This from my friend Mike Benson (and check my reaction at the end) --

KneEmail
"At the name of Jesus every knee should bow..." (Philippians 2:10).
Mike Benson, editor; Matt Gehlhausen, managing editor

THE LEADER OF the Imperial Trans-Antarctic Expedition was Sir Ernest Shackleton, a famous British explorer...

The expedition left South Georgia Island and sailed for Antarctica in December, 1914. While still 100 miles from the coast of Antarctica, the ship Endurance became locked in surface ice. For nine months the frozen ocean slowly dragged the vessel away from the continent, finally crushing and sinking it in November, 1915.

The group set out on foot to walk 400 miles across the ice, towing Endurances' three lifeboats and what they had salvaged from her. Traversing ice and water, they made it to barren, frozen Elephant Island, setting foot on soil for the first time in 497 days.

>From there, Shackleton and five others set out in a lifeboat for their original point of embarkation. The lifeboat took them 800 miles across the fiercest seas on planet earth -- the South Atlantic Ocean. Seventeen days later, almost a year and a half after leaving South Georgia Island originally, their tiny craft arrived. Shackleton and the others returned in a Chilean vessel to rescue the remainder of the crew from Elephant Island, not one of whom had perished.

The details of what these 28 souls endured during their odyssey are staggering. Living in frozen-stiff clothing which went unchanged for months. Frostbite. A diet of penguin and eventually their own sled dogs. Unrelenting sub-zero temperatures. And yet they endured. They persisted. They persevered.

THOUGHT: The Christian life is a journey of persistence--an adventure, even, because we do not know what each day will bring. Like the Shackleton expedition, it is an adventure filled with unexpected twists and turns. One minute you're making ground, basking in the warm glow of spiritual success, and the next you're watching your soul shatter as you fall back losing precious progress (David Jeremiah, "Two Steps Forward, One Step Back," The Persistent Christian Journey).

KneEmail #547: "For you have need of endurance, so that after you have done the will of God, you may receive the promise" (Heb. 10:36).

Bible reading for 01.08.04: Genesis 22 - 24.

You can access more information about Ernest Shackleton and the Trans-Antarctic Expedition at http://www.south-pole.com/p0000098.htm

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I wrote Mike and said:

Wow! Makes me shiver just reading about it.

And our little lives right where we are is the most exciting journey of all. Wrap Star Wars, Star Trek, Lord of the Rings, Rocky I-XXVIII, and all the rest together, and they don't come close to the thrill of our faith walk with the Lord.

Eventually, this story will show up here. and you can go here to subscribe.

This is what the building looked like before some architects moved in below me. Shortly, I'll have a shot of it after they tinkered with the front. The Snuggery is located on the top at the back. (The second-floor door is mine, but not the window -- yet.) I'm trying to see if the architects will let me have the other half of the top floor. The owner offered it to me, and I told him I'd think about it. While I was stupidly delaying, he rented it out with the bottom floor. So back in here I do my writing, thinking, studying, and plotting.

Best I remember, I rented The Snuggery in December, 2001, but it was four to six months before I actually made it my principal daytime hangout.

Of course, it didn't earn the name Snuggery until after it had been thoroughly broken in. So the official nomenclature delayed until this very day, Thursday, 8 January 2004.

As far as the name goes, the Brits are to blame, according to M-W:

Main Entry: snug·gery
Pronunciation: 'sn&-g(&-)rE
Function: noun
Inflected Form(s): plural -ger·ies
Date: 1812
chiefly British : a snug cozy place; especially : a small room

Last week, was it?, unusual atmospheric conditions put a large circle around the sun. I got three shots, though how does one take a picture of the sun with a digital camera? So I put the sun behind the edge of the roof and went at it.