Sauteed swordfish

This works well with Halibut as well.

Top some swordfish steaks salt/ pepper and some shallots that are sliced thinly.

Butter the bottom of a saute pan (don't melt the butter...just spread it on the bottom. Place the fish on top of the butter and add 2 cups of wine to the pan.

Bring it to a boil and then reduce it to low and cook for about 8 minutes. Remove the fish.

Add any combination of parsley, thyme, garlic, basil, mushrooms or tomatoes to the pan and make a sauce with the wine butter that is left. Serve on top of fish.

Regan keeps us accountable

When we pray before our meals Regan has begun to get into the habit. When we tell her it is time to pray, she puts her hands together and gives a big smile.

Tonight we forgot to pray before the meal. 3 bites in, Regan puts her hands together, looks at me and gives me a smile. She knew we forgot to pray and we was telling us that we needed to do it before we went any further.

Scripture meditation

One things I have been a bit negligent on lately is any type of conscious Scripture meditation. Not prayer over or study of Scripture but rather just medtation. Thinking about what it says. turning it over and over in my mind. Letting it settle in the sediment and lay there.

Ephesians 1:3 says "Blessed be the God and Father of our Lord Jesus CHrist who has blessed us with every spiritual blessing in the heavenly places in Christ." This was the verse for some meditation tonight. No great insights came from it...no 'Aha!' moments. Just repeating it over and over, getting it into my whole body. It's not a matter of always having to do something with Scripture but sometimes it is just getting it away from your eyes and your mind and getting ito the muscles, internal organs and al through the body for nourishment.

Backpack trip coming together

This backpack trip coming up in teh middle of August could be one of the hest I've done in years. The Northern California contingent is complete, with myself, Paulo Dietrich, Kim Mack and Jim Hankins. Kervin Bixby is coming with his 2 kids nad hopefully Mike Kazmark is coming as well. This week we'll talk food and how we are going to be in cooking groups for this trip.

The glories of Ephesians

I'm berginning what I believe will be about a year-long study of the letter to the Ephesians. At the beginning I am intrigued by something thatD. Martyn Lloyd-Jones said about Ephesians. His comment is that, at least the first 3 chapters of the letter represent salvation from a heavenly perspective. We are not looking up at God and figuring salvation from a human perspective but rather Paul puts us in the place of God, being able to look down from heaven and see all that salvation entails, from predestination to cleansing of sin to being sealed by the Holy Spirit.

It's been a long time since I've done any tyupe of study of Ephesians and I am ready to go golddigging for the next few months.

So what do you think about this?

Augugst 1 has been kind of our deadline for ministry, that if I didn't have anything really working with a church then that we would probably stop the search and move to Brentwood. I've been sending out a lot of resumes and gotten virtually no nibbles at all and was getting frsutrated...until today.

I got a letter and a questionnaire from an EVFree church in Janesvile Wisconsin. They found me in the EFCA database and are interested in me for their discipleship pastor position.

Never trust in circumstances but pay attention to them. Is this God at work?

Rule #1 about diapers

There is a new Rule #1 about diapers in the Miller household. never buy diuapers with Elmo on them. ELmo is Regan's favorite character and I though that she would like Elmo diapers.

Well, yes, but a little too much. She has been wandering around the house clutching an armful of her diapers (unused, fortunately). I had to put her box of diapers on Caleb's upper bunk so she can't get to them.

Caleb is sick

Caleb has been throwing up since last night, almost hourly. He's got sort of nasty stomach bug. Butv he's not the only one. Christa threw up once the other day. Regan also and she also had a bad fever for one night. But they are both back to normal now.

On the bright side, Caleb gets to watch a lot of tv today.

I hope he gets better really soon. It's tough on a daddy to see his little man sick like this.

What we wuld give up in moving to Brentwood

One of the joys of my life right now is going swimming with Caleb most afternoons when I get home from work. We take squirt guns, kickboards, goggles and just have a great romp in the pool. Sometimes Christa and Regan come too. Regan is learning to like the water and she is taking too it pretty well.

