"Genius.........................................."

First day back at school went well other than my assigned duties are still being determined. We have a total of five children in our unit at present, scattered in three different grade levels, and therefore a bit of a problem in so far as meshing their schedules into a working solution that two assistants and one teacher can cover. Individual lunch, recess, and class times create a sort of jigsaw puzzle that will be solved, I’m sure, before this week is over. As it is at the moment, I found myself shuffled between the kids, sent to homeroom with one of them to begin my day, taking another with me a little later on a task, a few items needing to be picked up, going twice to the cafeteria to sit with, first the Fourth, and then the Fifth Grade while they ate, plus the afternoon spent mostly with but one student, sitting in Social Studies, taking him to gym. Stick in a couple of group sessions accomplished together as a unit within our own appointed space and, basically, I’ve got “one down, only about one hundred and seventy-four to go”. There were some anxious moments when the buses to go home were twenty-five minutes late, a normality encountered every year in the process of learning new routes and dealing with an initial jam created by so many parents getting into the return process; but there was also one event along the way that just left me amused, speechless, and shaking my head about the enigma that is in each of us. One of our boys, it seems, has a gift memorizing a computer grid that provides him with an aerial layout of northern Kentucky. With exact precision and unbelievable speed, he is able to take you down highways, on and off ramps, through intersections and subdivision labyrinths, finally stopping before his house, grandma’s home, you-name-it-he-knows-how-to-get-there. If, within each of us, there exists such potential, be it manifested in mathematics, music, or whatever, it makes me wonder what triggers it to come forth. This, however, I know: whatever the state of our brain, it is the spirit of man that operates out of what it brings unto us and therefore the need for inviting His Spirit into the journey. I might not be able to find my way out of a paper bag; but, with an internal anchor-line serving also as an umbilical tube making me one with Him, I don’t need a GPS. He takes me “through the veil”…..

"Chips......................."

My oldest daughter’s two sons are both now in college, the twenty year-old also working part-time with Fed Ex. His younger brother is only a month older than their cousin who lives in Lexington; but, having skipped a grade along the way, preceded the latter boy in graduating from high-school. Third out on my list of grandchildren, then, Steven, for most of his life, has been a relationship maintained from afar, the hundred miles or so between us being but one of several hindrances to our knowing him as well as the others. It seems like, from the very beginning, once diapers were abandoned, his dad has had him continually involved in sports, basketball and baseball both, round the calendar, and often playing in two or three leagues at the same time. Visits were short, mostly a matter of waving from the bleachers and sometimes a hour shared around a meal taken in a nearby restaurant. Recently, though, we have discovered common ground between us and this old man is in seventh heaven, texting messages back and forth, discussing our literary pursuits. He has developed an interest, it seems, in the writing of C.S. Lewis, born out of reading the “Chronicles of Narnia”, but now venturing into deeper waters. Nothing so complicated as “Mere Christianity” yet. “The Screwtape Letters”, though, has been conquered, along with “Pilgrim’s Regress”; and I have supplied him with a few others from my bookshelf, believing that “The Chosen “ by Chaim Potok might be right up his alley. It may be late in the game, but the lack of any prior one-on-one has in no way eliminated his hold on my heart. His mother is visiting today and showed me one of his messages to her, a quote from something he has read and meant for no more than a laugh with her about something. “Manna kept is worms”, it read. Biblical in content, the translation thereof would probably be lost to most people. Papaw, though, smiled, thinking to himself that the two of us might be connected in ways that mileage can’t erase……

Out of the Gate......................"

Yesterday was a bit like being on one of those bumper car amusement park rides, my initial back-to-school encounter a matter of three different individual connections, the first a miscue on my part. Having read two separate e-mail messages and somehow mentally gluing them together, the old man went in bright and early only to discover his error: nothing was happening, orientation-wise, until twelve-thirty. No big deal. I simply returned home after checking out my new room and eventually went to brunch with Beth and the granddaughter. The afternoon, then, was a three-hour session seated in the cafeteria with the rest of the staff, an annual ritual wherein everyone gathers to meet new members, learn of any changes within the program, and watch a few videos. Mostly, it’s a repetitious affair. The teachers, themselves, have been structuring their units and working on schedules for the last week or so. My own responsibilities? Show up and make myself willing to be flexible. This is not a “punch in, punch out” position. Things change. Last night, for example, was “open house”, six to eight, the parking lot a jigsaw puzzle of automobiles overflowing in all directions, families coming in abundance with their children, me having to orbit the situation for several times before finding just enough space to squeeze in the old Toyota Corolla. Three of our five students would come in with their parents, one of them the Fourth Grader who will be mainly my concern this time around. We shake hands and I ask if he remembers me from gathering last year outside at the bus loop, waiting for his ride home. He does. The ice is broken. Mom, after a few minutes, takes him home. Wednesday we set sail. This will be my eleventh voyage, all prior each their own experience, all, I remain convinced, completed under His anointing; and I say that, not meaning to infer divine direction in my accomplishments, but rather His rest, His counsel, His rod and staff teaching me as I go……

"Honesty..........................."

