Summer Reflections...
It’s been 5 months since my last post…what can I say?! The star-studded 4 AM sky appears to predict a brilliantly clear day after inches of hurricane rain.
Let me briefly recap the past few months, since I last wrote part 1 on my reflections on medicine. Part 2 will be in the future.
In April, I taught a day-long seminar on Truth-Discerning and Truth-Telling (my complete notes are available at the link). None of us appreciate the shattering of our “cherished self-image,” and few can live in the cognitive dissonance that results when our deeply held false beliefs collide with the reality of truth. Participant feedback ranged from “this man gets it” to “I won’t ever attend a lecture by Dr. Yeager again”! In the meantime, we soldier on, and as Baroness Cox said in an interview I attended with Eric Metaxas in Oxford last month, “One must stand one’s ground”!
Exactly a week after the seminar, LuAnne and I had the opportunity of hearing Tucker Carlson at Dayspring Christian Academy’s annual Remember America series. Protestors stood outside Lancaster Convention Center likely unaware of what they were actually protesting while inside we heard a fascinating after-dinner speech sans notes on the importance of Christianity in western culture, the fact that all of our freedoms are derived from God our creator as children made in His image, and the reality that awaits “Christian[s]—I am one” on the Other Side.
A few days after that we had our annual spring alpaca shearing, and literally eight days later we lost our yearling Zephyr, which you know if you follow me on Facebook. I still miss her.
In early June, we headed with our 3 pups and a packed Ram 1500 to an Airbnb cabin in the northern tip of South Carolina.
The mountain-top view of Lake Jocassee, a 7,500-acre 300-foot-deep lake, was 10 miles from our cabin, but it took over 45 minutes to drive via mountain switchback roads. We were alone on the mountain top in near perfect stillness and silence except for a few birds. It was one of the most ethereal scenes I’ve experienced.
Our purpose for being in South Carolina? To participate as singers in the southwest premiere of Dan Forrest’s Creation with Rivertree Singers & Friends Choral Festival. 200 voices and nearly 50 instrumentalists joined conductor Warren Cook and Dan Forrest on the stage of the Rodeheaver (pronounced Rhoda Haver!) Auditorium at Bob Jones University. LuAnne and I started rehearing in January for this nearly all-Latin piece. There were 3 pre-festival rehearsals and then 3 on-stage rehearsals ahead of our Saturday evening performance.
As you can imagine, it’s a logistical challenge getting 200 singers in 8 voice parts to the correct place on stage. But Rivertree does it right, and I believe this was accomplished in about 15 minutes. We lined up in 8 rows by height on the floor of the auditorium and then filed to designated voice parts on stage. After being seated in the tenor 1 section, I was looking stage right and felt a hand slip around my waist on the left! Who would be so forward, I thought?! Much to my unexpected delight, it was LuAnne, purely “coincidental”! It was great fun to sing beside her all weekend.
The Rodeheaver Auditorium is one of the finest collegiate stages in the US, and the 14 on-stage cameras provide multiple angles. Currently, the production video is being edited and will be released by Rivertree at the end of the summer. I can’t wait!
Two weeks after SC, our Director of Operations and I took a quick trip to Holmes County, Ohio to present something called “HOS” (Heritage Operating System) to the 2nd annual conference of CHRG (Conservative Healthcare Resource Group). CHRG’s mission is to have up to 100 clinics scattered throughout Anabaptist communities over the next decade or so. HOS is our contribution to enabling other independent clinics to operate as we do at Heritage Family Health.
And of course, all of this interspersed with a busy summer in the office with surprises like a child bringing this in at her school physical visit!
In July, I flew to the UK to attend Eric Metaxas’ Socrates in the City 4-day retreat in Oxford. That’s an experience that I’ll write about separately in the near future. But just several teaser pictures!
And with that, Saturday morning duties call. I’m sure the alpacas are anxiously awaiting their grain.
More soon…
Always enjoy your posts. You are having some great experiences!! Thanks for sharing!
Blessings to you and Luanne!