Independent Consultant with a Hawaiian Shirt

Over the past two years I have had a great deal of time to contemplate. As I think about my life and the turns it has taken, I have come to the realization that there is much more to life than we can adequately take in. And instead of trying to sort out and enjoy the Abundant Life that God has offered us as a free gift, we have taken to filling our lives with cheap substitutes. TXTing and IMing have replaced a conversation over a cup of coffee, or even a phone call. Home entertainment systems have swallowed up the Living Room conversation. (Living Room - ironic. Nowadays it seems more like an Electronic Brainwashing Chamber: Half-dead zombies staring at a rectangular pattern taking in light and sound patterns to dull their minds from the life around them.) We have never before had more "time saving" devices or technologies on our hands. Crossing an ocean is a matter of hours, not months. Dinner can be prepared, consumed and tidied in less than an hour. Laundry machines have t...

Last night around 8:30pm, I was riding the bus back to the hotel from a friend's house where we watched the UFC 101 Pay-Per-View event (excellent show, by the way). Across the aisle were a man and a woman who were clearly not in a good frame of mind. She was all clingy and trying to snuggle, and he was growing more irritated by the minute. Because of how my seat was, this entire drama was playing out right in front of me. Over the course of ten or fifteen minutes, this woman was alternating between hugging the man and sobbing in her chair. The sobbing was usually brought on by his turning away from her. As the matter escalated he became more demonstrative in his disdain for her, uttering some choice words and even throwing his shoulder back into her face as if he were shrugging her off. Her nose took a few uncomfortable shots, and she buried her face in her hands to cry off the pain of the hit and the pain of rejection. By now my "fight or flight" response system was bubb...

For years my mother dreamed about going to the South Pacific and seeing the sites. I could never remember whether it was Fiji or Tahiti, but Mom would always remark that she wanted to see the South Pacific. She thought it was patently unfair that I'd been to Hawaii three times and she hadn't been once. At the time of my first trip to Honolulu, my parents embarked on a nearly four-week tour of the Western States. They drove from Los Angeles to Seattle, where they boarded their 7-day Alaskan cruise. Upon returning, they slowly made their way down through Washington, Idaho, Montana, Utah and Nevada before finally returning to Los Angeles. For most of the trip, they avoided the Interstate highways and took the scenic routes. So when I came back out here three weeks ago I called and asked whether they would be interested in using the extra bed in my hotel room. I told them if they wanted to see the most western state, they would be welcome. They were hardly back in Los Angeles a few...