the camp bustled with activity in joyful preparation for this one-time privilege-- maybe that is a little like the weddings in Jesus' day.

Another one-time privilege this year came attending a National Hockey League playoff game. In the NFL they say "the season" doesn't begin until the playoffs. My friend Glen and I watched the Colorado Avalanche defeat the Detroit Red Wings! (It's warmer to watch from your living room!) Another one-time sports privilege came when I went with Sammie, Rachel and Jamie's (my niece's) basketball team to the season-ending CSU women's basketball game. They lost to San Diego State, and especially to SDSU's star player, Jamey Cox. She was enough of a standout that James (me) asked Jamie if she wanted Jamey's autograph when I recognized her back in street clothes chatting with her friends as we left. I've never seen so many uncommonly tall ladies in one place!

The weekday privilege of challenging work continues. Flextronics just completed the acquisition of my company (SIS), so I now work for Flextronics Semiconductor. The new company brings a new direction and new potential for my group in Longmont, as part of a larger company.

I enjoy the occasional privilege of travel. Tomorrow I fly to San Jose for a work related conference. It is travel, but I laugh at how little I'll see on such a trip-- into the airport, on the shuttle to the hotel a few blocks away where the conference is held, and back before I've gone two? miles from where I landed!

I cherish the weekly privilege of corporate worship, attending Evangelical Covenant Church, which is close enough to walk to. This Easter will be my second big production with the ECC choir. It's fun for me because the choir is just a part of these events-- many, many others enthusiastically lend their talents in the orchestra, drama, and behind the scenes coordination.

For me, this year's Easter privilege has been the delightful exposing of the smallness of my desires. I sincerely invite you to the effervescent excesses inherent in the cross of Jesus Christ. If that sounds like holy hogwash to you, I would be delighted to explain my extravagant claim. How much do you want? I dare you to test your wants against the following measure:

If there lurks in most modern minds the notion that to desire our own good and earnestly to hope for the enjoyment of it is a bad thing, I submit that this notion has crept in from Kant and the Stoics and is no part of the Christian faith. Indeed, if we consider the unblushing promises of reward and the staggering nature of the rewards promised in the Gospels, it would seem that Our Lord finds our desires not too strong, but too weak. We are half-hearted creatures, fooling about with drink and sex and ambition when infinite joy is offered us, like an ignorant child who wants to go on making mud pies in a slum because he cannot imagine what is meant by the offer of a holiday at the sea. We are far too easily pleased (C. S. Lewis, emphasis added).

I want the beach,