"Interlaced........................."

At some point during the last few days, I accidently stepped into the middle of a clip promoting a new documentary about to be aired on Oprah’s television site. It’s entitled “Serving Life” and deals with a program fairly recently commissioned at Angola, a maximum security prison in Louisiana. Younger, healthier prisoners, sentenced to spend the rest of their existence within the walls of this penitentiary, are volunteering themselves to administer hospice to older inmates, to just “being there as family” as those dying take their last few steps into eternity; and what little I witnessed within such short space spoke to my heart. Murderers, rapists, kidnappers, the dregs of society whose actions warranted a jury of their peers to so condemn them to no parole, no world at all other than that contained within these walls, somehow, in a bond formed by the stark reality of their situation, find compassion a part of who they are and commit themselves unto a fellow human being. The narrator of the film is quoted as having noted how, in taking “an opportunity for redemption”, these men remind all of us “of the connection that exists between each and every one of us”; and I think that puts it in perspective. We are communal, tied together in our environment, in our circumstances, on a battlefield of any sort tend to, at last, forgive each other’s flaws, seeing the “person within”, the truth that, regardless of our individuality, we are one in Him……

"Balance........................."

After ten days of wondering whether a broken front tooth would mean this old man would finally have to surrender to oral surgery and a set of false choppers, the dentist, yesterday morning, offered me the solution that not only takes care of the present problem, but also eliminates another void known for years in the space beside it. What’s more: financially, the cost is within my ability to meet! Truly, if this nearly four-decade walk with Christ has taught me anything, it’s that, beyond our natural tendency to worry about some things, there is also a peace we can possess, a knowledge that our life, in all ways, is held in His hands... Last night, sitting on the pool deck and relaxing after an early evening paddle over to the inflow’s soothing neck massage, I picked up my Bible and began again in the Book of Genesis, not so much reading as simply scanning those verses previously digested so many times. Two, in particular, caught my attention, causing me to ponder: (a) If, indeed, “every moving thing that liveth” was given unto Noah to eat, why did that change with the Law under Moses? (b) If the distinction of being a Jew began with Abraham, why would such a term as “the isles of the Gentiles” be utilized here in this passage separating Noah’s descendants from others?... For me, even if the Holy Book is, as many claim, infallible and without error, that in no way dismisses the truth of there being, within it, questions yet to be answered, mysteries to be explained, and points where, denominationally minded, we find ourselves divided in our individual interpretations. My own experience has been that assurance is not a matter of my faith in the Scripture, but in a “connection” encountered here and there, in a prayer closet, on a walk through the park, in a back yard staring up at a universe full of stars. To each their own stumble down the path, their own journey…..

"Genealogy.............................."

After a three-hour class on emergency medication procedures yesterday morning, a last minute substitute attempt to replace at least some of the time lost on Tuesday’s surprise cancellation, my afternoon was given to miscellaneous activities in whatsoever order as Beth determined. On our way to the mall, however, to transact some sort of business with Penny’s, a phone-call suddenly reconnected us with my cousin’s daughter and her niece, family that I haven’t seen in forever; and, learning that they had just sat down in a nearby restaurant for a bite to eat, we immediately altered our intended course to join them for a brief reunion. Actually, it was nearly an hour or more of conversation, long enough that I tipped the waitress well for our intrusion, but how good it was to chat, to see them again, to speak of “now”, to remember “then”. History revisited, though, often seems to have its share of sadness as well as nostalgia, things learned, things that make one wonder about, as Paul Harvey used to put it, “the rest of the story”… Humanity, to me, is a perplexity, a mystery almost as deep as the Creator, Himself. God may well be unfathomable in any sense of our possessing any understanding of all that He is; but, as far as I’m concerned, that just is part of the equation. People, on the other hand, ought to be somewhat more definable in “what makes them tick”, explainable in whatever it was that “produced the present person”. We aren’t. Whoever we are, whatever we are, we remain individuals, all of us, and the best we can do, by God’s grace, is to struggle to see each other through His eyes……

"Discombobulated.........................."

This will be my tenth year working in Elementary Special Education. I love the kids, but dealing with all the expectations simply assumed of one as part of the assignment gets to be a little more nettlesome each time around. Tuesday was but one more fly in the ointment. Our annual salary is determined by an established number of school days plus twenty-four hours of classes, stretched over twelve months and dispersed to us bi-weekly. They provide a variety of courses. Signing up for them is our decision; but, always it seems, things change at the last minute and, often, one is left trying to raise Lazarus from the dead. Case in point: Yesterday and today would have given me half of my quota, a choice made in May and a verified finality until I was merely two blocks from walking into the facility where it was supposed to take place, lunch packed, work traffic and highway construction conquered, gasoline close to four dollars a gallon, when my cell-phone went off, a friend letting me know the event had been cancelled. Stopping in at the front office, I learned that the building was, and has been, under repairs, and no one, anywhere, knew anything at all about anything. Now, trying to find other possibilities in an agenda where there are almost no seats yet available is like panning for gold on a claim long ago emptied by others. I’m getting too old for this…. Naah; maybe when this calendar trip is done. Fall Break, Thanksgiving and Christmas Break, Spring Break, and recess all await me. Art, Computer, Music, P.E., and Library call to me. Pinned to a small corkboard in front of me are snapshots of nearly every child I have been blessed to help in some way since my retirement from the railroad. God, I believe, opened the door for this job; and I believe He’ll let me know when it’s over……

"Relaxation......................"

