"Contemplation........"

”It’s one of those highways you come across late at night, no signs, no arrows, just a road running north and south. You pause. You look one way, then the other. Nothing; only the hum of the engine and the chirping of the crickets to confirm you are here. You can’t remember where you’ve been, where you are going; and, if it weren’t for the lines drawn through the middle, you’d think you were drifting down a river or stumbling down a path through the sky. Remember: It’s a moonless night. You are tired, hungry, no one to talk to, afraid what you were thinking might have come true. You look to your left again. Perhaps you see a mountain, an ocean, a lover you wish you hadn’t lost, spirits that seem so familiar drifting in the dark. You wait in that silence and it may be years before it is safe to proceed.”…..borrowed from Whisky River, link on my sidebar

My wife and I were at the mall yesterday, shopping for my granddaughter’s thirteenth birthday, the excursion purposed to a particular store whose interior was like stepping into a darkened cave, loud music giving hint of the age group attracted to their wares. The young lady behind the cash register was sporting a lip ring, pierced in several other places beyond the lobes of her ears, but friendly and pleasant in her manner. Much of the female attire offered for sale reflected a genre McKenna would reject, the styles much too suggestive of “sex in the city”, the image going so far, in my opinion, as to reflect all this interest lately in vampires, Halloween and “the dark side” no longer merely a night in October. We were after a backpack for school, however, McKenna being a fan of some television cartoon character and this place, for whatever reason, stocked with several items imprinted with its image… I’m an old man. In my day it was duck-tails, flat-tops, and leather jackets. The girls dressed in poodle skirts, sweaters, and tight denims. A generational desire to establish your own identity by looking like all others in your age group is nothing new. I understand the outer expression; it’s the inner condition that puts me into deep thought, the spiritual journey in each of us an enigma of its own making… At one point in our class last night, in dealing with the Apostle Paul’s history before a conversion to Christianity, the teacher asked for some of us to witness as to how we dealt with guilt over former sins. One fellow spoke of simply receiving “by faith” what the Word promises us. To my own mind, though, doesn’t that make me, and not He, establishing my own forgiveness? I gave him no argument, but pointed to a verse in Corinthians for my method of facing both my past and each day’s stumble down the path. There we are told to examine ourselves as to our actual membership in this, the proof of our salvation being Christ “in” us. I find that to be more than “feelings”, the gift more than a verse of Scripture, greater than a religious tenet. He meets me when nothing seems to make sense, when I do not understand the world, when I cannot explain myself. Yesterday is behind me, tomorrow another day born with hope, and today another step, secured by His anchor-line……