Seventh Third Time

Courageous

2012-02-12T06:57:00.000-06:00

Watching Courageous lastnight made me think of a conversation I overheard the other day. I was comingout of a store and two young ladies were talking while one of them was squatteddown, adjusting her 3-4 year old daughter’s coat. She said something like, “Oh,he pretends to be a good dad but he doesn’t get down in the floor and play withthem. He really doesn’t spend that much time with them.”

My mind went back toputting together Thomas train tracks with Dylan (which made me feel good) butunfortunately, it also went back to times when I would be working on somethingand was really short with him, essentially telling him to get lost with myactions. I certainly didn’t feel good remembering that.

I thought about it all theway back to my office that day, how that we are now seeing the results of alack of proper parenting in our society and how most of it can probably beblamed on fathers. Men want all the independence and carefree hours of theirteen years along with the “benefits” of a woman they want to be their mother, their lover, and the nanny. And these are the ones who stick around. It isshameful.

A real man will have thecourage to live as the resolution says:

THE RESOLUTION

I do solemnly resolve before God to take fullresponsibility for myself, my wife, and my children.

I WILL love them, protect them, serve them, andteach them the Word of God as the spiritual leader of my home.

I WILL be faithful to my wife, to love and honorher, and be willing to lay down my life for her as JesusChrist did for me.

I WILL bless my children and teach them to loveGod with all of their hearts, all of their minds, and all of their strength.

I WILL train them to honor authority and liveresponsibly.

I WILL confront evil, pursue justice, and lovemercy.

I WILL pray for others and treat them withkindness, respect, and compassion.

I WILL work diligently to provide for the needs ofmy family.

I WILL forgive those who have wronged me andreconcile with those I have wronged.

I WILL learn from my mistakes, repent of my sins,and walk with integrity as a man answerable to God.

I WILL seek to honor God, be faithful to Hischurch, obey His Word, and do His will.

I WILL courageously work with the strength Godprovides to fulfill this resolution for the rest of my life and for His glory.

As for me and my house, we will serve the Lord. –Joshua 24:15

Kindle

2012-02-11T15:58:00.000-06:00

Peg and Dylan gave me a Kindle for my birthday last year. I liked it immediately. It was light, thin, easy to hold in one hand and turn pages. I only had to have one hand out of the covers to read in bed. The aftermarket light didn't bother Peg and ran off the rechargeable battery which seemed to last forever, especially if I turned off the 3G connection. I played with the audio, changed the font size and played a few games. I took it with me to horse shows, work, church, a parking lot outside a store-just about everywhere, actually.

I started out with a couple of purchased books that were work related, books on technical writing and networking and quickly added two Bibles, two dictionaries and some free classics; G. K. Chesterton, Dickens, Dostoevsky and the like. I wasn't sure if I was enjoying it just because it was a new toy that I would soon tire of or whether I would actually continue to use it.

After almost 6 months, the Kindle still hasn't fell to the bottom of the toy box. It hasn't become my exclusive reading method. I still prefer a printed book in many instances; poetry, books I know well like the Bible, and anything not predominantly text based. The tactile difference between a book and the Kindle seems to bother some people but I haven't been reading for 10 seconds before I'm inside the words anyway, having completely forgotten about what I am holding.

I particularly like the Kindle for the free classics and non-fiction that I am reading slowly. I can read a chapter or a few pages of Pascal's Pensees, ponder on it a while and then switch to something else like a biography. It's nice to be able to carry a library of, what is now, 60 plus books in such a small package. Even better, I can quickly mark passages to go into a separate "clippings" book to be reviewed later. That is amazingly handy.

I have told Peg and Dylan several times that it is by far the best purchased gift they have ever given me. I don't suppose it's for everybody but for me? Oh yeah!

Books Read in the Last Six Months

2012-01-30T22:43:00.000-06:00

Most were highly enjoyed. A few provoked, made me think or inspired me. Three made me laugh*. Peck's is a Newberry winner and shouldn't be missed. None are 'throw aways' with the possible exception of the Castle mystery.

Disciplines of a Godly Man ~R. Kent Hughes
Man - The Dwelling Place of God ~A.W. Tozer
Forgotten God: Reversing Our Tragic Neglect of the Holy Spirit ~Francis Chan
A Christmas Carol ~Charles Dickens
*All Things Considered ~Gilbert Keith Chesterton
Testimony ~Neal Morse
North of Boston ~Robert Frost
Mountain Interval ~Robert Frost
Poems ~Edward Thomas
The Kid Comes Back ~John R. Tunis
The Collectibles ~James J. Kaufman
*A Year Down Yonder ~Richard Peck
Celebrating Christmas with Jesus ~Max Lucado
Heat Rises ~Richard Castle
O Little Town: A Novel ~Don Reid
Leaves of Grass ~Walt Whitman
The Murder at the Vicarage ~Agatha Christie
The Man Who Knew Too Much ~Gilbert Keith Chesterton
The Bible, (The Essential 100)
*Life on the Mississippi ~Mark Twain

Just A Joke!

2012-01-25T22:01:00.002-06:00

When we made Mr. Obama our POTUS,

I didn’t drink the koolaid he sold us.

It would be a crime,

To give him any more time.

In fact I think we should give him his notice.

But who do we have in the wing?

There’s Newt who wants to give it a fling.

But he’s on his third wife,

And a history of strife.

Let’s not make fig newton our King.

Well, what do you think of Ron Paul?

The man really has a lot of gall.

He sure isn’t lazy,

But I’m ‘fraid he is crazy.

No, I think his campaign needs to stall.

The blue bloods want to hire their Mitt.

Yes, they think he would be a big hit.

Let’s face it, he’s as boring,

As linoleum flooring,

We’ll all lose if Mr. Romney won’t quit.

Who’s left, oh yes, there’s Santorum,

Who claims that he’d never bore ‘em,

But he lost in his state;

Winning’s just not his fate.

We’d be better off just to ignore him.

Is there no one else we can pick?

Oh no, don’t even mention ol’ Rick.

Just take your pen,

And write me in.

You could do worse than a boy from “the Lick”.

Stained Glass Sky - Original Poem

2012-01-25T13:35:00.001-06:00

Amazing what that drunken

Tilt does to our planet when

We go 'round the merry sun.

The sky is like a litmus

Sheet that bleeds the color from

The ground and brush and trees,

That lose their leaves to become

Cames between the glowing panes

As day begins and day is done.

Written On Her Heart

2012-01-24T16:10:00.000-06:00

Unintentionalmiscommunication is a risk of writing. The reader doesn’t have the same context present in theirmind, does not have all of the assumptions and background to make it clear. It can take several readings ofmy own writing for me to decide if I have been sufficiently clear, and sometimesI am so close to my own writing that I’m never quite sure if it is clear or not.

A few weeks ago I wrote a blog post about my Grammie, MaryEsther Stevens. Reading back over it,there is something I said that is bothering me. I wrote, “I think that most ofwhat she did, she did out of love and so when she gave her heart to JesusChrist, His love just became a naturalextension of that law that was already written on her heart.”

My purpose for writing this was to point out that Grammiereally cared about people. In this way, she was a good example of what Paulsays in Romans 2. Even people who are unaware of God’s written law, demonstrate that his law is a part of them when they instinctively obeyit because of conscience. Because of this, Paul goes on to say that even if they are unaware of God’s writtenlaw, they are without excuse.

The part that is bothering me is that my words "natural extension" might suggestthat becoming a Christian was just building on qualities that she already had. That becoming a Christian was just being more disciplined, focused, or supercharged. That is not what happened to myGrammie.

In fact, I believe this way of looking at things has wreakedhavoc among professing Christians in our time. In an attempt to make the gospel easier toswallow, it has been presented as a way to take your life as it is and improveon it. The end result is that people pick and choose what seems good to themand ignore the rest. But the gospel message is always centered on the cross,more than a symbol, but certainly a symbol of the complete death of the oldsinful man.

We must come to the place where we surrender it all, die toself, and accept a new birth in Christ. There is no alternative, no shortcut.As A.W. Tozer said, “the faith of Christ does not parallel the world, itintersects it. In coming to Christ we do not bring our old life up onto ahigher plane; we leave it at the cross.”

When Grammie accepted Christ, she didn’t just becomeimproved. From some folks’ perspectives, she might have seemed to become worsein some ways. Truly surrendering to God is a joyful but humbling experience. Wesee for perhaps the first time the reality of the situation, our righteousnesshas been little more than dirty, moth-eaten rags. And it always would bewithout the presence of the Holy Spirit of God taking residence in our hearts.

Grammie was awe-struck at the mercy and grace of God in herown life. She told me several times how grateful she was. When she chose to have faith inChrist, she did what we all must do: repented, believed, forsook her sins and her own will, covered upnothing and made no excuses. Having surrendered to Christ, He cleaned herwhiter than snow, made her new, and gave her a river of living water within. And when the time came to go, angels attended her.

Escape from the Haunted House (original poem)

2012-01-18T06:51:00.003-06:00

Waking from dreaming inside of a dream

To the house of born broken mankind.

Amnesiacs living in endless rooms

Full of furniture lacquered with time.

As before it will be and will be again,

(Still it is whispered) ‘til each of us dies.

The children told stories of somewhere outside,

To frighten each other in the long dark night.

“Extreme”, boasted devils on the banister ride

Down the same stairs the proud would climb,

Up and up to the prince of the power

Of the error in the attic with twinkling light.

“Spirits? No spirits”, was all that she wrote,

“’Cept the cellar below that is filled with wine.”

“Are you sure?” I kept asking inside each room.

“Be quiet”, the scientists answered with pride.

Method or madness, most stayed in their rooms—

Ruled lines and procedures, head down they would hide.

The walls had no windows, just strange, moving art,

Crawling, light shadows as if cast from some light.

“A child will lead them”, I blurted out loud.

“This is all that there is”, was their answering cry.

But now I could see that the paintings were windows,

Then thick wood, ball of brass? I knew they had lied.

Grabbed the brass; seized the day and walked away.

I opened my eyes far beyond the sky,

Opened and walked where the spirits played.

My life finally started the day I died.

God With Us

2011-12-24T11:06:00.000-06:00

"Almighty God is nothing but a mental abstractionunless He becomes concrete and actual, because an ideal has no power unless itcan be realized. The doctrine of the Incarnation is that God did become actual,He manifested Himself on the plane of human flesh, and Jesus Christ is name notonly for God and Man in one, but the name of the personal Savior who makes theway back for every man to get into a personal relationship with God." - Oswald Chambers

A Prayer Poem

“Master, they say that when I seem

To be in speechwith you,

Since you make no replies, it’s all adream

– One talker aping two.

They are half right, but not as they

Imagine; rather, I

Seek in myself the things I meant tosay,

And lo! the wells aredry.

Then, seeing me empty, you forsake

The Listener’s role, andthrough

My dead lips breathe and intoutterance wake

The thoughts I neverknew.

And thus you neither need reply

Nor can; thus, while weseem

Two talking, thou art One forever, andI

No dreamer, but thydream.

– C. S. Lewis

In an earlier post I attempted to communicate a brief senseof what I find so captivating about the experience of riding motorcycles. Ialso hinted that there were some similarities between my experience withmotorcycles and my experience with God. I’m not particularly happy or satisfiedwith the results of that attempt. It says too little about some things and saystoo much about others. But it’s always difficult to communicate personalexperience to another person who has not lived it for themselves. Language is powerful but imprecise for somesubjects, like carving wooden miniatures with a chain saw. And if my command ofEnglish failed me with motorcycles, it seems almost hopeless when trying tocommunicate my thoughts on God. Yet Itry.

What word should I choose for describing perception of God? Perhapssense? Or See? Or Feel? The Hebrews had a word, Chazah, that can be translatedfrom the Aramaic as “seeing ear”. There are many occurrences of it in the bookof Daniel. It seems to have the connotation of perceiving combined with knowledgeor experience, of the essence of perception. What we perceive isn’t reflectedlight or sound waves. But it is real nonetheless. We don’t have a directtranslation of that concept in English so we use the words we have and it fallsshort.

It’s not just the limitation of language; humans are foreverconstructing mental abstractions of experience that are less than the thing initself. It is particularly difficult with the spiritual. When considering God,we end up with pitiful little idols, pieces of stone and tortured wood, meltingmodels sliding down the walls of our brain. “God in a box” is a modern phrase that popular Christian writers use.

If that isn’t difficult enough, Jesus indicated to Nicodemus,that he was unable to understand spiritual truths because of his preoccupationwith material things:

Nicodemus replied,“How can these things be?”

Jesus answered, “Are you the teacher ofIsrael and yet you don’t understand these things? I tell you the solemn truth,we speak about what we know and testify about what we have seen, but you peopledo not accept our testimony. If I have told you people about earthly things andyou don’t believe, how will you believe if I tell you about heavenly things?

I know that I too am preoccupied with earthly things and thatmy attempt to describe time spent with God will fall short, far short of thereality.

________________________________

When I pray, I must consider this reality:

God is spirit, and his worshipers must worship in spirit and in truth.

I come to God with words, sometimes just thoughts. They arenot always purposefully meant, much like when people reply with “fine” whensomeone asks, “How are you?” Not truth.

And sometimes, they are peripheral to me, not from theheart. I think they are but they are not. Not spirit.

Other times they come from that automatic place inside me, theplace that keeps track of what is expected and what it takes to get by.

God is silent.

God is often silent but in these times hissilence is not just quietness; it is the obliteration of sound, like “cavedark” is to dark. When confronted with pretense and pride, God’s silence is “inyour face”.

In those times I have learned to reflect on my words, tolook for intention, honesty or its lack, the root of my desire, the heart ofthe matter…

Sometimes my fakery is left standing apparent and naked,like my dreaming self that forgot to wear clothes to work.

Sometimes I feel uncomfortable and I take familiar easyroads to impatience, distractions, or giving up to do easier things.

Other times, it is simply like C.S. Lewis said in his poem, “the wells are dry”. I can’t think ofanything worth saying.

For much of my life, at this point I would lose patience andget up from my real or proverbial knees to continue on with life.

Be still and know that I am God.

God knows when my impatience is gone,when I am ready to be real, when I am empty and can be transformed, when Ilove, when I am desperate for HIM. I am sad to say—that can still take a longtime.

Lewis continues, “through my dead lips breathe, and into utterance wake the thoughts Inever knew”.

God is speaking but allowing me to beinvolved, to partner. That, for me, is the ‘chazah’ perception. He is there.“My sheep know my voice”, said Jesus.

The old hymn…

“I come to thegarden alone
While the dew is still on roses
And the voice I hear falling
On my ear the son of God discloses

And He walks with me and He talks with me
And He tells me I am His own
And the joy we share as we tarry there
None other has ever known ”

The answers come and I know what Imust do. Sometimes the answer is to continue to wait, sometimes to do somethingspecific, to say something specific, to change… I am beginning to love when theanswer is to continue to wait because I know that God is going to give me thepresent of a surprise. His answers are sometimes like trick billiards shots.Six different balls go in six different pockets and one jumps off the table forme to catch it behind my back. He answers my issue but I can see that he usedit to do a dozen other things… and I probably don’t even see ALL of theconsequences. His answer did what I asked and it was like he winked at me ontop of everything else!

A person experiences this with Godwhen they are “born again”, using the words Jesus used when speaking toNicodemus. When people admit they are a sinner, they are simply acknowledgingthe facts. They are less than honest. They are more interested in themselvesthan they are in God and others. They are slaves of anger, selfishness, hatred,chemicals, gossip, rebellion… They become sick enough of it and childlikeenough to accept the possibility that God really did become human and dosomething mysterious through dying for us which can bring them into rightstanding with God. Then they are ready to call out to God. “Be merciful to me,a sinner.” And he is right there. And has been the whole time. Waiting.

Thinking back to my experience withriding a motorcycle… it is a small miracle that a mechanical device can becomean extension of your own body, when you lose the feeling of separateness fromthe machine and you are simply hurtling through space and time just by thinkingit. That doesn’t happen by just owning a motorcycle.

It is a large miracle, and one sooften and easily taken for granted, that we can talk to and chazah God, just bythinking it. But that doesn’t happen just because we own a Bible, or attend achurch, or call ourselves a Christian.

Peanut Writes The Christmas Letter 2011

2011-12-23T08:51:00.000-06:00

Friends & Family,

MerryChristmas and Happy New Year from the Links!

Chrisand Peg gave the job of writing the yearly Christmas letter to me, Peanut. Theyhave accused me for quite a while now of being a bad dog and doing very littlework around the place. Chris goes so far as to say that I “pretend” to work aslong as they are paying attention to me and then I take off and do my ownthing. While there may be a modicum of truth to this, I can just as readily saythat they are not noticing all of the work that I am doing.

Iwatch the horses all day, making sure they stay busy eating grass. It may behard to believe but they’ll go to sleep standing up if you let them. Thesquirrels have to be chased and the moles dug up and played with. Chris spendstime staring at flowers and birds and stuff. Not sure what I’m supposed to bedoing to help out there. He just looks at me and shakes his head. I have togreet Peg and Dylan… and the Jehovah’s Witnesses like talking to me. They seemto need encouraging too. Then I spend most of the night welcoming possums,coons and owls to our place or explaining how to be a good Christian to thecoyotes. All dogs go to heaven but there’s no guarantee for coyotes. I don’tseem to do this very well because I haven’t convinced any coyotes and sometimesChris or Peg hollers at me out the window to shut up.

