In honor of our upcoming 20th wedding anniversary, I took my wife on a cruise from New Orleans to Cozumel this past weekend.  We went on this very same cruise (except on a different boat… or ship. Whatever you’re supposed to call it).  And last time, we were chaperoning a group of high school seniors, along with a few other adults.  Not that we were chaperoning the few other adults, but this time it was just us.  And 3,298 other passengers.  And 1,100 crew members.

What I had forgotten was how boring it gets after the 2nd day… if you don’t drink, smoke, gamble or have a penchant for contracting skin cancer, your options narrow down pretty fast.  All that aside though, it was still nice to be away and not have to worry about being on any kind of schedule (except for getting on and off the ship/boat at the appointed times… that’s pretty important right there).  The best parts of the cruise were sailing down the river and back up.  At least there was stuff to look at.

Cozumel was pretty challenging.  Normally there are one or two other boats/ships/vessels in port at the same time, but because of Hurricane Alex, the boat/ship/vessel/ocean liner out of Galveston couldn’t make it, so the shop keepers really hammered hard on us poor schmucks that did venture past.  I think we should have signed up for the zip line excursion instead.  Didn’t see anything about that in the stuff we had to choose from.  Zip lines would have been pretty snazzy though.  We had a pretty good cruise director, not to have been Julie McCoy.  In fact he sort of inspired me to want to be a cruise director.  I told my wife I could do what he does.  It was a lot like getting up in front of a (very VERY large) room full of youth and making wisecracks.  He had the best one liner of the weekend… he asked if there were any Canadians in the room, and went on to say how much he loved Canada… “My uncle was stationed there during Vietnam.” The second best one liner was from one of the Cuban cigar vendors in Cozumel…

Vendor: Look! I got Cuban cigars!
Me: I don’t smoke.
Vendor: Today’s a good day to start!

Well, maybe that’s a two liner. Anyway, the pics should be finished uploading to Photobucket in just a minute, and then we’ll commence with the posting.…….

OK, this was a big hit on Facebook… here’s our cruise video…

Pre-cruise… we drove around our old N.O. neighborhood after checking into our hotel.  Still a loong way to go. 5 years later, some have been rebuilt….

and some have never been touched…

Had no idea how dangerous cruising was.  This Coastie never took his finger off the trigger… actually I told the wife to stay out of sight, and they eventually gave up and went away.

One of my 2 favorite cities… downtown New Orleans from the top deck shortly before getting underway…

Lido Deck: water slide…

Miniature golf…

…Jumbotron (bonus points if you recognize this movie)

Headed down river past French Quarter & Jackson Square (Jax Brewery in center of pic, St. Louis Cathedral to the right of that)…

The Industrial Canal empties into the river…

Lower 9th Ward (obliterated by post-Katrina flood waters; making a comeback).

Does that make you crave some sugar or what?

Every evening, turndown service. They left a different towel creature every night.  Name that creature:

Friday night…

Saturday night (WARNING!  risque photo)…

Sunday night (I have no idea)…

Our view of Friday night’s show (best seat in the house??)

View from touristy business district in Cozumel…

You can NOT get away from these people…

4th of July on the high seas… Old Glory waving above the bar on the lobby deck (OK, not so much waving…)

For whatever reason, these eyeball thingies played heavily into the decor theme onboard… creeped me right out…

Sunday night… at the mouth of the river!

After it got too dark to take pics in the channel, I got bored and cranked the exposure to 4 seconds and drew my initials with this star (maybe it was a planet… it was pretty bright). I stuck them together in panorama mode…

Monday morning… after finally getting Guest Services to remove charges for mixed drinks we didn’t buy (or drink), we disembarked, got picked up, ate breakfast and went down to the Quarter for a bit…

She shoots… SHE SCORES!  Only Mr. Pibb on the boat. Went to IHOP for breakfast, asked for Dr. Pepper. Got Mr. Pibb. After that, she was on a mission…

There are few things finer (or worse for you, than fried fat and sugar, filled with more fat and sugar)

Omm Yomm (Actually, I’m auditioning to be a hand model, my fallback plan after the Children’s Home career is kaput)…

Last one… Just stitched together these 4 pics from Sunday evening. Most breathtaking view of the weekend (and panoramas are just awesome like that)….