Sunday evening’s service was dedicated to our annual practice of praying over our kids (more than a hundred ranging from pre-kindergarten to now attending college), the worship handled by them in various ways and a final ceremony where all walk through two lines of elders seeking a hedge around them and an inner well within them as school once more becomes a daily path they must walk. The pastor’s sermon, delivered just before that final laying on of hands, was centered on a “Christ in me” experience that brings to us the ability to recognize His voice, his tug on the anchor-line, a message that, indeed, had me initially enthusiastically voicing my amen. Toward the end, however, as men do, his theme was utilized to speak of encounters elsewhere, things that happened while visiting other un-named churches, his insinuation being that such silliness would never be tolerated in our sanctuary; and, having four decades of fellowship with this bunch, this old man tends to disagree. Inane doctrinal error is a matter of opinion, there being any number of people who would surely label us “a bit in left field”, some having voiced even stronger views. We are not immune. We are not the chosen few who left our humanity at the Cross upon being “born-again”. There is, I believe, an immersion in the Holy Ghost, a place where “two become one”, a time when even a congregation can find unity in the reality of His presence; and, therein, be convinced of the event. It is also possible, though, for us to become so emotionally wrapped up in our own spirit that we confuse it for the other. God, Himself, is the Authenticator; and that part of the equation is what many of us are not willing to admit. Just another lesson to be learned, a part of “picking up our cross” and following Him……

"Patriotism............................"

At the risk of stirring up discontent amongst the few who yet pass through these waters, my mind is somewhat on political matters at the moment, yesterday’s announcement of Paul Ryan having been selected for that empty spot on the Republican ticket exciting my wife as well as others. He’s a good choice, as far as I’m concerned, but one which probably also pleased the opponents greatly, since they’ve already convinced their own constituents long ago that this is the man who wants to wheelchair granny over a cliff. Not that it matters, in my opinion. This nation has been split right down the middle for at least more than a decade, the battle more about socialism versus capitalism than it is anything else and the middle class footing the bill even as it is ever-increasingly being eliminated from the whole scenario. What’s more: I’m not so sure that the “far right” isn’t just as much “looney tunes” as the “far left”. While I am in agreement with those issues they represent, it doesn’t seem to me that marching in with one’s sword and demanding all others see things from your perspective isn’t what Jesus originally endorsed. It’s also a mystery to me why some within the Church would object to a Mormon occupying the office, especially when the last four years we’ve had what pretty much resembles a Muslim to me. That said, however, let me simply finish this by repeating something my pastor said this evening, it really being the nucleus of what this old man believes about the matter: It’s neither party, Republican nor Democrat, that holds the future of this nation in its hand, but an almighty God who ears are open to those hearts willing to surrender the whole affair unto Him. In this I find peace……

"Precision.........................................."

Lee Strobel is one of those people in modern-day religiosity whom I hold with a degree of caution. He has been a teaching pastor at two of America’s largest churches, worked as a contributing editor and columnist for “Outreach” magazine, and also once taught First Amendment Law at Roosevelt University. No doubt he is better known for the books he has authored, one of which I’m presently reading only because it was discovered in a discount store on sale for about three dollars. Its title establishes it as part of a trilogy of sorts, “The Case for Christ”, “The Case for Faith”, and this one, “The Case for a Creator”. At this point in my journey, so much has already been encountered as far as the Gospel being marketed, that my hesitancy to just accept another’s product on no more than a claim of conversion to Christianity is openly admitted; but that only means I approach such people with a realization that dollars are made all the time by simply printing what a certain segment of the society want to hear. That said, however, whatever the cause for this particular paperback, it seems to me that the incredible facts noted therein, those which refer to the “fine-tuning” of our universe, ought to convince anyone of “divine design” in the scheme of it all. If the Cosmological Constant (that which is keeping the entire shebang from either falling apart externally or collapsing inwardly) and gravity were changed as little as one part in one hundred million trillion to the sixth power (that is like removing one atom from it all), nothing would remain; if somehow the electromagnetic force were decreased by only fifty percent (that’s but one part in ten thousand billion to the fourth power), all atoms other than hydrogen would be destroyed and life, as we know, it could not exist; and those are but two of many recent discoveries that scientists, on either side of the argument, consider to be true. Do such revelations eliminate all questions? Of course not. If there really is an omniscient, all powerful deity who set all this in motion, any dyed-in-the-wool skeptic is going to ask “Where did he come from?”and “What makes us so sure that everything there is eternal should it indeed be our destiny after death?” My answer can be no more than: as we gain more and more knowledge about this mystery into which we are birthed, it appears to continually point us back to our Bible, giving even greater reason to believe the message therein. If some would shout “Faith!”, I would answer it all depends on that into which you invest it. We all have our totems. Rather than constructing them out of cement, in my opinion it’s better to allow Him to reshape them as we go…..

"Centered.......................

All day Thursday it “felt” as if, instead, it were Saturday. Beginning this week with three consecutive slots on the calendar filled with classes must have somehow re-connected my mind with the thought of a work week. This morning, however, I seem to know right where I’m at, no mixed-up sense of my temporal position, fully aware that, regardless of schedules, commitments, and responsibilities, this moment is all that I have; and even it is not guaranteed forever… The two youngest grandkids arrived a few minutes ago. We’re watching them while their parents visit with a lawyer concerning a court trial in which they are about to be involved. Nobody’s hungry yet, but surely brunch at Bob Evans is not all that far away. If life, in general, as it comes to us with its own share of reality, isn’t enough to occupy our sanity, the world around us, it seems, is a pot of soup with violence in the Middle East still brewing, the possibility of global war knocking at our door, and present circumstances here in our country giving reason enough to question our future; but, in truth, somehow right now all that is no more than “filed in my belly” under “have a little talk with Jesus”. I just finished reading a friend of mine describing her relief in learning that a diagnosis given her of breast cancer was in error, the pathologist’s report actually belonging to someone else. This lady, however, while unable to express fully what the reversal means to her, does a beautiful job of sharing the evidence of what “Christ in me” brings to those who trust in Him. She holds no anger concerning the doctor’s mistake. She well knows that another woman must now be pierced by the same arrow that struck her. From somewhere down inside her, a well (though not stated in such terms) provides peace, provokes humility, and is an over-all assurance of all things being in His hands. Such connection is an anchorage like no other, a stability no matter the storm…..