Thatold dog, Sydney is now 116 and she doesn’t do any work at all. She thinks shedoes. She gets up and heads to work but half-way there, she can’t rememberwhere she was going and this gets repeated dozens of times throughout the dayuntil she has done little more than wear a path around the house trying toremember where she is going. I have to keep her from wandering off in a fogtoo. So it is little wonder that they catch me lying around. I have to sleepsometime.

I usually only see Dylanon weekends. He has informed me that he is living in an apartment near the MSTcampus with friends that he met his first couple of years there. He’s takingCivil Engineering classes at school and working at Lowes part time. He workedall summer at the Rock Mechanics department at MST assisting a grad studentwith research. He comes home to hunt, fish, go gigging or hang out with hishigh school buddies. He and Chris are still in the praise & worship band atchurch. He complains about something called calc all the time. But at least heexplains everything to me and teaches me a few things.

Peghelps me out with the horses. When they aren’t eating, they’re engaging inhorse play. It’s always the same, the girls trying to impress the one boy,Salty, who thinks he’s king. Somebody gets smacked with a hoof and then it’son. They get ruff… err rough with each other. Peg gets mad and gets on their backsand makes them go in circles until they’re too tired to be mad. And sometimesshe takes them somewhere in the trailer to race in circles around those barrels,usually just Salty and Friday, and they come home thinking they’re awful highand mighty and it isn’t long before they’re quarreling again. They’re likelittle kids but I’m onto their tricks and I keep an eye on them.

Pegdoesn’t tell me what she’s up to but I can tell from smelling the car tiresthat she spends most of her time at school, church, or at Wal-Mart. If she hasbeen to Wal-Mart, I have to walk in front of her while she’s carrying the bags toslow her down and keep her from running into stuff. She almost falls down theway it is. She tells me to get out of the way but I know she doesn’t reallymean it. I get pretty excited when the new bag of dog food shows up. You cantell when the family has been to church. They come home smiling and spend extratime with me.

Chris’ car tires areboring. He goes to the same place almost every day and spends most of the daythere before coming home. Wherever it is, there aren’t any dogs there. I don’tknow what he does but he seems to be happy when he comes home. But he seems alot more happy most of the time no matter what he is doing. Sometimes he juststands and looks up toward the east like he’s expecting something. And thereare other times he really gives me a good scratching. I’d like to figure what’scausing him to do that so I could get him to do it all the time.

Torbencame all the way from Germany during the summer to visit three weeks before hestarted his job at J.T. Essberger in Hamburg. He’s some sort of shipping and transportationapprentice but I’m sure he’ll be managing the whole business fairly soon. Ihave a lot of faith in him. Dogs can tell about these things.

Well,I have left the best for last. It’s basically the same thing I tell thecoyotes. About 14,000 years ago, (don’t forget we’re talking dog time), God theSon became a human and was born as a baby in a barn because a lot of peopleweren’t very nice back then either. And after he grew up it seemed like hetalked bad about dogs, comparing us to people who weren’t chosen by God, butthen he fixed it by dying for all the sins and making it possible for allhumans to be children of God. So I reckon that means that dogs can be dogs ofGod if you follow my theology… and the celebration of His birthday isChristmas. That’s what it’s all about, not extra bones on December 25. You allneed to take advantage of this and not be like the coyotes if you haven’talready. So once again, Merry Christmas!

God and Motorcycles

2011-12-10T10:21:00.001-06:00

“Thou hast made us for thyself, O Lord, and our heart isrestless until it finds its rest in thee.”
― St. Augustine of Hippo, The Confessions of Saint Augustine

“Roll, roll me away,
I'm gonna roll me away tonight
Gotta keep rollin, gotta keep ridin',
Keep searchin' till I find what's right
And as the sunset faded
I spoke to the faintest first starlight
And I said next time
Next time
We'll get it right”

― Bob Seger, Roll Me Away

If Augustine is right, then God made us with a hungry heartthat can only find rest in him. But most people either reject God or arecontent to keep him at a distance. Thisincludes most religious folk too. That’s a historical fact. That means thatmost people look elsewhere for satisfaction even if they would intellectuallyagree with Augustine. We stand on a high place like a tall building and wonderat what all the ant-like people are doing below. They’re foraging for heart foodor anything that will pass for it.

If there is any thing on earth that promised to ease thepain of my restless heart it was motorcycles. From the first moment I swung aleg over the back of my grandpa’s red Honda 305 Dream, I was hooked. No matterthat the first time that I rode a bike on my own, I dropped the clutch so hardon my cousin’s CT-70 that it ran out from under me to land in the corn-filled,black Iowa dirt. I wanted back on.

I have tried to understand it and put it into words forpeople that don’t get it. A motorcycle puts you in a scene that is constantlychanging, with a rich pallet flooding all of your senses. On a bike, the roadis rushing under you, sometimes as accepting and placid as a rocking chair,other times pressing upward, falling away below or trying to shake you away tothe side. There is always an optimum speed and line through the twists andturns that cares more about your ability and bike than your speedo or theposted signs. Of course, as it should be, an officer of the law has littlesympathy with this way of looking at things. Deer, possums, water, gravel, andother cars mess with this perfect trajectory through time and space. Just as one gets used to hanging a cheek offthe seat and pushing the bike up and away, vertical from your outrigging body,the keel that is your front or back tire finds some sand and the perfect lineflirts with becoming a ride in an ambulance.

Wiser riders accept something less than a perfectspeed and line and look for less dangerous ways to experience perfection. Youexperience the physicality of the air pressing on you. At speed it gathersunder your torso like a wing. It runs in rivers of temperature, big rivers of coolair in valleys and little streams in draws. There are explosions between yourlegs driving you forward and you search for the number of explosions per minutethat smoothes the vibrations of metal and air into a perfect resonance of touchand sound. The bike asks for it and it becomes an unconscious thing, likebreath. The speedometer has already left your consciousness. Now there is noneed for the tach.

You are not just looking at the world; you are in it. Yousmell the sweetness of life and the corruption of death. Animals poop and theyrisk death to mate or just to see the other side, and they lie there dead untilthe birds pick ‘em clean or the tires make them a part of the pavement. Iremember a turtle imprint between Raymondville and Houston that was there formonths. In a car you are looking at a TV in comfort. On a bike you're in IMAX, complete with smell and seat of the pants immersion.

I have barely scratched the surface of what it means for toride. Heading out on a bike ties into some of the same feelings that I havewhen singing the song, I’ll Fly Away. There is a mood of unencumberedfreedom—of leaving the mistakes and cares of the past. There is the possibilityof reaching something new, of finding the missing piece. Seger says, “next time we’ll get it right.”That’s the way it feels. And I think there is also a wish for this desire tocontinue. People don’t necessarily want the ending of a “Promised Land” if itmeans forever giving up the journey. They always want to be able to feel thatsweet, longing pain.

I think that is one of the mistakes people make about God. Theythink of him as an immovable and unknowable force—of heaven as an ending, as aneternity of sameness and repetition. But that isn’t who God reveals himself tobe. From the tabernacle to the incarnation and beyond—for the saints who werewilling to press in with honesty and without pride, he reveals the mystery ofhimself. And it isn’t an ending. The rest one finds in God begins a new andexciting journey. But this time we aren’t blind and without hope.

It’s a shame to give up so easily and accept the type ofmisunderstanding, shallow answers, and malicious gossip that often passes for knowledgeof God. Or even just to form an opinion based on someone else’s view. That’s like looking atsomeone else’s vacation pictures of the Grand Canyon and saying, “well, itdoesn’t look that grand to me. I don’t think there is any need for me to gothere.” But people are often comfortable with easy answers and easy dislikes abouteverything, including motorcycles and God.

Christmas, All December Again

2011-12-05T19:46:00.001-06:00

While anticipating Christmas, I have been pondering the 'fully humanness' of Jesus, the incredible miracle of the incarnation. There is much that has been written by people in awe of the glory of the experience and yet the humble nature of the way God chose to come. If possible, the following two selections filled me with even greater awe at the great and amazing gift of God.

This first is taken from Max Lucado's God Came Near.

It all happened in a moment, a most remarkable moment that was like none other. For through that segment of time a spectacular thing occurred. God became a man. While the creatures of earth walked unaware, Divinity arrived. Heaven opened herself and placed her most precious one in a human womb.

God as a fetus. Holiness sleeping in a womb. The creator of life being created. God was given eyebrows, elbows, two kidneys, and a spleen. He stretched against the walls and ﬂoated in the amniotic ﬂuids of his mother.

God had come near. No silk. No ivory. No hype. To think of Jesus in such a light is— well, it seems almost irreverent, doesn’t it? It is much easier to keep the humanity out of the incarnation.

But don’t do it. For heaven’s sake, don’t. Let him be as human as he intended to be. Let him into the mire and muck of our world. For only if we let him in can he pull us out.

The second selection is a poem called Mary's Song by Luci Shaw.

Blue homespun and the bend of my breast

keep warm this small hot naked star
fallen to my arms. (Rest ...
you who have had so far
to come.) Now nearness satisfies
the body of God sweetly. Quiet he lies
whose vigour hurled
a universe. He sleeps
whose eyelids have not closed before.
His breath (so slight it seems
no breath at all) once ruffled the dark deeps
to sprout a world.
Charmed by dove's voices, the whisper of straw,
he dreams,
hearing no music from his other spheres.
Breath, mouth, ears, eyes
he is curtailed
who overflowed all skies,
all years.
Olderthan eternity, now he
is new. Now native to earth as I am, nailed
to my poor planet, caught that I might be free,
blind in my womb to know my darkness ended,
brought to this birth
for me to be new-born,
and for him to see me mended
I must see him torn.

Christmas, All December Long

2011-12-03T07:13:00.001-06:00

I have always loved December because of Christmas. Long before Knut and Torben, our former exchange students explained how Christmas is celebrated as a multi-day long-term holiday in Germany, my mother made it a practice for my family with a month plus-long event when I was a kid.

It began with the arrival of the Sears Wish Book which I studied as carefully as da Vinci studied Giocondo's wife. After Thanksgiving, the decorations began to appear-candles crafted by my aunt Ardyce, the blow-up reindeer, wall hangings, wooden knicks and plaster knacks, and the tree (always an adventure). Finally, presents and food began to appear, carefully wrapped boxes and cookies cut into the shape of trees, stars, ginger bread men and santas.

Christmas Day itself was almost anti-climactic, having been anticipated for so long and over so quickly. My father was every bit as much of a kid as I was, so much so that he could not wait for me to open all of my gifts until Christmas morning. We were always going to wait to open them all on Christmas morning but seldom did. But although I felt slightly blue at the end of the day, the celebration continued until New Years Day when everything was put away.

Years later, I read "Out of the Silent Planet" by C.S. Lewis and came across the Mars' inhabitants concept of the pleasure of an event not just being experienced in the "here and now" of the event. I found this quote from the book: "A pleasure is full grown only when it is remembered. You are speaking, Hman, as if the pleasure were one thing and the memory another..."

I guess I need to read the book again because I had thought that Lewis' concept had also included anticipation. Perhaps I added that idea myself or borrowed it somewhere.In any case, that is the way many events work for me, especially Christmas. The pleasure is birthed in anticipation, realized in the experience and fully grown in memory.

On the Road to Emmaus

2011-11-27T00:27:00.001-06:00

On the Road to Emmaus

Just you and me, worrying

A mystery until he joined us.

We couldn’t have guessed at

The answer walking and talking alongside,

On the seven miles of dust to Emmaus.

He spoke clearly, spelling it out,

Explaining it right,

Right in front of our eyes,

Not yet ascended out of sight.

We didn’t know him from Adam—

Couldn’t understand how he

Didn’t know the happening news and yet

Knew all, from beginning to end.

We didn’t have a clue until

He broke bread, as if a servant of thousands.

I looked at you; you looked at me.

Had not our hearts burned within?

54 things I am thankful for

2011-11-23T09:19:00.001-06:00

1. God’s love for me through the saving gift of Jesus Christ

2. God’s daily surprises: mystery, joy in the middle of sorrow, unanticipated answers, peace, and goodness.
3. My wife, Peg

4. My son, Dylan

5. My mother, Marilyn

6. My dad, Bob, no longer here, but whose life and words are written on my heart

7. My honorary sons, Manuel, Salomon (Knut), and Torben

8. My memories of others who have gone on

9. The rest of my extended family; I love them all

10. My church family and the whole family of God, the present and coming Kingdom of God

11. My Sunday school class

12. Pastor Jerry Dodson, model of shepherding and servanthood

13. My friends

14. The people I meet every day (even the ones that like to make it hard on me)

15. Facebook, for helping me keep in touch with friends and family and reconnect with those with whom I have lost touch

16. The Bible, the holy and inspired word of God

17. A job that is a part of the purpose of God for my life and provides my daily bread

18. A boss and a group of coworkers that care about each other and the people we serve

19. This planet during the day and this universe at night

20. These gnarly Ozark hills, rocks and clear streams

21. The Constitution of the United States of America and the men whose values informed it

22. All those who have fought and died for freedom and liberty

23. The lives and values of my ancestors

24. Health

25. This little town of Licking that lets me be who I want to be

26. This temporary homestead

27. My eternal home

28. The books that informed my life and made me a better person

29. Larry Bowen’s Readers Corner and Redeemed for the used books

30. My Kindle for the classics and taking a library with me to out of way places

31. Listening to music

32. Playing music

33. Poetry

34. My teachers and spiritual mentors

35. Zestar, Jonathan and Granny Smith apples

36. CPAPs

37. My old VW Beetle (still gets me to work and back)

38. The dogs; Sydney and Peanut

39. The horses; Z, Friday, Rudi, and Salty

40. Coffee

41. This wonderful, mineral filled, Ozark water

42. Ice cream—trips to South Central Creamery for 2 scoops of chocolate chip mint in a chocolate dipped waffle cone

43. Chocolate in general—Rigel and Kinder in particular

44. Nuts in general—pistachios in particular

45. Raisin bran

46. Zinnias

47. The sun on the horizon

48. St. Louis style ribs

49. Greek Yogurt

50. Baseball

51. The 2011 World Champion St. Louis Cardinals!!!!!!!!!

52. Racing in general—Short track auto, Bicycle, and barrel racing in particular

53. The Big Piney, Current, and Jack’s Fork rivers

54. Trials and difficulties because they too are a part of God’s will for my life, they make me stronger and remind me of what is truly important; and I am privileged to share, even in small part, in the sufferings of my Lord and Savior, Jesus Christ.

Grammie

2011-11-11T05:55:00.001-06:00

Every time I reconnect with a cousin on the Stevens side of the family, my mind goes back to a little house on Morris St. in Ottumwa, IA. If I totaled all of the days I spent there in my life, it probably wouldn't completely fill a year but the memories and time loom large in my mind. It is the house my mother remembers as home. It is the house where I played with all my 'Stevens' cousins. It is the house that was ruled by Mary Esther Stevens.

In my time there, this house was a refuge for the grandchildren of three sons and three daughters, scattered relatives, troubled friends and the friends of their friends... People came to this house because they left more cheerful and feeling better about life, and this was chiefly because of the mother of the house, a force to be reckoned with, my Grammie.

Grammie treated me like a Prince from the South and I loved her with a fierceness that I maintain to this day. This picture of her is not the best quality but it pleases me to see her exactly as I remember her, with some of the tools of her trade, coffee, cigarette and telephone. Whoever was on the other end of the line was getting better advice than a psychologist could have given, and given with confidence and a wit that was sharper than any knife in the drawer. She had a way of quickly cutting to the heart of a matter with a comment or even a song, the meaning clear to all but the dullest of minds.

Her speech was peppered with expletives and expressions and she didn't shy away from gossip but it was never done in a dirty or profane manner. It's possible that, to some extent, I'm seeing this with rose colored glasses but I really don't think so. I think that most of what she did, she did out of love and so when she gave her heart to Jesus Christ, His love just became a natural extension of that law that was already written on her heart.

Much of the best of my uncles and aunts, and by extension my cousins, came from my Grammie. She was always there for me. I would trade a little finger for five of those minutes with her that I used to take for granted. But I have that hope that comes from faith in my Lord and savior, Jesus Christ, that I will see her in eternity. And it won't be long.

Pretenders

2011-11-07T21:45:00.001-06:00

One of the most interesting things about being human is our ability to “invent a comfortable illusion” that blends with reality, and then live in it. Whether we do it consciously or subconsciously, are aware of it or unaware of it, the poorly sewn patches in the fabric of reality make for fascinating situations and relationships. It becomes even odder and has more potential for mischief when the pretense becomes a popular delusion in the culture. We have cautionary tales like “The Emperor’s Clothes” to remind us of our inclination to see things that are not there and get swept away by a crowd mentality but I doubt that any of us can claim to stand independently on complete and solid reality… but we think that we do.

Even if we are heavily involved in make-belief in a conscious way, like one who enjoys lying to see its effect on others, even surrounded by others who are weaving their own tales, we behave and speak as though we have a good handle on reality. We make fun of others who entertain obvious fantasies, even while testing a friend’s willingness to collude with our own deceit. “Does this pair of pants make me look fat?” we ask, inviting them into our world where pants make us look fat, and not syrup drenched ice cream and second helpings of biscuits and gravy.

