It’s great to be back home in my native Orange County! This time I’m accompanied by Brenda, Josh, Betsy and their spouses. We are celebrating the wedding of my cousin’s son, and I’m officiating!

It’s always great to be amongst family; it’s with them that I realize how blessed I am. When a bummer day tries to force me to feel like giving in to a down-trodden spirit, I remember that I’m so fortunate and I quickly change moods for the better.

Growing up in a loving family where your place at the table is remembered even when you are away is comforting. I’ve always felt the sense of belonging, and that security can be traced to my wonderful OC upbringing.

There is so much to do here with so little time to do it. We will have to be very selective with our activities and visits, but a requisite trip to Disneyland is on the books, for sure.

Sunday I’ll be leading worship at Worship Life Calvary in San Clemente. My buddy, Holland Davis, is pastor there and I am pumped to share some new music as well as hear some great preaching.

The summer is shaping up! There’s a ZZ Top concert later this month, where I’ll take my rock and roll bride. Blessed, I say!

My love for country music started with the Bakersfield Sound–led by Buck Owens–a steadfastly independent offshoot of mainstream Nashville, also known as West Coast Country. As a kid in the late 60s and early 70s in Southern California, I had a little AM radio and often tuned into a local station that played all of the West Coast greats, as well as the popular fare coming out of Nashville. As I grew into my teens, I enjoyed the country rock sounds that were brewing through groups like the Eagles and psychedelic crazies like Commander Cody and the Lost Planet Airmen and the New Riders of the Purple Sage.

That twang–that pure “Fender Telecaster into a Fender amp” sound isn’t dead…by a long shot. It still lives through the efforts of my favorite country artists today, including Marty Stuart. Marty offers the down-home warmth and every-man songs that attract non-musicians as fans, along with wicked chops on guitar and mandolin, and a killer team of top-notch band mates that attract musicians like myself to his music.

I came across the following article by Peter Cooper in the Tennessean Sunday about Marty Stuart. Check out the sentiment that rings true not only with me, but with a host of others who follow Marty, his music, his Saturday night TV show, and his relentless passion to keep the twang alive.
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Remember Marty Stuart?

Newspapers throughout the world are failing, one by one. In an age where information can be had by the click of a mouse, daily newspapers have taken a major hit. If it were not for the quality and the special local features offered by our paper here in the Nashville area–The Tennessean–we would probably opt out of having a newspaper delivered to our driveway altogether.

The Tennessean now offers a finely constructed e-version of the paper, available on PC and Mac computers, and  iPads and Apple/ Android phones. In an attempt to stay relevant in this digital age, the 200-year-old paper (through numerous acquisitions and mergers in it’s history) took a bold step: The middle-Tennessee newspaper publisher is offering this souped-up digital version in addition to it’s print version, as a part of the monthly subscription price, recently raised to accommodate the new offerings . Many cities have already taken this big step toward the future–and survival–but unlike many other markets, big and small, the Tennessean has decided to forgo offering the e-version of the paper through outlets such as the Apple Sore and Amazon.com. Instead, they are going at it in an independent fashion: through their own website. The cool thing is, we can send a complimentary e-subscription to a limited number of non-newspaper subscriber friends and family; a great way to market this new digital platform to potential customers.

I appreciate the journalistic concept of a local paper. It is still important to document culture, the life of the community–it’s special interest stories of folks who make a difference in our little world–apart from the national news that, many times, can overshadow the local market. Fifty years from now, because of the journalist’s efforts here in middle-Tennessee, we will be able to search the archives for stories of the the lives, the little happenings, the joys, sorrows and achievements of the local folks we hold dear.

Because of the e-version of the paper, when I go to California in a few weeks, I’ll still have The Tennessean at my fingertips when I wake up in the morning, via my iPad. Let’s continue to support our local papers, lest they fade into oblivion.

This past week my dad has re-watched Ken Burns’ “The War” on his computer. Throughout the week I sat and watched a few segments with him. I was reminded that my dad was a part of this great war, albeit on the younger side of the spectrum: he was just out of high school when he joined the Navy in 1944.

Tom Harvill, WWII

His time in the Navy took him everywhere but overseas. Because of his lousy eyesight, he stayed back stateside as a hospital corpsman, working hand-in-hand with the Marines in a hospital at Camp Lejeune, North Carolina. 

I’m glad because I have my dad to this day, and he’s reliving the music, the culture and seeing the young faces of people close to his age, frozen in time,  throughout the Ken Burns documentary. He’s almost 86-years-old, and many of the young people in the photos from the PBS special are mostly gone by now, even if they lived to a ripe old age. My dad is one of the last of a dying breed referred to as the “Greatest Generation.”

Today we celebrate the bravery, selflessness and determination of tens of thousands of soldiers–men and women, both young and old–who sacrificed their lives for our freedom, at home and abroad. My dad was one who served in two wars: WWII and the Korean War. Without the bravery of people like my dad, we might today be speaking Japanese, German or even Russian as our first language in America. 

We remember the fallen today, as well as those who survived and were fortunate enough to return home to tell about their harrowing experiences. God bless you all!

Once again I am inspired by my friend Dr. John Stanko and his thoughts on the subject of finding one’s purpose in life. My life was changed when I sat in one of John’s “purpose” seminars nearly twenty years ago. I was leading my own classes on worship at the same seminar, but when I had a break in the conference schedule, I was a student in his class. I am still a student as I receive his weekly “Monday Memo,” where he continues to ruminate on the pursuit of purpose.

In this week’s “Monday Memo,” John continues with the third installment in a trio of related articles–the first being “Purpose Prayer,” the second, “Purpose Food,” and this final installment in the series, “Purpose Thoughts.”

I  was particularly intrigued by thought #3, as it relates to pursuing one’s purpose as a profession.  Which points speak to you?

THE THOUGHTS

1. Purpose is more relevant than when I began teaching it 20 years ago.
   Why?  Because there are more opportunities available today than back
   then. When there are so many things you can do, you must ask the question what it is that you should do more than ever.
2. The number one reason why more people don’t know their purpose is
   because they don’t ask and keep on asking until they get an answer.
3. The number two reason why more people don’t know their purpose is
   because they try to figure out too quickly how they can make money from it. Thoughts about career, salary and benefits hinder or destroy
   emerging purpose thoughts.
4. The number three reason why more people don’t know their purpose is
   because they are afraid, not of failure, but of success!  Meditate on
   that for a moment.
5. The younger generation is not as interested in purpose as I would
   have thought.  They are interested in service and meaning, which emanate from purpose.  But because they have seen purpose kidnapped by salaryand career interests, they react to the concept of purpose for the wrong reasons.
6. Women continue to be the main consumers of my purpose message, probably because purpose was denied them for so long.
7. I still maintain that motherhood is a role and not a purpose – seldom is anyone’s purpose defined in terms of serving or helping
   another person exclusively, unless that person has special needs due to a physical or mental challenge.
8. It is never too early or too late in life to pursue purpose.
9. When I reached my 50s, I thought my development was pretty much
   over, that I would do what I had been doing, hopefully a little better
   or for more money.  To my surprise, my 50s were my greatest growth
   years.
10. I get more questions and sometimes opposition when I teach about
    doing what you love and what gives you joy than anything else I teach.
    That always surprises me.
11. When I started teaching purpose, I thought every church in the world (well, at least in the U.S.) would want their people to hear that message.  They have not and pastors continue to misunderstand and even oppose the purpose message.
12. If I could help churches get more volunteers to usher, work in the nursery or sing in the choir, I would be a busy and probably wealthy man.