Hello dear readers! Hope you’re having a most excellent June.

Here’s the first post in a series. Every month I’ll dig through the archives and dust off a few posts from years gone by. Consider it a “time capsule.” All posts are historical, but some are occasionally hysterical, and all offer a glimpse into the ideas, lessons, and adventures that have shaped the journey.

Now, here are posts from Junes-gone-by on my blog that I think are fun and worth reading! I hope you’ll peruse a few! If you’re not a subscriber yet, please hit the subscribe button!

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In Notes from the Trail history:

• Best Headlines from Apple’s WWDC - 2008! (June 9, 2008) With this week’s Apple WWDC and its promise of a better AI-powered Siri (It’s only been 11 years of “Siri what’s the weather today…?” with a response of “I found this on the web check it out.”) But it’s fun to look back at what was being announced in 2008.

• Adios Twitter, for now… (June 9, 2008) Yes. I’ve been on Twitter/X a long time! “Back in the day,” Twitter would occasionally go down, and the site would give you the image of what was called the “fail whale.” I was on Twitter then as “journeyguy.” Read my story here of losing that account and my subsequent frustration with the total lack of X support in recovery. I love this old post, because we were calling Twitter “microblogging” back in 2008.

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• Welcome new readers... (June 8, 2006) Yes, I’ve also been blogging a long time! Here’s an earlier introduction to me. It’s surreal/fun/sad to see who I gave shout outs to (other bloggers) who are no longer blogging. Did social media kill blogging? Has there been a revival on good, long-form blogging in the last few years?

• The Work Behind the Word (June 2, 2004) This was a faith post. Are you bad at waiting? Perhaps you’re in the “way.” In golf terms, we need to let God “play through.” We are delaying His progress by our slow and pitiful play.

• On invalid signatures, rejection, reflection, and relief (June 13, 2014) Yep, I was almost a politician once. Here’s my story of running for city council.

• Why I am not responding to your texts (June 3, 2013) I tried a DLAE (Digital Lifestyle Adjustment Experiment). I exchanged my iPhone 5 for a 10 year old dumb phone.

• Mowing to country music (June 22, 2017) Mowing is therapeutic for me. It’s one of the few things that I do in life that I get to see instant results. And I still listen to country music when I mow. And daydream. This was a great post about a Luke Bryan song.

• Is it good for you to burn with anger? (June 6, 2022) This is another faith post. What if underlying anger was THE issue of our culture today? What if it was the kindling for all of our cancel culture, outrage machine? Do we have a right be angry? This post examines the results of an angry prophet and may implode our protestations of “righteousness indignation.”

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Being an Apple guy has not always been popular or fun. I can vividly remember having to defend my use of Apple computers to friends. I’ve been ridiculed for not having a “real computer.” Yep. Those were the days. When I plunked my first Apple laptop down on a table in a coffee shop back in the late 1990s, I was stared at.

My, how times have changed.

It’s been years since I wrote Ode to Steve. Steve Jobs announced his second departure from Apple in 2011. That departure hit hard. Steve was fighting pancreatic cancer, and it didn’t look good. He passed away that October. I’ve contended in several places that Apple lost its creative way after Steve, opting instead to simply make money.1

In the article, I penned a “thank you” to him. I doubt he ever saw it.

This week, in spite of an earthquake and a hurricane, all i’s have been on you, Steve. As you make this transition, my sincere prayers are with you - for your strength, health and healing. Also, because none of us truly knows our remaining days, I am praying for you to become a joyful follower of Jesus Christ. If I had an opportunity to sit down with you tonight, I’d challenge you like you challenged John so many years ago, “Do you want to sell glass and circuits for the rest of your life, or join me in following the One who has changed the world?”

In the end, when it comes down to it, we all have earthly loves. One of mine is all things Apple. But that love pales in comparison the love and gratitude I’ve found in following the Creator of the first apple. Mankind’s misuse of that apple didn’t turn out so well. I hope that my use of Apples in these days always points to and glorifies the grace and love of Jesus Christ.

In that blog, I chronicled my Mac/Apple history. It’s still hard to believe that I never had owned a personal computer before I graduated from college. I took a typing class in high school - on typewriters!