No we prefer to pretend that scales and mirrors lie. The world is against us. It is not our fault. Every boss I’ve had has been a jerk. I didn’t inhale. This diet is going to work. I don’t have a problem with alcohol. No one else notices the comb-over. I’m just having a bad day.

We accept this stuff from each other, make pacts to ignore the elephant in the room and purposely alter our brain chemistry together to grease the moment. Corporately we pretend that 350 million people can endlessly live beyond our means if we can just organize it well enough or get the right person to run it. The headlines today include a child abuse sex scandal at Penn State that “shocked the police”, a fourth witness who claims that Herman Cain made unwanted sexual advances, and an 80-year-old councilman in Alaska facing child porn charges. And yet I just got through reading a Psychology Today article from earlier in the year claiming that love is making a positive evolutionary change because we are now more intelligent. Wow… really?

It is in the middle of this environment that I am accused of needing a crutch while thumping on a 2000 year-old myth. I really don’t mind. What I find sad is that the accuser is barely hanging on, face down in the dirt, while balls and chains drag him ever downward... refusing my hand… and is proud of it.

St. Louis Cardinals Baseball 2011

2011-10-29T17:47:00.000-05:00

I wanted to save some notes on the Cardinals’ 2011 season while the memory is still fresh, something I didn’t do in 2006. I blogged many of Dylan’s high school games from 2008, 2009 and it is fun to go back and refresh my memory by reading them again. It’s hard to imagine forgetting this season right now but I know it will probably happen.

It was often a frustrating year to be a Cards fan. I remember telling Pastor Jerry at church in late August or early September that I was going home to watch the Cardinals and he said something like, “Oh, they’re out of it now, aren’t they?” And I had to bring up the term “not mathematically eliminated” to justify my interest. I never quit watching but there were several times, even in late September when I gave up on them in my heart. But this team never gave up on themselves.

When I think about how improbable it is that they won the World Series, several things come to mind—Carpenter pitching the final game for example. Carpenter’s first win came on May 10 against the Cubs and he didn’t get his second win until June 23. McClellan (yes, McClellan) already had 5 wins by the time Carp got his first. They got swept by the Reds in May and immediately turned around and swept 2-game sets from the Phillies and Astros. When Torben arrived from Germany in June, they had just lost 8 games in a row and went on to get swept by the Jays. I remember thinking at the time… well; at least we can take Torben to a Springfield Cardinals game and still have a good time.

They had an infuriating way of losing at the end of games. Salas lost to Isringhausen (yes, Isringhausen was lobbing the ball in late innings for the Mets) in July. Their longest winning streak of the season? Five games in September against the Brewers and Braves. And they would win regular season series against teams like the Phillies and then lose to teams like the Pirates. They were no better at home than they were away. Players hit the DL like moths to the flame. I heard announcers and commentators say over and over again, “this isn’t a very good team.” I said it myself. I railed against Tony LaRussa and held a grudge against Albert for jinxing the season with his pre-season negotiations.

Why were they losing games? How about their 169 regular season grounding into double plays, most of them by Pujols? Or their 116 regular season errors, tied for 4th in the MLB? To be fair, the Rangers weren’t much better in this department; they had 114. The Cards were a great hitting team but the hits seemed to come seldom in moments that mattered.

Pujols’ batting average was at .250 or less for months and even after it started to climb, it seemed he was getting his hits and RBIs in less than critical situations. Berkman, Molina, or Freese (when he was healthy) were more likely to come through with the big hit. I had loathed Berkman back in the “Killer Bee” days. Back then, it seemed like the Puma’s smile was mocking me; now the smile was like that of a close friend. Fan bias is inevitable I guess. I still can’t imagine feeling differently about some players—like if Tony Plush showed up in St. Louis next year. I think the fans would burn down Busch.

I watched more Cardinals games this year than ever before, partly because I’m at the age where the pace of baseball games fits my inclination to ponder on things. But the main reason is that, with all the frustrating qualities of this team, it was obvious that they actually were a team, not just a collection of gunslingers. They liked each other and were enjoying the game of baseball, not their status, their celebrity or their own egos. They played loose and it was fun to watch, even if it probably did lead to many of the errors.

Think about Freese in WS game six, comically dropping a pop-up and yet hitting the walk-off home run. That was like the nature of the team wrapped up into one player’s performance in one game. My favorite question and quote illustrates:

Q. How do you keep your emotions in check in those two at bats in the ninth and the 11th?

DAVID FREESE: It's all about knowing that this is the same game as when you're six years old. It's just elevated on a stage, and everyone is watching. But you've just got to keep reminding yourself, it really is the same game and you have a job to do and you try and execute.

And for all the six-year-olds out there, watching grounders go between their legs and having balls bounce off their hats, they can still dream of a better day, perhaps a much better day, like being MVP in the World Series. It really comes down to that, playing as a kid in a vacant field or sandlot, maybe even by yourself with a bat and ball, or even a broomstick and a pile of rocks. The game is tied to those memories of imagining that you are up to bat in the final inning with two strikes and two outs… you toss the rock in the air, swing the broomstick and the rock flies over the fence.

It was an improbable, almost impossible, magical, comeback season and World Series. I will never forget game six. It wouldn’t surprise me if there was as big of a run on defibrillators after that game as portable generators after a week-long ice storm. The Cardiac Cards. 2011 World Champions.

Morning Prayer

2011-10-28T05:46:00.000-05:00

Father, I am asking a few things this morning for all my friends who honor and respect you. We are thankful for your Holy Spirit who brings your kingdom to our hearts when we let Him. We’re looking forward to the day when your way is followed here on earth by all, just as it is in heaven. We ask you with confidence to provide all of our real needs today, knowing that you are the source of all that is good. We are going to joyfully forgive others when they wrong us just as we ask you to forgive us when we wrong you. Lead us away from temptation and keep us from the evil one and his traps. We ask this, recognizing that nothing is worthwhile or will last forever but your kingdom, power and glory. So be it. Thank you for your grace to us.

P.S. And for my friends who don’t see it this way, help us to quit behaving in ways that confuse them. Help them to see you and not our mistakes. I’ll be talking to you again soon. I love you.

Return to Life on the Mississippi

2011-10-02T15:06:00.000-05:00

For now we see in a mirror, dimly, but then face to face. Now I know in part, but then I shall know just as I also am known. 1 Corithians 13:12

It is an odd experience to return to a book not read since childhood. I’m not sure how old I was when I first read Twain’s Life on the Mississippi but it was probably in late elementary or what today would be called middle school. I hadn’t opened its pages again until a few weeks ago when Peg and Dylan gave me a Kindle for my birthday. The book seemed to have changed as much for me as the river had changed for Twain between his years as a riverboat pilot and his return decades later as a visiting author, now living in New England.

Boyhood adventure fueled my attention in those days and must have had an eye only for the journeys and excitement. It seems that much of the Twain’s dry wit and humor must have escaped me; not having the background knowledge necessary for understanding; not yet having developed my own acquired taste for irony and oddity. And yet, now reading 30 odd years later, I came across a subtle concept that has fascinated me my whole life. Like hiking upstream to find the source of a creek one has lived beside for years, I discovered what may have been the origin of what has been a constant struggle for me—the attempt to have my cake and eat it too, to live with both an aesthetic and an analytical perspective on life, love, God...

Twain conveys, in great detail, the vast and complex knowledge and skills an apprentice must attain to become a pilot of a Mississippi river steamboat. He draws you into feeling the fear and uncertainty of reefs, snags, low water and floods. The idea of steering a cargo and passenger laden boat up that huge, swollen river in the middle of a moonless night almost made the cold sweat break out on me as I read. Every constantly changing shoal and eddy, town and landing, bluff and bend had to be memorized and re-memorized. After two and a half years of studying and focusing on the analytical knowledge and skills that had to be attained to become a pilot, Twain says, “I had made a valuable acquisition. But I had lost something, too. I had lost something which could never be restored to me while I lived. All the grace, the beauty, the poetry had gone out of the majestic river!” He could no longer see the river the way he had as a child or when he first began his apprenticeship.

Whether this was raw honesty or a writer’s hyperbole, I recognize the essential truth in it. To maintain both perspectives is difficult, if not impossible most of the time.But I do know that it happens—moments when we find ourselves on a bridge between the left and right brain with a view of both worlds. I have experienced it at rare moments while playing music with others, to be concentrating on the technical performance only to suddenly find myself in the middle of a moment when the instrument seems to almost be playing itself and I am as much a member of the audience as a member of the band. It’s a heady and joyful experience. But, at least for me, rare… and cannot be forced or held. I’ve also experienced it while fishing, playing ball, photographing, walking, thinking, praying.

I experience this dual perspective most often with God. In fact, I suspect it is a God thing and perhaps is just a partial preview of what existence will be like with a new body in the Kingdom of God. A teaser of sorts. God lovers look forward to being fully in His presence and we do so even using these divided perspectives. We love His precepts and wisdom. We also love the experience of the awesome presence of His Holy Spirit. And there are moments when we get to experience both. But imagine this becoming our normal perspective, in the immediate presence of God, when we will finally be like Him—when we will “know as we are known”, and the beauty and mystery will not be lost.

What I Would Say Tomorrow

2011-05-02T22:44:00.000-05:00

If I were to die tomorrow (not that I intend to), there is something that I’d like the preacher to say to whoever showed up. I try not to shove stuff down people’s throats, whether it is my opinion on barbecue sauce (Sweet Baby Ray’s) or my thoughts on God. Of course, everyone ends up trying to sell other people on something, usually something that is special in their own lives.

I was at Doug and Katie’s wedding reception in Illinois a few months back when Patty, my sister-in-law told me that I “just had to try eating a horseshoe”, a sandwich which originated in Springfield, IL. It’s basically an open-faced sandwich--thick-toasted bread, topped with hamburger, ham, pork tenderloin or chicken breast, topped with french fries and smothered with cheese. Sounds a little overwhelming to me but I appreciate the suggestion; I’m looking forward to trying it soon.

In a sense, this IS an attempt to turn people on to something that is special to me. I think they might be resistant because of past experience. It might have been packaged as religion or church or whatever. It might have seemed icky, phony, a fantasy, just something to help people get by, lies, a scam… You won’t get the hard sale from me. I’m not trying to make money or get you to join my deal. I do think it is hugely important, and for me to hold back risks more than the offense I might create by just blurting it out.

At the end of May last year, when much of my mother’s family was together for Aunt Rosie and Uncle Buzz’s 50^th wedding anniversary party, I was able to see and talk to cousins—first, second and removed. I was moved by how close I felt to my extended family, most of whom I rarely see. We stumbled around for awhile at the party, not really sure what to do or say after the usual pictures and reminiscing. Then Aunt Rosie stood up and spoke God’s truth (as I’m sure any of you who know her can imagine her doing). But I’m actually serious when I say that she spoke the truth. It was almost a shocking manner of speaking in these times we live in. For a short moment I was worried that Buzz might think it inappropriate. How silly of me to think that Buzz could be caught off guard by anything that Rosie might say after all these years. She said something about how grateful she was for Buzz and how glad she was for all of us to be there and then she paused and said something like, “but the truth is, we would never have made it this far without God.”

This confession had an immediate effect on me, and I was not the only one. I looked at Buzz. It was one of those moments in my life that I have looked at someone whose love for another showed so purely evident, bare and raw, without any kind of mask or excuse. I suddenly realized that God’s love was the answer to what had been inexplicable to me about my feelings, that God’s love is at the very core of what is real and good between people. Other people stood up and told what Rosie and Buzz had meant to them and woven throughout it all was how that holy gentleman had been there throughout it all, often ignored and pushed aside, the object of our anger and scorn, blamed for all that seemed wrong in our lives, doubted, despised, but there still—waiting for us to recognize it.

I have had all of those attitudes and many more about God. I don’t imagine that most people were even aware of it. For many years I somehow imagined that the visible Church (the part I had been exposed to) was an accurate representation of God (or man’s concept of it/he/whatever)... and the ignorance, hypocrisy and nonsense was all I could see or focus on. I responded by taking a close look at many, many other philosophies, models of reality—sophisticated, abstract, complex models, most of them empty houses of cards and sometimes rotten to the core. There are several of those that have the name Christ or a cross pasted on them somewhere or somehow. I looked at everything from the myriad deities of Hinduism to the myriad worlds used as one explanation of quantum uncertainty. The only reasonable choice left seemed to become an agnostic. That’s not the label I carried but that was the working model that I lived by while I played at what life games seemed interesting and caused the least harm to myself and others. And yet harm followed me like a black cloud and intentional or not, I was often the cause of harm to those closest around me. That was my life until His love penetrated the darkness and fog. He had waited patiently and called to me whenever I would listen.

So, to whomever you are or whatever your relationship with God may be, I’ll just say this. If God has spoken to you in the quietness of your soul, if you have felt His love and rejected it because it didn’t quite match up to what made sense to you, give Him another chance. Listen to those old philosophers that said that the wise man realizes that he really doesn’t know much. Listen to Jesus who said that "wisdom is proved by her actions." We are limited. We know much but understand little. Realize too that many of the church’s hypocrites are fakers (we’ve all lied about who we are to some extent) and many of the rest work very hard at resisting the transformation that God is trying to make in them.

Maybe one of Jesus’ parables from Matthew would help:

Jesus told them another parable: “The kingdom of heaven is like a man who sowed good seed in his field. But while everyone was sleeping, his enemy came and sowed weeds among the wheat, and went away. When the wheat sprouted and formed heads, then the weeds also appeared.”

The owner’s servants came to him and said, ‘Sir, didn’t you sow good seed in your field? Where then did the weeds come from?’

“‘An enemy did this,’ he replied.

“The servants asked him, ‘Do you want us to go and pull them up?’

“‘No,’ he answered, ‘because while you are pulling the weeds, you may uproot the wheat with them. Let both grow together until the harvest. At that time I will tell the harvesters: First collect the weeds and tie them in bundles to be burned; then gather the wheat and bring it into my barn.’”

I used to let weeds and everything that doesn’t matter keep me from seeing what really does matter—God’s love. I finally looked closely at who He was when He became one of us—not at other people’s thoughts about it. You can ask, “How could a loving God_______ ?" And fill in the blank with whatever... but in the end you will be looking at your own flawed thinking, not who God actually is. I believe that God became one of us and then preserved the good news about it. And I find that it agrees with what He says to me inside the very core of my being. What faith I have, admittedly as small as a mustard seed, is a gift from God himself and it made its way to me in a fragile boat floating on a sea of doubt.

But the moment I came to Him with an open heart and quit thinking about how people had packaged Him, he was there with grace. Take a look at God through the Bible and perhaps a book like A.W. Tozer’s “Knowledge of the Holy”. I mention Tozer because he lived a life of simplicity and wasn’t trying to sell something else in the guise of presenting God. Be honest with God. If you come with an agenda, He’s going to know you aren’t ready. But come open, honest and ready and He’ll meet you.

I guess I won’t wait for tomorrow... or for the preacher to say it.

Thy Will Be Done

2011-01-09T17:25:00.000-06:00

I was praying “the Lord’s Prayer” the other day when I came to “your will be done, on earth as it is in heaven”. And it occurred to me, that’s why it is heaven; God is there and his will is done there. That makes it heaven more than streets of gold or anything else we normally associate with our pitiful concepts of heaven.

We pray for the same thing here on earth and that prayer can be answered at least in a partial way now. The Bible makes it clear that the prayer will be answered in a very complete way in the future. “Everyone will bow and everyone will admit that Jesus is Lord,” says the Bible (in my own words).

We can actively participate in the answer to this prayer in our own life by bringing our own will into alignment with God’s. This has turned out to be a long process in my own life. I neglected to figure out what God’s will was by not spending enough time with the Bible or talking to him. Even after I decided to give up on what I wanted to do when it conflicted with his will, I would take it back. There have been some of my own ideas that have been hard to set aside. “How do I give that up?” I think. “I don’t want to give that up.”

This all still happens to me sometimes, even after having realized over and over again that when I do it God’s way, it’s always better and turns out to be what I really wanted all along anyway. If we would actually work at knowing God’s will and were actively involved in doing God’s will we would quit confusing non-believers and God would more fully answer our prayer. I want God’s will to be done on earth for everybody else but do I really want God’s will for my life? Actions speak louder than words.

Robert Frost has a conversation with A.W. Tozer

2010-09-16T20:12:00.000-05:00

Hello. I'm breaking silence for a few minutes to present a little fantasy. Of course these two men are no longer with us. I doubt they ever actually had a conversation and even if they had, it would probably not have gone like this. I'm quoting Frost's part from his poem Revelation; Tozer's comes from his book The Pursuit of God.

RLF.: But so with all, from babes that play at hide-and-seek to God afar, so all who hide too well away must speak and tell us where they are.

A.W.T.: God did not write a book and send it by messenger to be read at a distance by unaided minds. He spoke a Book and lives in his spoken words, constantly speaking his words and causing the power of them to persist across the years.

An Explanation

2010-08-21T17:28:00.000-05:00

It has been too long without an explanation for my absence. Whether it is an excuse or a reason why will hopefully become clear within a few months. A part of it is just that it is summer. The other part is that I am working on a long-term writing project. I'm going to just leave this here for when I return with either an excuse or a result. I will answer email.

