The Dunes Golf Course, Sanibel Island, Florida

I like Golf.

I started playing the sport when I was a teenager. My dad was into the sport, and I got hooked after going to the golf course with him. I later played on my high school team. After several years away from the game, I am now back into it, and I’ve got the “fever” again.

So a couple of weeks ago, my wife and I took a trip to the west coast of Florida, to our favorite getaway, Sanibel Island. We decided we would take the opportunity to play a round of golf while we were there, so we booked a tee time at The Dunes Golf Course. From the pictures of the course, it seemed like a real challenge. The course is cut out of the wildlife preserve, surrounded by water, and we were looking forward to playing on this unique course.

Our tee time was at 8 am. We booked it early so that we would have time for other activities later. When we arrived, we were one of the few cars in the parking lot. Our first impressions were very good. The Country Club consists of a club house, with a restaurant and pro shop, a driving range where you hit balls into the water, and the course itself. Everything was very clean, and quite inviting.

As soon as we got out of the car, one of the staff immediately took our clubs, and asked us to register at the pro shop. This was a nice touch. It’s nice not having to lug your bag around while registering. The girl in the Pro Shop was also very friendly, registering us quickly. The pro shop is small, not too different than most golf course pro shops. After registering, we went out to get our cart, and noticed that our clubs were already on a cart, and ready to go. The starter greeted us, letting us know when we would tee off, and also advised us where to get drinks if we wanted.

One thing I really liked about the staff here was how they handled teeing off. In some of the courses I play at, there is really no organization at the first tee. The result is that everybody bunches up and you end up in a long line waiting to tee off. Not here. The carts are all lined up and you are asked to stay there until it is your turn. The starter does an excellent job of checking to make sure the party ahead of you has gone far enough on the first hole before allowing you to step up to the first tee. It makes the round more enjoyable, so that you don’t spend too much time waiting to hit your shot, and don’t hold anybody up either.

As for the course itself, it is simply breathtaking. Most of the holes have water on either one or both sides. Some holes look as if they are an island unto themselves. However, the interesting thing is that even though the water is in play on many of the holes, the hazards are so strategically placed that if you know how to manage your game well, you can avoid them easily. The result is a great round of golf while enjoying the nature around you. I lost two balls during the round, which I consider pretty good for never having played it before.

You will need to be smart off the tee on this course. The fairways are not brutally narrow, but they are not wide by any stretch. If you tend to slice, you are encouraged to account for this by aiming correctly to account for it, or you will surely play from the rough. However, another interesting thing about this course is that because of how well it is maintained, the fairways are a joy to hit from, and even the rough isn’t so – well – rough, where you will be hitting from longer grass, not weeds. Since you don’t have weeds on this course too tangle up your clubs, hitting an iron out of the rough is very possible.

Because I had never played the course before, I decided to avoid keeping score. However, after about 7 or 8 holes, I realized I probably should have. I had read reviews that said playing here was like playing “target” golf. I disagree. As I said, the maintenance of the course and positioning of the hazards were such that all you really need to do is play smart and your score should be comparable to what you normally shoot on other courses. What you definitely cannot do is whack your tee shot or approach without carefully considering you landing zone. Because you have water and narrow fairways, you must play the odds and lay up or otherwise play conservatively at times. But so what? As amateur golfers, we should be doing that anyway right?

At the end of our round, someone was there immediately to help us take our clubs off the cart, and even cleaned our clubs for us. We were truly impressed. If you are considering a weekend trip that includes a round of golf, I urge you to consider The Dunes Golf Course on Sanibel Island. You will not be disappointed with either the staff or the course.

Now, if your are still disappointed with your round, that will be on you my friend, not the course.

Have fun!

Justin Beiber Tattoo – Commitment or Pride?

“Do you not know that your bodies are temples of the Holy Spirit, who is in you, whom you have received from God? You are not your own; you were bought at a price. Therefore honor God with your bodies.”
–1 Corinthians 19-20

Justin Bieber recently got a tattoo on his body with the name of Jesus in Hebrew. You can read about it here

Please don’t go away. Keep reading. This is not a religious indictment on tattoos per se. This post is really just my opinion about tattoos in general, from a Christian perspective. This is not the old guy on the corner yelling “Get off my lawn.” I promise.