In spite of a temperature yet in the low nineties, about five o’clock yesterday afternoon I opted to attempt a shorter version of my walk through the park. The clouds overhead didn’t seem to be threatening and kept shifting to provide occasional relief from the sun, a slight breeze also providing temporary coolness in its mischievous game of hide-and-seek. I skipped my usual lap around the soccer field. That shortened the route by fifteen minutes and, an hour later, sweaty and no worse for the exercise, the old man returned, mission accomplished, needing a shower, but opting, instead, for a dip in the pool. The daughter next door has an enclosed, above-ground one, fair-sized, the son-in-law’s grapevines grown to such extent that they have formed a wall along two sides and captured the overhead trellis above the deck area.

It was all mine, for a bit, the family elsewhere, the water simply cool and refreshing as I slid into it, the trees in my back- yard giving shade to most of its surface. It was quiet, peaceful, me just floating, paddling, a big walrus enjoying the moment. Then, at the far end, the force of the pump recycling a flow into the pool took me by surprise. Mark must have just cleaned the filter out or something. It was hitting me like a jet stream. Turn around. Back up to the source. Submerge somewhat and let it beat against the base of my neck. For awhile there I was in heaven….It doesn’t always take a prayer closet, an altar in the woods somewhere, a candle-lit sanctuary. It doesn’t always require tongues, although it’s been my experience that complete connection somehow finds me there. A stop, a rest, some time set aside for the brain, the spirit, the soul, to focus on Him, however, is essential to one’s well-being. I take them wherever I find them, whenever and as much as they come to me……

"Amusement.........................."

People raised within another denominational tradition might have a hard time with much that takes place in a Pentecostal worship service. Beyond the raising of hands and the acceptance of congregational voices, individually or in en-masse, speaking praise unto God or perhaps a few words of agreement with the pastor is “normal procedure”. We find nothing wrong with believers leaving the pew and giving freedom to the Holy Ghost, whether expressed through tears and tongues, walking the aisles, or falling in at the altar. We sing a song and we take it to the “end”, to the point where any and all connection with Christ contained therein has, for the moment, been wrung out of it. Sermons are a matter of individual reception… I have returned to this present assembly after a ten-year move elsewhere, three of my daughters raised within its teachings, two yet holding membership there. My absence had nothing to do with finding fault in its traditions, merely a dislike for where the church was going with its format. With age comes a resistance to change. Here I sit. Somewhere in the interim, though, my humor has returned to me. While that old bunch I joined back in the early seventies would be startled to see a fellow accepted into the “baptized and born-again” at the beginning of the evening and then go forward to be “saved” in the finality of it all, likewise another man who, having been “dunked” along with others in an initial ritual, later, as if to validate the immersion, asked for prayer to obtain his salvation. I now look at such things and smile. It is: a process. If anyone could read my mind at times, though…. Yesterday morning, as the announcements flashed on the screens up front before we ever got started, one caught my attention in its wording, giving notice that businesses could advertize in monthly magazine for a “donation fee”. Oxymoron? I think so; but it’s pretty good odds that Jesus probably looks down on us and just shakes His head over a number of things……

"Mental Illness........................."

Current news is usually not something that occupies my thoughts here. This recent tragedy in Norway, however, is an exception, such senseless disregard for life obviously calling for some explanation as to what would so corrupt a man’s mind, bring him to insanity. I hold no answers, but do repeat descriptions of the fellow declaring him to be both: a “Freemason, Rome-leaning, Protestant fundamentalist” and an “anti-Marxist, anti-Nazi, pro-Israel, anti-multicultural” man with a lot of problems. If just half of those labels are true, it seems to me what we’re looking at is a Timothy McVeigh clone providing plenty of fuel for the claim that Christianity has its own share of “jihadists”, evidence enough that religion, alone, doesn’t cure humanity.…Driving out to church this morning, I as treated to a rare sight, at least one not normally encountered in the suburbs. Two wild turkeys came from the far side of the four-lane highway leading about eight babies, the brood probably able to fly, but everybody walking anyway, ignoring traffic and finally hopping a concrete wall on the other side to reach the creek. As to why they crossed the road in the first place, I have no idea. Nature is nature. Life happens….Most certainly, in our possessing “intelligence”, we are more than “beasts”, but there are no guarantees, no magical formulas preventing stupidity, eliminating evil. If animals act out of instinct, men are prone to follow whatever passion grips their heart and, if that’s not been filtered through a genuine relationship with the Creator, error is always possible. EVERYbody’s on a journey. It matters to whom we hand the reins……