If we move to Brentwood, there goes the pool. Caleb nd I will have to find other activities to keep us busy in the late afternoon

Happy Sashimi

Christa and I had a date the other night and we vwent to a sushi place in Pinole that we had heard was pretty good. Before we went I decided to check any online reviews to make sure they didn't serve week-old unagi or anything like that. The reviews universally said that the sushi was good but the service was universally poor.

Well, it lived right up to the reviews. Of the three things we ordered (including a drink!) we had to send 2 back...once they eventually got to our table. I Ordered a beer. 5 minutes later it shows up...warm. The waitress couldn't even tell but I picked it up and knew immediately. We ordered 2 orders of unagi (bbq eel) and crazy horse, wich had salmon, tuna and hamachi. The unagi took 10 minutes to show up and was excellent. The crazy horse took another 15 minutes and they brought the wrong thing...another 10 minutes.

First and last time at Happy Sashimi

Theyr'e in Yosemite and I'm not

I was a little surprised when Christa told me that she and the kids were going to do a day trip to Yosemite today. That's a pretty long day. But they're off to go and will probably be home late. THey left to go to Brentwood to meet up with the CLiatt's. Regan and their daughter Jillian will stay behind with a babysitter. They may end up staying overnight in Brentwood, depending on how tired they feel.

Yosemite is all Caleb could talk about. The last time he was there he was about 2 1/2 and we were coming back from a trip to June Lake. We hit Yomseite Valley on the way back and walked to Lower Yomseite Falls. Caleb had such a great time playing in the creek and hiking around.

I love having my music on shuffle. You never know what will come on next. Right now is Steve Camp's "Where are the Heroes", one of my favoite songs.

Taking a bath in the American River

Tomorrow I'm leading a group of men from our church on a 1-day raft trip down the Middle Fork of the American River. We did this samde trip last year and it was an absolute blast. I hadn't been rafting in about 20 years and I couldn't wait to do it again.

When we did it last year ae 20 spots and we sold them out. This year we booked 24 spots and only have 9 men going. No refunds. $150 a pop. Our church is taking a bath on this one. I made phone calls, sent emails, begged, pleaded and tried to give trip away for $50 each...but no luck.

Caleb and Daddy at the movies

Caleb and I went to see WALL:E over last weekend. I think Caleb's favorite part of going to the movies is getting the candy before...he likes Jelly Bellys and I got red licorice.

A littelv while into the movie I'm beginning to think that it is left-wing diatribe by the tree-hugger union. But as it went on I realized that if anyone got skewered it was Walmart. By the mid-21st century evry function on earth (including government) has been taken over by BNL, also known as BIG N LARGE. They have so trashed the world that mankind must leave on a spaceship until plant life can grow again.

Lots of slapstick in the movie...didn't expect to see clips from 'Hello Dolly' in there. Not much if any talking for the first 30 minutes or so. Good flick. Might get nominated for Best Picture.

Jonah ch 1

We're all familiar with the first chapter of the book of Jonah. Jonah, already being a propht of Yahweh, receives a call to go the the city of Ninevah to preach against it. This is the only time in the Old Testament when a prophet is called to physically gto to a heathen nation to preach against it. When others such as Amos did this, they did it from the vrelative comfort of Israel's borders.

After receiving this call, Jonah does the exact opposite. He gets is feet going in the opposite direction and jumps on a ship bound for Tarshish, at then other end of the world from Ninevah. he probably thought he could run from Yahweh.

Long short short, Jonah gets busted by God, caught up in a storm, thorwn overboard to rescue the ship and gets swallowed by a fish.

It seems that it at least 2 ways that Jonah's story becomes our story as well. How often is it that God calls us to something and we decide we'd rather be doing something else. Maybe not something like going off as a missionary or that sort of thing. But God calls us to obedience...we run the other way to disobedience. God calls us to faithfulness...we put our faith in ourselves. God calls us to tithe...but we want a new bigscreen tv.

And yet God is there for us in the midst of our running. You see, the fish that swalloed Jonah was not a punishment but rather an act of grace. Jonah was sinking fast and gertting wrapped up in the weeds at the bottom of the sea. It is God's grace that sent a fish to rescue him. God comes after us when we run away but he often brings us back through an example of grace.

