This summer was a massive time of travel for me. 4 different countries, 13 different cities, and 15 different beds within a 5 week window.  It was a good and profitable time, but physically demanding. Throw in the fact that my time in the States (outside of our Alaskan cruise as a family) was FILLED with work meetings and the result is me still stuck in recovery mode here in Asia.

The time, though, was a blessing on many fronts. The work went very well, but more so, it was a wonderful time of being with my family and a few close friends. In addition to the Alaskan cruise that all 15 of us undertook (click here for the post I wrote during the cruise), we had other times of fellowship and celebration as a family of Mom and Dad’s 50th wedding anniversary.

As I sit here in this steamy coffeehouse in Asia reflecting over this time, though, three realities come to mind most about the summer that draws me to want to live a life of greater purpose, joy, and intentionality.

1. Whales are awesome and Alaska is beautiful – I won’t go off on this much here since I have already written a post about it, but I did want to say this. . . whales are awesome.  On multiple occasions we had whales swim past our ship.  One day, we took a smaller boat on a whale watching excursion in Juneau.  Seeing mammals the size of school buses swimming in a pack of 9 within 20 yards of our boat was incredible.  I messed up in trying to take a picture and instead got 2 seconds of video footage (see the “video” below).  Probably won’t get me a Pulitzer Prize or anything, but I hope you enjoy this video captured on my iPad.  Not much here in the way of purpose and intentionality, but [Read more…]