The Other Chris Link

2010-04-25T16:49:00.001-05:00

Mentioning a one-sided phone conversation in the last post reminded me that I had used a one-sided format once to write about a phone call I received back in the mid 90s. Bob Newhart used it to good effect in comedy routines. It doesn't work as well in text but it is amazing how much one can figure out about a conversation just from hearing one side. True story. So this is how it would have sounded if you overheard the conversation from my side (pauses between each line):

Hello.

Yes, this is Chris.

Mmm hmmm… yes, I’m Chris Link. I’m sorry I don’t recognize your voice. Who did you say you were again?

I’m sorry but I don’t remember…

No.

No, I’m from Licking.

I’ve never…

I’ve never been to Japan.

Japan, Missouri? I had no idea there even was a Japan, Mis…

OK, well I’m sure that I wasn’t there. It wasn’t me.

Yes, I’m Chris Link but…

Yes, but see…

No, what I’m trying to say is... well, there must be more than… more than one.
Chris Link. But I’m not that Chris Link.

Well no, I don’t know another Chris Link. I’m just saying that your friend must have the same name.

I’m sure it isn’t that common of a name but…

Roosters?

I’m not sure I understand. Where did this happen?

No, I’ve never had fighting roosters.

No.

I’m from Licking.

Yes, I live here.

In Licking.

L-I-C-K-I-N-G.

Yes, Licking… as in licking a lollipop. South of Rolla.

Yeah, I’m sure I’ve never been to…

You found my name in the phone book? Where are you from?

Yep, I have been to Gerald…

Sullivan?

Oh, I see.

Yes, I’m sure that I’ve never had any fighting roosters. Don’t you think I’d remember…?

Ooooookaaaaaay...

Well, I don’t get up that way much.

No, not much of a beer drinker. Actually, I don’t drink at...

Well, you have a good evening too.

Bye.

Alone Enough To Be Together

2010-04-25T00:24:00.004-05:00

I sometimes hear thoughts spoken out loud, unknown voices around a corner or behind me in a booth, in a store aisle, one-sided telephone conversations, couples in a public place and yet seemingly in their own world. Their tone and volume is driven by love, ego, anger, loneliness, revenge and depression. In some instances, I think I would have been better off, personally at least, never having heard.

It’s like I became aware of one clue in a crossword puzzle and one answer just leads to another clue and the whole thing leads to sadness. And when my puzzle solving mind finally finds a path inside the situations and drama, the words I hear often seem to be saying the same thing, “If you don’t love me, then I don’t know who I am.” I can feel its reality like a coming headache; their unhappiness will lead to a never ending search for the one that will “love me for who I am” when they haven’t faced who they are yet themselves. They’ve never been alone with themselves long enough to find out.

Tillich said that “Language... has created the word "loneliness" to express the pain of being alone. And it has created the word "solitude" to express the glory of being alone.” I get the feeling that many (maybe even most) people use others as aspirin so quickly to avoid the pain that they never get to experience the glory. But two people who are not comfortable in their own skins are only characters willing to go along with each others’ pretense until they finally are not (willing). No one happily maintains a lie. How can a person honestly value someone else when they are unable to honestly evaluate themselves?

And yet there are still those 50 year veterans of a lifetime love together, patiently weathering each others’ messy transformations into someone authentic. It’s such a paradox that two who become one are somehow more than they were separately and yet were only able to be so because they continued to choose to be together and not because they were afraid to be alone. I am blessed to count one of these couples as family. Aunt Rosie and Uncle Buzz; this year marks 50 years together as one. I love you both.

The Influential Books List #2

2010-04-15T20:21:00.003-05:00

During the Spring of 1995 I jumped across a small creek and blew out a couple of discs in my lower spine. After surgery I spent the resulting hours on my back arguing in an online philosophy forum known affectionately by the participants as Wild Phil. This was pre-web days, at least in Licking, but Vaughn Hutsell, Greg Hadley, Glenn Fisher and I used my Wildcat bulletin board to message each other and the outside world. I would transfer packets of messages in and out daily that were echoed to other bulletin boards.

We also played a BBS game called Trade Wars which was an amazing amount of fun. I can still remember getting up in the early hours one morning to find Vaughn and Greg in an all-out battle. Actually I believe there are still servers running a telnet based version of Trade Wars and it seems like there might be a GUI version out there but I’m getting away from the purpose of this post. And I certainly don’t have time for online gaming (but the thought of playing TW again is mighty enticing).

Back to Wild Phil; I became involved in a long-term discussion about free-will/determinism/fatalism for several weeks until we started repeating ourselves in an endless circle. I doubt if any of us were convinced to change positions but I did have to admit that perhaps human actions and decisions are much more influenced than I had previously thought. In fact, it still amazes me how people can be obviously controlled by various influences or even addictions and somehow deceive themselves that they are free. Our ability for self deception knows few bounds.

So when I decided to work on the list of ten books that have been the most influential in my life, I kept thinking about what books had really influenced me to live differently; to decide or not decide, stay or go, risk or not risk, love or withdraw. I kept being tempted to make it a list of favorites or to pick books that would make me appear the way that I would like to be seen.

I finally settled on making two lists—one for the books whose influence I had actively accepted and treasured… and a second list of books that I felt I must list in an honest assessment. This second list is an acknowledgment on my part that the ideas in these books had enough potency to affect who I have become whether I wanted them to or not. Salt is potent; then again, so is arsenic. If you read them, keep that in mind..

So here it is, List #2:

Marjorie Kinnan Rawlings, The Sojourner
Rawlings also wrote ‘The Yearling’ which made me cry as a child and feel like running away from home myself. ‘The Sojourner’ was a picture of man’s integrity in the midst of love, longing, betrayal and loneliness. It is the life of the one who does not run.
Robert Pirsig, Zen and the Art of Motorcycle Maintenance
Attempting to write a paragraph about this book just makes me stare at the screen. It is an amazingly complex “true” story that does not end well. There are gems hidden in difficulty and it was provocative enough to be loved and hated. It’s not often you run into a rogue metaphysics that makes this much sense. His lasting influence on me? He taught me how to patiently avoid getting stuck when meeting obstacles “gumption traps” while working.
Phillip K. Dick, The Man Who Japed
Even as speculative fiction writers go, Dick was “out there”. Like Orwell, his characters struggle without hope for their humanity in the dehumanizing circumstances of near futures.
Ayn Rand, Atlas Shrugged
People love to hate Rand. I saw her on Phil Donahue eons ago and I swear I saw him grow fangs during the interview. I find myself sometimes agreeing with her, but only to a point. For example, I believe that true altruism exists “hand ups” but would agree with her that “hand outs” are usually accompanied by a ball and chain.
Paul Fussell, Class
“Class” probably suffers to some extent from being dated but it is a funny and often accurate look at the class system that DOES exist in the US, unless you don’t participate.
Allan Bloom, The Closing of the American Mind
Wow! Still another book that many people loved to hate. What does that say about me? But this book makes a huge point about what the Western ideal of tolerance has done to academia (and to everyday life) in the US.
Larry Niven & Jerry Pournelle, The Mote in God’s Eye
When Niven and Pournelle get together, you get a fascinating look at non-human sentient beings that are fundamentally affected by their environment. Once you get Niven/Pournelle glasses on, you can use them to take a fresh look at humanity and see us as if for the first time. And have fun while doing it.
Orson Scott Card, Speaker for the Dead
Speaking of fascinating non-human, sentient beings, meet the piggies. But the message that changed me was seeing how necessary and powerful honesty is to relationships.
Neal Stephenson, The Diamond Age
Neal Stephenson is smarter than you are. Period. He has a huge imagination. He taught me that conformity and rebellion are flip sides of the same coin among many other things that stick in my head like a song.

And that is only nine but since I cheated and listed eleven on the first list, I thought I'd make up for it.

The Influential Books

2010-04-12T23:21:00.002-05:00

I have largely avoided making "favorites" lists on this blog. But I have recently become intrigued with several blog writers' lists of the ten books that have been most influential in their lives. I have come to realize that we are constantly being influenced by what we pay attention to, whatever it may be. I decided to complete the exercise first and then decide whether to post it.

The result of the exercise was two lists. The first list contains works that I knowingly embraced, admired and actively accepted their influence. I recognize their influence and can heartily recommend to others. The second list contains works that I have loved and hated, argued with parts in my mind, treated like nitro glycerin, and yet have come to understand and had to admit that they have provoked and influenced my life.

This post is the first list. The second list will follow within a few days.

GOD, The Bible
The Bible is THE influential book of my life. While I have gone through periods in my life when I opened it rarely, other than to turn to a preacher’s text, it’s words have had and continue to have more impact on my life than any other book. It now gets opened every day and not because I feel like I should.

Mark Twain, Huckleberry Finn
Huck Finn was the favorite book of my childhood. It sparked my imagination and my (still) constant desire to travel unfettered down a path I have never traveled before.

David Wilkerson with John and Elizabeth Sherrill, The Cross and the Switchblade
The book that made me realize that perhaps much of the world was much more dangerous, corrupt, desperate, (and yet redeemable) than the sheltered hills of home.

George Orwell, Animal Farm
Animal Farm was the first book that really made me think for myself, reinforced my father’s taught suspicion of collective thinking, and sparked an appetite for dystopian novels.

C.S. Lewis, Mere Christianity & That Hideous Strength
I just had to mention two books for C.S. Lewis. Could Christianity really be this reasonable and fascinating? I wasn’t sure yet but Lewis helped me believe that maybe it could. I loved his fiction first, but ‘Mere’ and ‘Screwtape’ were just as exciting in their own way. (Oops, now I've mentioned three... Narnia... Oops...)

Fyodor Dostoevsky, The Brothers Karamazov
Alyosha’s realization of his own faith in the face of intense doubt gave me hope that I too would someday be able to work out my own salvation.

David James Duncan, The River Why
I read ‘Why’ again recently and while it didn’t hit me with the same impact as it did when I first read it, I realized that it had helped me remove God from a box and understand my own unhappy experiences with obsession, all while making me laugh out loud from beginning to end.

William Least Heat Moon, Blue Highways
I have read many travel stories but regard this as the best of the best because of Moon’s high level of attention and his acceptance of people the way they are. It helped me realize that I was missing adventure in the everyday… right on my doorstep.

Thomas Merton, The Seven-Storey Mountain
I knew the Bible taught simplicity and solitude as virtues and I suspected that my inability to hear God might be my own fault. I suppose Merton helped me lose my impatience with the present moment and give up the idols I had pretended were not there.

Dietrich Bonhoeffer, The Cost of Discipleship
I had heard about this book for years. Reading it at this time in my life made me extremely dissatisfied with the shallowness of the pool of grace I was swimming in. When I saw and felt the depth of love Bonhoeffer had for Christ, I could no longer stay the same.

Protest

2010-04-06T22:39:00.001-05:00

I'm going to let Dostoevsky write this particular infrequent political post:

"It is not possible to eat me without insisting that I sing praises of my devourer?"

The Neighborhood

2010-04-04T22:34:00.003-05:00

I sat down next to Mark Rinne a couple of weekends ago at the 3 on 3 basketball tournament in Licking. We talked about sports and old days. I asked him when he had moved to “the neighborhood” and he said ’67 or ’68. And then I asked him if he remembered the Parkers and he said he did, Carey the youngest boy, at least; not David the older brother or their dad the basketball coach. And it occurs to me just now that the boys had a younger sister and I have no idea what her name was. I prod and poke at my memory like it‘s an old, stubborn mule but it just brays and refuses to budge.

They lived in the house next door where Dean Karnes lives now and where the Derryberrys lived when I first moved to the house on Martin St. in ’61. It had become a rental house after the Derryberrys left. Contractors lived in it one summer while they were building the “new gym” and then Coach Parker’s family moved in for a couple of years before the Rectors bought the house. The Parker kids became a part of the neighborhood.

The oldest boy, David, was a year younger than me. He was a thick kid. When we played football in the vacant lots, he was hard to tackle when he got the ball. Hitting him low and hard was bound to bring injury to oneself so I usually just jumped on his back and tried to ride him down. We had a signal when we wanted the other to come outside and play. I have a very clear mental picture of sitting at the dining table, hearing David hooting like an owl and hurrying to finish my plate.

There was an old Catalpa tree with smooth bark on the line between our properties (still is) and we had a tree house about ten feet off the ground. It didn’t have sides or a roof but that tree was great for climbing and we spent many hours playing in it before Ronnie Creech fell and broke his leg. I hadn’t told anyone but I had already fell most of the way one time while trying to pulley my way up with a rope crossed over a limb. I landed on my back and rolled around searching desperately for my breath for a minute or so.

Ronnie lived across the street and halfway up the block with his brothers Mike and Joe, his sister Christie and their mom. I can still hear Mrs. Creech calling the kids for supper. Unlike many mothers with several kids, I don’t ever remember her getting their names confused and she could be heard from just about any location within a block. All the boys were and still are great artists. Ronnie and Joe could get into trouble without trying very hard. We once got into Derryberry’s storage barn through a loose board in the back. Joe found Berl’s stash of Falstaff beer and sloshed a hot can around trying to get it open, spewing it all over himself. We sprayed him down with Right Guard which I’m sure didn’t fool his mom.

Early in the 60’s Donnie and Dorothy Palyeau lived straight across the street on the corner of Martin and School Streets with their younger brother, Mike Rogenbuck. Behind Rogenbucks and north up School Street was Rusty and Melody Caton. I’ve already mentioned in an earlier post that Rusty was in my class in school and that we spent many hours together conquering the world with our imaginations.

Jerry and Debbie Ryno lived on the northwest corner of Martin and School Streets until the Rinnes moved in as I mentioned earlier in the post. Kent and Brent Sturgeon lived west on Martin St., just a couple of houses away for a few years before their family moved south on Hwy 137. Even after they moved, they would sometimes make the trek across Arthur Johnson’s field to the neighborhood. Fred and Russell Alers lived in the house straight to the south until Bill and Joe Czebely moved in a few years later.

For most of my childhood there were 15-20 kids within just a few years of my age living within a half block of my house. Within a couple more blocks was Steve and Sandy Jackson, David Hall, the Donnellys, the Matchells, the Davises… and I’m probably forgetting a few more
.
We always had enough kids for a softball or whiffleball game. We played football and kickball. We rode our bikes, skated with those clip-on skates with the keys, played board games on each other’s porches on the rainy days, played in sandboxes, played cowboys and Indians (always arguing about whether we were dead or not), fought with acorns, snowballs, apples, and rarely our fists. We played in the woods that had grown up in the city easement to the south, climbed on the back of Arthur Johnson’s palomino mare and ate pears out of the old abandoned orchard to the southwest.

We played war games in Rusty’s tank that Hubert had made out of plywood, cooled off on summer days in the Caton’s cellar and camped out in tents in each other’s backyards. We stayed out late on summer nights and played hide and seek, kick the can, or just sat and talked beside the streets still warm from the day’s sun.

We played fox and geese in the snow, sledded down the streets on our Flexible Flyers and made sliding runs on every hill with our leather-soled shoes. We made up games and argued over rules that didn’t exist. We traded baseball cards, comic books and model cars. We made our bikes sound like they had engines with clothes pins and either baseball cards or balloons.

And all the while, we played and grew without fear of strangers, kidnappings or perverts prowling the streets for kids. I wonder sometimes how we let that way of life get away from us. Were we living with parents in the last generation whose morals were still held in check by the church, or at the least, a common sense Victorian standard? Did air conditioning and television and video games (and every other technology that made us comfortable) drive us inside? Did our government solutions separate people from consequences and the very people whose work supported them… and make it easy not to continue the struggle to keep a family whole?

I’m glad that I didn’t know that we would be the last kids who could play in the streets, stay out late on summer nights, go trick-or-treating without fear. I know many things are better but surely I can be forgiven for noticing what we have lost.

Viral

2010-03-30T20:54:00.001-05:00

Warning! If you are over 45, do not read further. OK, I warned you. I have a cranial virus by the name of "Wreck of the Edmund Fitzgerald". It is sometimes known simply as "the Lightfoot". I have been unable to remove it for more than 24 hours now and am compelled to tell you, "The legend lives on from the Chippewa on down of the big lake they call Gitche Gumee." There. Now if you have it, it's your own fault.

Everything Changes

2010-03-28T17:16:00.000-05:00

Everything changes, including the look and feel of Seventh Third Time. If you don't like it, at least I hope you don't mind it too much. Please let me know if it is difficult to read or doesn't look right with your browser.

Poem: Where The Ponies Come To Drink

2010-03-26T21:36:00.003-05:00

Last Sunday, while ironing some pants for church, I noticed that the television was tuned to a barrel racing program on RFD TV. Peg tapes all these shows so I didn't change the channel even though I suspected it was a rerun. When the program changed I hardly even noticed until I heard a cowboy reciting poetry.

I began to listen a little bit and soon found myself in awe at the words. Peg came in the room and rewound the DVR until we could hear who the poet was: Henry Herbert Knibbs. The poem: Where The Ponies Come To Drink, written in 1919. Enjoy.

Up in Northern Arizona
there's a Ranger-trail that passes
Through a mesa, like a faëry lake
with pines upon its brink,
And across the trail a stream runs
all but hidden in the grasses,
Till it finds an emerald hollow
where the ponies come to drink.

Out they fling across the mesa,
wind-blown manes and forelocks dancing,
Blacks and sorrels, bays and pintos,
wild as eagles, eyes agleam;
From their hoofs the silver flashes,
burning beads and arrows glancing
Through the bunch-grass and the gramma
as they cross the little stream.

