So Jesus goes and hangs with some dudes that aren’t too popular….tax collectors & sinners.  He sits down and eats with them.  The Pharasees see Him do it.  He gets called down on it and his response is, “…go and learn what this means, I desire mercy, not sacrifice.”  OK, so Jesus wants me to go and learn something, so I guess I should meditate on this sentence of His and try to learn it.  Seems like the smart thing to do!

The first thing I notice are the people He is hanging out with.  What would those people look like today?  What would tax collectors and sinners be?  Gays and thieves?  Homeless and Alchoholics?  How about those who love tattoos and tobacco?  One thing is for certain.  We know they are NOT Christian, yet Jesus chooses to sit and eat with them.  Don’t you wish you knew what the conversation was?  He probably didn’t condone what they did, but he was for sure hanging out and having a conversation, probably pointing them to some truth of His mission on earth, but certainly proving His love for them as image-bearers of God.

So, is that an example of how we are to live?  Do we choose to hang out with sinners, gays, homeless, dirty, tattooed people and just have a conversation?  Are we supposed to treat people like people and still point them toward God?  There’s a friend of mine, Grant English, who recently preached a sermon series where he used two terms that I’ve grabbed hold of as I think about this passage… www.grantenglish.com …he uses the terms “Extreme Truth” with “Extreme Grace”.  Wow…how do you share truth in an extreme way, while showing extreme grace?  I think this is exactly what Jesus was doing. 

This is the first part of my journey in learning what “I desire mercy, not sacrifice” means to me and my walk with Jesus.  I’ll keep posting as I keep searching…..

I got up at 4:30am Tuesday and drove to the Lower Stanislaus River to explore the fly fishing there. It is known as a pretty good rainbow and brown trout stream, but also carries some big steelheads and king salmon in it. The drive wasn’t bad from San Jose and it’s on the road that goes to the north entrance to Yosemite Park. After arriving I hiked down about a mile and found some great water, catching three pretty quick. As I hiked around looking at the river, I figured out pretty quick that the rapids are pretty serious on this river! It was hard to find a spot to just wade and fish. I have found out since that this river is open to commercial white water rafting and hosts runs that are class III and class IV.

Lower Stanislaus - Goodwin Canyon

I did catch two more at a place called Knights Ferry and explored around the old camp and covered bridge that are still there. It was beautiful country and a great place to go that’s fairly close to San Jose. My next adventure will most definately be the North Fork of the Feather River. It is about a 4 hour drive, but the scenery looks like something out of A River Runs Through It and the fishing is supposed to be awesome on the northern part. I’ll keep you posted.

Kitty and I went to see Chicago last night. She’s always wanted to see them and I love their music. I saw them about 15 years ago and it was one of the best concerts I’ve ever been to, mainly because they can spend the whole time playing hit after hit. This time they were playing at Mountain Winery in Saratoga. It’s about 15 miles from our house and is the old Paul Masson winery. It was established in 1852 and is absolutely beautiful. From the outdoor ampitheatre you can see the whole valley and it looks wonderful at night, with all the lights from the city. The whole place holds maybe 1000 people, so the venue feels very small and intimate. The back row is probably 60 feet from the stage. We were 28 rows back in the middle. Needless to say, the guys can really rock for being old (like me). The show was great and Kitty loved it (which was the most important thing). They set up the stage in front of the old cask house. It’s brick and has Ivy growing all over it. It’s the coolist concert venue I’ve ever seen. I can’t wait to find another band to go see there. We did notice that it was nice going to a concert with older people like us….mainly because they don’t stand up the whole time. We actually liked sitting down watching the show. Yeh….we’re getting older!

“We are not human beings on a spiritual journey, but spiritual beings on a human journey.”

Teilhard de Chardin (1881-1955)

French paleontologist, geologist & philosopher