So what do I think about Justin Bieber, or anyone, getting a tattoo of Jesus? It is actually a difficult question to answer. On the one hand we have the passage above, that puts such great emphasis on how God expects us to treat our own bodies. On the other, it is a tattoo of Jesus. I mean if you are going to get a tattoo, why not one that tells the world that you follow our great Savior, right?

Well, I can tell you that I have no tattoos, not even of Jesus. I have never really liked tattoos. I always considered them to detract rather than add. You see, I have always considered my body to be something given to me by God, and a tattoo was something that – well – was not right. Yes I know that in society today, tattoos are widely accepted. Yes I know that this position makes me somewhat of an old fuddy duddy. By no means do I consider tattoos some really bad evil thing you should be condemned for, but I have always considered them a negative thing. Hey it is just one guy’s opinion, take it or leave it.

But is it really a sin? Is it really wrong? I mean, if you get a tattoo for the purpose of honoring God, is it acceptable? That is a very good question, and here is my opinion.

It depends.

Why are you doing it? No I mean really, deep down inside the depths of your soul – why? There is another article about this subject, which you can read here. It is talks of a pastor who has tattoos himself and approves of them as memorials. I get it. I can see how a tattoo can be used as a memorial to Jesus, as a powerful statement of faith. However, it is a slippery slope for us, and one we should think seriously about. Before you go out and get yourself a Yeshua tattoo to match the one Justin got, be sure that is really why you are doing it. Let’s make sure this is really not something you are doing out of pride, rather than as a statement of faith. C.S. Lewis, considered one of the great Christian writers of our time, explains pride this way:

“The vice I am talking of is Pride or Self-Conceit: and the virtue opposite to it, in Christian morals, is called Humility. You may remember, when I was talking about sexual morality, I warned you that the centre of Christian morals did not lie there. Well, now, we have come to the centre. According to Christian teachers, the essential vice, the utmost evil, is Pride. Unchastity, anger, greed, drunkenness, and all that, are mere fleabites in comparison: it was through Pride that the devil became the devil: Pride leads to every other vice: it is the complete anti-God state of mind.”
–C.S. Lewis, Mere Christianity

The form of pride I am talking about specifically here is vanity. The problem with this particular vice is simply that in many cases, it is hidden from us. How many times have we seen people do very good things for the wrong reasons? Sometimes it is the person giving to the poor to impress other people, or going to church to be seen by others as good. There are so many examples of pride, where we place ourselves first and act out of vanity or conceit, rather than the selfless humble way in which Jesus would prefer.

So in that respect, my word of caution is this. If you truly are getting that tattoo in honor of Jesus, and it is an act of humble recognition of your commitment, who am I to say it is not a good thing? But if your real desire is to stand out in the crowd, to puff yourself up or say “hey look at me, look how great I am”, then my suggestion to you is simply – pray about your decision. The tattoo artist will still be there tomorrow if this is the right decision. But make sure your decision is for the right reasons.

“But Jesus called them to him, and saith unto them, Ye know that they which are accounted to rule over the Gentiles exercise lordship over them; and their great ones exercise authority upon them. But so shall it not be among you: but whosoever will be great among you, shall be your minister: And whosoever of you will be the chiefest, shall be servant of all. For even the Son of man came not to be ministered unto, but to minister, and to give his life a ransom for many.”
–Mark 10:42-45

What a beautiful passage this is. It shows how Jesus, as great as He was, humbled Himself to minister to His people. What better way of closing my post than to say that with regard to tattoos, as Christians we are to humble ourselves as Jesus did. Let’s remember that Jesus can see our actions. Jesus does not need a tattoo to know your commitment to Him, and the outside world will benefit more from your humility and selflessness, than the attention you attract by your outward display of a tattoo.

Botox Anyone?

