I was acquainted with him through his son-in-law (one of my best and closest friends) and daughter. His son-in-law planted the church my brother now pastors just a few hours north of us. Through this connection I got to know Dr. Ashbrook a little bit. I got to know him better through his writings. What a blessing to have known him. What glory for him to now be in the presence of our Saviour!

The obituary is here.

An article by another young man he influenced is here.

His publication ministry is here. I am not sure what will happen to this ministry, but perhaps you can still obtain some of his books through them.

Our grand-daughter arrived last night, about a month early. Some circumstances made the docs concerned that the baby needed to come early, so here she is. From what we can tell, everything is fine!

And we’re kind of tickled!

Of course, Grandma jumped on the first plane she could, leaving me and Susan to finish packing for our move on Friday.

Not that I am complaining though – just wish I could have gone with her and left the whole job to Susan!!! (heh, heh)

We miss him. Mom talks about him all the time. I think about him every day.

For him, though, things are better than they ever were among us.

One day we, too, will know what he now knows.

We know that a dog is just a dog, but we can’t help but think this end is not the way God intended things to be.

NAU  Romans 8:20-22 For the creation was subjected to futility, not willingly, but because of Him who subjected it, in hope 21 that the creation itself also will be set free from its slavery to corruption into the freedom of the glory of the children of God. 22 For we know that the whole creation groans and suffers the pains of childbirth together until now.

I think this is among the reasons we grieve for the loss of ‘just a dog’. There is of course the end of a loving relationship between man and dog, something different from human relationships, but like them. But there is also this… that the creation in which we live is broken and awaits restoration and repair in the day when the Master sets all things right.

We don’t expect to see our dog in the resurrection. He had no spirit as men have. We do expect to see the setting right of all things.

In the meantime, we remember the delight we enjoyed in our crazy, lovable, gentle Cavalier King Charles Spaniel. His official name was Kentanna London Bobby. He was affectionately known to us by various terms, including “Dumb Dog”. He wasn’t the sharpest knife in the drawer, but he always looked good, no matter what he was about.

Here is a picture from his first visit to the vet:

The kids in that picture are now 25, 21, and 19.

And one more picture, coming home from family camp some years back.

If you look closely at that picture, you will see the lettering from my truck mirror: “OBJECTS IN MIRROR ARE CLOSER THAN THEY APPEAR”. Indeed they were.

Kentanna London Bobby
Cavalier King Charles Spaniel
March 25, 1997 – October 14, 2011.

Just a dog.

CONFIDENTIALITY NOTICE – This e-mail transmission, and any documents, files or previous e-mail messages attached to it may contain information that is confidential or legally privileged. If you are not the intended recipient, or a person responsible for delivering it to the intended recipient, you are hereby notified that you must not read this transmission and that any disclosure, copying, printing, distribution or use of any of the information contained in or attached to this transmission is STRICTLY PROHIBITED. If you have received this transmission in error, please immediately notify the sender by telephone or return e-mail and delete the original transmission and its attachments without reading or saving in any manner. Thank you.

Please note:

1. This disclaimer comes at the END of the message, after I’ve already read it.

2. It tells me that if I am not the intended recipient, I am prohibited from reading it.

What does this tell you about the intelligence level of the average spammer? Genii?? I think not!

P. S. I plan to get to some serious blogging soon. I know it’s been a bit light lately.

BREAKING NEWS: The epicenter of the quake has been pinpointed to a graveyard outside of DC, where all our Founding Fathers just rolled over in their graves due to current leadership in Washington.

A friend of mine posted this on Facebook, I  thought it was funny, so am passing it along.

Duncan and Meg are shortly on the move from Greenville, SC to Edmonton, AB, the place of my birth (and, really, the place of choice if I could live anywhere in the world!! Who needs the ocean and the mountains and the trees when you could have all that sky! And those fields! But I digress…)

So big changes are coming in our family, and especially for Duncan and Meg. We are looking forward to an eventful year.

Today, Wayne Gretzky, unarguably the greatest hockey player ever, turns 50 years old. I remember watching him play pro hockey when he was just a teenager. He sure was fun to watch. And I know exactly where I was when THE TRADE came down. I’ll never forget that day. That night my wife and I stayed up till midnight listening to a sports talk radio show. We were traumatized! (Well, maybe that is a little overstated!)

I’m just going to give you a few links here, then make a point. Just notice, however, that in Canada, Wayne’s 50th is big news.

• Our local paper has a photo gallery (we don’t have a pro hockey team, but Wayne’s first training camp as an LA King was here).
• The Toronto Globe and Mail, sort of a national paper for Canada, has a story.
• Of course, The Sports Network, one of our Canadian sports channels, has multiple stories, but this is the big headline one for the day.
• Not to be outdone, Sportsnet, our other sports channel has their own versions. Here is a column by Mark Spector.
• And the National Post, our other national newspaper, has numerous articles, including this one on THE TRADE.

Now, what to make of all this?

Do we not, in our society, make gods of men (and a few women) whose only contribution to our society is fleeting entertainment?

Do we not, by so doing, make these gods because of the emotional highs we get from their performances?

Shouldn’t we, as Christians, put fences around our hearts and guard where we place our affections?

“My name is Don…

“I am a blogger…”

This was due to Dr. Bob’s noted antipathy for blogs.

My wife has typically shared his view and can’t imagine what I find so compelling about my blog. Until today! She found a use for ‘blog’…

She scored 38 points with it AGAINST ME in Scrabble tonight! The Nerve!!!

I still won, though… I got most of the good letters, and we really boxed ourselves in, couldn’t get into the upper left quadrant at all.

For those scoring at home, she stuck blog on underneath OR to make ORB, the DO came later.

It was a great way to spend a Sunday evening. My wife made a tremendous effort with mostly vowels the whole night. She tends to be a better positional player than me, I’m always looking for the big plays, especially the seven letter words.