Down they swing as if pretending,
in their orderly disorder,
That they stopped to hold a pow-wow,
just to rally for the charge
That will take them, close to sunset,
twenty miles across the border;
Then the leader sniffs and drinks
with fore feet planted on the marge.

One by one each head is lowered,
till some yearling nips another,
And the playful interruption
starts an eddy in the band:
Snorting, squealing, plunging, wheeling,
round they circle in a smother
Of the muddy spray, nor pause
until they find the firmer land.

My old cow-horse he runs with 'em:
turned him loose for good last season;
Eighteen years; hard work, his record,
and he's earned his little rest;
And he's taking it by playing,
acting proud, and with good reason;
Though he's starched a little forward,
he can fan it with the best.

Once I called him--almost caught him,
when he heard my spur-chains jingle;
Then he eyed me some reproachful,
as if making up his mind:
Seemed to say, "Well, if I have to--
but you know I'm living single..."
So I laughed.
In just a minute he was pretty hard to find.

Some folks wouldn't understand it,
writing lines about a pony,
For a cow-horse is a cow-horse,
nothing else, most people think,
But for eighteen years your partner,
wise and faithful, such a crony
Seems worth watching for, a spell,
down where the ponies come to drink.

The Church As Hospital

2010-03-25T18:48:00.001-05:00

I don’t like hospitals. Never have; never will. It’s hardly surprising then that for years I didn’t like entering a church. Dallas Willard says that churches are a lot like hospitals. It isn’t a perfect analogy but it can be a useful way to think about what churches are about, at least partially. People end up in hospitals because of emergencies, serious trauma, long term illnesses, chronic conditions, sick with infectious diseases, sick from years of abusing stuff, like food and chemicals. And yes, there are malingerers and hypochondriacs—all of that and more. It’s that way in church too, people spiritually sick because they are separated from what would keep them well—God. The old fashioned but accurate word is sin.

One clear difference that isn’t quite so obvious from the outside is that the health care providers (other than the invisible doctor) are recovering patients themselves, or at least they should be. It’s hard to tell sometimes. There are always pretenders, some who may not even know or admit that they are pretending. The rest are like any other patients. They start feeling better and decide they no longer need to keep taking their medicine, quit on the therapy, and so on. Almost all decide they are well and become too proud of it at some point. That is an illness itself; in fact a very fundamental illness, but you can see how it could happen. Unfortunately, it happens far too often and it keeps people away.

Some people don’t see any need for going to the hospital. Why go to a place where people are sick when I’m feeling perfectly fine? I remember going to Dr. Myers clinic when I was a kid, surrounded by people coughing and sneezing and obviously sick and wishing that I was anywhere but where I was. The coming bite of the needle probably had something to do with it as well. We know the cure is going to have some pain associated with it and may require some lifestyle adjustments as well.

But people who see no need for the hospital or have a hard time believing in the invisible doctor may be forgetting or ignoring a couple of things. People die from ignoring a rabies infected bite that is too small to see with the naked eye. Some potentially fatal physical abnormalities like arteriovenous malformations can be present from birth. In fact, we are all aging and at some point in time will die. Similarly, we all have spiritual death built in from birth. We will never be completely well until the doctor gives us a new body. We may not be quite as healthy as we think we are.

Another forgotten issue is that the church as hospital doesn’t have enough care givers. Those sick people that are so easy to despise could benefit from the support of one who is strong. Churches are full of kids that have missing parents, parents with few parenting skills themselves, and overwhelmed and alone parents. I understand it when people say that they are good friends with the doctor and have a better time with him in the woods, on the river, lake… Yep, I feel that way too—quite often. But think about it; what does it mean when we say to a friend, “I’ll go hunting and fishing with you but I’m not helping you do any work at the hospital. Not my thing, dude.”

It is true that people are sometimes treated poorly in church. They are misdiagnosed, looked over, victims of malpractice and given treatment that is perhaps intended for someone else. Well, not every building that looks like a church is really housing a church, a true loving group of believers. Again, even in a real church, the caregivers are recovering patients themselves, still sick in ways and maybe not as skilled as they should be. They haven’t learned how to have a good bedside manner. Obviously, they need help! One of the treatments in the hospital is helping us learn how to be patient with each other, sick and flawed as we are.

I have hated the way hospitals look, the way they smell, the tiredness, grief and desperation—the way they have seemingly taken people away from me—that is until turning a corner I find a glass wall with babies behind it. What beautiful and perfect potential babies have. And the truth is, every patient in the hospital who has accepted that the doctor is real, has accepted his help, and has committed to be a caregiver, has this same beautiful potential, a fresh start at becoming the best person that they could ever be.

Everything Has Changed

2010-03-08T21:52:00.002-06:00

Yesterday, standing in prayer, hands grasped in a circle with the other members of my Sunday school class, I suddenly comprehended that everything had changed. As each person prayed in turn, I felt the deep compassion that only comes with God’s love. Our group is becoming a true community of believers who really care about each other. As far as I’m concerned, it is a little late, but maybe better late than never.

With small faith, I stood before our class several months ago and said that Jesus Christ would change us from the inside out if we would become His apprentices and actually follow Him. I said this having experienced it to some extent, but knowing deep down that my own apprenticeship had been sporadic and less than disciplined. Sometimes we make promises in church that we do not keep, thinking perhaps at the time that we are stepping out in faith, but having no real intention or plan for following through. This time I not only had good intentions; I had a simple plan.

The intention began almost a year ago when I purchased Dietrich Bonhoeffer’s “The Cost of Discipleship” from Redeemed Books and devoured it slowly. Taking this book to heart has made a gradual but definite impact on my life. The change has been so gradual that I cannot say exactly when being an apprentice quit being a chore and became something that I look forward to every day.

More than anything, I began to have a vision of what our group of believers could be like if we really took discipleship seriously. Not being much of a salesman, I didn’t know how to present this vision. Like a 90s teen saying “awesome” for everything that seems even slightly above average, church people use up all the exciting words. So I decided to, at the very least, become the kind of person who wasn’t often cringing at my own hypocrisy when I taught a class. The plan was simple; follow Christ with more discipline and trust God to take care of the rest.

Bonhoeffer’s book set the bar high—kind of like going from sitting on the couch to attempting to run a marathon. I began to read A.W. Tozer. He also set the bar high, saying things like, “the shallowness of our inner experience, the hollowness of our worship, and that servile imitation of the world which marks our promotional methods all testify that we, in this day, know God only imperfectly, and the peace of God scarcely at all.” I began to grasp how important it was to come to God with simplicity and love him with every aspect of my being.

Dallas Willard’s “Renovation of the Heart” showed me how duplicitous my nature was—how that even in the middle of service to God, parts of me are plotting ways to hide, ways to rationalize my failures, attitudes and on and on. An honest look usually reveals that I never really intended to do the right thing in the first place. But the book also showed me how deep was God’s love. When I join in the quest, Jesus certainly does change me from the inside out and all the while, I am “burning grace like a 747 taking off”.

Now, we are studying Richard Foster’s “Celebration of Discipline”. The journey continues. The Word of God calls and I wonder what He has for me tonight. I haven’t talked about it much but I can’t help it now. I love the One who made me from the the very core of who I am. I begin to think like Moses and to have the courage to say, "God, show me your glory." Everything really has changed.

Every Grain of Sand

2010-03-01T21:04:00.005-06:00

Music moves me emotionally like little else, so much so in fact that I have to be careful. On the way home tonight, NPR was playing Chopin’s Funeral March and I found myself wanting to pull over to the side of the road and end it all. Interestingly enough, reported Ohlsonn on NPR, the first funeral that the piece was played at was Chopin’s own. It has since darkened the moods on many other occasions, including John F. Kennedy’s, Brezhnev’s and Stalin’s funerals. Note to Peg; when I do check into the Wooden Waldorf, let’s go with something a little lighter.

Actually, there is one dark masterpiece that somehow has the opposite effect on me, Bach’s Toccata and Fugue in D Minor. As soon as those octave runs start the piece, I’m right in the middle of it. I somehow imagine as the D minor gradually fills out, that it isn’t so much of a chord as an ecstatic J.S. reclining on the keys. It really is an incredible piece of music. Probably not appropriate for a funeral.

My friend Kevin told me this morning that he had enjoyed Neal Young singing “Long May You Run” at the closing ceremonies in Vancouver; the song seemed very fitting to him and yet he had read somewhere online that the song may have actually been written about Young’s first car which was a hearse. It’s a cheerful song for a hearse but then again, hearses that are no longer hearses are more silly than creepy. Still, I think you would want to be careful about the music in your head while driving a hearse—no ‘Funeral March’ or ‘Dead Man’s Curve’.

I sometimes think that music has been almost as dangerous a mix with driving as texting and alcohol. How many speeding tickets has ‘Radar Love’ triggered? Music colors the lyrics. It colors how we feel. During the late '70s, couples broke up and each drove away listening to ‘Already Gone’ by the Eagles. It was part of the cure for surviving breakups. Music provides a soundtrack to our lives as much as it does to the movies. Even music played by an instrument that is the butt of jokes like the bagpipes has this power. Remember the bagpipes playing ‘Amazing Grace’ in Braveheart? Overwhelming.

And yet rarely, very rarely, the lyrics need no music. Like the power of a black and white photograph, they can stand alone in stark contrast, almost begging to be surrounded by silence. I think of where Bob Dylan was in the early 80s, a period that many of his fans would surely like to forget. I don’t know; maybe he would like to forget it as well. Take a close look at ‘Every Grain of Sand’. There’s no need for endless arguments about the meaning or imagine esoteric significance. Dylan sees clearly his position in the ‘balance of the reality of man’. It is a place that everyone needs to visit before the ‘March’ is played.

Every Grain of Sand
Bob Dylan

In the time of my confession, in the hour of my deepest need
When the pool of tears beneath my feet flood every newborn seed
There’s a dyin’ voice within me reaching out somewhere,
Toiling in the danger and in the morals of despair.

Don’t have the inclination to look back on any mistake,
Like Cain, I now behold this chain of events that I must break.
In the fury of the moment I can see the Master’s hand
In every leaf that trembles, in every grain of sand.

Oh, the flowers of indulgence and the weeds of yesteryear,
Like criminals, they have choked the breath of conscience and good cheer.
The sun beat down upon the steps of time to light the way
To ease the pain of idleness and the memory of decay.

I gaze into the doorway of temptation’s angry flame
And every time I pass that way I always hear my name.
Then onward in my journey I come to understand
That every hair is numbered like every grain of sand.

I have gone from rags to riches in the sorrow of the night
In the violence of a summer’s dream, in the chill of a wintry light,
In the bitter dance of loneliness fading into space,
In the broken mirror of innocence on each forgotten face.

I hear the ancient footsteps like the motion of the sea
Sometimes I turn, there’s someone there, other times it’s only me.
I am hanging in the balance of the reality of man
Like every sparrow falling, like every grain of sand.

Why No One Should Write Late At Night

2010-02-20T00:36:00.005-06:00

She came in on the 5:14—the whistle blowing that low down Santa Fe. I watched her out of the corner of my eye, thinkin’, no prayin’ that she’d look my way. Of all the broken down stations in all the dust bin towns south of the Eleven Point, how’d she end up here? She looked angrily out at nothin’, dropped her head and said to no one in particular, “what time you got?” And I thought… or did I say it out loud? “Baby, you got the rest of my life if you want it.” That’s how it began and that’s how it will be,” I said… or did I just think it to myself? And suddenly the moment was gone but it lit another and then another, until there was a flame burning and I had to drop to the ground and roll. After she kissed the spot where my eyebrows had been I suddenly realized, the two of us were just an electron in an atom on a mite on a flea on a dog’s nose, a wet dog’s nose at that, but by jove, it was no mutt.

Avatar

2010-02-15T10:12:00.004-06:00

Peg and I went to see Avatar this last weekend. Weeks after its opening, the theater was still almost filled. I looked around as the movie began and chuckled at the sight of a room full of spectacled people in the dark. I put on my glasses, hoping for the best, but expecting the worst since my past experience with 3D movies has always been disappointing. But Real 3D is at least an order of magnitude better than anything I have seen before. The visuals are reason enough to see this movie (although if you have sensitive eyes, be prepared to be physically worn out by the end).

I was almost immediately wishing for a NASCAR racing game with Real 3D tech. At times, you still get that feel of seeing 2D planes in depth rather than rounded objects but this is only readily apparent when the depth is extreme. The view is brighter and more organic than past 3D tech, even in the indoor scenes. But it is the outdoor scenes that are truly astounding.

There has been a lot of talk about how derivative the script is of earlier movies but very little attention has been given to the derivation of the visual environment. As soon as the avatars dropped into the forest of Pandora, especially after flying into the floating islands, I began having Roger Dean flashbacks. Of course it is probably only old Yes fans that would have this experience or even notice the similarities to Dean’s album artwork.

I’ve since read some comment from Dean fans that range from “obviously inspired by Dean” to “outright theft”. I’m not assuming anything yet but if Dean was not consulted at all (there was nothing about him in the credits), I lean toward intellectual property theft. The Dean prints at left should make the point for anyone who saw the movie. In case I miss it, I’d appreciate anyone who finds out that this was resolved letting me know about it.

The reviews that complain about the simplistic story and characters are pretty much right on as far as I’m concerned. Even worse, the story itself is as closely related to a Poul Anderson novel, “Call Me Joe”, as the visuals are to Roger Dean’s art. I guess it is true that most movies are derivative—most art for that matter—but still, at the very least, give a nod to the work that inspired you. It's only right and takes nothing away from your work.

Happy Valentine’s Day Peg - Five Great Memories

2010-02-12T16:27:00.012-06:00

Peg, you know where I got the idea for this. “Idea”, he whispers to himself. These are not necessarily the five greatest moments but they’re the first I thought of and every memory is special.

1. On the front steps of your house on our first date. It was a beautiful summer night. We went to the Sirloin Stockade in Rolla—probably wouldn’t have been my choice now—but I can still see you sitting across from me in that booth and realizing that I was having the best time I had had in a long time. We went to see E.T. and then when I took you home, I looked in your eyes and you pretty much had me right then.

2. Manhattan
We had a lot of fun exploring that week. Whether it was Chinatown, SOHO, or walking across the Brooklyn Bridge, you were always ready for wherever I wanted to go. It is one of my favorite memories and is also indicative of how you’ve always been willing to join me on an adventure. Wow, looking hot!

3. When we found the lookout above the Georgetown, Colorado.
Do you remember this? We drove mountain roads all day and suddenly came to this overlook above Georgetown. It was like finding treasure. What a great time we had exploring and then finished with dinner, a little league game and a wonderful night in a little inn. This might very well be my all time favorite day with you.

4. When you helped me finish the Salem century. I’m not really sure if I would have finished if you hadn’t rode with me the last 30+ miles. Every mile was pain without you. Every mile with you was… well… it was pain too but I hardly noticed it. And that is how all the difficult times have been. You make all the difference.

5. When Dylan was born. All I can say is,”you are one tough cookie.” This has been one of the best adventures of all, hasn’t it?

I love you, Peg.

I hope you’ll be my Valentine.

Chris

Fact or Opinion?

2010-02-06T18:28:00.006-06:00

Have you ever found yourself in the middle of overthinking a problem or situation?

I was having a discussion recently with a young man who was stating that he didn’t see the need to qualify what he was saying with the phrase ‘in my opinion’. “It’s obvious that it is my opinion”, he shrugged. “Why else would I be saying it?”

I argued that it was not always obvious if a statement were fact or opinion and that in fact ;-), it had been my recent experience that people often seemed to have a problem distinguishing between the two. I notice this confusion all the time in political arguments as well as in everyday life when people are emotionally attached to an idea. “Well, I believe that Elvis is still alive and my opinion is just as good as anyone else’s”.

“Just the facts ma’am”, Dragnet’s Sgt. Friday used to command, but I’m not sure that the population as a whole would still understand what he meant by that. It hasn’t been too long ago that I had to proctor basic language skills assessments and I couldn’t help but notice that the questions regarding fact and opinion tended to give people a lot of difficulty. I looked up an example problem on the web at pretentious.univ.edu.

Which of the following is an opinion?
A. Todd is wearing a blue tie.
B. Gary was unhappy that his team lost.
C. Sheila woke up at 7:30 in the morning.
D. Jose won the race at field day. N

Now it is true that the real skill that is being tested here is how well the test taker identifies cues like emotional adjectives and passive voice to assist with identifying opinion. To some extent, this ability to identify opinion and how far it lies out on a logical limb relies on familiarity with the meaning and mechanics of the language involved in communication. From that point of view, one of the above answers stands out.

But what if we were to just compare the answers with one or more definitions of opinion to see if we can find a match? This should be a simple exercise if we have a fundamental understanding of English and have ready and accurate definitions. The top two definitions for ‘opinion’ from Dictionary.com follow below:

1. a belief or judgment that rests on grounds insufficient to produce complete certainty.

2. a personal view, attitude, or appraisal.

Does the statement, “Todd is wearing a blue tie” meet one of the above definitions for opinion? Compare it to definition #1. Can we have complete certainty that “Todd is wearing a blue tie”?