If”n you wanna see all the pics, go here.

Well, after several false starts, which came after several moments of indecision about whether to try and revive this here blog, it’s on.  I got caught up in a lot of things I didn’t need to get caught up in re: blogging.  I got way too concerned with numbers and hits and comments.  I don’t even know if my stat counter is even still on here, or if I know the password to access the stats if it is.  I hope not to get all wrapped up in that, even though it would be nice to know folks are reading… I think the more useful thing will be to just write and articulate whatever’s on my mind.

A good friend of mine wants to write a book about his battles with alcohol addiction, and he wants me to co-write with him.  That’s pretty humbling.  There are scads of people way more qualified – and worthy – to co-write, but I’m excited about the prospect, and I figure I better get back in practice… another reason to start this back up.

But I want to do it better this time around.  This afternoon I spotted a Facebook link to an article on CNN.com, written by Jon Acuff (the Stuff Christians Like guy).  It’s entitled “Why Christians are Jerks Online.”  It hit home for me.  If you scroll back to the beginnings of this blog, you’ll discover I was an online Christian jerk a lot of the time.  I was always looking for a good argument, and I was often less than kind, not only to the subjects of some of my posts, but to some commenters as well.  The article posits 2 reasons why Christians act all jerky online…

First, because much like a traveling salesman who thinks he can get away with stuff on the road that he’d never dream of trying at home, a lot of Christians feel like when they’re online, they can act in a completely different way than when they’re face-to-face with the folks they know.  They hide behind the perceived anonymity that the internet provides (even though all their real life friends follow them on Facebook or read their blogs).  I don’t think that was ever the case with me… I don’t think.  HOWEVER…

The second reason, he equates to a college student faced with a looming deadline for a big assignment.  All of a sudden, he’d rather detail his dorm room than take on the assignment… it’s easier.  And likewise online, it’s easier to default to being a jerk than exhibiting grace toward someone we disagree with (or who disagrees with us).  That was my weakness.  Probably still is my weakness, so I can’t afford to be lazy.  I can’t afford to default.

I think this is going to be a good spiritual discipline for me, blogging.  Before, it was often an exercise in proving a point and winning an argument.  Not much room or use for grace then.  Now, I can’t afford to try without it.

I’ve also chosen a terrible time to start this back up, because shortly after I post this, I’m unplugging and going on vacation with my wife for about a week.  So much for momentum.  But I think I’m in this for the long haul again, so I’m not too concerned about that.  Anyway, my audience will stick around for whatever’s next… because that audience is probably mostly…… me.

Yesterday at New Orleans Baptist Theological Seminary, they held the first of two memorial services for Retia Dukes.  Her son Jason posted on his blog the video that opened that service.  I made it to the 2:57 mark when the single word “miracle” appeared on screen…

Dr. Dukes was a great help to me during my time at seminary.  I started seminary at age 33, fourteen years removed from the last time I stepped foot in a classroom.  We arrived in New Orleans having been married for less than a month, with no job prospects and not knowing a soul.  Many was the time that I didn’t think I had what it took to cut it in seminary.  Many were the days that we had no idea where grocery money, rent money or gas money would come from.  And while God always came through right on time, I was very discouraged at times… my wife downright depressed.  God used Dr. Jimmy Dukes to encourage me to hang in there and be faithful to my calling.

Retia Dukes, I can quite honestly say I didn’t know very well at all.  She worked on campus as secretary to the seminary President, but since I had pretty much no reason to ever have to go to his office to see him, I had very little contact with Mrs. Dukes except in passing around campus.  But in following her journey through the almost daily Caringbridge updates over the past 4 months, I felt like I got to know her better.  And I was really just blown away when I heard of her passing Monday after putting up such a brave fight.

And it was indeed a miracle that she battled back as far as she did before a blood infection finally took her.  So when I got to that part of the video, I just really had a tough time.