I’ve become a technological big boy since then. I’ve owned a lot of Apple computers in the last 15 years. I knew you needed to pause from your scrolling for a bit to take a tour down Apple lane with me.2 Mind you, these are just computers - the iPhone, iPod and iPad history is just… crazy.

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• 1988 - I co-founded AdVantage Advertising3 with Mitch Bettis in Arkadelphia, Arkansas. We bought three Macintosh SEs for the business.

• 1991 - I sold my portion of Advantage Advertising… and I bought a brand spanking new Mac LC (looked like a gray pizza box), began collecting baseball and football cards, and a few other purchases.

• 1997 - I bought my first tower Macintosh. The Performa 6400 was a doozy of a machine!

• 1997ish - I had been working with the Arkansas Baptist State Convention as a campus minister at the University of Arkansas at Monticello for a couple of years. I convinced them to buy me a laptop. The Powerbook G3 333 Pismo was my first laptop! It may be one of my favorites ever. It was comfortable and had an amazing form factor. “It was the first laptop to use the PowerPC G3 (PPC740/750) series of microprocessors, and was marketed as the fastest laptop in the world...” (per Wikipedia)

• 2003 - I resigned as a campus minister and became a church planter/pastor. I started Noble Design - a new graphic design business. I bought another Mac tower computer - the first Powermac G5 1.8 single. It was a beauty and a behemoth.

• 2004 - Carolyn had her own photography business called a Noble photo. We bought her an eMac. It was another all-in-one unit marketed to schools/students. It had a G4 processor in it and a 17” screen.

• 2005 - I helped my sister with a design project for Alltel, and as part of the payment, I received a used Powerbook G4 17″ 1ghz! Also in 2005, we upgraded Carolyn to Apple’s first Mac Mini, and I sold my Powermac G5 and bought iMac G5 20″.

• OK. This is getting tedious. And hard to remember. So here’s the dump of my Mac history that I can recall:

  • iBooks - our kids had clamshells! These were some of the most delightful designed units Apple ever made. I still have one!

  

  • Macbooks, white and black ones

  • Macbook Pros, silver and black ones (my current laptop is a 2024 MacBook Pro 14” M4)

  

  • Numerous iMacs after the iMac G5

  • A silver Mac Mini

• The silver Mac Mini (circa 2012) may have been the last desktop Mac we’ve owned. We’ve had laptops ever since, including our kids.

My Favorite Mac

Perhaps my favorite Mac of all time was my Powerbook G3 Pismo. Those were the days that taking a Mac laptop out of your bag in a coffee shop still brought stares. Macs were still battling to be thought of as “real computers.”

It was hefty. I had to convince Arkansas Baptists to buy me one. I was the first campus minister in Arkansas to have a Mac. They had been PC-only to that point. But in the early 2000s, Macs began to turn a corner in the public’s view.

In 2006, Apple aired its infamous “Get a Mac” commercial series which ran for three years. You may remember them as “I’m a Mac … and I’m a PC” dialogue between actor Justin Long as the cool, youthful Mac and comedian John Hodgman portraying the stuffy, awkward PC. The last ad aired on May 21, 2010.

Those ads helped pave the way for a generation of Mac users. I can't count how many people I helped convert to Macs. To this day, friends remind me that they bought their first Mac because of my incessant propaganda/Mac evangelism. Of course, I was helped by Steve Jobs’ brilliant marketing of Apples to schools and colleges.

Today, it’s rare to see college students with a PC, unless they’re in engineering or science fields.

How about you?

• When did you buy your first Mac?

• What was your favorite Mac?

• How were you influenced to get a Mac?

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Ordinary.

You are ordinary. Unremarkable. Flying under the radar. Minding your own business. Seeking anonymity.

You’d be terrified if someone put a mic in your hand and pulled you onto a stage. If invited into the spotlight, you’d prefer a lamp in your living room. Your life verse is, “But we encourage you, brothers and sisters, to do this even more, to seek to lead a quiet life, to mind your own business, and to work with your own hands, as we commanded you…”1 You pray regularly for the president and those in authority, for according to 1 Timothy 2:2, that enables you to “lead a tranquil and quiet life in all godliness and dignity.” A quiet life. Sounds perfect.

