We hosted our 8th Living Room concert with Jon Troast this weekend.
Read More90 Years And A Wedding
We hit the ground running in 2023.
We began with a birthday celebration for The Cookster as she celebrated her 90th trip around the sun. Her last few years have been tricky as she’s managed her Parkinson’s disease, but she rallied and enjoyed quite the bash at her family birthday party. All of her children, several grandchildren and three of her great-grandchildren were there to celebrate with her.
Immediately after the birthday party, we began prepping our house for Roy and Caroline’s wedding the following week. They decided to have a small gathering of close family. Our immediate family, plus grandparents and few close friends gathered at Emmanuel Lutheran church right around the corner from our house. We dodged the heavy California rainstorms as we snuck in our photos and then and returned to our home for an intimate reception. The fun photo below contains all of their happy guests who were in attendance for their wedding vows.
The newlyweds honeymooned on the coast and have now set up in their apartment less than 2 miles from our house in Modesto. We are excited to watch them take off as they finish up school. Congratulations Roy and Caroline Mendiola! We love you guys!
Quietly making noise,
Fletch
Jeff Hopper Memorial Hike
It’s been a year to the day that one of my best friends on the planet took his first steps into eternity. Does that sound too poetic and flowery for a blog post from Fletch? Typically, I would say yes. In this case, it’s exactly what I mean, because if anything defined my relationship with my friend and brother-in-law, Jeff Hopper, it was the art of walking, so stepping into eternity is exactly what I see him doing.
Not only did Jeff and I walk together on multiple occasions, but we talked about walking, sauntering, hiking and we read about it together as well. When I wanted to do a podcast on walking, I asked Jeff to be a guest. He told me that he’d rather not talk about walking but instead chose to send me the book: God Walk by Mark Buchanan. The trail was a place that Jeff and I talked about life, worked out our theology and connected with God together. We walked in the Sierra together a few times, we walked on the coast together, but more often than not we walked in our neighborhoods. Since Jeff’s death last year, I think of him on every walk, hike, journey, saunter and stroll. Even now, as I picture heaven, I think of Jeff walking “higher up and further in” as he discovers the glory of God more and more.
One of my first plans I made to remember Jeff was to plan an annual hike in his memory. Hiking in the fall in California is wonderful, so I decided that the first weekend in October would be my target. The location would change, but the first year was an easy decision. Several years ago, Jeff and I walked the shore of Hetch Hetchy Reservoir in Yosemite. We had planned a return hike to the Hetch Hetchy valley, but cancer swept in and stole that opportunity. That made this hike an easy pick.
I’d love for you or anyone you know to join me on a quick hike around the Hetch Hetchy Reservoir as we remember one of my best friends. Details below.
JEFF HOPPER MEMORIAL HIKE - 2022
Wapama Falls - Hetch Hetchy Reservoir
Date: Saturday, October 1st, 2022
Time: 9am
Location: Hetch Hetchy Reservoir parking and meet right at the entrance/gate to the Hetch Hetchy Dam (Look for me)
Consider: Comfortable hiking/walking shoes, Water, Snacks, Daypack
Fees: Sorry, there is a Yosemite Entrance Fee
Plan: It’s a comfortable out and back 4.6 mile hike. Fairly challenging, but I’ve seen children on the trail. Bring cameras. We can meet in the parking lot after to share food/stories of Jeff.
For details, check out this link to AllTrails for details.
Quietly making noise,
Fletch
The Fear of Freedom
As I prep for my summer adventures in the Sierra, I started reading a book that Kendra gave me for Christmas. My First Summer in the Sierra.” Written by John Muir in 1869, it is a diary which chronicles Muir’s journey into the Sierra Nevada mountain range.
I have duplicated this same trip dozens of time in my own life, but Muir’s description of the animals, trees and the landscape are easy for me to reach from the memory banks of my mind. As I read along with his diary, I can picture myself traveling along with John Muir through his diary.
As I quickly got lost in this book, I was shocked to stumble upon this simple quote included in the image above. As Muir journeyed into the mountains he joined a company of travelers including a shepherd who was pushing his large flock of sheep out of the dry grass of central California to feast on the lush green meadows of the high Sierra for the summer. After camping in one location for several days, the sheep mowed down the majority of the green grass in camp and began to wander farther away for their meals.
