Just jump right in…….

Have you ever stuck your toe in the water and wasn’t sure if you wanted to get in?  What did you do?  I’ll bet a few times you just took a giant leap! Well this is my first night in New York, and the way I deal with the onslaught of so many folks is just go out to Times Square and dive in with the rest, and just walk around.  Carrying a camera is a must, tonight I used the P7100 which fit in my jacket pocket and just enjoyed some street shooting.  This is New York so don’t be shocked, trust me I am not showing you some of what I could have shot and didn’t.

It’s a lot like an article I read in U.S.A. Today on the plane flying up.  It was about the newly released book on the late Steve Jobs. The book is a very close look at the man, the myth, and the legend, and he was all the above.  He was a visionary of what people wanted in their technology and saw things we didn’t even know we needed, no question he was brilliant.  He was also extremely eccentric.  After reading the article I feel two things; I’m amazed at how much he accomplished in his field, and I feel extremely sorry for him.  With all he did, and amassed, he missed the centrally most important thing in life, a fundamental acceptance of faith as the central point of life.  In one of his last interviews he said, “The juice goes out of Christianity when it becomes too based on faith rather than on living like Jesus or seeing the world as Jesus saw it.  I think different religions are different doors to the same house.  Sometimes, I think the house exists, and sometimes, I don’t.  It’s a great mystery.”  I pray that Steve decided he did believe and did something about it before he lost his earthly life to cancer.  He was right about the focus needing to be on Jesus, I just wish he had stayed with that central truth.

I’m not judging Steve Jobs, I love him, I love what he did for us, and I want him to have what he deserves, and I hope that is eternity in that house he wasn’t sure of in the interview.  When I was a younger man I was so dedicated to my profession that I didn’t spend the quality time with my children that I should have and now I wish so much that I had.  Thank God I woke up in time to have many quality years with them and come to be a better father and later a good friend with Scott, Wesley, and Catherine.  Steve said in this book that he agreed to the  40 interviews, something he had never done, because he wanted his children to understand why he was absent so often.  I don’t want my life to end with the need for a book to do that.  Forgive me, but no matter what you accomplish in life, if it takes away from that fundamental duty, one that can’t be set aside, no matter how gifted you are, or how much you are accomplishing, you’ve missed the most important thing!  I can say that from the perspective of a man that did make that mistake, and saw how much damage it was going to cause.

Once again I’m not judging Steve Jobs, I’m just saying that some things in life are more important than Macs, iPods, iPhones, and iPads. Being a husband, father, friend, and a man with a handle on Who God is, and why Faith in Him is a vital matter.  I never met Steve Jobs, but if I had and he would have given me the opportunity, I would have told him this, “Steve, you’ve accomplished so much, I know you are pleased with what you’ve done, and you should be!  I want you to have the joy that you’ve brought to so many others, and peace and security too! Not the security that comes from money but the security from knowing He loves you and will never leave you!”

In the story it said that Steve’s father put him up for adoption, the life long pain of that must have been terrible, so much so that he never had a relationship with his birth father again.  His heavenly father never abandoned him though and was waiting for him until the very end, I pray they made amends………..

the pilgrim