Today's post carries what sounds like a theologically heavy title, but after last week's series of posts and the amount of commentary they generated, I'm starting the week light. Honestly, this week is just packed, so my mind is on other things.
No, today's extremely off-topic post has to do with treasure hunting.
My son recently got interested in buried treasure. Trying to find ways to occupy a particularly precocious nearly-six-year-old boy whose physicality matches his William F. Buckley-like vocabulary is tough on a perpetually sleep-deprived dad. Looking for a book on Amazon a few weeks ago, 
I saw a sidebar featuring a handheld GPS receiver available for $79. Not realizing they'd come down so much, I was intrigued because the sport of geocaching interested me. Being an outdoors type, anything that smacks of orienteering, backpacking, or the like catches my attention.
Formerly the hobby of disaffected twenty-something Ivy League grads whose dads sat on the board of Conglomo Coproration, geocaching has seriously taken off now that many handheld units are available for under $200. I picked up a Magellan eXplorist 210 (with a computer connection for downloading cache sites—a must-have feature) for only $116 this last week. Considering that the biggest outlay for geocaching is the GPS receiver, the whole hobby/sport is really cheap fun. With more than 1000 caches listed within twenty miles of my home, we've got a lot of adventure ahead of us for quite some time.
Needless to say, my son has eaten this up. We spent a total of six hours out finding caches on Saturday and Sunday. One of the cache locations was near a covered bridge—a beautiful spot. Several were located in early 19th century cemeteries near us, making for an interesting historical journey. And our very first cache my son found and not me. I'll never forget that excitement on his face.
So we're hooked. Any number of people can be involved. If you're looking for wholesome, family entertainment that can be done literally anywhere on the face of the planet, then check out the Geocaching.com Web site. Many of the caches we found and the log books we signed showed proof that Christians are pursuing this sport in large numbers. Plus, it's neat to see that a tiny cache located only two miles down the road from us had seen visitors from as far away as North Dakota. That's wonderful.
Have a great week and consider taking up geocaching.
Recently, I looked back over some “ancient,” decaying cassette tapes and started looking online for some of those classic songs. I put about two dozen of those songs into The iTunes Store and not a single one came up. There are so many classic bands and tunes from the 1970s through mid-1990s that are simply not available by any means. And that’s a crime. We stand to lose a true library of Christian music from that era if someone doesn’t get wise to collecting it into some digital format.
I can’t get MP3 versions of far too many songs. One of my favorite songs of all time is Mark Heard’s own version of “Strong Hand of Love,” but the only downloadable version out there is a pale copy (sorry, Bruce) by Bruce Cockburn. Anyone remember Albrecht, Roley & Moore? I’d love to get a copy of their song “Holiday Son,” but where? One of my favorite albums ever was Terry Talbot’s 
And sure, you can probably find a recent compilation that features Dallas Holm’s “Rise Again,” but what if you like his classic “Here We Are” better? Good luck! Tear up every time you hear Billy Sprague’s version of his great “How Could You Say No?” or “I Never Should Have Left You” by Sweet Comfort Band? Remember Prodigal and their rockin’ number “Just What I Need”? Wanna compare Jacob’s Trouble’s version of “Door Into Summer” with the original Monkees version? Well maybe that’s going a little far, but you get my point.