Well, I guess that depends on our definition of 'complete certainty'. For example, at what point does a shade of blue make the transition to a shade of purple? We could ask two people, “What color is that tie?” One might say, “blue”; Another might say “purple”. A third person that happens to be color challenged might say, “green”.

What if it is a blue bolo? Is a bolo a tie? What if he’s just hanging it around his neck to see if it matches his shirt? Is that ‘wearing’ the tie? We haven’t even begun to consider what degree of evidence we are going to accept as producing ‘certainty’.

Someone might say, “Look Chris, you are making this too hard. For most situations and observers, is Todd wearing a blue tie or isn’t he?” I might answer with complete honesty, “I’m sorry but ‘complete certainty’ is a strong phrase. I’m not going to be able to convict Todd in a court of law based on whether he was wearing a blue tie or not.” And so based on definition number 1, I would have to (after much philosophical speculation) conclude that selection A is an opinion. Right? Well, I would have gotten the question wrong according to the writers of the test.

Actually, if we philosophize in the above manner, we will have to conclude that every statement that can be made is an opinion--a point made to me by a certain high science teacher who said to me, "prove it freak!" Actually, he didn't say it quite like that but that's what he meant.

Certainty is a complex philosophical subject from both a metaphysical and epistemological perspective. Even if that doesn’t matter to you, there are widely varying opinions regarding what constitutes certainty. Still, for most practical issues, we don’t act that way. If someone comes inside and says, “it’s raining outside”, we don’t reply, “Prove it, you freak”.

But what about when someone says something political like this? “Lowering tax rates actually results in increased tax revenues.”

Would you say that was a statement of fact or an opinion? I’m fairly certain that we could have many different answers from smart, honest people.

1. It is a (correct or incorrect) factual statement.
2. It is an opinion (with varying degrees of evidence that are at some level less than certainty).
3. It is a factual statement that is sometimes correct and sometimes incorrect depending on the circumstances.
4. It is a fact for those with the skills to determine certainty and it is an opinion for those who are not.

I could go on for quite some time. Not everyone is capable of holding something this complex in their mind. Others are too lazy to attempt to hold something this complex in their mind. Some have unknown but actual assumptions that limit the complexity, e.g. they believe wealth is finite and so the statement appears to be more nonsense than fact or opinion.

The dishonest might simply check the statement against an ideological checklist before they answer. In other words, a person might think to themselves, I think that it is an opinion but saying so might put me in the wrong political camp and therefore I’m going to say that it is demonstrable fact. And vice-versa.

What do I think? I’ve done enough mind experiments with very simple economies (such as a few people stranded on a desert island) to be fairly certain that this statement could be factually true or factually wrong depending on circumstances. Can we reliably extrapolate from mind experiments with simple economies to the economy of the United States? I don’t know.

My opinion is that under non-stressful, even keel circumstances, increasing taxes from zero will increase tax revenues until it reaches a point at which the tax burden is sufficiently obnoxious and then it will decrease revenues. The further you go into obnoxious territory, the more people indulge in tax avoidance strategies that also hamper investment, productivity, etc. In other words, if we are to the left of the obnoxious knee, reducing taxes reduces revenues and if we are to the right of the knee, decreasing taxes will increase revenues.

Some people would say, “Hey Chris, that’s obvious and trivial. What we’re arguing about is at what level do taxes become obnoxious. Maybe so, but my point is that most of the voices in the fray are unaware of that. Even worse, they are incapable of seeing the difference between fact and opinion. At least that is my opinion. And that’s a fact. Is that clear?

On to answer B. Just kidding. And if anyone has made it this far, B was the correct answer. Have you ever found yourself in the middle of overthinking a problem or situation?

My View: The Early 70s

2010-02-03T20:21:00.014-06:00

The first thing that comes to mind when thinking back to 1970 is the cover of the Licking year book, High Spots which featured the free form, psychedelic lettering so prevalent on posters, album covers and my own doodles during the period. Alphabet soup in a lava lamp. I finished 7th grade, studying the U.S. Constitution just before the “four dead in Ohio” at Kent State in May and the resulting student strike that shut down hundreds of college campuses all over the nation. The invasion of Cambodia and images of the Mai Lai massacre from Vietnam had ratcheted up the level of protest and the public’s disgust.

Reaction to Vietnam permeated pop culture. Our society was high on chemicals, emotions and sometimes pure meanness. Licking had returning veterans like the rest of the country. They didn’t talk much, looked around at our pretense and self-deception and mostly decided to keep to their selves. The way this country treated that era’s veterans is one of the most shameful episodes in our nation’s history. Still, we seem to have collectively realized it, and at least in that regard, changed for the better. I doubt that we still appreciate the sacrifices of the men and women in uniform as much as we should but we would have to live it for that to happen.

One of the joys of my childhood (I forgot to mention in earlier posts) was when the year’s new cars would show up at the dealerships in Licking. I had sometimes seen previews of them in my uncle Bill’s Motor Trends but to see them spanking brand new, sitting on the street in front of Licking Motor Company and Ray Chevrolet for the first time was a real thrill. It’s amazing now to think of a time when the cars changed every year, when you knew that a ’59 and a ’60 Impala both had a “flying wing” rear end but the ’59 had teardrop taillights and the ’60 had individual round taillights.

It’s hard to know exactly when cars began to take a turn for the worse. There had been individual duds like the Edsel and the Corvair earlier in the 60s but the collective insanity present during the introduction of subcompacts in 1970 is my choice. The Ford Pinto and the AMC Gremlin looked like their prototypes might have been accidentally backed into each other at the Detroit car show before becoming the template for production. The Gremlin looked like it got the worst of the collision but it was the Pinto that ended up exploding when hit in the rear end. Chevy sabotaged their own offering, the Vega, when somebody, or I suppose several some bodies, at GM thought it would be a good idea to put a cast iron head on an aluminum alloy block. My dad’s Vega blew a head gasket in the first 200 miles. Did I mention earlier that our society was high on chemicals at the time? Dodge said “me too” by importing their Colt from Mitsubishi in Japan. At least they could blame the whole thing on somebody else.

In the fall, our class finally moved to the west end of the old gym with Harold Lane and Eula Fudge. We had studied the U.S. Constitution in the 7th grade; we tackled the Missouri State Constitution in the 8th grade. I was surprised to find that it seemed even more complex and difficult, very much like I would find the corresponding income taxes in later years. Harold Lane was the first male teacher that I had sat under; I wish the rest had been as great. He was an excellent Social Studies teacher, integrating current events much as Mrs. Amyx had in the 6th Grade.

It was at this age that I really began to focus more on music. During the 7th grade, I had played in a trumpet trio in the high school band with Mike Matchell and Byron Hagler. I’ll have to say, those guys treated me well; Byron is still one of my favorite people. Given that I was barely taller than Mike’s belt I wouldn’t have blamed them for asking for a different third. Most of my classmates got pulled into the High School band in the 8th grade along with me, I guess because there were so few high school students that played. Steve Jackson, Rick Hazen and I were in a trumpet trio and we received a 1 rating at State. We had a great time and I enjoyed playing with those guys too.

While I’m thinking about band, I want to go back and mention something I forgot in an earlier post. I don’t remember which year it was, just that it was sometime between the 5th and 7th grades. A group of soldiers had traveled to Licking from Ft. Leonard Wood (I assume) to provide a 21-gun salute detail at a military funeral. For some reason that was never clear to me, they came to school to find someone to play taps. I can just imagine that I must have been near their last resort. I joined the detail in a 15 passenger van and we headed out to one of the country cemeteries. The soldiers were as surprised to see me as I was to see them. I don’t think they could quite believe that I would be able to play; they made me get my trumpet out of the case and prove it. I handled that just fine but at the cemetery I was nervous. I could have almost played Taps in my sleep but standing out there behind a tree by myself freaked me out. And then when they fired the 3 volleys, a woman cried out so long and loud that I didn’t know whether to begin playing or not. I panicked and started blowing which turned out to be the right thing to do.

Back then, there was some great brass sounds that actually made it onto the pop charts; Al Hirt, Herb Alpert, Blood Sweat & Tears, Bob Crewe, Chicago Transit Authority—even Henry Mancini. I loved Chicago’s early stuff and while Mr. Smith was there, we played it in band. Hazen and I loved playing the theme from Peter Gunn. He played the baritone part and I played the trumpet. So of course, since we loved it, Mr. Helsley put a stop to it and threatened us with various punishments for even warming up with Peter Gunn. He could name that song in two notes. He wasn’t about fun but he had our band whipped into shape in short order.

It was about this same time that I discovered the Moody Blues, Yes and King Crimson which began an interest in Progressive Rock that has lasted to this day. Not many early prog cuts made it to radio. After all, not many are less than 5 minutes long, but songs like “I’ve Seen All Good People” and “Roundabout" somehow found their way on the airwaves, at least on FM. Prog makes for some interesting “bedfellows” as they say. I like current Christian neo-prog but I’ll still listen to The Lamb Lies Down on Broadway or Close to the Edge and come away from it just as much in awe as I was back then. Steve Jackson came home from Christmas break at Central Methodist in ’74 and turned me on to Kansas.

But it wasn’t just instrumental band or prog that I enjoyed. Rockabilly never gets old to me either. I loved listening to Creedence and the Ozark Mountain Daredevils. I’ll never forget hearing the Hollies sing “Long Cool Woman in a Black Dress” for the first time. The spare cleanness of it, the raw, ratty, thwack, thwack of those Fender Telecasters. Man! Hearing great songs for the first time—that was really something!

And then the Jesus People music started; Love Song, Chuck Girard, Barry McGuire, Keith Green, Randy Stonehill, Phil Keaggy and Larry Norman. As Kathy Rockwell and Kim Corder mentioned on FB, nighttime am radio, especially WLS Chicago was my best source for pop/rock. Salem started an FM station sometime in the early 70s. Bill Taylor was my source for the Jesus music coming out of Calvary Chapel in Costa Mesa, CA. Bill, his brother Dell, Debbie (Ryno) Jett and I sang together at church. Bill had a beautiful red Gibson SG (still does, he told me a couple of years ago), Dell played the bass and Ann Hagler backed us on piano. Bill was older and very cool I thought, especially since he drove us around in his older brother’s Dodge Charger. And Bill was just a good guy. It seems like he was the only senior that didn’t get kicked off the basketball team that year.

Entering High School in 1971 was a huge change. I had spent some time in the building going to the cafeteria, to band and a few trips to the library. Once in the eighth grade, Mr. Lane sent me to the library for a book on Lincoln and the moment I walked in, pennies started flying at me. The school had several forms of cultural insanity going on at the time. Throwing pennies in class, especially the library, was just one of them. I stooped down to pick a couple up off the floor and the librarian, Ms. Zanotti, (that was her name, I kid you not) came directly to me and demanded that I hand them over like I had just lifted them out of someone’s pocket.

Another form of insanity at the time involved “cracking” or the attempt to induce severe abdominal discomfort by striking guys where it hurts the most. Cracking was loosely tied to initiation into high school (as was landing in the bushes between the schools) but was certainly not limited to it. The worst I ever got it was from an upper cut with a bass drum mallet in the instrument closet of the band room. I quickly learned, as the old saying goes, to “gird my loins” at all times.

The Licking News archives lists an article from April 26, 1973 that I remember: A Moon Rock was displayed at Licking Schools. Don Routh, 1955 graduate of LHS, and who works with N.A.S.A. in Ala., brought the rock. I was one of the group of students that walked down to the Intercounty Electric Auditorium to see other cool toys that Don brought. He showed us a laser and the first hand-held calculator that I had ever seen.

Another news item from the period on Dec. 20, 1973: Fire destroyed the Silva’s Family Recreation Center on So. Main, Licking, early Sun. morning. I remember that fire very well because I had been at the Ryno’s house playing Risk all night long. Early on Sunday morning when we started south into town on Old 63, you could see the orange glow against the sky. Snow on the ground and a hazy sky made it even brighter. We went on into town and watched the pool hall burn from across the street.

Ms. Zanotti was not the only teacher at the High School during this time that was “turned a little funny”. It is probably sufficient to say that we had some odd folk standing in front of the classrooms. Mr. Donald Ammerman, freshman Algebra teacher who bore a resemblance to a gunslinger from out of town, claimed to have bowled a perfect game and to have published geometric proofs. He loved music and yoyos, two of my own favorites and so we got to hear Carolyn Munch play Classical Gas on the guitar and I traded the use of my Duncan sleepers for extra time in the gym. Helen Wilson subbed one week and we actually had to work in an old school way, which is what we probably should have been doing all along, but still we whined and complained.

I watched some teachers struggle with tempers, compete with students, make fun of kids in front of their peers and act in inappropriate ways. I watched others pour out their lives into the students and provoke us on to become better. As a forwarded email recently pointed out, we don’t remember who won Grammys or Emmys over the last years. It’s even hard for me to remember who won the World Series in any given year that the Cardinals weren’t in it. But I remember and appreciate the teachers who made me think, who spurred me to push on and opened new worlds in my mind.

A Walk In The Snow

2010-01-30T20:18:00.005-06:00

The dogs joined me on a walk through the deep snow back in the woods this afternoon. I was surprised when Sydney came along. She's 14 now and rarely ventures very far. I wasn't surprised to see her turn back before we reached the creek. Peanut stayed so close I had a hard time taking her picture, only leaving for short periods to follow a couple of deer trails.

The deep snow made it hard going, especially when crossing downed trees and when climbing steep hillsides. Dropping down into the creek bottom was like entering a padded canyon. The surface of the creek was frozen but I could hear the water gurgling just under the surface and see its sweeping shadows. Icicles hung from short moss covered bluffs. Other than the creek, fallen logs, large boulders and small craters from snow falling off branches, the white surface was unbroken. The snow seemed to muffle all sound; it was so quiet that all I heard was the gurgling of the water and the sound of my own breathing.

Moon On Snow

2010-01-29T23:02:00.003-06:00

10 pm tonight, snow, moon, F4.5, 13 sec open shutter

Traversing The Radio Gauntlet

2010-01-27T18:21:00.002-06:00

I flicked the radio on during my commute home a couple of nights ago. Sean Hannity was arguing with a caller. The thing about Sean is, if you listen to him for about three minutes, you’ve heard his talking points and the rest is just going to be repetition. I normally listen for maybe three minutes (he wants three hours) and then go elsewhere. Still, I hadn’t heard his take on the Brown/Coakley Senatorial election in Massachusetts last week so I decided to hang in there. I picked a good moment to tune in because that was actually the subject of the argument. The caller was of the opinion that the “message” of the election results was that the country was becoming more centrist. If there’s one thing that Sean hates worse than a liberal, it’s a centrist. He’s of the black/white, hot/cold mindset. Luke warm and you get spewed.

I didn’t have to hang in there long to hear Sean’s view; he sees the message from Massachusetts as being a repudiation of Obama______. Fill in the blank with care, nomics, mania... whatever; in fact you can leave it blank. No surprises there. On my morning commute I had listened to a pundit on NPR stating that the message of Massachusetts was that the Left was angry that Obama had not kept promises to them. Hmmm… so let’s see, across the political spectrum, the political junkies believe that the results from Massachusetts support (surprise, surprise) their own view. I felt the great temptation of my 50s starting to grab at me. At 50+ the great temptations are not food, lust... they are cynicism and well... I don't want to spoil it for the 20-40 somethings.

In an attempt to avoid both I switched over to NPR. Sometimes “All Things Considered” has an interesting segment on music around 4:45 p.m. Oooh, I was in luck I thought; the announcer said something about 50 great voices. I really don’t like lists but still—great voices; that’s something worth listening to. So whose “great voice” was their choice for the show?

Iggy Pop. Really? Iggy Pop? Let me ask you this, “Do you consider a piece of burnt toast to be one of the 50 great meals, a great meal, or even a meal at all?”

Here is the transcript from the opening: “His isn't the first name you'd expect to see on a list of great voices. But when you think of voice in the broadest sense of the word — a person communicating an idea with an audience — then Iggy Pop more than holds his own. He's proved that a voice doesn't have to charm or seduce someone; it can provoke. A vocal can be dangerous.”

Well, excuse me for assuming by “voice” that we were talking about a singing voice. I mean if we are going to think of the word voice that broadly, why don’t we just include Charlie Manson? He was a singer/ musician. He communicated dangerous ideas that charmed and seduced as well as provoked. And really, was Iggy Pop all that dangerous? I’m more afraid of Gene Simmons or even Joan Jett for crying out loud. I realize that I am only two ears in the crowd but the only thing Iggy Pop ever provoked me to do was to turn the knob or leave the room. He wouldn’t care to hear me say it and I don’t care that he wouldn’t care so where does that leave us? It leaves us with one slot for 50 great voices that was completely wasted. It didn’t make me angry but it did make me change the station.

I stopped by Spirit FM for a few seconds but they were playing one of the icky-sweet pop songs so prevalent with CCM. Icky pop I guess you could call it. I know, it’s just the ticket for many people and I listen to it sometimes—with the opposite strategy I employed as a teen. (I used to listen to the music and try to ignore the words; now I listen to the words and ignore the music).

Having left Iggy Pop for Icky Pop, I next landed on KKID who were playing Plush by STP. Great Scott! Now I was stuck with Seattle throat “and I feel that time’s a wasted.” I felt it all right—felt the urge to get to the next station.

I switched off the radio and did what I should have done in the first place; looked through the gloom to find the beauty that was there and had a little talk with Jesus.