“Whoever works his land will have plenty of bread, but he who follows worthless pursuits lacks sense.”
–Proverbs 12:11

“See that you do not despise one of these little ones. For I tell you that in heaven their angels always see the face of my Father who is in heaven.“
–Matthew 18:10

Every once in awhile, you read a story in the news that makes you cringe. Mind you, the one I am talking about is probably not the worst we hear about these days. In this fallen world, we are inundated with horrific stories of crimes and disasters every day. But this one is unusual, so of course it has gotten some attention.

Over the weekend it was reported that a mother admitted to injecting Botox in her 8 year old daughter for the purposes of competing in a child beauty pageant. You can read the article here. For those of you who may not know, Botox is a drug made from Botulin, that is used by people to temporarily remove wrinkles. It is normally NOT prescribed to children. Obviously, since wrinkles are usually something adults are trying to prevent, the thought of injecting this drug into a child sounds lubricious, since children do not normally suffer from wrinkles and there could be serious side affects as well.

Why would a mother feel the need to use Botox on their daughter? Is it really possible that her daughter has wrinkles? Even beyond that, what would possess this mother with the desire to inject a drug into her child for competitive reasons? What would happen if the child ended up having a complication? How could she live with herself knowing that she caused her child to have a medical problem in her pursuit of a pageant trophy?

I am sometimes amazed at how low we humans will go in pursuit of sin. Jesus tells how precious children are in the passage above, yet we simply don’t learn. Why do we allow the sin of vanity to affect us so much that we would be willing to harm our children to bow down to this idol? I suppose this is no different than any other sin. Those who sink so low as to resort to adultery start with a look, or a simple compliment. Those who fall into the sin of addiction start with one drink.

So I guess that this mother probably had to start somewhere. Maybe it started with someone innocently suggesting that her daughter should be in a beauty pageant. Then maybe, someone else mentioned a pageant or contest in the area. Before she knew it, they were wrapped up in the pageant community, and she was now living through her daughter, losing all focus on what was right for her. At some point, she may have been so wrapped up in her sin, her daughter’s well being was no longer important. Her daughter was no longer the precious child Jesus taught us about that inherits the kingdom. She was now just a means to an end.

Lets stop and think about this and how it pertains to us. We have all suffered from sin. Since we are all sinners, we all have a sin or two that we struggle with. If we are not careful, that sin can take over our lives. It always starts small, but grows as we give in to our worldly desires.

“No temptation has overtaken you but such as is common to man; and God is faithful, who will not allow you to be tempted beyond what you are able, but with the temptation will provide the way of escape also, so that you will be able to endure it. “
–1 Corinthians 1-:13

Let’s remember always that Jesus was also tempted by sin, and resisted. God will never give us temptations without giving us a way out. Remember also that God always warns us before we fall into sin. There will always be something that reminds us what is right and what is wrong. With that said, God also gave us free will, and it will always be our decision to make. He shows us the path, but we must embrace it.

I will say one more thing. Resist the temptation to sin, and then rationalize. It is NEVER the fault of someone else that you sinned. No one is responsible for your sin but you. No one pushes you into adultery, addiction, and surely not vanity. Let’s make sure to take personal responsibility for our actions. It is only through personal responsibility and surrendering to God’s will that Jesus can dwell within us and make the change necessary in our heart to transform us and mold us into the child of God He wants us to be.

To the mother who injected the Botox in her child, be the mother you want your child to grow up to be. Let your child be a child, and look to the Bible for guidance.

Please, stay away from the Botox!

Husband or Nurse?

“The nurse should be here soon.”

She could not have been more than 19 or 20 years old, staring back at me with a pale look on her face. She was of dark complexion normally, but now white as a ghost.

“We don’t have time to wait. It’s going to leak all over the wound. We can’t wait for that to happen.”

I am hoping to snap the young nurse-in-training back into reality, as I stand there with a mass of gauze on top of my wife’s ileostomy, preventing it from leaking all over her open wound, a wound so large it took up most of her abdomen. When I first saw it after surgery, I had to look away. I had never seen such a large, open wound. I cried that night, and asked God to get my wife through this somehow. Now it was months later, and the wound had made little progress because of the ileostomy that was created as a result of vascular disease. It forced surgeons to cut away about half of her gangrenous colon. The ileostomy was added above a large wound created when flesh from her abdomen had to be cut away to save her life.

