Thirty years ago today…

I have been remiss in responding to a request from Kim, who writes at The Threshing Floor. Kim tagged me to respond to a meme about ancient history. The question she poses is, “What were you doing ten years ago, twenty years ago and thirty years ago?” I’ve had to scratch my head a bit to come up with some answers, so here goes.

Thirty years ago — November, 1977: After a month-long relationship with a very amazing young woman, November found us talking about whether God might be leading us to marry. That conversation continued by letter when she took a teaching job in Mexico 6 weeks later, and on June 10, 1978 we became husband and wife.

Twenty years ago — November 1987: I put the finishing touches on a publishing system I had created using Stanford Professor Donald Knuth’s TeX typesetting system running under 4.2BSD Unix on a DEC LSI-11 multi-user mini-computer. This was my company’s first production electronic publishing system and was used for years to publish New Testaments, grammars and literacy books in the indigenous languages of Mexico.

Ten years ago — November 1997: My wife’s parents held a reunion at Disney World in Florida attended by my wife’s siblings, their spouses and children. Howard, my father-in-law, had been battling malignant melanoma (skin cancer) but was well enough to join us. The kids had a wonderful time with Grandpa, who would succumb to his cancer three months later.

Now I’m supposed to tag some other bloggers. Instead, let me just list a few of the excellent Christian blogs I’ve recently stumbled on in my surfing. Visit these folks and add them to your favorites.

I’ve already mentioned The Threshing Floor. Kim is a bright, witty musician and homeschooling mom who blogs about faith, life and electronic tombstones.

Another blog I’m reading is Communion of Glitches, a serious-minded place where they ask the question, “What does it really mean to be a follower of Christ?” You may not agree with every answer, but there’s a lot of good thinking going on there.
Early Morning Musings is a peek inside the life of a young mother who wants to honor Christ and raise her young boys, Green Bean and Peanut Butter, to love Him, too. Marie has a sweet spirit and lots of wisdom.

I need to balance this list with some testosterone. One of the blogs I visit almost daily is Matthew Lee Anderson and company’s Mere Orthodoxy. Matthew is a Biola grad whom I met at the first GodblogCon in 2005. I liked Matthew right away, and I’ve found lots of good thinking at his blog over the years, especially on the challenges presented to Christian faith by the modern world, a topic close to my heart.

Go take a look, and remember to leave a comment. Bloggers love it when you tell them what you’re thinking, even if it’s just a simple “Thanks for writing this! I enjoyed reading it.” Blogging is like an electronic conversation — join in!