I wonder how many times I play the Jonah card on a weekly basis. Probably more often than I think or even want to realize. Iwant to be conscious of what God calls me to do and conscious at the same time of my tendency to go to Tarshish.

Our 4th of July

So here I am drinking a cup of Cantonese Green Tea and listening to Rod Stewart's 'A Spanner in teh Works" cd...really lgood cd with good vocals, catchy tunes and a very laid back approach.

Our 4th of July was quite busy. It began actually the night before when I pullda muscle in my back (a particular muscle that I seem to pull every 4 months or so). So I didn't sleep well. There was a littel parade in Hercules that we were all going to go to, but Christ ended up taking the kids herself and letting me sleep after downing some Advil.

We then went to a community carnival in El Cerrito. Our friend Scott Cliatt is a cop in El Cerrito and was working the estival. His wife Melissa is Christa's best vrriend their son Joe is Caleb's best friend. They were both born in the same hosptial on the same day but we didn't know each other yet. We met a church about 4 months later.

We then had a BBQ at our house and the CLiatt's came as well as 2 teenage Spanish girls who were staying with the Cliatts as exchange students.

The brought over a tritip which I grilled with copious amounts of salt, fresh gtround black pepper and freish thyme. We also had some sausagtes made from chicken, fontina and spinach along with some BBQ bacon burgers. I also made what is fst becomiong my favorite dip. You just mix goat cheese, chopped, pitted Kalamata olives, chopped sundried tomatoes (NOT, I repeat NOT a waste of good sunshine, some fresh thyme, salt and pepper and a little olive oil for consistency. Spread it over baked crostini. Good stuff.

Fireworks were down at the Hercules waterfront and they put on a good show for small town fireworks. It wasn't just the Mayor's kid out there with a box of sparklers.

Boy, were we tired at the end of that. The kids were exhausted and frell right to slwwp...no questions asked.

Oh, the cd has changed... It's now Steven Curtis Chapman's Greatest hits. I love having my computer music on shuffle. You never know what is coming next.

Moving to Brentwood part 2

I've been able to connect with Steve With. He's the pastor a church in Brentwood called THe Orchard and he's very interested in us moving out there and being able to dig in and help with ministry. We already know some of the people at The Orchard-Christa's best friend and Caleb's best friend.

Working at Westamerica Bank won't be an issue if we are out there becuase of the nature of what I do. My office is in Fairfield but I'm only there one afternoon a week. Other than that I'm seeing car dealers throughout the Bay Area. It will be a little more of a commute but it is worth the sacrifice for a bigger house. The kids each really need their own bedroom and we need some type of office for my ministry stuff and Christa's flower works. Right now our office is in our dining room. We';ve totally outgrown this place.

Upcoming backpack trip

With 2 small children at home, backpacking has been a rare phenomenon the last few years. I used to go twice a year or so, but since 2003, when Caleb was born, I've only gone 3 times. But that will end in August when i take off for my first 4 day trip in quite a few years.

We're doing the famous Union-to-Spicer route which has become one of my favorites. Old Boy Scout territory and a gorgoues hike as well. It's about 7 miles in or so and we will layover for 2 nights. The Dardanelles are on the other side of the lake where we will camp at Spicer. The Dardanelles are the remnants of an extinct volcano but what is left is darkly beautiful. There are also a couple of other small lakes in the area for dayhikes and the fishing at Spicer is pretty good as well.

Kevin Bixby will be coming from Southern California and bringing his 2 teenage sons. What a treat to be able to spend 4 days with one of my best friends!! Paul Dietrich,Kim Mack and possibly Chris Bradshaw and Jim Hankins from Bay Hills will also be coming. I'm always somewhat selective on who I invite to such a trip. It's gotta be someone that I can put up with in the mountains for 3 days or so. This group will go together well and will have a good time together.

Houses in Brentwood

Why would we want to live in Brentwood??

We're looking at a house with 6 bedrooms, 3 baths, 3400 sq feet, 5 years old and new everything for 379K.

A lot of the houses have been 4 bedroom, 3 bath, 27oo sq Feet for about 330k.

You can't get this anywhere else in the Bay Area