Click on over, spend 4 minutes and 5 seconds, and then be sure you remember to always tell those closest to you just how much you love them, ’cause you just never ever know…

Here is a link to Jason Dukes’ blog post about his mom, Retia, who passed away Monday afternoon after a brave and hard fought battle in her recovery from injuries suffered when she was run over by an SUV on April 4.  He holds nothing back, and in the end he knows that God holds it all in the palm of His hand.  Faith, Love, Grace, Mercy.  Coming to grips with the tragic loss of a loved one…

Well, I never would have guessed that my second post back from blog-limbo would be such a downer.  I really didn’t know for sure what I’d even be posting on once we were back up and running, but I assumed it would have been encouraging.  Uplifting.  At the very least light-hearted.  But life’s funny like that.  We don’t always get what we were expecting… and I wasn’t expecting a call with some really bad news.  Much less TWO calls with some really bad news.

First, yesterday afternoon my mom called to tell me that my Uncle Benny passed away earlier in the day.  He’d been ailing for some time, but I think he just gave up really.  Just laid down and waited to die.  When I was a kid, I used to sleep over at Uncle Ben and Aunt Julie’s at least once a summer.  Their oldest son Ron is the only male cousin I have that’s my age.  I lived in Jersey City, and they lived in Avenel, NJ.  Any time we left Jersey City, to my young mind it was like we were going on some long trip somewhere.  I just Mapquested the drive… just under 18 miles.  A 30 minute car ride   And even though Ron and I didn’t always get along, those were good times.  We built many a “go-cart” out of scrap wood and old bicycle parts that Uncle Benny always had lying around.  We’d ride bikes down to the 7-11 at all hours of the night and get Frozen Cokes.  Now that I think of it though, if I thought the 30 minute drive from my house to theirs was some fantastical adventure, probably “all hours of the night” was probably more like 7 or 8 o’clock.  Uncle Ben was a pretty strict guy.  I don’t think he would have approved of us tooling around town in the wee hours of the morning sucking on Coke Icees.  But strict as he was, he also was a pretty cool guy to me.  He always had a Chevy station wagon of one model year or another when I was a kid, which held lots of potential for some neat stuff to do and see.  Like going to Sandy Hook or Rahway… or Woodbridge Mall, which at that time was THE shopping destination in New Jersey.  Or to a drive-in movie.  With the station wagon, he’d back in to the space, fold down the back seat and we’d watch the movie from there… usually in our pajamas.   He grilled out.  A lot.  He had a backyard with a steep hill (again, I’d bet that hill is probably not much more than a foot drop off) and we’d ride our bikes down that hill at what seemed like break-neck speeds and try to keep from crashing into the back of the house.  He had a basement with a pool table.  And his house had an attic that he was perpetually turning into finished living space (and trying to keep hidden from the tax assessor ).  Sometimes Ron and I would sleep up in the attic (while it was in various stages of construction), which aside from sleeping in some fort we’d built somewhere, was about the coolest place I could have imagined.  Avenel didn’t have many sidewalks, so I always considered going there to be “out in the country.”  Never mind that we were only minutes away from the Linden oil storage tank farm (which blew up when I was still living up there) and a whole corridor of industrial complexes.  A byegone piece of childhood history.  I haven’t been home to NJ since 1984, and I always find myself promising to get back before too many folks pass on.  And now Uncle Benny is gone. Time’s a-wastin.

Later yesterday evening, as we were just finishing up supper, I got a call from my good friend Jeff Turner.  He was calling to let me know that Retia Dukes had passed away a few hours earlier.  Some of you may remember that I had asked for prayer for Jimmy and Retia Dukes back in April, as they were struck by an SUV while walking across the street from the New Orleans Seminary campus to the Providence Guest House.  Both were in pretty rough shape and at that time nobody was holding out any hope for Mrs. Retia.  But she battled hard and was making some really encouraging progress from severe head trauma.  However, she took a turn for the worse late last week, and a massive blood infection overcame her.  She died one day short of the 4 month anniversary of the accident.

I had been getting almost weekly updates from my mom about my uncle, and while I’m greatly saddened about his death, I knew it was probably coming sooner rather than later.  In the case of Mrs. Retia, she was fighting and battling and improving, and even though the last couple of Caringbridge updates warned of trouble brewing, it was still quite a shock to get the news.  We are comforted knowing that Mrs. Retia is now healed and in the arms of her Savior.  Honestly, I have no such assurance about my uncle.

Please keep the Dukes family and the Favale family in your prayers in the coming days and weeks.  I appreciate it a lot.