Don King...

Dear Friend,

So on Tuesday (Sept. 26th) I arrived at Barnes and Noble right when it opened up at 9 am. I had missed a few journal entries and so I wanted to get myself caught up. I think that because I got to Barnes and Noble so early I got to pick any seat in the house. I chose this table off to the right so that I could set my computer up and listen to Album Leafs new album (Into the Blue Again) while writing. Also, I needed room for my journals and a place for my new Phoenix Suns hat to rest (preseason starts on Oct. 6th and so I need to start breaking in my new hat for this season). After I got everything set up I knew that there was one more thing missing…Cream Soda! There is nothing like an ice cold Cream Soda in the morning. So I went up to the counter and got my soda (it was a twist off…yes!) and with my Barnes and Noble discount card it came out to $1.89 rather than the normal $2.11! I was pretty excited!

So I got back to the table and sat down and began to catch up with my journal. There was lots to talk about and lots that I wanted it to remember for me. It wasn’t but 30 minutes into my time journaling that I received a text message. It was from Jimbo…the conversation went like this…

Jim: I would love to hang out with Don King.
Kyle: hmm.
Jim: You know that he is a Christian?
Kyle: Is he really!? Who told you this?!
Jim: This morning on 3 TV

This was the extent of our conversation that morning. There were no “hello’s” or “good morning’s” exchanged. It was really strange because I just sat there and thought to myself…Don King? He’s a Christian? Why does 3 TV care? That’s neat…kinda weird, though. Then I started to laugh at the fact that Jim and I were just talking about Don King. But after I got over Don King and his recent conversion I started to remember how much I love text messaging. Do you send text messages often? Have you ever sent a text message before? I love text message. I know that some people just don’t like the idea. But I do. I like it a lot. I love the randomness of a text message. I love the fact that you don’t have to have long conversations with people if you don’t want to. If you need to tell them you will be 5 minutes late - just send a text. If you want to see what someone is up to, or how their day is going, or just wanted to let them know you were thinking about them - just send a text. I, in some ways, see text messages as our generations version of a note. I have never just sent a note to someone in the mail just to tell them that I was thinking about them or telling them that I hope that they have a good day. But, I would imagine it feels pretty good to receive one. I can imagine this only because when I receive a text from people and they are just letting me know that they were thinking about me…or they wanted to just let me know that they wanted to hang out with Don King - it makes me feel special! It lets me know that someone is thinking about me…and who doesn’t like that?

I was reminded this past Tuesday of my love of text messaging.

I would love to hear from you sometime…send me a text (or someone else for that matter). A simple hello…or some random thought throughout your day…480.262.2643

Look forward to hearing from you soon.

Until then…spread the word…Don King is a Christian!

heart.soul.mind.
kyle diroberts

sorry this is long...

Dear Friend,

Thank you so much for your prayers…I really felt, in the truest sense of the word, like I was being prayed for. It felt good.

This past week was sad. I spent much of my time with Chad and his family. Often, I would just sit with them and not even say a word. Other times, I would offer to pick up items for them so they wouldn’t have to leave if they didn’t want to. And one time I just felt like Chad needed to get out of the house and so for a bit we left to grab a Jamba Juice. Often I would get home late in the night and, so tired and weak, I would return to the shortest verse in the bible…“Jesus wept” (John 11:35). Not that it made it any easier, but it was comforting to know that Jesus (who I believe to be God in human form) was sorrowful over the death of a friend.

My friend’s name that died was Mike. Mike committed suicide two Sundays ago (Sept 10th). Mike would always refer to me as his second big brother . . . I am close to his older brother Chad. We played basketball together all throughout high school, and ever since, I have remained good friends with Chad and the rest of the family. I don’t know all the reasons why Mike decided to take his life on that Sunday afternoon. But there is one thing I know for sure . . . he is in Heaven as we speak.

His funeral was this past Saturday (Sept 16). There were a lot of people there. Someone told me that around 1000 people showed up. The presence of that many people was actually quite powerful. To be honest, I wasn’t sure what type (Lutheran, Baptist, etc) of church it was held at, but it felt Catholic in many ways. I heard someone there refer to the officiators as ‘priests,” and, so for the sake of this blog, I will call the officiators priests.