Going Home

2010-01-25T18:47:00.004-06:00

The wisdom of Bon Jovi notwithstanding, I believe Thomas Wolfe was generally correct in saying “you can’t go home”. At least you cannot find your past in the current time by going back to locations of your childhood. We might come closer to going home in our memory but as I have written before, even our memory is suspect. But it goes even deeper than that. It is not just that the time and place of our childhood has changed; we too have changed.

Consider “Over the Hills” by one of my favorite poets, Edward Thomas:

Often and often it came back again,
To mind, the day I passed the horizon ridge
To a new country, the path I had to find
By half-gaps that were stiles once in the hedge,
The pack of scarlet clouds running across
The harvest evening that seemed endless then
And after, and the inn where all were kind,
All were strangers. I did not know my loss
Till one day twelve months later suddenly
I leaned upon my spade and saw it all,
Though far beyond the sky-line. It became
Almost a habit through the year for me
To lean and see it and think to do the same
Again for two days and a night. Recall
Was vain: no more could the restless brook
Ever turn back and climb the waterfall
To the lake that rests and stirs not in its nook,
As in the hollow of the collar-bone
Under the mountain’s head of rush and stone.

Even without knowing what occurred at the inn he had visited, we see that he understands that he can never go back and experience the past, even to the point of stating that “recall was vain” And yet recall he does (probably while leaning on the spade), for the poem continues on with his story of what had occurred:

A fortnight before Christmas Gypsies were everywhere:
Vans were drawn up on wastes, women trailed to the fair.
'My gentleman,' said one, 'you've got a lucky face.'
'And you've a luckier,' I thought, 'if such grace
And impudence in rags are lucky.' 'Give a penny
For the poor baby's sake.' 'Indeed I have not any
Unless you can give change for a sovereign, my dear.'
'Then just half a pipeful of tobacco can you spare?'
I gave it. With that much victory she laughed content.
I should have given more, but off and away she went
With her baby and her pink sham flowers to rejoin
The rest before I could translate to its proper coin
Gratitude for her grace. And I paid nothing then,
As I pay nothing now with the dipping of my pen
For her brother's music when he drummed the tambourine
And stamped his feet, which made the workmen passing grin,
While his mouth-organ changed to a rascally Bacchanal dance
'Over the hills and far away.' This and his glance
Outlasted all the fair, farmer, and auctioneer,
Cheap-jack, balloon-man, drover with crooked stick, and steer,
Pig, turkey, goose, and duck, Christmas corpses to be.
Not even the kneeling ox had eyes like the Romany.
That night he peopled for me the hollow wooded land,
More dark and wild than the stormiest heavens, that I searched and scanned
Like a ghost new-arrived. The gradations of the dark
Were like an underworld of death, but for the spark
In the Gypsy boy's black eyes as he played and stamped his tune,
'Over the hills and far away,' and a crescent moon.

And yet… and yet like Thomas, I choose to recall those experiences and the people who have made my life what it is. In that sense, in the process of loving and sharing and remembering, without any pretense, we can go home. It’s not living in the past; it is making today even richer.

It is obvious from the second half of Thomas’ poem that his recall really wasn’t in vain. The experience itself was a part of what had shaped him. He does an amazing job of belying his own words with the care he puts into the story. And so I find it not true that he paid nothing with the writing. On the contrary, he paid everything.

Interesting facts about Edward Thomas:
He was a good friend of Robert Frost.
They met in 1912 and Frost inspired Thomas to write poetry.
Thomas died 5 years later in Arras, France, only a month or so after having joined the fight in WWI.

Greetings from Germany

2010-01-23T19:17:00.003-06:00

A package full of chocolate showed up from Hamburg a couple of weeks ago with a letter from Torben. He said, "I have been thinking about you guys the whole year but especially now in Christmas time I realize how many good moments we have spent together. Just yesterday I was driving up to work and the snow made the whole town kind of vanish under it..."

He went on to wish Dylan well in college, Peg at school and me at work. Then... "and maybe the Cards will win the World Series title next year ;). Well, we can only hope, Torben. We'll see how the pitching goes.

He also had a few words for Ben and Grammy and mentioned her pancakes. I think Grammy misses Knut, Torben and Dylan for breakfast every morning. He goes on to say, "Every morning when I'm having breakfast I have to think about all the good moments we have had together; are you remembering that Dylan always used to say I'm the slowest eater in the world; yeah he was probably right. :) But I have one more thing to say, "Dylan you should eat the things out of the package a little bit slower as you were eating your breakfast cause the next ones are not coming before Christmas next year ;)"

Now, the funny thing about this is that Peg, Dylan and I had already decided to refrain from unnecessary sugar during the month of January. So we looked at each other like... oh no! Well, as the saying goes, "good things come to those who wait". And so far, I think we have all waited. I mean, it's not like I inventoried everything. There might be a Kinder bar missing.

Knut has also written several times in the last few weeks. He is much the same as always, staying very busy and yet finding time to appreciate the people and the outdoors around him. The other night he wrote that he had stayed up most of the night working on a puzzle that we had given him.

Knut's sister Mirjam has also applied to be a scholarship exchange student. This is a picture of her with their uncle's Rhönsheep.

Knut's workplace. The old catholic Abby in Zella (Propstei Zella). Not just interesting due to the historical background. It contains also a catholic kindergarten and an info point of the Biosphärenreservat Rhön.

View upon the Felda valley. The snow had been melting but still covered the mountains.

My View: The Late 1960s

2010-01-19T22:30:00.007-06:00

In the fall of 1967 I went up the hill to the old sandstone building with the “old gym” in the middle to enter Fifth grade. For the first time in my life I really didn’t like school. I guess it’s kind of odd to have a bad year in the middle of elementary but I don’t remember anything good happening at all at school that year.

The old building stunk of dirt, sweat, ammonia and the janitor’s products. We had gone from being the big dogs at the little elementary to being the squirts again. A group of sixth graders played the 7th grade basketball team and beat them. The 6th grader’s success enthused the boys in the 5th grade so much that we challenged the 7th grade team only to get killed. Most of the 5th grade just seemed like one humiliation after another.

The world had gotten even crazier as we were well into the 60s. Actually, the world was well into the 60s; Licking didn’t enter the 60s until the 70s--at least that’s the way I remember it. The Martin Luther King, Jr. and Robert Kennedy assassinations were shocking and in sharp contrast to the “Summer of Love”. The Beatles had released “Yellow Submarine” and Che Guevara got caught and was executed the very next day. Like the earlier years of the 60s, as shocking as these events were, they actually had little effect on me. I went around humming “Are you going to San Francisco?” and “We all live in a yellow submarine” but I didn’t know anything about free love or hallucinogens.

I didn’t know who Che was either but he seemed to be about as popular on t-shirts as Mao Tse Tung. Mao I knew because he was one of the world leaders mentioned on “The First Family” comedy album. Chiang Ki-shek (leader of Nationalist China in Formosa or Taiwan) rejected mayo on his sandwich at a state luncheon hosted by the Kennedys. “Please, not to mention that name”, he barks. I laughed along with the laugh track at this pun, mostly because of Ki-shek’s funny voice but also because my dad had said that Mao’s name was pronounced Mousy Tongue and that was just too funny.

The world was changing but some people weren’t happy with how slowly it was changing. I have read since the Che quote, “In fact, if Christ himself stood in my way, I, like Nietzsche, would not hesitate to squish him like a worm”. People that say stuff like that usually end up getting eaten by worms and a much worse fate may follow. I wonder how many t-shirts would have sold if Che had gone by his first name, Ernesto.

The one way that I remember the chaos in the outside world coming to Licking during those days was through a few bomb threats that were called into the school. The first couple of times this happened, we went outside and stood around for a few minutes before going back inside, but there was at least one day when we were sent home. It was all very exciting and we put our sleuthing skills to work in trying to figure out who was responsible.

In the fall of 1968 I moved a couple of doors down the hall and the sixth grade was much better for me. My class benefited from having Mrs. Amyx during an election year. She obviously loved politics and entertained our every curiosity and question about Nixon, Humphrey, Wallace or the election in general. We were very curious. We were also very interested in keeping Mrs. Virginia Amyx talking about politics so that we didn’t have to do any work. We were allowed to bring in buttons, stickers and posters. The whole school seemed to be involved. I can still remember Ronnie Banford, in the 8th grade at the time, wearing a football helmet with a George Wallace bumper sticker on it. Nixon, Humphrey and Wallace. Anyone who voted solely on looks was surely disappointed that year. They all looked like toady brothers in a 40s mob movie.

If you go back and look at the Democrat nominations for that year, you realize once again how tumultuous the period was. President Johnson had not been elected himself and seemed like a good bet for the eventual nomination by default—but he withdrew, citing that he thought the office itself required his attention. Robert Kennedy jumped in but was assassinated by Sirhan Sirhan. Eugene McCarthy was popular with the intellectuals and young college students but Hubert Humphrey had Chicago Mayor Daly and the labor unions in his pocket. The Chicago Democratic Convention picked Humphrey/Muskey but the riots also made sure of their eventual failure as Presidential candidates.

One of the most fun activities during that period was camping with the Royal Rangers. My dad was the troop leader and he loved taking the boys camping. We had those old heavy canvas tents that were never properly dried out and smelled of mildew. We took them everywhere around Licking. We camped on Hatch’s land near the springs above the bridge on Boone Creek, by the little lake at the State Nursery, Paddy Creek, Lane Springs, Sand Shoals, Ed Sharp’s place, and once at a RR PowWow at the Lake of the Ozarks. We weren’t great outdoorsmen by any means but we learned the basics and kept from killing each other while having a great deal of fun. We played kick-the-can, steal-the-bacon, Indian ball and mumbledepeg. We sharpened sticks and tried to harpoon fish, climbed bluffs, swung on vines, built dams, roasted apples and marshmallows, and cleaned our pots and pans in the gravel by the streams.

We camped in the summer and in the winter. I remember camping in the snow at the Nursery Lake and sleeping under a stack of moving and storage quilts so thick I could hardly move. We were “ready, ready for anything, ready to work, play, serve, obey, worship, live, etc.” I always liked the etcetera part. A Royal Ranger was “alert, clean, honest, courageous, loyal, courteous, obedient and spiritual.” At least that’s what we were supposed to be and it may say something about how important this was to me to know that I wrote the above code and motto completely from memory.

In actuality, we were ready all right… ready to be rowdy and my dad had his hands full. He had some help at various times from other men in our church. Ed Sharp helped out for a while. Bob Wilson helped when he moved to Licking and eventually took over the group. I also remember at the PowWow we went to, one of the competitive events was to build a fire and light it with one match. Our match quickly sputtered and went out and Harvey Ryno whipped out a Zippo and quickly had it blazing. I’m not sure we learned the right lesson that day but I still laugh about it.

The fall of 1969 took me further down the hall to Mrs. Buckner’s class and the 7th grade. Mrs. Buckner read to us and encouraged us to write original stories. My friend Rusty was very good at this since he already had a bunch of stories floating around in his head. All my stuff was derivative of books I had read and I seriously doubt any of it was of much value, but I enjoyed it. It was the first time since the second grade that I had attempted to write anything original. Still, it began the on again—off again process that is now the seventh third time… this blog.

"Houston, Tranquility Base here. The Eagle has landed." I really cannot describe how I felt when I heard those words on Sunday, July 20, 1969. I had believed that we would eventually be on the moon. Heck, actually I believed as a little kid that I myself would eventually be in space, but as I got older and began to understand the difficulties… I forgot about all of that. Well, the impossible had happened. I tried to imagine being on the moon looking at Earth and a sense of wonder overwhelmed me. After years of hearing various conspiracy theories I was happy this last year when the Lunar Reconnaissance Orbiter showed images of Apollo landing sites on the surface of the moon with the descent stages of the lunar modules and even tracks made by the astronauts.

A little over a month later a half million hippies descended on Max Yasgar’s dairy farm near Bethel, NY and got nekkid, muddy and stoned. There are probably a couple million people who now claim they were there. Some have proof since Life magazine photos, like this pic of the Merry Prankster’s magic bus, are still available for viewing at www.life.com. In fact, some of the best photography of the period can be found there. It was certainly a crazy period in time.

When I remember images or feelings from the time, it isn’t Life magazine or television. I see and feel the school ball field, the monkey bars, putting my hot hands from recess on the metal back supports of my desk to cool them off, going down the tunnel steps from the dank, dressing rooms or sliding down the wooden rails into the old gym, tipping my chair back on two legs in the band room, leaning on the window ledge to look at the parked cars outside, the smell of the cafeteria, kicking a can or a rock on the way home, busting my lip on a freezing trumpet mouthpiece as we marched down the street. But most of all, I see my friends and classmates, hear their voices in those old classrooms and down the halls. And the passage of time feels like a weight that I can hardly bear.

Bluff Trail on the Big Piney

2010-01-18T15:16:00.006-06:00

A warm day in January just cries for a hike along the river. Dylan and Peg joined me on the Bluff Trail above Slabtown. We left the trail to sit on the outcropping above the river. The top picture is looking north toward the access and Cave Eddy.

From the outcropping, you can look toward the southwest and see the ridge behind the mouth of Paddy Creek, and even further south, the ridge behind the bottom of High Log-Way Eddy.

Dylan said something about it being a good place to camp for the night if it were a bit bigger. I guess it would be as long as you didn't roll out of bed. The floor is a long ways down and kinda wet.

Facebook

2010-01-17T22:57:00.002-06:00

I periodically go through anti-tech moods when I threaten to stomp on the cell phone, throw out the tv, close the laptop for good and go sit in a tree house for a year. I have texted but never tweeted and I am sorry, but I refuse to farm on facebook.

But I will have to admit, fb has shown its worth recently by hooking me back up with old friends, particularly the class of 75. Within the last few months, actually mostly within the last few weeks, I have heard from Carol (Bates) Roling, Monica (Freeman) Davy, Debbie (Bates) Williams, Debra (Ryno) Jett, Russ Caton, John Grady, Teresa (Hubbs) Dunnigan, Kathy (Pinkston) Rockwell, Patty (Davenport) Norris, and Wendy Ward. Carol, Teresa, Russ and I met for lunch a couple of weeks ago without the help of fb but some are too far away for a quick lunch.

2010 makes it 35 years since any of us walked the halls at Licking High School. To tell the truth, for 34 of those years I was satisfied with the infrequent chance meeting, email, or reunion. No longer. I’m not sure what has changed. Perhaps it is the very fragmented, manic, schizophrenic world that tech like fb has helped create that causes me to want to cling to the people who shared my formative years in a simpler world. If so, it’s a bit ironic that fb has helped me connect with them once again.

Haiti

2010-01-15T21:34:00.004-06:00

The images and stories coming out of Haiti are staggering. Please pray for the people of Haiti and consider giving to Convoy of Hope. They are a very reputable "first responder" organization out of Springfield, MO. They are already on the ground in Haiti. It is easy to give by credit card or Paypal at their website. Click on the logo above or here.

Memory

2010-01-12T18:49:00.006-06:00

Memory is a funny thing. I'm finding that even when it seems crystal clear to me it may not be. In fact, it is difficult to determine just how accurate it is.

I wrote a post a couple of weeks ago about the pinball machines at The Store and at Grandma's in Licking during the 70s. It bothered me that I could not remember the name of the pinball machine at Grandma's that I liked so well. I looked at the machines from that era on the Internet Pinball Machine Database and while many of them looked familiar, I just couldn't be sure because I knew there was a good chance that I had played the machines somewhere else.

So I called Gary Cook. We played a lot of pinball together, especially out at Grandma's, and I figured that he might remember what the name was. But Gary couldn't remember either and wasn't even sure if the machine I was talking about had been a 4-player machine. He seemed to think it was a Williams.

Gary did remember the other pinball machine at The Store. "Bonanza" he said and as soon as he said it, I remembered it too. The internet database had pictures of the back glass and the playing table that you see here.

I was convinced that I was overlooking something so I searched the database once again. Most of the 1950s machines still had wood rails so I narrowed the search down to the late 50s through the early 70s. I also narrowed the search to 4-player machines and Williams, based on Gary's memories. All of the sudden I was once again looking at a machine that I had passed up before and I realized that I was probably looking at the right pinball machine. I had only been looking at the back of the machines but when I looked more closely at the playing table I became convinced. This was the machine.

Of course when you remember one thing it just leads to something else. Thinking back to what it was like to be at Grandma's made me remember sitting at one of the booths, eating an order of deep fried mushrooms and a drinking a sody. And then I remembered the tabletop penny fortune telling machines. What were they called? Oh no, not again... how long will it take me to figure that one out?

Childhood friends help us remember. I recently had lunch with Russ Caton, Teresa (Hubbs) Dunnigan, and Carol (Bates) Roling. We graduated together in 1975. I noticed that we filled in the blanks for each other, remembering names and events from another time.

On the other hand, sometimes you remember the same event and just remember it differently. My mind tells me that me memories are correct but who knows? Is Shangri-la the pinball machine from Grandma's that liked so well? Well, it seems like it to me but I wouldn't swear to it in court.

Be Thou My Vision

2010-01-11T21:12:00.004-06:00

I'm not Irish but an old Irish song has been moving up the chart of my favorite hymns. I think it may rest at #3, right behind "It Is Well With My Soul" and "Amazing Grace". The tune is old, very old, maybe 7th-8th century old. The lyrics are not so old, Eleanor Hulls 1912 version/adaptation of Mary Byrne's 1905 English translation.

