It’s been a long few days with very little sleep for me, so please forgive the crawling pace through this, a segue into my favorite living writer’s first novel in 16 years.

More to come.

Thanks for tuning in.

Spend a good bit of time in America’s airports.

Love flying into Denver. Plains and crops and snaking waters appear from above as circles, squares, and serpents.

And in the next glance, snowcapped mountains surround the city.

And the airport, unlike the one to which I am slated to return in Atlanta, is clean. And the amenities are markedly different.

I love to watch fellow outdoorsmen with their hiking boots, fleece jackets, cargo-pocketed shorts and pants, and water bottles attached via carabiners to their rucks.

When I land in Atlanta, the smell will not be of Rocky Mountain air.

It will all be thoroughly dark when I arrive. The rudeness will be there. And the employees will be of a very different caliber.

Lord, if you tarry, land me in the Rockies; folks here have realized life’s too short to abide the attitude of Atlanta’s clodpolls.

Nothing like being in a crucible of military history and walking among statues and cemeteries and chapels and hills and along the Missouri River of Fort Leavenworth, Kansas.

When a much younger man I was infatuated with all things cavalry-related and the life of cav scouts. Loved seeing the crossed sabers and mounts at Leavenworth.

The horses and stables and riding trails; the Missouri River; the hardwood trees strong amidst the harsh winds; the memorials to Buffalo Soldiers and soldiers of cavalry life; Memorial Chapel from 1878, still home to heralding the good news; and most of all the soldiers past, present, and future.

My thanks to the commander for the unit coin and golf ball today. Looking forward to ministering to the soldiers, civilians, and families of MTC-LVN.

Below are some scenes:

Under the day’s leaden sky I watched several does poke their noses into the damp leaves. The does’ hooves pawed the ground and their eyes and ears, attuned to my perch, lifted occasionally towards me, while the youngest one lay among the leaves.

My friend Jim delivered the goods again.

Enjoy.

First, my favorite living writer released The Passenger and Stella Maris recently. I’ve read The Passenger already and am still reeling. Looking forward to getting into Stella Maris next month or first thing in 2023.

Second, Michael Farris Smith’s Rivers. Smith’s body of literary work is not to be misjudged. Track wholeheartedly with his affections.

Third, the incomparable P.D. James. Wow, what a mind. In this piece we see a bit into what makes her tick.

Fourth, another biography of Melville. The more I read, the more I see the debt the world owes Melville for his masterpiece, Moby Dick.

Fifth, The 13th Valley was a novel about the Vietnam War I read when I was 17, and fascinated with all-things-Vietnam-war-related vis-a-vis “war novels.” I’d read the masterful The Things They Carried and all the Caputo stuff, but this novel really got me. It still does.

Sixth, to state the obvious, we’re amidst the rebirth of pagan religiosity in the West, earth worship, and a return to sexual madness that is doomed unto divine judgment. And Teichrib’s magnum opus is a central text to understand the West’s love affair with its undoing.

Seventh is a novel I’m only marginally familiar with. It promises to be a bit of a stretch for me, at least in terms of subject matter, but we shall see.

Eighth and finally, though not in order of literary ranking, is Franklin’s Crooked Letter, Crooked Letter. Franklin has become one of my favorites.

Tolle lege. Take up and read.

Among the most soothing of sounds is early morning rain. I woke to the steady pat pat pat on the roof and saw the macadam in slick black outside the window after a night of steady showers.

I welcome these sounds, these sights, as it is has been dangerously dry this fall.

As I worked through my early morning regimen I read the following:

Who has ascended to heaven and come down?

Who has gathered the wind in his fists?

Who has wrapped up the waters in a garment?

Who has established all the ends of the earth?

What is his name, and what is his son’s name?

Surely you know! (Proverbs 30:4 ESV)

The proverbial questions are rhetorical, of course. The writer is contrasting his ignorance with the wisdom and providence of God. Humility is called for for the wise person.

And of course this has everything to do with the gospel.

When Christ took on flesh, he came to us as the wisdom of God.

As the NT explains the gospel’s working power, it is ” . . . to those who are called, both Jews and Greeks, Christ the power of God and the wisdom of God” (1 Corinthians 1:24 ESV).

Then we get this theological salvo from the apostle Paul:

“For consider your calling, brothers: not many of you were wise according to worldly standards, not many were powerful, not many were of noble birth. But God chose what is foolish in the world to shame the wise; God chose what is weak in the world to shame the strong; God chose what is low and despised in the world, even things that are not, to bring to nothing things that are, so that no human being might boast in the presence of God” (1 Corinthians 1:26-29 ESV).

When one reads Scripture correctly, it is consistent throughout: God is high and lifted up; we sinners are to listen to him via his revealed Word; and humility is one of the fruits of the Spirit.

The rain falls. We have nothing to do with it. We’re just to thank the One who sends it.