Mackinaw
My mind is on other things; I am thinking about a long drive from the Detroit area to Mackinaw City, it’s about a 5 hour drive, with out stops. I am day dreaming about the sand, the white sand of Lake Michigan, like non-other I have ever seen. My mind is drifting to the wind blowing in off Lake Huron, sending in the smells and sounds of the Great Lakes.
Yes its vacation time, I am off for a long needed rest!
Each year my family and I take a trip up to Mackinaw City, We love it up there. Michigan offers so much beauty, and we just love the look and feel of Mackinaw, both the City and Island. So I am very excited!
To me there is nothing in the world like the Great Lakes, the sands of Lake Michigan, the Rocks of Lake Huron, the cold waters rushing past, sending memories of times gone by. Each wave sending new images and sounds, all creating new memories to hold close.
Upper Michigan holds a special place for me; to me God did some of his finest work here in Michigan. He created the perfect canvas, and perfection of beauty that allows me to paint memories that are vivid and pleasing to the heart.
If you have never been to the Mackinaw area you have never seen Gods artistic hand, you are missing one of his most spectacular displays of mixed media art, the sights sounds and smells are one of a kind!
As you may be able to tell, I really love the Mackinaw area, and I love Michigan. I have traveled the world, and have seen some really beautiful sights. I have seen homes older then The USA, and walked down roads that have been there for 1000 years, but in my eye nothing comes close to Michigan’s beauty, namely the Mackinaw area.
I always enjoy this trip, we do the same things each year, but to me really, what we do don’t matter, I could just sit looking over the Straits of Mackinaw for a week and I would be content. It’s really about where I am and who I am with, that’s also part of the fabric of the canvas, it’s the pigment of the colors I use to paint my vacation memories. To me, having my family with me to help me paint the colors of the vacation is a must; with out them the colors would be less bright and vibrant.
My trip to Mackinaw is a trip that refreshes not only my energy but more importantly my soul. I see God and all his glory and wonders when I am in Mackinaw with my family; it truly is a spiritual trip for me.
Paul
p.s. my families consist of my sister Carol, her three girls Katie, Molly, Hanna our friend Theresa and Luciano. This year we also welcome Grant in to our family…
p.s.s. I will be on vacation until July 7th, so no new post until the 8th. God Bless
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To each of us faith is personal, it’s not something that we can really explain or really even share. Faith is a deep rooted emotion, its controls and is controlled at the same time.
To me, faith is the root of who I am. It is from the root that I grow, both up and down, like a tree whose roots grow deeper in to the soil, establishing a strong root system. A system that protects and feed the tree, and the tree also grows up and out, establishing new limbs and leafs, allowing the tree to absorb the life around it, and offering protection to others and it self. Faith, for me, is the same.
exit with a few less leafs and maybe a missing limb or too, but all-in-all we will still be a strong tree, rooted in our faith, growing and reaching both, in to our past and in to our future.
With the 4th of July nearly upon us, I thought I would take a moment to talk about freedom, freedom worth fighting for.
and promote her ideals all over Gods green earth. Our freedom was not free, we have paid the highest price for it, and we have paid the price of blood, the blood of our brothers and sisters.
out. Her history and her memory is being challenged and slandered, her valiant past is being turned in to nothing more then gun toting cowboys with a bad attitude. America is being displayed as a woman who once thought she was a beauty, but now is nothing but a want-a-be with a bad hair day.
she has opened her arms to all who have no place to call home and welcomed them with love and understanding.
To me, it seems that people make things way to complicated, they add layers of confusion to topics, and they remove the simplicity from them and just make them way to complicated.
Jesus tells us to be non-complex to be simple. He instructs us in very simple stories and parables. And he leads a very simple life, and came from a very simple back ground.
So stop complicating life, reduce it to the simple, and learn to enjoy the “simple things” in life a little more. Your faith should not be that complicated, it should be one of childhood innocence, one of simplicity and great satisfaction. God did not create us to complicate his creation; he created us for one very simple reason, to love.
is up to us. If we don’t use our gift of compassion, the gift it self becomes useless. God’s gift of love sits in the box, all wrapped up and never opened, what a waste.



adult, ready to lead her own life. In a few more weeks she will be off to University and will continue her life journey. But until then, my sister can relax knowing she has done a good job, and the celebration was as much for her daughter and affirming her accomplishments as it was for my sister.
God’s hand is in all that we do, we see His work everyday, all around us, but all too often we are too caught up in our own lives to see it, or appreciate it.
hands chisel
How often do we say prayers, but don’t really mean them, or understand them? Think about Sunday Mass, we say the same prayers each week, but do we really stop to think about what we are saying? Take the simple prayer of “Lord I am not worthy to receive you, but only say the word and I shall be healed” Short and sweet, only 18 words, but 18 words that can change your life, if you allow them to.
A Call To Action…
demand more from us.