I've listened to several recent versions lately with the Irish whistle. I even heard the Presbyterian congregation sing it in "A River Runs Through It". The tune is beyond beautiful. The words are beyond fitting. They say what I have been unable to say.

Be Thou my vision, O Lord of my heart;
Naught be all else to me, save that Thou art.
Thou my best thought, by day or by night,
Waking or sleeping, Thy presence my light.

Be Thou my Wisdom, Thou my true Word;
I ever with Thee, Thou with me, Lord;
Thou my great Father, I thy true son;
Thou in me dwelling, and I with Thee one.

Be Thou my battle-shield, sword for my fight,
Be Thou my dignity, Thou my delight.
Thou my soul's shelter, Thou my high tower.
Raise Thou me heavenward, O Power of my power.

Riches I heed not, nor man's empty praise,
Thou mine inheritance, now and always:
Thou and Thou only, first in my heart,
High King of heaven, my Treasure Thou art.

High King of heaven, my victory won,
May I reach heaven's joys, O bright heav'ns Son!
Heart of my own heart, whatever befall,
Still be my vision, O ruler of all.

Revenge

2010-01-11T20:59:00.004-06:00

“But I say unto you which hear, Love your enemies, do good to them which hate you, Bless them that curse you, and pray for them which despitefully use you.”

“You have heard the law that says the punishment must match the injury: ‘An eye for an eye, and a tooth for a tooth.’ But I say, do not resist an evil person! If someone slaps you on the right cheek, offer the other cheek also. If you are sued in court and your shirt is taken from you, give your coat, too. If a soldier demands that you carry his gear for a mile carry it two miles. Give to those who ask, and don’t turn away from those who want to borrow.”

The man who said the above was saying it to a group of men who had dropped everything to become his apprentices. Like all apprentices, they were expected to follow his training. As Bonhoeffer said, “If after giving up everything else for his sake they still wanted to cling to their own rights, they would then have ceased to follow him.” He also says, “At this point it becomes evident that when a Christian meets with injustice, he no longer clings to his rights and defends them at all costs. He is absolutely free from possessions and bound to Christ alone.”

Bonhoeffer, a man who knew the hell-bound evil of Adolf Hitler first hand and was finally assassinated as a result of it, also said, “The only way to overcome evil is to let it run itself to a standstill because it does not find the resistance it is looking for… There is no deed on earth so outrageous as to justify a different attitude. The worse the evil, the readier must the Christian be to suffer; he must let the evil person fall into Jesus’ hands.”

Jesus lives out his own teaching on the way to and on the cross. In the end, it is love, God’s love and His love alone that beats evil. The cross proves it.

Do you want to become an apprentice of this man?

Remember this: every time a “Christian” clings to his rights, seeks revenge, returns evil for evil, despises his brother or hates his enemy, he has refused his master, mistrusted the power of the Cross, demanded his own way and taken his destiny back from God to grasp it in his own hands. Evil wins and the devil laughs with delight.

Snow on the Horses

2010-01-03T15:56:00.003-06:00

Short Clip from LACY Concert

2010-01-02T00:41:00.003-06:00

Short video clip from New Years Eve LACY concert. Sorry, our video camera isn't so great and neither are my video editing skills.

Happy New Year!

2010-01-01T12:52:00.009-06:00

Baby, it's cold outside! But at least the sun is shining on the first day of 2010.

We had a great New Year's Eve last night, spending time eating and playing games with the Voellingers and Dodsons until about 10:00 pm and then going up to the LHS gym for the Licking Area Christian Youth (LACY) concert.

Dylan had one of those "dream come true" moments last night. I was telling Peg that it reminded me of how when I was a kid I would fantasize about being at a Cardinals game or even at a high school varsity basketball game and so many players would have to leave the game for whatever reason that the coach would come and ask me to play. Silly I know, but hey, I was a kid.

I wrote earlier last summer about an all-girl Christian band named Eternity Focus that played at the LPHC 4th of July Celebration and returned again in October to play another concert. Dylan became friends with the Seaman family and has corresponded with the girls ever since. There is a link to their website on the right side of the blog.

On Tuesday of this week, the LACY committee found out that the band they had contracted with for the New Year's Eve Bash were not going to be able to make it. The committee looked for a local band to take their place to no avail. Keisha, the youth pastor at our church thought of Eternity Focus.

Meanwhile, the Eternity Focus sisters and their parents recently went to Nashville to record a Christmas album and were returning home on Wednesday and Thursday. They took Keisha's call and told her that they would be happy to play the concert but had no instruments or sound equipment with them. What's more, their drummer did not go with them to the recording session so they also needed a drummer. Keisha and the girls thought of Dylan.

Meanwhile again, Dylan and Ethan Smith were cutting trees for Toni Coomes. Dylan, having just broken his cell phone outdoors the week before, had left his new phone in the truck but Keisha was able to get Ethan to answer.

Dylan agreed to drum with the girls but he had left his kit in the dorm at S&T which was locked up for Christmas break. A friend who had to work in Rolla over the break was located, appropriate instruments were located as far away as Bourbon, Keisha rented a PA snake, and the drama team from Mountain Grove that were also going to be performing agreed to let the band use their PA.

The Seamans arrived on Thursday afternoon and they had enough time to go through one practice. Dylan had to learn the some of the songs, pick up on their signals and transitions but by performance time, somehow everything had come together. We all agreed that it was a "God Thing". The instruments were borrowed, the drums weren't mic'ed, they were playing in a gymnasium and they had little time to practice, but they really sounded great. Even better, there was a sweet spirit present to bring in the New Year.

That's Right - I'm Still A Kid

2009-12-30T21:39:00.005-06:00

At my age, to truly be surprised by a Christmas gift is unusual and amazingly pleasant. Blake and Linda (brother and sister-in-law) got me one of those "you shouldn't have" gifts. When I picked it up, it felt like a framed picture but I could hear stuff rolling around. That made my eyebrows raise I'm sure. When I opened it to find an antique pinball machine from the 30's, I could hardly believe my eyes.

The "pinball" machine is a Poosh-M-Up "Big 5", made by Northwestern Products out of St. Louis. It is in very good condition, works perfectly and is actually quite fun.

What is especially interesting is that Blake and Linda didn't know how much I liked pinball when I was a kid. The first toy I remember getting for Christmas that I completely wore out was a Sears table top electric pinball machine. I played that thing long after all the bumpers were dead. My measuring stick for cafes and restaurants had nothing to do with the food. If the place had a pinball machine, it had my approval.

I grew up two blocks from "The Store", right across from the school. I think Mag had a pinball machine in there when I was a little kid but Ernie Poe kept two pinball machines just inside the door throughout the 70s. By far the most popular table was a 1966 Williams 8 Ball. It was a beatable machine, especially for players who could catch the ball on a flipper and send it around the 500 pt carousel in the middle. You could bump it fairly aggressively without tilting it so it received hard use. To own one now would be a true prize.

The only table I enjoyed more was a four player machine out at Grandma Lewis' place on the hill east of town. I haven't been able to find a picture of it and can't even remember the name but I think I'll know it when I see it. It seems like it was a Gottlieb but it might have been a Bally. It was even easier to beat than the 8-Ball at Poe's and I remember a quarter was usually enough to keep a group of us guys playing for a long time.

I still prefer a pinball machine to any video game. I'll have to work long and hard to find a return gift that comes close to this year's gift from Blake and Linda.

Jazz

2009-12-14T22:27:00.007-06:00

The first time I saw Jazz, she was standing tied in the center aisle of the Ricketts’ horse barn, facing away from us. Even when we walked around to get a better look, she seemed to take little notice. At three she didn’t have the goofy curiosity of a colt. Throughout the introductory pats, scratches, and lifting of hooves, she was compliant but gave off the unmistakable air of “being better than all this” – an attitude she maintained to her last day. Perhaps she was right. But on that first day, we coaxed her into jumping into the back of our old two-horse trailer. She flew in like she was leaving a starting gate. Later, the Ricketts told Peg that they had hated to see the filly go.

Her papers said her name was Musics Copy Girl; we called her Jazz. There were no names in her ancestry that really stood out but she was a good looking horse, bay with a white star, and definitively muscled. As a filly, she looked like she had running blood in her, tall and lean. She wasn’t the first running horse on our place but she was the first that had been started on the barrels in truly capable hands. It’s not that Peg was not a good rider. She could ride fast and stay in the middle of a horse’s back. She just didn’t know much about barrel racing, how to get a horse to bend, rate, switch leads and all the other basic skills that characterize a good barrel run. A few days at a Martha Josey clinic was a start at changing that. Sharon Camarillo’s book was read like the Bible, especially the training exercises. Having an arena nearby for practice didn’t hurt either.

In those days during the early ‘90s, at least in south central Missouri, there were no clubs dedicated exclusively to barrel racing like the NBHA or other associations like there are today. There were community saddle clubs, regional horse show associations, individual breed shows and rodeo. If you wanted to barrel race, you went to a saddle club fun show, an association sponsored show, an AQHA show, or a state, regional, or pro rodeo. Some shows were mixed event and breed shows. Barrel racing was just one event among others such as halter classes, gaited and western pleasure, etc. If the club or association didn’t split the show events over two nights, you very well might find yourself running at 2:00 a.m. This was also true of jackpots and speed shows if there were a lot of entries. And it could even be true at a rodeo if there were a lot of entries for that particular day and you drew slack (ran after the normal performance).

Peg began to take Jazz to shows sponsored by Central Ozark Horse Show Association, Mid-Mo Stock Horse Association, South Central Horse Show Association and various fun shows at the communities near Licking. The three regional association barrel races were very competitive; the same horses and riders were usually present at most of the shows and there were certain horses and riders that were always very hard to beat. The horses stay in my memory like sports heroes” Vito, Yeller, Paisley Park, Trudy, Ronny, Chick, Ima, Country, Speakeasy …

Peg and Jazz didn’t win much at first but it wasn’t long before she started placing and taking home a few ribbons and paying her way. Jazz seemed to have a knack for finding the barrels; she liked to turn and she didn’t like hitting barrels. The biggest early issue was being “hot” or nervous at the gate. Later, getting Jazz to “fire” or run hard all the way to the barrel and the timing line became the struggle especially after she had experienced several significant injuries.

Three things convinced Peg to give rodeo a try. She started placing consistently at jackpots and horse shows; Jackie Pinkston, who had rodeoed herself, suggested that she try it; and Peg finally beat Bob Henson from St. Clair on his mare Trudy at a show at St. Robert. It didn’t matter that it was the first time; to Peg’s way of thinking, she and Jazz had finally arrived. Rodeo would, at least at first, convince her otherwise.

The first rodeo Peg and Jazz attended was a Missouri Rodeo Cowboy Association (MRCA) rodeo at Willow Springs, MO. They ran seven tenths off the winning time, an eon in barrel racing. Everything was completely different; no practice runs, only one run a night, an open arena gate, bucking horses and bulls, clowns, fireworks and crowds of people who were not necessarily used to being around horses. The competitors were mostly a different crowd and didn’t seem overly friendly at first. Peg’s confidence took a blow; she didn’t enjoy it much and we didn’t go to another rodeo until the next summer.

I’m not sure Peg would have ever entered another rodeo if it wasn’t for the fact that she had already bought her MRCA card. During June of the next year, we hauled to the last night of an MRCA rodeo in Gerald, MO. This was a Mid-Mo arena that Jazz was familiar with. To tell the truth, I didn’t expect much and didn’t even keep close track of the times. After Peg and Jazz ran, I thought they were in 2nd place and was surprised when none of the later runs were any faster. At the trailer, Peg was grinning and it began to gradually dawn on me that she had evidently placed at a rodeo. I was even more shocked when the announcer said that the winner was Peggy Link. Great Scott! She had won a rodeo.

A few weeks later, she entered an MRCA rodeo in Ellisville, MO. Ellisville is a suburb of St. Louis and I began to get a little nervous when we hauled the trailer right down Manchester Blvd. Turning south, we began to drop down into a wooded valley and I gulped when I saw the makeshift arena and parking area. They both seemed no bigger than a shoe box and I had a heck of a time backing into an open parking area without hitting other peoples’ horses and trailers. The pen was portable, a fairly common practice for stock contractors who produce rodeos in cities where there is no permanent arena. The contractor also had a very small area in which to set up and so the pen was the smallest I had ever seen, perfect for the bucking stock but not much room for barrel racing.

I hadn’t learned anything from the rodeo at Gerald. Everything about the rodeo said to me that Peg didn’t have much of a chance. The ground looked heavy and sticky, Jazz was used to relatively large, 16-17 second barrel patterns, and because the rodeo had so much added money, there were a lot of contestants. Once again, it was the second night of a two-day rodeo. I remember Peg mentioning to me later that she didn’t think that she had a chance either. She was intimidated by the situation and by the experience of all the other riders. The best times from the night before were in the 13.2 second range. I sat up in the stands, squeezed between people I didn’t know, with my stomach as full of butterflies as if I were the one competing.

Out of the hundreds of barrel races that Peg ran with Jazz, this is the only one that I really wish that I had videoed. Don’t get me wrong, she had many other good runs, including winning the opening go-round at her first MRCA finals at the Missouri State Fair in Sedalia, but the run at Ellisville was something special, smooth and fast, without any noticeable mistakes. When the announcer called out a 12.9 second time, I probably would have fallen off the bleacher if I hadn’t been so tightly wedged in. Within a month, Peg and Jazz had won two rodeos. As one of the barrel racers on the Women’s Pro Rodeo Today show on RFD-TV said recently, “we thought we’d never see another poor day.” And I don’t mean that money-wise. Winning was fun.

The two continued to rodeo but although they won many more times and ended up going to the MRCA finals six years, they never again had quite such a hot winning streak as they did that second rodeo summer. Jazz was susceptible to hoof wall problems and tendon pulls and sprains. At the American Cowboy Rodeo Association (ACRA) finals in Springfield, MO in ’97, Jazz pulled a tendon during the first go-round and Peg had to ride a backup horse the last two nights. We actually didn’t know it for sure until the next morning when going to feed. Jazz’s right front leg had swelled up to more than twice its normal size.

Because of injuries there were seasons missed and Jazz was never quite the same again after the ACRA finals injury. After Peg quit hauling to rodeos and started working with other horses, she would still take her to horse shows once in a while. It seemed to depress Jazz when we would put another horse in the trailer and leave her behind. She was full of try and always gave everything she had. At a Family rodeo in Salem one night, Jazz overreached, caught the back end of a front shoe with a hind shoe and went down, right at the third barrel. Peg came off and hit her head on the ground hard enough to knock her out. She remembered waking up to see Jazz standing over her, front legs splayed, head down, looking at Peg like she was trying to figure out what she was doing down there in the dirt.

I rode Jazz around the arena near our house one day, something I had never done before. She shocked me with her super sensitivity to the slightest movement of my hands or body; she was so taut and ready, I felt like I was sitting on one giant muscle. She had an amazing amount of energy and will. Once after injuring herself badly straddling the bottom of a dutch door, Dane Frazier, DVM in Lebanon said he had to give her much more than the normal dose of anesthetic to put her out before repairing the damage. She was smart and ornery too. She became very adept at opening her stall door if we didn’t put a snap lock on it. She once opened her stall door, went to the neighboring stall and opened it to let out Dylan’s horse Ace and they both headed to town, like Amish teens on Rumspringa.

As independent as she was, I came to be good friends with her. I twisted her ear sometimes when she needed clipped or dosed with meds and she never seemed to hold it against me. I slapped her on the hip whenever I entered her stall; she would flinch and look back at me like, “do you really have to do that?” Peg never really ever considered selling or trading her. Once she came to our place she was there for life.

About five years ago, we decided to breed Jazz and 11 months later, a little buckskin filly was born on a Friday. We decided to name her for the day she was born on . . . and so she became our girl Friday. She has her mother’s head, her orneriness, and her intelligence. She unties knots and opens gates. I hope we can keep her out of town.

As it turns out, we bred Jazz just in time. In 2005, Peg noticed that Jazz’s breathing seemed to be labored, especially in one nostril. At first it just seemed like she might have some form of cyst but it turned out to be a malignant tumor that could not be removed. We took her home from the University of Missouri Veterinary Hospital in the fall, put her out in the pasture and watched her closely. For weeks throughout the winter she seemed to stay relatively the same but as spring wore on, we could tell that she was getting worse. The day finally came when Jazz’s breathing became severely labored and she wouldn’t trot for more than a few steps at a time. Peg knew that she should wait no longer and we had Dr. Root come out to put her down.

On that day, at seventeen, with a malignant tumor significantly cutting off her breathing, with all the battle scars of years of rodeo barrel racing on bad ground, she still stood square and proud. She looked so good from almost every angle that it was hard to believe that the tumor was so far advanced. We said goodbye and buried her in sight of the pasture she had lived in for most of her life. I don’t spend any time with the horses that I don’t think of Jazz.

A horse’s natural instinct is “fight or flight” (mostly flight) but Jazz had come to trust Peg more than instinct and they formed a bond that might have been once-in-a-lifetime. Peg has said many times that she always considered Jazz to be a special gift of God and an answer to prayer. I know she will run well on other horses and may even come to love another horse in a similar way, but there will never be another Jazz.