Author: lyftingmeup

Last night I celebrated my son Mateo’s 40th birthday two days early. In the semi-chaos of our lives I was able to meet him and my daughter-in-law at the Sushi Den on South Pearl St. I have heard wonderful things about it for years but this was the first time for all of us. We were not disappointed. One comment about having my youngest turn 40…YIKES!!! After the dinner we went outside to stand on the curb and enjoy the afterglow in the evening light and cool air. We had noted two moms herding five little kids out of the…

My life has taken a very interesting new direction.  I am “Back in The Saddle Again”.  It looks like I will be serving as the Senior Pastor at Greeley First Christian Church for the foreseeable future.  In the past 19 months I have logged 3805 Lyft rides – you might call that ‘full time’.   I have found joy and purpose driving complete strangers all around this five county area, and turning my riders into the stars 🌟 of this blog.  How my new job affects what happens in our conversations in this blog, goes like this: I will be…

So I am on a one week Lyft sabbath.  I am currently in Tulsa, America, where I am reconnecting with a few dozen friends who began college together in August of 1967, at Phillips University.  When we walked into the venue last night with the normal anxiety that seems to accompany these kinds of moments, I thought to myself, “Look for the old people”.  I spotted a familiar grey haired friend and a most beautiful evening began.  By the way, for you folk out there who are anticipating riding in my red car on a Lyft ride, that will be…

I had just finished a very interesting ride with a young man who is the intermediary between doctors, organ donors, and recipients.  We were going from central Denver to the Tech Center.  We had an engaging conversation about my days as an ambulance driver and years in pastoral ministry, and his time as a Navy Corpsman.  QI shared with him that when my brother Don was killed in 1979, we were able to donate his eyes.  I was thinking that this ride would make an interesting blog but what it did was really set up my encounter with Stacy. My…

It was 1987 and my daughters were 13 and 14.  We had stopped in to see my Grandmother Opal, who lived in a retirement high rise in Colorado Springs.  She was 93 years old and still living independently in a facility where she had outlived every person who had been there when she moved in.  I could write a chapter on Opal, but let me sum up her life by this brief bio: she graduated from what is now the University of Northern Colorado in 1912, in the first class that allowed women to go to college.  She was an…

So I began the morning in the rain at 6am. I was not driving for Lyft but rather playing in a charity golf tournament up in Broomfield. It was a “best ball scramble” tournament which is the only kind of golf match that I would dare show my face in. For those of you not familiar with this format it goes like this: Everyone of the foursome hits their tee shot and then the team plays the best ball from there. What this allows is for a guy like me to contribute to competitive golf. Today I actually hit a…

I am asked about once a month how I found myself in ministry. It’s an interesting question, that has no simple answer. I usually say things like “I backed into it” or “I got one of those TO OCCUPANT invites.” Or “I sucked at golf so I tried something where I could work on Sunday. My son Mateo once said to me in a moment of a 13-year old’s defiance “You only work an hour a week.” I volleyed back “You ought to go into the ministry Mateo, as much as you like to goof around”. “Oh No! Not me!!!…

I found myself volunteering at the 9 News Health Fair way up in northwest Arvada.  One of the great side benefits of Lyft driving is making use of times when you are away from home doing other things, and then turning on the app.  It was a little past 9am and I was headed towards home when the ‘ping’  came.  I pulled up in a cul de sac on this beautiful spring morning.  She came walking out of the house wearing a pink ball cap and sweatshirt.  I could tell from a distance that she had no hair.  Checking the…

She called me right after I pulled up to her Capitol Hill apartment and told me she was running a bit late and that it might take her a couple of extra minutes to get out to the car.  I told her that was fine with me and to take her time.  She got in the front seat, her long brunette hair was shower wet and just combed.  “I am so sorry, I have had a really bad two days.  I missed work yesterday and am running late today.  I work all the way out in Golden so I hope…