The nurse is standing in a corner, like she is trapped there. She still has that deer in headlights look, and the gauze I am holding will not last much longer. The nurses had already told me not to change the dressing myself. The problem is that finding a nurse willing and able to do the work necessary was not easy. Most nurses don’t expect to have to deal with this, and no nurse wants to. The end result is that nurses tend to disappear when the dressing needs to be changed, which led to my wife’s mom and I having to learn to change the dressings. In reality, we become better at it than the nurses.

“Where is she?”

“I don’t know.”

“Ok, forget it. We have to do this ourselves. Get that bag over there with all of the stuff. Hurry!”

I am no longer the patent’s husband. I am the nurse, and the nurse in training is my assistant. My assertive voice brings enough clarity to my assistant that she follows my command. She gets the materials and drops them on the floor next to me, awaiting my instructions. I put on some latex gloves.

“Put on some gloves. Now take out plenty of gauze, the saline bottle, the scissors, and the ileostomy bag. I will also need that tape, and the cream for her wound.”

The nurse follows my orders, laying out all of the materials on the bed. For the next 10 minutes, I clean the area around her ileostomy. I cut the paper gasket into the right shape, and affix it to her skin around the ileostomy using a special adhesive. Using that same adhesive, I affix the ileostomy bag to the gasket, and hold it in place until it adheres. Now the leaking into the wound has stopped, and I can start working on the wound. I use saline and gauze to clean the inside of the wound. It is quite painful for her and she is crying. It was so hard to do this the first time, and it still breaks my heart. But to save her life I block out my feelings, while still trying to console her.

“I know it hurts. I am almost done.”

She understands. She has more courage than anyone I have ever met. How she maintains her sanity through all of this is beyond me. She has been in and out of hospitals for 3 years. Yet every time she goes in, she can’t wait to get out and go on with her life. She takes the time to buy gifts for the nurses who take care of her. Everyone in the hospital knows us by first name now, and cannot believe her resiliency, her bravery.

Many of them tell me they don’t know how I do it. They tell me I am a hero, or a saint, or a great husband. It actually makes me angry. I don’t want to be thought of as something out of the ordinary. The day I married my wife I made a commitment to God. I am doing what I am supposed to do, no more and no less. It angers me to hear people talk about me like I am doing something so rare. I did not ask to be a hero, and I am certainly no saint. I am just a man standing by his family, doing what God expects of a husband. I don’t want the job of hero, not this way, not for this reason.

Once I am done cleaning and applying fresh dressings, the pain subsides, and my wife thanks me. The nurse in training puts the materials away and quickly departs. I never saw her again. She either learned something and today is a better nurse, or she chose another profession.

My wife passed on September 14, 2007. Diabetes, Kidney failure, Gastroparesis, and Vascular disease finally won the battle. I wish I could tell you that before she died, I prayed with her. I wish I could tell you that I made sure she sought God. I did not. Even though I prayed often, we did not pray together. I was so caught up in trying to keep myself together, fighting with nurses, doctors, insurance companies, that I did not take the time to pray with her. Funny thing is, she found God in spite of me. A few months before she died, she knew what was going to happen. She called a family member. I know that day, she surrendered her life to God, and she sits in heaven today. I thank God for intervening, for reaching her when I could not.

God has a way of showing up at pivotal moments in our lives. I know He was there that day I changed her dressings, working through me. I cried that night, asking God to give me the strength to continue. For three years, my life was a blur. How I maintained my sanity would be a mystery, if I didn’t know now that God was carrying me. He had plans for me. He took care of me, gave me just enough strength to wake up the next morning and do it all over again. And I did, over and over again.