The service itself was intended to celebrate Mike’s life. But it was still sad. I sat next to Lolly and my family at the service. A couple of days before the funeral Mike’s mom asked me to speak at the funeral. I was honored to do this for the family.

So Saturday came.

It was really awkward at one point because the priests were talking about Mike and how they remembered Mike being in confirmation classes. They were talking about how they remembered Mike getting baptized. They said that they believed Mike was in Heaven because he was confirmed and baptized.

This was hard for me to hear. I don’t know what you think on the matter of baptism my friend, but I don’t share those same thoughts as the priests.

After the priests were finished talking, some of Mike’s friends from high school and college came up and shared some funny stories . . . they were really funny too.

But once they had finished, I got to share. I wanted to share this one story that had been on my heart the whole week . . . it was an eyewitness account. About 4 or 5 years ago (I am really bad with dates and times), I was leading a house church for this youth group I was working for. We met on Wednesday nights. It was a sweet time in ministry, and I will always remember those Wednesday nights. We would worship together . . . sometimes through song . . . other times we would worship with our minds as we would challenge ourselves with different ideas and thoughts about God and who He was and is. Mike had asked me what I was up to, and so I told him about the house church. He seemed really excited and wanted to go with me one Wednesday night. I said yes, of course, but I told him that he would have to call me because I was never going to force him to go to church with me. Well, sure enough, about two weeks later, he called me up, and he told me that he wanted to go to the house church. I told him that I would pick him up so that he didn’t have to drive by himself and show up and not know too many people. He said that was cool, and so I picked him up on Wednesday. It was awesome because on the way from Mike’s house, I could take some back roads that had these really big dips -- we would drive really fast over the bumps. It’s funny (in a sad way) to think about because that is the stuff that is supposed to kill you. Anyways, we get to the house, and the house is full of kids. We walked through the door, and pretty much everyone knew Mike. I told the people at the funeral that I had Mike introduce me to people that night because he seemed to know more people than me. It was great. So at one point in the night, Mike and a few of his friends and a few other guys that he didn’t know and myself went outside and sat by the fire pit and just talked. We talked about a lot of different spiritual things. But I remember that the conversation didn’t really start until we got into the car. It seemed like just as the car door shut as we were leaving, Mike turned to me and in a really frustrated tone told me that he gets so upset at the fact that Christianity is so overwhelming. Then I remember he asked me to brake it down for him . . . he wanted the basics. I asked him to open up my bible to Acts 16:30, and I asked him to read it to me once he got there. When he finally got there he started to read, “Sirs, what must I do to be saved? They said, believe in the Lord Jesus, and you will be saved….” Then I told him to go to Romans chapter 10 verse 9, and so he started to turn the pages, and, once he got there, I told him to read it out loud to me again, and so he read, “if you confess with your mouth Jesus is Lord, and believe in your heart that God raised him from the dead, you will be saved.” There was a moment of that awkward silence, and then I told Mike that I think that’s it. I think it is that simple. Then Mike asked about this confessing . . . he asked what that looks like. I told that I think it looks like prayer. I think it looks like praying to Jesus and telling him that you love him and that you want to confess with your mouth what your heart believes and that you are Lord. There was again that kind of awkward silence. I then asked Mike if he wanted to pray that…he said he did. So I told him to go ahead and pray that out loud, and I will be right here next to you (by this time we were in his driveway at home). And so at the funeral on Saturday, I shared with everyone there my eyewitness account of Mike confessing with his mouth what he believed in his heart and that was that Jesus is Lord. Because of this moment with Mike, I know that he is in Heaven.

It was good to see lots of old faces from the past. I got to hug a lot of people that I hadn’t seen in a long time, which was good.

Thanks again for your prayers and traveling with me. And if you think about it, I know the family could still use a lot more prayer. What to pray for you ask? Pray as the Spirit leads…

I hope to write of happier tales next time we talk.

heart.soul.mind.
kyle diroberts

happy birthday to you...

Dear Friend,

James asks a question in his letter found in the New Testament (the far right half). It reads, “What is your life?” Then James goes on to say, “for you are a mist that appears for a little time and then vanishes.” -james 4:14

So I have read this verse in James what seems like a hundred different times, but recently I have begun to stare at it a little differently.

