There is a very interesting post on the state of war and violence in the world over at the Strategy Page site (h.t. Bayou Renaissance Man). The whole post was very educational for me because it describes the source of violence in a lot countries around the world with ancillary information you can view by clicking the country name. I cannot speak to what is happening in most of those countries, but the site built a lot of credibility because of their spot-on take on what is going on in Mexico. The drug cartels are a thing, but few understand the interplay between the cartels, a corrupt government culture and local militia that has formed to protect citizenry from the horrible violence. When the Mexican government legitimized those militia due to their success, a very important byproduct was the spotlight that got thrown on the culture of corruption that is winked at and/or perpetrated by the government itself. That section on Mexico is worth the price of admission (free), but the whole article is just stellar.
Year: 2017
Last night was the last scheduled Wednesday night Bible study we will have at our little apartment here in Lewisville. We had it there biweekly, but because we are moving at the end of the month and have the funeral to attend later in the month, it will move to another home for the next time when it would have been with us. It was a great privilege to meet with this little group, we enjoyed it immensely and will miss it very much. The beautiful flowers by the window were kindly sent by the other members of the meeting in condolences for Grandpa Milo and were very much appreciated.
Note to the person who sent the very unhelpful and graceless comment to this blog after Grandpa Milo’s death: Grandpa Milo, Grandma Sarah and all our little family believe now and have always believed that salvation is by grace through faith in Jesus Christ alone and not by works. That is the common belief in our fellowship and what has always been preached in our hearing.
Grandpa Milo died January 1. Dad was one of those bigger than life guys who started his life in a migrant farm worker family picking hops, beans and strawberries around the state of Oregon as soon as he was old enough to contribute as a small child, but who went on to all kinds of unique success in business, the military and even in school. He worked physically hard his entire life, even when he no longer needed to. He, like Grandma Sarah, was always a champion of the underdog loving much and doing more than his part in every setting. I do not want to turn this into a eulogy, there will be time for that later, but I wanted to mark his passing with just a few memories and thoughts.
In spite of the fact that I have appeared to be more like my father both in appearance and personality than my other siblings, we were very different from each other in character. It was of great joy to all of us that Aunt Julia is the one who was most like Dad in character and she had a special bond with him because of it. She was the one who had Grandpa Milo’s blond hair and blue eyes, too. Still, each of us kids had a very special and unique bond with Dad. My relationship with him was very, very close. We spoke in person or on the phone several times per week for my entire life–lessening some once I got married and had kids, but never disappearing.
It was one of the great joys of my life to discover that it did not matter that I did not have the same entrepreneurial drive as Grandpa Milo nor great joy in physical labor although I learned to tolerate it a lot more for having been his son. A lot of superficial stuff got in the way of my discovery of that fact. I assumed my success in business, sports, finances and, to a lesser degree, education were important to Dad. My epiphany was that Dad was more interested in my relationship with Jesus, the fulfillment of my responsibilities as a husband, father and member of society and my happiness than any success in following his footsteps with respect to this temporal life–probably in that order.
The picture with this post is of Dad in his mid-70’s. Alzheimer’s disease must have already been working on Dad when this was taken, but no one could tell yet. We like to think it was because of his ever ebullient spirit. He and one of our ministers who had labored in Ecuador for many years stopped on a several mile hike at over 10,000 feet of altitude to eat some oranges that grow there ubiquitously. He did not talk at all about how onerous it must have been–it is hard to breath at 10,000 feet when you live close to sea level, especially when you are over 70 and on an uphill hike. Rather, he reveled in the amazing amount of juice in the oranges and the beauty of the scenery. That was so typical of him. He was not there because he wanted an adventure although he reveled in that, too. He was there to take a friend who could not have made the trip on his own to see his twin brother, one of our ministers who works in the Philippines and was on a trip to preach in South America.
There funeral for Milo and Sarah Chapman is on January 16 at 10:30 AM at the Milwaukie High School Auditorium. Here are the details:
| Date: | MLK Day, Monday, January 16, 2017 |
| Time: | 10:30 AM |
| Location: | Milwaukie High School Auditorium, Milwaukie, Oregon |
| Notes: | Potluck to follow on location |
| No graveside service |
We would be grateful to any who would be willing to share a story or picture with us about/of Milo and/or Sarah. If you would, please send it in any format you would like via email to chapman55k@gmail.com. It can be just part of the email, a photograph, a PDF, Word document or anything you would like. Our plan is to put them all into folders people can read at the funeral with blank pages where people might like to add additional stories or pictures. After the funeral, we plan to accumulate the new material into a final version, then send it out to whomever might like a copy via email.
Just a brief note to let everyone know that Grandpa Milo died peacefully tonight. The funeral is currently scheduled for both he and Grandma Sarah on January 16 in the Milwaukie, Oregon. I will post the exact timing and location here as soon as I have it.
As Kelly saw in the New Year getting squired about town with her hoity-toity California posse, all of the rest of us, Christian included, were too sick even to go to church this morning. Shame on her for having fun while we are all suffering so. It did though, give me time to think about what we are doing and where we are going. I could not have done that if I had been being squired around by my hoity-toity California posse, if I had one.
It dawned on me awhile back that the point of all the big changes happening in our little family is a desire to avoid such big changes for awhile. We plan to move across the country later in the month for the third time in less than two years. The hope is to move into a place where we can stay until we are not able, health-wise, to stay any longer. That might be too ambitious, life being life, but that is our intent. I have a job where I can work from home, am late enough in my career that I have the experience to get consulting work so we at least have a shot, God willing, of making that happen.
Hand in hand with that, I am making that normal, beginning of the year, get healthy resolution. I have weight to lose, weights to lift, and miles to walk (I cannot believe I turned into a walker, but it is a legacy–my Grandpa Chapman was a walker). I am brushing off my fitbit and putting on my walking shoes. I walk a mile each direction to lunch and back from my job in Texas, but when we lived in Wilsonville, I walked 5-7 miles per day with my weight dropping and my energy increasing. I think part of the weight drop has to do with the fact that if one walks that much, they do not have as much time to stuff their face.
This is not to suggest I have not gotten some good work done this year. Beside my day job where we are literally saving lives (if keeping sick people from falling out of bed and hurting themselves in hospitals counts in that regard), I am working on a project with a large mid-Western University of renown on the sickle cell anemia problem. I cannot say too much about it because it is a proprietary side project, but if we get this thing done, it will be a huge win in the fight against that horrible disease in Africa.
So, other than those few things life is in upheaval until we get move back out west, but in the meantime I have my health and the health of others as work and side projects. It does not get much better than that.