Three years after her death, I met another wonderful woman, and I married her. She has some of the same wonderful qualities of my first wife, even though they are quite different. I am at peace these days, knowing we did everything we could for my first wife. My new wife is the beneficiary of the wisdom I gained during those years. I value life so much more today. I am closer to God, and she helps to keep me on that path. So my wife and I move forward every day, having entered into a new covenant with God, knowing He has a path for our lives.

There was a time I cried out to God, not knowing if He was listening. I hoped, but I did not know. It took three years after my wife passed, while I wandered through life in a daze, for me to realize something. God was there every step of the way. I was no hero, nothing extra ordinary. It was God who worked through me, even when I questioned whether He heard my prayers. So today I KNOW what He did. I thank Him every day for the many blessings He has granted me, and I ask Him to continue to give me strength, to reveal His plan for my life.

“I know how to be brought low, and I know how to abound. In any and every circumstance, I have learned the secret of facing plenty and hunger, abundance and need. I can do all things through him who strengthens me.”
–Philippians 4:12-13

Stop the Insanity

While I have tried to stay out of politics on my blog, there is one subject that really bothers me. The The Affordable Care Act or Obama-care as some call it, has been quite controversial. There are good reasons for reforming Health Care. In the last 10 years or so I have had plenty of experience with health facilities. I have had to fight with doctors, Insurance companies, hospitals, and other health providers. Ensuring a loved one gets the best possible care in America at times puts you at odds with health care systems that seem to be more worried with their bottom line than the wellness of their patients. So it is up to the patient and their loved ones to make sure everyone stays focused on the goal.

With that said, I am convinced no country in the world has the quality of health care we have in America. No one in this country is denied emergency health care. Anyone, rich or poor, can walk into an ER and get life saving medication, regardless of their ability to pay. The issues are usually when it comes to being able to afford the health insurance required to STAY healthy. We have millions of people in this country that simply cannot afford health insurance. There are also many others who have health insurance that is inadequate. While health insurance is NOT a right afforded by the constitution, as a country that cares about its poor and disadvantaged, it is important to try and find a way to improve the system.

I applaud our efforts to do just that. However, we didn’t do it right. Politics as usual played a huge part in the current law. Instead of working together in a bipartisan manner, we shoved a bill down the throats of the American people, and the result is a law that is not going to fix the problem. As an example, take a look at the following article from the US Department of Health and Human Services:

http://www.hhs.gov/ociio/regulations/approved_applications_for_waiver.html

It shows that currently 733 waivers have been given out to the law. That means that 733 organizations have been waived from complying with the law. The reason? There is more than one reason, but many of them are companies that provide mini-med plans to their workers and would have to eliminate them under the law, leaving their workers without health coverage. Wasn’t the law supposed to increase the number of people that could afford health coverage? How could we pass a health reform law that would actually leave so many people out in the cold, so much so that 733 companies are now exempt from following the law? While the waivers issued so far represent only 1 percent of people on private health plans, that 1 percent is 2.1 million people. I don’t know about you, but that sounds like a lot of people to me, and the number of waivers given out are increasing. This is only one of several issues many have raised with this new law.

Again, I believe there are provisions in this law that are good, such as the ending of the pre-existing conditions clause. But we obviously missed the boat here folks. If you remember, last year President Obama had a televised summit where he met with politicians from both major parties. Several of them implored the President to step back and start over, urging him to listen to both parties and scale back the law. Many wanted him to tackle the issues that had bipartisan support first, instead of this huge bill that so many had problems with. He and the majority in Congress refused, and we are seeing the results. It cost the Democrats the mid-term election and is costing the American people in higher premiums, more debt, and other issues in the future. It is time for Washington to start listening to the people.

Will they?

I can’t tell you I am optimistic.

Coffee Anyone?

If you are like me, you drink coffee. I drink a lot of coffee. I drink at least two cups of coffee a day. It is an addiction? I don’t know. I do know that I go to the doctor regularly, and most doctors tell me two cups of coffee a day is ok. So I am going to run with that. Anyway, I would be really interested in what your coffee drinking preferences are. So how about it? Answer the poll below and let’s get our coffee habits out in the open shall we?