Do you ever go out to dinner and at some point during your meal you see what seems like all the people that work there (even your waiter, which is weird because you need more iced tea) and they gather around a table and they sing the Happy Birthday song?? Or what is even worse (in my opinion) is if it is your birthday and they sing to you. I hate that. I always feel bad for the people singing to me and also I feel really uncomfortable being sung to. But anyways that is beside the point. The song…now that is the point…there is something about the Happy Birthday song that makes me think of death. I know. It is strange. It should be a song that makes me think of life…right?

I think the reason for my abnormal thoughts about the Happy Birthday song is because I always think of movies when I hear that song. It is always those moments in the movies when they do those flashbacks of a persons life and they always show those scenes where all the friends and family are gathered around the person singing the Happy Birthday song to them. And it is always in slow motion because the director wants to capture the fun that they were having or the laughter that was being had. It is almost like they are trying to capture what things used to be like. This is normally because in the movie the person had died, or some other kind of tragedy had happened to them.

Well I was at this Mexican restaurant last week and sure enough the servers came out and they started to sing to this little girl…her name was Hailey (I hope I spelt her name right).

Happy Birthday to you…
Happy Birthday to you…
Happy Birthday dear Hailey…
Happy Birthday to you…

Watching them sing to Hailey that night made me think about the movies and then the thoughts about the movies caused me to think about what James said about our lives and how they are like a mist that appears for just a little time and then vanishes.

These words on Sunday got a little heavier…vivid…I had someone close to me commit suicide…up until Sunday I hadn’t really known anyone who had died like that. I mean I had heard of people before, but never did I know them well.

I don’t know what to say really. I guess I just never thought that suicide could be a part of what that mist is that James is talking about…or what ‘a little time and then vanishes’ entails.

heart.soul.mind.
kyle diroberts

p.s. Pray for me. I have loved a lot this week so far and there is still much more love to be given…I’m tired and a little weak. thank you.

luminous nazarene

Dear Friend,

I found this in an old high school physics book…

Lesson 1: Reflection and Its Importance
The Role of Light to Sight

The objects which we see can be placed into one of two categories: luminous objects and illuminated objects. Luminous objects are objects which generate their own light. Illuminated objects are objects which are capable of reflecting light to our eyes. The sun is an example of a luminous object, while the moon is an illuminated object. During the day, the nuclear reactions on the sun’s surface generate sufficient light to illuminate objects on Earth. The blue skies, the white clouds, the green grass, the colored leaves of fall, the neighbor’s house, and the car approaching the intersection are all seen as a result of light from the sun (the luminous object) reflecting off the illuminated objects and traveling to our eyes. Without the light from the luminous objects, these illuminated objects would not be seen. During the evening when the Earth has rotated to a position where the light from the sun can no longer reach our part of the Earth (due to its inability to bend around the spherical shape of the Earth), objects on Earth appear black (or at least so dark that we could say they are nearly black). In the absence of a porch light or a street light, the neighbor’s house can no longer be seen; the grass is no longer green, but rather black; the leaves on the trees are dark; and were it not for the headlights of the car, it would not be seen approaching the intersection. Without luminous objects generating light which propagates through space to illuminate non-luminous objects, those non-luminous objects cannot be seen.

Without light, there would be no sight.

None of us are light-generating objects. We are not brilliant objects (please take no offense) like the sun; rather, we are illuminated objects like the moon. We make our presence visibly known by reflecting light to the eyes of those who look our way. It is only by reflection that we, as well as most of the other objects in our physical world, can be seen. And if reflected light is so essential to sight, then the very nature of light reflection is a worthy topic of study among students of physics.

If you are a Christian and reading this I would assume you are thinking about yourself (illuminated) in comparison to Jesus (luminous)…and if you are a person who does not follow the ways of Jesus…I want to assure you that I did not find this information from a Christian Physics textbook.

I once read that Albert Einstein often referred to Jesus as Luminous Nazarene...

I quickly fell in love with this naming of Jesus.

And so with this physics description and Einstein and his portrait of Jesus illuminated in my head I came up with this photo…



The inscription on the cross reads...Luminous Nazarene in Greek.

heart.soul.mind.
kyle diroberts