You are content to live your own life. You don’t want to bother anyone, and you don’t want anyone to bother you.

I remember my parents telling me as a kid that I shouldn’t fear wasps. “If you leave them alone, they will leave you alone.” That was a lie. The amount of times that I’ve been stung minding my own business is the stuff of legends. I’ve even been stung in the leg by a wasp in the middle of the night, under my sheets.2

Leaving stinging insects alone may not keep you from being stung. I think the advice is true for people.

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Here’s why.

It’s unloving to not invite people into your life or to involve yourself in the lives of others. At the root of your desire to be left alone or to mind your own business may be a more insidious motivation than you realize. It’s called fear.

But what about those scriptures?!

Don’t they give you spiritual permission to “turtle.”

Not at all. Those verses weren’t talking about being uninvolved in people’s lives. They were speaking about the joy and fruitfulness that comes when we live a life of love and service. Only through engagement with others do we then find a life of contentment and are able to enjoy times of solitude and peace, knowing that we have done what we were created to do… love God and love our neighbors.

I read C.S. Lewis’ The Four Loves earlier this year (reviewed here). He addressed the lie that uninvolvement in the lives of others equals safety. Lewis framed involvement as love.

“To love at all is to be vulnerable. Love anything and your heart will be wrung and possibly broken. If you want to make sure of keeping it intact you must give it to no one, not even an animal. Wrap it carefully round with hobbies and little luxuries; avoid all entanglements. Lock it up safe in the casket or coffin of your selfishness. But in that casket, safe, dark, motionless, airless, it will change. It will not be broken; it will become unbreakable, impenetrable, irredeemable. To love is to be vulnerable.”3

In truth, uninvolvement in the lives of others is disobedience… to Jesus. How we can we “mind our own business” and also “make disciples of all nations?”4

Christians, it is unloving to live a quiet life when we value our privacy over gospel priorities. Even when those who don’t follow Jesus choose love over isolation, they discover fulfillment and depth that far surpasses selfish solitude. Yet, the highest involvement-engagement is not with people, but with God.

We should not leave God alone, for He has not left us alone. He entered the world, took on flesh, and then took our sins upon Himself. Jesus conquered death that we might have life… and not be left alone. His involvement-engagement is called love.

God knew that leaving us alone would be the worst thing that could happen to us. If we are to be followers of Jesus, we must not leave people alone either.

Here are five (at least) practical thoughts on how to apply this to your life:

1. Don’t bristle at interruptions. Most of us structure our lives to avoid inconvenience. If you get frustrated at being interrupted by an unexpected phone call or text, what does that say about how you view people? Do you overvalue your own schedule and privacy? Some interruptions are invitations to involvement. Stop treating busyness as a shield from engagement with others.

2. Examine whether “privacy” is actually fear. Your quest for a quiet life may be a disguise for selfishness. Ask yourself:

   1. Am I avoiding people because I am unloving? Or because vulnerability scares me?

   2. Have I sought emotional safety instead of spiritual maturity?

   3. Who am I intentionally keeping at arm’s length? And why?

3. Redefine a “quiet life.” Biblical quietness is not disengagement. “Minding your own business” in Scripture never meant emotional withdrawal or relational indifference.

4. Take one relational risk this week. Avoiding risk also avoids transformation. Identify one vulnerable step:

   1. Confess a struggle. Your vulnerability invites others to step from behind their walls too.

   2. Reconcile with someone. This combats pride and invites humility.

   3. Mentor a younger believer. Over a few months, describe your own spiritual journey, lessons, failures and gratitude in growth.

   4. Ask a lonely person to lunch. It’s not hard to find lonely people. Loneliness is an epidemic. Intentional involvement is better medicine than injections.

   5. Serve someone without convenience controlling the decision.

5. Measure spiritual health by involvement, not comfort. What would happen if everyone practiced Christianity exactly like You? Would the church be in a healthier, more vibrant condition? Would Jesus be glorified? Would more people trust in Jesus as their Savior? Would more people be served and helped?

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