Preparing to break camp, they realized they had lost over 100 of the sheep from the flock. The shepherd remained in camp with the existing sheep and instructed Muir and one of his hired hands to set out to track down the remaining lost sheep.
Muir details that he and his partner simply followed the dogs out of camp. Scurrying over one bluff and one valley they quickly found the sheep huddled close together. The flock was far enough away to be lost, but close enough to be found without much effort. The sheep had simply lost their way back to camp and were also too fearful to move forward. They had found the freedom to roam and graze at will, but as Muir reflects, “they seemed glad to get back into the old familiar bondage.”
Here is where my reading took a turn. This diary contains reflections made by John Muir. As a naturalist, Muir merely comments on the nature and behavior of sheep grazing in the hills and canyons of California. This reflection, however, sparked something in me that has little to do with Muir’s depiction of the Sierra and more to do with the behavior of people in the church.
To take this just a little deeper, whenever I hear about sheep, I think about all the sermons I have heard my entire life that compares sheep to the followers of Jesus. I could not help but see a simple connection here.
The statement about these lost sheep reminds me of Christians who taste the freedom that comes with salvation. The bible compares this to prisoners being set free from prison. In other places, we read about chains being dropped. The reference is always the same: freedom from sin. The good news (the gospel) is about a savior who doesn’t just free us from sin, but also from our own efforts and any work we attempt to save ourselves. Through faith (alone) by grace (alone) we can find salvation from God.
Yet, I seem to have met a lot of Christians who behave just like these sheep. Instead of living in the freedom of the gospel and celebrate the grace given to us by God, they choose instead to jump right back into the comfort of bondage. Given the freedom to roam and eat the green grass in front of them, these Christians seem glad to get back into the old familiar bondage of religion. Instead of living in freedom and trusting in Christ, they focus instead on their own effort, they depend on their own behavior and they rely upon their own hard work to not just save them, but to keep them in right relationship with God.
Again, the book is just a diary from John Muir. He shared only a few lines about these sheep. I recognize that I am pushing the similarities way more than Muir intended. Do you see it too? Can you relate? Let me know in the comments.
Quietly making noise,
Fletch
Poetry: The Price of Equality
The Price of Equality
The men were so different
Or opposite they thought.
One Black.
One White.
Hatred or fear
Fated this meeting.
And now they are equal
Both slumped dead on the ground
One red
One red
Both dead
Clenching cold steel
And now they are equal
And now they are equal
A Fletcher, 1990
I found this poem of mine stashed away in our garage. I originally wrote it during my senior year of college when I was finishing my bachelor’s degree in English at the University of the Pacific in Stockton, CA.
In the early 90’s, there seemed to be a fascination everywhere with inner-city gang warfare. Hollywood and many of the early rap artists capitalized on this by producing films and songs that followed these same themes. The evening news, talk shows and radio personalities seemed to report regularly about gangs that functioned smoothly both inside and outside of the prison system. They often described a network of organized leadership that separated themselves by race and skin color.
Many of the stories were often sensationalized. We heard often about turf wars and how drugs brought shootouts into our neighborhoods and schools. I can remember thinking that if you lived on the wrong side of town, you were at risk for a potential “drive-by shooting.”
Politicians promised to solve the gang crisis as well as the overwhelming “gun problem.” With initiatives like California’s “Three Strikes” law and an ever increasing police force, every election cycle had newer initiatives and newer guarantees.
At the community level, leaders and educators analyzed the issues of racial inequality, lack of opportunity, poor education, an abandonment of financial investment and the breakdown of the family unit in urban communities. These facts, combined with the recognition that the “war on drugs” was not working, did not put a dent in the senseless deaths that seemed to happen regularly.
At some point I realized that violent crimes seemed to focus more and more on colors. The color of someone’s clothing. The color of someone’s skin. The solution was always that we needed more education. We need to learn to understand each other better and to celebrate our differences. Civic leaders and educators encouraged us to not allow hatred or fear drive our behavior.
The poem started there. I still like it. I hope you do too.
Quietly making noise,
Fletch