Santa Matt's ramblings

Life is like a really good mystery movie. We start out with no clue as to what is going on. But little by little we learn things and the solution becomes clearer and clearer. As we progress through the movie and more of the plot is revealed we get excited, we want to know all of the answers to our questions. Was the butler really polishing the silver? Was that God that answered my prayers and helped me get that job? Was the poison really in his coffee? Is there a heaven and will I be welcome? Watching the movie we have our theories. We start to pick out suspects based on the revealed clues. In life we have our faith, our beliefs, based on what religion has revealed to us. But right up to the moment the clever hero or heroine gets the confession from the murderer, we are waiting for one more plot twist. And right up to the moment we die, we will have questions. Is there life after death? Did I pick the right church? What will happen to me? What did God mean by that revelation? As we wat...

When we were young we did things to honor our mothers. We would not step on cracks in the sidewalk, etc. Our mother probably enjoyed our thoughts but what she really wanted and how we should have honored her was to clean our rooms. It is much the same with God. We make all kinds of ritual prayers and that is good. But what God really wants is for us to clean our rooms. He wants us to clean the room of our soul. God Bless you and yours

Sometimes special people enter our lives. When I first met my wife's family, there was one person I did not meet, Mary her sister. Mary was only allowed home twice per year and she was never allowed to travel alone. No, she was not a secret agent or a convicted criminal, she was and is a nun, a Sister of Notre Dame. Down through the years visitation rules have relaxed some. I have seen her many times, either at the family or at church functions. Mary taught me many things. Some in her kindly cheerful voice, some just by the way she lives her life. Yeah, I know, she's a nun. She is supposed to live a exemplary life. But sometimes you meet a member of a religious order that shines in a special way. People that even if they were not in a religious vocation would still be holy. Mary is one of those. Mary is one of the people that answered my questions during the years that I was looking for a church. She is responsible for my starting to sing in church. I tell my religious ed stud...

Where I go to church there were two women. They are not related, but you rarely saw one without the other. As they grew older, one of them developed emphysema. Eventually this brought her to the final days of her life and she entered hospice. You may or may not know that hospice is a kind of care, not a facility. Someone may be in hospice in the care center, in a convalescence center or in a private residence. When this woman entered hospice, she was taken in by her friend. Her friend set aside a bedroom, equipped it with oxygen and a hospital bed. She cared for her day and night, only taking a few hours sleep for herself when a hospice volunteer would sit and watch for her. I have someone who will do that for me. I married her. But the loving friendship of these two women is inspiring. "This is how all will know that you are my disciples, if you have love for one another." John 13:35 God Bless you and yours

I use an Apple Newton. I have for years. And although I am slowly moving from the Newton to a Nokia Internet Tablet, there are still times I use my Newton and still some things it does better than anything else I have found. But that is a topic for another posting. In this posting I want to explain how I make maps for use with my Garmin Fortrex 101 GPS and GPSMap Lite for the Newton. Also, this tutorial will be for making maps on a PC. Apologies to my Mac friends but I have just never made a map on my Mac. The first decision is to decide are we making a road map or a wilderness-hiking map. Both follow the same basic principles but there is a difference in the map source. For Road maps I use maps captured from MS MapPoint. I have also used Google mapping. For hiking maps I generally use satellite photos from Google Earth. I did download a special mapping version of AdobeReader and you can get pdf versions of most US topographical maps from the US geological survey web site. But I found ...

As you may have guessed by now, if you have been reading my posts, I am a faithful Christian and a devout Roman Catholic. As such I pray a lot. And I pray in all of the forms of prayer. Briefly there are five forms of prayer. Blessing and adoration: This is where we tell God how much we love Him. And because God blesses us, we can bless others, including returning that blessing to God. Petition: Prayers of petition are when we ask for something for ourselves. Intercession: These are the prayers where we ask for something for someone else. Thanksgiving: A prayer where we thank God for all he has done. Praise: This is where we tell God how great he is. As I was saying, I pray a lot, from the small things, "God please help me find my keys.", to the big things, "Thank you God for this wonderful life you have given me. God regularly answers my prayers. Yeah I know what some of you are thinking "Nut ball!" but at least listen to a couple of stories before you make up...

Many years ago I had the good fortune to attend a Franklin Time Management seminar. At the time I was really into the Franklin. I never went anywhere without that Franklin Day Planner under my arm. One of the things you do if you follow the Franklin method is to set life long goals. And to help you in this you fill out these special pages. One of them is Called "Beliefs and Goals". I sat and ponder those "Beliefs" for many days and eventually came up with what I figured defined my life at the time. This was the first iteration of "My Rules". As time moved along and my Franklin was replaced with a Newton (Are all management systems named after scientists?) I just kept my rules in my head spouting them off to people as seemed relevant. Then along comes this show on TV called NCIS. It is my favorite show, a nice blend of procedural, mystery, action and humor. Now in case you have not seen the show, the lead investigator, played by Mark Harmon, has a set of ru...