Daily Grit by Wes Thorp

A Flint-area 4-year-old dies from abuse and torture

I just saw this WJRT-TV story about yet another death of a child to abuse and torture.  Yesterday, I posted about a 16-year-old who met the same fate.

What's on my mind this morning before church

I'm back on our living room couch checking out the headlines and emails and thinking about today and the rest of the week.  Before eating oatmeal with fruit on top and taking a shower before leaving for church, here's what I'm thinking about:

• My worship at church this morning-sermon series is about having an Undivided Heart.  The world has a way of taking personal attention away from Jesus Christ and what he's done for us.  I've been there, done that and with the help of God I want that to change.  
• Our neighborhood walk/ride today-We live in the southwest side of Lansing (MI) where there recently was two homicides.  Our Averill Woods neighborhood is a residential oasis where neighbors let their kids ride their bikes around the block and where they live with an uncommon unity.  Today's event will make a strong statement, I hope.
• My weariness with politics and politicians-I should be excited about the upcoming political campaign for this fall's elections, but I'm not.  It would be easy to just ignore it all, but one can't because the stakes are too high.  I am concerned about the rest of my future, that of my kids and my unborn grandson "Rocky."

Now to my oatmeal with craisins and flax and which will cost me 5 Weight Watchers Online points. 

Reading my Kindle on the beach in Destin, Florida

Have you ever taken a book to the beach and couldn't read it because the sun was too bright?

I think I've found the solution to that with my Amazon Kindle.  We spent a few days o the beach in Destin, Florida right on the Gulf of Mexico.  There's nothing like reading on the beach when it works.  A lot of the time, the glare from the sun is too much and the wind blows too hard to keep the pages from flapping around.

This time I took my Kindle which I've had for a year.  I have about 20 books on it, including a couple of study Bibles and a couple e-piles of political books.

How'd it work?  Great.  I could read each page very easily and I could make notes with little effort using the built-in keyboard.  With the waves crashing in the background, I could also clearly listen to the books being read to me.

What was my son Justin using?  His new iPad.  It worked even better. 

I will write more about the trip and upload more pictures.

Dave Porter talks about his life after being a successful mortgage broker

I've learned a lot from Dave Porter, a former mortgage broker from Okemos, MI who retired at age 50 to live the "good life" in a gated community in Scottsdale, AZ.  How's that working for him?  Check this video where he talks openly about his life since his retirement.  

I'm reading about 16-year-old Calista Springer who was tortured by her parents

Check these stories about the life and death of 16-year-old Calista Springer from Centreville, Mi.  She was tortured by her parents, restrained to her bed by chains and allowed to burn to death in a fire.  Her parents were just sentenced to long prison terms for the conditions surrounding her treatment.

I got involved in the issue while I was working for former State Rep. Lauren Hager who represented Port Huron and the surrounding area and where two-year-old Ariana Swinson was brutally-murdered by her parents.  My heart was changed forever by the life and death of this toddler.

The case of Calista shows that parents in Michigan are still abusing their children and leaving a trail of dead children.

All kinds of questions are raised by the ability of the state to protect kids and about a culture that knows this is happening and has little resolve to change it.

Do I have more to share on this topic?  You bet. 

The world this morning from my living room couch

I'm sitting on the couch in our living room right now looking east for any signs of the sun.  And I've been thinking about retiring this blog.

I started "Daily Grit" in October 2004 as an experiment.  I wanted to wrap my head around the writing style for blogs and around their utility for communicating in all types of positions.  I've learned a lot.

Since then I've written more than 1,700 posts about everything.  Much has centered around my life at that time and about my inexorable move as a member of the first class of baby-boomers towards being a senior citizen.

This morning I went back to the posts I wrote during my first blog year from October 2004 through the next twelve months.  What have I learned as a 63-year-old male?  To help me sort through those lessons, I will continue this blog for a while longer. 

What age are you?  What have you learned?  What have you not figured out yet?  What answers are you finding?

I'll be back.

Are Lansing (MI) churches failing in telling others about Jesus Christ?

There seems to be a lukewarm or less spiritual temperature in the Lansing-area.  Does this video from Trinity Church in Lansing help verify that?  It's a "man-on-the-street" where passersby were asked "Who Is Jesus To You."

Who is Jesus to You from TrinityWired Productions on Vimeo.