This was one of the first attempts to make a Scrabble game. The round beads just would not sit still on the game board.

Or as, one of my parishioners used to say, it could have happened. He always had a story, usually a rather tall tale, with a rather preposterous ending, and he would say with a very straight face, "It could have happened." So this collection of marbles with letters could have been a Scrabble game, or Bingo, or a name bracelet, or who knows what.

Father's Day present from Mike, Amy and Maddy.

500 horsepower Ferrari race car at Music City Raceway.

Four laps up through fourth gear with brakes that can stop on a dime and give change. Carbon fibre front end was removed to prevent damage to the $5,000 part from the dips and bumps.

Now that was fun! Obviously, I didn't take this photos. Thanks to my son Mike for recording the event. We also used a GoPro that recorded more interesting audio than video. Don't I look like I belong in this car.

The sun has disappeared below the horizon but the sky is still lit up. The day is not yet over. It is the celebration of a good day. All of them should end like this.

It's late summer, late August. A lot of the color is gone out of the garden. According to the calendar, there is still a month of the summer left.

But as I saw this group of coneflowers on Tuesday morning, I immediately thought how they epitomized late summer. A spider had spun a web from one group to another and if I came around the group to this other side and used a narrow depth of field with a long lens I could have a dark background for the scene that would highlight the color of the flowers and the sparkle of the dew. I think it worked. But I sure want some more summer!

Yesterday morning, my photo group went south to Sewanee. It wasn't foggy when we left the Metro area, but as we approached Monteagle, the fog began to increase, and by the time we arrived at out destination west of Sewanee, it was quite foggy. We couldn't even see the promised view from the overlook. So we looked for alternatives.

There were numerous spiderwebs that were covered with the heavy dew. Most did not have spiders, but this one did. And there was just enough light to catch the web and illuminate the water drops. I think it turned out to be a fun photo. I took some more there and later in the morning. I'll be sharing those photos later this week.

Judy loves rocks. She used to pick them up wherever we were on a trip. She even brought some home from northern Indiana, large rocks that she and my stepfather liberated from a nearby field. But her favorites are from Lake Superior.

They are generally smaller as well, if she decides to take one or two as a souvenir, not that she ever has. Along the beaches, north of Duluth, one can find beautiful stones and such a variety of different colors and shapes. Most are rounded by the erosive action of the waves of Lake Superior. Just looking at this photo, she will want to go back. Not to pick up any, just to look :)

I was struck by the lyrics of one of the hymns we sang Sunday morning, and it touched me as I sang the last line of each verse.

It's an old hymn, written by Thomas Moore nearly 200 years ago. The portion that caught me as I sang it was the following: "Earth has no sorrow that heaven cannot heal." Now how I heard it is not some pie-in-the-sky future remedy, but an affirmation that no situation is hopeless. When we experience countless examples of suffering and suspect that pain is the only reality, that notion is countered by the witness that sorrow does not speak the final word. I hear that testimony repeatedly from folks who have endured more pain than I can even imagine that healing will come. We are not without hope. No sorrow will endure.

Judy and I attend Belmont United Methodist Church, just south of the Vanderbilt campus. And we are part of the Friendship Class led by Stephen Bryant, which is a lectionary Bible study class. There are several of us who substitute teach when Stephen is absent. Once in a while, I get to teach. Today is one of those days.

Last time I taught, the Gospel lesson was one of my favorites. I love preaching about the sower who casts seed on good and bad soil. But today, the Matthew text is a little more problematic--Matthew 15:21-28--where Jesus encounters the Canaanite woman.

I have more questions than answers. The traditional interpretations are that through her persistence with Jesus, the woman secures the healing she sought for her daughter and/or Jesus changes his mind about enlarging his mission beyond Israel to include the whole of humanity. Anyone who knows me suspects that I want to see if there are other possibilities. So I have questions.

Jesus and the disciples have withdrew from the crowds and went to Tyre and Sidon (modern Lebanon). One commentator thought it was like a retreat where no one would know him. Really? The passage does not say that. In fact, it does not tell us why they went there. I wonder why they would leave Israel. What are they doing there and for what purpose? It is clearly not home.

The woman recognizes him and shouts for healing for her daughter. He says nothing, and possibly before he can answer (again the text gives no hint about the time frame), the disciples tell him to send her away because she is bothering THEM. And he says to the disciples, "I was sent only to the lost sheep of the house of Israel." How did he say that? Was it sarcasm, was it mocking? Again, no clue to the tone or intent of the response of Jesus.

Again, she addresses Jesus simply and directly, "Lord, help me." And he utters this strange saying about it is not fair to take the children's food and throw it to the dogs, and she replies, "Yet even the dogs eat the crumbs that fall from the master's table." What is this? Is this a parable? It's certainly picturesque and vague. And Jesus announces that she has great faith and her daughter was instantly healed.

So I wonder if this excursion beyond the home territory isn't to teach the disciples that the mission is not as narrow as they think, that it includes all of humanity. I wonder if it was not a retreat but an advance to demonstrate our common humanity and that we all are God's children. And not one of us ought to be excluded from God's table, there is nourishment for us all, and that none of us are dogs. I just wonder if there isn't more to this passage that we miss as we ponder traditional teachings. I've got questions.

This photo is from a foggy morning at Grand Lake, Colorado.